This prize-winning account of the pre-Reformation church recreates lay people's experience of religion, showing that late-medieval Catholicism was neither decadent nor decayed, but a strong and vigorous tradition. For this edition, Duffy has written a new introduction reflecting on recent developments in our understanding of the period. "A mighty and momentous book: a book to be read and re-read, pondered and revered; a subtle, profound book written with passion and eloquence, and with masterly control."-J. J. Scarisbrick, The Tablet "Revisionist history at its most imaginative and exciting. . . . [An] astonishing and magnificent piece of work."-Edward T. Oakes, Commonweal "A magnificent scholarly achievement, a compelling read, and not a page too long to defend a thesis which will provoke passionate debate."-Patricia Morison, Financial Times "Deeply imaginative, movingly written, and splendidly illustrated."-Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books Winner of the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award

The reign of Queen Mary is popularly remembered largely for her re-introduction of Catholicism into England, and especially for the persecution of Protestants, memorably described in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments. Mary's brief reign has often been treated as an aberrant interruption of England's march to triumphant Protestantism, a period of political sterility, foreign influence and religious repression rightly eclipsed by the happier reign of her more sympathetic half-sister, Elizabeth. In pursuit of a more balanced assessment of Mary's religious policies, this volume explores the theology, pastoral practice and ecclesiastical administration of the Church in England during her reign. Focusing on the neglected Catholic renaissance which she ushered in, the book traces its influences and emphases, its methods and its rationales - together the role of Philip's Spanish clergy and native English Catholics - in relation to the wider influence of the continental Counter Reformation and Mary's humanist learning. Measuring these issues against the reintroduction of papal authority into England, and the balance between persuasion and coercion used by the authorities to restore Catholic worship, the volume offers a more nuanced and balanced view of Mary's religious policies. Addressing such intriguing and under-researched matters from a variety of literary, political and theological perspectives, the essays in this volume cast new light, not only on Marian Catholicism, but also on the wider European religious picture.

This book assembles ten special studies, each devoted to an aspect of Fisher's multifaceted career or to exploring the intellectual and religious outlook of someone who was at the same time a moderniser, a reformer and an opponent of the Reformation. John Fisher's career provides an illuminating perspective on English religious and intellectual history in a crucial phase of development. As a churchman he became the foremost preacher in England, issuing a call to ecclesiastical reform and personal repentance that echoed the call of Savonarola at Florence. At the same time he provides an early example of the pastoral bishop that was to become the ideal of both the Reformation and the Counter Reformation. Finally in the crisis that paved the way for the English Reformation, he became the leading defender of Queen Catherine against the divorce suit of Henry VIII. He was among the small band who were executed in 1535 as conscientious objectors to the oaths of Succession and Royal Ecclesiastical Supremacy. He has been venerated as a Catholic martyr ever since.

As an authority on the religion of medieval and early modern England, Eamon Duffy is preeminent. In his revisionist masterpiece The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy opened up new areas of research and entirely fresh perspectives on the origin and progress of the English Reformation. Duffy's focus has always been on the practices and institutions through which ordinary people lived and experienced their religion, but which the Protestant reformers abolished as idolatry and superstition. The first part of A People's Tragedy examines the two most important of these institutions: the rise and fall of pilgrimage to the cathedral shrines of England, and the destruction of the monasteries under Henry VIII, as exemplified by the dissolution of the ancient Anglo-Saxon monastery of Ely. In the title essay of the volume, Duffy tells the harrowing story of the Elizabethan regime's savage suppression of the last Catholic rebellion against the Reformation, the Rising of the Northern Earls in 1569. In the second half of the book Duffy considers the changing ways in which the Reformation has been thought and written about: the evolution of Catholic portrayals of Martin Luther, from hostile caricature to partial approval; the role of historians of the Reformation in the emergence of English national identity; and the improbable story of the twentieth century revival of Anglican and Catholic pilgrimage to the medieval Marian shrine of Walsingham. Finally, he considers the changing ways in which attitudes to the Reformation have been reflected in fiction, culminating with Hilary Mantel's gripping trilogy on the rise and fall of Henry VIII's political and religious fixer, Thomas Cromwell, and her controversial portrayal of Cromwell's Catholic opponent and victim, Sir Thomas More.

This engrossing book encompasses the extraordinary history of the papacy, from its beginnings to the present day. This new edition covers the unprecedented resignation of Benedict XVI and the election of the first Argentinian pope.
Praise for the earlier editions:
"Duffy enlivens the long march through church history with anecdotes that bring the different pontiffs to life. . . . "Saints and Sinners" is a remarkable achievement."--Piers Paul Read, "The Times" (London)
"A distinguished text . . . offering plenty of historical facts and sobering, valuable judgments."--Henry Chadwick, "New York Times Book Review"
"Will fascinate anyone wishing to better understand the history of the Catholic Church and the forces that have shaped the role of the papacy."--Gloria J. Tysl, "Christian Century"

In these vivid and approachable essays Eamon Duffy engages with some of the central aspects of Western religion in the thousand years between the decline of pagan Rome and the rise of the Protestant Reformation. In the process he opens windows on the vibrant and multifaceted beliefs and practices by which medieval people made sense of their world: the fear of death and the impact of devastating pandemic, holy war against Islam and the invention of the blood libel against the Jews, provision for the afterlife and the continuing power of the dead over the living, the meaning of pilgrimage and the evolution of Christian music. Duffy unpicks the stories of the Golden Legend and Yale University's mysterious Voynich manuscript, discusses the cult of 'St' Henry VI and explores childhood in the Middle Ages. Accompanying the book are a collection of full colour plates which further demonstrate the richness of late medieval religion. In this highly readable collection Eamon Duffy once more challenges existing scholarly narratives and sheds new light on the religion of Britain and Europe before and during the Reformation.

Depicting the lives of the saints in an array of factual and fictional stories, "The Golden Legend" was perhaps the most widely read book, after the Bible, during the late Middle Ages. It was compiled around 1260 by Jacobus de Voragine, a scholarly friar and later archbishop of Genoa, whose purpose was to captivate, encourage, and edify the faithful, while preserving a vast store of information pertaining to the legends and traditions of the church. In this translation, the first in English of the complete text, William Granger Ryan captures the immediacy of this rich work, which offers an important guide for readers interested in medieval art and literature and, more generally, in popular religious culture.

Arranged according to the order of saints' feast days, these fascinating stories are now combined into one volume. This edition also features an introduction by Eamon Duffy contextualizing the work.

This is the first volume to be published by York Medieval Press, under the aegis of University of York's Centre for Medieval Studies in association with Boydell & Brewer, with the aim of promoting innovative scholarship and fresh criticism on medieval culture. It has a special commitment to interdisciplinary study, in line with the Centre's belief that the future of medieval studies lies in areas in which its major disciplines at once inform and challenge each other. The attitudes towards the human body held by different branches of medieval theology are currently a major focus of scholarly attention. This first volume from York Medieval Press includes studies of the metaphor of man as head and woman as body, Abelard, women and Catharism, the female body as an impediment to ordination, women mystics, and the University of York's 1995 Quodlibet Lecture given by Eamon Duffy on the early iconography and lives' of St Francis of Assisi..... Thenew scholarly essays collected here explore ways in which the human body - a major focus of attention in recent work on literary theory and cultural studies -was treated by several branches of medieval theology; they are derived in the mainfrom a conference held at York in 1995, under the title This Body of Death', together with further invited papers on the same theme. It includes the first of the Annual Quodlibet Lectures in medieval theology, Eamon Duffy's masterly study of the early iconography and lives' of St Francis of Assisi. PETER BILLER is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of York; A.J. MINNIS is Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of York. Contributors: PETER BILLER, ALCUIN BLAMIRES, DAVID LUSCOMBE, W.G.EAST, A.J. MINNIS, DYAN ELLIOTT, ROSALYNN VOADEN, EAMON DUFFY

Professor Eamon Duffy is by any reckoning a scholar of the first rank. He has revolutionised scholarship in his field. He is a man of great intellectual courage and integrity. As he has shown in his recent book "Faith of Our fathers", Duffy is also a man of deeply held religious belief who struggles with the problems of being a Christian in the modern world. Now in "Walking to Emmaus" we see yet one more aspect to his intelligent, imagination and personality. Professor Duffy is in regular demand as a preacher and the giver of addresses on religious and spiritual matters. He has assembled here the best of these, many given to undergraduates in a University setting and has written a strong autobiographical introduction explaining how his life as a scholar relates to his childhood, upbringing and deeply held religious belief. Born into Republican Ireland he now finds himself part of the British academic establishment and this apparent incongruity has given him special insight into the needs of young people and those who wish to be both radical and traditional. The topics range from the new-found interest in monasticism in out time to a new understanding of St Valentine's day, taking full account of the spiritual and fleshly needs of his audience. "Walking to Emmaus" will delight Eamon Duffy's admirers and increase their numbers.

This volume includes lectures from high profile figures from academia and the Church. Anglian and Catholic voices explores continuity and change in the Anglican Church and its relations with Rome, from its earliest days onwards.

The thinking person's guide to being a Roman Catholic today. 'The richness of the Church's past is a liberation, not a straitjacket. It is a source of confidence in launching into and uncharted future.' Eamon Duffy is both a practising Roman Catholic and a distinguished historian, whose writings have changed the course of English Reformation studies. In Faith of Our Fathers Duffy brings the insights of history to the intellectual and pastoral challenges confronting Christianity in a post-modern world. In this lively and vivid book he considers the range of Catholic belief and practice, from prayer for the dead and veneration of the eucharist, to the place of Mary or the authority of the Pope. In the process he explores the ways in which the practices of an ancient religious tradition can be a vital Christian resource in the turbulent modern world. Duffy argues that attentive engagement with the tradition is indispensable in deepening our understanding of the Gospel today.

Eamon Duffy provides a controversial and fascinating introduction to a major historical work. This series is intended to attract a new generation of readers to some of the greatest narrative history ever written. Each volume will include substantial extracts from a major work of history, prefaced by a major new introduction by a modern authority. Attractively designed, the series will hope to demonstrate the extraordinary tradition that exists of great history writing in the English language. The books are directed to a general as well as a student readership. Eamon Duffy has restored the late medieval period as a subject of serious research through his revolutionary book "The Stripping of the Altars" (Yale University Press). In recent years, he has turned his attention to the reign of Mary Tudor and in his recent Birkbeck Lectures (University of Cambridge), he has fought back against the false interpretations of historians like David Starkey. J.A. Froude was one of the finest English literary stylists of the Victorian age. But he was highly critical of Mary Tudor, whose reign he viewed as something of a disaster. Eamon Duffy takes a very different view and so this book will spark off even more controversy about this most maligned of English monarchs.