The period from 1066 to 1272, from the Norman Conquest to the death of Henry III, was one of enormous political change in England and of innovation in the Church as a whole. Religion, Politics and Society 1066-1272 charts the many ways in which a constantly changing religious culture impacted on a social and political system which was itself dominated by clerics, from the parish to the kingdom. Examining the various ways in which churchmen saw their relation to secular power, Henry Mayr-Harting introduces many of the great personalities of the time, such as Thomas Becket and Robert Grosseteste. At the same time he shows how religion itself changed over the course of two centuries, in response to changing social conditions aEURO" how rising population fuelled the economic activities of the monasteries, and how parish reform demanded a more educated clergy and by this increased the social prestige of the Church. Written by an acknowledged master in the field, this magisterial account will be an unmissable read for all students of Norman and Plantagenet England and of the history of the medieval Church as a political, social and spiritual force.

Integrating the brilliant biography of Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne (953-65) and brother of Emperor Otto I, by the otherwise obscure monk Ruotger, with the intellectual culture of Cologne Cathedral, this is a study of actual politics in conjunction with Ottonian ruler ethic. Our knowledge of Cologne intellectual activity in the period, apart from Ruotger, must be pieced together mainly from marginal annotations and glosses in surviving Cologne manuscripts, showing how and with what concerns some of the most important books of the Latin West were read in Bruno's and Ruotger's Cologne. These include Pope Gregory the Great's Letters, Prudentius's Psychomachia, Boethius's Arithmetic, and Martianus Capella's Marriage of Philology and Mercury. The writing in the margins of the manuscripts, besides enlarging our picture of thinking in Cologne in itself, can be drawn into comparison with the outlook of Ruotger.
Exploring how distinctive Cologne was, compared with other centres, Henry Mayr-Harting brings out an unexpectedly strong thread of Platonism in the tenth-century intellect. The book includes a critical edition of probably the earliest surviving, and hitherto unpublished, set of glosses to Boethius's Arithmetic, with an extensive study of their content.

These studies by several eminent scholars mark the 800th anniversary of the move to Lincoln by Saint Hugh, who was bishop there from 1186 to 1200. One of the most remarkable personalities of twelfth-century England, he stood out as a man of force, principle, sanctity, and wit at a time when the rule of the Angevin kings was leading to the crisis of Magna Carta. The contributors examine how his life as bishop related to the ideals of the Carthusian Order to which he belonged; how he ruled his diocese; what kind of impact the phenomenon of his sanctity had on English political and social life; and how he was viewed and venerated in the period after his death.

The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England is more than a general account of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. It is a probing study of the way in which Christianity was fashioned in England, giving full weight to the variety of wealth of the traditions that contributed to early Anglo-Saxon Christianity. It is also a study in the process of Christianization, as it was carried out by churchmen who, according to Mayr-Harting, prepared themselves by prayer and study and travel as well as by social awareness to Christianize their world.

For this edition, the author has added a new preface in which he reconsiders some of his earlier conclusions and addresses recent developments in the scholarship. In a completely new chapter, Mayr-Harting appraises the work of Boniface of Devon, the greatest missionary of the early Middle Ages whom he calls the "Mirror of English History." Mayr-Harting thereby extends his account of early Anglo-Saxon Christianity from the Gregorian mission of the late sixth century up to the eighth-century English mission to the Continent, perhaps the crowning achievement of early English history.