Search Results: Medieval Church

Religious practice in medieval Europe (c. 476-1500) was dominated and informed by the Catholic Church. The majority of the population was Christian, and "Christian" at this time meant "Catholic" as there was initially no other form of that...

The Unam Sanctam (1302) was a papal bull issued by Pope Boniface VIII (served 1294-1303) requiring the complete submission of all people, including kings, to the authority and dictates of the pope. As the Church was understood as holding...

The medieval Church established its monopoly over the spiritual life of Europeans in the Early Middle Ages (c. 476-1000) and consolidated that power throughout the High Middle Ages (1000-1300) and Late Middle Ages (1300-1500). Along the way...

Medieval English churches differed in size and layout. Their original and evolving role(s), financial and material resources, and architectural fashions helped determine variability. However, their look ultimately grew from a constant symbiosis...

The Donation of Constantine (Donatio Constantini or the Donatio) is a medieval forgery dated to the 8th century purporting to be an original 4th-century document in which the Roman emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306-337) granted supreme...

Knights were the most-feared and best-protected warriors on the medieval battlefield, while off it, they were amongst the most fashionably dressed and best-mannered members of society. To reach this elevated position, however, became more...

Stave churches are the most famous medieval buildings in Norway and are admired for their unique architecture and beautiful decorations. They are named after the staves or masts that hold up the main structure of the church. Only 28 stave...

A medieval monastery was an enclosed and sometimes remote community of monks led by an abbot who shunned worldly goods to live a simple life of prayer and devotion. Christian monasteries first developed in the 4th century in Egypt and Syria...

Hildegard of Bingen (also known as Hildegarde von Bingen, l. 1098-1179) was a Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, and polymath proficient in philosophy, musical composition, herbology, medieval literature, cosmology, medicine, biology...

Medieval literature is defined broadly as any work written in Latin or the vernacular between c. 476-1500, including philosophy, religious treatises, legal texts, as well as works of the imagination. More narrowly, however, the term applies...