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E-book
Author Watkins, Carl

Title History and the supernatural in medieval England / C.S. Watkins
Published Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2007

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Description 1 online resource (xii, 271 pages)
Series Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought ; 4th ser., 66
Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought ; 4th ser., 66.
Contents Introduction -- Thinking about the supernatural -- Inventing pagans -- Prayers, spells and saints -- Special powers and magical arts -- Imagining the dead -- Thinking with the supernatural -- Conclusion
Summary "This is a fascinating study of religious culture in England from 1050 to 1250. Drawing on the wealth of material about religious belief and practice that survives in the chronicles, Carl Watkins explores accounts of signs, prophecies, astrology, magic, beliefs about death and the miraculous and demonic. He challenges some of the prevailing assumptions about religious belief, questioning in particular the attachment of many historians to terms such as 'clerical' and 'lay', 'popular' and 'elite', 'Christian' and 'pagan' as explanatory categories. The evidence of the chronicles is also set in its broader context through explorations of miracle collections, penitential manuals, exempla and sermons. The book traces shifts in the way the supernatural was conceptualized by learned writers and the ways in which broader patterns of belief evolved during this period. This original account sheds important new light on belief during a period in which the religious landscape was transformed."--Jacket
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-262) and index
Subject Supernatural (Theology) -- History of doctrines -- Middle Ages, 600-1500
RELIGION -- Christianity -- History.
Religiöses Leben
Das Übernatürliche
Het Bovennatuurlijke.
Volksgeloof.
SUBJECT England -- Church history -- 449-1066. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85043264
England -- Church history -- 1066-1485. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85043265
Subject England
England
Engeland.
Genre/Form Church history
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780511378706
051137870X
9780511375965
0511375964
9780511496257
0511496257