History of Medieval Heresy and Inquisition

Jennifer Kolpacoff Deane is professor of history and chair of the social sciences division at the University of Minnesota, Morris.

In lucid and elegant prose Deane maps the contours of medieval belief and dissent as it intersected with the identification and definition of heresy over the course of the high Middle Ages. Deftly deploying vivid examples, she shows how heresy and inquisition lay at the core of medieval Europe’s sense of itself. Attentive throughout to language, sources, labels, and texts, Deane’s book is also a lesson in close reading and historical interpretation and reconstruction. It is impossible to understand medieval society without taking on board the ideas of poverty and preaching, power and resistance, community and exile, brought to bear in this book.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Contours of Authority in Medieval Christendom1 Good Christians, “Cathars,” and the Apostolic Model2 Poverty, Preaching, and the Poor of Lyon3 Lawyer Popes, Mendicant Preachers, and Inquisitorial Process4 Spiritual Franciscans, the Poverty Controversy, and the Apocalypse5 ”Beguines”, Mysticism, and the Problem of Spiritual Authority6 Medieval Magic, Demonology, and Witchcraft7 Wyclif, the Word, and Inquisition in England8 Reform, Revolution, and the Lay Chalice in BohemiaEpilogueNotesIndexAbout the Author