A Concise History of the Medieval Church

Even for those familiar with the history of the early church, the Reformation, and the modern period, the Middle Ages is an unfamiliar and confusing period, of little apparent interest to us in the 21st century. This volume shows just how misleading such an impression is. Professor Frank describes the Middle Ages with a keen eye and a sure sense of direction. Rather than overwhelm the reader with a surfeit of names, dates, and events in the complex period that began with the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire and ended with the full flowering of the Roman Catholic Church, he concentrates on drawing clear lines of development. This approach brilliantly highlights the clashes between Germanic Christianity and Roman Christianity and between emperors and popes. It illustrates the changing place of the church in society and the changing role of monasticism. It contextualizes the rise of the universities and the formation of city-states and the great European nations. Against this background it locates the Crusades and the Inquisition, the Gregorian reform and the conciliar movement. As a basic textbook or introduction to a period that has left many marks even on today's church, A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE MEDIAEVAL CHURCH can hardly be bettered.

Isnard Wilhelm Frank, O.P., is Professor of Mediaeval and Modern Church History at the University of Mainz, Germany.