Black Apostles at Home and Abroad: Afro-Americans and the Christian Mission from the Revolution to Reconstruction
Edited by David W. Wills (NHC Fellow, 1980–81) and Richard Newman
Clergy
Preaching, Building, and Burying Friars and the Medieval City
By Caroline Bruzelius (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) Friars transformed the relationship of the church to laymen by taking religion outside to public and domestic spaces. Mendicant commitment to apostolic poverty bound friars to donors in an exchange of donations in return for intercessory prayers and burial: association with friars was believed to reduce the suffering of … Continued
The Corrupter of Boys: Sodomy, Scandal, and the Medieval Clergy
By Dyan Elliott (NHC Fellow, 1997–98; 2012–13) In the fourth century, clerics began to distinguish themselves from members of the laity by virtue of their augmented claims to holiness. Because clerical celibacy was key to this distinction, religious authorities of all stripes—patristic authors, popes, theologians, canonists, monastic founders, and commentators—became progressively sensitive to sexual scandals … Continued