By Eugene F. Rogers, Jr. (NHC Fellow, 1998–99) God and the Body addresses the challenges to traditional Christianity by gay and lesbian Christians and their critics within the church. This controversial book will be welcomed for the radical new insights it provides into Christian arguments about the body.
By Norman Kretzmann (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) The Metaphysics of Theism is the definitive study of the natural theology of Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of medieval philosophers, written by one of the world's most eminent scholars of medieval thought. Natural theology is the investigation by analysis and rational argument of fundamental questions about reality, considered in relation … Continued
By Perez Zagorin (NHC Fellow, 1978–79) The religious persecution and intellectual intolerance of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries compelled many heterodox groups and thinkers to resort to misdirection, hidden meaning, secrecy, and deceit. In this highly unusual interpretation, Perez Zagorin traces the theory and practice of religious leaders, philosophers, intellectuals, and men of letters who … Continued
Edited and translated by Frederick S. Paxton (NHC Fellow, 2006–07) Around the year 840, Liutbirga, the adopted daughter of a noble Saxon widow, asked to be walled into a cell in a church at one of the family's cloisters for religious women. She spent the last thirty years of her life in her cell, doing … Continued
By Edwin D. Craun (NHC Fellow, 2002–03) The late medieval Church obliged all Christians to rebuke the sins of others, especially those who had power to discipline in Church and State: priests, confessors, bishops, judges, the Pope. This practice, in which the injured party had to confront the wrong-doer directly and privately, was known as … Continued
By Stephen J. Shoemaker (NHC Fellow, 2013–14) For the first time a noted historian of Christianity explores the full story of the emergence and development of the Marian cult in the early Christian centuries. The means by which Mary, mother of Jesus, came to prominence have long remained strangely overlooked despite, or perhaps because of, … Continued
By Sarah Beckwith (NHC Fellow, 1994–95; 2012–13) In Signifying God, Sarah Beckwith explores the most lavish, long-lasting, and complex form of collective theatrical enterprise in English history: the York Corpus Christi plays. First staged as early as 1376, the plays were performed annually until the late 1500s and involved as much as a tenth of the city … Continued
By Barbara A. Hanawalt (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) A brisk narrative of battles and plagues, monastic orders, heroic women, and knights-errant, barbaric tortures and tender romance, intrigue, scandals, and conquest, The Middle Ages: An Illustrated History mixes a spirited and entertaining writing style with exquisite, thorough scholarship. Barbara A. Hanawalt, a renowned medievalist, launches her story with the … Continued
By Michael Philip Penn (NHC Fellow, 2007–08; 2012–13) The first Christians to meet Muslims were not Latin-speaking Christians from the western Mediterranean or Greek-speaking Christians from Constantinople but rather Christians from northern Mesopotamia who spoke the Aramaic dialect of Syriac. Living under Muslim rule from the seventh century to the present, Syriac Christians wrote the … Continued
By Eleonore Stump (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) Few philosophers or theologians exerted as much influence on the shape of medieval thought as Thomas Aquinas. He ranks amongst the most famous of the Western philosophers and was responsible for almost single-handedly bringing the philosophy of Aristotle into harmony with Christianity. He was also one of the first … Continued