By Jaroslav Folda (NHC Fellow, 1988–89; 1998–99; 2006–07) The Art of the Crusaders in the Holy Land, 1098-1187 examines the art and architecture produced for the invading Crusaders in Syria-Palestine during the first century of their quest to recapture and control the holy sites of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth. Commissioned by kings and queens, patriarchs, … Continued
By John N. Wall (NHC Fellow, 1980–81; 2013–14) and David Siegenthaler
By Jonathan Lamb (NHC Fellow, 1991–92) The Rhetoric of Suffering draws on the book of Job as a touchstone for the contradictions and polemics that infect various C18th works – poetry, philosophy, political oratory, accounts of exploration, commentaries on criminal law – which tried to account for the relations between human suffering and systems of … Continued
By John N. Wall (NHC Fellow, 1980–81; 2013–14)
By Dyan Elliott (NHC Fellow, 1997–98; 2012–13) What if Satan were to disguise himself as an angel of light? What if he even appeared as Christ? Schoolmen in late medieval Paris were obsessed with that question–and A Hole in the Heavens explores the alarming consequences of this obsession. It soon becomes impossible to tell the difference between … Continued
By Christopher Melchert (NHC Fellow, 2014–15) Christopher Melchert proposes to historicize Islamic renunciant piety (zuhd). As the conquest period wound down in the early eighth century c.e., renunciants set out to maintain the contempt of worldly comfort and loyalty to a greater cause that had characterized the community of Muslims in the seventh century. Instead … Continued
By Nelson H. Minnich (NHC Fellow, 2004–05) This new collection by Nelson Minnich deals with the general councils of the Catholic Reformation in the late medieval and early modern periods. The volume opens with overviews of the various editions of and current scholarship on these general councils. Three studies then give special attention to the … 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 John Shelton Reed (NHC Fellow, 1983–84) Reed identifies Anglo-Catholicism as a countercultural movement, in some ways not unlike the counterculture of the 1960s, one that championed practices that were symbolic affronts to some of the central values of the dominant middle-class culture of its time. He identifies certain members of the clergy (including John … Continued
By Malachi Haim Hacohen (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) Jacob and Esau is a profound new account of two millennia of Jewish European history that, for the first time, integrates the cosmopolitan narrative of the Jewish diaspora with that of traditional Jews and Jewish culture. Malachi Haim Hacohen uses the biblical story of the rival twins, Jacob … Continued