History: Medieval Mystics & Heretics (A)

About HST 2711 A

Exploration of the explosion of new religious ideas that characterized the period from 1100 to 1500 and the Church's response to these challenges. Prerequisite: Three hours of History.

Notes

Prerequisite: three hours History; PACE students by permission and override

Section Description

Modern popular opinion tends to envision the Middle Ages as a “dark age” in which a rigid Church hierarchy suppressed new ideas and kept religious change in check. In reality, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw an explosion of new religious ideas and forms of life based on common impulses to reform society through a radically simple life of poverty and preaching, often veering towards visions, mysticism, and apocalyptic prophecies. Women in particular responded imaginatively to the opportunities and challenges posed by these new religious movements, creating new semi-religious ways of life and composing masterpieces of spiritual literature. But the act of writing could be dangerous as well; this period also saw the first papal inquisitors and “crusades” to hunt down heretics. Moreover, the later Middle Ages saw increasing dissatisfaction with the Church as an institution. In response, new movements expressed hopes for reform and renewal, often expressed through visionary or apocalyptic texts.

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