Ecclesia et Violentia

Download or read book Ecclesia et Violentia written by Radosław Kotecki and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecclesia et Violentia is an interdisciplinary anthology that explores the phenomenon of violence in relation to the medieval Church, as well as within the structures of that institution. The volume provides a clearer understanding of hostile and violent acts against both religious institutions and clergy, and explores the interpersonal aggression between clergymen or forms of violent behaviour of medieval clerics. It investigates, furthermore, the role of violence in maintaining discipline within religious communities, as well as religious, legal and cultural interpretations of the aforementioned issues. However, despite the many points of view expressed here, the central question the authors reconcile is how the phenomenon of violence interacted with the most important medieval institution, and official Church thinking regarding concepts such as power, rank, feudal loyalty and protection and ownership. Through the geographical diversity of the contributions and the variety of disciplinary perspectives, this book highlights how important violence was in the life of the clergy and how it formed an integral part of the legal culture and social bonds in many regions of medieval Europe.