The Routledge History of Medieval Christianity: 1050-1500 ed. by R. N. Swanson (review)

As the spate of movies and television programs attests, the popular fascination with things medieval shows no signs of abating. A challenge for medievalists, especially those who teach, is to harness and educate this enthusiasm without diminishing it. Aptly, a goal of The Routledge History of Medieval Christianity: 1050-1500, edited by R. N. Swanson, is to present the history of medieval Christianity as a living discipline. The most thought-provoking essays in the volume highlight new research and show how strategies for studying Catholic Christianity continue to change.

Like other recent works tackling Christianity’s history over a long span of time, the volume is the fruit of many hands. Twenty-two scholars produced the twenty-three essays and introductory overviews. Although neither the temporal nor the geographical framework for the volume is controversial,¹ the introduction explains the chosen parameters; Western Europe from the mid-eleventh century to the Reformation shared a religious culture. It is this culture, as it “impacted on virtually every aspect of human existence” (p. xxi), which is the focus of the volume. Essays are arranged thematically, the choice and arrangement of themes reflecting the concern to adopt neither a top-down nor a two-tier model. Part One, “Structures,” introduces the “organizational systems and mechanisms that allowed [Christianity] to function and gave it a kind of unity and coherence” (p. 1), including not only the chief personnel (papacy, clergy, and religious) but also administrative units (bishoprics and parishes.) With this skeleton in place, the fol-lowing sections (“Forming the mindset,” “Catholicism in practice,” Challenges,” and “Shaping Catholic society”) provide the flesh. Through discussions of schooling, worship, pastoral care, ritual, material culture, law, heresy, gender, holy war, economic life, literature, and magic, the essays aim to depict Catholicism as “a vibrant and significant cultural force, whose influence reached into and helped to shape every individual existence across these four and a half centuries of Catholic Europe” (p. 280).

As the essays are independent works of scholarship, they differ in their approaches, tones, and in the degree to which they point readers to future study through bibliography. None is strictly a survey. While not all can be described here, essays such as James D. Mixson’s on religious orders, Peter D. Clarke’s on canon law, Catherine Rider’s on magic, and Kim M. Philip’s on gender and sexuality integrate substantive overviews of their topics with discussions of recent scholarship, interpretive turns, and areas of current speculation. Thus Clarke characterizes con-temporary scholarship in canon law as “resembl[ing] a battlefield,” although the “skirmishes” over the viability of long-held assumptions have been mostly “amicable” (p. 77). Peter Biller’s treatment of heresy and dissent puts interpretive debates at the center of his essay. Framing his survey of medieval heretics as a long-accepted story now subject to attack, he warns that it is no longer sufficient to learn a standard narrative such as that in Malcolm Lambert’s classic Medieval Heresy. He lays out the types of evidence that are behind its construction as well as the historiography and methodology employed by challengers. Other essays, like Christopher Tyerman’s on violence and holy war and Jonathan Elukin’s on Christianity and Judaism, exemplify new approaches to their respective topics. Tyerman contextualizes crusading by analyzing the roots of Christian-sanctioned violence; Elukin provides an argument questioning portrayals of Jewish/Christian relations as characterized by persecution and victimization. In several cases, more extensive bibliography would be welcome, especially since the targeted audience includes undergraduates. As a whole, however, the volume succeeds in demonstrating the vitality of medieval Catholicism and its study.