Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- PART I INSTITUTIONS AND CHANGE: 1100–1200
- PART II FORGING A CHRISTIAN WORLD, 1200–1300
- PART III THE ERECTION OF BOUNDARIES
- PART IV SHAPES OF A CHRISTIAN WORLD
- PART V CHRISTIAN LIFE IN MOVEMENT
- PART VI THE CHALLENGES TO A CHRISTIAN SOCIETY
- PART VII REFORM AND RENEWAL
- 26 Empowerment through reading, writing and example: the Devotio moderna
- 27 Demons and the Christian community
- 28 Wycliffism and Lollardy
- 29 Observant reform in religious orders
- 30 Public purity and discipline: states and religious renewal
- 31 The Bible in the fifteenth century
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Map 1 Western Europe c. 1100 – c. 1500
- Map 2 Universities of Europe
- References
30 - Public purity and discipline: states and religious renewal
from PART VII - REFORM AND RENEWAL
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- PART I INSTITUTIONS AND CHANGE: 1100–1200
- PART II FORGING A CHRISTIAN WORLD, 1200–1300
- PART III THE ERECTION OF BOUNDARIES
- PART IV SHAPES OF A CHRISTIAN WORLD
- PART V CHRISTIAN LIFE IN MOVEMENT
- PART VI THE CHALLENGES TO A CHRISTIAN SOCIETY
- PART VII REFORM AND RENEWAL
- 26 Empowerment through reading, writing and example: the Devotio moderna
- 27 Demons and the Christian community
- 28 Wycliffism and Lollardy
- 29 Observant reform in religious orders
- 30 Public purity and discipline: states and religious renewal
- 31 The Bible in the fifteenth century
- Select bibliography
- Index
- Map 1 Western Europe c. 1100 – c. 1500
- Map 2 Universities of Europe
- References
Summary
The centrality of preaching in religious and social life in the late mediaeval period
From the last decades of the fourteenth century to the first part of the sixteenth, preaching acquired a central role within the religious, social and political life of Western Europe. By the end of the fourteenth century, preachers were already at the forefront in disseminating ideas of reform, whether in England, first with John Wyclif (1320–84), and later with the Lollards, or in Bohemia, with Jan Hus (c. 1370–1415) and his followers. In the first decades of the sixteenth century, both the supporters of religious renewal and the proponents of the Reformation used preaching from the pulpit as a way of promoting their respective ideas.
A wide range of contemporary documents all attest to the fact that preaching had been established as an event which drew crowds of listeners whose sizes varied according to the fame of the preachers and the size of the town. Sometimes all commercial and manufacturing activities were suspended so that a city’s population could assemble in the town square to hear a sermon; the inhabitants of the countryside were also drawn to the event.
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- The Cambridge History of Christianity , pp. 458 - 471Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009
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