This book examines the broad varieties of religious belief, religious practices, and the influence of religion within medieval society. Religion in the Middle Ages was not monolithic. Medieval religion and the Latin Church are not synonymous. While theology and liturgy are important, an examination of animal trials, gargoyles, last judgments, various aspects of the medieval underworld, and the quest for salvation illuminate lesser known dimensions of religion in the Middle Ages. Several themes run throughout the book including visual culture, heresy and heretics, law and legal procedure, along with sexuality and an awareness of mentalities and anxieties. Although an expanse of 800 years has passed, the remains of those other Middle Ages can be seen today, forcing us to reassess our evaluations of this alluring and often overlooked past.

Preface

Introduction: The Feast of the Ass: Medieval Faith, Fun, and Fear

Chapter One: Prosecuting Animals as Criminals in Medieval Europe

Chapter Two: Piety, Perversion and Serial Killing: The Strange Case of Gilles de Rais

Chapter Three: Gargoyles and Glimpses of Forgotten Worlds

Chapter Four: To Hell with the Theologians: Doctrines of Damnation in "Last Judgements" in the Medieval Latin West

Chapter Five: Sensuality, Spirituality and Sexuality in the Religious Experience of Female Mystics

Chapter Six: Demonizing Dissenters: Patterns of Propaganda and Persecution

Chapter Seven: The Stripping and the Shaming of Heretics

Chapter Eight: Surviving the Middle Ages: The Extraordinary Pursuit of Salvation

Postscript: The Fickle Hand of Fate

Thomas A. Fudgé is Professor of Medieval History at the University of New England, Australia. Author of thirteen books, he is recognized as an international authority on Jan Hus and Hussite history.