Miracles, Political Authority and Violence in Medieval and Early Modern History

Miracles, Political Authority and Violence in Medieval and Early Modern History
Author: Matthew Rowley
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2021-11-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000473821

This volume examines how historical beliefs about the supernatural were used to justify violence, secure political authority or extend toleration in both the medieval and early modern periods. Contributors explore miracles, political authority and violence in Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, various Protestant groups, Judaism, Islam and the local religious beliefs of Pacific Islanders who interacted with Christians. The chapters are geographically expansive, with contributions ranging from confessional conflict in Poland-Lithuania to the conquest of Oceania. They examine various types of conflict such as confessional struggles, conversion attempts, assassination and war, as well as themes including diplomacy, miraculous iconography, toleration, theology and rhetoric. Together, the chapters explore the appropriation of accounts of miraculous violence that are recorded in sacred texts to reveal what partisans claimed God did in conflict, and how they claimed to know. The volume investigates theories of justified warfare, changing beliefs about the supernatural with the advent of modernity and the perceived relationship between human and divine agency. Miracles, Political Authority and Violence in Medieval and Early Modern History is of interest to scholars and students in several fields including religion and violence, political and military history, and theology and the reception of sacred texts in the medieval and early modern world.

An Urban History of The Plague

An Urban History of The Plague
Author: Karen Jillings
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2018-04-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1317274709

As a medical, economic, spiritual and demographic crisis, plague affected practically every aspect of an early modern community whether on a local, regional or national scale. Its study therefore affords opportunities for the reassessment of many aspects of the pre-modern world. This book examines the incidence and effects of plague in an early modern Scottish community by analysing civic, medical and social responses to epidemics in the north-east port of Aberdeen, focusing on the period 1500–1650. While Aberdeen’s experience of plague was in many ways similar to that of other towns throughout Europe, certain idiosyncrasies in the city make it a particularly interesting case study, which challenges several assumptions about early modern mentalities.

Public Opinion in Early Modern Scotland, c.1560–1707

Public Opinion in Early Modern Scotland, c.1560–1707
Author: Karin Bowie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2020-12-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108843476

Reveals the dynamics and rise in prominence of Scottish public opinion in a period of religious and constitutional tension.