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absolution
The formal act of a bishop or priest pronouncing the forgiveness of sins by Christ to penitent sinners. A formula of absolution is included in many liturgical acts of worship, but according to ...
Albert Behaim
(c.1180–c.1260) German cleric, born and educated near Niederaltaich, Bavaria;*canon in Passau from 1212; went to Rome for the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, remaining there in a diplomatic post. ...
Albert of Jerusalem
(c.1150–1214)*Canon Regular of Mortara, bishop of Bobbio (1184), of Vercelli (1185–1205), and Patriarch of Jerusalem (1205–14). He legislated for the canons of Biella and in 1201 for the Humiliati. ...
Albigenses
A medieval term for the inhabitants of parts of S. France applied to the heretics who were strong there in the late 12th and early 13th cents. They were a branch of the Cathars. They were condemned ...
Alexander II, Pope
(c.1010/1015–1073)Anselmo da Baggio, the son of a leading Milanese family, was educated from his youth at Milan cathedral. In 1056, thanks to the support of the Emperor Henry III ...
Alexander III
(d. 1181), Pope from 1159. After his election, an antipope (Victor IV) was immediately set up and supported by the Emp. Frederick I. During the 17-year schism, Alexander lived mainly in France. Here ...
Amalric
(d. c.1207), scholastic philosopher. He taught at Paris. He maintained that God was the one essence underlying all created beings and that those who remain in the love of God cannot sin. His theses ...
Anglo-Norman
Designating the French language as spoken and written in the British Isles from the Norman Conquest until the 14th cent. It was a western type of French which, transplanted to Britain, developed ...
badge, Jewish
Concern to segregate Christendom’s Jewish minority intensified over the MA. The most demeaning technique was to require distinguishing external garb to identify Jews as ‘different’. Such a demand was ...
banns of marriage
The custom of announcing a forthcoming marriage during Divine Service seems to have been developed in the early Middle Ages to prevent consanguinity. Under the Marriage Act 1949, banns must be ...
Barsumas
(d. c.457),archimandrite and saint of the Syrian Orthodox Church. He was invited by the Emp. Theodosius II (d. 450) to defend Eutyches at the Second Council of Ephesus (Latrocinium ...
Benedictine
A monk or nun of an order following the rule of St Benedict. From the original Benedictine foundations at Subiaco and Monte Cassino in Italy the number of monastic houses in Europe grew to many ...
Berengar of Tours
(c.1010–88)Theologian involved in the 11th-century Eucharistic controversy. Berengar appealed to reason instead of authority, leading him to question teachings concerning the Real Presence. He was ...
Brixworth
Church in Northamptonshire is the most impressive church to survive from Anglo-Saxon England. Built from reused brick and tile pillaged from Roman Leicester, its earliest parts probably date to the ...
Callistus II
(d. 1124), Pope from 1119. He was a strong opponent of lay investiture; during his pontificate the Investiture Controversy was settled by the Concordat of Worms (1122). At the Lateran Council of 1123 ...
canon law
The body of rules or laws developing gradually, imposed by church authority in matters of its own organization and discipline (extending also to matters of belief).
casuistry
n.1. an approach to ethical analysis that is based on cases as distinct from principle-dependent or rule-based methods of evaluating moral problems. 2. an excessively subtle or opaque form of ...
Cathari
(Gk. καθαρός, ‘pure’).The name has been applied to several sects, e.g. to the Novatianists by St Epiphanius and other Greek Fathers, and, acc. to St Augustine, in the form ...
celibacy
It is a high religious obligation to marry and have children (see PROCREATION, MARRIAGE, and BIRTH-CONTROL), so that the question of whether it is religiously proper to be celibate is really a ...
collections, canonical
Ecclesiastical legislative texts organized chronologically or systematically. They could include genuine or apocryphal, authentic (officially promulgated) or private, and general or particular ...
