Daily Medieval

I'm going to start with a quotation from a website about transubstantiation and Paul to the Corinthians: Evidently Paul believed that th...

Peter of Bruys is known to us because of the writings of two of his enemies. He was born in southeastern France and became a Roman Catholic ...

Trial by Ordeal took many forms in the ancient world and the Middle Ages. In a sense, it was an appeal to God to reveal the culprit. In Old ...

One piece of evidence that supported the idea of Spontaneous Generation in the Middle Ages was the case of the barnacle goose. (See the thi...

King Henry III's Statute of Jewry demanded (among other things) that Jews wear a badge conspicuously on their clothing. This was not a ...

The Waldensians are a Christian protestant group that originated in the Middle Ages and still exists, having survived—sometimes through seve...

Were the Crusades successful? If the objective as stated was to put Jerusalem under Christian rule and maintain  that rule, then the Crusade...

Desiring with an ardent desire to liberate the Holy Land from the hands of the ungodly, we decree with the advice of prudent men who are ful...

The Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages did not invent persecution of the Jews, but it worked hard to perfect it. The final four of the...

The word "consanguinity" comes from Latin consanguinitas ["blood relation"], and refers to having a close kinship with s...

Debate during the 4th Lateran Council Despite Peter Lombard's Sententiæ  making the case for marriage not needing an officiant or consum...

The Dominicans have been mentioned many times, and their founder has been mentioned as a friend of Simon de Montfort, but his life deser...

Confidentiality is expected in many relationships: doctor-patient, lawyer-client, ... and priest-penitent. The so-called "Seal of th...

The dueling area was typically 60 feet square. One of the things "everyone knows" about the Middle Ages is the idea of Trial ...

One of the decrees that came out of the Fourth Lateran Council of Pope Innocent III was that "every cathedral or other church of suffi...

On April 19, 1213, Pope Innocent III declared via papal bull that a great council would be held; the Fourth Lateran Council started November...