Daily Medieval

After the past few entries concerning the anti-Jewish Canons of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, we come finally to Canon 70, dealing wi...

The attempt to limit contact with Jews in public and keep their public authority diminished forced them to wind up being more crucial than e...

Continuing our look at the final four Canons of the proceedings of the 1215 Fourth Lateran Council , we come to Canon 68, which wanted to ma...

Today we look specifically at the institutional racism against Jews established by Pope Innocent III in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215...

Modern ideas of race and racism are largely based on skin color, but the Middle Ages saw many other factors. To quote ( again ) Regino of Pr...

Not everyone believed that race and ethnicity were purely a result of being descended from the sons of Noah. Some felt the natural world/en...

What did medieval people think about different races? How did they distinguish one ethnic group from another? This question occurred to me w...

Although Charlemagne is a famous name, and we know a lot about him, his descendants and the events of the Carolingian era are not always wel...

In Saint-Omer in France there was a Benedictine abbey called the Abbey of St. Bertin , founded in 638 and existing right up to the late 18th...

Our discussion on clerical celibacy , and how Emperor Justinian decreed no bishop or higher position could be married, leads us to take a l...

Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527 - 565) took a keen interest in Christianity, and he had some thoughts on clerical celibacy . His Justini...

The last post talked about attempts by popes to "monasticize" parish priests, preventing them from having families that could be ...

Pope Gregory VII (c.1015 - 1085) tried to establish many reforms in the Church, they did not all "stick." One of his reforms was t...

The Fourth Lateran Council called in 1215 by Pope Innocent III had three chief objectives: Church reform, freeing the Holy Land, and elimi...

The Fourth Lateran Council called in 1215 by Pope Innocent III had three chief objectives: Church reform, freeing the Holy Land, and elimi...

The Fourth Lateran Council called in 1215 by Pope Innocent III had three chief objectives: Church reform, freeing the Holy Land, and elimi...

After years of being pope and asserting his will on the world, Innocent III decided to bring together all the church leaders and establish ...

Pope Innocent III believed in the absolute power of the pope over secular authorities , and he did what he could to assert that power where...

Pope Innocent III was determined to assert papal authority over every area possible. He made sure that kings, although they had their ...

Finally, the pope mentioned more than any other in this blog gets his time in the spotlight. He was named Lothario at birth, and his father,...

Pope Alexander III decided that it was time to tackle the pagans on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea (the Baltic is between the penins...

950 to 1320 CE saw growth and development in the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, as well as Iceland. Finland (shown h...

In 1179, Pope Alexander III , now able to function as the recognized pope after his imperial-supported rival popes were suppressed, was in a...

A man born in Siena c.1100 grew up to make significant changes to the Roman Catholic Church. His name was Roland, and he studied theology at...

After Niels , the fourth and last of the sons of Sweyn II to become kings of Denmark, died, the throne passed to the next generation; in th...

After the untimely death of King Eric the Evergood in Cyprus, his brother Niels became King of Denmark, the latest and last of the sons of ...