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Ian
Forrest.
The
Detection of Heresy in Late Medieval England.
Oxford
U.P., 2005.
Oxford
Historical Monographs series.
216mm x
138mm.
290pp.
Publisher's
recommended price
Hardback
ISBN 0199286922, £50.00
Heresy was the most feared
crime in the medieval moral universe. It was seen as a social disease
capable of poisoning the body politic and shattering the unity of the
church. The study of heresy in late medieval England has, to date,
focused largely on the heretics. In consequence, we know very little
about how this crime was defined by the churchmen who passed
authoritative judgement on it.
By examining the drafting,
publicizing, and implementing of new laws against heresy in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, using published and unpublished
judicial records, this book presents the first general study of
inquisition in medieval England. In it Ian Forrest argues that because
heresy was a problem simultaneously national and local, detection
relied upon collaboration between rulers and the ruled. While
involvement in detection brought local society into contact with the
apparatus of government, uneducated laymen still had to be kept at
arm's length, because judgements about heresy were deemed too subtle
and important to be left to them. Detection required bishops and
inquisitors to balance reported suspicions against canonical proof, and
threats to public safety against the rights of the suspect and the
deficiencies of human justice.
At
present, the character and significance of heresy in late medieval
England is the subject of much debate. Ian Forrest believes that this
debate has to be informed by a greater awareness of the legal and
social contexts within which heresy took on its many real and imagined
attributes.
Readership:
Scholars and students of medieval history; especially ecclesiastical
historians and historians of heresy.
Contents:
Note on canon law citations and bishops' registers
Introduction
I: Legislation
1 Questions of Knowledge and Ignorance
2 The Investigation of Heresy
3 The Techniques of Detection
II: Communication
4 Statutes and the Circulation of Knowledge
5 The Channels of Propaganda
6 The Content of Propaganda
III: Implementation
7 Reporting Heresy
8 The Social Contours of Heresy-Detection
Conclusion
Bibliography; Index.
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