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The Medieval Concept of Sin: A Theological Debate
How medieval Christians understood sin: original sin, mortal and venial sins, the seven deadly sins, and the role of confession, with what theologians disputed.
Faith and Health
Sin, Salvation and Virtue
Medieval ideas about sin, salvation, providence and the virtues.
The Medieval Concept of Good and Evil: A Theological Debate
How medieval theologians explained evil, from Augustine's idea of evil as a lack of good to dualist rivals, and why a good God was thought to allow suffering.
The Medieval Concept of Providence: A Theological Debate
What medieval Christians meant by providence, God's guidance of events, and how thinkers tried to reconcile it with free will, chance and the goddess Fortune.
The Medieval Concept of Salvation: A Theological Debate
How medieval Christians believed salvation was reached through faith, grace, sacraments and good works, and the disputes over predestination and merit.
The Medieval Concept of the Five Cardinal Virtues: Wisdom, Justice, Temperance, Fortitude, and Prudence
Why the standard list of cardinal virtues has four, not five, and how wisdom and prudence relate in classical and medieval thought.
The Medieval Concept of the Five Wounds of Christ
How devotion to the five wounds of Christ grew in the later Middle Ages, where it appeared, and how ordinary believers prayed and honored them.
The Medieval Concept of the Five Wounds of Christ: A Symbol of Suffering
How the five wounds of Christ appeared as a visual symbol of suffering and redemption in images, badges, banners, heraldry and prayers in late medieval Europe.
The Medieval Concept of the Four Cardinal Virtues
Background on the four cardinal virtues: their Greek and Roman roots, how Christian writers adopted them, and how the theological virtues were added.
The Medieval Concept of the Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude
Each cardinal virtue in turn, prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude, with examples of how medieval teachers wanted it to show in rulers and ordinary people.
The Medieval Concept of the Seven Deadly Sins
Where the list of seven deadly sins came from, how Evagrius, Cassian and Gregory the Great shaped it, and how medieval preachers used it.
The Medieval Concept of the Seven Deadly Sins: A Guide to Moral Behavior
How the seven deadly sins worked as a practical guide for confession, sermons, manuals and everyday moral teaching in the later Middle Ages.
The Medieval Concept of the Seven Virtues
How medieval writers combined the four classical cardinal virtues and three theological virtues, and paired virtues against vices, into seven-part schemes.
The Medieval Concept of the Seven Virtues: Chastity, Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness, and Humility
A walk through the seven virtues named in the title, chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility, and why medieval lists varied.
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Monasteries and Orders Monks, monasteries and the military religious orders. Medicine and Healing Doctors, herbs, theories and beliefs about illness and magic. Philosophy and Theology How medieval thinkers joined faith and reason. The Black Death The plague of the 1300s and its effects on society. Inquisition and Heresy How medieval church courts pursued heresy, and what the records really show. Saints and Mystics Holy men and women, visionaries and a martyr. Theologians and Reformers Thinkers who shaped and challenged Church teaching. The Church and Its Power How the medieval church was organized and how it used its influence. Afterlife and Purgatory What people believed about death, heaven, hell and purgatory. Jews in Medieval Europe Jewish communities, scholarship, restrictions and expulsions. Pilgrimage, Relics and Shrines Holy journeys, saints bones and the shrines that drew travelers.