1st Edition

Reform, Ecclesiology, and the Christian Life in the Late Middle Ages

By Thomas M. Izbicki Copyright 2008
    286 Pages
    by Routledge

    286 Pages
    by Routledge

    Philosophy was not an idle venture in the Renaissance. There were no clear-cut boundaries between theory and the practice. Theologians, jurists and humanists gave opinions on practical matters from within some larger intellectual context, and many held high office. Among the writers represented here are Pope Pius II (1458-1464), Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) and Juan de Torquemada OP (d. 1468). All of them, and the other writers dealt with, addressed the issues of their day creatively but from within different traditions, scholastic or humanistic. The present studies deal with issues of Reform, Ecclesiology [theories about the church and its mission] and the living of the Christian life. Among the specific issues covered are the canonization of Birgitta of Sweden, the status of converts from Judaism in Spain, acceptable forms of dress for clergy and laity, and the obedience due the pope. Also studied in this collection are the writings of Spanish theologians about the indigenous populations of the New World and the use of the name of Nicholas of Cusa by Elizabethan and Jacobean writers, both Catholic and Protestant, in polemics concerning right religious teaching and submission to the English crown, a paper hitherto unpublished.

    Contents: Foreword; Part 1 Reform: Reform and obedience in 4 conciliar sermons by Leonardo Dati, OP; The sins of the clergy in Juan de Torquemada's Defense of the Revelations of Saint Birgitta; Forbidden colors in the regulation of clerical dress from the 4th Lateran Council (1215) to the time of Nicolas of Cusa (d.1464). Part 2 Ecclesiology: The Immaculate Conception and ecclesiastical politics from the Council of Basel to the Council of Trent: the Dominicans and their foes; A papalist reading of Gratian: Juan de Torquemada on c. Quodcunque [C. 24 q. 1 c. 6]; Cajetan's attack on parallels between church and state; Representation in Nicholas of Cusa; An ambivalent papalism: Peter in the sermons of Nicholas of Cusa; 'Their Cardinal Cusanus': Nicholas of Cusa in Tudor and Stuart polemics; Reject Aneas!: Pius II on the errors of his youth. Part 3 The Christian Life: Leonardo Dati's sermon on the Circumcision of Jesus (1417); Juan de Torquemada's defense of the conversos; Nicholas of Cusa and the Jews; The origins of the De ornato mulierum of Antonius of Florence; Salamancan relectiones in the Fernán Núñez collection; Addenda et corrigenda; Index.

    Biography

    Thomas M. Izbicki is Humanities Librarian, Alexander Library, Rutgers University, USA.

    ’This volume is an impressive and useful compilation, and will be a great stimulus to future research in the areas represented in the various essays.’ Sixteenth Century Journal