Reimagining Christendom : writing Iceland's bishops into the Roman Church, 1200-1350 / Joel D. Anderson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Anderson, Joel D., author.

Series:

Middle Ages series.

The Middle Ages

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Catholic Church--Iceland--History.

Catholic Church.

Catholic Church--Iceland--Clergy--History--To 1500.

Biskupa sögur.

Iceland--Church history--Sources.

Iceland.

Iceland--Religious life and customs--Sources.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vi, 240 pages) : illustrations, maps.

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2023]

Summary:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"With its expanding legal system and its burgeoning throngs of lawyers, legates, and documents, the papacy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has often been credited with spearheading a governmental revolution that molded the high medieval church into an increasingly disciplined, uniform, and machine-like institution.This book offers a fresh appraisal of these developments from a surprising and distinctive vantage point. Tracing the web of textual ties that connected the northern fringes of Europe to the Roman See, Joel D. Anderson explores the ways in which Norse writers recruited, refashioned, and repurposed the legal principles and official documents of the Roman church for their own ends. Drawing on little-known vernacular sagas,this bookis populated with tales of married bishops, fictitious and forged papal bulls, and imagined canon law proceedings. These narratives, Anderson argues, demonstrate how Norse writers adapted and reconfigured the institutional power of the church in order to legitimize some of the thoroughly abnormal practices of their native bishops. In the process, Icelandic clerics constructed their own visions of ecclesiastical order-visions that underscore the thoroughly malleable character of the Roman church's text-based government and that articulate diverse ways of belonging to the far-flung imagined community of high medieval Christendom"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction. Ecclesiastical Predicaments at the Edge of the World

Envisioning the Roman Church in the Age of Innocent III, Páll Jónsson, and Sverrir Sigurarson

Irregular Sanctity at the Limits of Ecclesiastical Law

Bishop Gumundr's Hail Mary Imagining and Suspending Papal Government in Medieval Iceland

Choreographing the Crusades in the Archbishopric of Niaróss

The Powers and Perils of Documents in the Life of Bishop Lárentíus Kálfsson

Conclusion. Imagining Iceland's Place

Appendix 1. The Bishops of Iceland to c. 1350

Appendix 2. Bishops' Sagas Discussed in This Book.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Anderson, Joel D. Reimagining Christendom

ISBN:

9781512822816

OCLC:

1350570694