Bringing together ancient and medieval history, Papal Jurisprudence, c. 385-c. 1234 explains why bishops sought judgments from the papacy long before it exerted its influence through religious fear, traces the reception of those judgments to the mid-thirteenth century, and analyses the relation between the decretals c. 400 and c. 1200.
This is a fascinating study of attitudes towards death and the afterlife in medieval Europe. Based on fourteenth-century unpublished sermons in memory of kings and princes, it examines the relationship between kingship and death, in a period when a genuinely secular political consciousness existed alongside other-worldly priorities. David D'Avray mixes political history with the history of mentalites to produce a unique look at funeral preachi...
