Positively Medieval
The Surprising, Dynamic, Heroic Church of the Middle Ages
Positively
Medieval
The Surprising, Dynamic, Heroic Church of the Middle Ages
Jamie Blosser
OurSundayVisitor
Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division
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Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible—Second Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition), copyright © 1965, 1966, 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Copyright © 2016 by Jamie Blosser. Published 2016.
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Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division
Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.
200 Noll Plaza
Huntington, IN 46750
1-800-348-2440
ISBN: 978-1-68192-028-3 (Inventory No. T1785)
eISBN: 978-1-68192-031-3
LCCN: 2016946074
Cover design: Lindsey Riesen
Cover art: Musee Dobree, Nantes, France/Bridgeman Images
Interior design: M. Urgo
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Contents
St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604)
Sts. Cyril (826–869) and Methodius (815–885)
St. Gregory the Great (540–604)
St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1207–1231)
St. Louis IX (1214–1270)
St. Boethius (480–524)
St. Wenceslaus (d. 929)
St. Thomas Becket (1118–1170)
St. Joan of Arc (1412–1431)
St. Benedict of Nursia (480–547)
St. Odo of Cluny (878–942)
St. Dominic de Guzman (1170–1221)
St. Francis of Assisi (1181–1226)
St. Clare of Assisi (1194–1253)
Gerard Groote (1340–1384)
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)
St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179)
Meister Eckhart (1260–1327)
Blessed Jan van Ruysbruck (1293–1381)
Julian of Norwich (c. 1342–1423)
St. Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)
St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
St. Anselm of Canterbury (d. 1109)
Robert Grosseteste (1175–1253)
St. Bonaventure (1221–1274)
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)
Justinian (483–565)
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (late fifth century)
St. Maximus the Confessor (580–662)
St. John Damascene (676–749)
Gregory Palamas (1296–1359)
Preface
When I went off to college at the age of eighteen, I hadn’t put much thought into what medieval Christianity was like, but in the back of my mind were images of dirty, sickly people living in mud huts and worshiping statues of Mary, opulently dressed churchmen hawking relics and indulgences, and sneering Inquisitors burning witches and Protestants. I’m not sure who, exactly, was responsible for putting these images into my head, but I’m pretty sure it was a collective effort.
I was a Protestant, though not a very good one, and that probably had something to do with