Religious Enthusiasm in the Medieval West

Collective religious enthusiasm was a surprisingly many-sided, influential and widespread phenomenon in medieval Europe. Amongst the forms it took were remarkable revivalist movements like the flagellants of 1260; popular crusades like the often mythologized 'children's crusade' of 1212 and the 'shepherds' crusade' of 1251; as well as popular excitement involving living saints and their veneration (115 cults in Perugia). This book focuses upon particular thirteenth-century revivals and popular crusades, but does so in order to illuminate the nature of medieval western religious enthusiasm by exploring such topics as crowds, penitential self-laceration, charismatic leaders, prophecy, runaway youths, popular crusading fervour, dreams, and sanctity, male and female. A previously unpublished essay introduces the book, initiating a discussion of religious enthusiasm in the medieval West and the second conversion of Europe.

Contents: Preface; Religious enthusiasm in the medieval West and the second conversion of Europe; Charisma and revivalism in the 13th century; The burning of the Amalricians; The genesis of the Children's Crusade (1212); Stephen of Cloyes, Philip Augustus, and the Children's Crusade of 1212; The Advent of the Pastores (1251); Clare's dream; The Flagellants of 1260 and the Crusades; Master John of Toledo (Tolet) the 'Albus Cardinalis' (d.1275) in Perugia; St.Juliana's head; and a mid-14th-century calendar from Santa Giuliana di Perugia in the University of Edinburgh Library (EUL.MS.29); The 115 cults of the saints in later medieval and renaissance Perugia: a demographic overview of a civic pantheon; Index.