These original essays consider key occasions on which accusations and persecutions of heresy in premodern Western Europe possessed strong political as well as doctrinal dimensions. Together, they challenge formidably the argument of the 'persecuting society' whose driving agency was an ecclesiastical elite, and they open the motives of heresy prosecution to a broader range of social forces. The volume is a major contribution to the lively current scholarship on the subject. - Edward Peters, Henry Charles Lea Professor Emeritus of History, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Gambling metaphors structure this ground-breaking collection and reflect the chancy nature of political and religious dissent, as well as the book's own wager that we will profit from a shift in the traditional emphasis on enforcement to the ways in which accusations could be employed, especially to fulfill political aims - from Joan of Arc to Joachim, from Cathars to conciliarism, from Christian concepts of heresy to Muslim notions of apostasy. - Gerald Christianson, Emeritus Professor of Church History, Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary, USA
The history of heresy in Christian Europe of the Middle Ages was always a complex brew of ideas and politics. Personal connections counted, and so did the property interests of powerful people and orders. This outstanding collection of detailed studies makes it clear that many of the prevailing generalizations about heresy are no longer valid. The final chapter is an eye-opening study of reactions to heterodoxy in the Muslim world of the time: major thinkers there were more worried about apostasy than heresy, but the political dimension was never absent. Some things never change. - John Christian Laursen, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Riverside, USA