The Christian doctrine of justification is of immense interest to historians and theologians, and continues to be of major importance in modern ecumenical discussions. The present work appeared in its first edition in 1986, and rapidly became the leading reference work on the subject. Its many acclaimed features include a detailed assessment of the semantic background of the concept in the ancient Near East, a thorough examination of the doctrine of the medieval period, and especially careful analysis of its development during the critical years of the sixteenth century. The third edition thoroughly updates the work, adding material where necessary, and responding to developments in scholarly literature. It will be an essential resource for all concerned with the development of Christian doctrine, the history of the Reformation debates on the identity of Christianity, and modern discussions between Protestants and Roman Catholics over the nature of salvation.

The Wycliffite Bible: Origin, History and Interpretation brings together contributions by leading scholars on different aspects of the first complete translation of the Bible into English, produced at the end of the 14th century by the followers of the Oxford theologian John Wyclif. Though learned and accurate, the translation was condemned and banned within twenty-five years of its appearance. In spite of this it became the most widely disseminated medieval English work that profoundly influenced the development of vernacular theology, religious writing, contemporary and later literature, and the English language. Its comprehensive study is long overdue and the current collection offers new perspectives and research on this, the most learned and widely evidenced of the European translations of the Vulgate. Contributors are Jeremy Catto , Lynda Dennison, Kantik Ghosh, Ralph Hanna, Anne Hudson, Maureen Jurkowski, Michael Kuczynski, Ian Christopher Levy, James Morey, Nigel Morgan, Stephen Morrison, Mark Rankin, Delbert Russell, Michael Sargent, Jakub Sichalek, Elizabeth Solopova, and Annie Sutherland .

The work published in this third, and final, volume of Brill’s handbook on the tradition of the Book of Sentences breaks new ground in three ways. First, several chapters contribute to the debate concerning the meaning of medieval authority and authorship. For some of the most influential literature on the Sentences consisted of study aids and compilations that were derivative or circulated anonymously. Consequently, the volume also sheds light on theological education “on the ground”—the kind of teaching that was dispensed by the average master and received by the average student. Finally, the contributors show that Peter Lombard’s textbook played a much more dynamic role in later medieval theology than hitherto assumed. The work remained a force to be reckoned with until at least the sixteenth century, especially in the Iberian Peninsula. Contributors are Claire Angotti, Monica Brinzei, Franklin T. Harkins, Severin V. Kitanov, Lidia Lanza, Philipp W. Rosemann, Chris Schabel, John T. Slotemaker, Marco Toste, Jeffrey C. Witt, and Ueli Zahnd.

A comparative study of the interpretation of the Bible in the Middle Ages.

Three basic forces dominated sixteenth-century religious life. Two polarized groups, Protestant and Catholic reformers, were shaped by theological debates, over the nature of the church, salvation, prayer, and other issues. These debates articulated critical, group-defining oppositions. Bystanders to the Catholic-Protestant competition were a third force. Their reactions to reformers were violent, opportunistic, hesitant, ambiguous, or serendipitous, much the way social historians have described common people in the Reformation for the last fifty years. But in an ecology of three forces, hesitations and compromises were natural, not just among ordinary people, but also, if more subtly, among reformers and theologians. In this volume, Christopher Ocker offers a constructive and nuanced alternative to the received understanding of the Reformation. Combining the methods of intellectual, cultural, and social history, his book demonstrates how the Reformation became a hybrid movement produced by a binary of Catholic and Protestant self-definitions, by bystanders to religious debate, and by the hesitations and compromises made by all three groups during the religious controversy.

The 10 papers in this volume examine university and pre-university education in the 14th to 16th centuries in Germany, Italy, France, and England. Topics covered include the recruitment and support of students, studying abroad, social status, careers of graduates, university rituals, the profession of schoolmaster, and the relation of the studia to the crown. Contributors include William J. Courtenay, Rainer Chr. Schwinges, Klaus Wriedt, Frank Rexroth, Darleen Pryds, Helmut G. Walther, Thomas Sullivan, O.S.B., Martin Kintzinger, Jo Ann Hoeppner Moran Cruz, and Jürgen Miethke.

The present collection, divided into three thematic sections, includes twenty-one studies on the history of the University of Prague from its foundation in 1348 to the 16th century. The first section is devoted to the birth of the university, its first institutions, the growth of the earliest colleges and the victory of the Reformist party. The second part concentrates on the curriculum, examinations, graduations and annual disputations of the Faculty of Liberal Arts. Section three deals with university polemics about universalia realia, mainly in relation to the scholarly and literary activity of Jerome of Prague (+ 1416).

Saak re-interprets Martin Luther as an Augustinian Hermit, whose 95 Theses came as the culmination of the late medieval Reformation.

This book presents a detailed case study of Crux de Telcz (1434–1504), illustrating the complexity of the manuscript culture of the second half of the 15th century. The scholar reconstructs Crux’s biography using more than 150 colophons and notes, and analyzes his role as an author, translator, complier, glossator and primarily as a scribe. For comparison, Kimberly Rivers’ study on the Würzburg Franciscan scribe Johannes Sintram († 1450) is included in the book. The most conspicuous feature of the examined late medieval manuscript culture is the unprecedented number of scribe’s paratexts (contents, indexes, explanatory notes, references, identification of sources and others), accompanied by a no less unprecedented number of errors, confusions, obscurities and incoherencies. First volume of the Prague Medieval Studies (PRAMS) series.