Download The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese (The Middle Ages Series) AudioBook Free
The parish, the lowest level of hierarchy in the medieval church, was the shared responsibility of the laity and the clergy. Most Christians were baptized, visited confession, were married, and were buried in the parish church or churchyard; in addition, business, legal settlements, sociability, and entertainment brought people to the church, uniting secular and sacred concerns. In The Folks of the Parish, Katherine L. French contends that late medieval religion was participatory and flexible, promoting different sorts of spiritual and material involvement. The rich parish records of the tiny diocese of Bath and Wells include wills, court public records, and detailed accounts by lay churchwardens of everyday parish activities. They reveal the dissimilarities between parishes within a single diocese that can't be related to regional variation. By using these records show to the range and diversity of late medieval parish life, and a Christianity vibrant enough to accommodate dissimilarities in status, wealth, gender, and local priorities, French refines our knowledge of lay attitudes toward Christianity in both centuries prior to the Reformation. The book is published by University of Pennsylvania Press.
