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Long description: For centuries, Romania and the Romanians have been the “in-between”. Geographical as well as political situated between the Latin occident and the Byzantine orient, Romanians lived intertwined with Hungarians, German Saxons, Szeklers, Armenians, Jews, Tartars, Gypsies, and others as the guardians of communication channels between worlds and cultures. Ioan-Aurel Pop demonstrates the adaptable nature of the southeast European “borderlands”, while underlining a set of reoccurring traits like religion and/or confession, real and/or imagined “national” identities. The backbone of his studies is political: Starting with the rise of the Romanians in late medieval times he follows their steady and eventually abrupt downfall. Focusing on late medieval and early modern Church and State matters he describes the emerging of a language bound identity “in between” and in close connection to a selective revival of Antiquity. Pop provides insights into a succession of falls and rises that formed the Romanian identity and connected them to the modern divergent world. Biographical note: Ioan-Aurel Pop is Professor of Medieval History at the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, and the President of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest. His research focuses on Church and State in East-Central and South-Eastern Europe, on late medieval crusading and on humanism.

A bold new history of the rise and expansion of the Norman Dynasty across Europe from Byzantium to England In the eleventh century the climate was improving, population was growing, and people were on the move. The Norman dynasty ranged across Europe, led by men who achieved lasting fame like William the Conqueror and Robert Guiscard. These figures cultivated an image of unstoppable Norman success and their victories make for a great story, but how much of it is true? In this insightful history, Judith Green challenges old certainties and explores the reality of Norman life across the continent. There were many soldiers of fortune, but their successes were down to timing, good luck, and ruthless leadership. Green shows the Normans' profound impact, from drastic change in England to laying the foundations for unification in Sicily, to their contribution to the First Crusade. Going beyond the familiar, she looks at personal dynastic relationships and the important part women played in what at first sight seems a resolutely masculine world.

The study focuses on the ecclesiastical and religious context associated with the deaths of three Czech and Moravian bishops in 1940–1941 and its impact on the Catholic Church during the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Specifically, it analyses the events following the deaths of Bishop Šimon Bárta of České Budějovice, Archbishop Karel Kašpar of Prague, and Bishop Josef Kupka of Brno, and the political and religious context of the selection of their successors. These events became part of a broader conflict between the Holy See and the Nazi authorities, which had a fundamental impact on the structure of the Church and its relations with the occupiers. The study arises from an analysis of historical sources, including Vatican archives recently made accessible, diplomatic correspondence, reminiscences of contemporaries, and scholarly literature. It focuses on the efforts of church leaders to preserve the autonomy of the church when faced with Nazi pressure. In addition to the political-religious aspects of the conflict, the work also addresses the impact of these events on the position of the church during the war and on its diplomatic relations after 1945. The study contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of the Catholic Church in the Czech lands not only during World War II, but also after it, including key changes in the episcopal sees and their broader consequences.

Based on sources from the Vatican archives, the development and completion of these negotiations is analyzed, which culminated in the impossibility, assumed by the Vatican, of carrying out such mediation due to the refusal of the Peruvian authorities. La Cuestión Romana Cuando el 20 de septiembre de 1870 las tropas italianas tomaron la ciudad de Roma, hasta entonces capital de los Estados Pontificios, y pusieron término a estos, culminando la unificación italiana -lo que dio origen a la llamada \"cuestión romana\" que culminaría en 1929 en la firma de los Pactos de Létrán entre la Santa Sede y el reino de Italia- la personalidad jurídica internacional de la Santa Sede no fue puesta en cuestión. Esta quedó reconocida expresamente por las autoridades italianas en la ley de garantías dictada por el recién unificado reino de Italia -de 13 mayo 1871- que reconoció a la Santa Sede como una persona jurídica de derecho público que ejercía un \"ministerio espiritual' y aseguró la libertad de sus relaciones diplomáticas (art. 11).

Even though the idea of altering an existing building is presently a well established practice within the context of adaptive reuse, when the building in question is a 'mnemonic building', of recognized heritage value, alterations are viewed with suspicion, even when change is a recognized necessity. This book fills in a blind spot in current architectural theory and practice, looking into a notion of conservation as a form of invention and imagination, offering the reader a counter-viewpoint to a predominant western understanding that preservation should be a 'still shot' from the past. Through a micro-historical study of a Renaissance concept of restoration, a theoretical framework to question the issue of conservation as a creative endeavor arises. It focuses on Tiberio Alfarano's 1571 ichnography of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, into which a complex body of religious, political, architectural and cultural elements is woven. By merging past and present temple's plans, he created a track-drawing questioning the design pursued after Michelangelo's death (1564), opening the gaze towards other possible future imaginings. This book uncovers how the drawing was acted on by Carlo Maderno (1556-1629), who literally used it as physical substratum to for new design proposals, completing the renewal of the temple in 1626. Proposing a hybrid architectural-conservation approach, this study shows how these two practices can be merged in contemporary renovation. By creating hybrid drawings, the retrospective and prospective gaze of built conservation forms a continuous and contiguous reality, where a pre-existent condition engages with future design rejoining multiple temporalities within continuity of identity. This study might provide a paradigmatic and timely model to retune contemporary architectural sensibility when dealing with the dilemma between design and preservation when transforming a building of recognized significance.

The Lives of the Popes and Emperors, long attributed to Petrarch, offers the lives of 230 popes and 117 emperors from Julius Caesar to Pope Clement VII and the year 1526. It combines the medieval chronicle’s narrative of people, events, natural and celestial wonders with the grand themes of papal and imperial history and of sacred and secular A01ity. This volume offers a contemporary English translation of the complete text. Tania Zampini provides an introduction to the work and places it into the larger context of Renaissance society and culture, focusing on the work’s major themes and its interest in papal, imperial and central Italian politics as well as on the newly emerging lay textual communities and religious cultures of the age of Lorenzo de’ Medici, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Martin Luther. The text is annotated with historical, cultural and biographical details and accompanied by a select bibliography and complete index, 17 illustrations.

Amid the religious tumult of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, English scholars, preachers, and dramatists examined, debated, and refashioned tales concerning Pope Joan, a ninth-century woman who, as legend has it, cross-dressed her way to the papacy only to have her imposture exposed when she gave birth during a solemn procession. The legend concerning a popess had first taken written form in the thirteenth century and for several hundred years was more or less accepted. The Reformation, however, polarized discussions of the legend, pitting Catholics, who denied the story's veracity, against Protestants, who suspected a cover-up and instantly cited Joan as evidence of papal depravity. In this heated environment, writers reimagined Joan variously as a sorceress, a hermaphrodite, and even a noteworthy author.

Security issue has emerged in workshops and seminars as one of the pertinent themes of today. Global security is at stake as terror networks fuel hate and intolerance against the Christian minority. The Roman Catholic Church is subjected to threats by some radical section of Muslims, and fundamentalists from Pentecostal sects. Some Church ministers including popes have been targeted and attacked. Given such a situation; the security of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church is an urgent theme for reflection in response to the concrete situations facing the Church. Security issue cannot be treated as peripheral theme in contemporary ecclesiology.

On the first anniversary of his election to the papacy, Leo the Great stood before the assembly of bishops convening in Rome and forcefully asserted his privileged position as the heir of Peter the Apostle. This declaration marked the beginning of a powerful tradition: the Bishop of Rome would henceforth leverage the cult of St. Peter, and the popular association of St. Peter with the city itself, to his advantage. InThe Invention of Peter, George E. Demacopoulos examines this Petrine discourse, revealing how the link between the historic Peter and the Roman Church strengthened, shifted, and evolved during the papacies of two of the most creative and dynamic popes of late antiquity, ultimately shaping medieval Christianity as we now know it. By emphasizing the ways in which this rhetoric of apostolic privilege was employed, extended, transformed, or resisted between the reigns of Leo the Great and Gregory the Great, Demacopoulos offers an alternate account of papal history that challenges the dominant narrative of an inevitable and unbroken rise in papal power from late antiquity through the Middle Ages. He unpacks escalating claims to ecclesiastical authority, demonstrating how this rhetoric, which almost always invokes a link to St. Peter, does not necessarily represent actual power or prestige but instead reflects moments of papal anxiety and weakness. Through its nuanced examination of an array of episcopal activity-diplomatic, pastoral, political, and administrative-The Invention of Peteroffers a new perspective on the emergence of papal authority and illuminates the influence that Petrine discourse exerted on the survival and exceptional status of the Bishop of Rome.

Catholic Bishop John Stephen Vaughan lays down the arguments for the existence of the office of Pope, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and of the structure and hierarchy of the Church.