Religious Education in Thirteenth-Century England

Download or read book Religious Education in Thirteenth-Century England written by Andrew Reeves and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Religious Education in Thirteenth-Century England, Andrew Reeves examines how laypeople in a largely illiterate and oral culture learned the basic doctrines of the Christian religion. Although lay religious life is often assumed to have been a tissue of ignorance and superstition, this study shows basic religious training to have been broadly available to laity and clergy alike. Reeves examines the nature, availability and circulation of sermon manuscripts as well as guidebooks to Christian teachings written for both clergy and literate laypeople. He shows that under the direction of a vigorous and reforming episcopate and aided by the preaching of the friars, clergy had a readily available toolkit to instruct their lay flocks.