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List of contents
Contents: Introduction: James M. Powell, historian, Edward Peters; Obituary for James M. Powell, Kenneth Pennington. The Papacy in the Early Thirteenth Century: Introduction to The Deeds of Pope Innocent III, by an anonymous author, translated with introduction and notes by James M. Powell; Introduction to Innocent III: Vicar of Christ or Lord of the World?; Innocent III and Petrus Beneventanus: reconstructing a career at the Papal Curia; Pope Innocent III and secular law; Innocent III: the making of an image; Two popes before and after the fourth Lateran council; Pastor Bonus: some evidence of Honorius III’s use of the sermons of Pope Innocent III; The prefatory letters to the sermons of Pope Honorius III and the reform of preaching; Honorius III’s Sermo in Dedicatione Ecclesie Lateranensis and the historical-liturgical traditions of the Lateran; The papacy and the early Franciscans; St Francis of Assisi’s way of peace. Frederick II and the Crusade: Frederick II and the church: a revisionist view; Frederick II and the church in the Kingdom of Sicily, 1220-1224; Canon law and the cults of peace and justice in the Liber Augustalis; Greco-Arabic influences on the public health legislation in the constitutions of Melfi; Frederick II’s knowledge of Greek; Church and crusade: Frederick II and Louis IX; A vacuum of leadership: 1291 revisited. Religion and the Communes: Mendicants, the communes, and the law; Forms of spirituality and the quest for ‘buon governo' in the 13th century; Religious diversity and communal politics in 13th-century Italy; Albertano da Brescia e i suoi lettori: studio sulla trasformazione del significato; The Misericordia of Bergamo and the frescos of the Aula Diocesana: a chapter in communal history; Dante’s vision of the past; Crisis and culture in Renaissance Europe. Index.
About the author
James M. Powell (1930 - 2011) was Professor of History Emeritus at Syracuse University, USA. A previous collection of his articles appeared in the Variorum series in 2007: The Crusades, The Kingdom of Sicily, and the Mediterranean.
Summary
The twenty-five essays in this volume - four of which are published here for the first time - represent the work of a great scholar in Mediterranean history. In an age often called that of papal monarchy and secular-minded rulers, Powell found popes with complex agendas and extensive pastoral concerns, a rather more Christian Frederick II, the huma