Soldiers of Christ: preaching in late medieval and reformation France

Abstract

In an age when the printed book was still in its infancy, the pulpit was the mass medium of the era. Cities competed with one another to attract the leading preachers, and thousands of people from all classes of society flocked from miles around to hear them speak. A vital part of medieval religious life, sermons were the chief occasions on which the church attempted to bridge the gap between high theology and popular religious culture. Taylor's study of preaching in France offers intriguing clues into the beliefs and behaviour of ordinary Christians in the crucial era that saw the onset of the Protestant Reformation. By examining hundreds of surviving sermons from the most influential preachers of the time, Taylor is able to reconstruct popular attitudes to such issues as original sin, free will, purgatory, the devil, the sacraments, the magical arts, the inequalities in society, and the status of women. A concluding section examines the beginnings of Protestant preaching in France and Catholic responses to this challenge.