Dominicans, Indulgences and Imperial Rivalry in Fourteenth-Century Germany

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Year:
Pages:280
ISBN:0-7734-4315-0
978-0-7734-4315-0
Price:$199.95 + shipping
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“A vital perspective to recent explorations of the history and role of indulgences and, in general, the spirituality and ecclesiology of the later Middle Ages. This study illuminates the spiritual preoccupations and practices of the mid-fourteenth century from the ground up, free from special pleading, confessional posturing, and preconceptions.”
-Associate Professor Theresa Gross-Diaz,
Loyola University Chicago


Reviews

“Shaffern takes a fresh look at the historical events, political disputes and theological currents that came together to promote the widespread belief in the efficacy of indulgences.”
-Professor Timothy M. Thibodeau,
Nazareth College of Rochester


“Father Shaffern has rendered a work that sheds light on a crucial area of Roman Catholic epistemology, for it deals with the ultimate issue of how and in what condition the faithful believer reaches Heaven…a very valuable contribution to the subject of indulgences and their place in the salvific economy of the Roman Church.”
-John T. Greene, Ph.D.,
Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies,
Michigan State University


“Shaffern’s research demonstrates how indulgences were linked to fundamental assumptions in medieval moral theology and ecclesiology, and so offers a salutary corrective to scholarly ignorance of what was an essential institution in the life of the Church.”
-Professor F. Thomas Luongo,
Tulane University


Table of Contents

FOREWORD by Timothy M. Thibodeau
ABBREVIATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DEDICATION
ABSTRACT
CHAPTER ONE: INDULGENCES AS AN HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ISSUE IN MEDIEVAL RELIGION

Indulgences and historiography
Indulgences in medieval religion
CHAPTER TWO: INDULGENCES IN MORAL THEOLOGY TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
The existence and validity of indulgences
Pastoral usefulness
The Quantification of indulgences
Conditions for efficacious reception
Simony?
Indulgences for the vowed religious
Indulgences as a jurisdictional issue
A pena et a culpa?
Indulgences for the dead
CHAPTER THREE: THE LIFE, TIMES AND WORK OF JOHN OF DAMBACH, O.P.
Student and teacher
The persecution of the Beghards of Strasbourg
The “Great Interdict” and the exile of the Strasbourg Dominicans
Professor at the University of Prague
Prolific writer and Dominican apologist
CHAPTER FOUR: DE VIRTUTE INDULGENCIARUM
Indulgences and penance
The awful terrors of the afterlife?
Indulgences and the religious
Indulgences as a jurisdictional issue
CHAPTER FIVE: DE QUANTITATE INDULGENCIARUM
The vested interest of the Dominicans
The ordinary authority of bishops to dispense partial indulgences
The apology for the amplification in the number of indulgences
Questions of independent dispensations
CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION
BIBLIOGRAPHY


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