Heresy & Orthodoxy from the Early Church to the Eve of the Reformation

This course will explore Christian heretical movements from the fifth century through to the Reformation, with the major focus on European heresies, including those originating in the Near East. Beginning with a brief survey of heresies encountered in the Early Church, the course will then examine such issues as Bogomilism, Catharism and the Albigensian Crusade, the Waldensian heresy, the poverty controversy, the Spiritual Franciscans, Wyclif and Lollardy, later medieval Eucharistic heresies, and the Hussite movement in Bohemia. The relationship of Christianity to its fellow Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Islam, will also form a major point of focus for the course, as “infidels” were often categorized as heretics by medieval Christians. The course will end with a consideration of the role played by medieval heresies and heretics in the polemical engagements and confessional politics of the Protestant Reformation.