New Short History of the Catholic Church

Norman Tanner

• Publisher: Burns & Oates
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781472909886
• eBook ISBN: 9781441162120
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Denominations

____________ 'A useful book of reference by the master of the history of the councils of the Church... There is enormous value in a short, reliable, and careful study of a sequence of events that may have unfamiliar joinings and passageways to modern believers...' - Catholic Historical Review 'A short, readable and informed survey of church history.' - The Church of England Newspaper 'A rich foundation for Catholic understanding and witness.' - Catholic San Francisco
____________ A one-volume history of the Christian people from Pentecost to the present day, with principal focus on the Catholic Church. Having passed AD 2000 it seems appropriate and necessary to have a new short history of the first two millennia of the Christian era. In the last half century there has been a massive amount of research into Church history, published in learned articles and in multi-volume works. Full notice is taken of these recent scholarly initiatives in writing this short account, which is also eminently readable. In each section there is a balance between the institutional and the more directly religious dimensions of the Church - here are some of the elements: bishops, canon law, charity, councils crusades, devotions, heresies, laity, liturgy, martyrs, missionaries, parishes, pilgrimages, popes, prayer, priesthood, religious orders, sacraments, schools, theologians, universities and the vita consacrata. The scope is wide; the pace of the narrative is attractive.

Table of contents

• Acknowledgements
• Notes and Abbreviations
• Map: The Mediterranean World
• Introduction
• Pentecost to the Fourth Century
• Early Middle Ages: 400–1054
• Central and Late Middle Ages
• Early Modern Catholicism 1500–1800
• Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index