Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning by Reginald Poole

This is a collection of sketches from Medieval Church history and includes studies on Gottschalk, John Scotus, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas and John Wycliffe. My thanks to Book Aid for making a copy of this book available for digitisation.

Reginald Lane Poole [1857-1939], Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning, 2nd edn. London: SPCK, 1932. Hbk. pp.327. [Click to visit the download page]

Contents

• Preface
• Introduction

1. Claudius of Turin and Agobard of Lyons
2. John Scotus
3. The Dark Age
4. The School of Chartres
5. Peter Abailard
6. The Trial of Gilbert of La Porrée
7. John of Salisbury
8. The Heirarchical Doctrine of the State
9. The Opposition to the Temporal Claims of the Papacy
10. Wycliffe’s Doctrine of Dominion

• Appendix
• Index

Preface

To republish a book after a lapse of thirty-six years can only be excused by the fact that it has long been out of print and that it is still asked for. When a new edition was proposed to me, my first intention was to issue the book as it stood, with no more change than the correction of obvious mistakes. But further consideration showed me that a good deal more than this was necessary if it was to be republished at all. Such revision, however, as I have made has been designedly made with a sparing hand, and the book remains in substance and in most details a work not of 1920 but of 1884. Had I written it now, the point of view would not have been quite the same. A large literature on the subjects I dealt with has appeared in the interval, and a fresh examination of the materials would certainly have recommended a different selection of ‘illustrations’ from that which I made then…