Medieval Female Mysticism and Weber’s Charismatic Authority

Late Medieval Mysticism

both positive and negative; in the medieval world, however, it held a precise meaning, often also referred to as “contemplation” or “the contemplative life.” The mysticism of this period had some merits, but also some serious flaws in both theology and practice. In many respects, the mysticism of the medieval world derived from early Latin mysticism, which in turn evolved from an amalgamation o...

Max Weber: Traditional, Legal-Rational, and Charismatic Authority

Conversion and Narrative: Reading and Religious Authority in Medieval Polemic

137 Chapters 12–16 continue to examine the schism, events surrounding the Council of Mantua in 1064 until the deaths of Alexander and Cadalus, and, finally, the election of Hildebrand as Pope Gregory VII. It is in these subsequent chapters that the moves called to question at the end of chapter 11 are explained: to mask conspiracies. Stroll posits that the schism in the Church had not been abou...

Female patients and practitioners in medieval Islam.

Claudius Galen of Pergamum: authority of medieval medicine.

Claudius Galen and his scholarly teachings defined the practice of medicine in Western Europe for 1500 years (Figure 1). His empiric approach, based on original animal experimentation, and his reputation for miraculous cures had an enormous influence on Western medicine during the Middle Ages and Renaissance until William Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of blood in the early seventeenth c...