Christianity

Christians have long relied on scribes’ copies of Biblical texts; J. K. Elliot describes how the Codex Sinaiticus, discovered in 1844, dates from the fourth century.

In the first millennium, Christianity spread east from Palestine to Iraq, and on to India and China, becoming a global religion accepting of, and accepted by, other faiths. But with the Mongol invasions of the 13th century, Christianity’s eastern journey came to an end. Philip Jenkins recovers this lost history.

Simon Lemieux provides an overview of 16th-century Catholicism, focusing on the key issues often selected by examiners.

As an integrated system of politics, economy and religion evolved in Europe around the year 1000, the figure of the Virgin Mary – so central to the lives of monks and nuns – became the core of a widely shared, though highly varied, European identity, says Miri Rubin.

Kenneth Fincham and Nicholas Tyacke look at the ways ordinary people responded to  religious changes within their places of worship from the Reformation to the Restoration.

Roy Strong tells York Membery why the humble English parish church is a perpetual source of fascination and refreshment.

Penny Young investigates the situation of one of the country’s less-commonly mentioned communities.

After the Crucifixion, writes J.K. Elliott, the disciples had a vivid and personal feeling that Jesus was in some sense still with them.

Peter Marshall explains how a chance reference in an old local history book led him to reconstruct the story of a 17th-century church scandal, and its afterlife in literature, culture and politics.