Download or read book Excommunication in Thirteenth-century England written by Felicity Hill and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exocommunication was the medieval church's most severe sanction, used against people at all levels of society. It was a spiritual, social, and legal penalty: Excommunication in Thirteenth-Century England offers a fresh perspective on medieval excommunication by taking a multi-dimensional approach to discussion of the sanction. Using England as a case study, the book analyzes the intentions behind excommunication, how it was perceived and received at both national and local level, and the effects it had upon individuals and society. This book uses a thematic structure to argue that our understanding of excommunication should be shaped by how it was received within the community as well as the intentions of canon law and clerics. Challenging assumptions about the inefficacy of excommunication, Hill argues that the sanction remained a useful weapon for the clerical elite. Bringing into dialogue a wide range of source material allows 'effectiveness' to be judged within a broader context. The complexity of political communication and action are revealed through public, conflicting, accepted, and rejected excommunications. Excommunication was a means by which political events were communicated down the social strata of medieval society. The book discusses pastoral care, cursing, fears about the afterlife, the implications of social ostracism, manipulations of excommunication in political conflicts, shame and reputation, and mass communication.