What is a photisterion? Translators usually render the Greek word phōtistērion (site of illumination) as ‘baptistery’ (site of immersion in water). This article reopens the study of phōtistēria, arguing that being ‘immersed’ or ‘illuminated’ evokes different senses of the concomitant meaning of the sites and rites of initiation. It situates late ancient phōtistēria from epigraphic and literary sources in their theological and liturgical contexts. The evidence from Galilee, Syria, Jordan and Cyprus corroborates the idea that many Christians of late antiquity preferred ‘illumination’ to express the composite rite of initiation in a phōtistērion, within which ‘baptism’ was one part.

The letters of the First Crusade have traditionally been read as authentic and trustworthy eyewitness accounts of the expedition and they contribute greatly to scholarly understanding of the campaign. But new research on them demonstrates that many of the documents are in fact twelfth-century confections produced in the monastic communities of the West as a means of supporting, participating in and engaging with the crusading movement. This article develops new approaches to the letters and new research questions which account for and accept the problematic authenticity of the corpus, pivoting away from traditional methodologies to explore the monastic scribal cultures that produced and consumed First Crusade letters.

In this study evidence is brought forth from large treasuries of scholastic manuscripts at Hereford and Lincoln that challenges R. M. Thomson's assessment of the importance of those collections during the High Middle Ages. As it turns out, as early as the twelfth century those libraries contained copies of the most important works in the developing Parisian theological curriculum, and the earliest copies of those works may reside in these and other English cathedral libraries. Manuscripts preserving early versions of the Sentences are especially interesting, since they make it possible to study the evolution of Peter Lombard's thought during his lifetime.

Although not liturgically mandated, the ostentatious microarchitectural font cover became one of the most significant ecclesiastical furnishings of the later Middle Ages. In fact, as a church fixture it survived well into the seventeenth century, not only in Catholic but also in Protestant regions, even though its eye-catching forms represented an obvious target for radical reformers and iconoclasts. Despite their enduring presence and their obvious importance to the communities that erected them, font covers remain little researched and understood. Revolving around a discussion of their intensely visual nature, this article is an attempt at a first outline of a history of this fascinating genre of church furnishing.

This article examines the performance of music in a Maltese female Benedictine monastery in the early modern period in relation to prevailing attitudes towards monastic music and polyphony. By placing these letters in their social and cultural context, it also offers fresh insights into female literacy in early modern Malta. The discussion centres on a set of fifteen unpublished letters that provide a rare example of a woman in early eighteenth-century Malta engaged in a written exchange of theological and philosophical ideas.

This article presents a case of conflict and resistance within the Catholic Church: that of Carlo Passaglia (1812–87). It aims to show that although the conflict is usually attributed to Passaglia's liberal political ideas, it was actually rooted in his innovative ecclesiological model. In turn the article presents the origin of the conflict, an account of Passaglia's theological point of view and, finally, how Passaglia lived this conflict and the particular form of resistance that he elaborated.

This article presents a transcript and brief analysis of sermon notes by a young lawyer from Derbyshire named Anthony Gell, who attended a sermon by Hugh Latimer in London during the reign of Edward VI. In this forgotten sermon, Latimer discussed the subjects of fasting and clerical education, and recommended the foundation of clerical colleges.