Excommunication: Did you mean...?

Andreas Karlstadt (also given as Carlstadt, l. 1486-1541) was a reformer, theologian, and early supporter of Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) in the movement that became known as the Protestant Reformation. Karlstadt was one of Luther's...

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns organised by Christian powers in order to retake Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control. There would be eight officially sanctioned crusades between 1095...

The printing press, credited to the German inventor and printer Johannes Gutenberg (l. c. 1398-1468) in the 1450s, became the single most important factor in the success of the Protestant Reformation by...

The Index of Prohibited Books (Index Librorum Prohibitorum) was a list of written works condemned as heretical or injurious to the Christian faith by the Catholic Church at the Council of...

As the Protestant Reformation emerged in France in the early 16th century, the city of Meaux became one of the first centers of controversy. Bishop Guillaume Briçonnet II undertook a campaign to...

Exsurge Domine (“Arise, O Lord” in Latin) is a papal bull issued 15 June 1520 by Pope Leo X (served 1513-1521) condemning Martin Luther’s 95 Theses as heresy along with any other works by Luther or those who supported him. Luther...

A copy of the Declaration of Arbroath. On 6 April 1320 CE a letter was sent to the Pope requesting a withdrawal of Robert the Bruce’s excommunication and the placing of Scotland under an interdict, both applied because...

This beautifully engraved title page from a 1612 edition of the collected works of St. Bede contains a wonderfully stern admonition pasted onto to it at the bottom that threatens excommunication for anyone who might misappropriate...