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Both a religious order and a private army, the Templars were answerable only to the Pope and dominated the politics of the Middle East during the tumultuous age of the Crusades. This book traces the history and changing fortunes of the order, from its foundation in 1119 to its suppression amid accusations of heresy less than two centuries later.

Within 400 years a small Jewish sect became the Roman Empire’s official religion, with 30 million followers. Ehrman investigates why Christianity’s message proved so compelling and highlights the great benefits and losses that resulted from such a monumental cultural transformation.

With 14 essays discussing topics including Thomas Hobbes’s atheism, definitions of blasphemy in the 18th century, and William Wollaston’s The Religion of Nature Delineated (1722), this volume argues that, in the 17th and 18th centuries, the contentious terms ‘atheism’ and ‘deism’ involved fine distinctions that have not always been preserved by later scholars.

Over the course of the 16th century, the House of Guise rose from a provincial power to a dominant political player in France and other parts of Europe. In nine essays, this volume explores the most prominent of the Dukes of Guise, particularly Henry of Lorraine, and the ambition that drove them to make claims on the thrones of Jerusalem and Naples.

Illuminating tensions that lurked within the religious culture of a remote and unremarkable town, this book examines the events that provoked the friary trial of Körmend, when the Augustinian friars of the town were accused of drunkenness, sexual abuse and liturgical negligence, then driven out and replaced by Franciscans in the name of ‘cloister reform’.

As she examines interactions between theology and its social context in early medieval England, Foxhall Forbes uses a diverse range of evidence to demonstrate how theological debate affected the lives, values and personal perspectives of religious and lay people.

Aimed at non-specialist readers, this collection of surveys introduces the diversity and complexity of religious currents across pre-Christian Europe. The contributors examine archaeological and written evidence to analyse beliefs and rituals ranging from the Palaeolithic to the early modern period.

In the late 12th century the chancery clerk, envoy and chronicler Godfrey of Viterbo wrote a series of historical works that gained considerable and lasting popularity. This volume of nine essays provides a systematic survey of the wide readership enjoyed by Godfrey’s works and the influence of his political ideas during the late Middle Ages.

Published in the Catholic Christendom, 1600–1700 series, Smith’s study explores the promotion of one type of fidelity – fealty to the sovereign – in Bourbon France, and the clash of that fealty with the religious creeds of the Lazarists, the followers of Vincent de Paul, in the years after his death in 1660.

Taking a sceptical approach to the traditional story of Islam’s origins, Holland surveys the world of late antiquity, which saw ‘the establishment, for the first time in history, of various brands of monotheism as state religions’. He explores how patterns of thought were altered as an Arab superpower replaced the Roman and Persian empires, with far-reaching consequences for world history.

In this collection of his recent writing, Duffy engages with historians’ growing interest in the material culture and practices by which medieval Christians articulated their convictions. Shedding light on Western religion between the decline of pagan Rome and the Reformation, the 21 essays focus both on physical objects, from relics and images of saints to the mysterious Voynich manuscript, and on responses to such varied phenomena as sacred song, holy war and plague.

In How Do We Look, Mary Beard explores how the human body was portrayed in the earliest art, including the colossal Olmec heads of Central America, Egyptian pharaohs, Chinese warriors and Praxiteles’ Aphrodite in ancient Greece. In Part Two, The Eye of Faith she visits Buddhist temples, Christian art and architecture, and Islamic mosques and calligraphy to explore the relationship between art and religion and the endeavour to make the divine visible.

The Catholic priest Father Allan MacDonald (1859–1905) was not only a much-loved champion of his Hebridean parishioners on Eriskay, but also an accomplished Gaelic poet and one of Scotland's greatest collectors of folklore. Hutchinson's beautifully written book recounts the life and work of this remarkable man against the richly evoked backdrop of an island landscape where myth and spirituality entwine.

In this book accompanying his BBC radio series, the former director of the British Museum explores the role of shared beliefs in the life of human communities around the globe. Rather than focusing on religious doctrine, he concentrates on practices, objects and places, tracing how societies from the Ice Age onwards have used stories and rituals to mark their identity and strengthen cohesion: ‘for in deciding how we live with our gods we also decide how to live with each other’.

Annotated with dates and scriptural references, the 24 maps in this visual guide track the journeys of Biblical characters and indicate the locations of key events, from the time of Noah’s flood to the death of St Paul.

‘Christianity doesn’t abrogate the Old Testament; it completes it.’ Limbaugh presents a reading of the 39 books from Genesis to Malachi, arguing that they offer rich and plentiful insights to help us understand Jesus’ life, deeds and message. After an overview of Old Testament history and key themes such as prophecy, covenants and salvation, he unlocks each book’s mysteries through an analysis of the passages that herald the coming of the Saviour. (Previously published as The Emmaus Code.)

In 1517 Martin Luther, the ‘indispensable firestarter’, launched his 95 theses protesting the sale of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church. From the upheaval of the Reformation that followed, Alec Ryrie’s fast-paced and engaging history traces five centuries of Protestantism, across the globe and across a vast diversity of sects and movements, to Pentecostalism in the 20th century and the situation today. ‘We cannot understand the modern age,’ writes Ryrie, ‘without understanding the dynamic history of Protestant Christianity’.

The son of a famous soldier, Andrew Festing spent nine years in the army and another twelve at Sotheby's auction house before becoming a professional painter in 1981. He quickly established himself as a leading portraitist and has completed commissions of prominent figures in politics, the Church and the Royal Family, including the Queen. This exploration of his oeuvre gives an account of his life and influences, discusses his meticulous methods and includes reproductions of over 150 of his works.

Described by Lord Denning as ‘the greatest constitutional document of all times’, Magna Carta is widely seen as a guarantor of individual rights and freedom from tyranny. But how is a charter forced on a medieval king by his barons relevant today? This comprehensive, accessible and richly illustrated volume explains its origins, how it has been interpreted through the centuries, and the inspiration it provides to those wishing to build democratic societies across the world.

This volume on the revival of women’s ministry in the 19th-century Church of England presents documents from a variety of unpublished sources that show how the Deaconess Movement posed a threat to the gender order of Victorian society by creating new areas of activity and roles of authority outside the domestic sphere. Prominent among the institutions and individuals discussed are the North London Deaconess Institute and the first head deaconess, Elizabeth Ferard (1825–1883). No jacket.

One of Methodism’s earliest traditions was the ‘band meeting’, at which a small group of people came together and confessed their sins, in order to grow in holiness and to foster community. Drawing extensively on personal accounts by those who attended them, Watson explains why Wesley considered regular band meetings so important, shows how they grew from a synthesis of Anglican and Moravian concepts of piety and suggests why they declined during the 19th century.

Amid the dangers of the modern Middle East, adherents of the obscure Mandaean religion still practise weekly river baptisms, following the example of their most important prophet, John the Baptist. Smith investigates the history of the Mandaeans, asking whether their mysterious sect could be the last survival of ancient Gnosticism, as they claim. He also considers their links to other ancient religions, their possible influence on the Knights Templar and their belief that Jesus himself was an apostate Mandaean.

Described by the Financial Times as ‘an excellent antidote to prejudice’, this concise account of Muslim history emphasizes the importance of rethinking the Western mistrust of Islam which dates back to the time of the Crusades. As well as challenging stereotypes and highlighting how the faith has inspired scholars, mystics and poets, it reveals how Islam’s ‘sacralization of history’ means that the religion, its past history and current events are woven together especially closely.

Who was Jesus? This biography draws on modern economic, forensic and psychological models, alongside ancient Roman and Jewish sources, to create a convincing portrait of an adolescent galvanized by tyranny and the displacement of the Galilean peasantry to embark on a mission of social and religious reform. It sets his teachings in their historical context, explains his healing abilities in terms of both ancient and modern medicine, and sheds new light on his betrayal and execution.

Drawing on a wealth of scholarly research and firsthand source material, this is a comprehensive survey of the modern religious world. Encompassing traditional faiths, indigenous religions and new religious movements, the book focuses on the historical development and teachings of each religion and examines how these traditions have evolved into contemporary beliefs and practices. This revised and updated edition also explores new approaches to spirituality, the spread of religious pluralism and the movement towards interfaith dialogue.

An influential work since its first publication in 1984, The Commerce of the Sacred now appears in a new, updated edition. It combines approaches from the history of religions and social anthropology to investigate the practices and influence of Jews who lived in the Greco-Roman world outside Palestine. Without rabbinic control, Lightstone argues, they developed their own beliefs, such as those involving prayers at dead martyrs' tombs, and thereby helped blur the boundaries between Jews and Christians.

'It is more profitable to study the history of the imperfect masters', writes Magre, than those 'so near the gods that they have been enveloped in the clouds of the empyrean'. His compendium of attainable spiritual heroes includes an anonymous master of the Albigenses who succumbs under torture, the Templars, the alchemist Nicolas Flamel and Madame Blavatsky. Translated from the French.

Part of the Manchester Medieval Sources series, this volume presents the Lives of seven 13th century saints from cities including Cremona, Florence, Siena and Lucca, introduced, translated and annotated by Diana Webb. No jacket.

Addressing the religious divide between Europe and America, and the causes of that divide, this study carefully examines European views of America since the late 18th century to explore how transatlantic comparisons and prejudices developed and solidified.