Since the 1980s the British scholar Francis Clark has challenged the traditional attribution of the Dialogues on the miracles of the Italian Fathers to Pope Gregory the Great (590–604). While Clark's thesis has generally been rejected by experts, it retains considerable persuasive force for those new to the field. This paper focuses on the misplaced intuitive foundation of Clark's thesis and points to the enthusiasm exhibited by Gregory the Great for the miracles of the saints in several understudied letters from his Registrum epistolarum. It particularly highlights Gregory's discussion of four miracles performed by St Andrew the Apostle at Rome in ep. 11.xxvi written to the patrician Rusticiana at Constantinople in 601. It concludes that there is no discrepancy in mentalité between Gregory as author of the Dialogues and his other recognised works.

Medieval funerals combined the accumulation of merit for the soul of the deceased with social display. During the late medieval period funerary practice became more elaborate, formalised and expensive, a reflection of its eschatological and social importance. An extended funeral lasting several weeks, comprising a vigil, procession, liveried mourners, a hearse, heraldic elements, almsgiving and a feast, developed. Several of these elements were repeated a week, a month and a year after death. The late medieval higher clergy shared the same funeral culture as the wealthy laity but with significant differences, particularly greater liturgical sophistication and more generous charity.

John Wyclif (d. 1384), Thomas Netter (d. 1430) and Jean Gerson (d. 1429) had a good deal in common. They were all theologians, and thus ‘masters of the sacred page’ by trade. They all recognised the absolute authority of Scripture in matters of the Catholic faith over and against any pretensions of canon law. What separated them, therefore, was not the recognition of authority as such, but rather the correct application of that authority. Wyclif exercised his rights as a university master to dissent from ecclesiastical determinations that ran contrary to the truth as revealed in Scripture. Netter and Gerson set out to curb this sort of magisterial excess which they believed would inevitably lead to the destruction of all proper norms of authority within the Church. Rather than being a simple tale of heresy and orthodoxy, therefore, this late medieval conflict turned on the question of professional expertise, rights and responsibilities.

Luther's hermeneutical principles labelled ‘the theology of the cross’, developed in his ‘Heidelberg theses’ of 1518, continued to guide his formulation of biblical teaching throughout his career. In lectures on the Psalms of ascent (1532–3), under quite different circumstances, Luther claimed again that ‘Our theology is a theology of the cross’. Five elements of his Heidelberg theologia crucis guided his interpretation in these lectures. The distinction of the hidden and the revealed God, the focus on Christ's atoning sacrifice for sin, the reliance on faith in God's Word rather than human reason, God's working ‘under the appearance of opposites’ and the suffering involved in battling Satan shape his treatment of many passages in the lectures on Psalms cxx–cxxxiv.

This article explores the impact of Catholic confessionalism on humanist scholarship by focusing on the edition of Augustine of Hippo's collected works produced by the Leuven theologians in 1577–8. This edition replaced Erasmus' controversial version and claimed to provide an authoritative, Catholic text. Yet an analysis of the paratextual presentation shows that the result was a neutralised Augustine, rather than a paragon of Tridentine Catholicism. The editors avoid controversial theology, while silently copying substantial parts of Erasmus' censurae and marginal notes. Local politics and publishing interests explain the intriguing survival of Erasmus and exemplify the disparate implementation of Trent in Catholic Europe.

There were obvious tensions inherent in the fact that in nineteenth-century Ireland, while the majority of the population was Catholic, the state religion was Protestant. This had numerous effects on Irish political and social history, including the administration of the poor law. This article looks at one of the religious issues involved in the operation of the poor law: the registration of children (of unknown religion) on admission to the workhouse. The Irish attorney-general had ruled that they should be registered as Protestant. However, local boards of guardians often objected strongly to this. This article outlines and analyses the struggles which took place between the different interests involved.

This article examines the mindset and episcopal policy of George Ridding, first bishop of the new diocese of Southwell from 1884 until his death in 1904. Ridding's intellectual formation was rooted in Liberal Anglicanism, and is analysed here through his ‘Broad Church’ understanding of the Church of England as a comprehensive national Church. His commitment to this ideal is demonstrated through his episcopal charges and speeches, and through elements of the policy of diocesan management that he adopted. A brief evaluation of this policy identifies limitations, as well as continuity with the earlier movement of diocesan reform.