Doctrinal debate and social control in the Carolingian age: the predestination controversy (840s-60s)
Warren Pezé
This paper reconsiders the impact of public opinion on religious controversies in Carolingian age. Doctrinal debate was by no means limited to elite circles connected with royal and episcopal power. A wider constituency involved, as is shown well-known controversy double predestination (840s–60s). During this debate, monks, rural priests lower clerics read, disputed circulated treatises booklets, questioned authority their superiors. The reaction clerical extension sphere ambivalent. discussion discouraged a discourse self-restraint that emphasized virtue simplicitas, but also disciplinary means. Yet dissent not entirely stifled, so leading churchmen had convince subordinates while officially acknowledging latter equal partners. required complex strategies communication, which only become visible investigating all aspects such doctrinal debates.
Early Medieval Europe