Thomas Asbridge’s profile as a new, upcoming popular historian with a purpose was already significant before his appearance - opposite Tony Robinson - on a programme debunking that Dan Brown book. His acadmic standing is founded upon his timely The First Crusade: a new history; “timely” as it is part of a new wave of research delving into the very definition of “religious conflict” within time itself.
But begging everyone’s pardon, how should we interpret such passages?
Medieval minds were plagued by one overwhelming anxiety: the danger of sin. In death, it was believed, every human soul would be judged [...] This universal obsession, shared by king and peasant alike, shaped all custom, morality and law.
Is this a remnant of the psychologizing of an age reminiscent of E. R. Dodds’ Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety?
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