Abstract
Much of life in the Middle Ages is no more explicable than contemporary society. Issues of fate and chance appear to dominate daily life in the medieval period and questions around cause and effect flounder on the shoals of coincidence and luck. The wheel of fortune continued to turn and the literary demon Titivillus recorded every event and every word while maintaining comprehensive records for the day of judgement. Beneath the shifting sands of fate and fortune were ideas of order, divine will, religious conviction, and practice. Fear and anxiety were not allayed by the church and this book has argued that metahistorical explanations cannot suffice. Churches and religious houses were in fact only one facet of religious beliefs and practices in medieval Europe.
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Fudgé, T.A. (2016). The Fickle Hand of Fate. In: Medieval Religion and its Anxieties. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56610-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56610-2_10
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-57077-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56610-2
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