Description

Mandell Creighton's five-volume study of the papacy during the Reformation was first published between 1882 and 1894. Lytton Strachey paid an indirect compliment to Creighton's work by remarking that 'the biscuit is certainly dry; but at any rate there are no weevils'. Creighton (1843-1901) was an academic and an ordained Anglican. Having studied at Oxford and spent time in the parish of Embleton in Northumberland, he was appointed the first Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge, became Bishop of Peterborough and ended his career as Bishop of London. Beginning with the 'Babylonian Captivity of the Popes' in Avignon, this work examines intellectual and political developments in the church during the Renaissance period, ending with the papacy's reaction to the Protestant Reformation (as embodied by Martin Luther), the sack of Rome, and Clement VII's flight to Orvieto in 1527.