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Addressing the myriad ways in which heresy accusations could fulfill political aims during the Middle Ages, this collection shows acts of heresy were not just influenced by religion. Essays examine individual cases, in addition to the close relationship of orthodoxy and political dominance in medieval games of power.

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Introduction; Karen Bollermann, Thomas M. Izbicki, and Cary J. Nederman PART I: "RAZING" THE STAKES: PERSONAL TRIALS AND POLITICAL TRIBULATIONS 1. Standing in Abelard´s Shadow: Gilbert of Poitiers, the 1148 Council of Rheims, and the Politics of Ideas; Karen Bollermann and Cary J. Nederman 2. Secular Politics and Academic Condemnation at Oxford, 1358-1411; Andrew E. Larsen 3. ´O Cursed Judas": Formal Heresy Accusations against Jan Hus; Thomas A. Fudge 4. Questions of Due Process and Conviction in the Trial of Joan of Arc; Henry Ansgar Kelly PART II: JOKER´S WILD: MISAPPROPRIATIONS OF ORTHODOXY AND MISREPRESENTATIONS OF HETERODOXY 5. Making a Heresiarch: Guido Terreni´s Attack on Joachim of Fiore;Thomas Turley 6. The Papal Condemnation of Marsilius of Padua´s Defensor Pacis : Its Preparation and Political Use; Frank Godthardt 7. Tarring Conciliarism with the Brush of Heresy: Juan de Torquemada´s Summa de ecclesia ; Thomas M. Izbicki 8. Ockham, Almain, and the Idea of Heresy;Takashi Shogimen PART III: THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS: POWER POLITICS AND THE THREAT OF FORCE 9. Hints and Allegations: The Charge of Infidelity in Papal and Imperial Propaganda, 1239-1245; John Phillip Lomax 10. Autonomy, Dissent, and the Crusade against Fra Dolcino in 14th Century Valsesia; Jerry B. Pierce 11. Religious Dissent in Pre-Modern Islam: Political Usage of Heresy and Apostasy in Nizam al-Mulk and Ibn Taymiyya; Bettina Koch ?

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"These original essays consider key occasions on which accusations and persecutions of heresy in premodern Western Europe possessed strong political as well as doctrinal dimensions. Together, they challenge formidably the argument of the ´persecuting society´ whose driving agency was an ecclesiastical elite, and they open the motives of heresy prosecution to a broader range of social forces. The volume is a major contribution to the lively current scholarship on the subject." - Edward Peters, Henry Charles Lea Professor Emeritus of History, University of Pennsylvania, USA

"Gambling metaphors structure this ground-breaking collection and reflect the chancy nature of political and religious dissent, as well as the book´s own wager that we will profit from a shift in the traditional emphasis on enforcement to the ways in which accusations could be employed, especially to fulfill political aims - from Joan of Arc to Joachim, from Cathars to conciliarism, from Christian concepts of heresy to Muslim notions of apostasy." - Gerald Christianson, Emeritus Professor of Church History, Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary, USA

"The history of heresy in Christian Europe of the Middle Ages was always a complex brew of ideas and politics. Personal connections counted, and so did the property interests of powerful people and orders. This outstanding collection of detailed studies makes it clear that many of the prevailing generalizations about heresy are no longer valid. The final chapter is an eye-opening study of reactions to heterodoxy in the Muslim world of the time: major thinkers there were more worried about apostasy than heresy, but the political dimension was never absent. Some things never change." - John Christian Laursen, Professor of Political Science, University of California, Riverside, USA

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