The Formation of a Persecuting Society

The tenth to the thirteenth centuries in Europe saw the appearanceof popular heresy and the establishment of the Inquisition, theexpropriation and mass murder of Jews, and the propagation ofelaborate measures to segregate lepers from the healthy and curtailtheir civil rights. These were traditionally seen as distinct andseparate developments, and explained in terms of the problems whichtheir victims presented to medieval society. In this stimulatingbook, first published in 1987 and now widely regarded as a aclassic in medieval history, R. I. Moore argues that thecoincidences in the treatment of these and other minority groupscannot be explained independently, and that all are part of apattern of persecution which now appeared for the first time tomake Europe become, as it has remained, a persecuting society. In this new edition, R. I. Moore updates and extends hisoriginal argument with a new, final chapter, "A PersecutingSociety". Here and in a new preface and criticalbibliography, he considers the impact of a generation'sresearch and refines his conception of the "persecutingsociety" accordingly, addressing criticisms of the firstedition.