The essays in this volume offer readers a unique insight into the changing concepts of heresy from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, c.1100 to c.1800. The contributors explore the role of nationalism and linguistic identity in constructions of heresy, its analogies with treason and madness, the role of class and status in the responses to heresy, and provide insights into the roots of the historicization of heresy.

Ian Hunter is a professor at the Centre for the History of European Discourses, University of Queensland, Australia. John Christian Laursen is a professor in the Political Science Department, University of California, Riverside, USA. Cary J. Nederman is a professor in the Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University, USA.

Introduction, Ian Hunter, John Christian Laursen, Cary J. Nederman; Chapter 1 Before the Coming of Popular Heresy: The Rhetoric of Heresy in English Historiography, c. 700-1154, Paul Antony Hayward; Chapter 2 Heresy, Madness and Possession in the High Middle Ages, Sabina Flanagan; Chapter 3 Accusations of Heresy and Error in the Twelfth-Century Schools: The Witness of Gerhoh of Reichersberg and Otto of Freising, Constant J. Mews; Chapter 4 William of Ockham and Conceptions of Heresy, c.1250-c.1350, Takashi Shogimen; Chapter 5 A Heretic Hiding in Plain Sight: The Secret History of Marsiglio of Padua's Defensor Pacis in the Thought of Nicole Oresme, Cary J. Nederman; Chapter 6 Seduced by the Theologians: Aeneas Sylvius and the Hussite Heretics, Thomas A. Fudge; Chapter 7 Heresy Hunting and Clerical Reform: William Warham, John Colet, and the Lollards of Kent, 1511-1512, Craig D'Alton; Chapter 8 Curtailing the Office of the Priest: Two Seventeenth-Century Views of the Causes and Functions of Heresy, Conal Condren; Chapter 9 Historicizing Heresy in the Early German Enlightenment: 'Orthodox' and 'Enthusiast' Variants, Thomas Ahnert; Chapter 10 What is Impartiality? Arnold on Spinoza, Mosheim on Servetus, John Christian Laursen; Chapter 11 Thomasius on the Toleration of Heresy, Ian Hunter; Chapter 12 Exporting Heresiology: Translations and Revisions of Pluquet's Dictionnaire des heresies, Gisela Schluter; Chapter 13 Radical Heretics, Martyrs, or Witnesses of Truth? The Albigenses in Ecclesiastical History and Literature (1550-1850), Sandra Pott;