In church history, the term acephali has been applied to several sects that supposedly had no leader. E. Cobham Brewer wrote, in Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, that acephalites, "properly means men without a head." Jean Cooper wrote, in Dictionary of Christianity, that it characterizes "various schismatical Christian bodies". Among them were Nestorians who rejected the Council of Ephesus’ condemnation of Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople, which deposed Nestorius and declared him a heretic.
In Christianity, an episcopus vagans is a person consecrated, in a "clandestine or irregular way", as a bishop outside the structures and canon law of the established churches; a person regularly consecrated but later excommunicated, and not in communion with any generally recognized diocese; or a person who has in communion with them small groups that appear to exist solely for the bishop's sake. David V. Barrett, in the Encyclopedia of New Religious Movements, specifies that now episcopi vagantes are "those independent bishops who collect several different lines of transmission of apostolic succession, and who will happily consecrate anyone who requests it." Those described as wandering bishops often see the term as pejorative. The general term for "wandering" clerics, as were common in the Middle Ages, is clerici vagantes; the general term for those recognising no leader is acephali.
The Archpoet, or Archipoeta, is the name given to an anonymous 12th-century author of ten medieval Latin poems, the most famous being his "Confession" found in the Carmina Burana manuscript. Along with Hugh Primas of Orléans, he is cited as the best exemplar of Goliardic poetry and one of the stellar poets of the Latin Middle Ages.
The goliards were a group of generally young clergy in Europe who wrote satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries of the Middle Ages. They were chiefly clerics who served at or had studied at the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England, who protested against the growing contradictions within the church through song, poetry and performance. Disaffected and not called to the religious life, they often presented such protests within a structured setting associated with carnival, such as the Feast of Fools, or church liturgy.
The Synod of Elvira was an ecclesiastical synod held at Elvira in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, now Granada in southern Spain. Its date has not been exactly determined but is believed to be in the first quarter of the fourth century, approximately 305–6. It was one of three councils, together with the Synod of Arles (314) and the Synod of Ancyra, that first approached the character of general councils and prepared the way for the first ecumenical council. It was attended by nineteen bishops and twenty-six presbyters, mostly resident in Baetica. Deacons and laymen were also present. Eighty-one canons are recorded, although it is believed that many were added at later dates. All concern order, discipline and conduct among the Christian community. Canon 36, forbidding the use of images in churches, became a bone of contention between Catholic and Protestant scholars after the Protestant Reformation.
The Fifth Council of the Lateran, held between 1512 and 1517, was the eighteenth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church and was the last council before the Protestant Reformation and the Council of Trent. It was convoked by Pope Julius II to restore peace between Catholic rulers and assert the authority of the Pope.
Remigius, was the Bishop of Reims and "Apostle of the Franks". On 25 December 496, he baptised Clovis I, King of the Franks. The baptism, leading to about 3000 additional converts, was an important event in the Christianization of the Franks. Because of Clovis's efforts, a large number of churches were established in the formerly pagan lands of the Frankish empire, establishing a distinct Catholic variety of Christianity for the first time in Germanic lands, most of whom had been converted to Arian Christianity.
The Holland Mission or Dutch Mission was the common name of a Catholic Church missionary district in the Low Countries during and after the Protestant Reformation.
Zacharias Ursinus was a sixteenth-century German Reformed theologian and Protestant reformer, born Zacharias Baer in Breslau. He became the leading theologian of the Reformed Protestant movement of the Palatinate, serving both at the University of Heidelberg and the College of Wisdom. He is best known as the principal author and interpreter of the Heidelberg Catechism.
The Renaissance of the 12th century was a period of many changes at the outset of the High Middle Ages. It included social, political and economic transformations, and an intellectual revitalization of Western Europe with strong philosophical and scientific roots. These changes paved the way for later achievements such as the literary and artistic movement of the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century and the scientific developments of the 17th century.
Gyrovagues were wandering or itinerant monks without fixed residence or leadership, who relied on charity and the hospitality of others.
Henry d'Andeli was a 13th-century Norman poet notable for his work La Bataille des Vins, and for the satirical poem Battle of the Seven Arts. He also wrote Dit du Chancelier Philippe on the subject of his contemporary Philip the Chancellor.
Lambert le Bègue, also called Lambert li Bègues, was a priest and reformer, who lived in Liège, Belgium, in the middle of the 12th century.
Hugh Primas of Orléans was a Latin lyric poet of the 12th century, a scholar from Orléans who was jokingly called Primas, "the Primate", by his friends at the University of Paris. He was probably born in the 1090s and may have died about 1160. Along with his younger contemporary known as the Archpoet, he marks the opening of a new period in Latin literature.
Helen Jane Waddell was an Irish poet, translator and playwright. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal.
Matthew of Vendôme was a French author of the 12th century, writing in Latin, who had been was a pupil of Bernard Silvestris, at Tours, as he himself writes.
The Cambridge Songs are a collection of Goliardic medieval Latin poems found on ten leaves of the Codex Cantabrigiensis, now in Cambridge University Library.
The Wandering Scholar, Op. 50 is a chamber opera in one act by the English composer Gustav Holst, composed 1929–30. The libretto, by Clifford Bax, is based on the book The Wandering Scholars by Helen Waddell.
The Wandering Scholars is a non-fiction book by Helen Waddell, first published in 1927 by Constable, London. It deals primarily with medieval Latin lyric poetry and the main part is a study of the goliards, which she worked on while a research scholar at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. The text includes many of Waddell's own translations of Latin lyrics.
Authentica habita, or Privilegium Scholasticum, was a document written in 1155 ca. by the Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa. In it, he set out for the first time some of the rules, rights and privileges of students and scholars. It is an important precursor to the formation of medieval universities in Europe.
