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“An abundance of pictorial fancy, after all, furnished the simple mind quite as much matter for deviating from pure doctrine as any personal interpretation of Holy Scripture.”
― Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages

“It was difficult to imagine that a full day hadn't yet passed since we boarded the airliner in New York. I paused. Medieval man believed that one was placed beyond the touch of time, and therefore aging, while attending Mass. What, I wondered, would he have made of those hours we left up in the sky? I would not change my watch until I gave the matter more thought.”
― Tod Wodicka, All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well

“The medieval period based its scriptural exegesis upon the Vulgate translation of the Bible. There was no authorized version of this text, despite the clear need for a standardized text that had been carefully checked against its Hebrew and Greek originals. A number of versions of the text were in circulation, their divergences generally being overlooked. It was not until 1592 than an 'official' version of the text was produced by the church authorities, sensitive to the challenges to the authority of the Vulgate by Renaissance humanist scholars and Protestant theologians.”
― Alister E. McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation

“For the humanists, whatever authority Scripture might possess derived from the original texts in their original languages, rather than from the Vulgate, which was increasingly recognized as unreliable and inaccurate. In that the catholic church continued to insist that the Vulgate was a doctrinally normative translation, a tension inevitably developed between humanist biblical scholarship and catholic theology...Through immediate access to the original text in the original language, the theologian could wrestle directly with the 'Word of God,' unhindered by 'filters' of glosses and commentaries that placed the views of previous interpreters between the exegete and the text. For the Reformers, 'sacred philology' provided the key by means of which the theologian could break free from the confines of medieval exegesis and return ad fontes to the title deeds of the Christian faith rather than their medieval expressions, to forge once more the authentic theology of the early church.”
― Alister E. McGrath, The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation

“The medieval church imposed fast days on which sexual intercourse and the eating of flesh were forbidden, but eating "cold" foods was permitted. because fish came from water, it was deemed cold, as were waterfowl and whale, but meat was considered hot food.”
― Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World

“Over and over again we find the Church councils complaining that the peasants (and sometimes the priests too) were singing 'wicked songs with a chorus of dancing women,' or holding 'ballads and dancings and evil and wanton songs and such-like lures of the devil'; over and over again the bishops forbade these songs and dances; but in vain. In every country in Europe, right through the Middle Ages to the time of the Reformation, and after it, country folk continued to sing and dance in the churchyard. Two hundred years after Charlemagne's death there grew up the legend of the dancers of Kölbigk, who danced on Christmas Eve in the churchyard, in spite of the warning of the priest, and all got rooted to the spot for a year, till the Archbishop of Cologne released them. Some men say that they were not rooted standing to the spot, but that they had to go on dancing for the whole year; and that before they were released they had danced themselves waist-deep into the ground. People used to repeat the little Latin verse which they were singing:
...
Through the leafy forest, Bovo went a-riding
And his pretty Merswind trotted on beside him--
Why are we standing still? Why can't we go away?”
― Eileen Power, Medieval People

“I was striving unto God but
collided with myself. I was seeking rest in my inner recesses but
found tribulation and grief in my inmost being.”
― Anselm of Canterbury, Proslogion

“Como dice Aristóteles, y es cosa verdadera,
el mundo por dos cosas trabaja: la primera,
por tener mantenencia, y la otra cosa era
por haber juntamiento con hembra placentera.

Si lo dijese yo, podríaseme culpar;
dícelo gran filósofo, no se me ha de acusar;
de lo que dice el sabio no debemos dudar,
pues por obra se prueba el sabio y su hablar.

Que dice verdad el sabio claramente se prueba:
hombres, aves, animales, toda bestia de cueva,
quiere, según natura, compaña siempre nueva,
y mucho más el hombre que a toda costa se mueva.

Mucho más digo del hombre que de toda criatura;
todas en tiempo cierto se juntan, por natura;
el hombre, sin seso en todo tiempo y sin mesura,
siempre que puede, quiere hacer esta locura.

El fuego siempre quiere estar en la ceniza,
porque más arde siempre cuanto más se le atiza;
el hombre cuando peca bien ve que se desliza,
mas del mal no se parte, ça natura lo enriza.

Y yo, como soy hombre y, como otro, pecador,
tuve de las mujeres a veces gran amor;
probar hombre las cosas no es portarse peor:
saber el bien y el mal, y escoger lo mejor”
― Arcipreste de Hita, Libro de buen amor

“The phenomenon of Western secularism is unique in history but its leading cause is its revulsion against corrupt and oppressive state churches in Europe. Secularism stands as a parasite on the best of Christian beliefs and a protest against the worst of Christian behavior.”
― Os Guinness, The Magna Carta of Humanity: Sinai's Revolutionary Faith and the Future of Freedom