How to be an Atheist in Medieval Europe

00:00 // Did Atheism Exist Before the Enlightenment? Introduction
01:08 // Rethinking the Murder Mystery: Who Killed God?
02:38 // Medieval Unbelief: Evidence Before the Philosophers
04:09 // Why Ideas Follow People — Not the Other Way Around
06:23 // Meet the Medieval Atheists: Frederick II & The Three Impostors
09:29 // What Did "Atheism" Even Mean in the Middle Ages?
11:53 // Blasphemy, Taverns & the Spaces Where Doubt Lived
18:04 // Mortalism: The Medieval Belief That the Soul Dies With the Body
23:26 // The Renaissance & the Rediscovery of Lucretius
36:17 // Machiavelli: Religion as a Political Tool
44:28 // Erasmus & the Dangerous Seeds of Secular Ethics

There was no intellectually sophisticated or articulate 'atheism' in the Middle Ages, but there was plenty of raw scepticism and incredulity. Church courts regularly heard blasphemy cases which went as far as outright denial of God.

This lecture will take a tour of medieval unbelief, showing how and why some medieval people defied the powerful orthodoxies of their day: fired not by intellectual or philosophical doubts but by suspicion that 'God' was being used to swindle and manipulate them.

This lecture was recorded by Professor Alec Ryrie FBA on the 27th of September 2018

Alec Ryrie was Gresham Professor of Divinity. He is also Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University, Co-Editor of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History and President of the Church of England Record Society. From 2015-17 he was Visiting Professor in the History of Religion at Gresham College and gave two series of lectures on the history of Protestant Christianity. In 2019 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

He studied History as an undergraduate, at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, before completing a Master's in Reformation Studies at St. Andrews and a D.Phil. in Theology at St. Cross College, Oxford. From 1999-2006 he taught at the University of Birmingham, moving to Durham in 2007. He was Head of the Department of Theology and Religion from 2012-15 and a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow from 2015-18. He is on the editorial boards of St Andrews Studies in Reformation History (Ashgate) and the Royal Historical Society's New Historical Perspectives. Since 1997 he has been a Reader in the Church of England, and he is licenced to the parish of Shotley St. John (diocese of Newcastle).

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: gresham.ac.uk/speakers/professor-alec-ryrie

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