Defining the Holy

Holy sites - churches, monasteries, shrines - defined religious experience and were fundamental to the geography and social history of medieval and early modern Europe. How were these sacred spaces defined? How were they created, used, recognized and transformed? And to what extent did these definitions change over the course of time and in particular as a result of the changes wrought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Taking a strongly interdisciplinary approach, this volume tackles these questions, by considering the fundamental interaction between the sacred and the profane.