Thomas F. Madden Audio

As the world entered the modern age, the Catholic Church faced new challenges to its authority, both from without and within. As one of the planet's oldest institutions, the Church had already survived sixteen centuries, but as winds of change altered the global landscape, the Church's very existence would be called into question.

Esteemed history professor Thomas F. Madden explores the reformations that swept across Christendom in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Even millennia after its fall, the grand expanse of Roman achievement continues to affect not only American society, but the entire world as well. What caused a civilization of such accomplishments to disintegrate?

In this epic course, esteemed university professor Thomas F. Madden offers a fascinating history of the remarkable culture and state that developed out of the ancient Roman Empire, particularly its eastern portion, throughout the Middle Ages.

In Empires of Trust, Professor Thomas F. Madden explores surprising parallels between the Roman and American republics.

Entrusting the apostles to continue the work he had started by instructing them to "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...," Jesus kindled the fires of a new religion in a world largely dominated by polytheism, cult leader worship, and mysticism.

As late as 1518, plans were laid by Pope Leo X and the monarchs of Europe to set aside their internal quarrels and once more embark on a holy crusade to wrest the Middle East from the Ottoman Turks.

For many, the Inquisition conjures Gothic images of cloaked figures and barbarous torture chambers. So enmeshed is this view of the Inquisition in popular culture that such scenes play out even in comedies such as Mel Brooks' History of the World and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Even millennia after its fall, the grand expanse of Roman achievement continues to affect not only American society, but the entire world as well. What caused a civilization of such accomplishments to disintegrate?

An award-winning, widely recognized expert on pre-modern history, Professor Thomas F. Madden concludes this two-part series on the medieval world.

Part three is a richly detailed look at St. Augustine, Beowulf, St. Thomas Aquinas, Authurian legends, Dante, Gothic art, and other highlights of the period.

Part four provides a close look at the period from the Renaissance to the Scientific Revolution and into the early Enlightenment.

Renowned professor Thomas F. Madden turns his scholarly eye on the intrigue and politics swirling about the Medieval Church.

Esteemed university professor and best-selling author Thomas F. Madden presents an intriguing series of lectures based on a fascinating premise: that the United States has more in common with the rising Roman Republic than with the declining Roman Empire.

In this compelling series of lectures, widely esteemed author and professor Thomas F. Madden illustrates how the papacy, the world's oldest institution, gave birth to the West.