Analecta Cartusiana

This book demonstrates that monastic preaching was a diverse activity which included preaching by monks, nuns and heretics. The study offers a preliminary step in understanding how preaching shaped monastic identity in the Middle Ages.

Henry of Lancaster: the Book of holy medicines / M. Teresa Tavormina -- The Middle English Pseudo-Augustinian Soliloquies and its anti-Wycliffite commentary / Robert S. Sturges -- The Gast of Gy / Mona L. Logarbo -- The privity of the passion / Denise N. Baker -- The fifteen oes / Rebecca Krug -- Life of Soul / Paul F. Schaffner -- Symon Wynter: the Life of St. Jerome / Claire Waters -- Appendix: anthology of Middle English texts.

These papers are the proceedings of the fourth international Exeter Symposium. They promote enquiry into, and understanding of, the medieval mystics and the cultural context to which they belong. Here, historians, literary critics, theologians, philosophers and bibliographical scholars explore ways in which the contemplative tradition was mediated and perceived in the very early and very late medieval period, and ask fundamental questions about the nature of contemporary understanding of this subject. CONTRIBUTORS: GEORGE R. KEISER, SUE ELLEN HOLBROOK, WILLIAM F. POLLARD, JAMES HOGG, SANDRA MCENTIRE, ANNE SAVAGE, PETER DINZELBACHER, NICHOLAS WATSON, PETER MOORE, ROBERT K. FORMAN

Richard Methley (ca. 1450–1527/8), a Carthusian of Mount Grace, was the last great mystic before the English Reformation. Most of his prolific works are lost, but the treatises translated here display the same kind of experiential, affective, and ecstatic mysticism that is often labeled "feminine." Dating from the 1480s, they include a guide to contemplative prayer, a spiritual diary, and an unknown work on the discernment of spirits. Indebted to Richard Rolle and compared by one of his contemporaries to Margery Kempe, Methley will be an exciting discovery for students of late medieval religion.

This collection of essays by leading experts in manuscript studies sheds new light on ways to approach medieval texts in their manuscript context. Each contribution provides groundbreaking insight into the field of medieval textual culture, demonstrating the various interconnections between medieval material and literary traditions. The contributors’ work aids reconstruction of the period’s writing practices, as contextual factors surrounding the texts provide clues to the ‘manuscript experience’. Topics such as scribal practice and textual providence, glosses, rubrics, page lay-out, and even page ruling, are addressed in a manner illustrative and suggestive of textual practice of the time, while the volume further considers the interface between the manuscript and early textual communities. Looking at medieval inventories of books no longer extant, and addressing questions such as ownership, reading practices and textual production, Medieval Texts in Context addresses the fundamental interpretative issue of how scribe-editors worked with an eye to their intended audience. An understanding of the world inhabited by the scribal community is made use of to illuminate the rationale behind the manufacture of devotional texts. The combination of approaches to the medieval vernacular manuscript presented in this volume is unique, marking a major, innovative contribution to manuscript studies.

Frana§ois Petit's study of the spirituality of the medieval Premonstratensians (Norbertines), published in the aftermath of the Second World War, remains the definitive treatment of the early centuries of the order of canons founded by Norbert of Xanten in 1121. Petit's attention to the texts, community life, and devotional practice of this Order of Pramontra anticipates recent scholarship in emphasizing the nexus of theology and lived religious experience. It demonstrates both the grandeur of Philip of Harvengt and Adam Scot as spiritual authors and the distinctiveness they share with others in the Norbertine tradition. This English translation renders Petit's magisterial work, long out of print, accessible to a wide international audience. Fr. Frana§ois Petit, O. Praem. (1894-1990), was a canon of Mondaye Abbey in France and also served as prior of Longpont. His numerous books, articles, and textual editions established him as the foremost twentieth-century authority on the history and spirituality of the first generations of Premonstratensians. In 1975, along with Pierre-Marie Pontrua, he founded the Centre d 'Etudes et de Recherches Pramontraes.

This wide-ranging historical survey provides an indispensable resource for those interested in exploring, teaching, or studying English spirituality. In two stand-alone volumes, it traces history from Roman times until the year 2000. The main Christian traditions and a vast range of writers and spiritual themes, from Anglo-Saxon poems to late-modern feminist spirituality, are included. These volumes present the astonishing richness and variety of responses made by English Christians to the call of the divine during the past two thousand years.