Religious Orders Vol 1

This is the first of a series of volumes which have become recognised as one of the great monuments of English historical scholarship. The late Dom David Knowles began work on the subject in 1929; The Monastic Order in England appeared in 1948, 1955 and 1959. This volume begins the account of a whole way of Christian life and a unique element of English civilisation, from Anglo-Saxon times to the mid-sixteenth century. It opens with a survey of monastic life and activities of the old orders to 1340; goes on to record the impact of the Friars, and concludes with a general survey of the monasteries and their world.

The dissolution of the monasteries in England during the 1530s began a turbulent period of religious restructuring. Focusing on the counties of Wiltshire and Cheshire, Guinn-Chipman looks at the changing nature of religion over the next two centuries.

Sherri Franks Johnson explores the roles of religious women in the changing ecclesiastical and civic structure of late medieval Bologna, demonstrating how convents negotiated a place in their urban context and in the church at large. During this period Bologna was the most important city in the Papal States after Rome. Using archival records from nunneries in the city, Johnson argues that communities of religious women varied in the extent to which they sought official recognition from the male authorities of religious orders. While some nunneries felt that it was important to their religious life to gain recognition from monks and friars, others were content to remain local and autonomous. In a period often described as an era of decline and the marginalization of religious women, Johnson shows instead that they saw themselves as active participants in their religious orders, in the wider church and in their local communities.

This is an important study of elite European noblemen who joined the Order of Malta. The Order - functioning in parallel with the convents that absorbed the surplus daughters of the nobility - provided a highly respectable outlet for sons not earmarked for marriage. The process of becoming a Hospitaller was a semi-structured one, involving clear-cut (if flexible) social and financial requirements on the part of the candidate, and a mixture of formal and informal socialization into the ways of the Order. Once enrolled, a Hospitaller became part of a very hierarchical and ethnically mixed organisation, within which he could seek offices and status. This process was delineated by a complex interaction of internal factors - hierarchy, patriarchy and age - set within external mechanisms such as papal patronage and interference. This book is innovative in its methodology, drawing on a wide range of sources and applying historiographical approaches not previously brought to bear on the Order.

This two-volume set considers the role and significance of religion in post-war Britian, focusing, in particular, upon the closely inter-related themes of the decline of a specifically `Christian Society' and the emergence of a culturally and religiously plural society. Three core questions are examined in depth: to what extent and in what ways has religion remained a significant factor in British culture and society in the period since 1945?, what role does religion play in interpreting and understanding the development of a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society in post-war Britain?, and to what extent has Britain remained (or ceased to be) a `religious society' during this period. Volume 1: Traditions analyses the history and development of the major religious groups present in Britain in the period since 1945. The major religious traditions examined include the traditional Christian churches, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Afro-Caribbean religious groups, New Religious Movements, and the `implicit' religion of the `silent majority' who remain detached from organised religion but are by no means simply secular. Volume 2: Controversies explores some of the challenges, tensions and controversies presented by the emergence of an increasingly religiously plural society in Britain since 1945. In particular, it focuses on the impact of religious pluralism on both the Christian churches and other religious traditions, the relationship between communal and national `identities' and religion, women and religion, and the relationship between religion and changing attitudes to personal - and especially sexual - morality.

Using a variety of sources including chronicles, annals, secular and sacred biographies and monographs on local histories Historical Writing in England by Antonia Gransden offers a comprehensive critical survey of historical writing in England from the mid-sixth century to the early sixteenth century. Based on the study of the sources themselves, these volumes also offer a critical assessment of secondary sources and historiographical development.