The Age Of The Cloister

Among the most beautiful, spiritual and evocative structures in stone ever built are the medieval monasteries of Europe. The importance of the monastic world, its ideas and ideals, to the rise of Western civilization is second to none. The age of the cloister offers a fascinating overview of the birth and flowering of monasticism, and describes in great detail the everyday monastic life and the faith, literature, economy, architecture and culture of countless monks, hermits, nuns, canons, friars and lay men and women spanning hundreds of years.

Through an examination of the role of nuns and the place of convents in both the spiritual and social landscape, this book analyzes the interaction of gender, religion and society in late medieval and early modern Spain. Author Elizabeth Lehfeldt here examines the tension between religious reform, which demanded that all nuns observe strict enclosure, and the traditional identity of Spanish nuns and their institutions, in which they were spiritually and temporally powerful women. Lehfeldt's work is based on the archival records of twenty-three convents in the city of Valladolid, and peninsula-wide documents that include visitation records, the constitutions of religious orders, and spiritual biographies. Religious Women in Golden Age Spain is the first book-length study in English to pose this chronological and conceptual framework for identifying and analyzing the role of nuns and convents in late-medieval and early-modern Spanish society.

"In this provocative book, Christopher I. Beckwith traces how the recursive argument method was first developed by Buddhist scholars and was spread by them throughout ancient Central Asia. He shows how the method was adopted by Islamic Central Asian natural philosphers - most importantly by Avicenna, one of the most brilliant of all medieval thinkers - and transmitted to the West when Avicenna's works were translated into Latin in Spain in the twelfth century by the Jewish philosopher Ibn Dā'ūd and others. -- Book jacket.

During the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries a group of monks with occult interests donated what became a remarkable collection of more than thirty magic texts to the library of the Benedictine abbey of St. Augustine's in Canterbury. The monks collected texts that provided positive justifications for the practice of magic and books in which works of magic were copied side by side with works of more licit genres. In Magic in the Cloister, Sophie Page uses this collection to explore the gradual shift toward more positive attitudes to magical texts and ideas in medieval Europe. She examines what attracted monks to magic texts, works, and how they combined magic with their intellectual interests and monastic life. By showing how it was possible for religious insiders to integrate magical studies with their orthodox worldview, Magic in the Cloister contributes to a broader understanding of the role of magical texts and ideas and their acceptance in the late Middle Ages.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR “Vivid, compelling... An embrace of moral and spiritual contemplation.” –The New York Times “A remarkable piece of writing. If read with humility and attention, Kathleen Norris's book becomes lectio divina, or holy reading.” –The Boston Globe From the iconic author of Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, a spiritual journey that brings joy to the meanings of love, grace and faith. Why would a married woman with a thoroughly Protestant background and often more doubt than faith be drawn to the ancient practice of monasticism, to a community of celibate men whose days are centered on a rigid schedule of prayer, work, and scripture? This is the question that poet Kathleen Norris asks us as, somewhat to her own surprise, she found herself on two extended residencies at St. John's Abbey in Minnesota. Part record of her time among the Benedictines, part meditation on various aspects of monastic life, The Cloister Walk demonstrates, from the rare perspective of someone who is both an insider and outsider, how immersion in the cloistered world-- its liturgy, its ritual, its sense of community-- can impart meaning to everyday events and deepen our secular lives. In this stirring and lyrical work, the monastery, often considered archaic or otherworldly, becomes immediate, accessible, and relevant to us, no matter what our faith may be.

Sacred architecture as reality and metaphor in secularised Western society Christian monasteries and convents, built throughout Europe for the best part of 1,500 years, are now at a crossroads. This study attempts to understand the sacred architecture of monasteries as a process of the tangible and symbolic organisation of space and time for religious communities. Despite the weight of seemingly immutable monastic tradition, architecture has contributed to developing specific religious identities and played a fundamental part in the reformation of different forms of religious life according to the changing needs of society. The cloister is the focal point of this book because it is both architecture, a physically built reality, and a metaphor for the religious life that takes place within it. Life Inside the Cloister also addresses the afterlife and heritagisation of monastic architecture in secularised Western society.

Life in the Medieval Cloister makes extensive use of primary sources and quotations from chronicles, letters, customaries and miracle stories, and the experience of medieval monastic life is presented through the monks' own words. Medievalist Julie Kerr provides day to day account of life in the medieval monastery from the Norman conquest to the Dissolution, with a particular focus on the high Middle ages, exploring such questions as: What effect did the ascetic lifestyle have on the monks' physical health and mental well-being? How difficult was it for newcomers to adapt to the rigors of the cloister? Did the monks suffer from anxiety and boredom; what caused them concern and how did they seek comfort? What did it really mean to live the solitary life within a communal environment and how significant were issues of loneliness and isolation? Life in the Medieval Cloister makes an important contribution to our understanding of medieval monastic life by exploring key aspects that have been either inadequately addressed or overlooked by historians, but also offers an up close and personal perspective on a fascinating, but little known, corner of history.

An adventurous novel of Renaissance times in Germany, Italy, and the Low Countries.