The History Of Franciscan Theology

Demonstrates the innovativeness of early Franciscan theology, contesting the longstanding view that it simply rehearses the views of earlier authorities.

The book investigates the aesthetic theology embedded in the Franciscan artistic tradition. The novelty of the approach is in applying concepts gleaned from Franciscan textual sources to create a deeper understanding of how art in all its sensual forms was foundational to the Franciscan milieu. Chapters range from studies of statements about aesthetics and the arts in theological textual sources to examples of visual, auditory, and tactile arts communicating theological ideas found in texts. The essays cover not only European art and textual sources, but also Franciscan influences in the Americas found in both texts and artifacts.

The book explores the manuscripts written, read, and studied by Franciscan friars from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries in Northern Italy, and specifically Padua, assessing four key aspects: ideal, space, form and readership. The ideal is studied through the regulations that determined what manuscripts should aim for. Space refers to the development and role of Franciscan libraries. The form is revealed by the assessment of the physical configuration of a set of representative manuscripts read, written, and manufactured by the friars. Finally, the study of the readership shows how Franciscans were skilled readers who employed certain forms of the manuscript as a portable, personal library, and as a tool for learning and pastoral care. By comparing the book collections of Padua's reformed and unreformed medieval Franciscan libraries for the first time, this study reveals new features of the ground-breaking cultural agency of medieval friars.

To celebrate the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Franciscan Order, Franciscan scholar and historian Dominic Monti tells us the beautiful and inspirational story of Francis of Assisi and his followers—the Order of Friars Minor, or the Lesser Brothers—from its beginnings to current times. This history emphasizes not only the medieval developments of the world's most beloved band of men but also the internal evolution and mission efforts of the friars during the modern period, from the sixteenth century to the present. Monti gives particular emphasis to the history of the order in the English-speaking world: first England and Ireland and then North America and the twentieth-century expansion of the order to other English-speaking countries. Chapter topics include: medieval Christian society; the First Lesser Brothers; expansion and transformation of the Order; the Franciscan mission; internal crisis in the Order; Observants and Conventuals; friars during the Reformation and Baroque Eras; mission to the world; the challenges of modernity; Franciscans in the United States, Canada and Australia; rebuilding the Order in Europe; and recovering a charism.

A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology presents for the first time in English key passages from the Summa Halensis, one of the first major installments in the summa genre for which scholasticism became famous. This systematic work of philosophy and theology was collaboratively written mostly between 1236 and 1245 by the founding members of the Franciscan school, such as Alexander of Hales and John of La Rochelle, who worked at the recently founded University of Paris. Modern scholarship has often dismissed this early Franciscan intellectual tradition as unoriginal, merely systematizing the Augustinian tradition in light of the rediscovery of Aristotle, paving the way for truly revolutionary figures like John Duns Scotus. But as the selections in this reader show, it was this earlier generation that initiated this break with precedent. The compilers of the Summa Halensis first articulated many positions that eventually become closely associated with the Franciscan tradition on issues like the nature of God, the proof for God’s existence, free will, the transcendentals, and Christology. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the ways in which medieval thinkers employed philosophical concepts in a theological context as well as the evolution of Franciscan thought and its legacy to modernity. A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology is available from the publisher on an open-access basis.