The World Of Medieval Monasticism

This book surveys the full panorama of ten centuries of Christian monastic life. It moves from the deserts of Egypt and the Frankish monasteries of early medieval Europe to the religious ruptures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the reforms of the later Middle Ages. Throughout that story the book balances a rich sense of detail with a broader synthetic view. It presents the history of religious life and its orders as a complex braid woven from multiple strands: individual and community, spirit and institution, rule and custom, church and world. The result is a synthesis that places religious life at the center of European history and presents its institutions as key catalysts of Europe’s move toward modernity.

Hugh Lawrence's book ranges right across Europe and the Middle East as well as reconstructing the internal life, experience and aims of the medieval cloister, he also explores the many-sided relationships between the monasteries and the secular world from which they drew recruits. This Third Edition contains new thoughts and perspectives throughout.

Hugh Lawrence's book ranges right across Europe and the Middle East as well as reconstructing the internal life, experience and aims of the medieval cloister, he also explores the many-sided relationships between the monasteries and the secular world from which they drew recruits. This Third Edition contains new thoughts and perspectives throughout.

There has long been a tendency among monastic historians to ignore or marginalize female participation in monastic life, but recent scholarship has begun to redress the balance, and the great contributions made by women to the religious life of the Middle Ages are now attracting increasing attention. This interdisciplinary volume draws together scholars from Spain, Italy, France, the Low Countries, Germany, Transylvania, Scandinavia, and the British Isles, and offers new insights into the history, art history, and material culture, and the religiosity and culture of medieval religious women. The different chapters within this book take a comparative approach to the emergence and spread of female monastic communities across different geographical, political, and economic settings, comparing and contrasting houses that ranged from rich, powerful royal abbeys to small, subsistence priories on the margins of society, and exploring the artistic achievements, the interaction with neighbours and secular and ecclesiastical authorities, and the spiritual lives that were led by their inhabitants. The contributors to this volume address issues as diverse as patronage and relationships with the outside world, organizational structures, the nature of Cistercian observance and identity among female houses, and the role of male authority, and in doing so, they seek to shed light on the divergences and commonalities upon which the female religious life was based.

This is the first book to focus on Latin epic verse saints' lives in their medieval historical contexts. Anna Taylor examines how these works promoted bonds of friendship and expressed rivalries among writers, monasteries, saints, earthly patrons, teachers, and students in Western Europe in the central middle ages. Using philological, codicological, and microhistorical approaches, Professor Taylor reveals new insights that will reshape our understanding of monasticism, patronage, and education. These texts give historians an unprecedented glimpse inside the early medieval classroom, provide a nuanced view of the complicated synthesis of the Christian and Classical heritages, and show the cultural importance and varied functions of poetic composition in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries.

Hugh Lawrence's book ranges right across Europe and the Middle East as well as reconstructing the internal life, experience and aims of the medieval cloister, he also explores the many-sided relationships between the monasteries and the secular world from which they drew recruits.

This book celebrates the work and contribution of Professor Janet Burton to medieval monastic studies in Britain. Burton has fundamentally changed approaches to the study of religious foundations in regional contexts (Yorkshire and Wales), placing importance on social networks for monastic structures and female Cistercian communities in medieval Britain; moreover, she has pioneered research on the canons and their place in medieval English and Welsh societies. This Festschrift comprises contributions by her colleagues, former students and friends – leading scholars in the field – who engage with and develop themes that are integral to Burton’s work. The rich and diverse collection in the present volume represents original work on religious life in the British Isles from the twelfth to the sixteenth century as homage to the transformative contribution that Burton has made to medieval monastic studies in the British Isles.

From the deserts of Egypt to the emergence of the great monastic orders, the story of late antique and medieval monasticism in the West used to be straightforward. But today we see the story as far 'messier' - less linear, less unified, and more historicized. In the first part of this book, the reader is introduced to the astonishing variety of forms and experiences of the monastic life, their continuous transformation, and their embedding in physical, socio-economic, and even personal settings. The second part surveys and discusses the extensive international scholarship on which the first part is built. The third part, a research tool, rounds off the volume with a carefully representative bibliography of literature and primary sources.