Courtesy books were especially popular in England in the fifteenth-century, but though they were numerous in number, this particular example, "A General Rule", is unique in that no other treatise corresponds to it closely. Translated from "MS. Addl. 37969", it is a guide to manners and duties, including instructions on conduct and demeanour, plus many practical hints on how to serve a "lorde or mayster". Also included are "The Thirde Order of Seynt Fraceys" and "The Rewle of Sustris Menouresses" - two medieval religious Rules, or handbooks. Presented here, un-modernised, in their original form, these guides make fascinating reading and give true insight into the aspects of medieval life and manners.

Franciscan spirituality, with its characteristic simplicity, joy, openness and welcome to all, compassionate action and love for creation - all undergirded by prayer and study, offers as compelling a vision for today's world as when Francis of Assisi first responded to God's call over 800 years ago. For all seeking inspiration for living the Franciscan charism today, this lively and informed guide introduces its key figures and essential writings. The author, an Anglican Franciscan friar and theologian, draws out the movement's core teachings from its founding figures and its earliest texts: * Francis and the essence of prayer and reconciliation with all created things; * Clare of Assisi and contemplative practice; * Giles of Assisi, solitude, storytelling and spiritual direction; * Bonaventure, study and spiritual wisdom * Angela of Foligno and mystical experience; * Jacapone da Todi and praise in poetry and song. Intended as an introduction to living the Franciscan charism today, this also includes a reader's guide with questions for personal or group discussion.

First published in France, where it was awarded the Prix Chateaubriand, this masterful new biography of Francis is now available in English In this towering work, Andre Vauchez draws on the vast body of scholarship on Francis of Assisi produced over the past forty years as well on as his own expertise in medieval hagiography to tell the most comprehensive and authoritative version of Francis's life and afterlife published in the past half century. After a detailed and yet engaging reconstruction of Francis's life and work, Vauchez focuses on the myriad texts-hagiographies, chronicles, sermons, personal testimonies, etc.-of writers who recorded aspects of Francis's life and movement as they remembered them, and used those remembrances to construct a portrait of Francis relevant to their concerns. We see varying versions of his life reflected in the work of Machiavelli, Luther, Voltaire, German and English romantics, pre-Raphaelites, Italian nationalists, and Mussolini, and discover how peace activists, ecologists, or interreligious dialogists have used his example to promote their various causes. Particularly noteworthy is the attention Vauchez pays to Francis's own writings, which strangely enough have been largely overlooked by later interpreters. The product of a lifetime of study, this book reveals a historian at the height of his powers.

John-Francis Friendship spent twenty-five years as an Anglican Franciscan friar. Drawing on the whole breadth of monastic history and experience, he looks at core aspects of monastic and religious life and applies its practical wisdom for living well in today's world. Chapters include: * Knowing your heart's desire and pursuing it; * Counter-cultural living - the spirit of poverty, chastity and obedience; * Clothing yourself in Christ - getting into holy habits; * Living in community - how to get along together; * God in all things - seeing the whole world as divine; * For the sake of the kingdom - serving those in need; * Living with thanksgiving - shaping the eucharistic life. What Do You Seek? draws on spiritual wisdom accumulated over the centuries to offer inspiration and courage for living with integrity and hope today.

One day, two men with a wheelbarrow settled on this block of land and laid out a farm, built a small house and planted some vines.170 years later, one of the outstanding wineries in the region and historic buildings that include a gracious church and spiritual retreat centre are the results of their efforts.This book tells the story of their struggle and their legacy. It is about Sevenhill Cellars in the Clare Valley of South Australia, as well as the Jesuits and their mission at Sevenhill, which once extended for hundreds of kilometres and now reaches beyond Australia.

What are the ecclesiological challenges and opportunities raised by technology? How have developments related to the COVID-19 global health crisis impacted churches, forcing a swift move to mediated and online worship? And how will this change the shape churches of theological and programmatic choices for years to come? Drawing together a diverse group of theologians and media scholars, this volume considers the key theological question churches and religious leaders need to engage with as they look towards long term strategies involving church life and technology.

A bew interpretation of the role of the visual arts in the spiritual lives of women in late medieval monastic communities. The Visual and the Visionary adds a new dimension to the study of female spirituality, with its nuanced account of the changing roles of images in medieval monasticism from the twelfth century to the Reformation. In nine essays embracing the histories of art, religion, and literature, Jeffrey Hamburger explores the interrelationships between the visual arts and female spirituality in the context of the cura monialium, the pastoral care of nuns. Used as instruments of instruction and inspiration, images occupied a central place in debates over devotional practice, monastic reform, and mystical expression. Far from supplementing a history of art from which they have been excluded, the images made by and for women shaped that history decisively by defining novel modes of religious expression, above all, the relationship between sight and subjectivity. With this book, the study of female piety and artistic patronage becomes an integral part of the general history of medieval art and spirituality.

This narrative of events between the years 1173 and 1202--as recorded by Jocelin of Brakelond, a monk who lived in the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, in the region of West Suffolk--affords many unique insights into the life of a medieval religious community. It depicts the daily worship in the abbey church and the beliefs and values shared by the monks, as well as the whispered conversations, rumors, and disagreements within the cloister--and the bustling life of the market-town of Bury, just outside the abbey walls. This edition offers the first modern translation from the Latin to appear since 1949.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Malcolm Barber's classic The Trial of the Templars recounts the dramatic demise of this elite military force in the fourteenth century. Having fought against Islam in the crusades in the East for nearly two centuries, in October 1307 the members of this respected Order were arrested on the order of Philip IV, King of France, and charged with serious heresies, including homosexuality and the denial of Christ. Finding resonances between the fourteenth-century trial and contemporary events, Barber's classic account endeavours to tackle the unresolved controversies surrounding the consequences of the trial, and includes discussions in the context of new work on the crusades, heresy, the papacy and the French monarchy.

Shenoute the Great (c.347-465) led one of the largest Christian monastic communities in late antique Egypt and was the greatest native writer of Coptic in history. For approximately eight decades, Shenoute led a federation of three monasteries and emerged as a Christian leader. His public sermons attracted crowds of clergy, monks, and lay people; he advised military and government officials; he worked to ensure that his followers would be faithful to orthodox Christian teaching; and he vigorously and violently opposed paganism and the oppressive treatment of the poor by the rich. This volume presents in translation a selection of his sermons and other orations. These works grant us access to the theology, rhetoric, moral teachings, spirituality, and social agenda of a powerful Christian leader during a period of great religious and social change in the later Roman Empire.

Spanish colonization of Latin America in the sixteenth century continues to provoke scholarly debate. Spanish missionaries employed various strategies to convert indigenous inhabitants to the Catholic faith, including operating schools, organizing choirs, and establishing charitable brotherhoods known as confraternities. In Charity for and by the Poor, Laura Dierksmeier investigates how the reformed Franciscans' commitment to evangelizing Mexico gave rise to an extensive network of local confraternities and their respective care institutions. She finds that these local groups were the chief welfare providers for the indigenous people during the early colonial period and were precursors of the modern social security system. Dierksmeier shows how the Franciscan missionary imperative to promote the works of mercy and charity inspired the goals, governance, and operations of indigenous confraternities, their hospital and orphan care, and their contributions to the moral economy, including releasing debt prisoners and lending money to the poor. Focusing on the inner logic and daily practices of indigenous confraternities, Charity for and by the Poor highlights their far-reaching effects on Mexican society. Dierksmeier argues that confraternities are best studied within the religious framework that established them, and she does so by analyzing confraternity record books, lawsuits, last wills, missionary correspondence, and parish records from archives in Mexico, Spain, the United States, and Germany. The confraternity became an essential institution for protecting the indigenous population during epidemics, for integrating the various indigenous classes from the former Aztec Empire into the emerging social order, and for safeguarding indigenous self-governance within religious spheres. Most notably, Franciscan-established confraternities built social structures in which the poor were not only recipients of assistance but also, through their voluntary participation, self-empowered agents of community care. In this way, charity was provided for and by the poor.

Using vignettes set in or near his monastery in downtown Newark, New Jersey, Benedictine monk Albert Holtz helps us to see that the Easter mystery, which can often seem abstract and distant, is in fact present all around us. As we accompany him through the fifty days of the Easter season, we listen in on his intriguing interactions with local street people and his inner-city high school students-an insider's look at what goes on in a monk's heart as he chants Vespers to the sound of police sirens. Anyone wishing to deepen his or her experience of the Easter mystery will find this a valuable and engaging book.

Seeking insight from the real-life development of the earliest expressions of emerging church from their birth, through times of adolescent angst and into the reality of adulthood, this book offers a unique insight into the long-term sustainability of fresh expressions. Presenting the lived practice of the church in mission through a longitudinal lens, and eschewing the rose-tinted approach, it considers the reality of emerging churches - their birth and death, their creativity and conflict, their dreams and despair. A picture of a church that is neither gathered and parish nor independent and networked emerges as the biographies of mission are brought into dialogue with a very ancient expression of mission, the birth of Philippians as a first expression of church in Europe..

Thomas Merton's deep roots in his own Cistercian tradition are on display in the two sets of conferences on the early days of the Order included in the present volume. The first surveys the relevant monastic background that led up to the foundation of the Abbey of Citeaux in 1098 and goes on to consider the contributions of each of the first three abbots of the "New Monastery" that would become the epicenter of the most dynamic religious movement of the early twelfth century. The second set investigates the arc of medieval Cistercian history in the two centuries following the death of Saint Bernard, in which the Order moves from being ahead of its time, in its formative stages, to being representative of its time in its most powerful and influential phase, to becoming regressive with the rise of new religious currents that begin to flow in the thirteenth century. Merton stresses the need to respect the complexity of the actual lived reality of Cistercian life during this period, to "beware of easy generalizations" and instead consider the full range of factual data. The result is a richly nuanced picture of the development of early Cistercian life and thought that serves as a fitting concluding volume to the series of Merton's novitiate conferences providing a thorough "Initiation into the Monastic Tradition."

2020 Association of Catholic Publishers second place award in general interest. In this volume, Br. John Mark Falkenhain, OSB, a Benedictine monk and clinical psychologist, provides a well-researched and thorough program for celibacy formation for men and women, adaptable to both religious and seminary settings. Attending to the theological and the psycho-sexual dimensions of what it means to pursue a life of chaste celibacy, Br. John Mark identifies and expands on four major content areas, including motives for chaste celibacy, theological aspects of celibate chastity, sexual identity, and skills for celibate living. Formation goals and benchmarks for discernment are discussed for each content area, and implications and suggestions for ongoing formation are offered.

Around the year 500 St Benedict wrote a short guide for a small community who wanted to live together the balanced life of body, mind and spirit. The Rule of St Benedict became not only the foundational guide for monastic life in the West, but remains a potent spiritual resource that speaks authentically to countless individuals today. Fr Laurence Freeman OSB has described the text as the most important document for Christian living after the Bible. In this reflective commentary, Esther de Waal recognises the profoundly scriptural emphasis of St Benedict's writings. She shows how his Rule may be read personally and prayerfully by people such as herself seeking practical encouragement and support in their following of Christ.

Between 1864 and 1867 Fanny Taylor made many trips to Ireland and Irish Homes and Irish Hearts (1867) is eye-witness account of her visits to the many Irish Catholic religious orders and their institutions: these include Magdalene homes, reform schools, lunatic asylums, orphanages, workhouses, infirmaries and schools. As with her earlier book Eastern Hospitals and English Nurses (1856) on her experiences nursing in the Crimea with both Florence Nightingale and the Irish Sisters of Mercy, Irish Homes and Irish Hearts was an immediate bestseller and was re-printed several times through the nineteenth century. Indeed the Dublin Review of Books, 1867, said that 'The chapter in which she sums up the result of her observations is truly admirable. It might serve for a small text-book of "the Irish question".' While Irish Homes and Irish Hearts is a relatively uncritical study of the philanthropic and educational activities of the Irish religious orders from the perspective of a well-informed outsider, it remains a valuable source of information for mid-nineteenth-century Irish social and religious history.

This is the first book in English on priesthood in religious life to be published in twenty years. Its fourteen contributors search for new ways forward in the understanding of the distinct identity and ministry of religious men-committed to community, the prophetic lifestyle of vows or promises, and the particular charisms of their congregations-who have also answered the call to priesthood. Essays in this collection include reflections from a bishop, from the perspective of a lay theologian, from an expert in the social sciences, and on Pope Francis's teachings on priesthood. Included as well are essays that are rooted in particular cultural traditions, in spirituality, and in canon law.

This volume, written by eighteen monks, nuns, and lay scholars from seven countries and four continents, aims to recognize the contribution that Michael Casey has made to Cistercian and Benedictine life over the past forty years. Acclaimed as one of the most significant writers in the Benedictine and Cistercian tradition, Casey has published over one hundred articles and reviews in various journals, written more than eighteen books, and edited many more books and journals. He is a world-renowned retreat master, lecturer, and formator. Contributors include: Carmel Posa, SGS; David Tomlins, OCSO; Helen Lombard, SGS; Manuela Scheiba, OSB; David Barry, OSB; Mary Collins, OSB; Brendan Thomas, OSB; Elias Dietz, OCSO; Constant J. Mews; Bernardo Bonowitz, OCSO; Terrence Kardong, OSB; Elizabeth Freeman; Austin Cooper, OMI; Katharine Massam; Margaret Malone, SGS; Bernhard A. Eckerstorfer, OSB; Columba Stewart, OSB; Francisco Rafael de Pascual, OCSO; and Bishop Graeme Rutherford

The Honey of Souls is the first full-length study of the Explanation of the Psalms by Cassiodorus. While the Explanation became a seminal document for the monastic movement in the West and was eagerly read and widely quoted for centuries, it has languished in relative obscurity in the modern period. Derek Olsen explores Cassiodorus and his strategies for reading as a window into a spirituality of the psalms that defined early Western biblical interpretation.