Introduces and develops new concepts of general sociological value for the study of interpersonal relations Develops the understanding of the role of intentions, ideals and hope in organizations Explores love and intimacy in a new and unexpected organizational context Provides a novel analytical framing to explore core features of monastic life Offers unique insights into the social relations of a closed world with great historical importance

This volume was conceived with the double aim of providing a background and a further context for the new Dumbarton Oaks English translation of the Life of St Neilos from Rossano, founder of the monastery of Grottaferrata near Rome in 1004. Reflecting this double aim, the volume is divided into two parts. Part I, entitled "Italo-Greek Monasticism," builds the background to the Life of Neilos by taking several multi-disciplinary approaches to the geographical area, history and literature of the region denoted as Southern Italy. Part II, entitled "The Life of St Neilos," offers close analyses of the text of Neilos's hagiography from socio-historical, textual, and contextual perspectives. Together, the two parts provide a solid introduction and offer in-depth studies with original outcomes and wide-ranging bibliographies. Using monasticism as a connecting thread between the various zones and St Neilos as the figure who walked over mountains and across many cultural divides, the essays in this volume span all regions and localities and try to trace thematic arcs between individual testimonies. They highlight the multicultural context in which Southern Italian Christians lived and their way of negotiating differences with Arab and Jewish neighbors through a variety of sources, and especially in saints' lives.

The first volume to explore various facets of contemporary change in consecrated religious life in selected Central and Eastern European countries, this book presents a series of studies of Catholic and Orthodox monasticism. With attention to changes in the economy, everyday life, organisation and social presence of monastic orders, contributors shed light on the impact of 20th and 21st century social and cultural processes - such as communism and its collapse or the growth of new communication technologies - on life in the cloister. Bringing together research from various locations in Central and Eastern Europe, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, religious studies and theology, with interests in religious orders and transformations of religious life from a social perspective.

China has been a challenge to Christianity since the beginning of modern times, and it remains so today. Here is a great civilisation comprising a quarter of humankind, yet largely untouched by Christian values and beliefs. Any theological evaluation of the state of world Christianity that does not take China into account is impoverished and radically incomplete.

Jonas of Bobbio was an Italian monk, author, and abbot, active in Lombard Italy and Merovingian Gaul during the seventh century. He is best known as the author of the Life of Columbanus and His Disciples, one of the most important works of hagiography from the early medieval period, that charts the remarkable journey of the Irish exile and monastic founder, Columbanus (d. 615), through Western Europe, as well as the monastic movement initiated by him and his Frankish successors in the Merovingian kingdoms. In the years following Columbanus's death numerous new monasteries were built by his successors and their elite patrons in Francia that decisively transformed the inter-relationship between monasteries and secular authorities in the Early Middle Ages. Jonas also wrote two other, occasional works set in the late fifth and sixth centuries: the Life of John, the abbot and founder of the monastery of Reome in Burgundy, and the Life of Vedast, the first bishop of Arras and a contemporary of Clovis. Both works provide perspectives on how the past Gallic monastic tradition, the role of bishops, and the Christianization of the Franks were perceived in Jonas's time. Jonas's hagiography also provides important evidence for the reception of classical and late antique texts as well as the works of Gregory the Great and Gregory of Tours.This volume presents the first complete English translation of all of Jonas of Bobbio's saints' Lives with detailed notes and scholarly introduction that will be of value to all those interested in this period.

Forty papers link the study of the military orders' cultural life and output with their involvement in political and social conflicts during the medieval and early modern period. Divided into two volumes, focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe respectively, the collection brings together the most up-to-date research by experts from fifteen countries on a kaleidoscope of relevant themes and issues, thus offering a broad-ranging and at the same time very detailed study of the subject.

The Exorcist of Sombor examines the life course, practice and mentality of an eighteenth-century Franciscan friar, based on his own letters and documentation, creating a frame around the tightly packed history of events that took place between 1766-1769, and analysing the series of exorcism scandals that erupted in the Hungarian town of Sombor, from the perspectives of social history and cultural history. The author employs a method which reflects historical anthropology, the history of ideas and the influence of Italian microhistory. Based on the activity of an exorcist priest in the early modern period, the documents of the ecclesiastical courts and a considerable body of autograph correspondence are thoroughly examined. Analysing these letters gives the reader a chance to come into close proximity with the way of thinking of a person from the eighteenth century. The research questions in connection to the documentation aim to identify the causes for the conflict. How was it possible to have "correct" and "wrong" methods of exorcism within the practice of one and the same church? What sort of criteria were used when certain previously accepted practices were dubbed superstitious in the second half of the eighteenth century? What were the changes that took place in the attitude of priests and friars within the ecclesiastical society of the period? How can a conflict be focussed on a practice (healing by exorcism) which has roots going back thousands of years? How many different variants of demonology existed in the clerical thinking of the age? As a highly accomplished source analysis within microhistory, The Exorcist of Sombor will be of great interest to early modern historians, anthropologists and culture researchers interested in microhistory and themes such as religion, magic, occultism and witchcraft.

As the oldest of the military religious orders and the one with an unexpected and dramatic downfall, the knighthood of the Templars continues to fascinate academics and students as well as the public at large. A collection of fifteen chapters accompanied by a historical introduction, The Templars: The Rise, Fall, and Legacy of a Military Religious Order recounts and analyzes this community's rise and establishment in both the crusader states of the eastern Mediterranean and the countries of western Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, reflects on the proceedings launched against it and its subsequent fall (1307-1314), and explores its medieval and post-medieval legacy, including an assessment of current research pertaining to the Templars and suggestions for future explorations. Showcasing a wide range of methodological approaches and primary source materials, this volume unites historical, art-historical, theological, archaeological, and historiographical perspectives, and it features the work and voices of scholars from various academic generations who reside in eight different countries (Israel, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, and the United States of America).

This new edition of Norman Shanks' book (previously published by Hodder & Stoughton) is an outstanding introduction and guide to the spirituality, concerns and activities of the Iona Community, by a former Leader of the Community. A new chapter has been added to bring the book up to date. What is it that interests so many people in the work of the Iona Community and draws thousands of visitors each year to the tiny island of Iona? Apart from its magical beauty and sense of timelessness, one reason is to imbibe the spirituality of the Community. Norman Shanks shows how the Community, in its work on Iona and elsewhere, has developed an integrated vision which is rooted in everyday living. It is committed to peace-making and action on social issues; the breaking down of barriers between those of different faiths and styles of faith; and the development of new, relevant ways to worship. The Community's understanding of spirituality underpins its guest programme at the Abbey and MacLeod Centre on Iona and at Camas adventure centre on Mull, in which over a hundred guests take part each week. It also informs the work of the Community's members and staff throughout Britain and beyond. For those who want to apply an integrated, engaged and inclusive approach to spirituality in their own lives, this book is an inspiring and relevant resource.

New approaches to understanding religious women's involvement in monastic reform, demonstrating how women's experiences were more ambiguous and multi-layered than previously assumed. Over the last two decades, scholarship has presented a more nuanced view of women's attitude to and agency in medieval monastic reform, challenging the idea that they were, by and large, unwilling to accept or were necessarily hostile towards reform initiatives. Rather, it has shown that they actively participated in debates about the ideas and structures that shaped their religious lives, whether rejecting, embracing, or adapting to calls for "reform" contingent on their circumstances. Nevertheless, fundamental questions regarding the gendered nature of religious reform are ripe for further examination. This book brings together innovative research from a range of disciplines to re-evaluate and enlarge our knowledge of women's involvement in spiritual and institutional change in female monastic communities over the period c. 1000 - c. 1500. Contributors revise conventional narratives about women and monastic reform, and earlier assumptions of reform as negative or irrelevant for women. Drawing on a diverse array of visual, material and textual sources, it presents "snapshots" of reform from western Europe, stretching from Ireland to Iberia. Case-studies focussing on a number of different topics, from tenth-century female saints' lives to fifteenth-century liturgical books, from the tenth-century Leominster prayerbook to archaeological remains in Ireland, from embroideries and tapestries to the rebellious nuns of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers, offer a critical reappraisal of how monastic women (and their male associates) reflected, individually and collectively, on their spiritual ideals and institutional forms.

This book examines the influence of the monastic tradition beyond the Reformation. Where the built monastic environment had been dissolved, desire for the spiritual benefits of monastic living still echoed within theological and spiritual writing of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a virtual exegetical template. The volume considers how the writings of monastic authors were appropriated in post-Reformation movements by those seeking a more fervent spiritual life, and how the concept of an internal cloister of monastic/ascetic spirituality influenced several Anglican writers during the Restoration. There is a careful examination of the monastic influence upon the Wesleys and the foundation and rise of Methodism. Drawing on a range of primary sources, the book will be of particular interest to scholars of monastic and Methodist history, and to those engaged in researching ecclesiology and in ecumenical dialogues.

This book looks at Eastern and Western monasticism's continuous and intensive interactions with society in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Former Soviet Republics. It discusses the role monastics played in fostering national identities, as well as the potentiality of monasteries and religious orders to be vehicles of ecumenism and inter-religious dialogue within and beyond national boundaries. Using a country-specific analysis, the book highlights the monastic tradition and monastic establishments. It addresses gaps in the academic study of religion in Eastern European and Russian historiography and looks at the role of monasticism as a cultural and national identity forming determinant in the region.

This book presents an invaluable selection of sermons and theological treatises of the twelfth century author, Isaac of Stella. The English born abbot of the French Cistercian monastery of Stella on the Isle of Re is one of the most inspiring, yet equally elusive, representatives of the great twelfth-century Cistercian Renaissance more widely associated with the person of Bernard of Clairvaux. The astonishing spiritual and intellectual depth of Isaac's surviving writings makes him a valuable read for anyone aiming to receive a complete picture of the intellectual heritage of the Middle Ages. Of the twenty-five sermons by Isaac presented in this volume, ten are made available here in an English translation for the first time. These are accompanied with two new studies examining Isaac of Stella's work from an historical, literary as well as theological perspective.

How did Thomas Merton become Thomas Merton? Starting out from any one of his earlier major life moments - wealthy orphan boy, big man on campus, fervent Roman Catholic convert, new and obedient monk - we find ourselves asking how by his life's end he had grown from who he was then into a transcultural and transreligious spiritual teacher read by millions. This book takes another such starting point: his attempt in the mid-1950s to move from his abbey of Gethsemani, in Kentucky - a place that had become, in his view, noisy beyond bearing - to an Italian monastery, Camaldoli, which he idealized as a place of monastic peace. The ultimate irony: Camaldoli at that time, bucolic and peaceful outwardly, was inwardly riven by a pre-Vatican II culture war; whereas Gethsemani, which he tried so hard to leave, became, when he was given his hermitage there in 1965, his place to recover Eden. In walking with Merton on this journey, and reading the letters he wrote and received at the time, we find ourselves asking, as he did, with so much energy and honesty, the deep questions that we may well need to answer in our own lives.

Examining the recent radical re-invention of monastic tradition in the everyday life of New Monastic Communities, Exploring New Monastic Communities considers how, growing up in the wake of Vatican II, new Catholic communities are renewing monastic life by emphasizing the most innovative and disruptive theological aspects which they identify in the Council. Despite freely adopting and adapting their Rule of Life, the new communities do not belong to pre-existing orders or congregations: they are gender-mixed with monks and nuns living under the same roof; they accept lay members whether single, married or as families; they reject enclosure; they often limit collective prayer time in order to increase time for labour, evangelization and voluntary social work; and are actively involved in oecumenical and interreligious dialogue, harbouring thinly-veiled sympathy with oriental religions, from which they sometimes adopt beliefs and practices. Offering unique sociological insights into New Monastic Communities, and shedding light on questions surrounding New Religious Movements more generally, the book asks what 'monastic' means today and whether these communities can still be described as 'monastic'.

A full and comprehensive survey of the development of the Cistercian Order which emerged from the tumultuous intellectual and religious fervour of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Cistercians (White Monks) were the most successful monastic experiment to emerge from the tumultuous intellectual and religious fervour of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. By around 1150 they had established houses the length and breadth of Western Christendom and were internationally renowned. They sought to return to a simple form of monastic life, as set down in the Rule of St Benedict, and preferred rural locations "far from the haunts of men".But, as recent research has shown, they were by no means isolated from society but influenced, and were influenced by, the world around them; they moved with the times. This book explores the phenomenon that was the Cistercian Order, drawing on recent research from various disciplines to consider what it was that made the Cistercians distinctive and how they responded to developments. The book addresses current debates regarding the origins and evolution of the Order; discusses the key primary sources for knowledge; and covers architecture, administration, daily life, spirituality, the economy and the monks' ties with the world. Professor Janet Burton teaches at theSchool of Archaeology, History and Anthropology, University of Wales Trinity Saint David; Dr Julie Kerr is Honorary Research Fellow in the School of History, University of St Andrews.

The Society of Jesus was founded by Ignatius Loyola on a principal of strict obedience to papal and superiors' authorities, yet the nature of the Jesuits's work and the turbulent political circumstances in which they operated, inevitably brought them into conflict with the Catholic hierarchy. In order to better understand and contextualise the debates concerning obedience, this book examines the Jesuits of south-western Europe during the generalate of Claudio Acquaviva. Acquaviva's thirty year generalate (1581-1615) marked a challenging time for the Jesuits, during which their very system of government was called into doubt. The need for obedience and the limits of that obedience posed a question of fundamental importance both to debates taking place within the Society, and to the definition of a collective Jesuit identity. At the same time, struggles for jurisdiction between political states and the papacy, as well as the difficulties raised by the Protestant Reformation, all called for matters to be rethought. Divided into four chapters, the book begins with an analysis of the texts and contexts in which Jesuits reflected on obedience at the turn of the seventeenth century. The three following chapters then explore the various Ignatian sources that discussed obedience, placing them within their specific contexts. In so doing the book provides fascinating insights into how the Jesuits under Acquaviva approached the concept of obedience from theological and practical standpoints.

This book takes a new look at the impacts of Christianity in the late-nineteenth-century China. Using American Baptist and English Presbyterian examples in Guangdong province, it examines the scale of Chinese conversions, the creation of Christian villages, and the power relations between Christians and non-Christians, and between different Christian denominations. This book is based on a very comprehensive foundation of data. By supplementing the Protestant missionary and Chinese archival materials with fieldwork data that were collected in several Christian villages, this study not only highlights the inner dynamics of Chinese Christianity but also explores a variety of crisis management strategies employed by missionaries, Christian converts, foreign diplomats and Chinese officials in local politics.

What might happen if we live out of loving encounter with God and build in response to what he reveals? How can we make space to hear God and say yes to him? What if being a leader is all about being a follower? Is it really that simple? These are the questions that have led Jill Weber on the adventure of saying yes to the more of God - the invitation to really live. This honest, warm and compelling book speaks directly to those who long to encounter more of Jesus, to know how tune into the small movements of the heart, and to have trust in every moment of their lives. With wisdom and wit Jill explores prayer, discernment, vocation and leadership through her story of building and becoming a House of Prayer, offering encouragement that gives readers the confidence to say yes to what God is already doing. Jill's story will build faith in readers and help them to discover the freedom that lies beyond that yes - of giving it all for Jesus. Even the Sparrow is both an invitation and a challenge - to walk step by step as God leads might lead us on paths that are at turns messy, complicated and inconvenient, but as we follow him the path can also be unexpected and breathtaking beauty.

In the dark and turbulent centuries after the Roman occupation of Britain, and during the Anglo-Saxon colonisation, the light of heaven still shone through the work and witness of the monastic communities, 'villages of God', which dotted the land. One of the most remarkable figures of those times was Hilda of Whitby. Born and reared amid warring pagan tribes, through the influence of Celtic saints and scholars she became a dominant figure in the development of the British Church, above all at the famous Synod where Celtic and Roman Churches came together. Until recently, though, the story of this extraordinary woman has not received much attention. Published to coincide with the 1400th anniversary of her birth, this book not only explores the drama of Hilda's life and ministry but shows what spiritual lessons we can draw for Christian life and leadership today.

The Cistercian Order in Medieval Europe offers an accessible and engaging history of the Order from its beginnings in the twelfth century through to the early sixteenth century. Unlike most other existing volumes on this subject it gives a nuanced analysis of the late medieval Cistercian experience as well as the early years of the Order. Jamroziak argues that the story of the Cistercian Order in the Middle Ages was not one of a 'Golden Age' followed by decline, nor was the true 'Cistercian spirit' exclusively embedded in the early texts to remain unchanged for centuries. Instead she shows how the Order functioned and changed over time as an international organisation, held together by a novel 'management system'; from Estonia in the east to Portugal in the west, and from Norway to Italy. The ability to adapt and respond to these very different social and economic conditions is what made the Cistercians so successful. This book draws upon a wide range of primary sources, as well as scholarly literature in several languages, to explore the following key areas: the degree of centralisation versus local specificity how much the contact between monastic communities and lay people changed over time how the concept of reform was central to the Medieval history of the Cistercian Order This book will appeal to anyone interested in Medieval history and the Medieval Church more generally as well as those with a particular interest in monasticism.