Collected Studies CS1064 This collection of Giles Constable's key articles on medieval monastic and ecclesiastical history provides nothing less than a comprehensive overview of research in the field. The book provides an insight into monastic life in the Middle Ages - from Germany to Normandy and from England to Sicily.

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.

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 rhinoceros, that is, any powerful man, is bound with a thong so that he may crush the clods of the valleys, that is, the oppressors of the humble."-Odo of Cluny, Vita Geraldi i.8 To the second abbot of the great monastery at Cluny, Saint Odo, tenth-century Europe was a world filled with violent men oppressing at whim the poor and the powerless. As royal authority waned, local magnates, unrestrained by any authority, divine or human, seized the opportunity to enhance their positions. Odo, along with Cluny's other founding spiritual and ideological leaders, created within the protective walls of the monastery a model of restraint, instituting in place of the instability of everyday life an interpretation of the Benedictine Rule that stressed ritual, order, and lawfulness. Such were the beginnings of the monastery that Pope Urban II in the eleventh century would call "the light of the world," the fountainhead of what would become one of the most far-reaching religious reform movements in European history. Barbara Rosenwein in Rhinoceros Bound focuses on Cluny's founding and early growth within the context of a society shaped by the needs of those set adrift in the social upheaval of the tenth century. Examining in the first chapter traditional approaches to Cluniac studies, the author reveals that historians have generally considered Cluny's eleventh-century role in church reform without analyzing the peculiar combination of forces and founders that created the Cluniac ideal and gave it its original momentum. This fundamental problem is the topic of the second chapter. She then examines how the early Cluniacs perceived the world outside the monastery and how they viewed their own world inside of it. Rosenwein concludes with a chapter on Cluny in the tenth century that combines traditional historical techniques with contemporary sociological insights. She provides in this study a significant reassessment of a period crucial to the political development of Europe, as well as a case study of institutional response to acute and political change.

Medieval attitudes to health and treatment revealed in Hildegard's treatise. Hildegard of Bingen [1098-1179], an important figure in her own time, has come increasingly to critical attention in recent years. Cause et Cure, attributed to Hildegard, is both a cosmological text and a medical handbook;it is a densely layered work woven together from diverse threads. It begins with a chapter on cosmology which leads to consideration of the human being as a small-scale copy of the universe. From here the focus shifts to the diseases and disorders which afflict human beings. The sections on treatment which follow provide information on medieval pharmacology and herbal healing. The text discusses the differences between male and female, human sexuality, embryology, sleep and dreams, signs predicting death or survival, astrological influences. The Introduction sketches Hildegard's life and career, and describes the cultural context with emphasis on medieval medicine. The Interpretive Essay discusses the selections presented in translation and alerts the reader to the benefits as well as the limits of medieval health care. MARGRET BERGER, formerly Associate Professor in the Division of Interdisciplinary Studies [German] at Simon Fraser University, has specialised in medieval German literature and Romance philology.

In Subversive Habits, Shannen Dee Williams provides the first full history of Black Catholic nuns in the United States, hailing them as the forgotten prophets of Catholicism and democracy. Drawing on oral histories and previously sealed Church records, Williams demonstrates how master narratives of women's religious life and Catholic commitments to racial and gender justice fundamentally change when the lives and experiences of African American nuns are taken seriously. For Black Catholic women and girls, embracing the celibate religious state constituted a radical act of resistance to white supremacy and the sexual terrorism built into chattel slavery and segregation. Williams shows how Black sisters-such as Sister Mary Antona Ebo, who was the only Black member of the inaugural delegation of Catholic sisters to travel to Selma, Alabama, and join the Black voting rights marches of 1965-were pioneering religious leaders, educators, healthcare professionals, desegregation foot soldiers, Black Power activists, and womanist theologians. In the process, Williams calls attention to Catholic women's religious life as a stronghold of white supremacy and racial segregation-and thus an important battleground in the long African American freedom struggle.

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.

Written by a brilliant scholar, this book is the first volume of a major work, which makes full use of the very rich documentary material still surviving and relates it to the evidence of the chronicles. Oriental sources are not disregarded: use is made of Arabic material and the latest archaeological discoveries in the Near East. The author has concentrated upon the Order as an institution in the crusader states and as a powerful international religious corporation. He considers its growth to power, its participation in the polititcs of the Latin settlement in the East, its organisation, its position as an exempt Order of the Church, its properties and its methods of administration as a landlord in feudal states. For the first time, the Order of St John is treated in a way that is neither hostile nor romantically partisan: and the author's conclusions differ from those of other historians. In his description of the Hospitallers' policies, the place they occupied in the government of Latin Syria, their privileges and the way they lived, he shows how it was thay they - individuals as well as the corporate body - played such a significant part in the history of the Christian East in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This book is important to all those interested in the Knights of St John, the international Orders of mediaeval Christendom or the extra-ordinary states established by western Europeans on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean.

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.

'Legacy of the Founders' outlines the development of monastic, mendicant, apostolic, and missionary spirituality from the progression of the ancient traditions of the Desert Ammas and Abbas, and early monastics to the modern day Society of African Missions. Verploegen argues each school of spirituality had a founder who had a unique call to God and sensitivity to the needs of their time. These often controversial, radical and courageous people left a legacy that has influenced the Pastoral practices of Christians today. The author follows the movement from monasticism to mission, showing that from the initial evangelising of the Jesuits, Franciscans, and Dominicans came the zeal for teaching and preaching to the new world. This would eventually lead to the ministerial and apostolic monastics and missionary congregations of the nineteenth century who exclusively travelled the world spreading the Gospel. Verploegen shows us a world of community, equality, charity, strength, and imagination which will challenge our preconceptions of a life devoted to worship. Nicki Verploegen is co-founder of Tatenda International, a non-profit organisation that provides cost-free retreats to caregivers abroad, especially in Africa and Asia. She is Assistant Professor at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati and is author of 'Meditations With Merton' (1993), 'Organic Spirituality' (2000), and 'Planning and Implementing Retreats' (2001). 'The Church has been blessed with great spiritual men and women who became the initiators of religious movements and the founders of religious orders. Nicki Verploegen brings her wealth of experience and understanding to the task of unfolding the development of these various spiritualities. This book will help each of us on the spiritual journey understand and deepen our own connection with God through the lens of history.' Paul J. Coury C.Ss.R, Director of the Redemptorist Renewal Center, Tucson, Arizona.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of the emergence of monasticism from its roots in late antiquity and its transition to the early medieval West. Beginning with the search for individual perfection in the context of the religious and social climate of fourth-century Egypt, it traces the adoption and transformation of monastic ideas and practices first by the elites of the Western Roman Empire and later by the royalty and aristocracy of the so-called 'barbarian' kingdoms, including the Franks and Anglo-Saxons. It tracks the development of monastic rules and includes sections on female asceticism and monasticism, on Irish monasticism and its influence, and the developing theology of afterlife and intercession. This unique work is based on a detailed consideration of the texts, their use and adaptation, and is the first treatment of the subject to draw together social and religious approaches. The book offers a number of original perspectives on major issues and controversies.

Francis of Assisi is one of the most beloved of all saints. Both traditional and entirely revolutionary, he was a paradox. He was at once down to earth and reaching toward heaven, grounded in the rich history of the Church while moving toward a new understanding of the world beyond. Richard Rohr, himself a Franciscan friar, draws on Scripture, insights from psychology, and literary and artistic references, to weave together an understanding of the tradition as first practiced by St Francis. Rohr shows how his own innovative theology is firmly grounded in the life and teaching of this great saint and provides a perspective on how his alternative path to the divine can deepen and enrich our spiritual lives.

When journalist Liao Yiwu first stumbled upon a vibrant Christian community in the officially secular China, he knew little about Christianity. In fact, he'd been taught that religion was evil, and that those who believed in it were deluded, cultists, or imperialist spies. But as a writer whose work has been banned in China and has even landed him in jail, Liao felt a kinship with Chinese Christians in their unwavering commitment to the freedom of expression and to finding meaning in a tumultuous society.

Unwilling to let his nation lose memory of its past or deny its present, Liao set out to document the untold stories of brave believers whose totalitarian government could not break their faith in God, including:

The over-100-year-old nun who persevered in spite of beatings, famine, and decades of physical labor, and still fights for the rightful return of church land seized by the government

The surgeon who gave up a lucrative Communist hospital administrator position to treat villagers for free in the remote, mountainous regions of southwestern China

The Protestant minister, now memorialized in London's Westminster Abbey, who was executed during the Cultural Revolution as "an incorrigible counterrevolutionary"

This ultimately triumphant tale of a vibrant church thriving against all odds serves as both a powerful conversation about politics and spirituality and a moving tribute to China's valiant shepherds of faith, who prove that a totalitarian government cannot control what is in people's hearts.

Discovered in a secret Vatican archive, this is the true, never-before-told story of poison, murder, and lesbian initiation rites in a nineteenth century convent. In 1858, Katherina von Hohenzollern, a German princess recently inducted into the convent of Sant'Ambrogio in Rome, wrote a frantic letter to her cousin, a confidant of the Pope, claiming that she was being abused and feared for her life. The subsequent investigation by the Church's Inquisition uncovered the extraordinary secrets of Sant'Ambrogio and the illicit behavior of the convent's beautiful young mistress, Maria Luissa. What emerges through the fog of centuries is a sex scandal of ecclesiastical proportions, skillfully brought to light and vividly reconstructed in scholarly detail by one of the world's leading papal historians. Offering a broad historical background on female mystics and the cult of the Virgin Mary, and drawing upon written testimony and original documents, Hubert Wolf tells an incredible story of deception, heresy, seduction, and murder in the heart of the Catholic Church.

Religious Women in Early Carolingian Francia, a groundbreaking study of the intellectual and monastic culture of the Main Valley during the eighth century, looks closely at a group of manuscripts associated with some of the best-known personalities of the European Middle Ages, including Boniface of Mainz and his "beloved,"abbess Leoba of Tauberbischofsheim. This is the first study of these "Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany" to delve into the details of their lives by studying the manuscripts that were produced in their scriptoria and used in their communities. The author explores how one group of religious women helped to shape the culture of medieval Europe through the texts they wrote and copied, as well as through their editorial interventions. Using compelling manuscript evidence, she argues that the content of the women's books was overwhelmingly gender-egalitarian and frequently feminist (i.e., resistant to patriarchal ideas). This intriguing book provides unprecedented glimpses into the "feminist consciousness" of the women's and mixed-sex communities that flourished in the early Middle Ages.

If you have not read Heather King before, her honesty may shock you. In this remarkable memoir, you will see how a convert with a checkered past spends a year reflecting upon St. Therese of Lisieux--and discovers the radical faith, true love, and abundant life of a cloistered 19th-century French nun.

Sister Mary David Totah was a nun of the Benedictine contemplative community of St Cecilia's Abbey on the Isle of Wight. American by birth, she was educated at Loyola University, the University of Virginia and Christ Church, Oxford. After a distinguished teaching career, she entered religious life in 1985. For 22 years until her early death from cancer she guided the young nuns of her abbey with enthusiasm, wisdom and wit.

The spirituality to be found in the pages of this book demonstrates to the reader why her influence should have been so great and so deep. Her notes to the novices deal with issues of relevance to a world beyond the cloister: What is the meaning of suffering? How do we cope with living with people who annoy us? How do we relate to a God we cannot see? How do we make the big decisions of life?

Sister Mary David's teaching was both profound and intensely practical, suffused with faith in God's joy in our work, leisure, community and family life but above all in our view and understanding of ourselves. This book, with an introduction by Abbot Erik Varden OCSO (author of The Shattering of Loneliness) shows us how to realize the Joy that is God.

'Honest and down to earth, but neither evasive nor sentimental, this book will appeal to Christians of differing backgrounds . . . there is a gentleness about Ramon's writing that inspires trust and cooperation.' Life and Work. What is special about the spirituality of St Francis? Can it be possible for ordinary men and women today, with families, jobs and other responsibilities, to follow in the way of a thirteenth-century friar? Brother Ramon, an Anglican Franciscan friar, shows us that Franciscan spirituality is as compelling and relevant today as ever. It is marked by spontaneity and emotional freedom, by openness to every human being and love for nature. It treasures both the evangelical and the catholic nature of the gospel. It is rooted in a biblical faith and in reverence for the whole of creation. Franciscan Spirituality introduces us to the world of Francis and his first followers and shows how their excitement and wonder at Jesus alive in their midst can still be recaptured. The book is illustrated throughout by Molly Dowell.

The Cistercian Order was born in Burgundy at the start of the twelfth century as a movement of radical renewal. Although most of the medieval foundations now lie in ruins across Europe, the Order survives and the greater part of its superb written heritage has been preserved. In his letters, Life of Malachy the Irishman, sermons on the Song of Songs and the sharply satirical Apologia for Abbot William, St Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153) emerges as one of the most individual and influential writers of the Middle Ages. Aelred of Rievaulx and John of Ford, amongst others, are almost equally rewarding. This magnificent book brings together a selection of their finest works, along with material from the earliest Cistercian house at Cîteaux, a charming description of Clairvaux, biographies of abbots and a famous anchorite, and a series of brief exemplary stories. All draw constantly on the text of Scripture to express intensely personal forms of monastic theology. Presented here in a superb new translation with invaluable introductions to each piece, they speak powerfully across the centuries to modern readers.

From the very beginning some Christians have wanted to go all the way - rather than asking, "What must I do to be a Christian?" have asked instead, "What can I do to be more Christian?" These highly intentional Christians have had an impact on the development of both Christianity and western civilization that has been completely out of proportion to their numbers. Their greatest impact has come through communities of like-minded believers - whether of lay evangelicals or of celibate monastics - formed upon a common desire to live more intentional Christian lives. This probing work tells the story of these communities, both monastic and lay. It is a story that, though often overlooked, is both inspiring and instructive. Above all it is a story that opens the way for greater understanding between two groups of Christians who have long been estranged - Protestant evangelicals and Catholic monastics. "Evangelicals are often accused of being ahistorical because we jump from Paul to Martin Luther without a pause to consider what the Spirit did in between. But every Christian tradition nds some way to draw the line from Jesus to the present. How we tell that story shapes who we are. 'Follow Me' tells the Christian story in a way that sparks my imagination and gets me excited about who the church is becoming in our post-Christian era. I hope every community of disciples will read it and ask, 'How is God calling us to live the next chapter?' " - Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, author of 'To Baghdad and Beyond: How I Got Born Again in Babylon' "Kauffman offers us a rst instalment of the kind of scholarship becoming possible thanks to the stereoscopic perspective of those who are learning to live on both sides of a great river that has long divided Christianity. . . . Unexpected though the news may be, it is the very burden of Kauffman's book to show us why we should not have been surprised, and would not be surprised if we read the history of Christianity looking for its broadest unifying patterns rather than for the basis of our separate identities. . . . He has done a service to historian, ecumenist, and renewal-minded Christian alike by looking for the forest not just the trees, surveying the lay of the land, and marking the river that gives it life." - Gerald W. Schlabach, author of 'Just Policing, Not War: An Alternative Response to World Violence' Ivan J. Kauffman grew up in one of the oldest surviving lay evangelical communities, the Amish Mennonites. Educated as both a Mennonite and a Catholic he has been active in Mennonite-Catholic dialogues from their beginnings in the 1980s, and was a founder of the North American grassroots Mennonite Catholic dialogue, Bridgefolk. He identi es himself as a Mennonite Catholic.

Abbeys and Priories of Medieval Wales is the first comprehensive, illustrated guide to the religious houses of Wales from the twelfth to sixteenth centuries. It offers a thorough introduction to the history of the monastic orders in Wales (the Benedictines, Cluniacs, Augustinians, Premonstratensians, Cistercians, the military orders and the friars), and to life inside medieval Welsh monasteries and nunneries, in addition to providing the histories of almost sixty communities of religious men and women, with descriptions of the standing remains of their buildings. As well as a being a scholarly book, a number of maps, ground plans and practical information make this an indispensable guide for visitors to Wales's monastic heritage.

Be inspired by one man's unflinching faith in God. This is the first biography of Brother Ramon. It tells of his life's pilgrimage, his quest for holiness as a Franciscan friar, his inner journey of discovery and transformation, his love of God and his influence on others. The selection from his writings which concludes the book illustrates his spiritual journey. It will be an inspiration to readers to live lives fully for Jesus Christ.

The life of a Victorian religious community, both within the privacy of the convent and in its work in the wider world, including front-line nursing. This book introduces readers to the life of a Victorian religious community, both within the privacy of the convent and in its work in the wider world, based on documents preserved by the Society of All Saints Sisters of the Poor.It begins by using the memoirs of first-generation members of the community, a colourful and human introduction to the Anglican 're-invention' of monastic life in the second half of the nineteenth century. The section on government includes the power struggles between the sisters and the religious establishment, and the community's determination to retain its identity after the death of the mother foundress. The sisters nursed with the newly-formed Red Cross in the Franco-Prussian War, work recorded in a diary which discusses the difficulties and dangers of Victorian front-line nursing. Most of all, the documents reveal the challenges and excitement of the struggle to establish awomen's community, to be unfettered in their work with the poor and suffering, and to govern themselves, in a world dominated by men largely hostile to their aspirations. SUSAN MUMM is lecturer in religious studies at the OpenUniversity, Milton Keynes.

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.

Impressive... for many readers of these papers their cumulative effect will be very great indeed... Admirable collaborative volume. JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY Specialists explore the influence of twelfth-centuryDurham, in ecclesiastical affairs, Border politics, architecture, art, and religious and literary culture. Impressive... the cumulative effect [of these papers] is very great indeed. JOURNAL OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY This study of Anglo-Norman Durham's history, architecture, art, and religious and literary culture covers much ground, including the Cathedral Priory and its relationship to monastic reform; the careers of the prince bishops; studies of the spectacular castle; the relationship between Durham and the Scottish kings; the architecture of the cathedral; and Durham manuscripts and texts, featuring historical compilations and the remarkable Old English poem De situ Dunelmi. Contributors: DONALD MATTHEW, JULIA BARROW, JANET BURTON, MERYL FOSTER,VICTORIA TUDOR, MICHAEL GULLICK, ALAN PIPER, DAVID BATES, MARK PHILPOTT, ERIC CAMBRIDGE, MALCOLM THURLBY, J. PHILIP McALEER, S.A. HARRISON, JOHN CROOK, THOMAS E. RUSSO, E.C. FERNIE, WILLIAM AIRD, J.O. PRESTWICH, G.W.S. BARROW, VALERIE WALL, PAUL DALTON, ALAN YOUNG, HENRY SUMMERSON, MARTIN ALLEN, P.D.A. HARVEY, MARTIN LEYLAND, M.W. THOMPSON, BERNARD MEEHAN, CHRISTOPHER NORTON, ANNE LAWRENCE, DOMINIC MARNER, DAVID HOWLETT