The Lost Abbey of Eynsham will be of interest not just to local historians but to those with an interest in the development of monasticism and medieval art and architecture, particularly the Romanesque. Eynsham was one of the few religious foundations in England in continuous use from the late Saxon period to the Dissolution. Its first Benedictine Abbot was the internationally renowned scholar and teacher, Aelfric, and it was frequently visited by medieval kings given its close proximity to the royal hunting lodge of Woodstock. Hugh of Avalon, later canonised, was appointed Bishop of Lincoln at a royal council at Eynsham in 1186. Shortly afterwards the abbey achieved fame with the Vision of the Monk of Eynsham which is said to have influenced Dante. Its reputation was further enhanced when Eynsham acquired an important relic, the arm of St Andrew in 1240. In the later Middle Ages, the abbey went into decline and was beset by scandal. It surrendered to the Crown in 1538 and the huge structure was gradually demolished and pillaged for its building materials. Now, nothing remains in situ above ground. This book aims to rescue this important abbey from obscurity by summarising its history and examining the material remains of Eynsham Abbey, most of which have never been published before.

Monastic Wales - new approaches is an interdisciplinary collection of essays written by some of the leading scholars working on aspects of medieval Welsh history. The chapters in this volume consider the history, archaeology, architecture and wider cultural, social, political and economic context of the religious houses of Wales between the Norman conquest in the eleventh century, and the dissolution of the monasteries in the sixteenth.

Recorded during a seven-month stay in a Trappist monastery in Genesee, New York, Henri Nouwen's record of his spiritual journey is an insightful and compassionate inspiration to all who seek to know themselves better.

What is genuine church growth? Is it, at heart, the numerical growth of regular congregations or are there other dimensions and, if so, what are they? How can we learn from other contexts in order to properly inform our understanding of what we mean by church growth? Mara is one of the most marginalised regions in Tanzania, which in turn is a country in the most marginalised continent on the planet, and yet, Spencer argues, the church in the region has exhibited remarkable growth. Looking beyond the usual dimensions of church growth discourse, Stephen Spencer weaves in his own experience in Tanzania, finding in that wholly different context an approach to church growth which might entirely change the discourse in the global north.

At the age of forty-five, unfit and overweight, Clark Berge, a professed Franciscan friar, took up running. In his younger life he had struggled with alcoholism and with his sexual identity. Running became cathartic not just for his body, but for making peace with the lingering shame of a troubled past, facing unresolved questions and coming to a fuller acceptance of who he was. As the elected leader of a worldwide religious community, the opportunity to run in widely differing urban and wild places -the English countryside, wide South African and Australian landscapes, busy cities and remote Pacific islands - opened up larger spiritual insights into the nature of religious life, social activism, contemplation, life on the margins, solitude and community, fear and fortitude, simplicity and living in harmony with creation, and coming in last in his first marathon. This unique memoir of running and religion explores Christian spirituality with a disarming honesty and depth.

The Society of St John the Evangelist, otherwise known as the Cowley Fathers, was the first men's religious order to be founded in the Church of England since the Reformation, as a result of the spread and influence of the Oxford Movement and its Anglo-Catholic spirituality in the 19th century. Established in Oxford in 1866, its charismatic founder, Richard Meux Benson worked closely with American priests and just four years later a congregation was founded in Massachusetts that flourishes to this day. The charism of the order embraced high regard of theology with practical service, fostered by an emphasis on prayer and personal holiness. Cowley, a poor and rapidly expanding village on the outskirts of Oxford, provided ample opportunity for service. At its height, the English congregation had houses in Oxford (now St Stephen's House) and Westminster where figures such as C S Lewis sought spiritual direction. Now no longer operating as a community in Britain, this definitive and comprehensive history records its significant contribution to Anglicanism then and now.

Corrymeela - a Christian community committed to reconciliation, is bounded by bells. Twice a day - morning and evening - a large bell sounds out over the site. This is a call to attention, a call to pause, a space to reflect on God, self, neighbour, stranger. Between the Bells recounts the varied experiences of many whose lives have been changed by their visit to Corrymeela, and the changes they have effected in others. Narrated by the former Centre Director of the Corrymeela Community, it is full of wild and beautiful and funny stories that linger in the heart. Each story shows an aspect of the reconciliation journey, and captures various encounters - sad, challenging, inspiring, strange - that roam from the epic to the everyday. Between the Bells considers these key questions: - What needs reconciled in the 21st Century? - What has religion to offer in a positive way to Northern Ireland, for its people, for society? - How can we better understand conflict in order to build positive relations, improve communication, and nurture individuals, communities and society?

In recent years scholars in a range of disciplines have begun to re-evaluate the history of the Society of Jesus. Approaching the subject with new questions and methods, they have reconsidered the importance of the Society in many sectors, including those related to the sciences and the arts. They have also looked at the Jesuits as emblematic of certain traits of early modern Europeans, especially as those Europeans interacted with 'the Other' in Asia and the Americas. Originating in an international conference held at Boston College in 1997, the thirty-five essays here reflect this new historiographical trend. Focusing on the Old Society- the Society before its suppression in 1773 by papal edict- they examine the worldwide Jesuit undertaking in such fields as music, art, architecture, devotional writing, mathematics, physics, astronomy, natural history, public performance, and education, and they give special attention to the Jesuits' interaction with non-European cultures, in North and South America, China, India, and the Philippines. A picture emerges not only of the individual Jesuit, who might be missionary, diplomat, architect, and playwright over the course of his life in the Society, but also of the immense and many-faceted Jesuit enterprise as forming a kind of 'cultural ecosystem'. The Jesuits of the Old Society liked to think they had a way of proceeding special to themselves. The question, Was there a Jesuit style, a Jesuit corporate culture? is the thread that runs through this interdisciplinary collection of studies.

The medieval historian who revealed "The Real History Behind the Da Vinci Code" uncloaks the Templars.
In the year 1119, these noblemen found their calling as protectors of the faithful on a dangerous pilgrimage to newly conquered Jerusalem. Now, historian Sharan Newman elucidates the mysteries and misconceptions of the Templars, from their true first founding and role in the Crusades to more modern intrigues, including:
- Were they devout knights or secret heretics?
- Did they leave behind a fantastic treasure-hidden to this day?
- How did they come to be associated with the Holy Grail?
- Did they come to America before the time of Columbus?
- Does the order still exist?

This book tells the fascinating story of Robert of Arbrissel (ca. 1045-1116). Robert was a parish priest, longtime student, reformer, hermit, wandering preacher, and, most famously, founder of the abbey of Fontevraud. There men and women joined together in a monastic life organized so that women ruled men and men served women, according to the founder's plan. As Jacques Dalarun shows in this biography, however, Fontevraud was for Robert only one stopping point in a restless and lifelong journey in search of salvation that took place in roads, forests, towns, and monasteries across France. Hard as the travel was, the spiritual search was more agonizing still. Consumed with a sense of his own sinfulness, sexual and otherwise, Robert lived out penance however he could. The many women who gathered in his wake became partners in his religious quest, and his frequent contact with them was, paradoxically, a centerpiece of his penitential regime. At Fontevraud, he encouraged others to adopt the practice of intense contact with and indeed subservience to women. This reversal of the standard gender hierarchy in the midst of the ongoing battle with sexual temptation has baffled and even enraged observers during Robert's lifetime and ever since. Vividly narrating the course of Robert's life and his relationships with others along the way, the author hews closely to medieval sources, in particular two letters to Robert critical of his nonconformity and his relations with women, along with two admiring accounts written within a few years of his death. This translation by Bruce L. Venarde preserves the novelistic character of the original while updating and augmenting it with full notes, a bibliography, and an introduction both to the book and to scholarly interpretations of Robert in the past two decades. A new preface by Jacques Dalarun completes the reworking of the first full-length biography of Robert of Arbrissel available in English.

In the uniquely urban atmosphere of the twelth and thirteenth centuries in Northern Italy, the conflict between the evolving commercially-based society and anti-commercial religious dogma created a need among the laity for new spiritual responses with which to justify their changing experience. The Humiliati represent one such lay group who chose to disown all worldly goods but remain within their community and work towards its social and moral improvement.
Very few works have dealt singularly with the Humiliati, and none have delved specifically into the role of women in the movement. This book examines the contribution of women to the Humiliati movement, providing original archival evidence which indicates that women dominated the groups' membership. These findings have implications for both women's spirituality and women's work, correcting the received opinion that the patriarchical nature of Italian society and of the Church limited the institutional options available to women. It also suggests that women found innovative ways to participate in the increasingly restrictive textile industry of the region. This work provides a glimpse at the novel ways in which in medieval Italy women were able to satisfy their spiritual and economic needs within the confines of a male dominated Church and society.

A practical guide for those struggling to build a community of believers in a culture that wants to experience belonging over believing Who is my neighbor? Who belongs to me? To whom do I belong? These are timeless questions that guide the church to its fundamental calling. Today terms like neighbor, family, and congregation are being redefined. People are searching to belong in new places and experiences. The church needs to adapt its interpretations, definitions, and language to make sense in the changing culture. This book equips congregations and church leaders with tools to: * Discern the key ingredients people look for in community * Understand the use of space as a key element for experiencing belonging and community * Develop the "chemical compound" that produces an environment for community to spontaneously emerge * Discover how language promotes specific spatial belonging and then use this knowledge to build an effective vocabulary for community development * Create an assessment tool for evaluating organizational and personal community health

In this unprecedented introduction to Byzantine monasticism, based on the Conway Lectures she delivered at the University of Notre Dame in 2014, Alice-Mary Talbot surveys the various forms of monastic life in the Byzantine Empire between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. It includes chapters on male monastic communities (mostly cenobitic, but some idiorrhythmic in late Byzantium), nuns and nunneries, hermits and holy mountains, and a final chapter on alternative forms of monasticism, including recluses, stylites, wandering monks, holy fools, nuns disguised as monks, and unaffiliated monks and nuns. This original monograph does not attempt to be a history of Byzantine monasticism but rather emphasizes the multiplicity of ways in which Byzantine men and women could devote their lives to service to God, with an emphasis on the tension between the two basic modes of monastic life, cenobitic and eremitic. It stresses the individual character of each Byzantine monastic community in contrast to the monastic orders of the Western medieval world, and yet at the same time demonstrates that there were more connections between certain groups of monasteries than previously realized. The most original sections include an in-depth analysis of the challenges facing hermits in the wilderness, and special attention to enclosed monks (recluses) and urban monks and nuns who lived independently outside of monastic complexes. Throughout, Talbot highlights some of the distinctions between the monastic life of men and women, and makes comparisons of Byzantine monasticism with its Western medieval counterpart.

Spanning two thousand years of Christian religious women's quest for spiritual and vocational fulfillment, Sisters in Arms is the first definitive history of Catholic nuns in the Western world. Unfolding century by century, this epic drama encompasses every period from the dawn of Christianity to the present. History has until recently minimized the role of nuns over the centuries. In this volume, their rich lives, their work, and their importance to the Church are finally acknowledged. Jo Ann Kay McNamara introduces us to women scholars, mystics, artists, political activists, healers, and teachers--individuals whose religious vocation enabled them to pursue goals beyond traditional gender roles. They range from Thecla, the legendary companion of Paul, who baptized herself in preparation for facing the lions in the Roman arena, to Hildegard of Bingen, whose visions unlocked her extraordinary talents for music, medicine, and moral teaching in the twelfth century. They also include Sister Mary Theresa Kane, who stood before the pope--and an American television audience-in 1979 and urged him to consider the ordination of women. By entering the convent, McNamara shows, nuns gained a community that allowed them to evolve spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally; but the convent was never a perfect refuge. Women's struggles continued against the male church hierarchy, the broader lay community, and the larger cultural and historical forces of change. The history of nuns is an important part of the larger story of western women whose gender provoked resistance to their claims to autonomy and power. As we enter the third millennium, this groundbreaking work pays fitting tribute to the sisters who have labored with prayer and service for two thousand years, who have struggled to achieve greater recognition and authority, and who have forged opportunities for all women while holding true to the teachings of the Gospel.

In the course of their investigations into Leonardo da Vinci and the Turin Shroud, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince found clues in the work of the great Renaissance artist that pointed to the existence of a secret underground religion. More clues were found in a twentieth-century London church. These were the beginnings of a quest through time and space that led the authors into the mysterious world of secret societies and such bodies as the Freemasons, the Knights Templar and the Cathars and finally back to the ideas and beliefs of the first century AD and a devastating new view of the real character and motives of the founder of Christianity and the roles of John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene. They reveal nothing less than a secret history, preserved through the centuries but encoded in works of art and even in the great Gothic cathedrals, whose revelation could shake the foundations of the Chruch.

The congregation is a distinctly American religious structure, and is often overlooked in traditional studies of religion. But one cannot understand American religion without understanding the congregation.Volume 1: "Portraits of Twelve Religious Communities" chronicles the founding, growth, and development of congregations that represent the diverse and complex reality of American local religious cultures. The contributors explore multiple issues, from the fate of American Protestantism to the rise of charismatic revivalism.Volume 2: "New Perspectives in the Study of Congregations" builds upon those historical studies, and addresses three crucial questions: Where is the congregation located on the broader map of American cultural and religious life? What are congregations' distinctive qualities, tasks, and roles in American culture? And, what patterns of leadership characterize congregations in America?These essays are an indispensable tool for understanding American congregations and American religion as a whole.

"Caner draws together traditions, episodes, and groups from across the geographical expanse of the Roman Empire (the Syrian Orient, North Africa, Constantinople), to present the wandering monk as a figure around whom the ecclesiastical battle for authority fought between bishops and ascetics took on acute articulations. By focusing on religious practices rather than doctrinal teachings, Caner is able to weave together hitherto separate discussions to reveal a larger pattern of profound change in late antique Christian culture, as different models of monasticism competed for economic and political power in urban centers. This is very important work. It makes major contributions to our understanding of early Christian asceticism, the emergence of monasticism as an institution within church and society, and church-state relations in the later Roman Empire."--Susan Ashbrook Harvey, author of Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and the "Lives of the Eastern Saints.

"Caner has cut through to the heart of central issues in the study of early Christian asceticism: social stability, economic self-sufficiency, and the reliability of the sources at our disposal. Those who were apparently unstable and dependent, the wanderers and beggars of his title, occupy the foreground of his account; but his chief argument is that they have to be placed in a broader social and historical context that softens the edges of their idiosyncrasy, and that we have to be careful not to take at face value the exaggerated categories of mutually belligerent parties in the church. . . . The second half of the work begins by tackling the "Messalian" movement--asking whether it is appropriate to talk of a"movement" in so distinctive a way. The supposedly typical "Messalian" inclination--an inclination to dramatic indigence in the service of continuous prayer--seems less sui generis, when placed alongside more moderate forms of ascetic dedication. We are warned, therefore, not to accept too readily the paradigms of heresy-hunters like Epiphanius. Caner's account marks an important step forward in our understanding of such patterns of ascetic behavior. Caner also ventures upon an equally fresh and welcome investigation of what lay behind the contentious attitudes of John Chrysostom and Nilus of Ancyra, and then--perhaps even more exciting--explains how the whole study transforms our understanding of the maelstrom of politics that impinged upon religious debate between the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. We are thus brought to realize how eagerly and disruptively ascetic rivals struggled to attract and retain the patronage of the Christian elite, even to the imperial level."--Philip Rousseau, author of "Pachomius: The Making of a Community in Fourth-Century Egypt, and "Basil of Caesarea

One day in 1917, while cooking dinner at home in Manhattan, Margaret Reilly (1884-1937) felt a sharp pain over her heart and claimed to see a crucifix emerging in blood on her skin. Four years later, Reilly entered the convent of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Peekskill, New York, where, known as Sister Mary of the Crown of Thorns, she spent most of her life gravely ill and possibly exhibiting Christ's wounds. In this portrait of Sister Thorn, Paula M. Kane scrutinizes the responses to this American stigmatic's experiences and illustrates the surprising presence of mystical phenomena in twentieth-century American Catholicism. Drawing on accounts by clerical authorities, ordinary Catholics, doctors, and journalists - as well as on medicine, anthropology, and gender studies - Kane explores American Catholic mysticism, setting it in the context of life after World War I and showing the war's impact on American Christianity. Sister Thorn's life, she reveals, marks the beginning of a transition among Catholics from a devotional, Old World piety to a newly confident role in American society.