Medieval Christianity: Monasticism

In this book, William Harmless provides an accessible introduction to early Christian monastic literature from Egypt and beyond. He introduces the reader to the major figures and literary texts, as well as offering an up-to-date survey of current questions and scholarship in the field. The text is enhanced by the inclusion of chronologies, maps, outlines, illustrations, and bibliographies. The book will not only serve as a text for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on early Christianity, the Desert Fathers, and Christian asceticism, but it should stimulate further research by making the fruits of recent scholarship more readily and widely available.

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.Beginnings 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.-Flap cover

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

Among the most beautiful, spiritual and evocative structures in stone ever built are the medieval monasteries of Europe. The importance of the monastic world, its ideas and ideals, to the rise of Western civilization is second to none. The age of the cloister offers a fascinating overview of the birth and flowering of monasticism, and describes in great detail the everyday monastic life and the faith, literature, economy, architecture and culture of countless monks, hermits, nuns, canons, friars and lay men and women spanning hundreds of years.

The" Encyclopedia of Monasticism" emerged as a result of its publisher's intuition that the time is ripe to undertake a conspectus of monastic life past and present- its practices,doctrines,lifestyles,spiritualities,and art as pursued in Budhism and Christianity.It is the privilege and duty of a reference book to scan methodological horizons,to assemble data,and to offer panoramas of past accomplishments.A further set of tasks involves redefining the needs of a field and reorienting it toward future agendas.The "Encyclopedia of Monasticism" performs both types of functions,recapitulating the past as well as anticipating the future.-Introduction.

Barbara Harvey exploits the exceptionally rich archives of the Benedictine foundation at Westminster to the full,offering many vivid insights into the lives of the monks of Westminster,their dependants,and their benefactors.She examines the charitable practices of the monks,their food and drink,their illnesses and their deaths,the number and conditions of employment of their servants,and their controversial practice of granting corrodies(pensions made up in large measure of benefits in kind).All these topics Miss Harvey considers in the context both of religious institutions in general and of the secular world.-Back cover.

Through rigorous examination of papyrological documentary sources, archaeology, and traditional literary sources, James Goehring gradually forces a new direction in understanding the evolution of monasticism. He ably transforms these sources into a clear narrative, thereby infusing the history of Egyptian monasticism with renewed energy.

Rather than recount the whole history of the monastic movement and of every religious order in the Church,east and west,Karl Suso Frank passes quickly over those long periods of stability in which members of monastic and religious communities quietly and faithfully followed their call and instead highlights the periods of transition and innovation.He asks how men and women seeking God through two christian millenia have adapted and innovated as they encountered new challenges in the Church and in the world.He looks for what has changed and what is new,as well as what has continued through the centuries.-Back cover.

The author presents a loving contact with the founders of the Monastic Orders,and shows how St.Benedict and others made a skillful selection from the treasures o the ancients.Our age poses for all Christian religious a similar problem,namely how to adapt oneself to a changing civilization.This study of the roots common to all Christian monasticism will contribute to a mutual understanding between the Churches and different cultures.-Back cover.

All the orders and institutes of men living under a religious rule in the Christian Church derive from the first monks, but, like limbs of a family tree, they branch out into diverse forms. Thus the international and highly active Society of Jesus and the simple community of Iona in Scotland are both directly descended from the Egyptian hermits of the third century, although they differ greatly in the way they accept their spiritual inheritance. Professor Knowles concentrates on the central monastic tradition. He shows its evolution, both as a ascetic ideal and as a force in society, from its birth in the Near East and Mediterranean through medieval Europe and the nineteenth-century revival to the busy abbeys of modern North America.

The growing scholarly attention in recent years to the religious world of late antiquity has focused new attention on the quest for holiness by the strange, compelling, often obscure early Christian monks known as the desert fathers. Yet until now, little attention has been given to one of the most vital dimensions of their spirituality: their astute, penetrating interpretation of Scripture. Rooted in solitude, cultivated in an atmosphere of silence, oriented toward the practical appropriation of the sacred texts, the desert fathers' hermeneutic profoundly shaped every aspect of their lives and became a significant part of their legacy. This book explores the setting within which the early monastic movement emerged, the interpretive process at the center of the desert fathers' quest for holiness, and the intricate patterns of meaning woven into their words and their lives. - Publisher.

The impingement of monastery on marketplace provides the unifying theme for this collection of nine research papers. Separation from the world, for most members of religious orders in the Middle Ages, did not imply isolation from the rest of society but, rather, a new spirituality orientated relationship which took different forms in different times. Three of the contributors are concerned with particular aspects of the intellectual activities of the religious orders in both university and cloister. Two others examine the traumatic effects of the enforced return to secular life of thousands of men and women religious in England when monastic life was brought to an abrupt end in 1540. An individual monk's pastoral role among the laity is explore and evaluated in one paper, while another reveals the extent to which a rural English nunnery was both rooted in the local community and dependent on foreign supervision. Problems encountered by the friars are discussed by two other contributors who, on the basis of their recent research,conclude that the hostility between Franciscans and Benedictines has been overstated and that some German Dominicans risked their reputations in their involvement with contemporary heterodox movements among the laity. -Back cover.

This is the first complete and unabridged translation into English of this key text from one of the most important masters of the spiritual life. Cassian's teaching underlies that of St. Philip Neri and St. Francis de Sales and was also one of the major influences on St. Benedict. Cassian had experienced monastic life in Egypt in the ancient desert tradition. He was ordained deacon by St. John Chrysostom, but ended life in Marseilles where he had founded two monasteries. He wrote this practical treatise at the request of a French bishop who was seeking guidelines on the monastic life. The work is divided into two sections, both of which are full of practical and hopeful advice for the living of the Christian life. The first part, "On the Training of a Monk", relates many of Cassian's fascinating first hand experiences of the tradition of the Desert Fathers. He makes suggestions as to how their spirit can be reapplied in a Western,more urban context. In the second part, "The Eight Deadly Sins", Cassian sees the classic weaknesses of the human condition as obstacles or hurdles in the Christian life, which the spiritual athlete - under grace - can conquer one by one on the road to sanctity. -Back cover.

Publisher's description: The writings of Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) reveal how the monastic mind, oscillating between hope and despair, was absorbed in technical exercises rather than in religious emotions. Early on monasticism had developed procedures for 'ruminating on' the Bible and the works of the Church Fathers. Applying the art of logic to this theme, Anselm offers a denser version of monastic meditation that constitutes a poetics of monastic literature. Before engaging Anselm's works, this book addresses texts--by Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clairvaux, Rupert of Deutz, and Richard of St. Victor--based on the same principles. In them, the potentially violent nature of an existence in which time has almost come to a halt manifests itself in a vision of the act of reading as a struggle with the text and as violent, amorous passion. The book then traces the decline of the monastic poetical principle in the writings of John of the Cross, Pierre de Břulle, Calvin, and Ignatius of Loyola. A concluding chapter on Ignatius and James Joyce shows how the poetics of monasticism both survives and is exiled in modernist literature.

The category "Protestant monk" would seem at first blush to be an impossible concept. Nevertheless, there are several true religious communities, Taize, Grandchamp and Pomeyrol among them, who maintain that they are authentically Protestant. Whether their inspiration comes from the depths of Protestantism itself, or whether they can be ignored by Protestants as not strictly theirs - and misunderstood by Catholics as way stations on the route to Rome - is the subject of this book. Father Biot's thorough study begins with an historical as well as theoretical discussion of the position of the sixteenth century Reformers on monasticism, vows and celibacy. He then traces the growth of Protestant religious communities from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. His inquiry concludes with a theological justification from the Protestant position for the "Protestant monk". This vocation at the forefront of the ecumenical movement is vitally important to both Catholics and Protestants. Here is the basis for a proper evaluation of this dynamic new force within the Churches of the Reform. -Flap cover.

"Medieval Monasteries of Great Britain" is divided into two sections-an Introduction written by Lionel Butler which deals with the early Celtic and Benedictine monasticism in Britain,the developing place of the monks in the Church,the rrival of the new orders of monks and friars,monastic buildings and organisation,and the decline and dissolution of the monasteries;and a Gazetteer compiled by Chris Given-Wilson which describes the history and architecture of eighty of the most important monastic sites in Britain.

These essays relate to two major aspects of the reforms that radically changed the Western Church during the 11th and 12th centuries. The first is the emergence of the Crusades in so far as they developed under papal direction. Secondly, they discuss developments in the monastic order.

Monasteries are one of the few types of communities that have been able to exist without the family. In this first-hand study of the daily life in a Trappist monastery, Hillery concludes that what binds this unusual and highly successful community together is its emphases on freedom and agape love.

"This book uses Irish hagiography to explain the monastic world, focusing on the major monasteries that produced the 'vitae'. It examines the relationships among saints, monks, and lay people, and the monastic interpretations of those relationships. If it sometimes mixes historical reality with monastic perceptions, then it successfully straddles the most forbidding boundary of all: the great chasm between our world and that of the Middle Ages." -- Preface.

The Irish temperament-individualistic,poetic,and deeply loyal to family-produced great and learned saints and a unique monastic literature before the Norman Invasion.The isolation of the island allowed the development of traditions different from those of either Britain of the continent.These graceful translations of Irish monastic rules and spiritual maxims,along with samples of Irish litanies and poetry from the early Celtic monastic world,convey the spirituality of the Isle of Saints from the sixth to eight centuries.-Back cover.

"This book is an invitation to students of the period to consider this weell-known event (or series of events) in English history as it actually happened. Beginning with an assumption that the Dissolution was neither an integral nor an essential part of the English Reformation, the author is convinced that the best way to discover how this great 'resumption' of the material resources of the regular clergy was effected is to pursue the story chronologically and thus rediscover what contemporaries knew was happening at each of several successive stages." -- Back cover.

Dr. Chitty, one of the major scholars in this period, deals with the golden age of Egyptian monasticism and describes the three founders of the movement, Anastasius, Anthony and Pachomius. He follows the development of monastic life in all its forms in Egypt to the end of the fourth century, when the center shifted to Palestine; the following chapters are devoted to accounts of the great ascetics of Palestine. The controversies surrounding the monastic movement are examined in their political and ecclesiastical aspects and the book concludes with an account of the monastic history of Mount Sinai. -Back cover.

Samuel Rubenson, by means of a fresh analysis of the letters of St. Antony, exposes the distortion of the picture of early Christian monks as unlettered and primitive. Rubenson describes the desert monasteries as centers of theological reflection in Egypt, showing how they combined the speculative philosophy of the Greeks and the biblical tradition. Included in this volume is a new translation of the letters themselves, which are shown to be authentic and an important source for the study of the desert fathers and the early monastic tradition. The latter image of Antony is demonstrated to be influenced by church politics of the latter part of the fourth century. -Back cover.

The predominant theme of these essays is Cluny's interpretation of monasticism.Cluny's place in relation to the Carolingian tradition and the tenth-century reform movement is established first;the final article deals with the twelfth-century monastic crisis in which Cluny and the new orders were involved.Other articles examine the nature of Cluniac expansion in the east Pyrenees and north Italy,Cluniac attitudes towards society,and distinctive cultural features.-Flap cover.