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Monasteries were a dominant feature of the landscape of medieval England, but although much critical attention has been devoted to them, comparatively little has been written on the thirty abbeys of the English Premonstratensians[`White Canons'], a gap which this book, the first detailed study since the early 1950s, seeks to fill. Centred upon the remarkable visitation records of Richard Redman [d.1505], commissary-general and visitor of the English Premonstratensian abbeys, it covers topics suc...

Graham Gould studies the life and thought of the Christian monks of fourth and fifth century lower Egypt. He works from collections of their sayings and stories which were compiled in the late fifth century and which are known collectively as the Apopthegmata Patrum. These texts show that the Desert Fathers were deeply concerned with the nature of the monastic community which they formed and with the problems which might affect relationships between individuals within it. Successive chapters of...

These eighty-six sermons are among the most famous and most beautiful examples of medieval scriptural exegesis. In them the modern reader can catch a glimpse of the genius an entire generation found irresistible.

Both a reflection and a practical guidebook on spiritual accompaniment, or direction, Light for My Path does not sidestep such delicate issues as: the relationship between authority and spiritual direction, how to discern the vocation of a person with a homosexual orientation, and the presence of delusions along the spiritual journey. Dom Bernardo Olivera also makes a distinction between spiritual direction and sacramental confession, and explores the relationship between authority and therapy,...

The Catholic Church produced an enormous volume of written material designed to ensure the servility of nuns. Reading this body of proscriptive literature alongside nuns' own writings, Kirk finds that practice often diverged from theory. She analyzes how 17th- and 18th-century nuns formed alliances and friendships in defiance of Church authorities' efforts to contain and control them. In the Mexican convents that form the basis of Kirk's study, nuns developed a powerful, counterhegemonic spirit...

This book examines the history of monastic exemption in France. It reveals an institutional story of monastic freedom and protection, deeply rooted in the religious, political, social and legal culture of the early Middle Ages. Traversing many geo-political boundaries and fields of historical specialisation, the book defines the meaning and value of exemption to French monasteries between the sixth and eleventh centuries. It demonstrates how enduring relationships with the apostolic see in Rome...

This volume presents a critical edition of two Latin monastic texts from late antiquity along with a scholarly introduction.The Regula Donati and the anonymous Fragmentum Regulae were both designed for nunneries. Donat's rules in particular transmit a complex tradition of early monastic rules.

A saintly twelfth-century abbot, born to a family of hereditary priests family in Hexham, Northumbria, and raised at the Scottish royal court, recounts the deeds of his saintly forebears in the North. He tells of flawed and foolish men-and women-on their journey to the heavenly Jerusalem. Through his eyes we see Ninian, the Irishman who evangelized Scotland, and the saints of Hexham itself. And we learn of human weakness and retribution in 'A Certain Wonderful Miracle'.

Aelred of Rievaulx was an heir of Saxons living under Norman rule, a native speaker of English daily speaking French and Latin, a descendant of generations of married priests in an age when priests were forbidden to wed, an English monk in a French order, an abbot bred to service in the church but trained for service in the court. His sermons and treatises reflect Aelred the monk, the novice-master, and abbot. His historical works 'concerned with the political world of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norm...

From the semitic-aramaic spirituality of the early Church to the Hellenized theological Vision of later centuries, the Syrian tradition offers modern Christians an intensity, insights, and an immediacy rare in the West.

Mount Athos, a spectacularly beautiful rocky peninsula jutting out from the coast of northeastern Greece, has been a monastic preserve since the ninth century. Known as the Holy Mountain, it serves as the centre of monasticism for all the Eastern Orthodox churches and remains fundamentally unchanged despite the storms of political and religious conflict that have raged over the centuries. This is an illustrated history of Mount Athos. It encompasses the entire story of Athos from the first ancho...

Saints Jacob of Serugh and Severus of Antioch provided monastic interpretations for Syriac Orthodoxy. Bcheiry highlights St. Jacob's exegesis of Jonah as a spiritual struggle with ascetic appearances. St. Severus address the movement from self-deial to purity in his Lenten homilies.

Many Jesuits regard the Constitutions as a primarily juridical text, unlikely to stimulate the mind much less warm the heart. In the words of Nicholas Bobadilla, the Constitutions is 'a labyrinth thoroughly confused'. Yet, outside the Society and especially in the academy the Constitutions is held up as a classic of Western spirituality. About the Constitutions two things seem true: it is a spiritual treasure of Christianity, it's arch-complexity means that for many Jesuits it remains under l...

This book narrates the battles, conquests and diplomatic activities of the early Muslim fighters in Syria and Iraq vis-à-vis their Byzantine and Sasansian counterparts. It is the first English translation of one of the earliest Arabic sources on the early Muslim expansion entitled Futūḥ al-Shām (The Conquests of Syria). The translation is based on the Arabic original composed by a Muslim author, Muḥammad al-Azdī, who died in the late 8th or early 9th century C.E. A scientific introduction to a...

Famous for their love affair and their letter exchange, Heloise, abbess of the Paraclete, and Abelard, monk and scholar, are less known for their on-going monastic relationship. Abelard's letters of direction to Heloise and her nuns were complemented by the liturgical music he composed for them. This study of Abelard as musician and spiritual director underlines the importance liturgical song has in forming the virtues of obedience, penitence, and humility as well as highlighting Abelard's maste...