A Cloistered War
A Cloistered War

Author: Maisie Duncan

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13:

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This book is a coming-of-age memoir set in Malaya before and after World War 2. The author takes us back to the delightful times of curry tiffins, porcelain dolls, Cantonese amahs (not-so-delightful) castor-oil Saturdays. Born into a Penang family with strong maritime connections, Maisie, her sister Olga and brother John enjoy a happy carefree existence which comes to an end with the death of their mother. The Prout children are sent away from the family home to convent nuns and Christian brothers in Singapore. The two sisters spend the next 14 years of their youth traversing Malaya as CHIJ boarders in Singapore and Seremban, under the watchful eyes of the nuns -- a varied lot fleshed out by Maisie's sharp, humorous and often poignant recollections. Witnesses to the first air raid over Singapore, the sisters observe endure and survive the Japanese Occupation to welcome the liberation forces and complete their interrupted education, graduating in due course with Senior Cambridge Certificates, then going on to train as teachers in Seremban. This memoir will strike a chord with those who remember the old CHIJ institutions, the Occupation period and post-war Malaya. Those too young to recall these events will be charmed by Maisie's stories, delivered in her inimitable style.

The Cloister
The Cloister

Author: James Carroll

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2018-03-06

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 0385541287

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From National Book Award-winning writer James Carroll comes a novel of the timeless love story of Peter Abelard and Héloïse, and its impact on a modern priest and a Holocaust survivor seeking sanctuary in Manhattan. Father Michael Kavanagh is shocked when he sees a friend from his seminary days at the altar of his humble parish in upper Manhattan—a friend who was forced to leave under scandalous circumstances. Compelled to reconsider the past, Father Kavanagh wanders into the medieval haven of the Cloisters and stumbles into a conversation with a lovely and intriguing docent, Rachel Vedette. Having survived the Holocaust and escaped to America, Rachel remains obsessed with her late father’s greatest scholarly achievement: a study demonstrating the relationship between the famously discredited monk Peter Abelard and Jewish scholars. Feeling an odd connection with Father Kavanagh, Rachel shares with him the work that cost her father his life. At the center of these interrelated stories is the classic romance between the great philosopher Abelard and his intellectual equal, Héloïse. For Rachel, Abelard is the key to understanding her people’s place in history. And for Father Kavanagh, the controversial theologian may be a doorway to understanding the life he himself might have had outside the Church.

A Cloister on Trial
A Cloister on Trial

Author: Gabriella Erdélyi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-09

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1317188772

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In 1517, the usually tranquil friary in the Hungarian town of Körmend found itself at the centre of controversy when its Augustinian friars, charged with drunkenness, sexual abuses and liturgical negligence, were driven out and replaced with observant Franciscans. The agent of change in this conflict, cardinal Thomas Bakócz, claimed to be acting in the name of ’cloister reform’ motivated by a religious agenda, while the Augustinians portrayed themselves as the victims of a political game. Based on the surviving interrogations of a papal enquiry into these events, this book illuminates the tensions and potential conflict that lurked within the religious culture of a seemingly unremarkable and remote town. The story of the friary trial of Körmend provides a fascinating window into religion and society of Europe at the dawn of the Reformation, investigating the processes by which ordinary people emerge as historical agents from the written records. By focussing on their experiences as represented in the trial documents the book reveals the spaces and borders of individual and communal action within the dynamic of lay-clerical relations negotiated in a friary reform at the beginning of the 16th century. Furthermore, the moral nature of the accusations levelled at the Augustinians - and whether these were justified or instigated for political reasons - offers further insights into the nature of late-medieval Catholicism and the claims of Protestant reformers.

Sword, Miter, and Cloister
Sword, Miter, and Cloister

Author: Constance Brittain Bouchard

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2009-08-06

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 9780801475269

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Bouchard provides a fresh perspective on social and ecclesiastical life in the High Middle Ages, drawing on a vast range of primary sources to reveal the surprisingly close relationship between monasteries and the nobility.

Beyond the Cloister
Beyond the Cloister

Author: Jenna Lay

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2016-07-12

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0812293029

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Representations of Catholic women appear with surprising frequency in the literature of post-Reformation England. Playwrights and poets from William Shakespeare to Andrew Marvell invoke the figure of the nun to powerful and often perplexing effect, and works that never directly address female Catholicism, such as Christopher Marlowe's Hero and Leander, share a discourse with contemporary debates regarding the status of recusant women. Catholic Englishwomen, whether living in convents on the European continent or as recusants in their own country, contributed to these debates, but even as their writings addressed the central religious and political issues of their time, their contributions were effaced and now are largely forgotten. Exploring the writings of Catholic women in conversation with those of Shakespeare, Marvell, Marlowe, Donne, and other canonical authors, Beyond the Cloister shows that nuns and recusants were centrally important to the development of English literature. The defining narratives of early modern England cast nuns as the relics of an unenlightened past and equated Catholic femininity with the dangerous charms of the Whore of Babylon. With careful attention to literary figurations of Catholic femininity and to the vibrant manuscript culture in the English convents, Jenna Lay reveals a far more complex reality. Through their use of tropes, figures, generic patterns, and literary allusions, Catholic women produced politically incendiary and rhetorically powerful lyrics, prayers, polemics, and hagiographies. Drawing on the insights of religious studies, historical formalism, and feminist criticism, Beyond the Cloister offers a reassessment of crucial decades in the development of English literary history.

Life Inside the Cloister
Life Inside the Cloister

Author: Thomas Coomans

Publisher: Leuven University Press

Published: 2018-05-17

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 9462701431

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Sacred architecture as reality and metaphor in secularised Western society Christian monasteries and convents, built throughout Europe for the best part of 1,500 years, are now at a crossroads. This study attempts to understand the sacred architecture of monasteries as a process of the tangible and symbolic organisation of space and time for religious communities. Despite the weight of seemingly immutable monastic tradition, architecture has contributed to developing specific religious identities and played a fundamental part in the reformation of different forms of religious life according to the changing needs of society. The cloister is the focal point of this book because it is both architecture, a physically built reality, and a metaphor for the religious life that takes place within it. Life Inside the Cloister also addresses the afterlife and heritagisation of monastic architecture in secularised Western society.

Japan at War
Japan at War

Author: Louis G. Perez

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2013-01-08

Total Pages: 657

ISBN-13: 1598847422

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This compelling reference focuses on the events, individuals, organizations, and ideas that shaped Japanese warfare from early times to the present day. Japan's military prowess is legendary. From the early samurai code of morals to the 20th-century battles in the Pacific theater, this island nation has a long history of duty, honor, and valor in warfare. This fascinating reference explores the relationship between military values and Japanese society, and traces the evolution of war in this country from 700 CE to modern times. In Japan at War: An Encyclopedia, author Louis G. Perez examines the people and ideas that led Japan into or out of war, analyzes the outcomes of battles, and presents theoretical alternatives to the strategic choices made during the conflicts. The book contains contributions from scholars in a wide range of disciplines, including history, political science, anthropology, sociology, language, literature, poetry, and psychology; and the content features internal rebellions and revolutions as well as wars with other countries and kingdoms. Entries are listed alphabetically and extensively cross-referenced to help readers quickly locate topics of interest.