A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond

A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond

Author: James Mixson

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2015-06-02

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 9004297529

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The Observant Movement was a widespread effort to reform religious life across Europe. It took root around 1400, and for a century and more thereafter it inspired or shaped much that became central to European religion and culture. The Observants produced many of the leading religious figures of the later Middle Ages—Catherine of Siena, Bernardino of Siena and Savonarola in Italy, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros in Spain, and in Germany Martin Luther himself. This volume provides scholars with a current, synthetic introduction to the Observant Movement. Its essays also seek collectively to expand the horizons of our study of Observant reform, and to open new avenues for future scholarship. Contributors are Michael D. Bailey, Pietro Delcorno, Tamar Herzig, Anne Huijbers, James D. Mixson, Alison More, Carolyn Muessig, Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, Bert Roest, Timothy Schmitz, and Gabriella Zarri.


The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism

The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism

Author: Bernice M. Kaczynski

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-09-29

Total Pages: 736

ISBN-13: 0191003964

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The Handbook takes as its subject the complex phenomenon of Christian monasticism. It addresses, for the first time in one volume, the multiple strands of Christian monastic practice. Forty-four essays consider historical and thematic aspects of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Protestant, and Anglican traditions, as well as contemporary 'new monasticism'. The essays in the book span a period of nearly two thousand years—from late ancient times, through the medieval and early modern eras, on to the present day. Taken together, they offer, not a narrative survey, but rather a map of the vast terrain. The intention of the Handbook is to provide a balance of some essential historical coverage with a representative sample of current thinking on monasticism. It presents the work of both academic and monastic authors, and the essays are best understood as a series of loosely-linked episodes, forming a long chain of enquiry, and allowing for various points of view. The authors are a diverse and international group, who bring a wide range of critical perspectives to bear on pertinent themes and issues. They indicate developing trends in their areas of specialisation. The individual contributions, and the volume as a whole, set out an agenda for the future direction of monastic studies. In today's world, where there is increasing interest in all world monasticisms, where scholars are adopting more capacious, global approaches to their investigations, and where monks and nuns are casting a fresh eye on their ancient traditions, this publication is especially timely.


Provost Georg Muestinger and the Introduction of the Raudnitz Reform into Stift Klosterneuburg, 1418 - ca. 1421

Provost Georg Muestinger and the Introduction of the Raudnitz Reform into Stift Klosterneuburg, 1418 - ca. 1421

Author: Clemens T. Galban

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2020-07-29

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 3643911971

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The Council of Constance and the conclusion of the Papal Schism released long pent-up energies of reform throughout the Church and in the religious Orders in particular. The Austrian Visitation of 1418/19 which propelled Georg Muestinger to the highest position in Stift Klosterneuburg and introduced the Raudnitz Reform of canons regular into his ancient monastery, illustrates how these energies both cooperated and competed with each other to achieve a reform of religious life. The centerpiece of this work is the introduction of the Raudnitz Statutes into the monastery and Muestinger's adaptation of that legislation.


Zealots for Souls

Zealots for Souls

Author: Anne Huijbers

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2018-01-22

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 3110540290

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Zealots for souls draws attention to the impact of the Observant reforms within the Order of Preachers, and ambitiously stirs up a broad scope of questions pertaining to the institutional narratives produced within the order between c. 1388 and 1517. Through the narratives and the forms of remembrance they fostered, the author traces the development of contemporary characteristics of the Dominican self-understanding. The book shows the fluid boundaries between the genres (order chronicles, convent chronicles, collective biographies), highlights the interplay between the narrative and the intended audience, addresses the complex question of authorship, and assesses the indebtedness of 'modern' (printed) narratives to older chronicles or biographical collections. The book demonstrates that the majority of the extant institutional narratives were written by Observant Dominicans, who strived for the internal reform of their order. They wrote history to justify their own reform agenda and therefore produced invariably partisan chronicles. The work's method is widely applicable and contributes to further reassessment of institutional narratives as sources for the analysis of religious and intellectual transformations.


The Later Middle Ages

The Later Middle Ages

Author: Isabella Lazzarini

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0198731647

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This edited volume brings together experts on the later middle ages to chart the principle developments of medieval Europe.


The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts (c. 1480–1650)

The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts (c. 1480–1650)

Author: Marianne P. Ritsema van Eck

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-09-16

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9004410325

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In The Holy Land in Observant Franciscan Texts (c. 1480–1650) Marianne Ritsema van Eck analyses the development of the complex Observant Franciscan engagement with the Holy Land during the early modern period. During these eventful centuries friars of the Franciscan establishment in Jerusalem increasingly sought to cultivate strong ideological ties between themselves and the Holy Land, participating actively in contemporary literatures of geographia sacra and Levantine pilgrimage and travel. It becomes clear how the friars constructed a collective memory using the ideological canon of their order – featuring Bonaventurian theology, marvels of the east, cartography, apocalyptic visions of history, calls for Crusade, and finally a pilgrimage-possessio of the Holy Land by Francis.


Women and Monastic Reform in the Medieval West, C. 1000 - 1500

Women and Monastic Reform in the Medieval West, C. 1000 - 1500

Author: Julie Hotchin

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2023-04-04

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1837650497

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New approaches to understanding religious women's involvement in monastic reform, demonstrating how women's experiences were more ambiguous and multi-layered than previously assumed. Over the last two decades, scholarship has presented a more nuanced view of women's attitude to and agency in medieval monastic reform, challenging the idea that they were, by and large, unwilling to accept or were necessarily hostile towards reform initiatives. Rather, it has shown that they actively participated in debates about the ideas and structures that shaped their religious lives, whether rejecting, embracing, or adapting to calls for "reform" contingent on their circumstances. Nevertheless, fundamental questions regarding the gendered nature of religious reform are ripe for further examination. This book brings together innovative research from a range of disciplines to re-evaluate and enlarge our knowledge of women's involvement in spiritual and institutional change in female monastic communities over the period c. 1000 - c. 1500. Contributors revise conventional narratives about women and monastic reform, and earlier assumptions of reform as negative or irrelevant for women. Drawing on a diverse array of visual, material and textual sources, it presents "snapshots" of reform from western Europe, stretching from Ireland to Iberia. Case-studies focussing on a number of different topics, from tenth-century female saints' lives to fifteenth-century liturgical books, from the tenth-century Leominster prayerbook to archaeological remains in Ireland, from embroideries and tapestries to the rebellious nuns of Sainte-Croix in Poitiers, offer a critical reappraisal of how monastic women (and their male associates) reflected, individually and collectively, on their spiritual ideals and institutional forms.


Observant Reforms and Cultural Production in Europe

Observant Reforms and Cultural Production in Europe

Author: Pietro Delcorno

Publisher: Radboud University Press

Published: 2023-08-09

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9493296083

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The impetus of religious reform between ca. 1380-1520, which expressed itself in a variety of Observant initiatives in many religious orders all over Europe, and also brought forth the Devotio moderna movement in the late medieval Low Countries, had considerable repercussions for the production of a wide range of religious texts, and the embrace of other forms of cultural production (scribal activities, liturgical innovations, art, music, religious architecture). At the same time, the very impetus of reform within late medieval religious orders and the wish to return to a more modest religious lifestyle in accordance with monastic and mendicant rules, and ultimately with the commands of Christ in the Gospel, made it difficult to wholeheartedly embrace the material consequences of learning, literary and artistic prowess, as the very pursuit of such pursuits ran against basic demands of evangelical poverty and humility. This volume explores how this tension was negotiated in various Observant and Devotio moderna contexts, and how communities connected with these movements instrumentalized various types of writing, learning, and other forms of cultural expression to further the cause of religious reform, defend it against order-internal and external criticism, to shape recognizable reform identities for themselves, and to transform religious life in society as a whole.