Magic in the Cloister
Magic in the Cloister

Author: Sophie Page

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2013-10-21

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 0271062975

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During the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries a group of monks with occult interests donated what became a remarkable collection of more than thirty magic texts to the library of the Benedictine abbey of St. Augustine’s in Canterbury. The monks collected texts that provided positive justifications for the practice of magic and books in which works of magic were copied side by side with works of more licit genres. In Magic in the Cloister, Sophie Page uses this collection to explore the gradual shift toward more positive attitudes to magical texts and ideas in medieval Europe. She examines what attracted monks to magic texts, in spite of the dangers involved in studying condemned works, and how the monks combined magic with their intellectual interests and monastic life. By showing how it was possible for religious insiders to integrate magical studies with their orthodox worldview, Magic in the Cloister contributes to a broader understanding of the role of magical texts and ideas and their acceptance in the late Middle Ages.

Warriors of the Cloisters
Warriors of the Cloisters

Author: Christopher I. Beckwith

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012-09-16

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0691155313

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"In this provocative book, Christopher I. Beckwith traces how the recursive argument method was first developed by Buddhist scholars and was spread by them throughout ancient Central Asia. He shows how the method was adopted by Islamic Central Asian natural philosphers - most importantly by Avicenna, one of the most brilliant of all medieval thinkers - and transmitted to the West when Avicenna's works were translated into Latin in Spain in the twelfth century by the Jewish philosopher Ibn Dā'ūd and others. -- Book jacket.

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.

The Cloister Walk
The Cloister Walk

Author: Kathleen Norris

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1997-04-01

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9781573225847

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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR “Vivid, compelling... An embrace of moral and spiritual contemplation.” –The New York Times “A remarkable piece of writing. If read with humility and attention, Kathleen Norris's book becomes lectio divina, or holy reading.” –The Boston Globe From the iconic author of Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, a spiritual journey that brings joy to the meanings of love, grace and faith. Why would a married woman with a thoroughly Protestant background and often more doubt than faith be drawn to the ancient practice of monasticism, to a community of celibate men whose days are centered on a rigid schedule of prayer, work, and scripture? This is the question that poet Kathleen Norris asks us as, somewhat to her own surprise, she found herself on two extended residencies at St. John's Abbey in Minnesota. Part record of her time among the Benedictines, part meditation on various aspects of monastic life, The Cloister Walk demonstrates, from the rare perspective of someone who is both an insider and outsider, how immersion in the cloistered world-- its liturgy, its ritual, its sense of community-- can impart meaning to everyday events and deepen our secular lives. In this stirring and lyrical work, the monastery, often considered archaic or otherworldly, becomes immediate, accessible, and relevant to us, no matter what our faith may be.

Across the Open Field
Across the Open Field

Author: Laurie Olin

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2012-09-07

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0812207866

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Twenty-eight years ago I went to England for a three-month visit and rest. What I found changed my life." So begins this memoir by one of America's best-known landscape architects, Laurie Olin. Raised in a frontier town in Alaska, trained in Seattle and New York, Olin found himself dissatisfied with his job as an urban architect and accepted an invitation to England to take a respite from work. What he found, in abundance, was the serendipity of a human environment built over time to respond to the land's own character and to the people who lived and worked there. For Olin, the English countryside was a palimpsest of the most eloquent and moving sort, yet whose manifestation was of ordinary buildings meant to shelter their inhabitants and further their work. With evocative language and exquisite line drawings, the author takes us back to his introduction to the scenes of English country towns, their ancient universities, meandering waterways, and dramatic cloudscapes racing in from the Atlantic. He limns the geologic histories found within the rock, the near-forgotten histories of place-names, and the recent histories of train lines and auto routes. Comparing the growth of building in the English countryside, Olin draws some sobering conclusions about our modern lifestyle and its increasing separation from the landscape. As much a plea for saving the modern American landscape as it is a passionate exploration of what makes the English landscape so characteristically English, Across the Open Field is "an affectionate ramble through real places of lasting worth.

Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Volume 3, Southern England
Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Volume 3, Southern England

Author: Anthony Emery

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2006-03-09

Total Pages: 756

ISBN-13: 9781139449199

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This is the third volume of Anthony Emery's magisterial survey, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500, first published in 2006. Across the three volumes Emery has examined afresh and re-assessed over 750 houses, the first comprehensive review of the subject for 150 years. Covered are the full range of leading homes, from royal and episcopal palaces to manor houses, as well as community buildings such as academic colleges, monastic granges and secular colleges of canons. This volume surveys Southern England and is divided into three regions, each of which includes a separate historical and architectural introduction as well as thematic essays prompted by key buildings. The text is complemented throughout by a wide range of plans and diagrams and a wealth of photographs showing the present condition of almost every house discussed. This is an essential source for anyone interested in the history, architecture and culture of medieval England and Wales.

Oxford College Gardens
Oxford College Gardens

Author: Tim Richardson

Publisher: White Lion Publishing

Published: 2018-09-04

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0711239789

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From the bijou corners of Corpus Christi to the wide open lawns of Trinity, Oxford's gardens are full of surprises and hidden corners - not least the fellows' or masters' gardens, which are usually kept resolutely private. Take a tour of the stunning gardens of this prestigious British institution without leaving your armchair with this elegant, authoritative analysis full of glorious photographs which reveal their full interest and charm. The gardens of Oxford's thirty or so colleges are surprisingly varied in style, age and size, ranging from the ancient mound in the middle of New College to the fine modernist design which is St Catherine's. The eighteenth-century landscape school is represented in the magnificent acreage of Worcester, while the twentieth-century vogue for rock gardening is reflected at St John's. Founded in 1621, the university's Botanic Garden is the oldest botanic garden in Britain, holds one of the most diverse plant collections in the world, and has been a source of inspiration for writers from Lewis Carroll to Philip Pullman.

St Stephen's Chapel and the Palace of Westminster
St Stephen's Chapel and the Palace of Westminster

Author: Tim Ayers

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2024-10

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1837651639

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Traces the history of a magnificent landmark in the history of late medieval art and architecture. As the principal royal chapel in the medieval Palace of Westminster, St Stephen's was at the centre of worship for the Plantagenets, a major collegiate foundation of a new kind for the mid-fourteenth century, and a community of national significance in the development of sacred polyphony. During the Reformation, the Chapel was converted into a meeting place for the House of Commons, which it remained for 300 years, shaping the development of British political culture. Its influence continues to be felt today in the design of the Commons chamber. Following the disastrous Palace fire of 1834, the site of the upper chapel was rebuilt as St Stephen's Hall, a gallery of national history, leading to the Central Lobby of the Houses of Parliament. This book tells the story of St Stephen's Chapel, from the thirteenth century to the present day. Sixteen chapters explain the building and its religious life, its political significance, and the antiquarian rediscovery of its former magnificence. Contributors highlight the interaction between visual and political culture; the contexts of kingship and international rivalry that informed the foundation and construction of chapel and college; the effect of medieval St Stephen's on the development of the House of Commons; the adaptation and re-use of St Mary Undercroft; and the creation of St Stephen's Hall in the 1840s. The hall would become a site of Suffragette activism in the campaign for Votes for Women, marked today by a monumental artwork New Dawn, which is the focus of the final chapter.