In-depth study of a little-known reformed Benedictine congregation crucial for the development of trade and urban development in Angevin Britain and France.
Monasticism, in all of its variations, was a feature of almost every landscape in the medieval West. So ubiquitous were religious women and men throughout the Middle Ages that all medievalists encounter monasticism in their intellectual worlds. While there is enormous interest in medieval monasticism among Anglophone scholars, language is often a barrier to accessing some of the most important and groundbreaking research emerging from Europe. The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West offers a comprehensive treatment of medieval monasticism, from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages. The essays, specially commissioned for this volume and written by an international team of scholars, with contributors from Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States, cover a range of topics and themes and represent the most up-to-date discoveries on this topic.
The first English translation of the Vita Bernardi, this book makes accessible to medieval and religious historians one of the more interesting and lively stories of the twelfth century.
Any visitor to Belgium or the Netherlands is immediately struck by the number of convents and beguinages (begijnhoven) in both major cities and small towns. Their number and location in urban centres suggests that the women who inhabited them once held a prominent role. Despite leaving a visible mark on cities in Europe, much of the story of these women - known variously as beguines, tertiaries, klopjes, recluses, and anchoresses--remains to be told. Instead of aspiring to live as traditional religious, they transcended normative assumptions about religion and gender and had a very real impact on their religious and secular worlds. The sources for their tale are often fragmentary and difficult to interpret. However, careful scrutiny allows their voices to be heard. Drawing on an array of sources including religious rules, sermons, hagiographic vitae, and rapiaria, Fictive Orders and Feminine Religious Identities traces the story of pious laywomen between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. It both emphasizes the innovative roles of women who transcended established forms of institutional religious life and reveals the ways in which historiographical habits have obscured the dynamic and fluid nature of their histories. By highlighting the development of irregular and extraregular communities and tracing the threads of monasticisation that wove their way around pious laywomen, this book draws attention to the vibrant and dynamic culture of feminine lay piety that persisted from the later middle ages onwards.
The importance of the themes of rulership and rebellion in the history of the Anglo-Norman world between 1066 and the early thirteenth century is incontrovertible. The power, government, and influence of kings, queens and other lords pervaded and dominated society and was frequently challenged and resisted. But while biographies of rulers, studies of the institutions and operation of central, local and seigniorial government, and works on particular political struggles abound, many major aspects of rulership and rebellion remain to be explored or further elucidated. This volume, written by leading scholars in the field and dedicated to the pioneering work of Professor Edmund King, will make an original, important and timely contribution to our knowledge and understanding of Anglo-Norman history.
Rome was one of the major pilgrim destinations in the middle ages. The belief that certain objects and places were a focus of holiness where pilgrims could come closer to God had a long history in Christian tradition; in the case of Rome, the tradition developed around two of the city's most important martyrs, Christ's apostles Peter and Paul. So strong were the city's associations with these apostles that pilgrimage to Rome was often referred to as pilgrimage t̀o the threshold of the apostles'. Debra Birch conveys a vivid picture of the world of the medieval pilgrim to Rome - the Romipetae, or R̀ome-seekers' - covering all aspects of their journey, and their life in the city itself. --Back cover.
Remembering the Crusades and Crusading examines the diverse contexts in which crusading was memorialised and commemorated in the medieval world and beyond. The collection not only shows how the crusades were commemorated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but also considers the longer-term remembrance of the crusades into the modern era. This collection is divided into three sections, the first of which deals with the textual, material and visual sources used to remember. Each contributor introduces a particular body of source material and presents case studies using those sources in their own research. The second section contains four chapters examining specific communities active in commemorating the crusades, including religious communities, family groups and royal courts. Finally, the third section examines the cultural memory of crusading in the Byzantine, Iberian and Baltic regions beyond the early years, as well as the trajectory of crusading memory in the Muslim Middle East. This book draws together and extends the current debates in the history of the crusades and the history of memory and in so doing offers a fresh synthesis of material in both fields. It will be essential reading for students of the crusades and memory.