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In Faces of Charisma: Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, a multi-disciplinary group of scholars advances the theory that charisma may be a quality of art as well as of person.
This book explores the origins of the role of the Master or head of the order of Sempringham, the only monastic order to be founded in medieval England, from the foundation of the order to the final drafting of its legislation in the 1230s. The book demonstrates that many previous assumptions about the early development of this important role are flawed, most notably the standard portrait of Gilbert of Sempringham, founder of the order, as a stereotypical charismatic leader, big on ideas but short on the capacity to provide his followers with effective leadership. (Series: Vita regularis - Ordnungen und Deutungen religiosen Lebens im Mittelalter. Abhandlungen - Vol. 46)
Around the turn of the first millennium AD, there emerged in the former Carolingian Empire a generation of abbots that came to be remembered as one of the most influential in the history of Western monasticism. In this book Steven Vanderputten reevaluates the historical significance of this generation of monastic leaders through an in-depth study of one of its most prominent figures, Richard of Saint-Vanne. During his lifetime, Richard (d. 1046) served as abbot of numerous monasteries, which gained him a reputation as a highly successful administrator and reformer of monastic discipline. As Vanderputten shows, however, a more complex view of Richard's career, spirituality, and motivations enables us to better evaluate his achievements as church leader and reformer.Vanderputten analyzes various accounts of Richard’s life, contemporary sources that are revealing of his worldview and self-conception, and the evidence relating to his actions as a monastic reformer and as a promoter of conversion. Richard himself conceived of his life as an evolving commentary on a wide range of issues relating to individual spirituality, monastic discipline, and religious leadership. This commentary, which combined highly conservative and revolutionary elements, reached far beyond the walls of the monastery and concerned many of the issues that would divide the church and its subjects in the later eleventh century.
Few medievalists of the last generation have contributed more to our understanding of late medieval religious life than Kaspar Elm. This books makes several of his most important essays available for the first time in English.
A biography of the saint as both mystic and man: “The single best book about Francis now available in English” (Commonweal). In this towering work, Andre Vauchez draws on the vast body of scholarship on Francis of Assisi, particularly the important research of recent decades, to create a complete and engaging portrait of the saint. He also explores how the memory of Francis was shaped by contemporaries who recollected him in their writings, and completes the book by setting “il Poverello” in the context of his time, bringing to light what was new, surprising, and even astonishing in the life and vision of this man. The first part of the book is a fascinating reconstruction of Francis’s life and work. The second and third parts deal with the texts—hagiographies, chronicles, sermons, personal testimonies, etc.—of writers who recorded aspects of Francis’s life and movement as they remembered them, and used those remembrances to construct a portrait of Francis relevant to their concerns. Finally, Vauchez explores those aspects of Francis’s life, personality, and spiritual vision that were unique to him, including his experience of God, his approach to nature, his understanding and use of Scripture, and his impact on culture as well as culture’s impact on him. “Considered one of the great spiritual leaders of humankind, Francis of Assisi was also a man of many faces and personas: ascetic, the founder of a religious order, a romantic hero, a mystic, a defender of the poor, a promoter of peace. But as Vauchez emphasizes—and this biography constantly reminds us—Francis was also a flesh-and-blood human being . . . A bracing, erudite account of a mystic’s life.” —Booklist
This book surveys the full panorama of ten centuries of Christian monastic life. It moves from the deserts of Egypt and the Frankish monasteries of early medieval Europe to the religious ruptures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the reforms of the later Middle Ages. Throughout that story the book balances a rich sense of detail with a broader synthetic view. It presents the history of religious life and its orders as a complex braid woven from multiple strands: individual and community, spirit and institution, rule and custom, church and world. The result is a synthesis that places religious life at the center of European history and presents its institutions as key catalysts of Europe’s move toward modernity.
This collection of studies investigates how people of the 10th to early 12th century experienced and represented processes of intentional change in the Church, and what the consequences are of modern scholars’ reliance on ‘reform’ to describe and interpret these processes. In 11 thematic chapters it takes stock of the current state of research and offers suggestions to deepen our understanding of the ideological, institutional, and cultural dynamics at play. Contributors are Julia Barrow, Robert F. Berkhofer III, Gordon Blennemann, Katy Cubitt, Nicolangelo D'Acunto, Anne-Marie Helvétius, Ludger Körntgen, Rutger Kramer, Brigitte Meijns, Diane Reilly, Rachel Stone, and Steven Vanderputten.
Both men and women have claimed to be the living voices or intermediaries of God. This volume analyses the basis of their authoritative claims and ask how and how far they succeeded in securing obedience from their followers.
Cultures of learning and practices of education in the Middle Ages are drawing renewed attention, and recent approaches are questioning the traditional boundaries of institutional and intellectual history. The volume assembles contributions on both Byzantine and Latin learned culture, and aims to locate medieval scholars in their religious and political contexts instead of studying them in a framework of 'schools'. Eleven contributions on eastern and western scholars offer complementary perspectives on scholars and their work, discussing the symbolic and discursive construction of religious and intellectual authority, practices of networking and adaptations of knowledge formations. Sita Steckel is Junior Professor of Medieval History at the University of Munster and author of a study on 'cultures of teaching' in the early and high middle ages. Niels Gaul is Associate Professor of Byzantine Studies at CEU Budapest, with an interest in Byzantine scholarship, especially the societal functions of rhetoric. Michael Grünbart is Associate Professor of Byzantine Studies at the University of Munster. He is currently working on the image of Byzantine aristocracy and preparing an introduction to the function of letters and words in Byzantine daily life.
