The vocation of service to God and neighbour : essays on the interests, involvements, and problems of religious communities and their members in medieval society : selected proceedings of the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 14-17 Jul

The impingement of monastery on marketplace provides the unifying theme for this collection of nine research papers. Separation from the world, for most members of religious orders in the Middle Ages, did not imply isolation from the rest of society but, rather, a new spirituality orientated relationship which took different forms in different times and circumstances. Three of the contributors are concerned with particular aspects of the intellectual activities of the religious orders in both university and cloister. Two others examine the traumatic effects of the enforced return to secular life of thousands of men and women religious in England when monastic life was brought to an abrupt end in 1540. An individual monk's pastoral role among the laity is explored and evaluated in one paper, while another reveals the extent to which a rural English nunnery was both rooted in the local community and dependent on foreign supervision. Problems encountered by the friars are discussed by two other contributors who, on the basis of their recent research, conclude that the hostility between Franciscans and Benedictines has been overstated and that some German Dominicans risked their reputations in their involvement with contemporary heterodox movements among the laity. Front Matter ("Contents", "Foreword", "Notes on Authors", "Abbreviations"), p. i Free Access Monachi and Magistri: The Context and Culture of Learning at Late Medieval St Albans, p. 1 James Clark https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.4.00077 Dissolution and De-Conversion: Institutional Change and Individual Response in the 1530s, p. 25 Peter Cunich https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.4.00078 Westwood, a Rural English Nunnery with its Local and French Connections, p. 43 Margaret Goodrich https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.4.00079 John Lydgate, Monk of Bury St Edmunds, as Spiritual Director, p. 59 Nicholas Heale https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.4.00080 The Influence of Humanism in the Monasticism of Robert Joseph, Monk of Evesham, p. 73 Anthony Marett-Crosby https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.4.00081 Unsafe Passage: The State of the Nuns at the Dissolution and their Conversion to Secular Life, p. 87 Marilyn Oliva https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.4.00082 Benedictine and Franciscan Cloisters: Partnership and Rivalry in the Thirteenth Century, p. 105 Michael Robson https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.4.00083 Rhineland Dominicans, Meister Eckhart and the Sect of the Free Spirit, p. 121 Walter Senner https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.4.00084 Merit Ranking, the Religious Orders, and the Parisian Faculty of Theology in the Later Middle Ages, p. 135 Thomas Sullivan https://doi.org/10.1484/M.IMR-EB.4.00085 Edited By Joan Greatrex. Includes Bibliographical References.