Download or read book The Age of the Cloister written by Christopher Brooke and published by Hidden Spring. This book was released on 2003 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the most beautiful, spiritual and evocative structures in stone ever built are the medieval monasteries of Europe. The importance of the monastic world, its ideas and ideals, to the rise of Western civilization is second to none. The age of the cloister offers a fascinating overview of the birth and flowering of monasticism, and describes in great detail the everyday monastic life and the faith, literature, economy, architecture and culture of countless monks, hermits, nuns, canons, friars and lay men and women spanning hundreds of years.
Download or read book Life in the Medieval Cloister written by Julie Kerr and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2009-07-14 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy.
Download or read book Magic in the Cloister written by Sophie Page and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2013-10-21 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Religious Women in Golden Age Spain written by Elizabeth A. Lehfeldt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through an examination of the role of nuns and the place of convents in both the spiritual and social landscape, this book analyzes the interaction of gender, religion and society in late medieval and early modern Spain. Author Elizabeth Lehfeldt here examines the tension between religious reform, which demanded that all nuns observe strict enclosure, and the traditional identity of Spanish nuns and their institutions, in which they were spiritually and temporally powerful women. Lehfeldt's work is based on the archival records of twenty-three convents in the city of Valladolid, and peninsula-wide documents that include visitation records, the constitutions of religious orders, and spiritual biographies. Religious Women in Golden Age Spain is the first book-length study in English to pose this chronological and conceptual framework for identifying and analyzing the role of nuns and convents in late-medieval and early-modern Spanish society.
Download or read book Warriors of the Cloisters written by Christopher I. Beckwith and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012-09-16 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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.
Download or read book The Cloister Walk written by Kathleen Norris and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1997-04-01 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Cloister and Community written by Mary Jo Weaver and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cloister and Community is both a history of the Carmelite monastery of Indianapolis and an introduction to the Carmelites, a contemplative order of Roman Catholicism, founded in the 13th century and rededicated as a reform movement for women religious in the 16th century by Teresa of Avila. A key element of the order is that its nuns live an ascetic, cloistered life, but as Mary Jo Weaver demonstrates, the view that one must "leave the world" to find sacred space apart from it has evolved to embrace the notion that the world itself is a sacred space.Weaver focuses on a modern Indianapolis community and describes how the sisters incorporate Carmelite belief and practice into their daily lives. Cloister and Community is a beautifully written and handsomely produced book that offers readers a privileged view of the world of present-day contemplative spirituality.ALSO OF INTEREST Being RightConservative Catholics in AmericaEdited by Mary Jo Weaver and R. Scott Appleby0-253-32922-1 HB £34.500-253-20999-4 PB £15.50What's LeftLiberal American CatholicsEdited by Mary Jo Weaver0-253-21332-0 HB £30.500-253-21332-0 PB £14.50
Download or read book The Cloister written by James Carroll and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2018-03-06 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Sword Miter and Cloister written by Constance Brittain Bouchard and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-06 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bouchard provides a fresh perspective on social and ecclesiastical life in the High Middle Ages, drawing on a vast range of primary sources to reveal the surprisingly close relationship between monasteries and the nobility.
Download or read book The Medieval Monastery written by Roger Rosewell and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-20 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated look at life in abbeys and priories, and within the monastic orders, in the middle ages. Monasteries are among the most intriguing and enduring symbols of Britain's medieval heritage. Simultaneously places of prayer and spirituality, power and charity, learning and invention, they survive today as haunting ruins, great houses and as some of our most important cathedrals and churches. This book examines the growth of monasticism and the different orders of monks; the architecture and administration of monasteries; the daily life of monks and nuns; the art of monasteries and their libraries; their role in caring for the poor and sick; their power and wealth; their decline and suppression; and their ruin and rescue. With beautiful photographs, it illustrates some of Britain's finest surviving monastic buildings such as the cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral and the awe-inspiring ruins of Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire.
Download or read book Medieval Monasticism written by Clifford Hugh Lawrence and published by Longman Publishing Group. This book was released on 1984-01-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hugh Lawrence's book ranges right across Europe and the Middle East as well as reconstructing the internal life, experience and aims of the medieval cloister, he also explores the many-sided relationships between the monasteries and the secular world from which they drew recruits. This Third Edition contains new thoughts and perspectives throughout.
Download or read book The Lord as Their Portion written by Elizabeth Rapley and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2011-03-29 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guided tour through the fascinating history of Catholic religious orders From their monastic prehistory in the Egyptian desert through their political heyday in Medieval and Renaissance Europe to their present-day work of education, human care, and the pursuit of social justice, the Catholic religious orders have been a driving force in Western civilization. In The Lord as Their Portion Elizabeth Rapley paints a broad portrait of the full spectrum of religious orders spanning the vast canvas of their history. Rapley shows how religious orders led the way in learning and inventiveness throughout the early periods of Western civilization. She explores how religious orders contributed to Western politics and the global spread of Christianity. She examines the ways in which religious orders have championed the poor, marginalized, and disenfranchised throughout history and gives attention the ongoing work of religious orders today. More than simply highlighting the sweeping progress of monasticism s past and present, however, Rapley also takes time to share, in a clear and engaging fashion, the fascinating stories of many of the men and women who chose to take the Lord as their portion and whose piety, devotion, and energetic pursuit of a holy life profoundly shaped the course of history.
Download or read book Dark Age Bodies written by Lynda L. Coon and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-06-06 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Dark Age Bodies Lynda L. Coon reconstructs the gender ideology of monastic masculinity through an investigation of early medieval readings of the body. Focusing on the Carolingian era, Coon evaluates the ritual and liturgical performances of monastic bodies within the imaginative landscapes of same-sex ascetic communities in northern Europe. She demonstrates how the priestly body plays a significant role in shaping major aspects of Carolingian history, such as the revival of classicism, movements for clerical reform, and church-state relations. In the political realm, Carolingian churchmen consistently exploited monastic constructions of gender to assert the power of the monastery. Stressing the superior qualities of priestly virility, clerical elites forged a model of gender that sought to feminize lay male bodies through a variety of textual, ritual, and spatial means. Focusing on three central themes—the body, architecture, and ritual practice—the book draws from a variety of visual and textual materials, including poetry, grammar manuals, rhetorical treatises, biblical exegesis, monastic regulations, hagiographies, illuminated manuscripts, building plans, and cloister design. Interdisciplinary in scope, Dark Age Bodies brings together scholarship in architectural history and cultural anthropology with recent works in religion, classics, and gender to present a significant reconsideration of Carolingian culture.
Download or read book Sainted Women of the Dark Ages written by Jo Ann McNamara and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1992-03-27 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sainted Women of the Dark Ages makes available the lives of eighteen Frankish women of the sixth and seventh centuries, all of whom became saints. Written in Latin by contemporaries or near contemporaries, and most translated here for the first time, these biographies cover the period from the fall of the Roman Empire and the conversion of the invading Franks to the rise of Charlemagne's family. Three of these holy women were queens who turned to religion only after a period of intense worldly activity. Others were members of the Carolingian family, deeply implicated in the political ambitions of their male relatives. Some were partners in the great Irish missions to the pagan countryside and others worked for the physical salvation of the poor. From the peril and suffering of their lives they shaped themselves as paragons of power and achievement. Beloved by their sisters and communities for their spiritual gifts, they ultimately brought forth a new model of sanctity. These biographies are unusually authentic. At least two were written by women who knew their subjects, while others reflect the direct testimony of sisters within the cloister walls. Each biography is accompanied by an introduction and notes that clarify its historical context. This volume will be an excellent source for students and scholars of women's studies and early medieval social, religious, and political history.
Download or read book The Cloisters written by Peter Barnet and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-27 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Home to an extraordinary collection of treasured masterworks, including the famed Unicorn Tapestries, The Cloisters is devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. This splendid new guide, published to celebrate The Cloisters' seventy-fifth anniversary, richly illustrates and describes the most important highlights of its collection, from paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and exquisitely carved ivories to its monumental architecture evocative of the grand religious spaces and domestic interiors of the Middle Ages. The Cloisters remains a testament to design innovation—a New York City landmark with sweeping views of the Hudson River—featuring original elements of Romanesque and Gothic architecture dating from the 12th through the 15th century. Three of the structures enclose beautiful gardens cultivated with species known from tapestries, medieval herbals, and other historic sources. These exotic spaces, the art masterpieces, and the fragrant plants offer visitors an oasis of serenity and inspiration. This book both encapsulates and enhances that experience.
Download or read book Life Inside the Cloister written by Thomas Coomans and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-17 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacred architecture as reality and metaphor in secularised Western society Christian monasteries and convents, built throughout Europe for the best part of 1,500 years, are now at a crossroads. This study attempts to understand the sacred architecture of monasteries as a process of the tangible and symbolic organisation of space and time for religious communities. Despite the weight of seemingly immutable monastic tradition, architecture has contributed to developing specific religious identities and played a fundamental part in the reformation of different forms of religious life according to the changing needs of society. The cloister is the focal point of this book because it is both architecture, a physically built reality, and a metaphor for the religious life that takes place within it. Life Inside the Cloister also addresses the afterlife and heritagisation of monastic architecture in secularised Western society.
Download or read book Knights of the Cloister written by Dominic Selwood and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2001 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The military and religious orders of the Templars and the Hospitallers were a driving force throughout the long history of the crusades. Here, their daily business of recruitment, fund raising, farming, shipping and communal life is explored.
