"Monastic culture has generally been seen as set apart from the medieval battlefield, as 'those who prayed' were set apart from 'those who fought'. However, in this first study of the place of war within medieval monastic culture, the author shows the limitations of this divisio…
Annotation The Monastic Order in England by Dom David Knowles was originally published in 1940 and was quickly recognised as a scholarly classic and masterpiece of historical literature. It covers the period from about 940, when St Dunstan inaugurated the monastic reform by beco…
This is the second work in a series of collected essays looking at Indian Buddhism. Gregory Schopen has contributed to a major shift in the way that Indian Buddhism is perceived, understood, and studied.
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 i…
"The writings of Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) reveal how the monastic mind, oscillating between hope and despair, was absorbed in technical exercises rather than in religious emotions. Early on monasticism had developed procedures for 'ruminating on' the Bible and the works …
"In the 300s, Christians in Egypt and all over the Roman Empire came to the Nile Valley and outlying deserts to become monks, men as well as women. The rhetoric of this movement emphasized a retreat into the wilderness, a retreat away from the city, family, and property - everyt…