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Mendicant Orders Archive
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The Calamitous Fourteenth Century in England: All Doom and Gloom?
Posted on May 28, 2013 | No CommentsThis was a fantastic paper given at the Crown and Country in Late medieval England session at KZOO. There were only two papers but both were interesting and enjoyable. This paper delved into the history of science in late medieval England and examined why the fourteenth century, a time that is usually synonymous with doom and gloom, plague and uprising, wasn't all that bad upon closer observation. -
Teaching the Creed and Articles of Faith in England: Lateran IV to Ignorantia sacerdotum
Posted on April 14, 2013 | No CommentsThe broad conclusion of this thesis is that the available evidence shows that the basic principles of Christian doctrine were available both to the lower clergy who would preach and teach the Creed and Articles of Faith and also to the laity who would receive this preaching and instruction. -
Reality and Truth in Thomas of York: Study and Text
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe investigation is conducted through a study of opposites into which being is divided. These opposites are principally the one and the many, potency and act, truth and falsity. -
The Regular Canons and the Use of Food, c. 1200–1350
Posted on January 31, 2013 | No CommentsWe are greatly handicapped by the lack of material available to us for this period. By and large, household accounts which provide gross details of quotidian diet elude us. However, to recover the everyday diet of the canons, one useful approach is to examine corrodies and study the assumptions there, by way of analogy, with what can be inferred as normal consumption by canons. -
The Dominican Convents in Medieval Norway
Posted on January 6, 2013 | No CommentsIn the Middle Ages, the Kingdom of Norway was larger than it is today, where the former Norwegian districts of Jämtland and Bohus are now parts of Sweden. In 1380, the Norwegian throne was inherited by the Danish king, and for the rest of the Middle Ages, Danish monarchs ruled Norway, but even though the kings often made use of Danes in the administration, the Norwegian kingdom did in fact remain as an independent part of a so-called double monarchy. -
Origins of the Medieval Theory That Sensation Is an Immaterial Reception of a Form
Posted on December 26, 2012 | No CommentsLet me begin my own discussion of Aquinas by saying that it seems to me that Cohen adequately proved that it was a mistake to view the sensible form as existing in the soul rather than the organ, and that Aquinas is not denying to the sensible form as received by the sensor a place in the physical world, or indeed physical existence, when he says it exists immaterially or spiritually. -
Love and Saint Francis of Assisi: A Performer in the Middle Ages
Posted on December 2, 2012 | No CommentsIn “spending most of his life out of doors, in all seasons” Francis defies the basis of what we call civilized existence; if history is about progress in terms of making human life secure from nature’s vagaries, Francis rejects such a conception of history, along with its false sense of security, in order to situate human life in and as the natural world. -
“The Eucharist and the Negotiation of Orthodoxy in the High Middle Ages”
Posted on November 15, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper is part of Adam Hoose's dissertation. It examined the differences between Waldensians and Franciscans in their treatment of the Eucharist. It also explored why the Waldensians were unsuccessful in their bid to become a legitimate religious order and were eventually marginalized as heretics. -
Gerard of Nazareth, John Bale and the origins of the Carmelite Order
Posted on August 23, 2012 | No CommentsThe phenomenon of eremitical monasticism in western Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries has been studied extensively,2 but little material has been found that might shed light on the foundation of eremitical communities by Franks in the Latin East. -
Martyrs on the Move: The Spread of the Cults of Thomas of Canterbury and Peter of Verona
Posted on July 22, 2012 | No CommentsNo matter how one viewed Peter‟s and Thomas‟s personalities, the glaring fact of their instant and enduring cults forces the conclusion that their contemporaries all over Europe saw in them, and especially in their martyrdoms, desirable and compelling prototypes for Christian perfection. The spread and extent of these cults is the subject of this study. -
Charity as the Perfection of Natural Friendship in Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae
Posted on June 6, 2012 | No CommentsWithin western civilization, there is a long-running dispute over which authority, the Christian tradition or Greek philosophical tradition, is the more trustworthy and comprehensive. Like other topics written about by Plato and Aristotle, friendship became part of this controversy. During Thomas Aquinas' time, this struggle was focused on whether the works of Aristotle could be reconciled with Christianity. -
William of Ockham’s Early Theory of Property Rights: Sources, Texts, and Contexts
Posted on April 22, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis is nominally about William of Ockham, a theologian who did not care to read potentially damning papal constitutions until tapped to do so by a superior (superiore mandate). Following a suggestion of R. G. Collingwood, a proper first question we should ask, is what was this supposedly unwilling theologian trying to do by composing the longest defense of Franciscan poverty ever written? -
A medieval Arabic analysis of motion at an instant : the Avicennan sources to the forma fluens/fluxus formae debate
Posted on April 22, 2012 | No CommentsThe first and foremost topic of classical and medieval physics is the concept of motion (Grk. kine ̄sis, Arb. h ̇ araka, Lat. motio). Within the complex of issues and problems associated with motion, the question ‘in which category does motion itself belong?’ occupied a position of considerable importance in scholastic natural philosophy. -
VAGANTES: Between Tradition and Change: Monastic Reform in Three fifteenth-century German Redactions of the Life of Saint Mary of Egypt
Posted on March 30, 2012 | No CommentsUsing the life of St. Mary of Egypt, this paper will consider three different Middle High German versions produced by reform communities and will analyze how the reform ideologies and goals manifest in the texts. -
Convents, Courts and Colleges: The Prioress and the Second Nun
Posted on March 22, 2012 | No CommentsPilgrimage, after Whitby, and before Vatican II, was a secular activity, a performance of piety by the laity, not by the clergy; although there were a few exceptions.7 Chaucer's Monk, Friar, Prioress, Nun, Priest, Summoner, Pardoner and Parson ought not to be here. Their presence is outrageous comedy. Inns were forbidden to the cloistered clergy who, if they had to travel, were enjoined to stay in other monastic establishments along their route. -
Martinus Polonus’ Chronicle of the Popes and Emperors: a Medieval Best-seller and its Neglected Influence on Medieval English Chronicler
Posted on March 18, 2012 | No CommentsIn so doing I should like to begin by giving a brief account of Martin's life and of the structure and contents of his chronicle before examining how widely known it was in late medieval England. Then we will turn to the various ways in which it was 'adapted', i.e. translated and extended by continuations. Finally, particular emphasis will be given to Martins hitherto neglected influence on a number of English medieval chroniclers. -
HAPPY ST.PATRICK’S DAY: Books on all things Irish! Sláinte!
Posted on March 17, 2012 | No CommentsCelebrate St. Patrick’s Day with these great reads and some green beer! -
Retroactive Heresy: The influence of early Christian heresies on the identification and reaction to heretical sects
Posted on February 20, 2012 | No CommentsThe medieval Church viewed itself as Defender of the Faith, the destroyer of the unbelievers, the wrong believers. These heretics were to be reviled and feared as perverters of God’s word. The perverters of orthodoxy were, ultimately, not to be distinguished from one another, but rather known by catchphrases. -
The Ars Moriendi: An examination, translation, and collation of the manuscripts of the shorter Latin version
Posted on February 20, 2012 | No CommentsThe Ars Moriendi is a Mediaeval Christian death manual that appeared around the middle of the fifteenth century. Though no-one is certain who the author was, there is no doubt that Jean Gerson was the major inspiration through his Opusculum Tripartitum. -
From Jerusalem to Malta: the Hospital’s character and evolution
Posted on February 10, 2012 | No CommentsIn 1113 Girardus secured an important papal privilege which recognized the Hospital's independence; its members were considered to be in some sense technically religious and they were given the power to elect their own ruler. -
Magic
Posted on January 16, 2012 | No CommentsNo one knew the risks and rewards of magic better than Agrippa. His notorious handbook, De occulta philosophia, circulated in manuscript by 1510, though it was printed only in 1533, over the complaints of Dominican inquisitors. -
The monastic response to Papal reform: Summi Magistri and it reception
Posted on December 4, 2011 | No CommentsThis is a question which has dogged the history of the interaction between Rome and the Black monks, and it brings a second question in its wake - what were the medieval Popes trying to do with monasticism? -
The Spiritual and the Supernatural according to Thomas Aquinas
Posted on October 16, 2011 | No CommentsThe Spiritual and the Supernatural according to Thomas Aquinas Murray, Andrew A paper delivered at the Biennial Conference in Philosophy, Religion and Culture, ‘The Supernatural’, Catholic Institute of Sydney, 3... -
Mary Magdalen and the mendicants: The preaching of penance in the late Middle Ages
Posted on September 8, 2011 | No CommentsMary Magdalen and the mendicants: The preaching of penance in the late Middle Ages Jansen, Katherine L.(Princeton University) Journal of Medieval History 21 (1995) Abstract This essay examines de sanctis... -
Patterns of Polemic: Medieval Women and Christian Doctrinal Reform
Posted on September 6, 2011 | No CommentsPatterns of Polemic: Medieval Women and Christian Doctrinal Reform Green, Robert Published Online in, “My Life As A Cat” (2009) Abstract The Christianity of medieval England and continental Europe was a...