James G. Clark - Böcker

A Monastic Renaissance at St Albans is a study of intellectual life at the abbey of St Albans - one of Britain's greatest Benedictine monasteries - during the lifetime of Thomas Walsingham (c.1340-1422), one of the most prolific scholars of the later middle ages. It has always been assumed that the monasteries fell into decline long before the dissolution and that cultural and intellectual activities were largely abandoned as the monks surrendered themselves to high living and low morals. This study challenges this view. Drawing on a wide variety of manuscript sources, it shows that education, independent study, and even the co-ordinated copying of books continued to flourish at St Albans (and its affiliate houses) for much of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In fact the abbey emerged as one of the country's most influential centres of learning, a clearing-house for books and ideas in Ricardian and Lancastrian England. Thomas Walsingham himself played a key part in this renaissance in monastic studies; his works were copied and circulated throughout the St Albans network and his influence acted upon the next generation of monastic readers and writers. Walsingham was not only a compiler of contemporary chronicles but also a Classical scholar of extraordinary originality. His commentary on Ovid's Metamorphoses, his re-working of the histories of Alexander of Macedon and the Trojan War, and his Genealogia deorum gentilium, are discussed in detail here for the first time. Walsingham's interest in the Classics was shared by many of his St Albans colleagues, and they in turn were members of a wider circle of literary scholars, which included the London schoolmaster, John Seward. The work of these scholars, monastic and secular, points towards a revival of Classical and literary scholarship in England long before Italian humanism and other traces of the continental Renaissance first found their way into the country.

Essays provide evidence for the vigour and involvement of religious orders in the years immediately prior to the reformation.It continues to be assumed in some quarters that England's monasteries and mendicant convents fell into a headlong decline - pursuing high living and low morals - long before Henry VIII set out to destroy them at the Dissolution.The essays in this book add to the growing body of scholarly enquiry which challenges this view. Drawing on some of the most recent research by British and American scholars, they offer a wide-ranging reassessment of the religiousorders on the eve of the Reformation. They consider not only the condition of their communities and the character of life within them, but also their wider contribution - spiritual, intellectual and economic - to English societyat large. What emerges is the impression that the years leading up to the Dissolution were neither as dark nor as difficult for the regular religious as many earlier histories have led us to believe. It was a period of institutional and religious reform, and, for the Benedictines at least, a period of marked intellectual revival. Many religious houses also continued to enjoy close relations with the lay communities living beyond their precinct walls. Whiletheir role in the devotions of many ordinary lay folk may have diminished, they still had a significant part to play in the local economy, in education and in a wide range of social and cultural activities.Contributors:JEREMY CATTO, JAMES G. CLARK, GLYN COPPACK, CLAIRE CROSS, PETER CUNICH, VINCENT GILLESPIE, JOAN GREATEX, BARBARA HARVEY, F. DONALD LOGAN, MARILYN OLIVA, MICHAEL ROBSON, R.N. SWANSON, BENJAMIN THOMPSON.

Ovid is perhaps the most important surviving Latin poet and his work has influenced writers throughout the world to the present day. This volume presents a groundbreaking series of essays on his reception across in the Middle Ages. The collection includes contributions from distinguished Ovidians as well as leading specialists in medieval Latin and vernacular literature, clerical and extra-clerical culture and medieval art, and addresses questions of manuscript and textual transmission, translation, adaptation and imitation. It also explores the intersecting cultural contexts of the schools (monastic and secular), courts and literate lay households. It elaborates the scale and scope of the enthusiasm for Ovid in medieval Europe, following readers of the canon from the Carolingian monasteries to the early schools of the Île de France and on into clerical and curial milieux in Italy, Spain, the British Isles and even the Byzantine Empire.

Ovid is perhaps the most important surviving Latin poet and his work has influenced writers throughout the world to the present day. This volume presents a groundbreaking series of essays on his reception across in the Middle Ages. The collection includes contributions from distinguished Ovidians as well as leading specialists in medieval Latin and vernacular literature, clerical and extra-clerical culture and medieval art, and addresses questions of manuscript and textual transmission, translation, adaptation and imitation. It also explores the intersecting cultural contexts of the schools (monastic and secular), courts and literate lay households. It elaborates the scale and scope of the enthusiasm for Ovid in medieval Europe, following readers of the canon from the Carolingian monasteries to the early schools of the Île de France and on into clerical and curial milieux in Italy, Spain, the British Isles and even the Byzantine Empire.

Matthew Paris is one of the most remarkable and renowned figures in the cultural history of medieval England. A career-monk at the influential Benedictine abbey of St Albans, Paris' creative work bears witness to the rich intellectual, artistic, social and political environment of the monasteries and their lasting impact on the wider world. His compelling accounts of recent history and the lives of legendary saints and churchmen are a distinctive and valuable guide to the emergence of the English kingdom and its place in European Christendom. His accomplished and vivid artwork brings into focus both the craft skill and visual sensibility stimulated by the medieval Church. This systematic survey, the first published for almost seventy years, brings together expert scholarship and offers fresh, interdisciplinary perspectives on Paris', his life's work as writer, artist, cartographer and maker of manuscript books, and its enduring legacy.

Matthew Paris is one of the most remarkable and renowned figures in the cultural history of medieval England. A career-monk at the influential Benedictine abbey of St Albans, Paris' creative work bears witness to the rich intellectual, artistic, social and political environment of the monasteries and their lasting impact on the wider world. His compelling accounts of recent history and the lives of legendary saints and churchmen are a distinctive and valuable guide to the emergence of the English kingdom and its place in European Christendom. His accomplished and vivid artwork brings into focus both the craft skill and visual sensibility stimulated by the medieval Church. This systematic survey, the first published for almost seventy years, brings together expert scholarship and offers fresh, interdisciplinary perspectives on Paris', his life's work as writer, artist, cartographer and maker of manuscript books, and its enduring legacy.

The Deeds of the abbots of St Albans records the history of one of the most important abbeys in England, closely linked to the royal family and home to a school of distinguished chroniclers, including Matthew Paris and Thomas Walsingham. It offers many insights into the life of the monastery, its buildings and its role as a maker of books, and covers the period from the Conquest to the mid-fifteenth century.

Examinations of the culture - artistic, material, musical - of English monasteries in the six centuries between the Conquest and the Dissolution.The cultural remains of England's abbeys and priories have always attracted scholarly attention but too often they have been studied in isolation, appreciated only for their artistic, codicological or intellectual features and notfor the insights they offer into the patterns of life and thought - the underlying norms, values and mentalité - of the communities of men and women which made them. Indeed, the distinguished monastic historian David Knowles doubted there would ever be sufficient evidence to recover "the mentality of the ordinary cloister monk". These twelve essays challenge this view. They exploit newly catalogued and newly discovered evidence - manuscript books,wall paintings, and even the traces of original monastic music - to recover the cultural dynamics of a cross-section of male and female communities. It is often claimed that over time the cultural traditions of the monasteries were suffocated by secular trends but here it is suggested that many houses remained a major cultural force even on the verge of the Reformation. James G. Clark is Professor of History at the University of Exeter.Contributors: DAVID BELL, ROGER BOWERS, JAMES CLARK, BARRIE COLLETT, MARY ERLER, G. R. EVANS, MIRIAM GILL, JOAN GREATREX, JULIAN HASELDINE, J. D. NORTH, ALAN PIPER, AND R. M. THOMSON.

First complete translation of detailed chronicle of medieval England, one of Shakespeare's most important sources.Winner of a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title AwardTranslated by David Preest with introduction and notes by James G. ClarkThomas Walsingham's Chronica maiora is one of the most comprehensive and colourful chronicles to survive from medieval England. Walsingham was a monk at St Albans Abbey, a royal monastery and the premier repository of public records, and therefore well placed to observe the political machinations of this period at close hand. Moreover, he knew the monarchs and many of the nobles personally and is able to offer insights into their actions unmatched by any other authority. It is this chronicle, transmitted through popular Tudor histories, that informed some of the central dramas of Shakespeare's History cycle.Covering almost fifty years, the narrative provides the most authoritative account of one of the most turbulent periods in English history, from thelast years of Edward III (1376-77) to the premature death of Henry V (1422). Walsingham describes the many dramas of this period in vivid detail, including the Peasants' Revolt (1381), the deposition and murder of Richard II (1399-1400), The Welsh revolt of Owain Glyn Dwr (1403) and Henry V's victory at Agincourt (1415); they are brought to life here in this new translation.

A comprehensive survey of the origins, development, and influence of the most important monastic order in the middle ages.The men and women that followed the sixth-century customs of Benedict of Nursia (c.480-c.547) formed the most enduring, influential, numerous and widespread religious order of the Latin middle ages. Their liturgical practice, and their acquired taste for learning, served as a model for the medieval church as a whole: while new orders arose, they took some of their customs, and their observant and spiritual outlook, from the Regula Benedicti. The Benedictines may also be counted among the founders of medieval Europe. In many regions of the continent they created, or consolidated, the first Christian communities; they also directed the development of their social organisation, economy, and environment, and exerted a powerful influence on their emerging cultural and intellectual trends. This book, the first comparative study of its kind, follows the Benedictine Order over eleven centuries, from their early diaspora to the challenge of continental reformation.JAMES G. CLARK is Professor of History, University of Exeter.

A comprehensive survey of the origins, development, and influence of the most important monastic order in the middle ages.The men and women that followed the sixth-century customs of Benedict of Nursia (c.480-c.547) formed the most enduring, influential, numerous and widespread religious order of the Latin middle ages. Their liturgical practice, and their acquired taste for learning, served as a model for the medieval church as a whole: while new orders arose, they took some of their customs, and their observant and spiritual outlook, from the Regula Benedicti. The Benedictines may also be counted among the founders of medieval Europe. In many regions of the continent they created, or consolidated, the first Christian communities; they also directed the development of their social organisation, economy, and environment, and exerted a powerful influence on their emerging cultural and intellectual trends. This book, the first comparative study of its kind, follows the Benedictine Order over eleven centuries, from their early diaspora to the challenge of continental reformation.JAMES G. CLARK is Professor of History, University of Exeter.