The Vocation of Service to God and Neighbour: Essays on the Interests, Involvements and Problems of Religious Communities and their Members in Medieval Society (INTERNATIONAL MEDIEVAL RESEARCH)

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 and relationship with the wider society. This collection examines the intellectual activities of the religious orders in both university and cloister; 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; the monk's pastoral role among the laity; and the extent to which rural English nunneries were both rooted in the local community and dependent on foreign supervision. Work here on the friars concludes 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.Joan Greatrex is the author of 'The Vocation of Service to God and Neighbour: Essays on the Interests, Involvements and Problems of Religious Communities and their Members in Medieval Society (INTERNATIONAL MEDIEVAL RESEARCH)', published 1998 under ISBN 9782503507415 and ISBN 2503507417.