Saint Bernard was born in 1090 near Dijon, France. He joined the fifteen-year-old monastery of Cîteaux in 1113. In 1115 he became the founding abbot of Clairvaux Abbey, whence his name, Bernard of Clairvaux. Saint Bernard was a gifted and prolific writer of theological treatises, Scriptural commentaries, letters, and many sermons. The sermons in the collection published here, styled Sermones de diversis (Sermons about Various Topics), lack the specific point of departure that characterizes his other sermons. That is, whereas the sermons on the Song of Songs are a verse-by-verse commentary on that biblical book and his Sermons for the Year follow the liturgical calendar, this collection of sermons deals with his various pastoral concerns. Since Scripture is always Bernard’s point of departure and inspiration, the sermons often read like a Scripture study, but what comes through equally is the voice of an understanding spiritual father who is a masterful student of Scripture, biblical language, and the needs of his monks.

This book demonstrates that monastic preaching was a diverse activity which included preaching by monks, nuns and heretics. The study offers a preliminary step in understanding how preaching shaped monastic identity in the Middle Ages.

This book demonstrates that monastic preaching was a diverse activity which included preaching by monks, nuns and heretics. The study offers a preliminary step in understanding how preaching shaped monastic identity in the Middle Ages.

Johann Herolt OP ( 1390-1468), a Dominican friar of Nürnberg, was the most prolific sermonist of fifteenth century Europe, producing a huge and widely used library of sermon materials under the penname 'Discipulus'. For nearly forty years, Johann Herolt was teacher, preacher, confessor, administrator, and advocate of the sisters of St Katharine's, the Dominican sister house. While he was vicar of St Katharine's in 1436, he preached to the sisters a series of Advent, Christmas, and New Year sermons, using the imagery of an enclosed garden in which the rose tree of eternal wisdom grows - a garden surrounded by the wall of the fear of God, and entered by the strait gate of diligence. His heartfelt discourse was about the monastic virtues of humility, patience, and obedience. The sermons were never published. The manuscript is a partial reconstruction from verbatim notes of a series of Advent, Christmas and New Year sermons.

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 in medieval monasticism among Anglophone scholars, language is often a barrier to accessing some of the most important and groundbreaking research emerging from Europe. The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West offers a comprehensive treatment of medieval monasticism, from Late Antiquity to the end of the Middle Ages. The essays, specially commissioned for this volume and written by an international team of scholars, with contributors from Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States, cover a range of topics and themes and represent the most up-to-date discoveries on this topic.

"An extremely interesting and important book... makes an important contribution to the history of medieval monastic spirituality in a formative period, whilst also fitting into wider debates on the origins, development and impact of ideas on crusading and holy war." Dr William Purkis, University of Birmingham 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 division. Through a wide reading of Latin sermons, letters, and hagiography, she identifies a monastic language of war that presented the monk as the archetypal "soldier of Christ" and his life of prayer as a continuous combat with the devil: indeed, monks' claims to supremacy on the spiritual battlefield grew even louder as Church leaders extended the title of "soldier of Christ" to lay knights and crusaders. So, while medieval monasteries have traditionally been portrayed as peaceful sanctuaries in a violent world, here the author demonstrates that monastic identity was negotiated through real and imaginary encounters with war, and that the concept of spiritual warfare informed virtually every aspect of life in the cloister. It thus breaks new ground in the history of European attitudes toward warfare and warriors in the age of the papal reform movement and the early crusades. Katherine Allen Smith is Assistant Professor of History, University of Puget Sound.