The Carmelites and Antiquity: Mendicants and Their Pasts in the Middle Ages

ISBN-13: 9780198206347 / Angielski / Twarda / 2002 / 400 str.

Andrew Jotischky

Opis

The Carmelites, the only contemplative religious order to have been founded in the Crusader States, first emerged as a group of hermits living on Mount Carmel, a site associated with the prophet Elijah. Soon after migrating to the West, in the mid-thirteenth century, they began to develop the geographical associations into a complex historical tradition based on the claim to have been founded by the prophet. Carmelite historical myths were first developed as a response to the threat of supression, but increasingly came to form the basis of a distinctive ecclesiology and mission. This book, which is the first full-length study of the Carmelite historical legacy, examines the circumstances under which the traditions were constructed, describes the evolution of the traditions themselves from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, and places them within the wider context of historical writing by religious orders, and attitudes to the past more generally in the later Middle Ages.

Recenzje

An invaluable contribution to Carmelite historiography ... The Carmelites and Antiquity is a major contribution to Carmelite studies. It has grown out of an earlier work, The Perfection of Solitude (Penn University Press, 1996) and not only represents an awareness of Carmelite historical studies but also says something significant about the Order's self-awareness. It has much to offer the Carmelite Family in the twenty-first century for its own current growth in self-understanding.