This book examines the religious authority of St Birgitta of Sweden, the charismatic moral reformer and controversial female visionary of the fourteenth century, emphasising both representations of her prophetic mission and debates about her authenticity as a medium of divine revelation. It illuminates Birgitta's view of herself as a prophet of moral reform by explaining how her Revelations depict her religious mission and place in salvation history, going on to reconstruct interactions between Birgitta and her contemporaries, including the significance of her prophetic authority vis-a-vis...

The Knights Templar, part monastic order, part military force, lived by a firm code, or rule, which exists in differing versions. This Spanish version is a follow-up to J.M. Upton-Ward's highly successful edition of the French Rule. The introduction to this Catalan Rule, Barcelona Archivo de la Corona de Aragon, Cartes Reales, MS 3344, discusses the content, language and dating of the manuscript. It also provides background information derived from the French Rule (which the reader may require for a fuller appreciation of the text - see author note below) on the circumstances of the Knights...

The Order of the Knights Templar, whose original purpose was to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land, was first given its own Rule in 1129, formalising the exceptional combination of soldier and monk. This translation of Henri de Curzon's 1886 edition of the French Rule is derived from the three extant medieval manuscripts. Both monastic rule and military manual, the Rule is a unique document and an important historical source. It comprises the Primitive Rule, Hierarchical Statutes, Penances, Conventual Life, the Holding of Ordinary Chapters, Further Details on Penances, and Reception into the...

A central paradox of the English reformation is that the call to the Catholic priesthood was never more eagerly answered than on the very eve of religious upheaval. In this important new study, based on the records of the third largest diocese in the country, covering six counties of the midlands and north-west, Dr Cooper traces the careers of the pastoral clergy from their preparatory education, through ordination and job-hunting, to the writing of their wills, often in ripe old age and having served a single parish through the entirety of the main period of reform. In this highly...

North-east England experienced the Norman Conquest rather differently from the south of the country. This account of events in Northumbria gives an important alternative view of the Conquest and settlement, distinct from the more usual southern and court-centred evidence. A key factor in events was the monastic community of St Cuthbert in Durham, which had survived the political upheavals following the collapse of the Northumbrian kingdom under Scandinavian pressure in the ninth century. Its position thus strengthened, it occupied an influential place in the factors ranged against the...

Contains essays that present evidence for the voguer and involvement of religious orders in the years immediately prior to the reformation.

Waltham Abbey is generally considered to have been the most important Augustinian house in England. Five cartularies have survived and there are original documents in six different manuscript collections. They concern the canons, churches and land in nine counties and the City of London. Over 350 local place and field names appear and there is much material relating to the development of surnames and evidence of flourishing use of the English language.

The studies in this volume illuminate the changes in society over nearly three centuries. They consider the related fields of the church and its work in the parish, the expansion of educational provision (including the involvement of national societies such as the SPCK) and the operation of the old and new Poor Law, together with medical aspects of Poor Law provision. A separate study is made of the impact of epidemics which led ultimately to improvements in public sanitation and water supply. A wealth of local detail accompanies the narrative, citing life in towns and villages throughout the...

Between 1066 and 1282 two quite different societies were juxtaposedalong the Welsh Marches: a feudally-based Anglo-Norman one, and aCeltic Welsh one. It has been conventional to consider the formerto have been more sophisticated and developed than the latter but, in fact, the situation was more complex, and during more than two centuries of attacks and campaigns each society borrowed from the other. This book is the first comparative study of the two military systems. It considers issues pertinent to the entire border region, and, indeed, to other medieval marches. Specific topics examined...