Varieties of Devotion in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

by Susan C. Karant-Nunn (Editor)

In the modern world, interest in religious devotion is as great as ever. This volume brings together the research of ten scholars into the diverse ways that Europeans expressed their quest for God over more than a millennium, from the formative centuries of Christianity up to the seventeenth century. Topics include women transvestite saints, Monophysite wall-paintings, Anglo-Saxon sainthood and painful martyrdom, Carmelite self-redefinition, the confident authorship of Gautier de Coinci and Matfre Ermengaud, competition between the bishop and a wandering preacher for popular favour in Le Mans, the contemplative philanthropies of the Poor Clares, Chester Nativity-cycle actors' masculinity, Jean Gerson's warm relations with his siblings, and George' Herbert's eucharistic feeling. The authors' profound familiarity with primary sources as well as the influence of current theory makes these essays vibrant and timely.

Genres: History

213 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2003

Reviews

[Denise Kettering · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a variety of essays on different aspects of Christian devotion. Overall, this text is going to be most useful to specialists in particular areas, as the essays are somewhat disparate in the topics that they cover, not only in the scope of time, but also in the sense that they cover different texts, aspects of liturgy, art, and so forth, making the collection less useful to a general audience or on the whole. The collection has some useful essays, depending on the area of interest.