Bert Roest

Order and Disorder: The Poor Clares between Foundation and Reform

In Order and Disorder. The Poor Clares between Foundation and Reform, Bert Roest provides an up-to-date and comprehensive history of the Poor Clares from their early beginnings until the sixteenth century.

Female Preaching in the Late Medieval Franciscan Tradition

Although a lot of fine scholarship has been devoted to Franciscan women – a term with which I designate both the Poor Clares and the women partaking in or affiliated with the tertiary movements – it still holds true that many historians associate Franciscan history and Franciscan studies first and foremost with the struggles and vicissitudes of Francis of Assisi and his male followers. It remains necessary to reassert with some emphasis the importance of the women in this history, and to come to terms with the at times rather tumultuous and strained relationship between the men and women inspired by the Franciscan ideal of evangelical perfection throughout the centuries. In this essay, I would like to draw attention to a phenomenon within the female branches of the Franciscan movement that has been marginalized by male medieval spokesmen for the order, as well as by many modern scholars devoted to its history, namely the magisterium vocis of Franciscan nuns and tertiary sisters. By this I mean the structured and authoritative vocal and written expression of women in the realms of religion and Christian faith, both within a homiletic context and beyond. The marginalization of this phenomenon is backed up by the traditional mistrust of the female voice within the Catholic church throughout its history. As we all know, Christianity arose in societies with distinct patriarchical structures. Although it would seem that, from a gender-point of view, the very early Christian communities were more egalitarian than much of their surroundings, especially in the GrecoRoman world, early male spokesmen for the Church held palpable patriarchical and even misogynist views regarding the role of women in matters pertaining to pastoral care, mission, and priesthood. Already the Pauline letters to the Romans and the Corinthians exhibit a tension when they comment on the sanctioned roles of women

Franciscan Learning, Preaching and Mission c. 1220-1650

In this volume, Bert Roest discusses many issues pertaining to the organization of learning in the Franciscan order, and the ways in which this order engaged in pastoral and missionary activities in confrontation with the rise of Protestantism.

Strategies of Catholic Identity Formation c. 1510–1560 (Chronicle)

On October 31 and November 1, 2011, the workshop Strategies of Catholic Identity Formation in a Period of Religious Confusion (c. 1510-1560), was held at Radboud University, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, as part of the research project Religious Orders and Religious Identity Formation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 1420-1620.1 The workshop explored ways in which genres of religious instruction and confessional self-understanding were used and transformed before the solidification of Catholic doctrine in the wake of the Council of Trent. The workshop consisted of four sessions: “Reinterpreting the Catholic World Before the Council of Trent”; “Catholic Sermons as Vehicles of Religious Instruction”; “The Bible and para-Biblical Literature”; “Order Chronicles and Saints’ Lives as Representations of Religious Identity.”2 In addition to participants from Nijmegen, the workshop involved researchers from the University of Groningen (the project Holy Writ and Lay Readers: A Social History of Vernacular Bible Translations in the Middle Ages), as well as scholars from England, Italy, and the USA.

Imagini dei predicatori e della predicazione in Italia alla fine del Medioevo

eschatological pilgrimage (p. 153). Moreover, Maldina is very insightful in pointing out that, in evaluating the influence of preaching on a text, one has to consider not only the presence of similar rhetorical strategies but also the convergence in themes, style, and function. This crucial methodological point is rightly emphasized in the three case studies – one from each cantica – investigated in the final chapter, entitled ‘Stili omiletici’. By analysing Inferno 19, on the simoniacs, Maldina shows how Dante’s invective against the popes can be framed as an increpatio, which largely uses exclamationes, in line with the precepts of the Summae confessorum. Moreover, the denunciation of the state of corruption of the clergy serves to emphasize the void deriving from the lack of true pastors, something that justifies the prophetic mission of Dante and the salvific function of his poem (p. 170). The analysis of Purgatorio 10–12 returns to the well-known topic of Dante’s use of exempla ‘to restrain vice and to promote virtue’ (p. 186). Yet, Maldina shows how even the souls that Dante the pilgrim encounters, and indeed Dante himself, have the function of ‘examples of pride redeemed by penance’ (p. 200) and how it is the whole structure of the section – not only the exempla – that connects with the contemporary preaching culture by discussing pride, vainglory and humility (pp. 206–07). Within that section, Oderisi da Gubbio’s discourse is analysed as a micro-sermon, which not only is ‘structured as a sermon but also functions as a sermon’ (p. 217). Finally, Beatrice’s theological lecture in Paradiso 4–5 is framed as an example of doctrinal discourse, close to the ‘didactic prose’ of preachers, particularly in its repeated addresses to the listener and in its transition from theological exposition to moral exhortation (p. 233). While at some points the argumentation is a bit forced, the three examples clearly show the potential of a lectura Dantis that takes into consideration the multifaceted dialogue of Dante with the contemporary preaching culture. In conclusion, the book presents a very rich analysis of the interplay between the Commedia and preaching culture and a very stimulating methodology that, as the author points out, has the possibility to foster an in-depth re-evaluation of the ‘lively interchange between sermons and literary texts’ in the late middle ages (p. 10). Although sometimes the book is quite demanding for the reader, and mainly intended for Dante specialists, it promises to remain a solid reference point in the field. Its reading is undoubtedly highly rewarding for scholars interested in sermons, late medieval religious culture, and, of course, the Commedia.

Essays on Giovanni of Capestrano Preface

The following essays focus on one of the most important figures in the religious history of the later middle ages. Giovanni of Capestrano is in one sense familiar to many, above all to scholars and students of Franciscan history. The story of the friar from Abruzzo, one of the ‘four pillars’ of the Observance, appears in every standard account of the Order’s history: his career as a jurist, his conversion and tutelage under Bernardino, his fierce advocacy for the Observants, his long preaching tour north of the Alps and his role in the crusade of 1456. And for centuries that story has been the subject of progressively more refined scholarship, from Luke Wadding in the seventeenth century to Johannes Hofer and Ottokar Bonmann in the twentieth. Some of the best has appeared in the last generation, including important conference proceedings and essays in the 1980s and 1990s. But momentum and focus have increased in the last decade in particular, as scholars from Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Romania have turned to Giovanni with renewed focus and interest. Yet in the Anglophone tradition of studies on the Franciscan Order, to which the journal Franciscan Studies has long been central, Capestrano remains by turns relatively neglected, misread, or misunderstood. He remains a challenging, enigmatic, and overall difficult figure who can be subject to widely divergent, even contradictory interpretations. The sources for access to his life and work, in contrast to other Franciscan figures, remain very difficult to access. And overall his story, perhaps along with that of the Observants generally, may seem too ‘late’ for scholars interested in Francesco d’Assisi and his followers, or the ‘golden age’ of the Order. Whatever the reasons, the fact remains: despite the great scholarly energy devoted to Giovanni in recent years, we still have relatively little English-language scholarship on this important figure, and in comparison to his contemporaries he remains marginal in Anglophone histories of the religious history of his era. In an effort to remedy that neglect, and to add to the few but significant studies on Capestrano that have appeared previously in Franciscan

Index of Places and Subjects

This volume deals with the transformative force of Observant reforms during the long fifteenth century, and with the massive literary output by Observant religious, leading to encompassing models of religious perfection that had an effect far into the sixteenth century.

Religious Orders and Religious Identity Formation, ca. 1420-1620

This volume deals with the transformative force of Observant reforms during the long fifteenth century, and with the massive literary output by Observant religious, leading to encompassing models of religious perfection that had an effect far into the sixteenth century.

Francis of Assisi and the Pursuit of Learning

Francis of Assisi was a relatively well-educated lay person, who opted for a life of evangelical perfection, emphasizing poverty and identifying with the outcasts of society. At first sight these ideals preclude any form of study, and it may be assumed that initially Francis did not give matters of study much thought. This being said, right from the outset Francis shaped his religious experience with recourse to the biblical text and classics of the Christian tradition, and used the written word both to help constitute his movement, and to communicate his convictions on Christian life to his friars and the world at large. As soon as missionary endeavors began to predominate within the movement, notwithstanding a great love for eremitical retreat, Francis implicitly opted for the necessity of training his friars, if only to forego charges of heretical teaching, and to adhere to the doctrines of the Church.Keywords: biblical text; Christian tradition; Church; Francis of Assisi

'Ne Effluat in Multiloquium Et Habeatur Honerosus': The Art of Preaching in the Franciscan Tradition

Due to the lay character of the early Franciscan movement, Minorite preaching was at first predominantly adhortatio: the call for repentance –in line with ecclesiastical regulations that distinguished between the call for repentance and conversion allowed to every Christian – and the actual activity of preaching. The Ars Praedicandi combined practical advice on the techniques of preaching with more theoretical reflections on the nature of preaching since the times of Christ and the apostles. Many medieval preachers have left behind massive collections of model sermons without any reference to the use of an Ars Praedicandi, and the structure of their sermons cannot always be reduced with ease to the rules put forward in the preaching manuals. Specific eulogies on famous Franciscan preachers could become the occasion to dwell on their preaching methods. Keywords:Ars Praedicandi; Christian; franciscan tradition; preaching