The sources contained in this volume offer an introduction to early liturgical texts dedicated to Francis of Assisi. Frequently ignored by scholars, these crucial sources present a collection of incredible perspectives on how religious communities, both within and outside the Franciscan Order, constructed their identities as they interpreted and performed the life of Francis of Assisi in prayer. The team of international scholars responsible for the volume's introductory essays in the volu...

Cosmic ode, poetic masterpiece, spiritual summit, prayer for peace, call to fraternity: the Canticle of Brother Sun is known by all, or at least its title is, and it has been celebrated in many ways, set to music so many times. Yet, there is something in it that resists, which is why it will never completely be a classic. It continues to vibrate with its initial transgression which pushes it towards the universal while remaining in the assumed particularism of a vernacular dialect. The cal...

For years, Franciscan historians suspected that another life of St. Francis must have been produced sometime between Thomas of Celano’s first and second account, but it was largely believed to have been lost or destroyed throughout the ages. Dalarun’s groundbreaking discovery of Thomas of Celano’s Life of Our Blessed Father Francis (The Rediscovered Life) confirms that not only was such a text in fact produced, but it is has been sitting in the Vatican library waiting to be discovered all ...

To Govern Is to Serve explores the practices of collective governance in medieval religious orders that turned the precepts of the Gospels—most notably that "the first will be last, the last will be first"—into practices of communal deliberation and the election of superiors. Jacques Dalarun argues that these democratic forms have profoundly influenced modern experiences of democracy, in particular the idea of government not as domination but as s...

This book centers on a fascinating woman, Clare of Rimini (c. 1260 to c. 1324–29), whose story is preserved in a fascinating text. Composed by an anonymous Franciscan, the Life of the Blessed Clare of Rimini is the earliest known saint’s life originally written in Italian, and one of the few such lives to be written while its subject was still living. It tells the story of a controversial woman, set against the background of her roiling city, her star-crossed family, and the tumul...

This book centers on a fascinating woman, Clare of Rimini (c. 1260 to c. 1324–29), whose story is preserved in a fascinating text. Composed by an anonymous Franciscan, the Life of the Blessed Clare of Rimini is the earliest known saint’s life originally written in Italian, and one of the few such lives to be written while its subject was still living. It tells the story of a controversial woman, set against the background of her roiling city, her star-crossed family, and the tumul...

A biography of the saint as both mystic and man: "The single best book about Francis now available in English" ( Commonweal).In this towering work, Andre Vauchez draws on the vast body of scholarship on Francis of Assisi, particularly the important research of recent decades, to create a complete and engaging portrait of the saint. He also explores how the memory of Francis was shaped by contemporaries who recollected him in their writings, and completes t...

STUDIES IN EARLY FRANCISCAN SOURCES provides commentary on the critical writings of Francis of Assisi and Clare of Assisi which were published as “The Early Documents” in recent years. Three of the world’s top scholars in medieval and Franciscan studies are editing this series: Michael J. Blastic, O.F.M., Jay M. Hammond, Ph.D., and Wayne Hellmann, O.F.M. Conv. In addition to their own commentaries, they have assembled an impressive list of commentaries on the Early Documents of Francis and...

Three groundbreaking essays that discuss the Churchs need and call for the restoration of women to the permanent order of deacon.

This book chronicles Saint Alphonsus Liguori's contribution to the evolution of moral theology, a contribution that continues to influence contemporary Christian society more than 200 years after his death. Readers will come away with a renewed appreciation for this method of living and acting morally.Paperback

In Sacred Plunder, David Perry argues that plundered relics, and narratives about them, played a central role in shaping the memorial legacy of the Fourth Crusade and the development of Venice’s civic identity in the thirteenth century. After the Fourth Crusade ended in 1204, the disputes over the memory and meaning of the conquest began. Many crusaders faced accusations of impiety, sacrilege, violence, and theft. In their own defense, they produced hagiographical narratives about...

A magnificent proliferation of new Christ-centered devotional practices—including affective meditation, imitative suffering, crusade, Eucharistic cults and miracles, passion drama, and liturgical performance—reveals profound changes in the Western Christian temperament of the twelfth century and beyond. This change has often been attributed by scholars to an increasing emphasis on God's embodiment in the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ. In Holy Matter, Sara ...