In addition to being a prolific spiritual writer and the abbot of the premier Cistercian monastery in northern England, Aelred of Rievaulx somehow found the time and the stamina to travel extensively throughout the Anglo-Norman realm, acting as a mediator, a problem solver, and an adviser to kings. His career spanned the troubled years of the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda and reached its zenith during the early years of the reign of Henry II. In this work, Jean Truax focuses on the public career of Aelred of Rievaulx, placing him in his historical context, deepening the reader's understanding of his work, and casting additional light on his underappreciated role as politician, mediator, and negotiator outside his abbey's walls.

This book places the life of Aelred of Rievaulx, third abbot of the English Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx, within the hundred-year period from the Norman Conquest of England in October 1066 through Aelred's death in January 1167. While exploring what is known of Aelred's life from his own works and especially from the principal work of Walter Daniel, author of The Life of Aelred of Rievaulx, Burton considers the influence of both English and church history on Aelred's personality and purpose as Christian, abbot, and writer. He emphasizes the place of the crucified Christ at the center of Aelred's life while calling spiritual friendship-not only personal but cosmological-the "hermeneutic key" to his teaching.

Brill's Companion to Aelred of Rievaulx explores the life, works, and thought of Aelred, Cistercian abbot of Rievaulx Abbey from 1147 to 1167. As well as introducing the three genres of his works —sermons, spiritual teaching, and history— scholars survey such central topics as Marian devotion, love and friendship, the sacramental nature of community, lay spirituality, and saints’ lives. The work also includes the first supplement to the Bibliotheca aelrediana secunda, listing publications by and about Aelred from between 1996 and 2015. Aelred is rapidly becoming one of the best-known and most loved of the 12th-century Cistercians; this book provides welcome new insights into his contributions to the spiritual and political concerns of his place and time. Contributors are Damien Boquet, Pierre-André Burton, Marsha L. Dutton, Elizabeth Freeman, Daniel M. La Corte, Marie Anne Mayeski, Domenico Pezzini, John R. Sommerfeldt, and Katherine Yohe.

Essays illuminating a wide range of topics from Cistercian preachers and the "geography" of purgatory to royal and ecclesiastical justice and power. This volume continues the Society's commitment to historical and interdisciplinary research from the early and central Middle Ages and demonstrates its belief that the close interrogation of primary documents yields new insights into or important recalibrations of our understanding of the past. It begins by surveying the works of the Greek Fathers rendered into Latin in late antiquity, exploring their reception and deployment in England before the conquest. The twelfth century occupies a central place in this volume. Four papers offer close readings or re-readings of key authors or sources: one reconstructs William of Malmesbury's journeys in the mid-1130s; another offers a new reading of two of Aelred of Rievaulx's royal biographies; a third considers the influence of Henry of Marcy on Herbert of Clairvaux's Liber visionum et miraculorum Clarevallensium; and a fourth examines the Historia Gaufredi Ducis and its outsized impact on the history of the ritual of dubbing. Two papers address royal and ecclesiastical justice in mid-thirteenth-century France through meticulous work with archival sources: they respectively consider the case of Geoffroy de Milly and limits of sovereign authority and enquêtes as a technique of power. Further topics include the emerging "geography" of purgatory in the imagination of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; the different dimensions of medieval institutional culture as seen in the intersection of earthly and angelic power in Angevin England (placed in dialogue with American medieval historiography); and the evolving historiographical treatment of men of the Church employed as trusted administrators by Italian communes. The volume concludes with two essays on significant moments in the history of American medieval studies: examinations of the publication history of Evelyn Faye Wilson's Stella Maris of John of Garland and of the life, scholarship and legacy of Bennett David Hill round out the volume.

The High Middle Ages have been seen as an important point within the development of governmental and administrative bureaucracy, as well as a time in which there was frequent conflict. This volume addresses the methods by which violence was regulated and mitigated, and peaceful relations were re-established in High Medieval Europe. By studying the restraint of violence and the imposition of peace, the chapters in this volume contribute to interdisciplinary discussions about the effects that violence had on medieval societies. The wide-ranging geographical scope of this volume invites comparisons to be made in relation to how violence was restrained, and peace established, in different settings. The chapters in the first section of this volume address the issue of how violence was moderated and curbed during and following periods of conflict. The second section explores attempts to maintain peace, and the processes which developed to deal with those viewed as having broken the peace. The final section of this volume explores the ways in which conflict was avoided through the maintenance of positive relationships between individuals and groups. This book will be of interest to both academics and students interested in conflict, the restraint of violence, and peacemaking in medieval societies as well as those working on ritual and conflict resolution in any historical period.

Essays illuminate a wide range of topics from the Middle Ages, from the seals of an empress to priests' wives and the undead.This volume of the Haskins Society Journal demonstrates the Society's continued engagement with historical and interdisciplinary research from the early to the central Middle Ages on a broad range of topics including militarism, piety, the miraculous and the monstrous. Chapters explore material culture through a mythic eleventh-century papal banner and the seals and coins of the Empress Matilda; offer new insights into Carolingian hagiography and into the undead in the Historia rerum Anglicarum. Further chapters feature new evidence on the role of priests' wives, the tensions of multiple lordships, shifting identities in the Irish Sea world, and the didactic use of royal anger. A fresh examination of Aelred of Rievaulx's Relatio de Standaro and a re-assessment of Flemish documentary practice continue the Haskins Society's commitment to primary source analysis. Two essays on the thirteenth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUOth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUOth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUOth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUO

During his twenty years as abbot of the Yorkshire monastery of Rievaulx, Aelred preached many sermons: to his own monks, in other monasteries, and at significant gatherings outside the cloister. In these thirty-one homilies on Isaiah chapters 13–16, together with an introductory Advent sermon, Aelred interprets the burdens that Isaiah prophesied against the nations according to their literal, allegorical, and moral senses. He sees these burdens as playing a role both in the history of the church and in the progress of the individual soul. This collection of homilies is an ambitious, unified work of a mature monk, synthesizing biblical exegesis, ascetical teaching, spiritual exhortation, and a theory of history.