Emanating from the tradition of the Italian hermit communities the Franciscans developed organisational structures already early in their history, allowing them to offer pastoral care on a wide scale. This process of transition led firstly to constitutional structures as defined in the order's early legislation but it also occurred within relationship networks at different levels, in the context of Church and papacy, within the different European regions and before the background of the emerging Canon Law. The term "organisation" has been given a wide definition in the articles published in this volume. They offer a survey of general issues related to the structuring and running of religious orders as well as a number of case studies. Comparisons with other mendicant orders offer an analysis of the issues in a wider context.

From the deserts of Egypt to the emergence of the great monastic orders, the story of late antique and medieval monasticism in the West used to be straightforward. But today we see the story as far 'messier' - less linear, less unified, and more historicized. In the first part of this book, the reader is introduced to the astonishing variety of forms and experiences of the monastic life, their continuous transformation, and their embedding in physical, socio-economic, and even personal settings. The second part surveys and discusses the extensive international scholarship on which the first part is built. The third part, a research tool, rounds off the volume with a carefully representative bibliography of literature and primary sources.

The decades between ca 1280 and ca 1380 were marked by a striking affinity to the Mendicant orders on the part of many female members of royal and princely courts. And yet, "Queens, Princesses and Mendicants" is both an innovative and comparatively neglected juxtaposition in medieval studies, for historical research has generally tended to neglect the relationship between Mendicants and aristocratic women. This volume unites twelve articles written by experts from seven European countries. The contributions cover a wide array of medieval European kingdoms in order to facilitate direct comparisons. Was affinity towards the Mendicants a prevalent phenomenon in the late Middle Ages? Can one even term "philomendicantism" a late medieval European movement? The collection of essays provides answers to these and other questions within the field of gender, religious and cultural history.

One of the enduring ironies of medieval history is the fact that a group of Italian lay penitents, begging in sackcloths, led by a man who called himself simple and ignorant, turned in a short time into a very popular and respectable order, featuring cardinals and university professors among its ranks. Within a century of its foundation, the Order of Friars Minor could claim hundreds of permanent houses, schools, and libraries across Europe; indeed, alongside the Dominicans, they attracted the best minds and produced many outstanding scholars who were at the forefront of Western philosophical and religious thought. In The Poor and the Perfect, Neslihan Şenocak provides a grand narrative of this fascinating story in which the quintessential Franciscan virtue of simplicity gradually lost its place to learning, while studying came to be considered an integral part of evangelical perfection. Not surprisingly, turmoil accompanied this rise of learning in Francis's order. Şenocak shows how a constant emphasis on humility was unable to prevent the creation within the Order of a culture that increasingly saw education as a means to acquire prestige and domination. The damage to the diversity and equality among the early Franciscan community proved to be irreparable. But the consequences of this transformation went far beyond the Order: it contributed to a paradigm shift in the relationship between the clergy and the schools and eventually led to the association of learning with sanctity in the medieval world. As Şenocak demonstrates, this episode of Franciscan history is a microhistory of the rise of learning in the West.

This volume brings together major scholars in medieval Franciscan history, hagiography and art to commemorate Dr Rosalind B. Brooke’s (1925-2014) life and scholarly achievement, especially in the study of St Francis of Assisi and his followers.

The mendicant orders-Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, and several other groups-spread across Europe apace from the early thirteenth century, profoundly influencing numerous aspect of medieval life. But alongside their tremendous success, their members (friars) also encountered derision, scorn, and even violence. Such opposition, generally known as antifraternalism, is often seen as an ecclesiastical in-house affair or an ideological response to the brethren's laxity: both cases registering a moral decline symptomatic of a decadent church. Challenging the accuracy of these views, Geltner contends that the phenomenon exhibits a breadth of scope that on the one hand pushes it far beyond its accustomed boundaries, and on the other supports only tenuous links with Reformation or modern forms of anticlericalism. Drawing from numerous sources, from theological treatises to poetry and criminal court records, Guy Geltner shows that people from all walks of life lambasted and occasionally assaulted the brethren, orchestrating detailed scenes of urban violence in the process. Their myriad motivations and diverse goals preclude us from associating antifraternalism with any one ideology or agenda, let alone allow us to brand many of its proponents as religious reformers. At the same time, he demonstrates the friars' active role in forging a medieval antifraternal tradition, not only by deviating from their founders' paths to varying degrees, but also by chronicling their suffering inter fideles and thus incorporating it into the orders' identity as the vanguard of Christianity. In doing so, Geltner illuminates a major chapter in Europe's social, urban, and religious history.

Returning to themes first discussed in his book A History of Franciscan Education (Brill, 2000), Bert Roest discusses in this volume a wide range of issues pertaining to the organization of learning in the Franciscan order in the late medieval and early modern period, and the ways in which this order engaged in pastoral and missionary activities in confrontation with the rise of Protestantism. The essays in this volume break new ground in their treatment of school formation, the chronology of educational developments, and the transformation of Franciscan schools between the mid fifteenth and the mid seventeenth century. They also challenge ingrained scholarly verdicts on the efficacy of sixteenth-century mendicant homiletics, and on the role of the Franciscans in the Dutch mission from the early seventeenth century onwards.