Fifteenth-Century Carthusian Reform argues that monastic theology offers a medieval Catholic paradigm distinct from the scholastic theology that has been the conventional source for medieval-oriented interpretations of Renaissance and Reformation. It is based on thorough study of the manuscript record. Nicholas Kempf (ca. 1415-1497) taught at the University of Vienna before becoming the head of Carthusian monasteries in rural Austria and Slovenia. Faced with calls for reform in church and society, he placed his confidence in the patristic Christian idea of reform: the reform of the image of God in the human person. This contemplative monastic idea of reform depended on authoritative structures, especially the monastic rule and rational -- yet divinely inspired -- discernment by a spiritual director. What seemed like simpleminded submission to monastic structures was actually a way to avoid relying on human effort for salvation. By returning to one's true self (the image of God), one opened oneself up for genuine social relationships. To activist reformers, whether adherents of medieval scholasticism, Renaissance humanism, or modern Enlightenment, this monastic idea of reform has seemed escapist, backward-looking, and "womanish." Monks accepted these labels but read them as signs of hidden strength. This book attempts to read through monastic lenses.

This volume examines Carthusian history and culture of the later Middle Ages, with a primary but not exclusive focus on the English Province.

Just as twenty-first-century technologies like blogs and wikis have transformed the once private act of reading into a public enterprise, devotional reading experiences in the Middle Ages were dependent upon an oscillation between the solitary and the communal. In Reading in the Wilderness, Jessica Brantley uses tools from both literary criticism and art history to illuminate Additional MS 37049, an illustrated Carthusian miscellany housed in the British Library. This revealing artifact, Brantley argues, closes the gap between group spectatorship and private study in late medieval England. Drawing on the work of W. J. T. Mitchell, Michael Camille, and others working at the image-text crossroads, Reading in the Wilderness addresses the manuscript’s texts and illustrations to examine connections between reading and performance within the solitary monk’s cell and also outside. Brantley reimagines the medieval codex as a site where the meanings of images and words are performed, both publicly and privately, in the act of reading.

Detailed study of monastic life of the English white canons, based on 15c visitation records.

Published in 2005: At a time when the church sought to control and constrain lay access to vernacular and paramystical texts, the author’s translation, sanctioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, met a pressing need for religious guidance among lay people. It became one of the most copied works of the fifteenth century.

This volume collects essays which are thematically connected through the work of Kent Emery Jr., to whom the volume is dedicated. A main focus lies on the attempts to bridge the gap between mysticism and a systematic approach to medieval philosophical thought. The essays address a wide range of topics concerning (a) the nature of the human soul (in philosophical and theological discourse); (b) medieval theories of cognition (natural and supernatural), self-knowledge and knowledge of God; (c) the human soul’s contemplation of, and union with, God; (d) the tradition of “the modes of theology” in the Middle Ages; (e) the relation between philosophy and theology. Various articles are dedicated to major figures of the 13th and 14th century philosophy, others display new material based on critical editions. Contributors are Jan A. Aertsen, Stephen Brown, Bernardo Carlos Bazán, William J. Courtenay, Alfredo Santiago Culleton, Silvia Donati, Bernd Goehring, Guy Guldentops, Daniel Hobbins, Roberto Hofmeister Pich, Georgi Kapriev, Steven P. Marrone, Stephen M. Metzger, Timothy B. Noone, Mikolaj Olszewski, Alessandro Palazzo, Garrett R. Smith, Andreas Speer, Carlos Steel, Loris Sturlese, Chris Schabel, Christian Trottmann, and Gordon A. Wilson.