Varieties of Devotion in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

In the modern world, interest in religious devotion is as great as ever. This volume brings together the research of ten scholars into the diverse ways that Europeans expressed their quest for God over more than a millennium, from the formative centuries of Christianity up to the seventeenth century. Topics include women transvestite saints, Monophysite wall-paintings, Anglo-Saxon sainthood and painful martyrdom, Carmelite self-redefinition, the confident authorship of Gautier de Coinci and Matfre Ermengaud, competition between the bishop and a wandering preacher for popular favor in Le Mans, the contemplative philanthropies of the Poor Clares, Chester Nativity-cycle actors’ masculinity, Jean Gerson’s warm relations with his siblings, and George Herbert’s Eucharistic feeling. The authors’ profound familiarity with primary sources as well as the influence of current theory makes these essays vibrant and timely.