The Establishment of Monastic Communities
The First Monasteries in Europe
2. The Benedictine Rule and Its Longevity
The Career of Benedict and His Rule
The Second Benedict and the Reform of the Frankish Monasteries
3. The Flowering of the Benedictines
A New Beginning in Lotharingia
Cluny: The Establishment of Monastic Liberty
The “Cluniac Church”: A Congregation of Monasteries
Monastic Life in Service of King and Nobility, Pope and Bishop
Charismatic Preaching and Religious Movements
A Return to the Institutions of the Church
5. The Regular Canons: The Clergy’s New Self-Understanding
6. The Cistercians: Collegiality Instead of Hierarchy
Robert’s Path from Molesme to Cîteaux and Back
The Charter of Charity and the Invention of the “Order”
7. The Success of the Cistercian Model
From the Premonstratensians to the Gilbertines and the Carthusians
The Search for Religious Identity
Beguines and Humiliati: A New Lay Piety
“Holy Preachers” and “Lesser Brothers”
10. The Franciscans: A Mendicant Order with the Whole World as Its Monastery
Francis of Assisi and His Community
11. The Dominicans: Holy Preaching and Pastoral Care
Dominic and the Building of a New Order
Rationality and Constitution in the Service of the Salvation of Souls
12. Transformations of Eremitical Life
The Carmelites: From the Mountain into the Cities
13. A New Chapter in the Story of the Vita Religiosa
The Three Ages of Salvation History
Eremitical Congregations and the Work of Peter of Morrone
14. Mendicant Orders in Conflict: Struggles over Poverty and Observance
15. Reformers and Reforms at the End of the Middle Ages
Reform from Above: Pope Benedict XII
Reform from Below: The Rise of the Observants
17. Fundamental Structures of the Vita Religiosa in the Middle Ages
The Individual and the Community
Institutional Forms: Establishment and Preservation