Mendicant Cultures in the Medieval and Early Modern World

The eleven interdisciplinary essays that comprise this book complement and expand upon a significant body of literature on the history of the Franciscan and Dominican orders during the later Middle Ages and the early modern period. They elucidate and examine the ways in which mendicant friars established, sustained, and transformed their institutional identities and shaped the devotional experiences of the faithful to whom they ministered via verbal and visual culture. Taking primary texts and images as their point of departure, these essays break new scholarly ground by revising previous assumptions regarding mendicant life and actions and analysing sites, works of art, and texts that either have been neglected in the existing literature or that have not been examined through the lens of current methodologies such as sermon studies, ritual, gender, and cross-cultural interactions. Indeed, the varied methods and subjects of these essays demonstrate there is still much to be learned about the mendicant orders and the ways and spaces in which they operated and presented themselves on the local, regional, and global stages.