Selected Bibliography on the New Monasticism of the Middle Ages

Here are some great works focused on the New Monasticism of the Middle Ages. A great place to begin would be Southern’s paperback, which includes several good chapters on the developments of this time period. Lawrence would be the best single volume on the topic of monasticism, especially the new monasticism. Leclercq helps contemporary Christians appreciate the wonderful spiritual vitality of the men and women in the monasteries, and Grundmann provides an excellent overview of the spiritual renewal movements of the Late Middle Ages.

New Monasticism & Spiritual Movements in the Middle Ages
Bouyer, Louis. The Cistercian Heritage. Translated by Elizabeth Livingstone. Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1958.
Casey, Michael. Athirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1988. ISBN: 0-8790-7877-4.
Constable, Giles. The Reformation of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN: 0-521-63871-2 or 0-521-30514-4 (1996 hardcover).
Grundmann, Herbert. Religious Movements of the Middle Ages: The Historical Links between Heresy, the Mendicant Orders, and the Women’s Religious Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, with the Historical Foundations of German Mysticism. Translated by Steven Rowan. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1961/1995. ISBN: 0-268-01649-6.
Lawrence, C. H. Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. 3rd ed. Harlow, England: Pearson Education, 2001. ISBN: 0-582-40427-4.
Leclercq, Jean. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture. Translated by Catharine Misrahi. New York: Fordham University Press, 1982. ISBN: 0-8232-0407-3.
Lekai, Louis J. The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality. Kent State University Press, 1977. ISBN: 0-87338-201-3.
Leyser, Henrietta. Hermits and the New Monasticism: A Study of Religious Communities in Western Europe 1000-1150. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984. ISBN: 0-312-36999-9.
McGinn, Bernard. The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism – 1200-1350. Volume 3 in The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. New York: Crossroad, 1998. ISBN: 0-8245-1743-1.
Pazzelli, Raffaele. St. Francis and the Third Order: The Franciscan and pre-Franciscan Penitential Movement. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1989. ISBN: 0-8199-0953-X.
Thoman, Bret. The Road to Peace in Assisi: Following Francis and Clare in the Footsteps of the Lesser Christ. N.p.: Lulu, 2010.

A Few Primary Sources
Francis and Clare: The Complete Works. Translated by Regis Armstrong. In The Classics of Western Spirituality. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982. ISBN: 0-8091-2446-7.
The Love of God and Spiritual Friendship. Translated and edited by James M. Houston. Portland, OR: Multnomah, 1983. ISBN: 0-88070-017-3.

A Few Reference Books
Jones, Cheslyn, Geoffrey Wainwright and Edward Yarnold, eds. The Study of Spirituality. New York, NY: Oxford, 1986. ISBN: 019-504170-4.
Leclercq, Jean, Francois Vandenbroucke and Louis Bouyer. The Spirituality of the Middle Ages. Volume 2 in A History of Christian Spirituality. New York: Seabury Press, 1968. ISBN: 0-8164-0326-0.
Sheldrake, Philip, ed. The New Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality. Second edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2003. ISBN: 0-664-23003-2.
Southern, R. W. Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages. Pelican History of the Church. London: Penguin, 1970.

2010 © Glenn E. Myers