Religious and Laity in Northern Europe, 1000-1400 ― Interaction, Negotiation and Power

The relationships between monastic and mendicant communities or orders and the laity in the high middle ages were complex, highly charged, and yet nearly ritualized. These 19 papers explore the complexities in the relationships between patrons and benefactors and their expectations of each other, the earthly secular of religious founders and patrons, fashions of benefaction, specifics of a monastery's remembrance of its benefactors, the social status of benefactors, the benefices of death, extremes of patronage in benefices to mendicant orders by royal houses, monastic litigation against patrons, recompense in the form of historical lies, effects on health care, clashes of will, and social ranking within communities and orders. The final papers describe the tangled relations between contrafraternities and urban communities in England and the Low Countries. Distributed in North America by The David Brown Book Co. Annotation c2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)