Abstract
Abstract In the early Middle Ages, the monastic model of conversion represented Christianity’s highest form of spirituality. Conversion meant becoming a religious or entering a religious order; it represented withdrawal into a cloistered community where the soul’s quest for perfection in imitation of Christ could be fully realized. Conversion signified a lifelong pursuit of God, a desire for a final conversion culminating in the beatific vision. By the High Middle Ages, however, this monastic model was increasingly challenged by friars and lay movements (e.g., Beguines, tertiaries, and the Devotio Moderna movement in the Low Countries). For them, conversion meant a call to return to the primitive church in active pursuit of holiness in the world, not a retreat into the confines of the monastery.
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