Mendicant Orders Research Articles

Moines et religieux dans la ville (XII e –XV e siècle) Edited by Nicole Bériou and Cécile Caby (review)

Moines et religieux dans la ville (XIIe-XVe siecle). Edited by Nicole Beriou and Cecile Caby. [Cahiers de Fanjeaux, 44.] (Toulouse: Editions Privat. 2009. Pp. 639, with 1 CD. euro35,00. ISBN 978-2-7089-3447-4.)This volume of the Cahiers de Fanjeaux is based on the 2008 colloquy, the theme of which is stated in the title. Religieux here represents those subject to some rule (as opposed to the secular clergy) but not cloistered (as the moines were) and who were ordinarily in close contact with the laity.The first essay, by Nicole Beriou, provides a general overview of the relationship between religious orders and the cities of Europe between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. He emphasizes that, despite the close connection between urbanization and the mendicant orders noted by Jacques Le Goff and others, older orders found their way into the cities well before the mendicants appeared. Yves Esquieu then traces a general history of the clergy in southern French cities from the fourth to the eleventh centuries.The next section concentrates on religious orders other than the mendicants. The first of them, by Jorg Oberste, traces the successive appearances of various monastic communities at Toulouse, emphasizing the roles they played and their contests for power, prestige, and income. As he proceeds from Benedictine monasticism through Cluniac reform and its amplification in the hands of a rising papacy, then through the Cistercians and the new military orders, Oberste furnishes a miniaturized history of western monasticism from the beginning to the early-thirteenth century as it played out in the rising cities, offering another reminder that, long before the mendicants appeared, monastic institutions performed an important role in satisfying the spiritual needs of those cities.Daniel Le Blevec, too, concentrates on a single city (Montpelier), whereas other articles specialize in other ways. Damien Carraz concentrates on the military orders and Alexis Grelois on the Cistercians, whereas Henri Gilles discusses monks at the universities. Yannick Veyrenche examines the canons regular of Saint-Ruf at Avignon and Valence, whereas Denyse Riche deals with the Cluniacs at Moissac.The next section turns to the mendicants, who understandably receive a lion's share of the attention. The book comes with a CD, but individual historians' enthusiasm about utilizing it depends on their project. Nelly Pousthomis-Dalle employs it admirably in her survey of mendicant settlement in southwestern France, as does Francois Guyonnet in his tour of mendicant houses in southeastern France. Both clarify their presentation with a plethora of maps and photographs. …

Monasticon Carmelitanum: Die Klöster des Karmelitenordens (O. Carm.) in Deutschland von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart Edited by Edeltraud Klueting, T.O.Carm.; Stephan Panzer, O.Carm.; and Andreas H. Scholten, O.Carm (review)

Reviewed by: Monasticon Carmelitanum: Die Klöster des Karmelitenordens (O. Carm.) in Deutschland von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart Edited by Edeltraud Klueting, T.O.Carm.; Stephan Panzer, O.Carm.; and Andreas H. Scholten, O.Carm John B. Freed Monasticon Carmelitanum: Die Klöster des Karmelitenordens (O. Carm.) in Deutschland von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Edited by Edeltraud Klueting, T.O.Carm.; Stephan Panzer, O.Carm.; and Andreas H. Scholten, O.Carm. [Monastica Carmelitana, tomus II.] (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2012. Pp. 1032. €68,00. ISBN 978-3-402-12954-8.) It is doubtful that many people will read every word of this book, but it will be an invaluable reference work to anyone who is interested in any aspect of the history of the German Carmelites. The provinces of Upper and Lower Germany (since 2013, a single province) commissioned in 2005 histories of all the Carmelite houses situated within the current boundaries of the Federal Republic between the arrival of the Carmelites in Cologne in 1256 and today. Fifty-five scholars worked on the project. The first part covers fifty-eight houses from their foundation until their dissolution in the Reformation or until their secularization in 1802–03. The second deals with the twenty-three friaries that were refounded or established in the modern period, mainly after World War II. Each entry includes extensive archival and bibliographical sections about each foundation. The level of scholarship is high, and the amount of information is staggering. It is hoped that someone will be inspired to tackle the numerous questions raised by the book. Six colored maps show the distribution of the friaries at key moments. The Carmelites founded only a few houses in Eastern Europe during the late Middle Ages—for example, in Prague in 1347—and assigned them initially to the province of Upper Germany. The delineation of the boundaries between the German and Polish Dominican and Franciscan provinces proved highly controversial in the thirteenth century. Did the memory of these fights retard and limit the expansion of the Carmelites in this region? There were no Carmelite friaries in northern Germany, none in medieval Westphalia, and only two in Old Bavaria. Why not? Most of the houses were situated in the Low Countries, in the Rhine Valley as far south as Strasbourg, and between the Main and Danube. Many of these were located in obscure places. The most extreme case is Appingen, a village in eastern Frisia that no longer exists, but many of the other locations (such as Hettstedt, Perleberg, or Pössneck) may not be in the forefront of the minds of historians. How can such foundations be reconciled with the order’s alleged urban apostolate? Part of the answer is that the Carmelites were the last of the four mendicant orders to arrive in Germany and had often to be satisfied with marginal locations. Six maps show the location of the houses of the four orders in six episcopal sees (why not in imperial cities like Frankfurt and Nürnberg?), but there is little discussion in the individual articles whether the Carmelites appealed to a different urban audience and no overall summary of this or any other topic. Their mission in Regensburg was largely limited, for example, to caring for women in a hospital; and they moved in 1367 to Straubing, the only house in continuous existence—barely—until the present. (Friars from Straubing started the Carmelite mission in the United States in 1864 in Leavenworth, Kansas.) In spite of their work with women in Regensburg, the Carmelites established their first German nunnery, Geldern, only in 1452. In [End Page 99] contrast, there were seventy-four nunneries in the Dominican province of Teutonia by 1303. Since the Dominican nunneries became centers of German mysticism, the Carmelite emphasis on contemplation should have appealed to women; but the friars seemingly were unwilling or failed to satisfy this longing, and that failure may have impeded their own expansion. Finally, although a few houses were active in re-Catholicization, the striking thing is the low level of involvement of the Carmelites in the Counter-Reformation. For instance, the Wittelsbachs preferred the Capuchins, the Jesuits, and the Discalced Carmelites...

A study on the missionary method in New Spain in the 16th century: focused on cultural and artistic mission of the mendicant orders

A study on the missionary method in New Spain in the 16th century: focused on cultural and artistic mission of the mendicant orders

Millénarisme des ordres mendiants en Nouvelle Espagne du XVIe siècle et ses manifestations dans l'art et l'architecture

The aim of this article is to present the monastic architecture of sixteenth-century New Spain and its artistic decoration, specifically mural paintings and sculptural reliefs. The article presents each element of this unique architecture - mainly the innovative ones, such as open chapels, posas chapels, or atrio crosses - as well as the iconographic programme of the sculptural decoration. The article focuses, however, on the interpretation of this architecture and its artistic decoration in terms of their functions in the process of evangelizing the native Meso-american population. The term millenarianism is used to refer to the evangelizing activities of the mendicant orders. Of particular interest are the manifestations of these activities in the monastic architecture and art.

“To Know Christ in the Father, Christ in the Flesh, and Christ in the Eucharist”: The Comprehensive Scope of Classical Christology in the Twelfth Century

219 The Thomist 78 (2014): 219-45 “TO KNOW CHRIST IN THE FATHER, CHRIST IN THE FLESH, AND CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST”:1 THE COMPREHENSIVE SCOPE OF CLASSICAL CHRISTOLOGY IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY BOYD TAYLOR COOLMAN Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts CHOLARLY INTEREST in the theology of the “long twelfth century” shows no signs of abating.2 On the contrary , the ongoing conversation has reached the point where revisionist approaches now question earlier commonplaces .3 At the same time, despite agreement about the existence of this distinct era in the High Middle Ages, little consensus exists about how best to characterize its chief concerns, characteristics, and accomplishments. Indeed, a remarkable variety of “theological styles” coexists in a century that includes figures as diverse as Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St. Thierry, Hildegard of Bingen, Peter Lombard, and Peter Comestor—to name only the more well-known. In the mid-twentieth century, one historian characterized this period as “the most uncompromisingly christocentric period of 1 Baldwin of Ford, De sacramento altaris, ed. and French trans. J Morson, E de Solms, and J Leclercq, Sources chrétiennes 93-94 (Paris,1963). 2 “Long” reflects a consensus that a unity encompasses the forms of theological discourse that flourished in the period between (roughly) the Eucharistic debates in the 1050s and the Gregorian reforms of the 1070s, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the formal incorporation of the universities (especially at Paris), the fuller assimilation of Aristotle, and the appearance of the Mendicant Orders in the first three decades of the 1200s. 3 Rachel Fulton Brown, “Three-in-One: Making God in Twelfth-Century Liturgy, Theology, and Devotion,” in European Transformations: The Long Twelfth Century (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), 468-97. S 220 BOYD TAYLOR COOLMAN Western civilization.” 4 Since then, a cottage industry has focused on the twelfth-century “discovery” of and devotion to the humanity of Jesus.5 Yet, recently the Dominican scholar Gilles Emery has argued that “the Trinitarian question constitutes the great theme of twelfth-century theology,”6 which inaugurated the “golden age of Trinitarian reflection in the West.”7 Yet again, if one considers the Eucharistic debates between Lanfranc and Berengar in the 1050s and the pronouncements of Lateran IV in 1215, and then observes in between the avalanche of treatises with the words “body and blood” in their titles, one could also claim the twelfth as the century of the Eucharist. So—Christ, Trinity, Eucharist—which is it? Or is this a false question, created by problematic assumptions of modern historians? Recently, Rachael Fulton Brown, a leading religious historian of the twelfth century, has 4 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study of Medieval Political Theology (Princeton: Princeton University, 1957), 61. More precisely, Kantorowicz intends “roughly, the monastic period from 900 to A.D. 1100” (ibid.). That the scope of his observation deserves to be extended somewhat will be borne out below. 5 The literature on this theme is vast. In the middle of the twentieth century, R. W. Southern observed: “This power of St. Anselm and St. Bernard to give varied and coherent expression to the perceptions and aspirations which they shared with their contemporaries is most clearly seen in their treatment of the central theme of Christian thought: the life of Christ and the meaning of the Crucifixion. The theme of tenderness and compassion for the sufferings and helplessness of the Saviour of the world was one which had a new birth in the monasteries of the eleventh century, and every century since then has paid tribute to the monastic inspiration of this century by some new development of this theme” (R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages [New Haven: Yale University, 1953] 231). See also Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800–1200 (New York: Columbia University, 2002). For later developments, see Ellen M. Ross, The Grief of God: Images of the Suffering Jesus in Late Medieval England (New York: Oxford University, 1997); and Paul Gondreau, The Passions of Christ's Soul in the...

Dominikanie krakowscy w księgach święceń biskupów poznańskich

W badaniach prozopograficznych nad średniowiecznym i nowożytnym duchowieństwem istotną rolę zajmują analizy zawartości wykazów i ksiąg święceń. Lektura tych materiałów daje możliwość odtworzenia procesu formacji kleru w drodze przyjmowania kolejnych stopni święceń niższych oraz wyższych. Materiały te zachowują swe znaczenie także w badaniach nad duchownymi wywodzącymi się ze środowisk zakonnych, zwłaszcza mendykanckich – z tego względu, iż to właśnie bracia ze wspólnot żebraczych szczególnie często stawali do święceń z uwagi na podejmowane zadania duszpasterskie.Studia nad święceniami dominikanów z klasztoru św. Trójcy koncentrowały się dotąd na analizach zawartości ksiąg święceń prowadzonych w kręgu biskupów krakowskich (badania ks. J. Szczepaniaka), jednak wstępna kwerenda przeprowadzona w aktach biskupów innych diecezji pokazała, że część z nich zawiera ważne dane obrazujące przygotowanie do pracy duszpasterskiej braci z krakowskiego klasztoru Braci Kaznodziejów. Użyteczność w takich badaniach zachowują także księgi biskupów poznańskich z przełomu XVI i XVII wieku. Przeprowadzona w nich kwerenda pozwoliła na sporządzenie wykazu 9 zakonników z konwentu św. Trójcy, którzy w latach 1597–1628 przyjęli z rąk poznańskich sufraganów święcenia subdiakonatu, diakonatu i prezbiteratu.

Templars and Hospitallers in the Cities of the West and the Latin East (Twelfth to Thirteenth Centuries)

Scholars usually consider the military orders as essentially involved in the agrarian economy and seigniorial society. However, this understanding is not entirely correct. All military orders were connected to the urban world from their origins and they built close spiritual and economic ties with urban societies. The aim of this article is to present some of the most recent research that has reappraised the role of the military orders in medieval towns. This survey is limited to the cases of the Temple and the Hospital, and it considers the question mainly in southern Europe (northern Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and southern France), including some brief comparisons with the Holy Land. The article first discusses the ways in which commanderies contributed to the “urban fabric” by examining the conventual buildings and the orders’ policies of urbanization. Then, it turns to the social and spiritual networks and to the economic practices that the brethren managed to develop in places where several other churches were already deeply rooted. Finally, the study of urban commanderies enables us to better understand the transition from traditional monasticism to the new mendicant orders, with whom the military orders shared many similarities. Despite a few exceptions, it is nevertheless true that the economic activity and the spirituality of the military orders were in complete harmony with the urban expansion of the High Middle Ages.

Letania more solito dicantur. Przyczynek do badań nad pobożnością maryjną wśród średniowiecznych dominikanów

Głównym przedmiotem studium jest prezentacja okoliczności powstania oraz miejsca w pobożności średniowiecznych dominikanów modlitwy zwanej potocznie litanią dominikańską, dominikanów (Litaniae Ordinis Praedicatorum quae dicuntur in omnibus tribulationibus). Dokładny czas powstania tej litanii nie jest znany. Po raz pierwszy wzmianka na jej temat pojawia się w związku z pewnym niezwykle dla zakonu groźnym incydentem, który miał miejsce w latach pięćdziesiątych XIII wieku. 21 listopada 1254 roku papież Innocenty IV ogłosił bullę Etsi Animarum, która w dramatyczny sposób ograniczała przywileje zakonów mendykanckich dotyczące głoszenia kazań, spowiedzi, jałmużny jak i wielu innych. Legenda związana z litanią przekazuje, że wówczas bracia rozpoczęli gorliwe jej odmawianie, w następstwie którego papież Innocenty IV zmarł. Bez względu na zasadność tej opowieści, jest faktem że w 1256 roku kapituła Generalna w Paryżu nakazała całemu zakonowi odmawianie tej litanii. Pierwotny kształt Litanii do Najświętszej Panny, pozostaje nieznany. Poszukiwania najstarszej, zachowanej w całości wersji litanii wiodą do jednego przekazu rękopiśmiennego, pochodzącego dopiero z roku 1500.

Money and the Middle Ages: an essay in historical anthropology

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The heritage of the Roman Empire and Christianization 2. From Charlemagne to feudalism 3. The rise of coin and money at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 4. The wonderful thirteenth century of money 5. Trade, money and coin in the commercial revolution of the thirteenth century 6. Money and the nascent states 7. Lending, debt and usury 8. A new wealth and a new poverty 9. From the thirteenth to the fourteenth century: money in crisis 10. The perfecting of the financial system at the end of the Middle Ages 11. Towns, states and money at the end of the Middle Ages 12. Prices, wages and coin in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries Appendix: Was there a land market in the Middle Ages? 13. The mendicant orders and money 14. Humanism, patronage and money 15. Capitalism or caritas? Conclusion Bibliography Index

Creating Cistercian Nuns: The Women’s Religious Movement and Its Reform in Thirteenth-Century Champagne, edited by Anne E. Lester

Creating Cistercian Nuns: The Women 's Religious Movement and Its Reform in Thirteenth-Century Champagne, edited by Anne E. Lester. Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 2011. xxiv, 261 pp. $45.00 US (cloth). With appearance of Anne E. Lester's Creating Cistercian Nuns: The Women's Religious Movement and Its Reform in Thirteenth-Century Champagne, project to re-frame dominant (and largely gender-blind) narrative of Cistercian order's foundations is substantially advanced. Lester's study traces development of female religious communities in Champenois heartland of reformed Benedictine movement from their informal beginnings in early decades of 1200s through their re-formation and institutionalization along Cistercian lines in mid-century. She has focused, for most part, on crucial fifty years which bracket well-known--and deeply problematic--1228 Cistercian ban on establishment of new female houses. As Lester argues, prohibition is problematic precisely because it was never fully implemented or enforced. Thus, it has served primarily to buttress assumption that White Monks had a fraught relationship with mulieres religiosae who aspired to join their ranks. It has also, as Lester demonstrates, contributed to general shape of historiography of early Cistercian order. Indeed, continued proliferation of female vocations after 1228 was a near-insoluble puzzle for scholars who studied order's earliest expression without benefit of a gender analysis. It caused a number of (otherwise impeccable) historians to assert misshapen narratives in an attempt to reconcile seemingly refractory data: prohibition on one hand, proliferation on other. For instance, both Joseph Greven and Herbert Grundmann, scholars whose work serves as a point of departure for Lester, attempted to square circle by insisting that, after 1228 ban, most women turned to other institutional outlets to satisfy their spiritual aspirations. Both scholars argued that women's religious movement was almost globally reformed within ranks of fledgling mendicant orders and beguine movement. As Lester notes, however, despite this claim, Grundmann was ultimately forced to concede that the relationship of Cistercian order to women's houses [has] never been fully clarified. In Creating Cistercian Nuns, Lester has gone a long way towards clarifying relationship that bedeviled Grundmann (as well as more recent scholars writing in Grundmann tradition). Applying Peter Brown's notion of micro-Christendoms to culture of thirteenth-century church, Professor Lester has asserted that women's religious movement of twelfth and thirteenth centuries was subject to a series of distinct micro-reforms (p. 12) rather than wholesale absorption into ranks of a single order or movement. Thus, previously informal groupings of female penitents in Italy were reinvented as Poor Clares, while German women's communities were largely integrated into regionally ascendant Dominican culture of era. According to Lester, women of central France, subject to immense gravitational force exerted by local Bernardine culture, developed a penitential piety that accorded strongly with that of White Monks. …

Building Colonial Cities of God: Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain. By Karen Melvin. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012. xviii + 365. $65.00 cloth.

Building Colonial Cities of God: Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain. By Karen Melvin. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012. xviii + 365. $65.00 cloth.

Karen Melvin, Building Colonial Cities of God: Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), pp. xiii+365, $65.00, hb.

Karen Melvin, Building Colonial Cities of God: Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), pp. xiii+365, $65.00, hb.

Building Cities of God: Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain by Karen Melvin (review)

Building Cities of God: Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain by Karen Melvin (review)

THE ADVANTAGES OF PARAMETRIC MODELING FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION OF HISTORIC BUILDINGS. THE EXAMPLE OF THE IN WAR DESTROYED CHURCH OF ST. CATHERINE (KATHARINENKIRCHE) IN NUREMBERG

Abstract. Consecrated in 1297 as the monastery church of the four years earlier founded St. Catherine’s monastery, the Gothic Church of St. Catherine was largely destroyed in a devastating bombing raid on January 2nd 1945. To counteract the process of disintegration, the departments of geo-information and lower monument protection authority of the City of Nuremburg decided to getting done a three dimensional building model of the Church of St. Catherine’s. A heterogeneous set of data was used for preparation of a parametric architectural model. In effect the modeling of historic buildings can profit from the so called BIM method (Building Information Modeling), as the necessary structuring of the basic data renders it into very sustainable information. The resulting model is perfectly suited to deliver a vivid impression of the interior and exterior of this former mendicant orders’ church to present observers.

Celeberrimae urbes - celebres praedicatores. O medialnym znaczeniu mnichów żebrzących w średniowiecznym mieście

Celeberrimae urbes – celebres praedicatores. Mendicant friars as a medium of the medieval city.This article deals with media studies and discusses a problem thoroughly examined by historians of the Medieval period concerning the expansion of mendicant orders and their ministry work in the flourishing European cities of the 13th century. The research perspective – which differs from a strictly historical and theological point of view – emphasizes the impact of mendicant orders on communication in the rapidly changing social conditions of the era. Therefore, it allows one to interpret confrontations with wandering heretical preachers in the 12th century not only as a religious conflict, but also a confrontation with a certain way of distributing ideas that contested the existing state of affairs. It also makes it possible to expose the enduring features of the media role of the preacher, which determined his popularity until the Reformation.

Building Colonial Cities of God. Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain by Karen Melvin (review)

Building Colonial Cities of God. Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain by Karen Melvin (review)

The Friars: The Impact of the Mendicant Orders on Medieval Society by Clifford H. Lawrence (review)

The Friars: The Impact of the Mendicant Orders on Medieval Society by Clifford H. Lawrence (review)

Communities of Devotion: Religious Orders and Society in East Central Europe, 1450–1800 ed. by Maria Crăciun and Elaine Fulton (review)

Communities of Devotion: Religious Orders and Society in East Central Europe, 1450-1800. Edited by Maria Craciun and Elaine Fulton. [Catholic Christendom, 1300-1700.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing. 2011. Pp. xvi, 284. ISBN 978-0-7546-6312-6.)This collection is a most welcome and highly relevant contribution to existing scholarship in English on religious developments in late-medieval and early-modern east central Europe. The focus of the volume lies on page 144 in the activities of monastic orders in the multiconfessional region and in the complex relationships between religious orders and their social environ-planned ment. As the volume's editors aptly emphasize in their thoughtful introduction, the designation of devotion chosen as the title for the collection applies as much to the various monastic communities discussed in the volume's essays as to larger social frameworks formed by the religious orders and their interactions with their secular surroundings. The contributions in the first section of the volume look at the intensity of the mendicant orders' activities and their effect on lay thought and practice. Maria Craciun highlights in the volume's first chapter the visual presence of themes and motifs from the teachings of religious orders (Franciscan and Dominican) in the iconography of numerous parish churches in urban and rural Transylvanian Saxon communities as a direct result of lay endowments. Carmen Florea illustrates in her contribution the high degree of attachment to the Dominican convents and the mendicant friars expressed by parts of the population in three major Transylvanian towns. That the impact of the mendicant orders' spiritual messages on widespread lay religious beliefs and practices (such as excessive Marian devotion, relic cults, and pilgrimages) was often relatively limited, is demonstrated by Marie-Madeleine de Cevins, who examined sermons written by two Franciscans in the Kingdom of Hungary around the year 1500. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the activities of the Jesuit Order were accompanied by strategic difficulties-In spite of support by the ruler and Catholicism's status of received religion (despite the absence of a bishop and a network of parish churches), the Jesuits failed to exert a decisive, lasting influence in and around the town of Klausenburg/Kolozsvar/Cluj, neglecting important elements in local religious culture and earning a reputation of bad lordship on the estates under their control, as shown in a contribution from the middle section of the volume, written by Christine Peters. …

Grandeur et décadence de l'estat du clergiét : le témoignage du Roman de la Rose moralisé de Jean Molinet

In his commentary, the exegete of the moralized Roman de la Rose gives a vivid picture of the contemporary ecclesiastical world. Indeed, in this work, Jean Molinet expressly reaffirms the moral superiority of the first of the three orders. However, his speech aims above all to condemn the vices which too often stain the clerical world. The writer hunts down the sin of pride wherever it may hide, thus denouncing more particularly the vanity of the prelates. He judges less harshly the behaviour of the mendicant orders and underlines the beneficial effects of the reformist currents to which they were subjected. As he points out, monks and nuns are nevertheless very likely to be trapped by the devil, who quite often manages to overcome their virtue. Lastly, the work also gives a subtle self-portrait of the canon-writer, who regards his exegesis as a unique occasion to fulfil the function of preacher.

Poznańskie kościoły mendykantów w aktach wizytacji Józefa Rogalińskiego (1779-1781)

In the years 1779-1781 the Poznań deanery was inspected by Rogaliński, an ex-Jesuit, coadjutor of the archdeacon of Śrem. He also inspected the churches at the monasteries of the mendicant orders: the Dominicans, Carmelites of the Ancient Observance (two churches), the Minor Brothers Observants (known as Bernardines in Poland), Discalced Carmelites, Conventual Franciscans and Reformed Franciscans. Reports of the inspection visits contain information on the number of monks, the existence of a novitiate or a college in the convent and on the outlook of the churches. The visiting inspector paid special attention to such issues as indulgences, relics, brotherhoods, approval to administer the sacrament of penance and to preach sermons. What is particularly interesting is the religiosity of the faithful centered on the images and other objects of cult.