The Origin, Development, and Refinement of Medieval Religious Mendicancies

The purpose and intention of this handbook is to offer an analysis of the term mendicancy and to present an up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to the phenomenon of religious mendicancy in the central and later middle ages. It provides a contextualized guide that will introduce the central issues in contemporary scholarship regarding the mendicant orders. This project approaches the controversies from a multitude of angles and unites in one volume the insights of different disciplines such as social and intellectual history, literary analysis, and theology.

Review:

excellent collection [...] those seeking an introduction to the study of mendicancy and religious poverty would do well to pick up this new volume in Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition series. Joe Creamer, Fordham University. In: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 64, No. 1 (January 2013), pp. 154-155. A distinctive and useful collection [...]. It should attract a broad audience. Joseph P. Byrne, Belmont University. In: Church History, Vol. 81, No. 3 (September 2012), p. 679.