Franciscan Learning, Preaching and Mission c. 1220-1650

Dr. Bert Roest (Radboud University) studies mendicant cultural history. His publications include A History of Franciscan Education (2000), Franciscan Literature of Religious Instruction before the Council of Trent (2004), and Order and Disorder: The Poor Clares Between Foundation and Reform (2013).

• ContentsPreface vii1 Francis of Assisi and the Pursuit of Learning 1Introduction 1Francis as the Enemy of Science? Images from the HagiographicalTradition 2Francis Accepting of Science? The Letter to Anthony of Padua 6Francis the Gifted Idiota? 8The Necessity of Studies in an Apostolic Order 11The Place of Studies in the ‘Authentic’ Writings 12Tentative Conclusions 152 The Franciscan School System: Re-assessing the Early Evidence 19Introduction 19Francis’s Ambivalence towards Learning 21The Stimulation of Learning by Franciscan Minister Generals 24Early Franciscan Study Houses or Studia Generalia with a LectorateProgram 26Additional Anecdotal Evidence Concerning Lectors and LectorateTraining 39The Evidence from the Pre-Narbonne Constitutions 45Conclusion 493 Religious Life in the Franciscan School Network (13th Century) 5The Emergence of a Franciscan School Network 52Franciscan Novice Training and Spiritual Formation 57Religious Formation after the Noviciate 61Routines of Student Life and Study Organization 65Spiritual Concerns in Sermons Addressed to Students and Teachers 68The Collationes in Hexaemeron as a Franciscan Metanarrativeof Religious Learning 76Conclusion 814 Mendicant School Exegesis 83Introduction 83Early Mendicant Exegesis 85Discussing Exegetical Method 91Correcting the Biblical Text 95Exegesis and the Impact of Joachimism 98Later Thirteenth- and Early Fourteenth-century Developments 101The Decline of Mendicant Exegesis? 106Conclusion 1105 ‘Franciscan Augustinianism’: Musings about Labels and Late MedievalSchool Formation 111The Problem of a ‘Franciscan School’ 112Franciscan Augustinianism? 116Augustinian Themes? 121Conclusion 1306 Franciscan School Networks, c. 1450–1650: A Provisional Sketch 132The ‘Conventual’ Franciscan School Network in the Fifteenth Century 133Observant Challenges 138Conventual and Observant Positions on Education and the Pursuit ofDegrees 142The Conventual ‘Loss’ of Paris and Other Studia Generalia 146Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century Conventual Answers 150Observant Continuities and Transformations 164The Place of Studies among the Early Capuchins 187Afterword 1947 Franciscan Urban Preachers in Defense of Catholicism in the LowCountries c. 1520–1568 197Introduction 197Catechisms and Devotional Works 199Polemical Works 203Sermons 205Conclusion 2118 Franciscan Missionaries in the North of the Dutch Republic(c. 1600–1680) 213Introduction 213Franciscans and the Rise of Protestantism in the Northern LowCountries 216The Franciscan Mission in the North 219Franciscan Missionary Reports 224Conflicts in the Catholic Camp 230Epilogue 233Name Index 237Place and Subject Index 241

"In engaging with his earlier scholarship — including some of the critical responses to it—Roest has once again significantly expanded our understanding of the place of learning in the Franciscan tradition over time, as well as the place of the Franciscan tradition in European Scholasticism."Megan Armstrong, Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. LXIX, No. 1"The eight articles published in this important volume trace the history of Franciscan education over five centuries and explore the activities of the order’s missionaries in the early modern period. [...] The volume is an excellent contribution to an important series." Jens Röhrkasten, University of Birmingham, in: Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 69 (2018), pp. 141-142.