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A collection of essays and articles by Dom David Knowles.

This Apologia, composed by Bernard and approved by William, the Benedictine abbot of Saint-Thierry, excoriates monks black and white: Cistercians who had become slanderers, Cluniacs who had grown self-indulgent. Bernard's satirical wit spared no one who had lost sight of the monk's first duty, the love of God and the brethren.

The Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius declared firmitas, utilitas, and venustas-firmness, commodity, and delight- to be the three essential attributes of architecture. These qualities are brilliantly explored in this book, which uniquely comprises both a detailed survey of Western architecture, including Pre-Columbian America, and an introduction to architecture from the Middle East, India, Russia, China, and Japan. The text encourages readers to examine closely the pragmatic, innovative, and aesthetic attributes of buildings, and to imagine how these would have been praised or criticized by contemporary observers. Artistic, economic, environmental, political, social, and technological contexts are discussed so as to determine the extent to which buildings met the needs of clients, society at large, and future generations.

This book follows the tide of reform and renewal in Church history, and demonstrates that reform has always been an essential element of Christianity. Indeed, Christopher Bellitto emphasizes that reform should not be perceived as limited to the Reformation or Vatican II. As one learns from the author's analysis, the history of Christianity is little other than the history of reform. This sweeping assessment of Church history is both remarkable and deep, but is also highly readable. Bellitto begins with an introduction to the subject of reform and follows that with chapters on the patristic period and Carolingian Renaissance, the High Middle Ages (1050-1300), Avignon to Trent, From Trent to Modernity, and Vatican II. He ends with a conclusion that draws together the recurring themes and patterns of reform activity in the Church. In short, this is a unique book on the subject of Church reform. Renewing Christianity is useful to both scholars and non-academics alike. It is written in a "learnedly popular style," and would appeal to clergy, seminarians, academics, graduate students or anyone interested in Church reform and renewal, Church history, or historical theology. +

A full and comprehensive survey of the development of the Cistercian Order which emerged from the tumultuous intellectual and religious fervour of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Founded in 910 to return to the authentic monasticism of Saint Benedict, the abbey of Cluny led a revolution in the medieval Church. Wresting secular hands from control of monastic offices and finances, the great Burgundian monastery and its hundreds of daughter houses inspired eleventh-century churchmen to seize control of the Church from petty lords and outraged emperors. Powerful and respected, the Cluniac Order cast a long shadow over the European Church, but its very position of leadership brought prosperity into the cloister and, in its train, complacency. The Cistercians were founded in 1098 to revive the primitive observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Having experienced the worldly dangers threatening, even embraced by, the Black Monks of Cluny, the White Monks of Citeaux resolved to withdraw from, not to reform, the world. Their uncompromising asceticism attracted scores of young men, and soon the Cistercian Order outstripped the Cluniacs in pious prestige and personnel. A rivalry inevitably sprang up. Cluniacs, like Idung of Prufening, felt drawn to the more austere Cistercian way of life. Some Cistercians felt attracted to the less rigorous and liturgically richer life at Cluny. Each all too frequently felt obliged to justify his departure by commenting on the shortcomings of his former monastery. Gentle conciliatory spirits might call for charity from both White Monks and Black and the leaders of the two great Orders might develop a deep personal friendship, but ink and acrimony continued spasmodically to flow until the Cistercians, like their Cluniac brethren, succumbed to being respectable, comfortable fixtures of the medieval landscape.

In the view of Hegel and others, pagan art is the art of the beautiful and Christian art is the art of the sublime. Roger Homan provides a comprehensive and informative account of the course of Christian art, encompassing a re-evaluation of conventional aesthetics and its application to religious art. Homan argues that taste and aesthetics are fashioned by morality and belief, and that Christian art must be assessed not in terms of its place in the history of art but of its place in Christian faith. The narrative basis of Christian art is documented but religious art is also explored as the expression of the devout and as an element in the trappings of collective expression and personal quest. Sections in the book explore pilgrimage art, puritan art, the tension of Gothic and Classical, church architecture and the language of worship. Current areas of debate, including the relationship of ethics to the appreciation of art, are also discussed.