A Benedictine Reader 1530–1930

This is a striking and unique book covering a long period of Benedictine history through the use of unusual and original sources. It demonstrates the richness of the ageless Benedictine spirit in its many forms. Giving a succinct and clear context for all the primary texts chosen, it will provide readers with a valuable encyclopedia of Benedictinism in one volume.

The second volume of A Benedictine Reader is a welcome sequel to the first volume which covered the period from 530 to 1530 CE. That volume introduces lay readers to a wealth of writing by Benedictines, writings with which we might otherwise never have come into contact. The second volume begins where the first leaves off and takes us through the early part of the twentieth century. Like the first, the second volume includes a striking diversity of writings produced by Benedictines. From the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we find spiritual exercises from The Practice of the Rule of St. Benedict, but also an address to the French Estates General advocating religious toleration, and excerpts of a book on the use of sign language in the education of the deaf. From the eighteenth century we have a play to be performed by abbey schoolboys, The Marriage Contract. From the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we find excerpts from a book on the liturgical year, writings of and about Benedictine missionaries to Australia and Tasmania, North America, and Africa, and a statement of principles on liturgy and social justice. The editors and translators of A Benedictine Reader: 1530-1930 are to be commended for revealing Benedictines at work through the centuries, reflecting on, reforming, and re-imagining their living tradition.

This welcome volume, A Benedictine Reader: 1530-1930, complements an earlier anthology, A Benedictine Reader, 530-1530. Together they provide students and scholars alike with an invaluable collection of texts illuminating the vast span of Benedictine monasticism.