These essays examine the ideas that were important to monks and the intersections between the monks and the secular world. The volume explores the ideas and realities that shaped the lives of monks over the medieval millennium.

Introduction: We Stand on the Shoulders of Giants, Amy Livingstone PART I. MONKS AND THE WORLD 1. Redrawing a Portrait of Egyptian Monasticism, Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom 2. "And Even Today": Carolingian Monasticism and the Miracula sancti Germani of Heiric of Auxerre, John J. Contreni 3. A New Majesty: Paschasius Radbertus, Exile, and the Masters' Honor, Steven A. Stofferahn 4. Ademar of Chabannes, Charlemagne and the Pilgrimage to Jerusalem of 1033, Daniel F. Callahan 5. "Feudalism," Cluny, and the Investiture Controversy, Constance B. Bouchard 6. Brother Monk: Monks and their Family in the Chartrain, 1000-1200AD, Amy Livingstone PART II. MONKS AND IDEAS 7. Practical Exegesis: The Acts of the Apostles, Chrodegang's Regula canonicorum, and Early Carolingian Reform, M.A. Claussen 8. The Gentle Voices of Teachers: Carolingian Eucharistic Thought and the Sermons of Ademar of Chabannes, Michael Frassetto 9. The Wrong Sort of Mentor: Heterodoxy and Anti-clericalism in Languedoc, David Blanks 10. The Early Fourteenth-Century Context for the Doctrine of Divine Foreknowledge in Wyclif 's Latin Sermons, Edith Wilks Dolnikowski Conclusion: The Academic as Public Historian, Kathleen Mitchell Notes on Contributors Index