Out of the cloister : : scholastic exegesis of the Song of Songs, 1100-1250 / / by Suzanne LaVere.

• Superior document: Commentaria, Volume 6
• VerfasserIn: LaVere, Suzanne,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, [Netherlands] ;, Boston, [Massachusetts] : : Brill,, 2016.; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Commentaria (Leiden, Netherlands) ; Volume 6.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (202 pages) :; illustrations, tables.
• Notes: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

The Song of Songs was one of the most frequently interpreted biblical books of the Middle Ages. Most scholarly studies concentrate on monastic interpretations of the text, which tend to be contemplative in nature. In Out of the Cloister , Suzanne LaVere reveals a particularly scholastic strain of Song of Songs exegesis, in which cathedral school masters and mendicants in and around 12th and 13th-century Paris read the text as Christ exhorting the Church and clergy to lead an active life of preaching, instruction, conversion, and reform. This new interpretation of the Song of Songs both reflected and influenced an era of far-reaching Church reform and offered a program for secular clergy to combat heresy and apathy among the laity.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction -- 1 “Preach, O Gathering of My Friends!” Anselm of Laon’s Continuous Commentary and the Active Life -- 2 Innovation and Compilation at Laon: The Glossed Song of Songs and Its Influence -- 3 “Arise From Contemplation and Undertake Useful Preaching.” Peter the Chanter’s Practical Approach to the Song of Songs -- 4 Glossing the Gloss: Stephen Langton’s “Super-Commentary” on the Song of Songs -- 5 Hugh of St. Cher and the Postill: Reading the Song of Songs as a Mendicant Text -- Epilogue-Mendicant Song of Songs of Exegesis in the Late 13th–Early 14th Centuries: The Commentaries of Peter Olivi and Nicholas of Lyra -- Bibliography -- Index.