Abbey of Savigny
In Normandy. In 1093 Vitalis of Mortain established a hermitage in the Forest of Savigny. Some of the hermits felt a call to follow the Rule of St Benedict in its primitive strictness, and the abbey ...
Advent
(Lat. Adventus, ‘coming’, i.e. of Christ). The ecclesiastical season immediately before Christmas. In the W. it begins on the Sunday nearest St Andrew's Day (30 Nov.); in the E. in the middle of Nov. ...
Ailred of Rievaulx
(1110–67),known as the ‘St Bernard of the North’, was the leading figure in the Cistercian order in England in the mid‐12th cent. The son of a priest of Hexham (Northd.), he entered the abbey of ...
Alberic
(d. 1109),abbot of Cîteaux. Nothing is known of his early life, but he became a hermit at Collan (near Chatillon-sur-Seine). With his companions he invited Robert to rule them, and in 1075 they moved ...
Albigenses
A medieval term for the inhabitants of parts of S. France applied to the heretics who were strong there in the late 12th and early 13th cents. They were a branch of the Cathars. They were condemned ...
Anacletus II
(antipope 14 Feb. 1130–25Jan. 1138)On the death of Honorius II (13 Feb. 1130), while a minority of cardinals led by the chancellor Aimeric rushed through the clandestine election of Innocent II, the ...
Ancren(e) Riwle
An early 13th-cent. ‘Rule’ or ‘Guide for Anchoresses’, written in English. It was originally composed for three well-born sisters and later revised by the author for a larger group of recluses. The ...
angel
Hermes was the messenger of Zeus. Iris was ascribed the same function; for Plato the two are the divine angeloi. By the 3rd cent. ad, angels played a large part in Judaism and Christianity, and they ...
Apostolici
(Lat., ‘Apostolics’). The bodies to whom the title has been applied, by themselves or others, include: (1) some Gnostic communities of the 2nd–4th cents.; (2) an ascetic body which flourished in the ...
Arnold of Brescia
(d. 1155), reformer. A canon regular, c.1139 he had to leave Brescia after taking part in a conflict between the bishop and reformers. In France he supported Peter Abelard and at the Council of Sens ...
art and architecture: Cistercian
The Cistercian order was founded in 1098 at Cîteaux, in Burgundy, by a group of monks who had left a reformed but traditional Benedictine monastery in hope of living a ...
atonement
Reparation, in Christian belief the reconciliation of God and mankind through Jesus Christ. The word comes (in the early 16th century, denoting unity or reconciliation, especially between God and ...
authority
Legitimate power, decision-making capacity, and the means to cause others to obey. The word applies both to the abstract quality and to the individual or organization in command.
Bernardines
The title popularly given to the ‘Reformed Congregation of St Bernard’, i.e. the Italian branch of the Feuillants (q.v.).
blood of Christ
The blood struck from Christ’s side by a lance (John 19:34) was central to patristic and medieval theologies of redemption. Conflated with the blood referred to by Christ in instituting ...
Casamari
The foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Santa Maria di Casamari, in the diocese of Veroli, on the road from Sora to Frosinone, in the shelter of a hill lapped ...
Catherine of Siena
(1347(1333?)–1380),mystic member of the Dominican Third Order; since 1970, Doctor of the Church. The youngest of the twenty or more children of a Sienese dyer, Giacomo Benincasa, Catherine from an ...
Champagne
Province of France. During the MA, the influential counts of Champagne were virtually independent of their nominal suzerain, the king of France, until the conquest of Champagne by Philip III ...
Charles René Forbes Montalembert
(1810–70), French RC historian. He associated himself with the movement sponsored by F. R. de Lamenais and H.-D. Lacordaire, but when Gregory XVI condemned liberalism in 1832, he submitted and ceased ...
