The Carmelites and Antiquity. Mendicants and their Pasts in the Middle Ages [Hardcover]

The Carmelites, the only contemplative religious order to have been founded in the Crusader States, first emerged as a group of hermits living on Mount Carmel, a site associated with the prophet Elijah. Soon after migrating to the West, in the mid-thirteenth century, they began to develop the geographical associations into a complex historical tradition based on the claim to have been founded by the prophet. Carmelite historical myths were first developed as a response to the threat of supression, but increasingly came to form the basis of a distinctive ecclesiology and mission. This book, which is the first full-length study of the Carmelite historical legacy, examines the circumstances under which the traditions were constructed, describes the evolution of the traditions themselves from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, and places them within the wider context of historical writing by religious orders, and attitudes to the past more generally in the later Middle Ages.

Introduction
1. The Carmelites, c.1187-1530
2. Identity, Image, and Antiquity: The Carmelite Habit
3. The `Ignea sagitta' (1270): The First Defence of Carmelite Tradition
4. The Development of Carmelite Historical Narrative, c.1240-1400
5. Carmelite Ecclesiology in the Fourteenth Century
6. Hagiography and the Orthodox Past: Two Carmelite Saints
7. The Carmelite Historical Tradition, c.1400-1530
8. Patterns in Mendicant Historical Thinking
9. Antiquity, Truth, and Historical Method in the Carmelites and Others
Conclusion

A worthy addition to any research library. --Religious Studies Review

[H]is account is clear and thorough. It is enriched by a narrative of the documentable early history of the Order as well as by insightful comparisons with myth-making in the rival Orders. --The Times Literary Supplement

Andrew Jotischkyis a Senior Lecturer at Lancaster University.