Christ Among the Medieval Dominicans Representations of Christ in the Texts and Images of the Order of Preachers

Religious historians and historians of spirituality have developed and exploited the broad categories of "Christocentric and Theocentric spirituality" in order to differentiate the religious spirit of the Franciscans and the Dominicans. In addition, the philosophical interests of neo-Scholastic thinkers have curtailed attention to the role of the figure of Christ in the thought of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and other Dominican thinkers. To redress this imbalance, editors Kent Emery, Jr. and Joseph P. Wawrykow present this collection of essays to address the long-neglected depictions of Christ in the writings and art of the medieval Dominicans. Christ among the Medieval Dominicans adopts a genuinely multidisciplinary approach to its topic, bringing together the research of experts in a wide variety of fields. The essays in this volume, written by an acclaimed group of international scholars and presented at the University of Notre Dame Conference in Medieval Studies, provide many perspectives (theology, philosophy, spirituality, institutional and social history, art history, Latin and vernacular literature, and manuscript studies) on the life and thought of the Order of Preachers. The essays focus on the role of Christ within the devotion and imagination of the Order and in effect expose the "state of the question" in studies of this important medieval institution. As a whole, the volume tests commonplace but often unexamined presuppositions of medieval historiography, especially in the history of spirituality and literary criticism. The essays are accompanied by ample visual evidence from paintings, manuscript illustrations and texts, woodcuts, and engravings, complete with generous indices of manuscripts and names.