Thousands and Thousands of Lovers

Anna Harrison is professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University, where she teaches courses in the history of Christian late antiquity and the Middle Ages. She is currently at work on a monograph titled Paradox: Bernard of Clairvaux's On Loving God and its Influence.

Contents

Abbreviations  ix
Acknowledgments  xiii
Preface  xv
Introduction  xxvii

     PART ONE
     The Nuns

Chapter 1
   “Oh! What Treasure Is in This Book?”:
   Writing, Reading, and Community 3
Chapter 2
   “A Queen Is Magnanimous at Her King’s Banquet”:
   Relationships among the Nuns 57
Chapter 3
   “Tears and Sighs”:
   Community in Illness, Death, and Grief 116
Chapter 4
   “I Am Wholly Your Own”:
   Liturgy and Community 161 

     PART TWO
     Within and Beyond the Cloister

Chapter 5
   “A Husband Enjoys His Wife More Freely in Private”:
   The Nuns and the Clergy 215
Chapter 6
   “The People Are Also My Members”:
   Community Within and Beyond the Monastery 257

     PART THREE
     The Living and the Dead

Chapter 7
   “Give Her All That Is Yours”:
   Community and the Population of Purgatory 301
Chapter 8
   “Unite Yourself with His Family”:
   Community with Mary and the Saints 353

Epilogue 433
Bibliography 439
Index 479