ABSTRACT
Throughout the period that lies between the ancient and modern eras, from the early Church to the Reformation, there was intense exploration of the content of Christian doctrine which arose out of the experience of Christian life and which, in its turn, influenced it. Divisions between private and corporate, theological and devotional, natural and supernatural, secular and sacred, Church and State, were neither conceived nor formulated with modern precision, so that to consider ‘devotion’ in the Western Church for the period from 500 to 1500 would be to examine virtually the whole of the history of the Church for that period, which is also the history of society seen in its God-ward aspect. Even when limitations have been imposed, it is artificial to separate doctrine from devotion, or mystical prayer from other kinds of devotion, since those who formulated doctrine were also part of the general conversation about God in their times. One particularly important aspect of the devotional world of the Middle Ages is the fact that practically every writer whose texts survive belonged to the monastic or religious orders, so that it is by way of that particular approach to reality that the devotion of others can be studied.
