Carmelite Studies

Painting of the early hermits on Mount Carmel
Ancient painting of the Carmelite hermits on Mount Carmel

The Carmelite Studies section of this website provides information about academic scholarlship into the history and spirituality of the Order.

An overview of key historical periods and scholarly projects is given below, with access to some articles which open in PDF format and require a reader such as Adobe Reader. Articles can also be viewed arranged by author in the next page of this section.

Chronologies of Carmelite houses

Thanks to the groundbreaking work of Fr. Richard Copsey, O.Carm., in trawling archives and publications for references to medieval Carmelite houses, we are able to publish the chronologies of several of our friaries:

Medieval Carmelite history and spirituality

We are happy to make available a paper by Dr. Valerie Edden of Birmingham University (UK), entitled The Mantle of Elijah: Carmelite Spirituality in Britain in the Fourteenth Century. To access it please click here.

We are glad to have the opportunity to publish on our website the M.Phil. thesis completed at Oxford University in 2002 by Johan Bergström-Allen, T.O.C., exploring the writings of the medieval Carmelite Prior of Lincoln Richard Misyn, O.Carm.; click here to access it. Johan is currently developing this Masters research into a doctoral thesis at the Université de Lausanne in Switzerland. Also by Johan is a lecture delivered in Switzerland at Fribourg University in June 2004; click here to download it..

Professor Naoë Kukita Yoshikawa of Shizuoka University in Japan has kindly allowed us to publish her article Marian Virtues and Margery Kempe: The Influence of Carmelite Devotion to the Virgin. Please click here to access it.

The Carmel in Britain series
The Carmel in Britain series of publications was begun in 1992 as a means of promoting scholarship in Carmelite history, particularly from the medieval period. The third volume, a collection of essays by Richard Copsey, O.Carm., entitled The Hermits from Mount Carmel, was published in 2004. Details of how to order the book via ABE Books can be found by clicking here.

In 2009 Saint Albert's Press published (as Carmel in Britain 4) a collection of articles on the highly influential Carmelite Prior Provincial of medieval England, Thomas Netter, O.Carm. The opening pages of this book can be downloaded in PDF format by clicking here, and details of how to order the book via ABE Books can be found by clicking here.

Volumes 5 and 6 in the Carmel in Britain series are in production, with publication anticipated in 2010.

Reformation and recusancy
The last known Carmelite friar in early modern England was George Rayner, imprisoned in York Castle and presumed a martyr. What is known about him is set out by Kevin Alban, O.Carm, in his study George Rayner - an Elizabethan Carmelite. To access it click here.

The article by Wilfrid McGreal, O.Carm., on the Carmelite Presence in England 1685-1740 gives a fascinating insight into the attempts to restore the Carmelite presence in England after the Reformation. Click here to download it.

Carmel restored in Britain
Further resources will be posted here in the future.