A Critical Analysis of Early Medieval Spirituality

I am currently working on producing a critical analysis of early medieval spirituality, specifically focusing on how men and women of the 10-12th century shared their spiritual experiences and how those experiences were characterized and received within the church. This study has been a long-time interest of mine. My desire to continue to explore the intersection between communication and faith was reignited when I wrote a critical paper on Peter Abelard, a 12th-century monk while completing a course in Theology of Communication as part of my doctoral program. More so, drawing on my Masters’ thesis from 2012, where I explicated the writings of St. Julian of Norwich, and specifically looked at how her writing described and explained her spiritual conversion, I have been keenly interested in whether her experience was similar to that of other individuals in religious orders of the period. This current study hopes to shed light on how men and women of this period were able to share their faith with others within their religious and secular communities.