Examines the rise of popular religious currents in the later Middle Ages, and studies a range of texts, composed largely between 1100 and 1400, to illustrate how the emergence of charismatic public 'prophets' unsettled the established church and presented a contest over rival images of public spirituality.

Joshua Easterling teaches medieval English literature at Murray State University (Kentucky). His research, which has appeared in a variety of academic journals, focuses on late medieval religious writings, and in particular the large body of mystical and visionary texts composed in Europe and England from the twelfth through fourteenth centuries. More recently, Dr Easterling's scholarship has benefitted substantially from his collaboration with colleagues at the Freie Universität in Berlin, where he worked with the support of a post-doctoral research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His longer-term research and teaching agenda concerns questions of authority and authorship within the writings of late medieval mystics.

• Introduction: Anchoritic Communities


• 1: The Arrival of Angels


• 2: Charismatic Anchorites and the Making of Truth


• 3: Lay Preaching and Living Saints


• 4: The Angel, the Confessor, and the Anchoress


• 5: The Transformation of Perfection


• 6: A Mirror of Clerical Authority


• Conclusion