Description: Ecclesiastical Knights is a spirituality study of the three military orders of Santiago, Calatrava, and Alcantara in Leon-Castile from the twelfth to the early fourteenth centuries. It explores the fundamental problem of the military orders: how the traditions of knighthood and monasticism were combined into a single way of life.
Brief description: Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J., is a Jesuit Scholastic at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, a former Visiting Professor in the Department of History at Santa Clara University, and the author of the recent Ecclesiastical Knights from Fordham University Press (2015). His current research investigates the early history of the Society of Jesus.
Review Quotes: This is an important study both for the history of the military orders and the history of Medieval Spain. Elegantly, thoughtfully, persuasively, Conedera guides us towards the answer to a perplexing riddle: just why did so many knights consecrate their lives to God?-----Damian J. Smith, St. Louis University