The ascetic ideal in the history of the Church / Henry Chadwick -- Christian asceticism and the early school of Alexandria / J.A. McGuckin -- The death of ascetics: sickness and monasticism in the early Byzantine Middle East / Peregrine Horden -- Celtic asceticism and Carolingian authority in early medieval Brittany / Julia M.H. Smith -- Romuald -- model hermit: eremitical theory in Saint Peter Damian's Vita Beati Romualdi, chapters 16-17 / Colin Phipps -- A hermit goes to war: Peter and the origins of the First Crusade / Ernest O. Blake and Colin Morris -- Monk and canon: some patterns in the religious life of the twelfth century / Christopher N.L. Brooke -- The transformation of hermitages into Augustinian priories in twelfth-century England / Jane Herbert -- Monastic friendship and toleration in twelfth-century Cistercian life / Brian Patrick McGuire. Via ascetica: a papal quandary / Brenda M. Bolton -- Instabilitas loci: the wanderlust of late Byzantine monks / Donald M. Nicol -- The rule of St Peter, the first hermit, in late medieval England / Virginia Davis -- Multum ieiunantes et se castigantes: medieval Waldensian asceticism / Peter Biller -- Luther and the ascetic life / George Yule -- 'Prayers fir for the time': fasting and prayer in response to natural crises in the reign of Elizabeth I / C.J. Kitching -- The religious life in the Spain of Philip II and Philip III / A.D. Wright -- The ascetic tradition and the English College at Valladolid / Michael E. Williams -- Puritan asceticism and the type of sacrifice / Susan Hardman. Joseph Bingham and asceticism / L.W. Barnard -- Plainness of speech, behaviour and apparel in eighteenth-century English Quakerism / David J. Hall -- Voltaire and the monks / John McManners -- 'A standing miracle': La Trappe at Lulworth 1794-1817 / Dominic Aidan Bellenger -- Changing images of Roman Catholic religious orders in the nineteenth century / Bernard Aspinwall -- William John Butler and the revival of the ascetic tradition / Ann Frances -- Archbishop Davidson, Bishop Gore and Abbot Carlyle: Benedectine monks in the Anglican Church / Rene M. Kollar -- Self-denial and the Free Churches: some literary responses / David J. Keep -- Freedom through discipline: the concept of Little Church / Clyde Binfield.