Biography

Neslihan Şenocak is an Assistant Professor of Medieval History at Columbia. She is interested in medieval religious, intellectual and social history, and in particular the Franciscan Order, the clerical and monastic culture, schools, and pastoral care. She has published several articles on the Franciscan libraries and learning, contributed to edited books, and is the author of The Poor and the Perfect: the Rise of Learning in the Franciscan Order 1209-1310 (Cornell University Press: Ithaca, 2012). This offers a revisionist view to the question of why and how the Franciscan Order, which started off as a lay penitential movement, forged ties to schools shortly after their foundation, actively recruited scholars, and gradually integrated learning into their evangelical mission.

Project Summary

This project is an investigation into the implementation of pastoral reform in the medieval Italy, in particular the state of the education of the clergy destined for pastoral service and episcopal efforts to improve it. This study will be part of her second monograph that will explore the links between the pastoral clergy, schools of theology, and ecclesiastical policy in medieval Europe.