This is the first of five volumes to appear in the section of the CWE devoted to Erasmus' spiritualia, works of spirituality that include such aspects of religion as piety, theology, and the practice of ministry. The volume begins with an introductory essay that provides the first comprehensive review of the content, sources, and style of Erasmus' many works dealing with piety.

Erasmus' Familiar Colloquies grew from a small collection of phrases, sentences, and snatches of dialogue written in Paris about 1497 to help his private pupils improve their command of Latin. Twenty years later the material was published by Johann Froben (Basel 1518). It was an immediate success and was reprinted thirty times in the next four years. For the edition of March 1522 Erasmus began to add fully developed dialogues, and a book designed to improve boys' use of Latin (and their deportment) soon became a work of literature for adults, although it retained traces of its original purposes. The final Froben edition (March, 1533) had about sixty parts, most of them dialogues. It was in the last form that the Colloquies were read and enjoyed for four centuries. For modern readers it is one of the best introductions to European society of the Renaissance and Reformation periods, with lively descriptions of daily life and provocative discussions of political, religious, social, and literary topics, presented with Erasmus's characteristic wit and verve. Each colloquy has its own introduction and full explanatory, historical, and biographical notes. Volumes 39 and 40 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series - Two-volume set.

The ten pieces in this volume are among the twenty selected for inclusion in volumes 66-70 of the Collected Works of Erasmus, the series of spiritualia and pastoralia. Like many of the other works in the series, they represent an Erasmus that, despite the recent growth of interest in him, has remained largely unfamiliar-the Erasmus of the works 'pertaining to the pietas.' Volume 69 is special in that it contains seven examples of a genre important to Erasmus, the genre of prayer. The prayers here include an effusive and lyrical early triad, a 'paraphrase' entitled The Lord's Prayer, the highly formalized Liturgy of Loreto, the heartfelt Prayer for Peace in the Church, and a collection of short prayers published the year before Erasmus' death. The volume is special also in that it contains many pieces about women, prompted by women, or addressed to women. Among these are A Comparision of the Virgin and the Martyr, Letter of Comfort in Adversity, and the Marian prayers, all of which directly or indirectly treat the subjects of virginity and marriage. The longest piece, The Institution of Christian Matrimony, is a work of towering importance in the history of writing on marriage. In the words of the translator, Erasmus has written a treatise 'profoundly serious and deeply researched... a detailed and painstaking examination of the institution from every conceivable angle.' Professor O'Malley's introduction provides background and context for each of the selections, and emphasizes Erasmus' subtle but influential refashioning of the genres in which he wrote. Volume 69 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series.

By mining the rich tradition of virtue ethics, Christopher Vogt uses the virtues of patience, compassion, and hope as a framework for specifying the shape of a good death, and for naming the practices Christians should develop to live well and die well. Bringing together historical, biblical, and contemporary sources in Christian ethics, Vogt provides a long-overdue theological analysis of the ars moriendi or "art of dying" literature of four centuries ago. Through a careful analysis of Luke's passion narrative, Vogt uses Jesus as the primary model for being patient in the face of death and for dying well.

Reforming the Church before Modernity considers the question of ecclesial reform from late antiquity to the 17th century, and tackles this complex question from primarily cultural perspectives, rather than the more usual institutional approaches. The common themes are social change, centres and peripheries of change, monasticism, and intellectuals and their relationship to reform. This innovative approach opens up the question of how religious reform took place and challenges existing ecclesiological models that remains too focussed on structures in a manner artificial for pre-modern Europe. Several chapters specifically take issue with the problem of what constitutes reform, reformations, and historians' notions of the periodization of reform, while in others the relationship between personal transformation and its broader social, political or ecclesial context emerges as a significant dynamic. Presenting essays from a distinguished international cast of scholars, the book makes an important contribution to the debates over ecclesiology and religious reform stimulated by the anniversary of Vatican II.