Preliminary Material -- Francis of Assisi and the Pursuit of Learning -- The Franciscan School System: Re-assessing the Early Evidence -- Religious Life in the Franciscan School Network (13th Century) -- Mendicant School Exegesis -- ‘Franciscan Augustinianism’: Musings about Labels and Late Medieval School Formation -- Franciscan School Networks, c. 1450–1650: A Provisional Sketch -- Franciscan Urban Preachers in Defense of Catholicism in the Low Countries c. 1520–1568 -- Franciscan Missionaries in the North of the Dutch Republic (c. 1600–1680) -- Name Index -- Place and Subject Index.

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Returning to themes first discussed in his book A History of Franciscan Education (Brill, 2000), Bert Roest discusses in this volume a wide range of issues pertaining to the organization of learning in the Franciscan order in the late medieval and early modern period, and the ways in which this order engaged in pastoral and missionary activities in confrontation with the rise of Protestantism. The essays in this volume break new ground in their treatment of school formation, the chronology of educational developments, and the transformation of Franciscan schools between the mid fifteenth and the mid seventeenth century. They also challenge ingrained scholarly verdicts on the efficacy of sixteenth-century mendicant homiletics, and on the role of the Franciscans in the Dutch mission from the early seventeenth century onwards.