Observant Reforms and Cultural Production in Europe: Introductory Remarks

This introductory chapter explains how the volume as a whole, entitled Observant Reforms and Cultural Production in Europe, grew out of the activities of an international project network on the late medieval Observant world, what elements of Observant literary endeavors in particular thus far have been central in historical scholarship, and how the various contributions to this volume provide new insights into the cultural production within and beyond Observant communities, as well as into the interconnection of this production with the changing European cultural landscape at the end of the Middle Ages.