John Bromyard - Working Methods

Working Methods

Bromyard was a pioneer or early adopter of new techniques in the organization of information. Each of his surviving works is provided with an alphabetical index. He employs standardized divisions of his texts, and uses them for systematic cross-references.

As aids to preaching, his works included all manner of preachable material according to the homiletic practice of the time: exempla, authorities from the church fathers and bible as well as from classical authors, natural lore, proverbs and verses (some in French or English), etc. He uses "scientific knowledge" (natura ratione) to explain natural phenomenon such as "rain" taking away the mysticism of "acts of God". These explanations are apparently drawn from Greek and Arab ancient texts. (Bromyard: Summa Praedicantium, De Natura Ratione). He was particularly fond of Canon law, devoting the Tractatus iuris to expounding Christian doctrine and morality almost exclusively by means of citations from legal texts. He engages in occasional political commentary on problems in English society, and even criticises abuses in his own Dominican order.

Read more about this topic:  John Bromyard

Famous quotes containing the words working and/or methods:

    Americans have internalized the value that mothers of young children should be mothers first and foremost, and not paid workers. The result is that a substantial amount of confusion, ambivalence, guilt, and anxiety is experienced by working mothers. Our cultural expectations of mother and realities of female participation in the labor force are directly contradictory.
    Ruth E. Zambrana, U.S. researcher, M. Hurst, and R.L. Hite. “The Working Mother in Contemporary Perspectives: A Review of Literature,” Pediatrics (December 1979)

    In inner-party politics, these methods lead, as we shall yet see, to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party, the central committee substitutes itself for the organization, and, finally, a “dictator” substitutes himself for the central committee.
    Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)