Rosalind B. Brooke

Rosalind Beckford Brooke (née Clark) (5 November 1925 – 17 November 2014) was a British medieval historian and art historian. She was an expert on St Francis of Assisi and wrote several books on the Franciscan order. Brooke taught medieval history at Liverpool, London, and Cambridge universities.

Early life and education Born Rosalind Beckford Clark in Chipstead, Surrey on 5 November 1925, to Leslie H.S. Clark, a hospital physicist with expertise in medical radiology, and Doris F. Clark, a teacher. Brooke attended St Leonards School in St Andrews, before undertaking an undergraduate and postgraduate doctoral degree at Girton College, Cambridge in 1943. the policy was changed in 1948, allowing her to pursue a PhD. In Early Franscican Government, for example, she contrasted Thomas of Celano’s Vita Prima and Vita Secunda, noting that Brother Elias’ fall from grace, an event that occurred between the authorship of the two texts, impacted how Elias was depicted by Thomas of Celano, and therefore impacted the reliability of both sources. In her translation of the Scripta Leonis, Brooke argued that we are given access to St Francis’ mind and heart. Regarding Bonaventure’s Major Legend, she suggested the work was an elegant pastiche of earlier Lives, which in turn reflected what she noted as an admiration and veneration of St Francis ‘but as an inspiration rather than as a model’. The Image of St Francis examined how stained glass and frescos that depicted the saint also passed on his spirit and teachings. In her examination of the various texts and images of St Francis, she demonstrated a ‘real image of St Francis’ that shone through the myriad sources of his life. She evaluated in relentless detail the consistencies and differing perspectives that characterise Brother Elias in the Vita Prima and Vita Secunda of Thomas of Celano, and the chronicles of Jordan of Giano, Thomas of Eccleston, and Salimbene. While in London, she held an academic post at University College London, teaching history. She and Christopher moved to Cambridge in 1977. In the Scripta Leonis, after expressing a debt ‘impossible to acknowledge fully’ she remarked that ‘many a problem became clearer in trying to explain it to him’. Brooke co-authored two works with her husband: a book titled Popular Religion in the Middle Ages: Western Europe 1000–1300 and a chapter titled ‘St Clare’ in Medieval Women, edited by Christopher. She dedicated her final work The Image of St Francis, to Christopher with the following passage:

This was written on her 80th birthday.

Later life In 2007 Brooke was conferred with a D.Litt. award as a mark of ‘her sterling contribution to the debates surrounding St Francis and the early history, hagiography and art of the Franciscan community’.

Personal life Brooke was introduced to her future husband Christopher Brooke through their joint acquaintance with David Knowles, and they were married in Cambridge on 18 August 1951. reprinted as a print-on-demand paperback in 2006. ‘The Lives of St Francis of Assisi’, in Latin Biography, ed. Thomas A. Dorey (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1967), pp. 177–98. Scripta Leonis, Rufini et Angeli sociorum S. Francisci, OMT (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1970). Reprinted in 1990. ‘St Bonaventure as Minister General’, in S.Bonaventura Francescano 14–17 ottobre 1973, Convegni del centro di studi sulla spiritualità medievale 14 (Todi, 1974), pp. 75–105. The Coming of the Friars, Historical Problems, Studies and Documents 24 (Allen and Unwin Ltd., London, 1975). ‘La prima espansione francescana in Europa, Atti del XLI Convegno internazionale Assisi, 12–14 ottobre, 1978’, in Espansione del francescanesimo tra Occidente e Oriente, Società internazionale di studi francescani, Centro interuniversitario di studi francescani 6 (Spoleto, 1979), pp. 123–150. ‘The Legenda antiqua Sancti Francisci Perugia Ms. 1046’, in Analecta Bollandiana 99 (1981), pp. 165–168. ‘Recent work on St Francis of Assisi’, in Analecta Bollandiana 100 (1982), pp. 653–676. The Image of St Francis: Responses to Sainthood in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006).

Co-authored with C.N.L. Brooke

‘St Clare’, in Medieval Women, with C.N.L. Brooke, ed. D. Baker, Studies in Church History (Blackwell, Oxford, 1978), pp. 275–87. Popular Religion in the Middle Ages: Western Europe 1000–1300 (Thames and Hudson, London, 1984).