In the previous sketch of episcopal preaching we have noticed the occasional involvement of members of the religious orders – both monks and friars – as preachers at synods and visitations. We now turn to their preaching closer to home.

By the fourteenth century, Western monasticism could look back at a millennium of distinguished preaching and sermon-making, which, in the twelfth century, had reached its golden age with such figures as Isaac of Stella, Aelred of Rievaulx, Bernard of Clairvaux, the Victorines, and a host of others. By 1350, those glories were long past, and while Bernard's sermons on Canticles continued to be read and quoted, monks were no longer producing important sermon collections or well-known preachers. That achievement had passed on to the new mendicant orders, who, with their emphatic dedication to scripture studies and to public preaching, took the lead and breathed a powerful new life into preaching the word of God. As a sign of what monks lost in this development, we find, for instance, that major monastic houses had come to employ friars as lectors and as preachers in their cathedrals. But at the same time, around 1350, monks were beginning to foster a new interest in preaching.