Aelred (1110–1167) served Rievaulx Abbey, the second Cistercian monastery in England, for twenty years as abbot. During his abbacy he wrote thirteen treatises, some offering spiritual guidance and others seeking to advise King Henry II. He also wrote thirty-one sermons as a commentary on Isaiah 13–16 and 182 surviving liturgical sermons, mostly addressed to his monks.
This volume contains the second half of Aelred's ninety-eight liturgical sermons from the Reading-Cluny collection, Sermons 134 through 182, as well as Aelred's sermon for the translation of Saint Edward the Confessor in 1163, from the critical edition by Peter Jackson first published in
Cistercian Studies Quarterly
. For the most part, the collection follows the liturgical year; this volume begins with a sermon for the birth of John the Baptist and ends with three sermons for the feast of All Saints. It contains sixteen Marian sermons as well as a sermon for the birth of Saint Katherine and a sermon for nuns.