Dear Jim Bugslag,
Daniel Bornstein's article Spiritual Kinship and Domestic Devotions (in
Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy, ed. by Judith Brown and Robert
Davis, Longman 1998) is a recent and recommendable approach to private
devotions.
Richard Kieckhefer discusses the increasing importance of private devotions
in later Medieval Piety in his article "Major Currents in Late Medieval
Devotion", in Christian Spirituality vol. II (Ed. Jill Raitt et al.).
The older classic would be Louis Gougaud's Devotional and Ascetic Practices
in the Middle Ages, but I quess that you already know that because you were
specifically asking for books written after 1940.
In my Ph.D. Worldly Saints I studied the domestic devotional practices of
Dominican penitent saints and found that later medieval vitae of lay saints
produce a lot of material concerning 'devotions'. The devotional practices
of penitent women reveal that these women's devotional practices were
influenced by monastic customs, but they were more flexible and adapted to
requirements of domestic lay life. For example, private devotions (such as
fairly free recitation of hours and ascetic practices) of lay people could
be performed amidst other tasks.
All the best in your study of a fascinating topic,
Maiju Lehmijoki-G.
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