Space has always played a crucial part in defining the place that monks and nuns occupy in the world. Even during the first centuries of the monastic phenomenon

Christians have been drawn to monastic life nearly as long as Christianity has existed. Dedicating themselves to prayer, meditation, and good works, men and wom

Monasticism, in all of its variations, was a feature of almost every landscape in the medieval West. So ubiquitous were religious women and men throughout the M

Hugh Lawrence's book ranges right across Europe and the Middle East as well as reconstructing the internal life, experience and aims of the medieval cloister, h

This title was first published in 2000: This is a full-scale integrated synthesis of the origins, spread and effects of monasticism in Scandinavia, and along th