Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages

"Professor Lawrence goes straight to the head of the class for his brilliant survey", wrote the Journal of Ecclesiastical History on the publication of Medieval Monasticism. This thoroughly revised and updated Third Edition retains the qualities of the original, phenomenally successful book.

For a thousand years the monasteries and religious orders were a prominent feature of the social landscape of the West, and the service they rendered to European civilization is incalculable. Richly endowed by kings and magnates, the great monastic houses and their leaders figured as much on the political as on the spiritual map of the medieval world.

Hugh Lawrence traces the Western monastic tradition from its fourth-century origins in the deserts of Egypt and Syria, through the many and various forms of religious life it assumed during the Middle Ages. As well as reconstructing the internal life, experience and aims of the medieval cloister, he also expores the many-sided relationships between the monasteries and the secular world around them.

In this Third Edition Professor Lawrence has added or elaborated on a number of important themes such as the impact of the friars on the religious experience of their time, the controversy between the Benedictines and the champions of the Cistercian movement of the twelfth century, and even new details of monastic lodgers and of monastic food.

C .H. Lawrence was from 1970 to 1987 Professor of Medieval History in the University of London, where he is now Professor Emeritus.