This book surveys the full panorama of ten centuries of Christian monastic life.
It presents the History of religious Life and its orders as a complex braid woven from multiple strands: individual and community,.
Throughout that story the book balances a rich sense of detail with a broader synthetic view.
It moves from the deserts of Egypt and the Frankish monasteries of early Medieval Europe to the religious ruptures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the reForms of the later Middle Ages.
This book surveys the full panorama of ten centuries of Christian monastic life