In the original dust jacket. Black cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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Among the most beautiful and evocative buildings in stone in the whole of Christendom are the monasteries of Western Europe. Set down in remote and lovely surroundings, or in crowded places of pilgrimage, they remain monuments to an intense spiritual experience.

The communal religious life has been a powerful impulse in Western European civilization ever since its ideals were born in the eastern desert in the fourth century AD ; and it has been a continuous tradition still of significance for the million or more religious communities today. But it was between 1000 and 1300 that the monastic life took more formal shape and there grew up many flourishing communities which built in stone houses for God and lodgings for themselves and recorded their faith in manuscripts, in sculpture, metal and wood.

The many magnificent photographs in this book have been specially commissioned to provide a close accompaniment to the text. They give the reader a breathtaking experience of the grandeur and the mystery of the finest monastic buildings that survive.

Christopher Brooke is Professor of History at Westfield College. London University. Among his many books are The Saxon and Norman Kings, Europe in the Central Middle Ages and The Twelfth-Century Renaissance.

Wim Swaan has photographed buildings, sculptures, paintings and objects all over Europe from Hellenistic times to the seventeenth century. The companion volumes to this one. The Gothic Cathedral and Castles of Europe, show the range and power of his work.
Please view the photographs: [44] colour plates, and over 380 monochrome plates, plans and maps