Daily Life in a Medieval Monastery

November 1, 2013
This new work in the Daily Life through History series provides a concise overview for anyone needing an introduction to the monastic experience in the medieval period. More has been written about monastic life, so Medieval Monastery mainly serves as a concise historical overview of life in a religious order throughout the entire medieval period. This work would make a suitable reference for a student in need of a starting point for a paper about life in a monastery in 500 CE through 1100 CE. Similar information could be found in the New Catholic Encyclopedia (2003) or the Encyclopedia of Religion (2004), among other sources, but a reader would have to cobble the information together from several entries. Some information, such as the section on child oblates, is not easily found in other reference sources.Daily Life in a Medieval Monastery contains a lengthy bibliography and is indexed. While not a go-to source for discussion of major battles or historical events, this is still a useful starting point for high-school and undergraduate students working on research within the area. Recommended for most high-school, academic, and public libraries.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)