Reprint of the original, first published in 1872. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

Among the most beautiful, spiritual and evocative structures in stone ever built are the medieval monasteries of Europe. The importance of the monastic world, its ideas and ideals, to the rise of Western civilization is second to none. The age of the cloister offers a fascinating overview of the birth and flowering of monasticism, and describes in great detail the everyday monastic life and the faith, literature, economy, architecture and culture of countless monks, hermits, nuns, canons, friars and lay men and women spanning hundreds of years.

Sacred architecture as reality and metaphor in secularised Western society Christian monasteries and convents, built throughout Europe for the best part of 1,500 years, are now at a crossroads. This study attempts to understand the sacred architecture of monasteries as a process of the tangible and symbolic organisation of space and time for religious communities. Despite the weight of seemingly immutable monastic tradition, architecture has contributed to developing specific religious identities and played a fundamental part in the reformation of different forms of religious life according to the changing needs of society. The cloister is the focal point of this book because it is both architecture, a physically built reality, and a metaphor for the religious life that takes place within it. Life Inside the Cloister also addresses the afterlife and heritagisation of monastic architecture in secularised Western society.