These essays examine the ideas that were important to monks and the intersections between the monks and the secular world. The volume explores the ideas and realities that shaped the lives of monks over the medieval millennium.

David R. Blanks, Ph.D. (1991) in History, Ohio State University, is Associate Professor of History and Chair of the History Department at the American University in Cairo. He has published on the socio-economic history of medieval Languedoc and Muslim-Christian relations, including Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, (St. Martin's Press, 1999).
Michael Frassetto, Ph.D. (1993) in History, University of Delaware, is Religion Editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. He has written numerous articles on Ademar of Chabannes and has edited several essay collections, including Heresy and the Persecuting Society in the Middle Ages: Essays on the Work of R.I. Moore (Brill, 2006).
Amy Livingstone, Ph.D. (1992) in Medieval History, Michigan State University, is Associate Professor of History at Wittenberg University and author of many articles examining aristocratic family life and the experiences of noblewomen in medieval France.