The Cambridge Companion to the Cistercian Order

Covering the whole history of the order, but focusing overwhelmingly on the medieval period, this companion offers an accessible synthesis of current scholarship on the Cistercian order. After a preliminary section tracing the history of the order, and in particular its rapid expansion throughout medieval Europe, topics are addressed such as the order's structures and institutions, the material world they inhabited and constructed, including agriculture, art and architecture, and the spiritual and intellectual world of the order, in particular its founder, Bernard of Clairvaux. Themes of withdrawal and engagement with the world run throughout the book, but are not seen as mutually exclusive, nor as representing "ideals and reality".