Title: The boundaries of charity
First published: 1996
Description: "This work explores how twelfth-century Cistercian monks maintained their tradition of social withdrawal yet played a pivotal political role in the world outside their monasteries. It argues that the Cistercians' political behavior was neither a betrayal of their monastic ideal nor evidence of some inherent Cistercian paradox, but that such public involvement grew out of the monks' conception of their monastic life, notably the cluster of ideas associated with Christian love, or caritas."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: Church history, Cistercians, History, Monasticism and religious orders, Cistercians, history, Europe, church history
Places: Europe
Time periods: 12th century, 600-1500, Middle Ages, 600-1500
LC classification: BX3415 .N48 1996