MEDIEVAL MONASTICISM There is little doubt that the monastic ideal exercised a powerful influence on the communities in which monasteries were found. It has been estimated that there were around 340 religious houses and about 15,000 men and women in religious orders in the last quarter of the twelfth century in England and Wales. Rievaulx and the other surviving Yorkshire abbeys are testimony to the major building work then under way in that part of the European …showed first 75 words of 683 total…

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