The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury between 1070 and 1089, has long been recognized as one of the most important historical sources for medieval monastic life. In this major new revision of Dom David Knowles's classic editions of 1951 and 1967, C. N. L. Brooke incorporates the historical scholarship of the last generation to offer further insight into and illumination of Lanfranc and the monastic world of the eleventh century. The Monastic Constitutions comprise a liturgical directory, a description of the functions of the leading officials of a monastery, and other fundamental regulations. Composed around 1077, they were intended for Lanfranc's own cathedral at Canterbury, for his nephew Paul's abbey of St Albans - and for any other houses which might observe them. The structure of life in a monastery of the traditional monasticism of the eleventh century has never been so clearly laid out as in this book, but the work also has its puzzles, which Christopher Brooke in this new edition seeks to elucidate.

The Monastic Constitutions of Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury between 1070 and 1089, has long been recognized as one of the most important historical sources for medieval monastic life. In this major new revision of Dom David Knowles's classic editions of 1951 and 1967, C. N. L. Brooke incorporates the historical scholarship of the last generation to offer further insight into and illumination of Lanfranc and the monastic world of the eleventh century.

Professor Brooke has now revised the Constitutions and the Instruction for Oxford Medieval Texts in a way that combines the best features of both of Knowles's editions of the Constitutions - the accessibility and lucidity of the former and the enhanced scholarly precision and detail of the latter ... the exemplary indexes add to the convenience of using it.