It is good to see that the view of religious communities in medieval Europe as hermetically closed entities, aloof and removed from the rest of the world, is sinking deeper into the depths of an antiquated historiography that gave little or no credit to the permeability of the convent wall. With this inspiring book, Maximilian Sternberg joins a ‘post-Knowles cohort’ of monastic historians who promote the vision of monasteries as communities that participated in, and interacted with, the lay society that surrounded them. He addresses, in his own words, the ‘ambiguities of the Cistercians' relationship with medieval society’ (p. 3) in the thirteenth century. In this book, the issue has been approached first and foremost from an architectural point of view. The debate about the meaning of ‘Cistercian architecture’ is an ongoing one, and Sternberg's contribution to it is a valuable offering. He plays with the ways in which the built environment of the White Monks can tell us about their diverse relationships with lay society, examining the social functions of Cistercian architecture, both in terms of practical interaction with society and the symbolic expression of this relationship in the monastic buildings, while simultaneously challenging the oft-held view of medieval Cistercian ‘richness in writing versus poverty in architecture’ (p. 7). He focuses for this purpose on the order's Languedoc communities, perhaps best-known among them the abbey of Grandselve. The book is divided into four main parts (‘Iconologies of Cistercian Architecture’; ‘Horizons of Reform’; ‘Permeable Boundaries’; and ‘Cistercians and the City’) that consider different aspects of the social relations of medieval Cistercian monks, as well as cross-fertilisation with other monastic models, notably Cluny and St Gall (to the Plan of St Gall, in fact, he attributes greater importance for our understanding of ‘the specific role of architecture in Cistercian monasticism’ [p.266] than to Bernard of Clairvaux's sermons). Sternberg dedicates a chapter of his book to the reforming ethos of Cistercian communities in the context of wider societal changes, pointing out continuities with earlier reforming initiatives, especially those of the Cluniacs, and emphasising the ‘extra-mural orientation’ of Cistercian reform. Turning to the issue of spatial imagination, the author emphasises the persistently central role of St Gall and its plan in the analysis of the monastic precincts of different religious orders. By way of examples he dwells on the multi-functionality of the monastic gatehouse and the gatehouse chapel, used for receiving visitors, apportioning charity, and – not least – for ostentation. In similar vein, the example of the narthex – with particular reference to that of Valmagne Abbey and its spectacular sculpted corbels – is employed to explore the role and functions, both practical and symbolic, of this part of the monastery in the wider relationship between the religious and the laity, addressing the important issue of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ in the context of religious communities. Applying the idea of permeable boundaries also to the inner enclosure of the monastery, the architectural and decorative elements, as found for instance in the cloister of the abbey of Villelongue, are here understood as evidence for the public function of this space. The book closes with a study of the complex relationships between Cistercian communities and towns, here exemplified by Paris and Toulouse, where Cistercian contributions to, and interaction with these cities leads the author to see the medieval town as the ‘secular counterpart’ of the Cistercian monastery. This is a refreshing take on the thirteenth-century Cistercians. Sternberg's ideas are not necessarily new, but he applies them in a way that lends them new vigour.