The cultural history of posttridentine monasticism can be regarded as one of the least-treated subjects in early modern history, although the sources available are surprising in quantity and quality. The strong interest of medievalists in monasticism usually does not extend beyond the Reformation, and few historians of the early modern period want to cope with archives full of Latin texts.

The publication of the letters of Benedikt Stephani can therefore be welcomed as an exception to this general shortcoming. Coming out of the context of a broad philological research group on New Latin at the University of Innsbruck, Florian Schaffenrath brings to the task both the required philological knowledge and the necessary awareness of the regional context of early modern Tirol. The edition of the 589 letters is accompanied by a short introduction, biographical notes on some of Stephani's correspondents, a chronological list of the letters, and indexes of names and subjects. Each letter is divided into paragraphs and introduced by a summary in German, which allows a quick and easy orientation.

Benedikt Stephani, who died in 1671, was the prior of the Cistercian monastery of Stams, near Innsbruck in Tirol. Copies of the letters he had written between 1640 and 1671, partly in the name of his abbots, are contained in a manuscript volume of the Stams library on which this edition is based. Additional correspondence or archival documentation, either at the Stams monastery or beyond, have not been taken into account.

Although the editor has doubts about the intention of this letter collection (20), it probably should be seen in close relation with Stephani's activities as prior. The collection begins at the time of his return from the University of Ingolstadt in 1640 but becomes dense only in the spring of 1644 after his appointment to prior. Most of the topics treated in the letters are related to his office. Stephani informs his abbot, often at the Innsbruck court, about the daily administrative business of the monastery and asks for advice in critical situations (e.g., the danger of an attack by the Swedish army). He corresponds with the abbey's parishes and landholdings (e.g., Mais near Meran). Stephani also keeps in touch with students from Stams at Ingolstadt and Salzburg, and he exchanges letters with physicians about the health of his fellow monks. In this sense, the collection of the letters may well have followed a similar aim as the contemporary practice of keeping administrative diaries by the abbot or prior.

The letters illustrate vividly the everyday life and duties of a Cistercian prior in mid-seventeenth-century Tirol. Stephani, who was also the author of some Latin verses (11–12), wrote notably good Latin (Schaffenrath informs the reader extensively about allusions and citations), and he was quite interested in scholarly matters. He and his abbey were part of an Upper German Cistercian network, which included most of the Bavarian and Swabian monasteries, with a central role for the monasteries at Salem and Kaisheim. The administrative agenda of the congregation, institutional decisions, and appointments, as well as questions of strict or general observance, characterize many of Stephani's letters, often written on behalf of the abbot.

What is more, Stephani's letters to physicians reveal substantial medical knowledge, obviously of some renown in the region. Any historian of early modern medicine will find in the letters a rich and detailed account of disease and death in a seventeenth-century monastery, with special emphasis on alcoholism, which, legitimately, has its own entry in the thematic index.

Regarding the edition itself, text and summaries are philologically accurate and leave nothing to be desired. In some cases, however, the German text of the summaries might follow the Latin original more freely to avoid inaccuracies or misleading terms. For example, in the index, “Fürst von Kempten” should read “Fürstabt von Kempten,” “Venostatal” should be “Vinschgau,” and “Pollingen” should be “Polling.” Commentary on some points hardly seems necessary, such as the changing of one's name upon entrance into a monastery (63), while other points might have been more precisely clarified: was Stephani's activity between 1640 and 1644 as a lecturer of theology or philosophy (12 and 29)? The identification of some additional correspondents, especially abbots, should have been possible without archival sources.

These critical notes, however, must not diminish the overall appreciation of this extensive effort on the basis of a truly valuable source, which should not be missing in any specialized library on early modern monastic culture.