This collection of papers arose out of a conference at Leeds in 2008: the ten contributors come from almost as many different countries, though their English style is consistently good and readable – the sign of an efficient editor. The theme of ‘borders' includes the obvious one of major cultural frontiers (Eastern Europe, remote Scandinavia) as well as that of provincial boundaries within orders, boundaries between neighbouring states of similar culture (Catalan states, Anjou and Normandy) and between Christians and Jews.

We are reminded (p. 6) that academic discourses are ‘very much influenced by the changing political contexts in which they were produced’. We may add that they are also influenced by the post-Christian secular environment of the modern academic world. Attempts are made to understand the role of monastic houses without appreciating what monasticism was really for. This is nothing new: for centuries non-Catholic authors have looked on monasteries as essentially fraudulent institutions, run for the sake of making money, of keeping the poor under control, of extending civilisation, or at best of providing medical services and education: it does not occur to them that monks and nuns might actually have believed in what they professed. The purpose of monasticism, then as now, was the ‘seeking of divine wisdom’, in the sense of intercessory prayer for the people who had founded and endowed the community as well as for the realm and all Christian folk. Other activities, however useful, were very much secondary to the round of prayer.

The quest for relics is usually presented as if houses could somehow make money out of them. We hear, for instance, that offerings at Holywell brought in £10 per annum for Basingwerk Abbey (p. 29), but that is hardly likely to have sufficed for the maintenance of the shrine building, let alone the capital cost of constructing it in the first place. Shrewsbury Abbey was substantially rebuilt to enshrine St Winifred (p. 35): it must have taken a long time for that to be paid off.

Monastery buildings could certainly be adapted into fortresses in troubled times, as was Toplica in Croatia (and not Monte Cassino in 1944), but that was very far from the intentions of most monastic founders. Toplica was well past its first fervour before the Ottoman threat drew near (p. 71). However, the discussion of the Teutonic Knights and their difficult relationship with Poland might usefully have included something about their castles, for they really were constructed as fortified monasteries from the start. The monastic layout is still recognisable, for instance, in the ruins of Viljandi (Fellin).

Latin religious houses certainly saw themselves as responsible for promulgating the Catholic faith, so that their mission in Greece and other former Byzantine lands could be understood and resented by the Orthodox population: but it appears that the more specifically apostolic orders of friars were much more successful than the contemplative Cistercians (p. 199). The monks found it difficult to make ends meet, the friars were welcomed as pastors. Neither would have understood the idea that their role was to spread Western ‘culture’.

Monasteries did practise efficient agriculture, and could be involved in production of useful products, but that is peripheral to the purpose. St Benedict insisted that monks should be self-supporting, which is why food production and handcrafts have always been a feature of religious life. The distinction which we make in England between ‘monks' and ‘friars' is a useful one, because the preaching and mendicant friars were always dependent upon unpredictable donations in a way that monks were not.

An interesting piece of research shows that the monks of Alvastra were involved in the large-scale production of parchment (p. 98). This should not be surprising, given that we have always known that the manual labour of many monks was the copying of books; and it is usefully pointed out that the tanning vats displayed at Rievaulx were also for book-parchment, not just ordinary leather. But the discussion of Alvastra shows how mistaken previous archaeologists were in imagining that the vats were royal tombs. The large assemblage of artefacts connected to the production of books and manuscripts which were found by the earlier excavators should have made this point, not to mention the fact that the vats are aligned north-south, unlike any tomb. Elementary knowledge of medieval burial practices and monastic life seem to have been wanting during the excavations of 1919.

It is still noticeable, if excusable, that the Icelandic scholar is unfamiliar with normal monastic culture. The excavations at Skriðuklaustur (plan, p. 153) do not show anything like the familiar layout of monastic buildings, despite attempts to identify chapterhouse, refectory, infirmary etc. Moreover it seems that it housed a small Augustinian community, and there is evidence not only for an excessively large number of graves of people of all ages and conditions, but also of lancets, scalpels and pollen from medicinal herbs (p. 160). In other words, the place was not a ‘monastery’ but a hospital, staffed by a small community of regular clergy, like thousands of others all over Europe. It is concluded that it served a useful and popular function for the ordinary people of Iceland – the irony is that the ‘reformation’ destroyed it for the benefit of the rich.

The ground plan of Skriðuklaustur, and several plans and photographs of Alvastra, contrast with the total absence of illustrations for any of the other discussions. At least location maps would have been useful, when dealing with places that are virtually unknown to the English reader. The bibliographies attached to each paper can be tantalising, as so much material is unavailable in this country. This reviewer regrets, for example, that the inventories of Croatian medieval tombstones noted on p. 70 are not accessible in any English library.