This volume gives a brief account of the origin and aim of each of the Orders existing in England in pre-Reformation days, and draws up a general list of the various houses in as plain and popular manner as Abbot Gasquet could. He attempted to set before the reader the general tenor of the life lived by the inmates in any one of those monastic establishments. Contents: monastic life; material parts of a monastery; monastery and its rulers; obedientiaries; daily life in a monastery; nuns of medieval England; external relations of the monastic orders; paid servants of the monastery; various religious orders. Handsomely illustrated.