This work is a full-scale integrated synthesis of the origins, spread and effects of monasticism in Scandinavia, and along the shores of the Baltic and the North Sea.

Beginning with a review of the geography and communications by land and, especially, by sea, of the region, Nyberg goes on to describe early monasticism among the Frisians ,Saxons and the Danes, then in Norway and Sweden, Saxony, Slesvig and Ribe, and finally Pomerania and the southern and eastern Baltic littoral.

Throughout the book he stresses the place of abbeys and convents within their local surroundings, as centres of conversion, recruitment and redistribution of wealth. He traces the intellectual, literary and liturgical connections between monastic centres and neighbouring cathedral towns and royal strongholds, and the means by which orders or congregations maintained discipline from the centre. He also describes the leaders who emerged from convent, abbey or congregation to command local and regional political and cultural life, and the ways in which monastic centres influenced popular devotion.