Medieval Monastic Regions in Central Europe. The Spiritual and Physical Landscape Setting of Monastic Orders and Religious Houses

Regional approaches to medieval monasticism, taking into account all monastic foundations from all monastic orders, have contributed to an understanding of the different historical-geographical regions of medieval Europe. Amongst the most frequently discussed issues are royal patronage and monasteries, mendicant orders in the context of royal power and urban development, female monasticism, regional, social and economic conditions, and monastic orders as vehicles, of intellectual spiritual and technical innovations. This common project of CEU Department of Medieval Studies and the University of Göttingen, consisting of four workshops (the fourth of them being organized in Budapest in October 2010) and of intensive student exchange, aims at discussing these issues in a comparative way and thus understanding complex historical processes and characteristic regional features.