A. Early Monastic History. See Cambridge Medieval History, vol. I, pp. 521-42 (by Dom E. C. Butler, abbot of Downside). A full bibliography will be found on pp. 683-7 of the same volume.

B. Religious Orders. (1) Benedictine monks. The rule of St Benedict has been edited by Dom E. C. Butler, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1911. There is a translation by abbot Gasquet in the 'King's Classics' series.

(2) Carthusian monks. See H. V. le Bas in Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, XVIII, 241-52.

(3) Cistercian monks. See Cistercian Statutes, ed. J. T. Fowler, 1890 (reprinted from Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, with preface containing references to original sources). See also J. T. Micklethwaite, The Cistercian Order (Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, XV, 245-68, reprinted as separate pamphlet).

(4) Augustinian canons. The letter of St Augustine on which the rule was founded is no. CCXI in his Epistolae, printed with his other works in Migne, Patrologiae Latinae Cursus. The rule is printed by J. W. Clark, Observances in Use at the Augustinian Priory of S. Giles and S. Andrew at Barnwell, Cambridgeshire, Cambridge, 1897, pp. 2-23: see also the introduction to the same volume, pp. xxxi-civ, for a description of the customs of the order.

(5) Gilbertine canons. See Rose Graham, St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines, 1902.

(6) Premonstratensian canons. See F. A. Gasquet, Collectanea Anglo-Premonstratensia, 3 vols., 1906 (Camden Soc., 3rd ser.). Some of the statutes are printed by J. W. Clark, op. cit. pp. 101-4.

(7) Nuns. See Lina Eckenstein, Women and Monasticism, Cambridge, 1896.

(8) Friars. See Monumenta Franciscana, 2 vols., 1858, 1882 (Rolls ser.), ed. J. S. Brewer and R. Howlett.

A number of general documents of great importance are prefixed to the accounts of individual houses of the several orders in Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, 8 vols., 1817-30, ed. Caley, Ellis and Bandinel—e.g. the Carthusian Tractatus statutorum ... pro noviciis, and the Vita and Institutiones Sancti Gileberti prefixed to the accounts of houses of the order of Sempringham.

C. English Monasteries: History. Dugdale, Monasticon, ut sup., contains the text of a great number of documents, taken from various sources, relating to the large majority of English religious houses, together with a carefully annotated account of each house and a list of its heads. These accounts and lists have been supplemented and to some extent superseded by the articles upon the several religious houses which are contained in the published volumes of the Victoria History of the Counties of England, now in progress. The documents are in great part selected from the MS. chartularies of the various monasteries, of which many have been preserved in public and private collections. Some chartularies have been printed in full—e.g. the Surtees Society has published those of Newminster, Rievaulx and Whitby abbeys, and of Brinkburn and Guisbrough priories, and chartularies of Gloucester, Hyde and Ramsey abbeys, and the register of Malmesbury abbey have appeared in the Rolls series. Memorials of Fountains Abbey, 2 vols., ed. J. R. Walbran, and The Priory of Hexham, 2 vols., ed. J. Raine (Surtees Soc.), contain collections of charters in addition to other historical matter.

A bibliography of some of the most important sources for the history of the monastic life is prefixed to abbot Gasquet's English Monastic Life, 1904, a valuable account of the constitution and customs of religious houses, followed by an appendix containing the most complete list which has yet appeared of English monastic foundations. An annotated list (The English Student's Monasticon) forms vol. II of Mackenzie E. C. Walcott's English Minsters, 1879.

A large number of monastic chronicles have been printed in the Rolls series. The period before the Norman conquest is represented by the Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, Thomas of Elmham's Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis, the Liber Monasterii de Hyda, the Chronicle of the Abbey of Ramsey, and the Vita S. Oswaldi (in Historians of the Church of York, vol. I). Later history is contained in the Annales Monastici, 5 vols. (Annals of Bermondsey, Burton, Margam, Oseney, Tewkesbury and Waverley abbeys, and of Dunstable, Winchester and Worcester priories), the Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham, Historia et Cartularium Monasterii S. Petri Gloucestriae, 3 vols., Chronicon Monasterii de Melsa (Meaux), 3 vols., Walsingham's Gesta Abbatum Monasterii S. Albani, 3 vols., Registra quorundam abbatum S. Albani (15 cent.), 2 vols., and Memorials of St Edmund's Abbey, 3 vols. Jocelyn of Brakelond's and other chronicles were printed by the Camden Society among their publications: there is a translation of Jocelyn in the 'King's Classics.'

For custom-books, monastic account-books, etc., reference may be made to abbot Gasquet's bibliography, ut sup., where also there are notes of printed editions of monastic visitations and episcopal registers. The registers of archbishops Giffard and Wickwane of York (ed. W. Brown for the Surtees Soc.) and that of archbishop Romeyn, about to appear under the same editorship, contain many valuable documents relating to visitations of monasteries. The present writer is engaged upon an edition of similar documents from the Lincoln episcopal registers for the Lincoln Record Soc., of which vol. I (1420-36) is now in the press.

Three books of recent times are of the highest importance to students of monastic history, viz. (1) J. W. Clark's Observances of Barnwell, already mentioned; (2) Inventories of Christ Church, Canterbury, ed. W. H. St John Hope and J. Wickham Legg, 1902; (3) The Rites of Durham, ed. J. T. Fowler, 1903 (Surt. Soc.), the notes to which are a mine of information as to monastic customs, ritual, etc.

D. English Monasteries: Architecture and Plan. There is a lack of general treatises on this subject; but the account of monastic architecture by C. Enlart, Manuel d'ArchÉologie franÇaise, Paris, 1904, II, 1-57, applies, mutatis mutandis, to English monasteries, and contains a general bibliography.

The foundation of the study of the Benedictine plan was laid down by Professor Willis in his articles on Worcester Cathedral and Monastery (Archaeol. Journal, vol. XX), and in The Architectural History of the Conventual Buildings of the Monastery of Christ Church in Canterbury, 1869. D. J. Stewart's Architectural History of Ely Cathedral, 1868, is another remarkable work of the same period. Other important works are J. T. Micklethwaite's Notes on the Abbey buildings of Westminster (Archaeol. Journal, vols. XXXIII, LI), W. H. St John Hope's Notes on the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter at Gloucester (Ibid. vol. LIV) and Architectural History of the Cathedral Church and Monastery of St Andrew at Rochester (reprinted from Archaeol. Cantiana, 1900), the accounts of Peterborough abbey by C. R. Peers (Vict. Co. Hist. Northants, vol. II), of St Albans abbey by C. R. Peers and W. Page (Ibid. Herts, vol. II) and of Winchester cathedral priory by C. R. Peers and H. Brakspear (Ibid. Hants, vol. V), and W. H. Knowles' Tynemouth Priory (Archaeol. Journal, vol. LXVII). F. Bond's Westminster Abbey, 1909, is an admirably written and well illustrated volume.

The Carthusian plan is treated by Mr Hope in Mount Grace Priory (Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, vol. XVIII, with historical articles by H. V. le Bas and W. Brown) and in The London Charterhouse and its old water supply (Archaeologia, vol. LVIII).

The peculiarities of the Cistercian order have received much attention: see E. Sharpe, Architecture of the Cistercians (Journal R.I.B.A., 1870-1, pp. 189-210), and J. T. Micklethwaite, Of the Cistercian plan (Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, vol. VII). The chief monograph on the Cistercian plan is W. H. St John Hope's Fountains Abbey (Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, vol. XV, reprinted separately, 1900), and to the same writer's Kirkstall Abbey (Thoresby Soc. Publications, vol. XVI) is added an essay by J. Bilson on The Architecture of the Cistercians, reprinted, with some alterations, in Archaeol. Journal, vol. LXVI. It may be noted that Mr Hope, among other discoveries, established for the first time in his Fountains Abbey the use of the Cistercian nave as the quire of the conversi, the arrangement of the Cistercian kitchen, and the fact of the disappearance of the conversi from Cistercian houses after the middle of the fourteenth century. Mr Hope has further discussed Cistercian arrangements in The Abbey of St Mary in Furness (Cumb. and Westm. Antiq. and Archaeol. Soc. Trans., vol. XVI, reprinted 1902), and with H. Brakspear in Beaulieu Abbey (Archaeol. Journal, vol. LXIII) and Jervaulx Abbey (Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, vol. XXI). Mr Brakspear's monographs include On the first Church at Furness (Lanc. and Chesh. Antiq. Soc. Trans., vol. XVIII), The Church of Hayles Abbey (Archaeol. Journal, vol. LVIII; see also Bristol and Glouc. Archaeol. Soc. Trans., vol. XXIV), Pipewell Abbey (Assoc. Archit. Soc. Reports, vol. XXX), Stanley Abbey (Wilts. Archaeol. Journal, vol. XXXV), and Waverley Abbey (Surrey Archaeol. Soc., 1905). See also R. W. Paul, The Church and Monastery of Abbey Dore (Bristol and Glouc. Archaeol. Soc. Trans., vol. XXVII).

For Cluniac plans see Mr Hope's Architectural History of the Priory of St Pancras at Lewes (Archaeol. Journal, vol. XLI; see also Sussex Archaeol. Collections, vols. XXXIV, XLIX) and Castleacre Priory (Norfolk Archaeologia, vol. XII).

The chief monographs on houses of Augustinian canons are Mr Hope's Repton Priory (Derby Archaeol. Soc. Trans., vols. VI, VII; Archaeol. Journal, vol. XLI), Messrs Hope and Brakspear's Haughmond Abbey (Archaeol. Journal, vol. LXVI), and R. W. Paul's Plan of the Church and Monastery of St Augustine, Bristol (Archaeologia, vol. LXIII). See also J. W. Clark, Observances of Barnwell, ut sup., C. C. Hodges, Hexham Abbey (sic), 1888, and the learned series of articles by J. F. Hodgson on the plans of Augustinian churches (Archaeol. Journal, vols. XLI-XLIII). Mr Brakspear has described two houses of Augustinian canonesses, viz., Burnham Abbey (Ibid., vol. LX; see Bucks. Archit. and Archaeol. Soc. Records, vol. VIII) and Lacock Abbey (Archaeologia, vol. LVII; see also Wilts. Archaeol. Journal, vol. XXXI).

The Gilbertine plan is elucidated by Mr Hope in The Gilbertine Priory of Watton (Archaeol. Journal, vol. LVIII).

Mr Hope is further responsible for a series of articles upon various Premonstratensian abbeys, viz. Alnwick (Archaeol. Journal, vol. XLIV; see also Archaeologia Aeliana, vol. XIII), Dale (Derby Archaeol. Soc. Trans., vols. I, II), St Agatha's (Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, vol. X), St Radegund's (Archaeol. Cantiana, vol. XIV), Shap (Cumb. and Westm. Antiq. and Archaeol. Soc. Trans., vol. X) and West Langdon (Archaeol. Cantiana, vol. XV). See also J. F. Hodgson, Eggleston Abbey (Yorks. Archaeol. Journal, vol. XVIII).

For the plans of friaries, see Mr Hope's On the Whitefriars or Carmelites of Hulne (Archaeol. Journal, vol. XLVII) and A. W. Clapham, On the Topography of the Dominican Priory of London (Archaeologia, vol. LXIII).

The above list embraces the most important contributions to the subject made during recent years. Many plans of other monasteries with brief descriptions will be found in the accounts of the summer meetings of the Royal Archaeological Institute in recent volumes of the Archaeol. Journal, and there are also plans of the chief monasteries in various volumes of The Builder. Mr Hope's plans of Durham are given in The Rites of Durham, ut sup. For further plans, see the topographical sections of the Victoria County History and the History of Northumberland (now in progress).

Historical monographs on religious houses, in which attention is paid to plan and architectural features, should not be forgotten. As examples of these may be cited S. O. Addy's Beauchief Abbey, Dr W. de Gray Birch's histories of Neath Abbey and Margam Abbey, C. Lynam's Croxden Abbey, and S. W. Williams' Cistercian Abbey of Strata Florida. Guide-books are not as a rule very trustworthy, but the official guide-book to Tintern abbey, for the architectural part of which Mr Brakspear is responsible, and F. Bligh Bond's guide to Glastonbury abbey are among the notable exceptions.

Articles of great historical value will be found under various headings in Smith's Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Catholic Encyclopaedia. It is unnecessary to refer to these in detail.