Prosperity and Plunder by Derek Beales

Prosperity and PlunderEuropean Catholic Monasteries in the Age of Revolution, 16501815\nAuthor(s): Derek Beales\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Cambridge University Press\nISBN-13: 9780521590907, 978-0521590907\nSynopsis\nIn the Catholic countries of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Europe, communities of monks and nuns were growing in number and wealth. By 1750 there were at least 25,000 communities containing at least 350,000 inmates. They constructed vast buildings, dominated education, and played a large part in the practice and patronage of learning, music, and the arts. They also fulfilled an amazing variety of political, economic and social roles, notably in providing career opportunities for women. Yet many accounts of the period ignore them altogether. Prosperity and Plunder recovers this forgotten dimension of European history, assesses the importance of monasteries across Catholic Europe, and compares their positi.