The Cistercian Monastery of Zaraka, Greece [Hardcover]

During the Frankish Crusader period, Cistercian monks built and developed the monastery of Zaraka in Greece for approximately forty years and were followed first by squatters, then by a seventeenth-century cemetery. The goal of this study has been to identify where the monks came from, how they lived, and why they left so suddenly. The strength of this volume rests in the clear presentation of material that strengthens the reader's understanding of this Cistercian abbey and its community. Careful attention to the later phases of the site's habitation--absent from the book's title--also provides vital information about this region in the late and post-Byzantine periods, re-populating the Stymphalos Valley with those whose stories have, until now, been lost. --Sharon E. J. Gerste, University of California-Los Angeles