Knowles, D. Christian Monasticism. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969.
A survey of the varieties of monastic life by one of the great scholars in
the field.
———, and D. Obolensky. The Christian Centuries. Vol. 2, The Middle
Ages. London: Dartmon, Longman and Todd, 1978. The second volume of
the Daniélou-Marrou history, with an equal mastery of the period covered, in
both East and West.
Latourette, K. S. The Thousand Years of Uncertainty: 500–1500 AD. Vol. 2,
A History of the Expansion of Christianity. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1966
(reprint). An older monumental work on Christian mission that sorts out the
intricacies of evangelization in northern Europe.
Lea, H. C. The Inquisition of the Middle Ages: Its Organization and
Operation. New York: Harper and Row, 1963. A thorough and balanced
analysis of the inquisition in all of its manifestations.
LeClercq, J. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of
Monastic Culture. Translated by C. Misrahi. New York: Fordham University
Press, 1982. Classic study of monastic life, showing how the round of prayer
and reading gave rise to specific forms of scholarship.
Lilla, S. R. C. Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian Platonism and
Gnosticism. Oxford Theological Monographs. London: Oxford University
Press, 1971. A scholarly analysis of the great teacher in the Alexandrian
catechetical school.
Louth, A. Greek East and Latin West: The Church, AD 681–1071.
Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2007. The ways in which
language, culture, and politics all fed the growing alienation between Rome
and Constantinople.
MacMullen, R. Christianizing the Roman Empire. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1984. Important study showing that Christianity’s growth
was not through mass conversions so much as through personal contacts.