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 These accounts and lists have been supplemented and to some extent superseded by the articles upon the several religious houses which are contained in the published volumes of the _Victoria History of the Counties of England_, now in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.