Open the Gates of Paradise. The Benedictines in the Heart of Europe 800-1300

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This exhibition catalogue presents the spiritual and material culture of the early and supreme medieval Benedictine monasteries in Central Europe. At the same time it emphasises the role played by the Benedictine Order in the Christianisation of the nations here, with the acceptance of the ancient-Christian Mediterranean culture and in the process of the birth and consolidation of the state and statehood in Central Europe. Simultaneously we are acquainted with the key figures of the Benedictine Order and with its important individual centres in their role as intermediaries of cultural exchange between Western and Southern Europe and the newly Christianised Slavonic and Hungarian territories.