Graham A. Loud, The Social World of the Abbey of Cava, c. 1020–1300. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2021, xviii, 417 pp.

The book under review provides the first comprehensive introduction in English to the history of the abbey of Holy Trinity, Cava. Founded in the countryside northwest of Salerno around 1020, the community grew from modest beginnings to become one of the most influential religious houses in southern Italy, thanks in no small part to the patronage of the Norman aristocracy, who conquered the region in the 1070s. A century later, Cava boasted over 100 dependencies, including a congregation of twenty-one monasteries. Its dominance in the region endured until the fourteenth century, when it was second only to Montecasino in terms of wealth and resources. The archival sources preserved