For more than sixteen-hundred of the two-thousand years since Christ established his church, the vast majority of Christianity's missionary outreach was done by the unlikeliest group of people - monks. Satirized by movies and dismissed as irrelevant by much of Christendom, monastic orders are often depicted as huddling together in secluded rooms far away from the world, ignoring society and adhering to vows of silence. Contrary to how the world has come to characterize monasticism, monks were far from silent and inactive. In fact, there is hardly an aspect of society that monasticism did not influence, including education, science, literature, agriculture, the arts, holidays, medical care, and banking. This book exposes the true history of monasticism's incredible impact on civilization as it spread Christianity throughout the world.