This work investigates how the economic management of Westminster Abbey's vast landholdings shaped the institution's material stability and its complex relationship with the tenant population during the Middle Ages. Barbara B. Harvey, a distinguished historian of medieval monasticism, utilizes extensive archival records to reconstruct the administrative strategies employed by the monks. She examines the shift from direct management to leasing arrangements, providing a detailed analysis of how these fiscal policies influenced both the abbey's wealth and the social conditions of the rural peasantry. The book argues that the abbey's economic evolution was not merely a matter of internal policy but a dynamic interaction between institutional ambition and the practical realities of medieval agrarian life.

Historians and medievalists frequently cite this work as a foundational study in the economic history of English monastic institutions. The text is noted for its rigorous use of primary sources and its ability to synthesize complex administrative data into a coherent narrative of medieval land management.