Monodies and On the Relics of Saints: The Autobiography and a Manifesto of a French Monk from theTime of the Crusades

The first Western autobiography since Augustine's "Confessions", "The Monodies" is set against the backdrop of the First Crusade and offers stunning insights into medieval society. As Guibert of Nogent intimately recounts his early years, monastic life, and the bloody uprising at Laon in 1112, we witness a world - and a mind - populated by royals, heretics, nuns, witches, and devils, and come to understand just how fervently he was preoccupied with sin, sexuality, the afterlife, and the dark arts. Exotic, disquieting, and illuminating, "The Monodies" is a work in which the dreams, fears, and superstitions of one man illuminate the psychology of an entire people. It is joined in this volume by "On the Relics of Saints", a theological manifesto that has never appeared in English until now.