Monodies and On the Relics of Saints

Guibert of Nogent (c. 1060-c. 1125) was a French monk who has emerged as one of the most original thinkers of the twelfth century. Joseph McAlhany is a professor of classics and great ideas at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Jay Rubenstein, a MacArthur Fellow and Rhodes scholar, is a professor of history and the director of the Center for the Premodern World at the University of Southern California and the author of the first comprehensive study of Guibert's life and thought in over a century.

"The fascination of this elegantly translated volume lies in Guibert's perceptions of his own time, so utterly different from the worldview of a modern Westerner. Jay Rubenstein is a learned, witty, and sympathetic host as he introduces us to one of the twelfth century's most idiosyncratic, confessional, and engaging writers." —Diarmaid MacCulloch, author of Christianity & The Reformation"Marvelous: a revelation. I had not heard of Guibert of Nogent. His Monodies is a very dark autobiography and profoundly moving in its visions of sin." —Harold Bloom"This magnificent autobiography has all the stuff of a psychological drama, the excitement of a great social upheaval, and the intrigue of a monastic mystery. It is one of those rare books that both delights scholars of the period and makes fascinating reading for the general literate soul." —R. Howard Bloch, Yale University“This is a valuable addition to medieval literature, and Penguin are to be applauded for adding it to their list of Classics. . . . The Monodies has been translated before but clumsily, and here at last is a smooth and comprehensible version. . . . [It] provides an intriguing insight into the mind of a medieval monk . . . a complex and troubled man, austere, conservative, at sea with a changing world . . . an isolated and introspective figure who broods continually on his relationship with God. This is, of course, one of the reasons why the Monodies is so interesting.” —Charles Freeman, History Today