Goscelin of St Bertin: The Book of Encouragement and Consolation [Liber Confortatorius]
Title Details

190 Pages

21.6 x 13.8 cm

Series: Library of Medieval Women

Imprint: D.S.Brewer

Goscelin of St Bertin: The Book of Encouragement and Consolation [Liber Confortatorius]

Translated by Monika C Otter

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  • Reviews
Late eleventh-century spiritual counsel for a woman recluse, anticipating medieval advice literature for anchoresses.

Goscelin's Liber Confortatorius is extraordinary both as an example of high-medieval spiritual practice and as a record of a personal relationship. Written in about 1083 by the monk Goscelin to a protegee and personal friend, the recluse Eva, it takes up the tradition of St Jerome's letters of spiritual guidance to women, and anticipates medieval advice literature for anchoresses. As a compendious treatise, it has much to tell us about the intellectual interests and preoccupations of religious people in the late eleventh century. As a personal document, it allows a fascinating and uncommonly intimate insight into the psychology of religious life and the relationships betweenmen and women in the high middle ages. This English translation is presented here with notes and introduction.

Monika Otter is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College.
"Provides ambitious students of the Middle Ages with a rare opportunity to experience in English the complex, rich, and often impenetrable world of the monastic imagination, as dazzling in what it reveals as it is frustrating for what it conceals." THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW

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9781843842941

March 2012

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9781846152641

September 2004

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Title Details

190 Pages

2.16 x 1.38 cm

Series: Library of Medieval Women

Imprint: D.S.Brewer