Gillian R. Knight, The Correspondence between Peter the Venerable and Bernard of Clairvaux: a Semantic and Structural Analysis.

Gordon-Taylor, Benjamin

Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), xii + 303 pp. ISBN 0-7546-0067-X. 45.00 [pounds sterling]. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), Abbot of Citeaux, was a prolific letter-writer. Gillian R. Knight's monograph focuses on his frequently pungent exchanges with his monastic rival and near-exact contemporary Peter the Venerable (c. 1092-1156), Abbot of Cluny. It is a detailed study of what the letters tell us about the writers, the issues with which they deal, their value as historical sources, and also what they reveal more generally about the nature and style of medieval correspondence. The racy chapter headings, among them 'Fraudulent alms and monstrous election' and 'Salvation, damnation and cohabitatio', point to an attractively readable yet scholarly study which contains much of interest for historian, theologian, and student of medieval literature alike.