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A Monk's Confession: The Memoirs of Guibert of Nogent. Translated and introduced by PAUL J. ARCHAMBAULT. University Park, Pa.: Penn State Press, 1995. xliv + 225 pp. $35.00 cloth; $14.95 paper.
Here is a new translation of a work that, for the sheer illustrative variety of its contents, has become standard reading in medieval history courses. The memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent (1055-around 1125) include not only an autobiography that illustrates the celebrated and debated twelfth-century awareness of self, but also a detailed account of an emergent urban commune (Laon) rebelling against ecclesiastical and feudal-aristocratic authority, an assortment of exempla, some specimens of exegesis, an instructively biased description of heresy, and more besides-all in a (rather loud) voice that still engages readers. The work is already available in the translation by the late John...