De vita sua

the long version

The author gives a unique picture of life and northwestern France at the turn of the twelfth century. He shows not only the glories but also the tensions of this transitional age, which gave birth to the reform of the Church, to new intellectual and spiritual movements, and to far-reaching social and economic developments, but which at the same time saw growing resistance to the established authority of the Church and feudal aristocracy, the turbulence of the rising urban classes, and the first stirrings of doubt with regard to many traditional beliefs. [Back cover].