Life of Christina of Markyate: A Twelfth Century Recluse

Christina of Markyate was born of well-to-do burgesses of Huntingdon, England, at the dawn of the 12th century. Her parents betrothed her to a local nobleman, but the marriage was not consummated. Christina eventually escaped, became a recluse and a nun, and then the prioress of a small community at Markyate in Hertfordshire, under the patronage of the abbot and monks of St. Albans. Written by one of her chaplains largely from her own reminiscences, this classic biography gives an exceptionally vivid account of the struggles of a young medieval girl and provides invaluable insight into 12th-century ecclesiastical and social history.