Introduction While reading the Bible to better understand Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, a few urgent questions suddenly popped up: Should dangerous knowledge be hidden from people? Having previously worked on a banned books project, I know that literature is frequently banned and censored. However, the issue gets much trickier when the knowledge…
Category: Historical Context
The Bible and the Name of the Rose
While reading The Name of the Rose, I kept wondering why the monks were so obsessed with the Book of Revelation. At first, I did not have enough background knowledge to understand what was happening. So I decided to go back to the source material itself and read parts of the Bible, including: The more…
The Poisoned Book in The Name of the Rose
~ Knowledge, Power, and the Fear of Laughter In previous posts, I explored how medieval books were made and why certain texts were considered dangerous. However, the more I studied medieval libraries, the more I realized that books were never viewed as neutral objects. So, I started to see books as the means of preserving…
The Fear of Books in The Name of the Rose
~Knowledge, Power, and Forbidden Truth When I first began researching the material culture behind The Name of the Rose, I focused mostly on how medieval books were physically made: parchment, vellum, inks, scriptoria, and libraries. But the deeper I went into Umberto Eco’s world, the more I realized something important. In the novel, books are…
How Medieval Books Were Made: Libraries, Power, and Knowledge in The Name of the Rose
Medieval books and libraries When I started researching The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, I became unexpectedly fascinated by the physical reality of medieval books. Modern readers, including myself, often treat books as ordinary objects. We buy them cheaply, stack them on shelves, underline passages, or abandon them halfway through without much thought….
The Hidden Power Structures Inside The Name of the Rose
~Mapping Power Structures inside The Name of the Rose When I first reread The Name of the Rose, I approached the medieval Church with a very modern assumption. I imagined a simple hierarchy: corrupt authorities at the top, obedient monks below, and a giant institutional machine driven mostly by money and power. But the deeper…
Life Inside a Medieval Abbey: Monks, Knowledge, Poverty, and Power in The Name of the Rose
Life inside a medieval Abbey, Monks, Knowledge, Poverty, and Power in The Name of the Rose When I started reading The Name of the Rose, I thought I was reading a medieval murder mystery. Instead, I ended up investigating life inside medieval abbeys and monasteries, theological conflicts, manuscript culture, inquisitors, poverty movements, and even medieval…
Did Christ Own Property? The Real Conflict Behind The Name of the Rose
One of the things that makes historical fiction so interesting is this strange tension:What is real, and what only feels real? When I started reading The Name of the Rose, I realized very quickly that I couldn’t just follow the mystery. There was something deeper happening beneath the surface, something historical, something theological, and maybe…