Today (October 13th) is the feast of St. Gerald of Aurillac, which means it’s time for me to point you to fun for junior historians. Biography in general is a useful way to study history, because you quickly get past the generalizations and see what people really did. Even better is biography written in the era you are studying, so that you not only find out what happened, but how the contemporaries viewed the events.
St. Odo of Cluny wrote a biography of St. Gerald, which you can read in English here. In the same volume is the life of St. Odo, written by John of Salerno. Be warned, per that “how the contemporaries viewed the events” that there’s quite a lot of concern about fish. In a measure of the cultural divide between now and then, understand that we are not meant to be amused, we are meant to be warned. Sober up and lay off the venison.
Tip: If you search on Géraud d’Aurillac or Géraud Aurillac in Wikimedia you get more search results. Neat stuff.
Image: [GFDL or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons
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