Europe through literature discussion

The choice for this month is The Name of the Rose.

I am learning a lot about what being a monk was about in 1327. I realize the action is taking place in a high-end monastery with scholars and it is not a typical neighborhood church establishment. It's interesting how superstitious fears mix into genuine academic researches.

I read Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts not long ago: a non-fiction introduction to some of the books that were produced in this kind of setting, so it's interesting to see the subject from a different angle.
Although, on the surface, these superstitions seem amusing to us today, when you look carefully there are plenty that still exist even now...

The ridiculous waste of these centuries of pseudo-logical philosophical debates parsing religious superstitions is what makes my brain flop around and die though.