A FULL AND FAITHFUL TRANSLATION
The Carmina Burana, or Songs from Benediktbeuern, the name of the monastery in Bavaria where the thirteenth-century manuscript was discovered in 1803, is a seminal work of the Middle Ages, exposing an often unseen facet of the medieval ethos through the eyes of a vast array of writers. From monks, lawyers, clerics, scholars, bishops, and theologians, to drunkards, poets, students, gamblers, madmen, and wasting lovers, this unique corpus captures their thoughts over the course of three hundred years. Religious hypocrisy, courtly love, venal courts where...