The Cornerstone — Zoe Oldenbourg

The Cornerstone is a vast, richly tapestried novel of the Middle Ages, the chronicle of three generations of barons living in the province of Champagne in thirteenth century France. -- Haugenier, the son, is a young man devoted to the code of chivalry and the elaborate ritual of courtly love. Herbert, the father, is a gross and powerful man who lives surrounded by this concubines and bastard children, flouting the rules of the Church yet haunted by his sins of murder and incest. Ansiau, the old man, has given away his lands to set out as a beggar on the long pilgrimage to Jerusalem and seek peace with his God.

In The Cornerstone, the distinguished French novelist Zoe Oldenbourg opens the door on a world utterly different from our own, yet strangely human and vividly alive. The very breath of the Middle Ages and its chivalry, its crusades, its coarse human passions, are recreated before us in this brilliant novel.