Words of Seduction

The first and longest letter in the collection left by Hugh Metel (d. c. 1150), an Augustinian canon of St. Léon, Toul, in the region of Lorraine, to Bernard of Clairvaux, promotes our understanding of geopolitical, religious, and social dynamics between Burgundy, Rome, and the Holy Roman Empire in the first half of the twelfth century. Based on this lengthy letter, Hugh Metel proves himself to be a self-aware writer, well-versed in the epistolary and social developments of his age, and engaged in the same social milieu as Albero of Montreuil and Bernard of Clairvaux and much more involved in the political and religious milieu of the mid-twelfth century than his relative obscurity today might lead us to believe.