Yesterday or so I finished reading The Name of the Rose. It's a very interesting novel, you see, it's a murder-mystery set in a 14th century Italian monastery. A visiting British monk, who combines the qualities of William of Occam and Sherlock Holmes, sets about trying to discover who is committing the murders. Meanwhile, a council is meeting at the monastery to discuss whether or not Jesus owned the rags that he wore. Now, this sounds completely pointless, but if Jesus did own his rags, then it means that the church can legitimately own property, and then this has ramifications on the geopolitical balance between France and the Holy Roman Empire. This, of course, gets tied into the murders. It's all really quite fascinating. The author, Umberto Eco, was a medieval historian who specialized in studying manuscripts and monasteries, so the book does a really excellent job displaying the monastic way of life as well as giving the reader a view into the medieval mindset. Nifty stuff. They made a movie of it a few years back starring Sean Connery and Christian Slater. It's...not as good as the book.