This book places the life of Aelred of Rievaulx, third abbot of the English Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx, within the hundred-year period from the Norman Conquest of England in October 1066 through Aelred's death in January 1167. While exploring what is known of Aelred's life from his own works and especially from the principal work of Walter Daniel, author of The Life of Aelred of Rievaulx, Burton considers the influence of both English and church history on Aelred's personality and purpose as Christian, abbot, and writer. He emphasizes the place of the crucified Christ at the center of Aelred's life while calling spiritual friendship--not only personal but cosmological--the "hermeneutic key" to his teaching.
