The Name of the Rose; by Umberto Eco.

Medieval times era of Inquisition when people were burnt alive at stake, quite regularly, for being disobedient in the slightest measure to the authority of church in any matter whatsoever, and consequent social and psychological upheavals and insecurities.

Monasteries attempting to preserve knowledge and travelling monks in search of the knowledge. Various sects attempting to search for a spiritual path proliferate. People have ideas and visions, and wish to reform the established decrepit decay.

Ordinary people serve landowners including monasteries and suffer horrendous punishments for ordinary normal human behaviour.

People who would rather hide knowledge and let darkness prevail - for sake of survival really, but ostensibly in name of faith, and obedience to authorities in all matters - manage to finally survive through it all. Others often don't, however innocent of any guilt.

From murders in an abbey to looking for clues in dark towers to finding a monk bent on hiding an ancient Greek manuscript and stopping at nothing in the attempt only because the said manuscript by a much revered ancient Greek philosopher not only allows but justifies and exalts laughter and joy, which the monk cannot allow for sake of faith holding fear of church supreme and hence must wipe out any trace of any idea to the contrary, it is a bewildering journey the reader is taken through by the writer.

Strangely enough the protagonist justifies it all, holding fear and obedience to church as the only virtue, and equating thought with arrogance and denouncing it all, and justifying burning down libraries for the effort to keep authorities supreme. One wonders if Eco is keeping his own defence just in case, in name of protagonist and his declarations at the end, or is it all a dark portrayal of the times and that is all.

A portrayal of those dark times that are past, thankfully.