<p>Christina of Markyate was a gifted twelfth-century English woman, whose visions brought her local fame and who once owned the renowned St Albans Psalter. As a young girl she refused the sexual advances of the Bishop of Durham and ran away from home rather than consummate a forced marriage. Christina was hidden for years by rural hermits, developed a passionate attachment for one of her rescuers, and finally achieved the religious life she had always wanted, as a Prioress. The Abbot of St Albans came to rely on her spiritual gifts and commissioned a biography of her, but was she the saint he thought her to be?</p><p>In this carefully researched and insightful novel, Ruth Mohrman goes beyond the medieval account of Christina's life to imagine a woman who was many things at once. A lover of beautiful things who spent years in poverty, a divine seer bound by the past, a woman pledged to chastity who had intimate relationships with powerful men. Haunted by the secrets she was obliged to keep, in <em>Gold of Pleasure</em> Christina finally finds a measure of peace in the place she least expects.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>