Nicholas of Clairvaux started his career as a Benedictine but ended up at Clairvaux where he was the secretary of St Bernard. He later became known as 'the black sheep of the Cistercian order' and was expelled from Clairvaux on a charge of fraudulent letter writing. During his life he was responsible for at least two letter collections, which are contained within this volume, with facing-English translation and scholarly commentary. The letters are of great scholarly interest not only for the writer's proximity to historical events in the early twelfth-century, but also for the insights he provides into monastic culture.