These essays focus on the adaptation to secular settings of originally hermetic or monastic writings. They derive from a conference celebrating the consecration of St Hugh of Avalon and illustrate his life and the relationship between the hermetic Carthusian vocation and the outside world; the reflection of the world in religious literature and the transmission and alteration of mystical and devotional ideals and writings for a secular audience. The essays reflect the process of Hugh's own life. They begin in the desert of the 12th century and end in the city on the eve of the Reformation.