Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is set in a Benedictine abbey in Northern Italy in the fourteenth century. This was a time of turmoil, and all over Europe the Church is persecuting members of the Fraticelli, followers of a lapsed Franciscan monk. He was burned at the stake some twenty years before. He had advocated total poverty, a move that is feared because it might undermine the authority of the Church. The Emperor is supporting the Fraticelli precisely in order to undermine the power of the Church.
This is the background. The story is told by Adso, a young acolyte at the monastery. He is to assist the newly arrived Guglielmo da Baskerville, sent to act as mediator between the forces of tolerance and the Pope's inquisitor, who is stopping at the abbey on his way South. The abbey is in turmoil because of the death of a monk, and the monk was murdered. Baskerville is asked to take over the investigation--as an outsider, he will have a fresh eye, and he also has a reputation for being able to solve puzzles of this sort. The other notables have not yet arrived, and he is to solve this crime before they do. More monks are murdered before he can accomplish this task.
The murders seem to be following a pattern based on the Book of Revelations. The library of the monastery is central to the case--the monks there copy manuscripts with painstaking detail, and it is soon apparent that there are secret books in the library that someone would kill to protect, or to keep away from others. This manuscript is referred to as a dangerous codex. Baskerville does ultimately solve the mystery and discover the murderer, but in the course of this discovery the abbey is burned to the ground, along with the offending manuscript and all other manuscripts in the library.
A retelling of the plot of the story does not give a true sense of the style. The plot seems simple enough--a murder mystery set in a Benedictine monastery in t...