Translating into English the work of a deliberately difficult writer, whose declared aspiration is to be as hermetic as possible, might become a quixotic task, if Guibert's passion and energy had been focused only on providing a performance worthy of Martianus Capella. [19] The abbot of Nogent, however, also provides additional material, excises or corrects stories that he considers inaccurate, or worse, and, as his corrective title indicates, alters the focus of the material. The results of Guibert's efforts certainly provide unusually rich material for those interested in medieval mentalité. In addition, since history was a branch of rhetoric during the middle-ages (i.e., it was a part of literature),[20] those interested in intertextual aspects of medieval literature will find a treasure trove, particularly since Guibert eventually sets about correcting and improving two earlier texts.[21] A clear example of what Guibert means by improvement occurs in his amplification of the Crusaders' arrival at Jerusalem. Where the Gesta Francorum had provided: We, however, joyful and exultant, came to the city of Jerusalem... Guibert composes a veritable cadenza on the arrival: Finally they reached the place which had provoked so many hardships for them, which had brought upon them so much thirst and hunger for such a long time, which had stripped them, kept them sleepless, cold, and ceaselessly frightened, the most intensely pleasurable place, which had been the goal of the wretchedness they had undergone, and which had lured them to seek death and wounds. To this place, I say, desired by so many thousands of thousands, which they had greeted with such sadness and in jubilation, they finally came, to Jerusalem. Amplifications like this, magnifying the internal, psychological significance of the events, while simultaneously insisting upon the religious nature of the expedition, characterize Guibert's response to the Gest Francorum. His desire to correct is complicated by the competitive urges that emerge when he faces the other apparently eye-witness account of the First Crusade that became available to him, Fulcher of Chartres' Histori Hierosolymitana.[22] Where he had offered gently corrective remarks about the crudeness of the Gest Francorum, Guibert mounts a vitriolic attack on Fulker's pretentiousness: Since this same man produces swollen, foot-and-a-half words, pours forth the blaring colors of vapid rhetorical schemes,[23] I prefer to snatch the bare limbs of the deeds themselves, with whatever sack-cloth of eloquence I have, rather than cover them with learned weavings.[24]