Chronicle of King Pedro Volumes 1 - 3 ed by Peter Such

Pero López de Ayala's Chronicle of King Pedro provides a compelling and richly informative account of the turbulent reign of the notorious but enigmatic fourteenth-century Castilian monarch who came to be known as Pedro el Cruel. It is a vitally important source for our understanding of the history of the Iberian Peninsula during this critical period in its development and of the complex social and political divisions by which the Spanish kingdoms were torn. 

This three-volume Chronicle gives us a gripping and wide-ranging picture of a period characterized by harsh brutality, conflict and betrayal but at the same time by the ideals of chivalry, memorably personified in figures such as the Black Prince and Bertrand du Guesclin. At its centre is the chilling portrait of King Pedro, a brilliantly constructed image of self-destructive evil. 

The translation is accompanied by a Spanish text taken from Germán Orduna's groundbreaking edition and by detailed notes. The introduction explores the background to the Chronicle's composition and sets López de Ayala's account against a broad canvas of events in the Spanish kingdoms and beyond. It examines how the chronicler's subtle artistry was used to create a picture of a deeply flawed monarch which has continued to exercise a profound fascination over the centuries.

Childhood, Youth and Religious Minorities in Early Modern Europe by Tali Berner

This edited collection examines different aspects of the experience and significance of childhood, youth and family relations in minority religious groups in north-west Europe in the late medieval, Reformation and post-Reformation era. It aims to take a comparative approach, including chapters on Protestant, Catholic and Jewish communities. 

The chapters are organised into themed sections, on 'Childhood, religious practice and minority status', 'Family and responses to persecution', and 'Religious division and the family: co-operation and conflict'. 

Contributors to the volume consider issues such as religious conversion, the impact of persecution on childhood and family life, emotion and affectivity, the role of childhood and memory, state intervention in children's religious upbringing, the impact of confessionally mixed marriages, persecution and co-existence. Some chapters focus on one confessional group, whilst others make comparisons between them.

Review: The Secret Diaries of Juan Luis Vives by Tim Darcy Ellis

Synopsis: It is 1522, The Spanish Netherlands, Juan Luis Vives, a renowned academic, has fled Spain to avoid the fires of the Inquisition, yet even here he is not safe. When England's Sir Thomas More offers him the role of tutor to Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII, he eagerly accepts.While publicly navigating life as a 'New Christian,' Vives is quickly drawn into the secretive and dangerous world of London's Jewish community. With a foot in each world, he is torn between the love of two women.

Inside the Tudor court, the king and queen separately seek Vives's assistance to support their opposed demands. He must betray one to help the other, knowing his decision could cost him his life. Whom will he choose? Will his wily skills allow him to manipulate them both? Not only his survival but that of his family and his entire people hang in the balance.

But first, a little background ....

The Jews In England:

There were individual Jews living in England in Roman and Anglo-Saxon times (80-1066 A.D.), but not an organized community. When William the Conqueror arrived in England in 1066, he encouraged Jewish merchants and artisans from northern France to move to England. One of the oldest Jewish communities in England was in Oxford, where Jews had begun to settle as early as 1075. Jews still faced persecution and were not fully protected by the Crown. They were still the targets of attacks on themselves, their businesses, their communities. The 13th century witness rampant anti-semitism. 

By 1290 the inevitable happened when Edward I - who had found an alternative source of finance in the Italian merchants known as the "pope's usurers" - banished the Jews from England. England was the first European country to do so but in the following centuries France, Spain, Portugal and others would follow suit.

A small number remained, either by converting to Christianity or concealing their identity and religion. These converts were know as crypto-Christian or marranos. It was documented from Inquisition records that many still (secretly) practised their beliefs. The problem with the records of English Jewish converts to Christianity from the pre-Expulsion period is that their "former" Jewish names were rarely, if ever, recorded. A census of Oxford Jewish converts from the year 1247 survives and, typically, records only their new "Christian" names without any reference to their previous lifelong Jewish identity.

Small communities of Spanish and Portuguese conversos in London and Bristol were tolerated by both Henry VIII and Edward VI. Many were required to reside in the Domus Conversorum, or "House of Converts". Interestingly, Registers of the inmates of the London Domus Conversoruum from 1331 to 1608 survive, but only list forty eight Jewish individuals (38 men and 10 women) - over this entire period of 277 years.

Fast forward a couple of hundred years and we find Jews prominent at the Tudor and Elizabethan courts. Many of the foreign musicians at this time, notably the Lupos and Bassanos, were most probably also originally or covertly Jewish, brought over from Italy. Others might be found teaching Hebrew at Oxford and Cambridge, or helping Bodley with the Hebrew catalogue at the University Library. In fact, Henry VIII openly welcomed Jewish Hebrew scholars who he hoped would help him find the Biblical loophole through which he could extricate himself from his marital complications. (see Henry VIII & the Oxford Hebraists by Rabbi Eli, Oxford University Chabad Society)

Years later, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a converso, Hector Nunes was celebrated for being the first to give warning of he impending Spanish Armada.  And shortly after, a prominant Jew and converso, Roderigo Lopez, Elizabeth I’s personal physician, was tortured, then drawn and quartered in 1594 for allegedly conspiring to poison the Queen. As a result, many Jews fled to the Low Countries, often disguised as Catholics.

While the overwhelming majority of Elizabethans had never knowingly met a Jew, by the end of the 16th century, interactions between Jews and English were becoming more frequent, especially abroad, in Morocco and Turkey as well as in Antwerp, Amsterdam and Venice, where Jewish communities were flourishing. These encounters gradually called into question many of the stereotypes that had prevailed in an England largely free of Jews for 300 years.

So, for more than 300 years no Jew, officially, existed in the country. It was not until Charles I was beheaded that the Jews felt safe to return. In 1655, the position of Jews in England was transformed when Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel of Amsterdam delivered his famous petition to the Council of State, requesting their readmission. Oliver Cromwell supported the petition and established that no actual law forbade readmission, thus paving the way for Jews to return to the country, a gradula process which took many years.

Jews In The Low Countries (Belgium, Flanders, the Netherlands)

In the 13th and 14th centuries, Jews settled in the Low Countries after being expelled from England and France, where they were received and permitted to settle, providing services, paying taxes and under the protection of the law. 

After the initial persecutions of the 14th century, another wave of immigration to Belgium came in the 15th century from Spain and Portugal, fleeing the Spanish Inquisition with Antwerp hosting the largest community. Whilst many Jews still remained in the Iberian peninsula under constant suspicion and fear of denunciation, practicing either their new religion in public and Judaism in secret, or both, the newly independent and tolerant Dutch provinces of the Low Countries provided more favourable conditions for observant Jews to establish a community, and to practice their religion openly. They also brought navigation knowledge and techniques from Portugal, which enabled the Netherlands to start competing in overseas trade with the Spanish and Portuguese colonies.

Juan Luis Vives (1493–1540) was a Spanish humanist and educational theorist who strong opposition to scholasticism made his one of the most influential advocates of humanistic learning in the early sixteenth century. After fleeing his native Valencia in the facing of the Spanish Inquisition (where his family, who converted from Judaisim to Christinaity, suffered greatly), he ended up in Paris where he was immersed in the learning offered there. Settling in Bruges (1514), he was introduced to Erasmus and appointed as tutor to the Flemish nobleman William of Croy. Vives lived in Louvain and taught at the Collegium Trilingue. From 1523 to 1528, Vives divided his time between England, which he visited on six occasions, and Bruges, where he married Margarita Valldaura in 1524. 

In England he attended the court of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, and was tutor to their daughter, Mary. He also held a lectureship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and associated with English humanists such as Thomas Linacre and Thomas More (though to what extent this intimate familial relationship was I am unsure). In 1528 he lost the favor of Henry VIII when he supported Catherine of Aragon in the matter of the divorce. He was placed under house arrest for a time, before being allowed to return to Bruges. The last twelve years of Vives’ life were his most productive, and it was in this period that he published several of the works for which he is best known today. 

Juan Luis Vives was a towering figure of the Renaissance, a man of immense learning, integrity, and originality, yet he still remains very little known, even to the scholarly world. His conception of Christianity was developed in a posthumous and influential treatise De veritate fidei Christianae. Among Vives’s last works was a handbook of private prayers intended for the laity.

This is the period we as readers are interested in - Vives time in Bruges, Louvain and England - the period in which he wrote his diaries, and of his ongoing battles with his personal and religious identities - he was the son of coversos and was born into Christianity - wherein he spent much time trying to reconcile these two facets of his identity, both privately and publicly.  Vives is portrayed as a tortured soul, pouring out his religious frustrations onto the pages of his (not so secret) diary.  He is a deeply flawed man, walking a political tightrope who is clearly out of his depth, and somewhat naive in his approach to the machinations of those around him.  The reader is also left wondering whether Vives is mourning not only the loss of his family (at the hands of the Inquisition) but also his religious identity - is he a Jew or Christian?

This is a fascinating and well researched work into a man who I would not hesitate to say is barely known.  Though a work of fiction, author Tim Darcy Ellis peppers the diary pages with real historical figures and events, giving that authenticity that readers love.  I would have liked to have known more about Vives actions in England toward bringing about an open Jewish settlement, however I am guessing documentation on this aspect is few and far between.  Overall, an enjoyable read on a less known figure.

read more here:

- Letters of Juan Luis Vivies at the Bodleian

- Juan Luis Vives on Poor Relief

- Church, Conversion & Religion by Kenneth Stow

- Chapter 2. A short history of the Conversos from The Long Journey of Gracia Mendes by Marianna D. Birnbaum

- Interfaith Encounters between Jews and Christians in the Early Modern Period and Beyond by Daniel Jütte

Jewish Women and Their Salons by Emily Bilski & Emily Braun

From their debut in Berlin in the 1780s to their emergence in 1930s California, Jewish women’s salons served as welcoming havens where all classes and creeds could openly debate art, music, literature, and politics. This fascinating book is the first to explore the history of these salons where remarkable women of intellect resolved that neither gender nor religion would impede their ability to bring about social change.

Emily D. Bilski and Emily Braun examine the lives of more than a dozen Jewish salonières, charting the evolution of the salon over time and among cultures, in cities including Berlin, Vienna, Paris, London, New York, and Milan. They show how each woman uniquely adapted the salon to suit her own interests while maintaining the salon’s key characteristics of basic informality and a diversity of guests. 

Other distinguished contributors to the volume discuss in detail the Berlin salons of the 1800s; the salon in terms of Jewish acculturation and its relation to gender and music; and the relations of Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, and Gertrude Stein to the literary salon. 

The book is enriched with a lavish array of illustrations, including documentary photographs, paintings, drawings, prints, and decorative arts.

Baldric of Bourgueil: "History of the Jerusalemites" translated by Susan Edgington

The first translation of Baldric's Historia Ierosolimitana, a spirited account of the First Crusade, into modern English.

The Historia Ierosolimitana is a prose narrative of the events of the First Crusade written at the abbey of Bourgueil in the Loire Valley around 1105. Its author, the abbot Baldric, used the anonymous Gesta Francorum for much of the factual material presented, but provided literary enhancements and amplifications of the historical narrative and the characters found therein, in order, as Baldric says, to make the Historia a more worthy account of the miraculous events it describes.

This volume provides the first modern-language translation of the Historia, with a full introduction setting out its historical, social, political and manuscript contexts, and notes. It will contribute to a revised exploration of the First Crusade, and facilitate much wider debates about the place of history writing in medieval culture, textuality and manuscript transmission.

The Woman Who Discovered Printing by T.H. Barrett

This beguiling book asks a set of unusual and fascinating questions—why is early Chinese printing so little acknowledged, despite anticipating Gutenberg by centuries? Why are the religious elements of all early printing overlooked? And why did printing in China not have the immediate obvious impact it did in Europe?

T. H. Barrett, a leading scholar of medieval China, brings us the answers through the intriguing story of Empress Wu (AD 625–705) and the revolution in printing that occurred during her rule. Linking Asian and European history with substantial new research into Chinese sources, Barrett identifies methods of transmitting texts before printing and explains the historical context of seventh-century China. He explores the dynastic reasons behind Empress Wu’s specific interest in printing and the motivating role of her private religious beliefs. He also deduces from eighth- and ninth-century Chinese records an explanation for the lesser impact of the introduction of printing in China than in Europe. 

As Renaissance Europe was later astonished to learn of China’s achievement, so today’s reader will be fascinated by this engaging perspective on the history of printing and the technological superiority of Empress Wu’s China.

Blog Tour: Sons of Rome

Sons of Rome is the first book in the brand new Rise of Emperors series, an action-packed historical thriller set in the 3rd century AD. It follows the lives of two men whose destinies are inextricably linked after a chance meeting in the city of Treverorum in their youth. They must share glory and heartbreak along with the Roman empire itself as it endures an era of tyranny and dread.

But just how did two authors decide to bring two characters together - in the same book. Well, here's how it all came about from the authors themselves.

How it Happened by Gordon Doherty & Simon Turney

Gordon and Simon have been friends and co-conspirators for more than a decade. They first came into contact on a peer-review writing website, on which they both honed their debut Roman novels. By 2012 they were firm friends and arranged to meet up at the annual Festival of History at Kelmarsh. It so happened that this particular year, the heavens opened, appalling rains flooded the site and the festival was cancelled. This left Gordon and Simon, along with a number of other friends, far from home in Leicestershire and with no festival to visit.

Cue a weekend spent largely in the pub. And like many great (and many awful) ideas, the notion of writing a joint novel was born in those hours of carousing and historical discussion that weekend. Initially, all that arose was the idea that it could be done. At that point even the plot and characters had not been decided. It was a nice idea that seemed nicer with every beer…

Then, the festival over, they returned home. However, unlike many pub-born ideas, this one refused to let go, and the project continued to nag at both of them. Ideas came in flurries, and emails were exchanged. Simon was at the time specialising in Republican Rome, and Gordon in the Late Roman Empire – periods over four hundred years apart. How then to bring their skills and knowledge together? It was a conundrum at first, but gradually the clouds parted and the most perfect answer was revealed. 

The story of Constantine and Maxentius – two giants of history from the period that irreversibly reshaped the Roman world, bridging Simon’s era to Gordon’s – was perfect. Even better, they realised, each of them could take on the ‘voice’ of one protagonist, and tell the tale in alternating chapters. It all snowballed dramatically from there.

They arranged to meet up to discuss all their plans. That meeting occurred in Gilsland on Hadrian’s Wall in 2013, involving laptops, scribbled notepads, Roman tattoos, visits to ruins and… yes, beer. One of the biggest decisions they made concerned the narrative point of view. The tale, they decided, would only work when told in the first person. Though this limited the scenes to events that happened in the presence of the protagonists, the point of view allowed for a much greater depth of emotion and character understanding than in third person. At the end of that weekend, the outline of the ‘Rise of Emperors’ series was already taking shape.

Fuelled with the desire to write this fascinating tale and to create these two larger than life characters, Simon and Gordon returned home to their respective writing desks. The story began to take shape one chapter at a time from the deeply detailed plan formed at Hadrian’s Wall. The notion was simple. Gordon would write a chapter from Constantine’s point of view. Simon would then read Gordon’s chapter and pick up with the next sequence of events in the story, these ones recounted from Maxentius’s point of view. This way, they crafted a seamless tale, making the reader privy to the escalating and entangling troubles of both characters – a fly on the walls of Rome’s imperial palace and on the battlements of the northern forts. Moreover, it meant that tweaks could be made throughout to keep things in line. The fact that there were two pairs of eyes on every passage in the book meant hiccups could be caught and be ironed out rapidly.

Further meetups followed – at least twice a year – always with Roman ruins nearby for inspiration, always with new scribbled notebooks, straining laptops, and always… always, with beer. And each time, the plot of the trilogy became better focused, more polished and tighter. It felt like a lifetime achievement when in 2015 the first book Sons of Rome was finished, and yet that was but the start. Simon and Gordon had scratched the surface, taking two young princes and propelling them to power. But now Maxentius and Constantine were adults with a destiny, and two more books awaited to bring the series to a conclusion. That meant… another meetup. More notes. More ruins. More laptops. More beer!

The Rise of Emperors trilogy began as an enjoyable experiment to see whether such a method of working in conjunction was possible. An experiment that became an obsession, which became an epic.

Review: The Lost & Damned by Olivier Norek

Synopsis: A corpse that wakes up on the mortuary slab. A case of spontaneous human combustion. There is little by the way of violent crime and petty theft that Capitaine Victor Coste has not encountered in his fifteen years on the St Denis patch - but nothing like this.

Though each crime has a logical explanation, something unusual is afoot all the same, and Coste is about to be dragged out of his comfort zone. Anonymous letters addressed to him personally have begun to arrive, highlighting the fates of two women, invisible victims whose deaths were never explained. Just two more blurred faces among the ranks of the lost and the damned.

Olivier Norek's first novel draws on all his experience as a police officer in one of France's toughest suburbs - the same experience he drew on as a writer for the hit TV series Spiral.

Translated from the French by Nick Caistor.

Brilliant! The synopsis covers it all: "Olivier Norek's first novel draws on all his experience as a police officer in one of France's toughest suburbs." 

Through the eyes of Capitaine Vincent Coste and his team, we accompany the Groupe Crime 1 of the Seine-Saint-Denis as they deal with some disturbing murders - even more than they are used to. "Murder is ... never a piece of theatre..." Reading some real-time stats, it seems that Seine-Saint-Denis holds the record for the highest rate of violence in France and in Europe. The area hosted a vast industrialised sector as well as farmland; unemployment was high; its growing population is one of the most ethnically mixed in the country.

So, what do these crimes have in common, will there be any more, will Coste be able to find the truth or will it be conveniently covered up and swept under the carpet.

The investigation isn't following all the usual lines - Coste feels like there is an unknown hand guiding him in a particular direction. The team sense a familiarity with past cases but just can't quite put their finger on it ... yet.

The writing flows so well that the chapters fly by and you find yourself fully immersed in the lives of Coste and his team of the SDJP93 as they try and solve these grisly crimes. You feel part of the team and have an invested interested in finding out the truth.

This is my first real foray into modern French crime fiction, having been introduced to this genre much earlier with Georges Simenon's "Maigret" and also through the great Frederic Dard's noir fiction. I loved every page of this crime thriller - and Norek's experiences and knowledge come to the fore when weaving this dark tale that is far removed from the gentile Parisian sidewalks of "Maigret". 

I am hoping that this is merely the first in a series that is being translated from the original French into English for a new generations of crime aficionados. Dip your toe in, you wont be disappointed. 

Capitaine Coste series by Olivier Norek:

- The Lost and Damned (aka Code 93)

- Terrtories

- Surges

Review: Charles I's Executioners by James Hobson

Synopsis: On an icy winter's day in January 1649, a unique event in English history took place on a scaffold outside of Whitehall: Charles I, King of England, was executed. The king had been held to account and the Divine Right of Kings disregarded. Regicide, a once-unfathomable act, formed the basis of the Commonwealth's new dawn.

The killers of the king were soldiers, lawyers, Puritans, Republicans and some simply opportunists, all brought together under one infamous banner. While the events surrounding Charles I and Cromwell are well-trodden, the lives of the other fifty-eight men - their backgrounds, ideals and motives - has been sorely neglected.

Their stories are a powerful tale of revenge and a clash of beliefs; their fates determined by that one decision. When Charles II was restored he enacted a deadly wave of retribution against the men who had secured his father's fate. Some of the regicides pleaded for mercy, many went into hiding or fled abroad; others stoically awaited their sentence. This is their shocking story: the ideals that united them, and the decision that unmade them.

The Stuart period of history hasn't really been within my history purview - I know enough about it but have not really researched further indepth, preferring to focus instead on the traditional medieval period. Having said that, I love historical fiction, and with no real time boundaries, I have found myself wandering into the realm of the Stuarts over the past year or so. 

The regicides of Charles I featured in a number of historical fiction accounts of the period, and I became familiar with a few of the names - but not all, and certainly not their fates. So, after picking up a copy of Charles Spenser's "Killers of the King" I took the plunge, and was so pleased to be then able to read Hobson's account.

This is a more simplified version - it is not strictly a biography of the nearly 135 participants in the trial and execution of King Charles I of England, nor does it go into any great detail about the English Civil War (it is assumed that the reader has some fore-knowledge). What Hobson has done instead is present a series of themed vignettes of the 59 who actually signed the warrant of execution for King Charles I of England.

What I discovered was incredibly interesting. The men came mostly from the gentry class; their motivations varied from personal, political, economic, and religious; not all were active to the same capacity; not all were guilty to the same degrees; not all did it for "honourable" reasons. I also learnt that where their signatures were placed on the document was in no way indicative of their importance. The vignettes are not overly detailed - they cover off each individual's family background, motivation, career (pre and post execution) and their fate after the restoration of the English monarchy under Charles II.

Unless you are a keen student of the period, many of names will be very unfamiliar - and even Hobson questions why some were included on the list of those to be executed for treason when some who were more active participants got off scott free. What cannot be taken away from these men - of whom only nine suffered to be hanged, drawn and quartered - was that they all died well, believing in and in some cases, becoming martyrs, for their cause.

If you are looking to add to your knowledge for the English Civil War and the Restoration, you could do no better than to add this book to your recommended reading list. There are many small snippets that have intrigued me and now require further investigation.

further reading:

Killers of the King by Charles Spencer

The King's Revenge by Don Jordan

The Lives of the English Regicides by Mark Noble

The Regicides & the Execution of Charles I by Jason Peacey

A Coffin for King Charles by CV Wedgwood

Review: Murder During The Hundred Years War by Melissa Julian-Jones

Synopsis: In 1375, Sir William Cantilupe was found murdered in a field outside of a village in Lincolnshire. As the case progressed, fifteen members of his household were indicted for murder, and his armor-bearer and butler were convicted. Through the lens of this murder and its context, this book will explore violence, social norms and deviance, and crime and punishment 'at home' during the Hundred Years War.

The case of William Cantilupe has been of interest to historians for many years, ever since Rosamund Sillem brought it to light in her work on the Lincolnshire Peace Rolls in the 1930s, but this is the first time it has received a book-length treatment, taking relationships between the lords and their servants into account. The verdict - guilty of petty treason - makes this one of the first cases where such a verdict was given, and this reveals the deep insecurities of England at this time, where the violent rebellion of servants against their masters (and wives against their husbands) was a serious concern, enough to warrant death by hanging (for men) and death by burning (for women). The reader is invited to consider the historical interpretations of the evidence, as the motives for the murder were never recorded. The relationships between Sir William and his householders, and indeed with his own wife and, and whether the jury were right to convict him and his alleged accomplice in the first place.

This is a fascinating look at a controversial murder that took place in the period known as The Hundred Years War.

Sir William de Cantilupe, a nobleman with a lineage dating back to the Conquest, was murdered, his body left in a ditch. His entire household, including his wife, was suspect; however, both at the time and today, there are difficulties in piecing together events and provide a suitable outcome.

The investigation of crime in the 14th century was much different that today. Finding a body, Julian-Jones says, was a series matter for the village, who were considered to be collectively responsible for it and could be fined if it was found that they had concealed this fact from the authorities, who in essence were the local Sheriff and the Coroner. The role of Sheriff and Coroner were separate; the coroner represented the Crown's financial interests in court cases, and neither role technically sat in judgement - for "holding the pleas" was the jurisdiction of judges. However, the coroner - with or without a jury - could hold an inquest - an investigation to hear evidence from live witnesses who attend at court and also may be read witness statements from witnesses who are not present. Records of the crime, the victim and accused, and the verdict were documented - witness testimony was not.

In this instance, there were no surviving records of the trials of the various suspects and it is here that Julian-Jones brings to light similar criminal cases to illustrate each point she raises, whilst giving the reader a sense of proceedings. 

Medieval justice and criminal investigations is nothing like what we are used to today - social connections, social and financial position, and a person or family's good name counted for much. It is likely that juries were pulled firstly from the local gentry and then those on the next social rung under them. Thus, many of those being accused would be known - and human nature being what it is, it is hardly surprising that a person's social standing or reputation put them in a better light than some unknown person or itinerant traveller. It could also work in the reverse where one of suspect character would automatically be cast as the villain. Julian-Jones talks about "social cohesion and closing ranks" with the greater community lending its support to those within their own community.

But the question still remains - "cui bono" - who benefits? And that is possibly something that we will never really know for sure.

Using contemporary documents and accounts and past scholarship, Melissa Julian-Jones presents the reader with various hypotheses, whilst examining in detail both the members of the household (including the wife) and the extended family connections "... to consider likely scenarios ..". As such, it is necessary to gather as much background information as possible to contextualise possible narratives. In this day and age, family and familial connections were very important and it is necessary to delve into the background of all associated with this case in order to eliminate possible suspects and motives.

This is an excellent and well researched investigation of a cold case. Those with an interest in the medieval period and obscure criminal cases will enjoy this very much. 

read more here: 

The Murder of William de Cantilupe

Going Medieval with Melissa Julian-Jones

Review: The Highland Battles by Chris Peers

Synopsis: The wars fought in Scotland's northern and western highlands between the ninth and fourteenth centuries were a key stage in the military history of the region, yet they have rarely been studied in-depth before. Out of this confused and turbulent period came the more settled and familiar history of the region. The Highlands and islands were controlled by the kings of Norway or by Norse or Norse-Celtic warlords, who not only resisted Scottish royal authority but on occasion seemed likely to overthrow it.

Chris Peers explores the international background to many of these conflicts which had consequences for Scotland's relations with England, Ireland and continental Europe. At the same time he considers to what extent the fighting methods of the time survived into the post-medieval period. 

I think this book will send me off to become even further immersed in Scottish history. And whilst I considered myself sufficiently well read on this particular topic, there was still plenty to be learned. 

The battles themselves were detailed and included the events leading up to each particular battle, the engagement itself, and the aftermath. Not all were fought on land, some were on the water - which is not something that I feel many readers would be familiar with nor would the use of what is termed "guerilla warfare" which was one of the key components leading up to the battle known as the Field of Mam Garvia. Not all battles had an obvious outcome - oft times the victor did not live long enough to enjoy the spoils of war. Indeed, with regards to Tankerness, Peers comments that "... few of the participants were destined to die peacefully ...".

The structure of the armies, weapons and equipment is covered off fairly early on - to save repetition - as there is a lot of detail here. Use of archaeological evidence contemporary chronicles and the sagas add colour to the naval and land battles detailed within. It was rather an eye-opener to discover that the battle of Clairdon c.1198 was considered to be the " ... last full scale Viking battle fought on British soil ..." Peers also provides details at the end of each chapter for visiting the each of the battle sites or alludes to a probable site when the location is not as clear cut as we would like it to be.

As the synopsis states: "... The Highlands and islands were controlled by the kings of Norway or by Norse or Norse-Celtic warlords, who not only resisted Scottish royal authority but on occasion seemed likely to overthrow it ...". The participants belonged to the dynasties of Orkney, Man, Scotland and Norway and their offshoots. It was interesting to discover just how close those familial ties were amongst this group of protagonists, and often the feud carried on for a number of generations on both sides, especially between the Earls of Orkney and the Kings of Scotland, and the Kings of Norway and the Earls of Orkney.

The names of many of the protagonists were known to me: Thorfinn, Sigurd, Macbeth, Somerled, Alexander, Malcolm, Haakon. I myself have a number of biographies on the notable characters but Peers book ties them all in to the locations where they were dominant and shows the interaction and interpersonal relationships between them all. 

I was pleasantly surprised at the role of women with regards to the battle of Tankerness (c.1136). "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" comes readily to mind. Though in the Sagas we often read about women taking on the role of avenger or ensuring that any slight is revenged, so their role should not be discounted.

The reader will appreciate the map of battle sites, the appendices which list the kings of Scotland, Norway, the Isles and Man, and the Earls of Orkney. Each chapter also included the name of the battle, date and location, and the protagonists involved - and the outcome (though how it leads there is not so clear cut).

The Highland Battles is a well presented, well researched book, featuring seven lesser known military events in Scottish history from the 9th to 13th century which the reader will find rewarding. Definitely one for the Scottish history shelf of my library! 

Blog Tour - Sons of Rome

I am participating in the upcoming Blog Tour for "Sons of Rome" by Gordon Doherty & Simon Turney. "Sons of Rome" is the first part of the story of Constantine the Great and Maxentius. Feel free to drop by my blog on the 22nd October to learn how this amazing story came about. 

In the meantime, my review can be found here: >>  Sons of Rome review.

Howdunit by Martin Edwards

The following is courtesy of the CRA (The Crime Readers’ Association) newsletter:

Howdunit, just published by Collins Crime Club, is much more than a book about the craft of mystery writing by many of the world’s best crime novelists. It gives a unique variety of insights into the nature of the crime-writing life. Those insights will, I hope, fascinate everyone who loves a good mystery. For readers, the book gives a deeper understanding of the range and subtleties of the genre – and the way your favourite authors go about writing the stories you love. For people interested in writing, there are innumerable practical tips on everything from pleasing an editor to the pros and cons of self-publishing a novel.

Whatever type of crime fiction you enjoy, you’ll find plenty in Howdunit to entertain and surprise you. The contributors range from John Le Carré and Alexander McCall Smith to Val McDermid and Sophie Hannah – authors who have achieved so much, now joining together to share their expertise and experience. Their words of wisdom will be a source of positive encouragement and inspiration for people who want to write on days (and we all have them) when things aren’t going well. There’s plenty of technical know-how here, and the subjects discussed also include writer’s block (and techniques for surmounting it), improvisation, and motivation.

So – whodunit? Well, the book is edited by me and contains linked essays written by no fewer than ninety (yes, it’s a very big book!) members of the Detection Club, past and present. Howdunit celebrates the club’s ninety years of existence and is dedicated to Len Deighton, a hugely distinguished writer, who has been a member for fifty years. The club has a wonderful history but remains a small social body, not a professional and well-resourced representative body like the much larger CWA. There are, however, many connections between the two organisations. Among the ninety contributors to Howdunit are twenty former Chairs of the CWA and countless winners of Diamond, Gold, and other Daggers.

So, for instance, Ian Rankin explains ‘Why Crime Fiction is Good For You’, while Andrew Taylor discusses plotting in ‘How to Change Your Murderer’. Ann Cleeves talks fascinatingly about ‘Human Geography’, Robert Goddard about ‘Suspense’, Antonia Hodgson investigates ‘What Editors Want’, and Elly Griffiths explores ‘Social Media and the Death of Nancy’.

Most contributions were written specially for this volume, but we can also learn from writers of the past. So there are pieces by such legendary writers as Agatha Christie, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers, and P.D. James. Len Deighton sums it up perfectly: ‘As well as being a professional tutorial and an insight into the secret world of creative writing, Howdunit is a social document: a book that gives others a chance to see what our world is like.’

Read more about Martin and his work here.

Priestess of Pompeii: The Initiate’s Journey Book I by Sandra Hurt

From Blue Mountain Eagle:

Priestess of Pompeii: The Initiate’s Journey Book I, Sandra Hurt’s debut novel, easily could have taken the Oedipus route forward from infant abandonment to tragedy. Hurt, however, moves the story of the newborn Rufilla along a complexity of pathways to plumb a scenario closer to the story of Moses. Herein, we are led to consider the underlying concepts of ‘fate’ and faith, prophecy and prophetic calling, destined’ and destiny, providence and provide.

Be assured, at the forefront of Rufilla’s coming-of-age story is Hurt’s engaging panorama of Pompeii and its surrounding sites and cities, trade routes and industries before 79 A.D., before the tragic events of Mount Vesuvius buried the flourishing city, scattering those who could flee, encasing in hot lava those who could not. Hurt builds an epic with what is known and what eventually is surmised about Pompeii, based upon excavations that began in the mid-18th century. 

read more here @ Blue Mountain Eagle

‘War’ by Margaret MacMillan

From The New York Times:

After the Napoleonic Wars ended on the fields of Belgium, in 1815, many British took to wearing dentures that had been pried from the dead on the battlefield — “Waterloo teeth,” they were called. Scavengers scoured the same fields for bones, of both men and animals, and shipped millions of bushels to Yorkshire, where they were ground into dust and used for fertilizer.

So recounts Margaret MacMillan, the Canadian historian, in “War: How Conflict Shaped Us,” her richly eclectic discussion of how culture and society have been molded by warfare throughout history. As the above anecdotes suggest, MacMillan argues that war — fighting and killing — is so intimately bound up with what it means to be human that viewing it as an aberration misses the point; it’s in our bones. “War is waged by men; not beasts, or by gods,” MacMillan writes, quoting Frederic Manning, a poet and novelist of World War I. “To call it a crime against mankind is to miss at least half its significance.”

Finally, one of the most interesting stretches of MacMillan’s book is the section where she discusses war’s impact on art, and the struggles of artists, throughout history, to convey the inexplicable. 

read more here @ The New York Times

Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100

From The New York Review of Books:

At some point between 776 and 786, an English nun in the Bavarian monastery of Heidenheim wrote four lines in a secret code in the space between the end of one Latin text and the beginning of another. She was the author of both—accounts of the lives of Saints Wynnebald and Willibald—but had left them anonymous, describing herself at the start of one as no more than an “indigna Saxonica” (“unworthy Saxon woman”). The code was deciphered only in 1931, by the scholar Bernard Bischoff. Decoded and translated from the Latin, the line reads, “I, a saxon nun named Hugeburc, composed this.” In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf observed that “Anon…was often a woman.” Sometimes Anon was hiding in plain sight.

Hugeburc’s authorship might strike you as surprising. Reading certain literary histories, you could be forgiven for thinking that ladies didn’t do any authoring until more recent times. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s 1985 edition of The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women: The Traditions in English dismissed the medieval and early modern period as “the Dark Ages” of “the female imagination.” But as Diane Watt, a professor of medieval literature at the University of Surrey, makes clear in Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100, the history of English women’s literature is older than popularly thought. It is as old as the history of “overwriting”—a kind of medieval textual mansplaining, whereby women’s contributions were erased or refashioned by male authors.

read more here @ The New York Review of Books

Happy Birthday Women of History Blog

Women of History is coming up to another birthday milestone - its 22nd birthday!

Please drop by my first website / blog Women of History 

and check it out!

Jane Harper's secret ambition was to write a book. Now she's sold millions

From The Age: 

When Jane Harper was invited to visit the set during filming of her first novel, The Dry, she took full advantage. The director, Robert Connolly, was on location in outback north-west Victoria and needed extras for a scene being shot in a small church. Harper didn't need to be asked twice, showing up with about a dozen friends and family ready to play grieving townspeople.

What particularly delighted her was that the tone was "pitch perfect" and Eric Bana great as her federal investigator Aaron Falk. "I really liked how it was so true to the book without being a slavish reproduction. Robert Connolly has taken the important essential elements of it and turned it into a fantastic film in its own right."

She has always been a reader and thanks her parents for not making a fuss about it when she was a child. "It was never a big deal, never forced or encouraged, it was just always there. I could see that was the way they relaxed, a genuine hobby, and I absorbed that, which I'm really grateful for."  Perhaps that's why she always had a secret ambition to write a book.

read more here @ The Age

Edward the Confessor by Tom Licence

An authoritative life of Edward the Confessor, the monarch whose death sparked the invasion of 1066

One of the last kings of Anglo-Saxon England, Edward the Confessor regained the throne for the House of Wessex and is the only English monarch to have been canonized. Often cast as a reluctant ruler, easily manipulated by his in-laws, he has been blamed for causing the invasion of 1066—the last successful conquest of England by a foreign power.

Tom Licence navigates the contemporary webs of political deceit to present a strikingly different Edward. He was a compassionate man and conscientious ruler, whose reign marked an interval of peace and prosperity between periods of strife. More than any monarch before, he exploited the mystique of royalty to capture the hearts of his subjects. This compelling biography provides a much-needed reassessment of Edward’s reign—calling into doubt the legitimacy of his successors and rewriting the ending of Anglo-Saxon England.

The Great Pox by Jon Arrizabalaga, John Henderson, Roger French

One hundred and fifty years after the Black Death killed a third of the population of Western Europe, a new plague swept across the continent. The Great Pox—commonly known as the French disease—brought a different kind of horror: instead of killing its victims rapidly, it endured in their bodies for years, causing acute pain, disfigurement, and ultimately an agonizing death.

In this new study, three experts explore the impact of the new plague and society's reaction to its challenge. Using a range of contemporary sources, from the archives of charitable and sanitary institutions that coped with the sick to the medical tracts of those who sought to cure it, they provide the first detailed account of the experience of the disease across Renaissance Italy as well as in France and Germany.

The authors analyze the symptoms of the Great Pox and the identity of patients, richly documented in the records of the massive hospital for "incurables" established in early sixteenth-century Rome. They show how it challenged accepted medical theory and practice and provoked public disputations among university teachers. And at the most practical level, they reveal the plight of its victims at all levels of society, from ecclesiastical lords to the diseased poor who begged in the streets. Examining a range of contexts from princely courts and republics to university faculties, confraternities, and hospitals, the authors argue powerfully for a historical understanding of the Great Pox based on contemporary perceptions rather than a retrospective diagnosis of what later generations came to know as "syphilis."

Turns Out, Elizabethan Playwright and Poet Laureate Ben Jonson was a Murderer

From CrimeReads:

Turns out, Ben Jonson, the renowned Elizabethan playwright and the first poet laureate of England, was a murderer.

On September 22nd, 1598, when he was an (angry) young man of twenty-six, Jonson, a former bricklayer, encountered a young actor named Gabriel Spencer. Jonson was not yet an established playwright, having had his play Every Man in his Humour only very recently debuted at the prominent Curtain Theater (which would later be moved and rebuilt as the Globe). The two men found themselves embroiled in a conflict, which the courts maintained that Jonson started. They ruled this despite Spencer’s violent history; he had previously killed a young boy when the boy had threatened to throw a candlestick at him. Then again, Jonson also had a violent history; in his own accounts he mentions that before the Spencer affair, he had killed someone while abroad in the Low Countries, simply for sport? (Though he was not arrested for it.)

But Spencer and Jonson began a duel, during which he stabbed Spencer with his sword, killing him instantly. Jonson was arrested and thrown into Newgate Prison (where he panicked and converted to Catholicism from a visiting priest, which was also a felony at England in this point in history).

Jonson was arraigned on October 6th, and confessed to the crime of manslaughter, for which crime he would be hanged. But then he did something extremely calculated; he called upon an obscure legal precedent.

read more here @ CrimeReads and his works @ Project Gutenberg

Making of the Neville Family in England, 1166-1400 by Charles Young

A study of power in the middle ages: the Nevilles of Raby, who included among their members Warwick the Kingmaker, was one of the major baronial families in England.

The story of the Neville family is a fascinating one. From their inconspicuous beginnings in Lincolnshire after the Norman Conquest, by the fourteenth century the Nevilles of Raby were among the most influential groups in the north of England, virtually ruling the area by means of the royal offices they held, and their political power reached its zenith in the fifteenth century with Richard de Neville, earl of Warwick, the so-called Kingmaker. 

This new study aims to answer the question of how a family of knightly status but with no special prominence was able to rise to such heights, tracing its growth and development through a careful examination of surviving documents; it also illustrates how the governance of medieval England worked with the cooperation of baronial families in a pragmatic manner, quite apart from any abstract legal or constitutional principles.

see also:

- The Lordly Ones: A History of the Neville Family and Their Part in the Wars of the Roses by Geoffrey Richardson
- The Nevills of Middleham: England's Most Powerful Family in the Wars of the Roses by KL Clark
- Warwick the Kingmaker by Michael Hicks

Beth Doesn't Always Die in Little Women. Sort Of

From Anne Foster on BookRiot:

If someone asked you does Beth die in Little Women, what would your response be? To me, it’s obvious: of course she did. Her demise is up there in the pantheon of literary deaths alongside Ophelia, Jacob Marley, and Matthew Cuthbert. But, as it turns out, this is not a simple yes or no question. And thus, an investigation.

Louisa May Alcott’s debut novel was published in 1868 with the very long title Little Women: Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. The Story Of Their Lives. A Girl’s Book. This work, which Alcott never intended to have a sequel, ends with Beth contracting scarlet fever and recovering. 

But her publisher, thrilled with the sales figures for this book and hearing from the public about their desire for a sequel, requested that Alcott provide one. She did, in a second book published in 1869, titled Good Wives.

Most American editions combine both books into a single volume, titled Little Women. In the United Kingdom, the preference is apparently to keep them separated into two volumes. And thus, the existence of two books, both titled Little Women and both by Louisa May Alcott, that end in two entirely different ways.

read more here @ BookRiot

Review: The Murder of Edward VI by David Snow

Synopsis: We all know the story of Henry VIII, the man who created a religious schism for the sake of divorce. A man desperate for a son he had six wives. Henry VIII had only one son in his life, Edward VI, and this is his story...

Edward ascended to the throne of England at just nine years old and became the last male of the House of Tudor, dying at the young age of fifteen under somewhat dubious circumstances. Was it poison or tuberculous? Was Edward’s half-sister, Bloody Mary, the murderer?

In The Murder of Edward VI, readers follow castle intrigue through the eyes of Richard Barton, a fictional protagonist who takes part in the events of the period. What starts as a story of King Henry’s desperate efforts to obtain a healthy male heir ends in murders.

The premise is the murder of Edward VI, son and heir of Henry VIII of England, with events being recounted by one Sir Richard Barton, a confidant of Henry.

After suffering a number of illnesses, in January 1553 Edward became seriously ill with fever, progressive weakness, and shortness of breath. He was troubled by a persistent cough, his legs swelled so severely that he had to lie on his back. He became increasingly worse and died in July 1553. At his autopsy, two large “putrefied ulcers” were found in his lungs. His physicians declared that he had died of consumption, which has been interpreted as tuberculosis. The truth is we will never know for sure whether it was tuberculosis or not. But we do know it was a long, painful and excruciating death.

This is a fictional work and one in which the author has admittedly taken many liberties with the facts. It is speculative history, positing an alternate or plausable scenario for an historical event that may have been shrouded in a bit of mystery. Sometimes it works - sometimes it doesn't. Unfortunately, this didn't.

The plot - the alleged murder of Edward VI - was a good start. However, it was in the execution (pardon the pun) of the storytelling that I think a good idea became quite lost. We begin with the imprisoned Barton retelling the tale of how he came to be in this predicament to William Cecil, Chief Minister of Elizabeth I. 

" ... years of confinement have made it difficult .. to distinguish between that which is real and that which is imagined, or even to correctly recall events in the sequence of time in which they occurred ... "

The first line of the synopsis says "we all know the story". Unfortunately, we spend far too much time in the court / reign of Henry VIII laboriously retelling this known story before we get anyway near the murder plot (page 357 out of 408). I am fairly certain that the narrative of the preceding thirteen chapters could have been condensed and then the final chapters expanded to reveal more of the "plot" and courtly intrigue.

The detailed accounts of the fictional Barton's time in Calais, in Rome sparring with Pope Clement VII, and as a witness to the political skirmishes between Henry and his chief ministers could and should have been seriously condensed. A simple couple of chapters of background and then get into it from the birth of Edward. This period, where the plot against Edward by Mary was to be manifested, should have been given more page time - and here the "castle intrigue through the eyes of Richard Barton" should really have started to take shape and formalise. It was claimed that upon his succession, Edward kept a diary which upon reading, "... portrays him as cold, unfeeling and uncompromising – a dangerous blend of traits that might have hardened into tyranny if he had lived ..." (source: History Extra).  But Edward's reign, including his relationship with his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, is merely glossed over until he is presented to us on his deathbed.

In addition, I did not feel that the Marta narrative necessary, nor did I find the Catherine / Mary narrative convincing. Then we skip over the succession of Lady Jane Grey - which was okay - and then onto Mary's quest for the throne. Just what our narrator - who passes himself off as a loyal supporter of Henry and Edward - was doing at this time in unknown until he comes before an "angry, aggressive, bitter" Mary, and ends up in the tower. 

Back to the present, Barton finally tells Cecil what exactly it was that he knew of Edward's death. Barton laments "... she got all of use, just as she promised her mother she would, everyone who had ever harmed her mother or stood between Mary and the throne was dead .."

I just really did not bond with Barton - I didn't find him a credible character, and could not understand why he - and not one of the many other confidants of Henry VIII - would be included in the cabal of Henry, Cramner and Wolsey, especially concerning the activities of the Star Chamber. Even Cecil doubts Barton's character and involvement! I wasn't a fan of the structure of the narrative which really let down what could have been a more engaging story.

Those who liked the TV Series, "The Tudors" and are fine with a generous amount of artistic license may like this - but I would suggest doing so with a very open mind. For the purists, maybe not.