#edith pargeter

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

So I leaped in and joined him, and we swam a while, and lay in the shallows together after, letting the cool of the stream flow over our shoulders and down our loins. He lowered his head back into it until only the oval of his face broke the surface, and his hair stood wavering out from his temples like yellow weed or pale fern.

Edith Pargeter, Sunrise in the West

#book quotes #literature #historical fiction #edith pargeter #swimmers #books and libraries #quotes

[brigittemarlt]

Cadfael, the hero of my youth. The medieval Sherlock Holmes in search of truth was a huge influence to me in my law career. His humanity and his wisdom have helped me to grow up. In addition, his anti-conformist personality and his scientific knowledge make him a pioneer In a society frozen by the beliefs and superstition. He is a man beyond his time as a forensic scientist and investigator. Derek has a great gift to play masterfully ordinary men who have extraordinary destinies. He gives to his character a bright melancoly that touches us to heart. His performance has left me indelible memories. What he does In this part is just brilliant.

#derek jacobi #brother cadfael #ellis peters #edith pargeter #great british actors #british legends #medieval detective

[kenstewytruther]

need to get a tramp stamp but it’s a map of the shrewsbury abbey and surrounding village

#cadfael #derek jacobi #ellis peters #edith pargeter #dagger award #tramp stamps #kendall roy #succession #the sopranos #real #adriana la cerva #where is tabitha #rupaul charles

[fiction-quotes]

“Girl,” said Cadfael, breathing in deeply, “you terrify me like an act of God. And I do believe you will pull down the thunderbolt.”

  —  The Devil's Novice (Ellis Peters)

#book quotes #historical fiction #mystery fiction #ellis peters #edith pargeter #the cadfael chronicles #the devil's novice #brother cadfael #terror

[first--lines]

On this particular month at the beginning of December, in the year 1138, Brother Cadfael came to chapter in tranquility of mind, prepared to be tolerant even towards the dull, pedestrian reading of Brother Francis, and long-winded legal haverings of Brother Benedict the sacristan. Men were variable, fallible, and to be humoured. And the year, so stormy in its earlier months, convulsed with siege and slaughter and disruptions, bade fair to end in calm and comparative plenty. The tide of civil war between King Stephen and the partisans of the Empress Maud had receded into the south-western borders, leaving Shrewsbury to recover cautiously from having backed the weaker side and paid a bloody price for it. And for all the hindrances to good husbandry, after a splendid summer the harvest had been successfully gathered in, the barns were full, the mills were busy, sheep and cattle thrived on pastures still green and lush, and the weather continued surprisingly mild, with only a hint of frost in the early mornings. No one was wilting with cold yet, no one yet was going hungry. It could not last much longer, but every day counted as blessing.

  —  Monk’s Hood (Ellis Peters)

#book quotes #historical fiction #mystery fiction #ellis peters #edith pargeter #the cadfael chronicles #monk's hood

[une-sanz-pluis]

So, we know Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester was at Shrewsbury with the 16-year-old Hal (Prince Henry, the future Henry V etc.), whose guardian and governor he was. We know that some point before the 20th, Worcester slipped away from Shrewsbury to join with Henry "Hotspur" Percy in the lead up to his rebellion, bringing with him "a significant proportion of the garrison" and according to Walsingham, perhaps having stolen money and treasures from the Prince.

I sometimes wonder if Worcester had hoped to or tried to abduct Hal to serve as a hostage against Henry - or perhaps hoped to get him to defect to their side.

And can you imagine this poor 16-year-old kid discovering his guardian just abandoned him to join a rebellion against his father and the city's about to be under siege and his dad's nowhere in sight and a lot of the garrison's troops are gone? And he's in charge?

#this is what i talk about when i talk about how spending his adolescence dealing with rebellions and civil wars etc etc affected henry v #even if in this scenario the siege and/or hostage situation never came to anything... like jfc that poor kid #(and yes a 15th century 16 year old would be considered more mature than a modern 16 year old but not that much more mature) #he should have been worrying about pimples and sex not worrying about how to defend a city against a siege led by his own guardian #(edith pargeter in a bloody field by shrewsbury has hal being torn between his loyalty to his distant father and his love for hotspur) #(hotspur in the novel iirc refuses to force hal to decide between the two of them (this after all is a saintly chivalric dreamboat hotspur) #(is there any other kind?) #(and the choice is ultimately made for hal because henry iv's unexpected early arrival prevents hal from having to deal with a siege) #blog #henry v #thomas percy earl of worcester #battle of shrewsbury

[elgallinero]

Practice English

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#Edith Mary Pargeter #Ellis Peters #ESL #Pen Name #practice English

[victusinveritas]

Sir Derek Jacobi as the retired Crusader Knight come Benedictine Brother, Cadfael. Jacobi actually had his hair shaved into a tonsure during filming, instead of wearing a bald cap wig. Some actors felt that was a little too far; others had their own heads shaved.

Beside Sean Pertwee as Sheriff Hugh Beringar.

Great series of stories based on the novels written by the linguist-scholar Edith Pargeter (1913–1995) under the name "Ellis Peters."

In my family we always watched Cadfael on Christmas Eve. A) because it was on the local PBS station and B) because it had a monk and was therefore deemed Christmas adjacent. That it was also usually a murder mystery was just extra fun.

#brother cadfael #sean pertwee #ellis peters #bbc #medieval tv #medieval mysteries #medieval studies

[moxiebustion]

I'm not even remotely religious in any way, but I am begging people who are going to write about a character going into a monastery/nunnery whatever to please, please, please read some of the Cadfael Chronicles before you cast an entire population of people as fire-and-brimstone, self-mutilating, repressed, fanatical zealots.

For the uninitiated, the Cadfael Chronicles was a long series of medieval-set (specifically set in the 12th century) murder mysteries where the gumshoe role is taken by a monk who is well into middle age, a skilled herbalist and a former soldier and sailor who joined the Order late in his life (which for one, did happen!).

Now, there are some dated things about the writing that bears some examining; Ellis Peters (psued for Edith Pargeter) first started writing then in the late seventies (the last book was published 1994, a year before her death), and while she was a fantastic amateur self-taught scholar (she was so good she got an honorary degree from Birmingham University, having never even been to any higher education than high school) she is writing about the time of the Crusades and the Crusaders who invaded Jerusalem and she doesn't really delve that deep into the implications of her characters being involved in that, even though the characters are portrayed as the good guys, especially the titular one. But it's very possible most of the scholarship she had available for research at the time was all Western perspectives, which, you know, history is written by the winners, etc. She has a writers bias towards her protagonist, so of course he is framed fairly glowingly, though not without flaw.

But whether she had a view on the moral implications of the Crusades or not, the way she wrote medieval Britain and medieval Wales is absolutely textually fascinating because she doesn't flinch away from the fact that yes, Britain at this time was a feudal serfdom with slaves included, and was hard on marginalized people, chock full of patriarchy that did affect the lives of her female characters or that the Church was a big landowner themselves, and there was plenty of political tension and violence due to an ongoing civil war, but nonetheless the town the Chronicles are set in and the monastery where Cadfael lives is portrayed as a community.

Seriously. They don't just pray and whip themselves for 'bad thoughts'. The monks can be funny, snarky, and shy, and ambitious. They can be irreverent - yes, even about God, that thing that they are meant to be the most reverent about. They can have petty rivalries, they can annoy one another, even the Abbot, and not be sent for a backbreaking penance. They aren't thumping on bibles and telling people that if they don't make the cut that they're going to burn in hell.

They care. They take care of the children left in their charge, whether they're rich scions there to get an education or some poor thing left on their doorstep. One monk, in charge of the children, expresses real and genuine concern over a new novice that is having horrific dreams, worried that he has suffered a tremendous hidden trauma (he's right) and they're all concerned about what they can do to help him. A pair of teenagers literally fuck on one of the altars and the reaction from Cadfael is rueful amusement at young people's folly, not disgust or anger. They collect alms for the poor, redistribute everything given to them to help people survive. They crack jokes and show each other kindness and...

... look, I'm not saying that there weren't and still aren't zealots in religion. No religion is really innocent of that. And yeah, those zealots have done some pretty heinous things when they're put in charge - see Witch Burnings, Various Inquisitions, Crusades, Terrorism, etc. But I do wish writers wouldn't write about religious life like everyone who ever entered it was either a complete bag of bible-thumping assholes or just miserable all the time.

For one thing, that's really boring. Religion is a way we can tell stories about the complex reality we live in and the rules we think are important when dealing with other people. To reduce all that potential down to Miserable, Repressed, Self-Harming, Witch Hunting Jerks is intellectually lazy at best.

For another thing, you are losing the opportunity to portray a fundamentally queer experience. I don't mean they were all fucking (although some of the proscriptions that they felt the need to write down would rise your eyebrows - hand holding was apparently banned at one point); I meant that this was a group of people that took themselves out of the amatonormative status quo entirely and dedicated themselves to something that wasn't marriage, children, mercantile endeavors or anything 'normal' like that. That was, at the very least, a queer experience with clear queerplatonic overtones (not to mention, there were FTM trans monks that literally went on to sainthood, chosen gender kept intact).

And also? It just isn't historically accurate. Plenty of men and women actively chose a life outside the norm because they wanted to serve god and the community. They're just a group of people, all living together, making space for one another, all trying to serve people in whatever way they can. These people were less raging witch-burners and more Jedi without the lightsaber.

In the Cadfael books, they have brushes with zealots and they're reviled as bad guys every time. One (in the very first book) more or less fakes a whole-ass vision to manipulate the order to go to Wales and try and acquire a Welsh saint's bones and ends up doing even worse things because he believes he is destined for greatness and will get it by whatever means necessary. The head of the mission (who edges close to zealot territory himself and fully buys into the con for his own benefit) tries to buy the saints relics and causes a massive diplomatic incident as a result of this insult that makes him look like an idiot.

The other zealot that gives them trouble is a priest appointed to run the church. This man is as big a bible thumping, hellfire and brimstone dickhead as you might always picture a medieval priest to be and he is uniformly despised by both the monks and the township at large because his zealotry and strict adherence to only the letter of religious law and nothing else actively harms the community.

He's so hated, in fact, that when he (spoilers) dies, the reactions of all and sundry is mostly just relief that he's gone.

The Catholic Church has a lot of sins that it forgets more than it reckons with, but that doesn't mean that life in a monastery was all hair shirts and self-mortification, every abbot a little dictator. People have lived just fine in small communes for a lot of human history and they didn't all have small-minded tyrants continually cracking the whip. Most of them didn't.

I know it's an easy shaft to mine angst from, shoving people into an oppressive environment that they must either endure or overcome. And yes, the way we write about religion is sometimes a product of working through a complicated and traumatic relationship with it. I'm not trying to say any writer can't or shouldn't write that because your art is always supposed to be about putting parts of yourself out there, about telling the world a story about how you see it; and if you're working through something, if you need to tell a story about the scars that zealotry absolutely have and do leave, go for it, more power to you. That's a story that should and must be told.

But if your character is going into a monastery, try to remember that humans are social creatures. We make friends more than we make enemies. Even under intense tyranny, we make allegiances and form bonds and find ways to make the world were in a little bit more bearable wherever we can. And we tend to show each other compassion and mercy, even when we don't always like each other. It's true today, and it was true then too.

Monastic life was a queer experience that happened right under the noses of the dominant power structures for centuries. I think there's a story or two to be mined from that as well.

#writing #worldbuilding #character building #medieval history #religion #nicolo di genova #the old guard #brother cadfael #ellis peters #queerness #m #monasticism #monastic life

[leojurand]

top 10 8 books of the year

i ended up reading 63 books this year, but since about 17 of them were rereads, this is top 8 out of 46.

i usually don't do top 10s or anything similar because choosing is hard, but i wanted to "force" myself to do it this year, and here are the results!

8. the secret lives of country gentlemen, kj charles

kj charles is my absolute favourite romance author, and i think her formula was perfected with the doomsday duology, even though they're not necessarily my fave books by her. out of the two, i chose secret lives because it was so perfect to me! absolutely adored both mcs, individually and together. i always enjoy the kjc novels that have higher stakes, and i was super invested in this story, and the characters, and everything that happened to them. very beautiful romance scenes. can't wait to read whatever she comes up with next!!

7. the mask of apollo, mary renault

it's still crazy to be that i've only read two mary renault books this year, because i am completely in love with every aspect of her writing. the prose is so gorgeous, and this book was so atmospheric and immersive. i love the slow pace in her novels, and there's always moments of introspection that tug at my heartstrings. and that ending!!

6. gaudy night, dorothy l. sayers

pretty sure the fact that i spent like half an hour talking to a classmate about how amazing the sayers's writing is makes her my author of the year. and it couldn't be any other way! of the lord peter wimsey novels, i think gaudy night is her magnum opus. it was a very personal novel for her, and it shows in the care she put into it. i love harriet vane so much, and i adore peter, and i'm so happy that the peak of their romance and their feelings for each other was reached in such a wonderful book.

i only wanted to choose one book per series, but my other two faves are unnatural death and murder must advertise (i have yet to read busman's honeymoon)

5. the ruins, scott smith

and the award for biggest surprise of the year goes to this book! its adaptation is a very nostalgic movie for me, and last month me and my girlfriend decided to watch it together. i decided that was the perfect time to finally pick up the book, since i'd heard so much about it being so much better, as is usually the case. and god, it is much, much better. fantastic writing, and the characters feel so much more human and real than their movie counterparts. great atmosphere, and the gore? oof. one of those novels that makes me stop in the middle of whatever i'm doing and i think "man, the ruins was so good"

4. the winter prince, elizabeth wein

now, this book truly never left my brain since i read it. i picked it up on a whim and it hit me like a truck, which i didn't expect at all from such a short story. it has one of my favourite styles of prose: simple but so, so pretty. it was so easy for me to connect with the characters, especially medraut, and with the messed up dynamics that are shown here. such a wonderful book, i can't explain

so, do i have any excuse for not having read its sequel yet? no! and i'm planning to do that next month

3. the heaven tree, edith pargeter

this is a trilogy but i think of it as one story, so this includes all three books. the heaven tree gave me everything i wanted it to give me: breathtaking prose, drama, fucked up dynamics, beautiful dynamics, characters that are complex and messed up and that i don't agree with so many times, but i could always understand (well, almost always. the romance in the first book is nonsensical and stupid, but i love these books enough to forgive it). such a beautiful story, with a villain who was as easy to hate and to admire simply by how layered he was.

2. the sparrow, mary doria russell

this is the only book on this list that i've already reread, that's how serious this is. also the most "staring at a wall for an hour after finishing it unable to move" book of the year. made me feel so many emotions i can't even begin to explain. the amount of love and pain in this book can't be measured. emilio sandoz character of all time.

1. fire from heaven, mary renault

second mary renault on the list, and one i've read! also one of my earliest books of the year, because i read this in january. and it has stayed with all these months; my love for it didn't falter for even a second. you know when you consumed a piece of media and think "this was made for me"? well, that's how i felt reading fire from heaven. everything about it was perfect to me, from the prose to the pacing to the dynamic between alexander and hephaistion. you can really tell alexander's story was very important to mary renault (she was pretty much obsessed with the guy, and how very relatable), and now it's important to me too.

so, again, how come i haven't read the sequels yet? well, i tried to the persian boy soon after finishing this one, but 50 pages in and i couldn't get into it, which is sad so i decided to leave it for another time. i think i love fire from heaven too much to fully embrace the change in perspective in the second book. maybe i'm petty because the persian boy is considered the best of the trilogy, and maybe renault's best along with the charioteer. and i just don't think i'll feel the same way! it's hard to believe that it will make me feel the way fire from heaven did. and that's why it has to be number 1 on this list, i'm so incredibly attached to it, 11 months after reading it.

and there it is! it's hard to rank books when they're completely different from each other, but i tried. i would say overall it was a pretty good year... hard to compete with last year because well. i did read 15 dorothy dunnett novels almost back to back then. but still! i'm pretty happy

#books #obviously not tagging all of those #me trying to talk about my faves: such a wonderful book.... such a beautiful story.... amazing prose #rinse and repeat

[dangermousie]

Was thinking of rereading Sharon Kay Penman’s Falls the Shadow, which largely centers on Simon de Montfort, father of Parliament, brother in law of the King he fought against etc etc.

Reading FtS for the first time is actually a super vivid memory - sitting in my college dorm, listening to music and binging until after 3am in non-stop frenzy. It remains my favorite book in her Welsh trilogy (The Reckoning is brilliant but so horrifyingly depressing that she literally had to create a couple of minor fictional characters just so at least someone would escape the grinder and Here Be Dragons is a rare Penman with a happy ending but I still prefer Shadow.) It’s actually probably my favorite of all her novels except The Sunne in Splendour.

It’s funny, there are not that many novels about de Montfort as main - Edith Pargeter’s The Marriage of Megotta features him as a major character (if you want a truly depressing read, boy do I have a novel for you!) and then there is an utterly hilarious Virginia Henley romance novel, The Dragon and the Jewel which turns him and Eleanor into a romance novel couple and it’s totally hilarious:

Father of the English Parliament the way you’ve never imagined him, I bet 😂

Anyway, wish there were more novels about him because he’s had a totally insane life.

I did just get my hands on Elizabeth Chadwick’s A Marriage of Lions which, truly unusually, centers on Henry III’s half brother who fought AGAINST Simon in support of Henry. That will be a truly interesting take.

Side note: de Montfort and Roger Mortimer, lover of Queen Isabel and ruler of England after they overthrew Edward II until he himself was taken out by Edward III, are my favorite relatively obscure Medieval English barons. Insane lives, both of them.

I’ve had a thing for Mortimer ever since I read Maurice Druon’s The Cursed Kings series as a tween. It was very very age-inappropriate (my parents being under the delightful misapprehension that classics, and foreign ones at that, were always appropriate. They did NOT read Apuleius like I did at 10. Or Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer. Or Druon.) N. Gemini Sassoon has a great duology about Mortimer and Isabel. Though she chose to avoid tragedy and end it before Mortimer was murdered. And Anna Belfrage’s The King’s Man series, which is awesome, has Mortimer as one of the major characters (ML of that novel is Mortimer’s knight.)

Anyway, I wish England was more like Korea in making proper period shows about their cool historical people.

#books

[the-hearth-and-the-wild]

I went forward then and took his place before the altar, for I was no longer an empty shell, but a fountain of feeling and longing, overflowing without restraint, and there was a great need in me of a channel into which I could empty all the passion with which I was charged, for even my pain was power, and pure, and could not be left to run to waste.

Edith Pargeter, Sunrise in the West

#book quotes #literature #edith pargeter #wales #books and libraries #books and reading #historical novel #brothers of gwynedd

[oldshrewsburyian]

Hello! Do you have any fiction recommendations that take place pre-1300s? (Already a huge Rosemary Sutcliff fan)

Hello! I do! If you're in the mood for something Arthurian, Mary Stewart's Crystal Cave trilogy is rich and immersive, featuring complex characters in a complex early medieval Britain.

Also, I recently loved Omaima Al-Khamis' The Book Smuggler, a fascinating, sly, sensual epic with a very delightful protagonist. It's set a millennium ago, but the questions about religious diversity and intellectual freedom are pointedly relevant to our own historical moment, without feeling forced/presentist.

Another recent-ish novel I really enjoyed was Roberto Tiraboschi's The Apothecary's Shop: Venice 1118, a noir mystery thriller with magic realism elements.

José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon is set partially in its contemporary moment, partially in the mid-1100s, and all in Lisbon. It is both clever and, I think, charming.

If you're already interested in pre-1300s fiction, you probably already know her work, but Sharon Kay Penman absolutely deserves her reputation.

Edith Pargeter's The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet is also good if you're looking for a romantic political epic. Pargeter lived most of her life in the border country she writes about here (and in the Cadfael novels) and she loved it and it shows.

#asks and answers #book recommendations #historical fiction #adultbooklr

[fiction-quotes]

And Cadfael returned along the path with the uncomfortable feeling that God, nevertheless, required a little help from men, and what he mostly got was hindrance.

  —  A Morbid Taste for Bones (Ellis Peters)

#book quotes #historical fiction #mystery fiction #ellis peters #edith pargeter #the cadfael chronicles #a morbid taste for bones #brother cadfael #religion #christianity #help #problems #theology

[first--lines]

It was early in November of 1139 that the tide of civil war, lately so sluggish and inactive, rose suddenly to sweep over the city of Worcester, wash away half its livestock, property and women, and send all those of its inhabitants who could get away in time scurrying for their lives northwards away from the marauders, to burrow into hiding wherever there was manor or priory, walled town or castle strong enough to afford them shelter. By the middle of the month a straggle of them had reached Shrewsbury, and subsided thankfully into the hospitable embrace of monastery or town, to lick their wounds and pour out their grievances.

  —  The Virgin in the Ice (Ellis Peters)

#book quotes #historical fiction #mystery fiction #ellis peters #edith pargeter #the cadfael chronicles #the virgin in the ice

[inge-universe]

Ellis Peters aka Edith Pargeter - Broeder Cadfael Serie - vertaald door Pieter Janssens @ellispeters #ellispeters #ellispetersbrothercadfael @edithpargeter #edithpargeter #middeleeuwsedetective #qotd Zijn deze boeken los van elkaar te lezen? #durftevragen Bedankt Claudia @clauengar ............ Inhoud: De uit de kruistochten teruggekeerde Welshman Cadfael wordt monnik in de benedictijnse abdij van Shrewsbury in County Shropshire, waar hij zijn logica en botanische kennis gebruikt om mysterieuze zaken op te lossen. De verhalen spelen zich af tussen 1120 en 1145 tegen de achtergrond van de strijd tussen keizerin Maud en koning Stephen. Verschillende historische gebeurtenissen worden beschreven in de boeken. ............ #instabook #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #bookstagramnl #bookstagrammers #instaboek #boekstagram #boekenwurm #booktrovert #books #bookmail #dutchbookstagram #reading #boekenpost #lezenisleuk  #dutchbookstagrammers #dutchbookstagrammer #detective #mystery https://www.instagram.com/p/CpFnd0aIdtu/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#ellispeters #ellispetersbrothercadfael #edithpargeter #middeleeuwsedetective #qotd #durftevragen #instabook #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #bookstagramnl #bookstagrammers #instaboek #boekstagram #boekenwurm #booktrovert #books #bookmail #dutchbookstagram #reading #boekenpost #lezenisleuk #dutchbookstagrammers #dutchbookstagrammer #detective #mystery