A Morbid Taste for Bones - Ellis Peters

by Harbinger

Greetings and salutations Un:bound addicts. I know that when Hagelrat introduced me she promised that I would bring you some historical fiction, unfortunately I have not yet done so. That is about to change with one of my favourite stories.

If any of you watched ITV in the 1990's you may well remember the Cadfael murder mysteries, starring the great Sir Derek Jacobi. This TV series got me interested in the books, which my mother had an extensive collection of. I have always had a deep interest in history and although I now study modern history, Medieval history is still something I am very interested in. For what is history but one long unending story?

Ellis Peters is one of the many pen names of Edith Pargeter an accomplished author of historical fiction, murder mysteries of any setting and some non-fiction works about Shrewsbury. Which is of course where the Cadfael Chronicles is set. The stories also take my interest because they take place in a period of British history that people rarely study any more, which is known sometimes as 'The Anarchy' or the 'Nineteen Year Winter', roughly between 1135 and 1154. England was in a bloody chaotic civil war. On one side King Stephen and on the other side his cousin the Empress Matilda (referred to in the books as Maude). The Peterborough Chronicle of time refers to this period as a time when 'Christ and his Saints slept'.

Against this chaotic background the late Ellis Peters sets her story. Brother Cadfael is a Benedictine monk living in the Abbey of St Peter and Paul in Shrewsbury. After having lived a youthful life of adventures the middle-aged Welshman has settled down to tend the Abbey's herb garden. However Prior Robert has become obsessed with finding a Saint's relics and after a questionable 'vision' received by one of the Brothers, believes he has found the perfect Saint, Saint Winifred. Who the prior believes is not afforded the proper respect, in her place of burial (Gwytherin in Wales). The Abbott commissions an expedition to grab the Saint, which is meant with hostility by the people of Gwytherin. Things are complicated, when Gwytherin's leader Lord Rhisiart is found murdered. Leaving the Holy brothers as prime suspects and it is Cadfael's job to find the truth.

The book, I feel is exceptionally historically accurate at least in terms of the attitudes of many of the Characters. With the exception of brother Cadfael who has a remarkably modern view of the proceedings, this can be explained by how he spent much of his youth travelling the World on crusade. This experience gives him an interesting and sometimes amusing insight into the cloister.

Very often people thought of monks as examples of perfection, but Cadfael knows of course this is not true, that monks are just as human as everyone else. What is interesting is that both Cafael and his assistant Brother John disagree with the motives of the mission, and at times take some amusement in the difficulties placed before Prior Robert. Interestingly another assumption made by people of monks, is that they are all old, actually many monks joined the order in their youth (partly why Prior Robert looks down on Cadfael). Cadfael often experiences regret that these youngsters have had little experience of the outside world.

Every story needs a hate figure and Prior Robert and his clerk Brother Jerome certainly achieve that. Prior Robert (who himself is half-Welsh) joined the order at young age from a rich family and is obsessed with advancing himself. Jerome is rather reminiscent of one of those children who is always telling tales. He is irritatingly smug, a character you love to see taken down a peg.

Finally Brother Columbanus another monk on the mission, is disturbingly pious (almost over the top) and prone to eplieptic fits (called falling sickness), though Cafael feel this is simply hysterics. Any atheists among our readers will find him deeply unsettling.

Any way this review is far too long. I will finish by saying give it a try and happy reading to you all.

Harbinger out!