INTERVIEW WITH MICHELLE MORAN

I am delighted to have a special guest for this blog–Michelle Moran, the best-selling author of Nefertiti, The Heretic Queen, and her latest, Cleopatra’s Daughter.   Michelle’s background as almost as interesting as her novels.  She has a BA in English, followed by an MA, and has spent six years in the trenches as a high school English teacher.  She is almost as well traveled as Marco Polo, often venturing off the beaten path.   She is definitely a child of the Computer Age, with one of the most impressive websites I’ve seen, and she is very generous in encouraging and promoting the works of other writers.   Oh, yes, and she also writes wonderful novels.

Welcome, Michelle. I appreciate your taking the time to visit with us, for I am sure your publisher is keeping you very busy now that the Pub. Date for Cleopatra’s Daughter is approaching—September 15^th.    It is off to a very good start, too; I saw that you got a starred review in Library Journal and it is already selling briskly on Amazon.    Let’s begin with Selene, a girl with bedazzling bloodlines, daughter of Cleopatra and Marc Antony.  I found her to be very sympathetic, a child forced to grow up almost overnight.

1)    What drew you to her? She is certainly not as well known as her famous mother; what made you want to tell her story?

Actually, it all began with a dive. Not the kind of dive that people take into swimming pools, but the kind where you squeeze yourself into a wetsuit and wonder just how tasty your rump must appear to passing sharks now that it looks exactly like an elephant seal. My husband and I had taken a trip to Egypt, and at the suggestion of a friend, we decided to go to Alexandria and do a dive to see the remains of Cleopatra’s underwater city. Let it be known that I had never done an underwater dive before, so after four days with an instructor (and countless questions like, Will there be sharks? How about jellyfish? If there is an earthquake, what happens underwater?) we were ready for the real thing.

We drove to the Eastern Harbor in Alexandria. Dozens of other divers were already there, waiting to see what sort of magic lay beneath the waves. I wondered if the real thing could possibly live up to all of the guides and brochures selling this underwater city, lost for thousands of years until now. Then we did the dive, and it was every bit as magical as everyone had promised. You can see the rocks which once formed Marc Antony’s summer palace, come face to face with Cleopatra’s towering sphinx, and take your time floating above ten thousand ancient artifacts, including obelisks, statues, and countless amphorae. By the time we had surfaced, I was Cleopatra-obsessed. I wanted to know what had happened to her city once she and Marc Antony had committed suicide. Where did all of its people go? Were they allowed to remain or were they killed by the Romans? What about her four children?

It was this last question which surprised me the most. I had always believed that all of Cleopatra’s children had been murdered. But the Roman conqueror Octavian had actually spared the three she bore to Marc Antony: her six-year-old son, Ptolemy, and her ten-year-old twins, Alexander and Selene. As soon as I learned that Octavian had taken the three of them for his Triumph in Rome, I knew at once I had my next book. This is how all of my novels seem to begin – with a journey, then an adventure, and finally, enormous amounts of research for what I hope is an exciting story.

2)     Selene is surrounded by a colorful cast, including Julius Caesar’s bloodless, brilliant nephew, Octavian, Marc Antony’s long-suffering Roman wife, Octavia, who agrees to raise her husband’s children by his Egyptian “concubine,” Octavian’s wife, Livia, whose name will send chills up the spine of anyone who saw I, Claudius, and her disgruntled, dangerous son, Tiberius.  And then there is Juba, son of the King of Numidia, which encompassed present-day Algeria, I believe?  After his father’s defeat, he was brought to Rome as a prize of war, but was then educated as a Roman, even being granted Roman citizenship.  How unusual was that?   I knew nothing about Juba before reading Cleopatra’s Daughter, but he sounds like a remarkable man.  Did Selene lead you to his story or vice versa?

I discovered Juba’s story only after beginning my research into Selene. It wasn’t unheard of for Romans to take the children of conquered kings, bring them to Rome, and raise them as Roman citizens. It had happened before, and it happened again when Octavian brought Selene and her twin brother to Rome. However, this only occurred in the case of respected enemies. If Selene and her brother had been the children of a “barbaric” Gaul, they would have been either killed or enslaved.

3)  Your first two novels were set in Egypt.  Was it easier to research Cleopatra’s Daughter in light of the wealth of information that has survived about the Roman Empire?   Or was it more challenging to strike out into new and uncharted territory after spending so many years in the shadows of the pyramids?

Actually, it was far less intimidating to write about ancient Rome than it was to write about Egypt. There is such a wealth of information about Rome, not to mention the fact that the language remains intact. Also, I feel as though a part of me has always been in Rome. My father’s degree was in ancient Roman history. That’s what he taught, what he read about, and what we grew up learning about as children.

4)  I am often asked about the role of women in the MA.   I think we are equally fascinated by the lives of women in Rome and Egypt.  Can you tell us what you found most surprising about the differences between those two cultures in their treatment of women?

To me, the greatest difference between women’s lives in ancient Egypt and ancient Rome had to do with marriage. In Egypt, a marriage wasn’t easily dissolved (although both men and women could demand a divorce). Amongst the Roman ruling classes, however, it was both easy and common for a patriarch to have his daughter’s or sister’s marriage annulled, even (or especially) if she had children by her husband. Male relatives might do this for several reasons, the most common being when they wished to marry off their sister or daughter to someone else for a more advantageous alliance. And this could happen two, even three times in a woman’s life.

5)   It is obvious that you do extensive research.  Do you have difficulty finding translations of the works you need?

Actually, no! And luckily for me, the preeminent scholar on Kleopatra Selene wrote his work in English and was kind enough to answer any questions I had.

6)    One of the things I really enjoy about your novels are the comprehensive Author’s Notes, in which you conscientiously inform the readers about those occasions when you are forced to “fill in the blanks,” explaining when you took dramatic license and why.  For example, you tell us that you made some minor name changes to avoid too many Claudias and Antonias; as someone who has to deal with the frustrating medieval habit of recycling the same family names over and over, I could definitely empathize with this.   As much as I liked the ANs for your two earlier novels, I think you outdid yourself with this one, for you include a fascinating discussion of ancient Rome and why we are still so enthralled so many centuries later.  And it was an inspired idea to provide quotes from prominent Romans to show how little human nature has changed; Marc Antony’s snarky, r-rated letter to Octavian is both hilarious and amazingly contemporary.  Is it difficult to decide what to include in an AN?   Do you feel that authors of historical fiction need to include ANs?   Do you feel cheated as a reader when you finish a book and find there is no AN?   Or is that too leading a question, one that would have a defense attorney crying “Objection”?

Thank you so much! I have to admit, the Author’s Note is one of my favorite sections of a book to write. Whenever I finish reading an historical fiction novel, I do expect there to be an author’s note explaining what was fact and what was fiction. I think it’s only fair to the reader. Also, it saves the author many, many emails down the road from readers who want to know if such-and-such really happened and whether so-and-so actually existed. But isn’t that R-Rated letter just great?!

7)    You are doing something very clever with Cleopatra’s Daughter, holding a Treasure Hunt that is launched on the September 15^th publication date.   Can you tell us how it works and what gave you the idea?

Absolutely! On September 15th, literary clues (quotations from famous books) will be posted on MichelleMoran.com/treasurehunt.htm, leading to one of 60 independent bookstores scattered across 27 states. All readers need to do is figure out where the quotation comes from (each quotation is paired up with a different bookstore). This quotation will lead them to a particular book, and in this book they will find a red and gold “Literary Archaeologist” ribbon hidden inside. The ribbon will instruct them to go to the counter to claim their prize, which includes a signed copy of “Cleopatra’s Daughter,” Cleopatra earrings and an authentic Roman artifact!

8)   I was not surprised by the Treasure Hunt, for anyone browsing your website can see at once that you are computer-savvy and very knowledgeable about book promotion.  Did you learn these skills by trial and error or did you just have an instinctive feel for the brave new world of cyberspace publicity? Can you tell our readers a little about what book promotion nowadays entails? For example, you provide questions for book clubs on your website, another great idea. Do you feel, though, that writers can be swallowed up in these on-line activities to the detriment of the writing itself? How do you manage to strike a balance?

I grew up on computers, so using the internet as a promotional tool is really second nature to me. I think that for most authors who wish to participate in their own marketing and publicity, it’s vital to understand and make use of the internet. One of the most important things an author can do, in my opinion, is provide a place on their website where Bloggers and Book Clubs can go. There is always the possibility, however, of adding so many features to your website or blog that the website starts running you. I’m not sure how I strike a balance, or even whether I do. I can tell you that at least thirty percent of my day is spent doing marketing or publicity.

9)    I was very excited to find out that your next novel will be set during the French Revolution.   Why did you select this time period?   Can you tell us about the story line?  Are you at all apprehensive about making such a vast leap through time, no fears of suffering from cultural shock?    Do you speak French?   Since you didn’t speak the language of Nefertiti, obviously that is not a prerequisite for writing a highly successful and accurate novel; I am just curious!   Aside from the pleasure of making extended trips to France that are also tax-deductible, what made you decide to write of the French Revolution?    Do you have a working title?

Ha-ha! Yes, the tax-deductible trips are a big incentive ;] But truthfully, I chose to write on Tussaud because I found her life utterly compelling. She joined the gilded but troubled court of Marie Antoinette, then survived the French Revolution only by creating death masks of the beheaded aristocracy. And Marie (the first name of Madame Tussaud) met absolutely everyone, from Franklin and Jefferson to Empress Josephine and Voltaire.

When looking for a subject to write on, I search for someone whose story is simply unbelievable. Someone who has lived through events that will have the reader saying, “Now there’s no way that could have happened!” Right now, the book is entitled Madame Tussaud: A Novel (straight, and to the point!).

As for language skills, while my French isn’t good enough to hold a conversation about Impressionist Art, I can certainly get by, and my husband (and his family) can speak fluently. But I don’t feel that knowing a country’s language is a prerequisite for writing historical fiction set in that country. As you pointed out, one knows what Nefertiti’s language sounded like, especially as the ancient Egyptians recorded no vowels! What I do think is a prerequisite is good, solid research. As we discussed concerning the AN, there are times when names or situations will have to be changed for the sake of storytelling, but the mise-en-scène should always be correct (or as close as an author 2000 years later can come).

10)  Lastly and most importantly, when can we buy Cleopatra’s Daughter?

Cleopatra’s Daughter will be in bookstores all across the U.S. from September 15^th! And thank you, Sharon, for taking the time out of your incredibly busy schedule to have me appear on your blog.

September 14, 2009

I’d like to start with some book news. Lovers of good historical fiction can rejoice for there is another P.F. Chisholm mystery glimmering on the horizon; A Murder of Crows won’t be out until June of next year, but it has been a long wait since the last adventure of Elizabeth Tudor’s dashing cousin, Robert Carey. Regarding books already ready to be snatched off bookstore shelves, I want to remind you all that Michelle Moran’s new novel, Cleopatra’s Daughter, has a September birth, as does the first American edition of Elizabeth Chadwick’s novel about William Marshal, The Greatest Knight. And there is a new Priscilla Royal mystery, Chambers of Death, out now, too. And in December, Margaret Frazer’s sardonic and sexy Joliffe, player and sometime spy, makes a welcome return in A Play of Treachery.

 

While I’m making book recommendations, I’d like to mention Sharan Newman’s The Real History Behind the Templars.  Dan Brown is not likely to buy it, but anyone interested in separating fact from fiction and reality from myth should head out for the nearest bookstore—preferably an independent one, assuming there is still one in your neighborhood.   Speaking of first-rate bookshops, I just got the latest catalogue from Oxbow Books, and I noticed some books that might be of interest to my blogging buddies. Mind you, I haven’t read any of these books, so I am not recommending them, merely calling them to your attention.   There is a new biography of Edward I by Marc Morris, A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain.  And there are no less than three new books likely to be of interest to Ricardians. Richard III: The Maligned King by Annette Carson, Eleanor, the Secret Queen: The Woman Who Put Richard III on the Throne, by John Ashdown-Hill, and The Lost Prince: The Survival of Richard of York, by David Baldwin.  Ian Mortimer also has a new book out that sounds rather interesting: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England.

 Back to my own books, I finally have some news about Saints and Kindle. Readers have been asking me when all of the trilogy would be Kindlized, and I hope I mentioned that Time and Chance will be available on Kindle in September.  It is more complicated with Saints because it was published before the advent of e-books and for reasons too complicated to go into, the decision to make it available rests with Amazon and Google, not the publisher.  I have been told that it will become a Kindle book, but I do not know when that will happen, and sadly, it will be available only in the Kindle format, not Sony Reader, etc.

 Since I really don’t have any questions to answer in this blog, having been dropping by to keep current, I thought I’d do something different this time.  When Elizabeth Chadwick interviewed me on her blog, she asked about a key scene in Devil’s Brood, the one in which Henry does penance at Becket’s tomb. And Marbella has been posting comments on my Facebook page as she reads Shadow, mentioning scenes that she found powerful or touching, even lines of dialogue that made her laugh; I wouldn’t say she has won my heart by this sort of detailed feedback, but she is now in my will. Even our near and dear ones are rarely specific—too often we get the generic praise, “Really liked the book.”  And of course editors are more likely to tell writers when we do something wrong than when we do something right. 

Anyway, I got to thinking about this, and I am going to list some of my favorite scenes in my books. I am not choosing scenes that are necessarily the most significant or even the most dramatic; you’ll notice there are only two death scenes. These are scenes that I chose because they brought a character into focus or threw light upon a relationship or simply left me with a sense of exhausted satisfaction when they were done. 

Sunne in Splendour

The scene in the tavern in Bruges between Richard and Edward; I think this marked a turning point in their relationship.

August, 1469—confrontation at Middleham between Edward and the Earl of Warwick.

Scene between Edward and Charles of Burgundy and his lord chamberlain Philippe de Commynes, showing that there were devious depths beneath Edward’s playboy-prince exterior.

Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury

Here Be Dragons

The scene where Joanna learns that John is her father

The siege of Mirebeau

Joanna and Llewelyn’s wedding

The burning of his bed which leads to the consummation of their marriage

The childbirth scene for Joanna and Llewelyn’s son Davydd and Gruffydd’s reaction to it

Llewelyn’s surrender to John in August 1212 and Joanna’s response to her husband’s public humiliation

The scene where Llewelyn finally tells Joanna what John did to Maude de Braose

September, 1212—the scene between Llewelyn and Joanna at White Ladies Priory

October 1228—scenes with Joanna and Will de Braose and her guilt-ridden reconciliation with Llewelyn afterward

May 1230—scene at Dolwyddelan where Llewelyn tries to come to terms with his wife’s betrayal

Their scene at Llanfaes

The very last scene because it was wonderful to have characters left alive at the end of the book after Sunne

Falls the Shadow

June 1258—battle at Bwlch Mawr between Llewelyn ap Gruffydd and his brothers Davydd and Owain

May 1264—scene at Tower of London between Simon de Montfort and the Jewish physician Jacob ben Judah, one of my all-time favorite chapters.

3)      April 1264—Bran’s capture at the siege of Northampton.

 

The Reckoning

1)      Opening scene where Bran makes a clandestine visit to his father’s grave at Evesham.

2)        Ellen de Montfort’s capture at sea by a pirate in the pay of Edward I

3)      September 1276—Scene where Davydd ap Gruffydd seduces Elizabeth de Ferrers, the young and vulnerable girl who has just learned, to her horror, that she must wed this “malcontent Welsh prince.”

4)      Llewelyn ap Gruffydd’s first meeting with Ellen de Montfort and then their wedding chapter, because I pulled out all the stops on that one, did my best to recreate a medieval wedding in all its boisterous and bawdy glory.

 

When Christ and His Saints Slept

1)      Sinking of the White Ship

2)      July 1140—scene where 7 year old Henry sneaks into his father’s bedchamber to return a “borrowed” dagger and loses some of his childhood innocence.

3)      Scene after the Battle of Lincoln where Stephen’s devastated queen receives a surprise visit from the Flemish mercenary captain William de Ypres.

4)      December 1143 scene in which Ranulf rescues two orphans of the Fens with some help from his Norwegian dyrehund Loth.

5)      Scene where Ranulf asks Rhiannon to marry him.

6)      Scene in Paris where Geoffrey of Anjou defies the French king and Bernard of Clairvaux and Henry sees Eleanor for the first time

7)      And of course Henry and Eleanor’s scene in the rain-drenched Paris garden.

 

Time and Chance

1)      September 1159—scene between Eleanor and Maud, Countess of Chester, in which they discuss men and marriage. 

2)      Eleanor’s meeting with Rosamund Clifford at Woodstock

3)      Henry’s 1167 Christmas Court where he is reunited with Eleanor after a year apart.

4)      Thomas Becket’s murder in Canterbury Cathedral

5)      Scene with Henry and Ranulf in August, 1171, in which Henry bares his soul about Thomas Becket

 

Devil’s Brood

1)      Eleanor’s capture by Henry’s men in November 1173

2)      Confrontation between Henry and Eleanor at Falaise in December 1173

3)      Henry’s penance before Becket’s tomb

4)      August 1177—scene with Henry and Eleanor in which they play a medieval version of the game Truth or Dare.

5)      Geoffrey and Constance’s wedding night

6)      Hal’s death scene

 

     I am sure there are other scenes I could have picked, but these are the first ones to come to mind; I am not deliberately snubbing Justin de Quincy, will get to the mysteries in a later blog.  I’d be very interested—even fascinated—to find out which scenes you would select.  But if you want to mention favorite scenes from other writers’ books, feel free to do that, too. 

      Lastly, I am going to post a second blog with this one, in which Ken sets out his research about the family tree of Llewelyn Fawr and Joanna, concluding that Gwladys and the mysterious Susanna are indeed Joanna’s daughters.   Diolch yn fawr, Ken!

September 6, 2009

       

 

 

            

Hi, everyone.  As promised, here is Ken’s masterful research project about the bloodlines of Llewelyn Fawr and Joanna.   It is truly fascinating; what I wouldn’t have given to have access to this information twenty-five years ago while I was researching and writing Here Be Dragons!    Ken, we’re totally in your debt.

Children of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth

 

 

The primary purpose of this exercise is to try, by a review of genealogist’s opinions on the subject and by consulting some known original sources, to determine who was the mother of Gwladus Ddu ferch Llywelyn. Was she Joanna, wife of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (Joan Plantagenet: Born circa.1188, died. February 1237) or was she Tangwystl ferch Llyarch of Rhos, mistress of Llywelyn, born circa. 1168, died??

 

I’ll follow this with a secondary investigation into the possible existence of a daughter of Llywelyn and Joanna named Susanna, given over to King Henry 111 as a hostage in 1228 with her custody being granted to Sir Nicholas Verdun and his wife Clementia.

 

The opinions of the Genealogists that I have studied are just that, opinions, and they differ greatly. No definite proof exists either way, but I have to say that the majority hold for Gwladus to be the daughter of Joanna. This is particularly true of the genealogists of the descendants of the De Braose family, but they may well have particular motives for wanting their family to be tied to both the Welsh and English royal houses!

 

The following list of Llywelyn’s numerous legitimate and illegitimate children appears to be generally accepted by all the genealogists that I have studied with the exception of differences over whether number 9 really existed. The dates of birth given below are also disputed by some:

 

1. Gruffudd ap Llywelyn, born circa.1199, died 1244
2. Gwladys Ddu ferch Llywelyn, born circa.1206, died 1251
3. Ellen (Helen, Elen) ferch Llywelyn, born circa 1206? died circa 1253,
4. Margred (Margaret) ferch Llywelyn, born circa 1208? died circa 1263,
5. Dafydd ap Llywelyn, Prince of Wales, born circa 1208 (1211?) (doubts about this date, see later), died 25 February 1246,
6. Gwenllian ferch Llywelyn, born circa 1209 died 1281.
7. Angharad ferch Llywelyn, born circa 1210, died 1257
8. Tegwared ap Llywelyn – born circa 1210, possible twin to Angharad?
9. ‘Helen’, or ‘Susanna’, born circa 1214? Died 1259?

There is much argument over the identity of the mothers of these children. There is general agreement that the only certain children of Llywelyn’s marriage to Joanna are Dafydd, who became Prince of Wales and Ellen (Helen) who married (1) John the Scot, son of the earl of Chester and (2) Robert de Quincy. Although opinion is divided over the mothers of Gwladus, Gwenllian, Margred and Susanna, the majority of the genealogists I have studied lean towards their mother being Joanna.

 

This is partly due to their supposed dates of birth as well as their marriages to various marcher lords who, one supposes, would have sought to align their houses to that of their neighbour, the Prince of North Wales and his wife, the king of England’s daughter. It is felt that these lords of the March would not have had so much interest or political motivation in marrying off their sons to the illegitimate daughters of a Welsh prince with a Welsh woman.

 

As to the names of these children, whether by Joanna, Tangwystl or others, they were all named after members of Llywelyn’s family:

 

Llywelyn’s mother was named ‘Margred’ and his maternal grandmother was named ‘Susanna’ of Gwynedd. His paternal grandmother was named ‘Gwladus’. The parents of his grandmother Susanna, were ‘Gruffudd’ ap Cynan and ‘Angharad’ of Flint and both their names were given to Llywelyn’s children. This Susanna also had a sister named ‘Gwenllian’, the same name as Llywelyn’s great grandmother. Only ‘Ellen’s’ name remains a mystery, there seems to be no-one named Ellen or Helen, except perhaps an ‘Eleanor’ on Joanna’s side (Eleanor of Aquitaine, mother of Joanna’s father King John).

 

I will concentrate on the known historical ‘facts’ on Gruffudd (as he is pertinent to the story of whether Gwladus was his blood sister or only a half-sister) and Gwladus only, before moving on to consider whether Susanna existed:

 

1.         Gruffudd ap Llywelyn

 

Gruffudd was without doubt, Llywelyn’s illegitimate son by Tangwystl, born between 1196 and 1200. Llywelyn and Tangwystl were not married and their relationship was not recognised by the church as a valid marriage. Before his marriage to Joanna and with no legitimate male heir, Llywelyn had been actively seeking an advantageous match. In 1203 he received a papal dispensation to marry a daughter of the King of the Isle of Man. A betrothal was probably entered into, but the marriage did not take place. However, following Llywelyn’s homage to King John on John’s return from France in 1204, the offer of marriage to Joanna, given as a royal favour by John, was a dynastic opportunity not to be missed. The marriage took place in 1205.

 

According to J. Beverley Smith, referring to a charter between King John and Llywelyn in 1211 – “There were finally two crucially important provisions concerning Llywelyn’s son Gruffudd. He was given to the king’s custody and placed entirely at his will. Llywelyn agreed that if he were to have no heir by Joan his wife he would cede all his lands to the king, both those which he released by the terms of his charter and those which he retained, except for whatever the king might decide to give to Gruffudd. The son, a bastard by a Welsh woman named Tangwystl, would have nothing as of right ….”  (Note: Some argue that as this charter was made in 1211, it is clear that Joanna’s son Dafydd had not yet been born. Others counter this with the idea that Dafydd may have been born (1208?), but the charter took into account that Dafydd, or any other male child by Joanna, may not have survived to inherit!).

 

It appears that John and Llywelyn agreed that the marriage pact with Joanna was subject to Llywelyn agreeing to disinherit his ‘illegitimate’ son Gruffudd and for him to ensure that only his first born ‘legitimate’ male heir (by Joanna) would succeed him. This was possibly to ensure that only Joanna and Llywelyn’s (Anglo/Welsh) children would become part of the European and aristocratic ruling houses and would elevate the house of Gwynedd to a higher status than the other Welsh ruling houses. John also hoped, no doubt, that the union would lessen the possibility of future problems between England and Wales. As Joanna’s dowry John provided Llywelyn with the manors of Knighton and Norton and Ellesmere (of which we will hear more later).

 

Gruffudd never accepted being passed over for the succession and many in Wales supported his case. He spent many years imprisoned in Wales and London and died on St. David’s day 1244, while trying to escape from the Tower of London.

 

 

2.         Gwladus Ddu ferch Llywelyn

 

There is much argument in genealogical circles as to who was the mother of Gwladus. It is true that there is no document or charter that states, ‘Gwladus, daughter of Llywelyn, Prince of Gwynedd and his wife Joanna of England’, or some such! Life would be made much easier if that were the case! The arguments that follow then cannot be ‘proven’, but they do provide a logical process for arriving at a conclusion:

 

One faction of genealogists insist that chronologically, Gwladus must have been the daughter of Tangwystl, and possibly born circa 1200 to 1201, because in 1215, she was ‘married’ to Reginald de Braose, 5^th Baron of Brecknock (probably in his 40’s). She would, they argue, have therefore had to have been of marriageable age in 1215. Llywelyn and Joanna married in 1205, and if she was Joanna’s daughter, allowing a year or so after their marriage for her birth, she would have been only 8 or possibly 9 yrs old at the time of this ‘marriage’!

 

Another of their arguments is based on Peter C Bartrum’s ‘Welsh Genealogies,’ which gives the following table, which has been the subject of much discussion and sometimes violent argument:

 

“Iorwerth Drwyndwn ab Owain Gwynedd

m. Margred ferch Madog (B1 ap C3)

|

Llywelyn d. 1240

(1)   Joan d. King John m. 1205

(a)    Tangwystl ferch Llywarch Goch (LL. Ho. 1)

|

Gwladus Ddu d. 1251

(1)   Reginald de Braose d. 1228

(2)   Ralph 11 Mortimer d. 1246 “

 

Bartrum does not give his sources and this table does not clearly show that Gwladus is either the daughter of Tangwystl or of Joanna. It is therefore not of much help.

 

Interestingly, from what I have been able to read, these seem to be the main arguments that Tangwystl’s proposers have in favour of Gwladus being the daughter of Tangwystl.

 

 

The pro-Joanna faction has more strings to its bow!  

 

 

The pro-Joanna faction’s response to the ‘chronological’ problem of the age of Gwladus at her marriage in 1215 includes the following:

 

a).        The ‘marriage’ was in fact a politically motivated ‘betrothal’ of a young girl to a forty–something English Baron. The text of the Annales Prioratus de Wigornia, 1215, describing this arrangement uses the Latin word ‘Desponsavit’, which is taken to describe a ‘betrothal’ rather than a ‘marriage’. (I ‘googled’ this word in a Latin/English dictionary and it came up with the same answer – ‘betrothal!’).

 

In 1215, Reginald de Braose was a widower, his first wife Grace de Briwire having died. He had a son and heir, William (the William hung by Llywelyn in 1230) as well as other issue. In 1215, he was not therefore under any inheritance-driven desire to wed for the purpose of producing an heir. Reginald de Braose would certainly have wanted to strike a political alliance with Llywelyn and a betrothal and eventual marriage to a child so highly placed as Gwladus, particularly if she was the legitimate daughter of Llywelyn by King John’s daughter Joanna, would have made perfect sense for the advancement of the family Braose.

 

This betrothal and subsequent ‘marriage’ produced, in over 15 years, no offspring of whom anyone is aware and, it is quite possible that the ‘marriage’ was never consummated. Immediately upon marrying Ralph de Mortimer in 1230 however, Gwladus started to produce offspring! If, as the pro-Tangwystl faction would have it, Gwladus had been born circa 1201/02 (before Llywelyn’s marriage to Joanna), she would have been in her 30^th year at least before she started to produce children! This is considered unlikely, given that she produced the children of Ralph over a nine year span, which would have put her into her near 40’s for the last born.

 

If however, Gwladus had been born (to Joanna) in 1206 or 1207, she would have only been 22 or so at Reginald’s death (1228) and between 23 and 24 at her marriage to Ralph de Mortimer.

 

b).        Reginald died in 1228. In 1229, Gwladus, now an eligible widow aged about 24, accompanied Joanna’s legitimate son Dafydd to King Henry’s court, where he was to pay homage to Henry and to use his blood relation to the English king to obtain his support and recognition of him as Llywelyn’s sole heir.

 

There is much argument over why Gwladus made this trip with Dafydd. The pro-Tangwystl faction argue that Gwladus, recently widowed, ‘needed’ to seek a new husband and Dafydd’s audience provided an ideal moment for both Llywelyn and the Mortimers to obtain Henry’s blessing to a marriage between Gwladus and Ralph de Mortimer. Her visit therefore was purely personal and had nothing to do with any ‘support’ she was giving to Dafydd to effectively disinherit her blood-brother Gruffudd.

 

Alternatively, as she was now a widow and lonely, she just wanted to go to London and would be safer on the journey if she went with Dafydd!

 

The pro-Joanna faction counters the above with the following:

 

The clear purpose of Dafydd’s visit to London, apart from his duty of homage, was to seek the English crown’s recognition of him as heir to Llywelyn. If Gwladus was truly Gruffudd’s blood sister by Tangwystl, would she really have participated in his disinheritance? Gruffudd was languishing in prison in Degannwy at this time and what would Senena, wife of Gruffudd made of such a (in her eyes surely) betrayal by his blood sister?

 

The ‘closeness’ of Gwladus to the English crown is perhaps also demonstrated by the fact that she died at Windsor in 1251 while visiting Henry 111, possibly to attend the wedding of Henry’s daughter Margaret to Alexander 111, King of the Scots. Her relationship with him was apparently good as Henry appointed her son sheriff of Hereford.

 

 

c).        Further evidence presented to support Gwladus being the daughter of Llywelyn and Joanna:

 

Chronicles:

 

There is a clear and unambiguous statement in the chronicle of Adam of Usk that Gwladus was the daughter of Llywelyn and Joanna. Adam knew the Mortimer family well and presumably had access to their archives. While Adam is a late-date witness and not altogether reliable, he is quite emphatic that Gwladus was Joanna’s daughter.

 

 

 

Property.

 

The manors of Knighton and Norton (and Ellesmere in Shropshire) were gifted by John to Llywelyn as Joanna’s portion upon their marriage in 1205. In fact, by circa 1218, the properties had still not been handed over to him and they were being held by the Mortimer family. Llywelyn petitioned Henry 111 to force the Mortimers to hand the properties over and Henry’s council vindicated Llywelyn’s claim and held him blameless if he had to resort to action to regain his rights to the lands gifted under his marriage. The lands came into Llywelyn’s possession in 1218 and the Mortimers were forced to drop their illegal claim to them.

 

Upon the marriage of Gwladus to Ralph de Mortimer in 1230, Llywelyn and Joan bequeathed Knighton and Norton to Ralph because they were part of their daughter’s inheritance. This followed a similar passing of Joanna’s magaritum lands (Ellesmere?) to Gwladus’ sister Ellen, Joanna’s proven daughter, when she married John the Scot in 1220 and goes to show that this transfer of lands to Gwladus was consistent with those to other blood family members.

 

Children of Gwladus and Ralph de Mortimer.

 

1.         Roger de Mortimer, born ca. 1231 

 

Heir and successor to Ralph de Mortimer and probably named in honour of Ralph’s father, Roger de Mortimer.

 

2.         Hugh de Mortimer, born ca. 1233

Probably named in honour of Ralph’s grandfather, Hugh de Mortimer (d. ca. 1180)

 

3.         John de Mortimer, born ca. 1235

There is no prior use of the name John in the family of Ralph de Mortimer and we can assume that if Gwladus’ mother was a Welshwoman, it would not have been used in that family either. Further, if Gwladus was Gruffudd’s blood-sister, how likely would it be for her to name her son after the father of the man (King Henry) and the woman Joanna who had brought political ruin to her own immediate family?

 

Everything points therefore to the choice of the name John for her son being in memory of her paternal grandfather through Joanna.

 

4.         Joan de Mortimer, born ca. 1236 Wife of Peter Corbet, 1^st Lord Corbet (d. before 1300).

Surely evidence that Gwladus wanted to honour her mother of the same name. If she had been Tangwystl’s daughter, this would certainly have been an insult. (Note: Gwladus’ sister Ellen, in similar fashion, named a daughter Joan for their mother.)

 

5.         Peter de Mortimer, born ca. 1237 of which virtually nothing is known.

 

6.         Isolda de Mortimer, born ca. 1239

 

Assumptions made that her name is a Welsh equivalent of Isabel. If correct, probably named after Ralph’s mother, Isabel de Ferrieres.

 

             

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

‘Medieval Genealogy’ as described by one eminent genealogist, ‘is not properly conducted by piling assumption on top of speculation on top of plausibility on top of likelihood and then coming to a “conclusion”!’

 

However, while that statement is undoubtedly true, a review of the opinions of several professional genealogists provides a general consensus that Gwladus Ddu can be reasonably identified as the daughter of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth by Joanna, daughter (subsequently legitimised) of John, King of England.

 

 

Susanna ferch Llywelyn

 

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, under Llywelyn ab Iorwerth and on the subject of his daughter, Susanna states: ‘The fourth daughter, Susanna, does not appear in the pedigrees; in November 1228 she was put in the care of Nicholas de Verdon (un) and his wife and that is the only reference to her.’

 

My first step therefore was to look up the genealogy of this Nicholas de Verdun. I found a reference in the CPR for 1225-1232, p.230. In 1228, a certain Nicholas de Verdun, appeared to be in of Henry 111’s favor, and this favor manifested itself when the king’s … ‘dear and faithful Nicholas de Verdun and his wife Clementia were granted custody of ‘Susanna’ our niece, the daughter of Llywelyn, prince of North Wales and Joanna his wife, to be brought up safe and secure without all injury.’

 

Susanna was almost certainly being held in England as a hostage for the good behaviour of her father, Llywelyn, who had been pursuing an expansive phase, fighting with the Marshall William 11 and also Hubert de Burgh. Henry needed to bring him to heel somewhat.

 

The genealogists all consider it significant that Nicholas’ wife Clementia is included here as, under normal circumstances, she would not be mentioned. The fact that she is so named suggests that she had some interest in Susanna. When Susanna at some later date was given over to another guardian, the wife of that guardian was not mentioned.

 

What follows here is a theory advanced by some eminent genealogists, but it is fair to say that the conclusions are hotly contested!

 

This theory leads to a delightful and curious ‘twist’ in the story of Joanna, which may interest fans of HBD!

 

On the surface, there would be nothing to suggest any connection between the hostage, Susanna of Wales and Clementia, wife of Nicholas de Verdun. However, the experience of some genealogists with foreign hostages, particularly young ones, has been that they were often placed with relatives, if any were available.

 

Now, it is known that the mother of Joanna was called Clementia (Clemence?), one of several mistresses of King John (see also HBD!).

 

Jumping forward to 1236, there is an entry in the Tewkesbury annals which pertains to Joanna’s mother as “Queen Clemencie!” It reads in part:

 

Year 1236:

 

Obiit domina Johanna domina Wallia, uxor Lewelini filia Regis Johannis et regina Clemencie, iii. Kal. Aprilis.”

 

“(Died lady Joanna, lady of Wales, wife of Llywelyn, daughter of King John and Queen Clementia, 3 Kal. April.”

 

Reference: Henry Richard Luard, Annales Monastici, 1 (1864): 101.

 

In this case the monk was evidently indulging in medieval legalism. Before her death, Joanna had been legitimised by the Pope. On the basis of that legitimisation, the Tewksbury monk evidently took it upon himself to elevate Joanna’s mother to the status of Queen, as if her mother had been King John’s wife! It is a fact however, that King John and Clementia were never married. By referring to Joanna’s mother as “Queen” Clementia, the monk who recorded Joanna’s death was showing his extreme respect for Joanna, but not attempting to alter the true facts.

 

As for the identity of Clementia de Verdun, Paget shows that she was the daughter of Roger de Dauntsey, of Wiltshire. One genealogist considers it significant that Clementia hailed from Wiltshire as he has noticed that King John had a strong attachment to that county, it being the home of his most trusted allies, the Longespee, Marshall and Basset families and Geoffrey Fitz Peter. This would indicate that King John spent some time there and the possibility of an amorous liaison with Clementia exists.

 

Genealogists have discovered that the name ‘Clementia’ was extremely rare among English noblewomen of this period. In one table of women’s names that was compiled, there were only two occurrences of the name “Clementia” out of a total of 1407 women in the sample! The fact that anyone named Clementia would be associated with Susanna is considered significant.

 

So! The evidence is suggestive, but not conclusive, that in 1228, Susanna, as a hostage, was given over to the care of her maternal grandmother, now wife of Nicholas de Verdun!!

 

The Scottish genealogists of the MacDuffs’ hold that Susanna ferch Llywelyn was born 1214 in Gwynnedd, Wales and died c. 1259 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. She married Malcolm MacDuff, Earl of Fife in 1230 and had two children: Sir Colbran MacDuff, Earl of Fife, born 1245, died 1270 and MacDuff MacDuff born 1247.

 

Of course, there are counter arguments to all this supposition! King John had many mistresses and possibly as many as seven illegitimate children. The mother of Joanna would have been born circa 1172 and marriageable circa 1184. Joanna herself was born circa 1191 (14 yrs old at the time of her marriage to Llywelyn). Rohese, the known legitimate daughter of Nicholas de Verdun and his wife Clementia was born circa 1210-1213. If Clementia was the mother of Joanna, she would have been in her late 30’s, early 40’s when giving birth to Rohese! Not impossible, some say, but improbable.

 

 

Conclusion:

 

We will most probably never know the truth. Possibly however, because I want to believe it, I think that Susanna ferch Llywelyn was the last daughter of Llywelyn and Joanna. That she was given over as hostage to King Henry 111 in 1228 and was passed to the safe care of her maternal grandmother Clementia, wife of Sir Nicholas de Verdun.

 

 

 

 

Two hundred nineteen ships.   Seventeen thousand sailors and soldiers, a huge army by medieval standards.  This was the royal fleet of Richard Coeur de Lion, which sailed from Messina, Sicily on Wednesday, April 10^th 1191.   Almost immediately the fleet was becalmed, forced to anchor off the coast of Calabria.  Two days later, the storm struck.  We even know the hour of the storm, the “ninth hour of the day,” or 3 PM.   One reason I am deriving so much pleasure from writing Lionheart is that I have this surprisingly intimate glimpse of Richard and his world.  Two chroniclers traveled to the Holy Land with Richard and sometimes their accounts read like battlefield dispatches.   Here is a comment upon that savage Good Friday storm: “Then they entrusted their steering to God alone, for they believed they were beyond human aid.”   We are told that Richard kept a lantern lit on the mast of his galley, a beacon for the other ships, that he was always on the lookout for stragglers, that he “looked after the fleet like a hen caring for her chicks.”   And when I read their descriptions of the storms at sea, I was awed at the courage of medieval men and women, for had I been living in the twelfth century, I think it would have taken a drawn sword to get me on board a vessel that lacked adequate shelter, any navigational instruments, or comfort or privacy or safety.

     This was a round-about way of announcing that Richard is finally on his way to the Holy Land.  So far I am pleased with the book’s progress, mainly because the characters have come into clear focus for me.  Obviously, I feel as if I know Eleanor to the marrow of her bones by now; this is my fifth book in which she appears, not counting the four mysteries.   And by the end of Devil’s Brood, I thought I had a good grasp of Richard the man, not Richard the legend.   But I had to acquaint myself with new characters for Lionheart, primarily Berengaria and Richard’s grown-up sister, Joanna, and they seem to be finding their own voices.  

     I’ve always wondered how much free will fictional characters have. I remember reading an amusing, snarky comment by Vladimir Nabokov on this subject.   E.M. Forster had written that his characters sometimes took over and dictated the course of his novels.   In response to this, Mr. Nabokov said that, while he didn’t blame Forster’s characters for trying to “wriggle out of that trip to India or wherever he takes them,” his own characters were “galley slaves.”  Well, my characters cannot take over and deny history, as much as they’d like to.  But they are not galley slaves, either.   And they are capable of surprising me, which is half the fun of writing.

       Speaking of galley slaves—how is that for a segue way—I found another mistake in The Reckoning.  It is not as horrific or inexplicable as the bizarre crossbow-longbow episode, but as Ellen de Montfort is sailing to Wales to wed Llewelyn, there is a scene in which Hugh talks about the use of galley slaves by the Italian city-states of Genoa and Venice, claiming they manned their fleets with “infidel slaves and convicted felons.”    Not so.   Galley slaves were certainly used during the Roman Empire and during the Renaissance, but not in the Middle Ages, when the oarsmen were paid wages for their labor.    Clearly I consulted an erroneous source back then; since it was more than twenty years ago, I can’t be more specific than that.  Or else Hugh was just repeating what he’d heard in the wharf-side taverns of Harfleur.  Yes, the more I think about it, I’m going to blame Hugh for this one.

       I wanted to let you all know that Elizabeth Chadwick kindly interviewed me on her current blog; we’ll put up a link here, but it is always worth a trip to Elizabeth’s website.   One of the questions she posed gave me a chance to elaborate upon the changes in my opinion of Richard between Here Be Dragons and Devil’s Brood.   She is in the midst of doing numerous on-line interviews for the American publication of The Greatest Knight.  It comes out on September 1^st; mark your calendars.   But I think she will probably post links to these interviews on her website, another reason to drop by.

       Okay, now to the book giveaway.   Janna, you’re the winner.  If you e-mail me with your address, I’ll put a copy in the mail to you.   And I’ll pass  your questions on to St Martin’s.  It will be up to them to decide which ones they want to use, but I thought they all were insightful and worthy of being included. 

         Several of you asked for the contact information for that wonderful hotel at Fontevrault Abbey.   Here it is.   Hotellerie de l’Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, Prieure Saint Lazare, tel: 02.41.51.73.16    And here is their website URL    http://www.hotelfp-fontevraud.com/   Reservations can also be made on-line via Expedia, etc.    BTW, I used the older spelling for the abbey; Fontevraud is the more modern version.  

       I would still like to put Ken’s research directly onto a separate blog entry for that purpose.  I know there is a lot of interest in his findings.  He’s been away, but when he gets home, I’ll try to get his consent for that.  I was corresponding recently with a member of the Princess Gwenllian Society; next month they are holding an official ceremony to name a Welsh mountain in her honor.   My Welsh readers who’d like to attend can find more information on the Princess Gwenllian website, which is listed in My Favorites.   My friend was very interested in our blog discussions about Joanna and Llewelyn’s children.  The Society is researching the daughters of Llewelyn ap Gruffydd’s  brother Davydd, who were banished to lifelong exile in English nunneries like their cousin Gwenllian. 

       I think I answered most of your questions already.   But I do have a few comments about your comments.  It is a shame there is not an award for blogs; I think we’d win in a walk, for I am sure I have the best informed readers when it comes to the MA.   It is fascinating to read your responses and observations.  I loved your “What if” speculations, Malcolm; those are questions I’ve often asked myself, too.   I agree with you, Nicolette; as little as I like the man personally, Philippe Auguste was a highly effective king, maybe even a great one.   Thank you all for giving Brenna so many helpful suggestions for her trip to Wales.   As I said in an earlier comment to Malcolm, I love the way my readers look out for one another.   (And the Oscar goes to….)   I really liked your astute observations about Arthur, Koby.   Mention was made of the story that John killed Arthur himself in a drunken rage.   I never believed that myself.   It didn’t sound like John’s MO to me.  I think he made sure to be hundreds of miles away from Rouen when Arthur died.  Granted, we do not know for a certainty that he had Arthur put to death.  But I’d feel comfortable making a large wager on that.     Dave, thank you for telling us about Cosmestn Medieval village in Glamorgan; I hadn’t heard about that, would love to see it one day.  And as many times as I’ve been to Cricieth, I never tasted Cadwalader’s ice cream, clearly my loss.    Now back to you, Koby.   Since I am accusing John of murder, I might as well charge Marguerite d’Anjou with adultery; I always thought the most likely candidate for paternity was the young Duke of Somerset.    Though I can’t say that I’d blame Marguerite if she did stray from Henry VI’s bed.   

         I just realized that I didn’t ask any questions myself in this blog.   What can I end with?    Well, that novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has been on the USA Today bestseller list for twenty weeks now.    So maybe I am missing an opportunity with Richard I.   Forget about his sexuality.   Suppose I have him come out of the closet as…drum roll here…a vampire.    You think that would get Lionheart on the bestseller list for twenty weeks?     Just kidding, honest.    But I really do think Jane Austin is not only rolling over in her grave; she is probably spinning like a top.    So here’s a real question to end this blog.   I’m not sure if the Zombies book can be classified as fantasy, more like a spoof?    But what do you think of including elements of the supernatural in a novel?    Does it put you off?   Or does it depend upon whether the book is well written or not?     Lastly, as soon as I get Ken’s okay, I’ll put his research findings up on a special blog.

August 27, 2009     

       

        Hi, everybody.   The second part of the book tour went well, too.  We had a smaller turnout at Books and Company in Dayton, but the bad weather earlier may have been a factor; we were hit by the same storm that flooded Louisville.  The weather was much better the next day in Ann Arbor, and we had eighty-seven people there, which is very good for me since I’m neither famous nor infamous!    The best part of the tour, though, was getting to meet some of my new friends from the blog and Facebook, and to see some old friends in Dayton and Ann Arbor.   And of course there was Dave’s Welsh cakes! 

        I’d hoped to post a new blog earlier in the week, but I’ve been doing on-line chats at Goodreads.com and Librarythings.com, while having to make some emergency visits to my chiropractor; if not for that dear man, I’d be making regular pilgrimages to Lourdes. 

       Ken, we are all so grateful for the research you’ve been doing about Joanna and Llewelyn’s children.  I haven’t had a chance to go over it yet, but I’d like to share it with our blog members.   I am not computer-savvy—classic understatement—so I will need help in doing that.   Should I copy and paste it into a blog entry of its own?   Or is there an easier way?

        I have a few items of interest for my fellow book-lovers.   The BBC has compiled a list of one hundred books; they estimate that the average person has only read six of them.  One of my Facebook friends has kindly posted this on my Facebook wall if any of you want to check it out and see how many of the books you’ve read.    And Amazon has posted a list of the ten best books of 2009—so far. 

      Okay, on to your questions.  After this blog, I’ll go back to responding to some of your questions and comments as they come in.  Gayle, if you’d like to write about Ranulf’s Welsh mother, go ahead and give it a shot.  She was only a memory in Saints, so I don’t feel territorial about her.   Cindy, thanks for mentioning bookdepository.com, which doesn’t charge an international postal fee.   James, I’d love to go to Portland on a book tour; they’ve sent me there in the past, but not for a while.  And I loved the thought of you happily snipping away at the red roses.   Cece, I laughed out loud at the image of you tossing a book into the path of your husband’s lawn mower; Elizabeth Chadwick calls books like that “wall-bangers.”  

        Suzanne, I deliberately chose not to take the reader into Thomas Becket’s head in Time and Chance.  He was an enigma during his own lifetime and his abrupt “conversion” was as baffling to many of his contemporaries as it is to us.  (Loved your WTF comment, Kristen!)  Not everyone agreed with my decision to let the readers make up their own minds about Becket’s motivations, but it was one I felt comfortable with, and I still do.   I personally was in agreement with my poet-prince Hywel, who saw Becket as a chameleon, changing his colors to match his environment.  I don’t mean that he was a hypocrite, just that he was a complex man—like his former friend the English king.   I think the best biography of Becket is the one written by Frank Barlow.  And I would definitely recommend Dr Warren’s biography of Henry, Kristen; it remains the most comprehensive study of Henry’s reign.  

          Joyce, I’m so pleased that you found Geoffrey so interesting.  I’ve always found him to be the most intriguing of the brothers, the one most maligned by historians.   It is fascinating to speculate how history might have been changed if he’d not died in that tournament.   Assuming that Richard still died without a legitimate heir, Geoffrey would likely have become King of England, for in a war of wills between Geoffrey and John, my money would have been on Geoffrey and Constance.  

     Hilary, I’ve not read any of Susan Cooper’s books; truthfully, I am not drawn to fantasy.  Ah, Koby, how I wish I could do a book tour in Israel!    Same for Australia.  But publishers almost never send writers out of the country.  Only once did my British publisher pay my airfare—for the Sunne tour—although they would always set up a tour if I came over on my own.   I’d seriously consider a trip to Israel on my own if I didn’t have such a tight deadline for Lionheart.

          Now…how about another book giveaway?  This one is for Falls the Shadow.  We recently learned that the St Martin’s edition of Shadow does not have a book club questionnaire, unlike Sunne, Dragons, and The Reckoning.   St Martins is interested in remedying that, so we’re looking for reader questions.   Anyone have any to suggest for Shadow?   All questions will be entered in the drawing, as we’ve done in the past.

         I am going to have to wrap this up now as I am having some serious problems with Word.  Actually, I think the culprit is my new wireless keyboard, which has been giving me nothing but grief.   I’ll close with a brief comment on Davydd ap Llewelyn’s illegitimate son.  No, I was not aware of his existence when I wrote Shadow.   Let me correct that—I’d heard of him, but wasn’t convinced that he was truly Davydd’s son.  So I found your comments, Ken and Koby, to be absolutely fascinating.    If only I’d had access to the Internet when I was writing Dragons!

August 14, 2009

     Koby, you were right; my answering comments as they are  posted instead of saving them all for the next blog is more efficient—and gives me a fighting chance to keep the blogs shorter than Sunne.   I want to begin by thanking all of you who bravely followed me to Facebook; we solved the glitch and I no longer have an invisibility cloak.  I even managed to put up my book covers, including the gorgeous new one for the British paperback edition of Devil’s Brood.   I have also added a section for my British books in my blog, but the changes have not been made yet; same for my page of blog recommendations. 

        Speaking of recommendations, I have an on-line bookshop to recommend, www.medievalbookshop.co.uk   This is a wonderful source to find out-of-print and bargain books, and the owner is happy to accept Wish Lists from readers.  It is fun to browse, too, but be warned that you may find you’ve spent hours prowling Nick’s book attic.   I also want to remind you of www.freerice.com    It offers vocabulary tests at various levels of expertise, and every time you score a correct answer, rice is donated to the world’s needy.  I was delighted to discover they offer tests in French, Spanish, Italian, and German, too.   No Welsh yet…sigh.   Also, here is another Welsh castle site that one of my readers kindly brought to my attention.  As you all know, I am a huge fan of www.castlesofwales.com   But this site is a good one, too, for anyone interested in medieval Welsh castles, although it doesn’t have my personal favorites—the castles of the Welsh princes.  Here is the URL, www.greatcastlesofwales.co.uk/raglan_plan.htm

      I am going to take advantage of the fact that I have a captive audience here—every writer’s dream—to sing the praises of The Falcons of Montabard by Elizabeth Chadwick.  In the interest of full disclosure, Elizabeth and I are friends and I’ve never read one of her books that I did not like.  But I think Falcons is something special.  It is set in the Holy Land, also called Outremer or Syria, in the early years of the 12^th century; it actually opens with the sinking of the White Ship.  Her major male character, Sabin Fitz Simon, is the illegitimate son of the Earl of Huntingdon, who is banished to Outremer in expiation of his many sins when his roving eye focuses upon a favorite mistress of the formidable old king Henry I.  I loved the Holy Land setting, in part because I’ve spent so much time researching the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Crusades in the last few years.  As always, Elizabeth’s research is spot-on, and her descriptive writing is so vivid that you will feel as if you are walking the streets of Jerusalem with Sabin, fending off the relic peddlers and experiencing the delights of a Frankish bathhouse for the first time.  Falcons has a powerful love story that is firmly grounded in the MA, both convincing and moving.  I enjoyed the political intrigue and the skillful way Elizabeth has her fictional characters interact with real historical figures like King Baldwin or the Saracen lord, Usamah Ibn-Munqidh.      Another confession here—I like to write battle scenes.  I think Bernard Cornwell does them as well as any writer today, but not everyone knows that Elizabeth is just as gifted when it comes to spilling blood.   Falcons is set in a world at war, so there is enough action to satisfy the most blood-thirsty among us.  And as an added bonus, Falcons has some of the steamiest sex scenes not written by Diana Gabaldon.   For icing on the cake, Elizabeth provides a very interesting AN in which she discusses the choices she made and the few liberties she took with known historical fact; she even provides a brief bibliography.  If I had my way, all historical novelists would be compelled to include ANs, and I know many of you agree with me.   As an aside, Michelle Moran writes wonderful ANs, in which she explains why and how she had to fill in the blanks, for there is so much that is not known about ancient Egypt.     Unfortunately, Falcons has not been published yet in the US, but used copies are available at Amazon and Alibris, among others, and the paperback edition can be bought at Amazon—UK, of course.  

        Okay, now on to those of your questions I haven’t yet addressed.  Michelle, I agree with you that the “marital debt” would not have been easily enforced in the MA, given the inequality between husbands and wives.  But it is interesting that the Church took this position and adhered to it so strongly, even holding that a marriage could be dissolved if it could not be consummated.   Ken, I loved your comment about Edward, that he conquered Wales because he could; Bill Clinton said the same thing in an interview after he left office when he was asked why he’d gotten involved with Monica.    And I am fascinated by what you’re finding out about Susanna.   I did not make Gwladys Joanna’s daughter because there was no evidence to indicate she was when I wrote Dragons; as I’ve said, I relied to a great extent upon the wonderful research of Peter Bartram, who’d spent over forty years studying medieval Welsh genealogy.  But of course that was over twenty years ago and Peter didn’t have the resources of the Internet.   So I’m rooting for you to prove that Gwladys was Joanna’s. 

        Brenna, there is no secret formula for learning to accept criticism, sad to say.  Writers just have to develop thick skins if they want to prosper in our profession.  In my case, it was easier to accept the criticism of my editor, Marian Wood, because she was invariably right!   For example, I had originally written a chapter after the battle of Bosworth in which Elizabeth Woodville and others who’d loathed Richard were gleefully celebrating his death on Redmore Plain.  Marian said that my readers had emotionally invested in this man from the age of seven, and they would need time to mourn him.  I realized she was correct and so I wrote a chapter in which Richard’s niece Cecily and his nephew Jack de la Pole and his friends grieved for him.   It is never easy to be told that my writing is less than perfect.  But I believe that there was never a book written that couldn’t benefit from good editing, for editors can do what writers cannot—be dispassionate about what we’ve written.   I’ve been blessed to have one of the best editors in the business, of course.  But even if that were not so, I’d have had no choice but to bite the bullet and soldier on; for better or worse—and it’s usually for the better, it is an occupational hazard.

          I am leaving on my book tour next Wednesday, hope to meet some of you at my book signings, and hope, too, to bring back some stories to share.     I’ll close by saying that if we ever have a contest for the funniest comment posted on my blog, it would be very hard to beat Nan Hawthorrne’s entry—“Somebody has to be the granddaughter of a prostitute.  Just be glad it was me.”    

July 24, 2009           

I knew Merlin, my misnamed computer, had crossed over to the dark side, but I hadn’t realized he’d pitched a tent there.  I just wrote a new blog entry, but when I tried to publish it, it disappeared in a puff of smoke.  I will try to get this sorted out and re-post it ASAP.  Now let’s see if this one goes out okay.
July 24,2009

 

 

 

 

       I’d hoped to have a new blog posted this past week, but I was entangled with the Angevins.   At least it was productive, for I was able to finish a key chapter for Lionheart, in which Richard had confrontations with the King of Sicily and then the King of France.  Richard didn’t always play well with others, although it is hard to fault him for his feuding with Philippe Auguste, who could have taught Iago about treachery and betrayal.

       Richard also got to meet Berengaria at long last in this chapter.  Actually it wasn’t their first meeting, as I think they met about six years earlier at her father’s court in Navarre.  Ambroise, the minstrel or jongleur who accompanied Richard on crusade and wrote a rhyming chronicle about it, says that “most dear the king did love her and revere; since he was Count of Poitiers, his wish had wished for her always.”  Interestingly, the other major chronicle of the Third Crusade also says much the same thing:  “Attracted by her graceful manner and high birth, he had desired her very much for a long time, since he was first Count of Poitou.”  

      Ambroise was most likely the only chronicler who actually saw Berengaria, describing her as “a fair and worthy damsel, true and good, of very gentle womanhood.”   But the description that is most quoted is the snarky one  from Richard of Devizes, who never laid eyes upon her—that she was “more prudent than pretty.”   He also comments snidely that when Richard and Berengaria sailed from Sicily, she was “probably still a virgin.”   For what it’s worth, apparently none of these chroniclers thought Richard’s sexual urges were anything but conventional.    My favorite chronicler, William of Newburgh, calls Berengaria “a virgin of famous beauty and prudence,” but like Richard of Devizes, he never saw her either.   We know that two of her paternal aunts were noted for their beauty, as was her younger sister Blanca.   So while she may not have been another Helen of Troy, I think we can safely say that she wouldn’t have scared anyone when she went out in public.  BTW, her real name was Berenguela; this was translated into French as Berengere or Berengiere, and eventually it would become Anglicized as the name by which history knows her, Berengaria.   A shame, for Berenguela is lovely.

        Moving from the twelfth to the thirteenth century, several of you had questions about the children of Joanna and Llewelyn Fawr.  Ken kindly posted information from Joanna’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which was originally written by the Victorian historian Kate Norgate, and was subsequently updated by the British historian, A.D. Carr.  I still stand by my position that we can only be positive that Joanna was the mother of Davydd and Elen.  A. D. Carr says she was “probably” the mother of Gwladys and Margaret, but that is not a certainty.  He cites no source for a daughter named Susanna, and I am rather skeptical of that since I’ve never heard a word about her before.   I want to repeat, though, that I have not been able to keep current on  research done since I wrote Here Be Dragons more than twenty years ago; the same is true for Richard III and Simon de Montfort.  Happily, I am totally up to date on the Angevins, having had them as my royal roommates for the past fifteen years or so.   The Oxford National Biography is a wonderful source for writers or those interested in the MA.  I have information about subscribing to it, but I’ll put that in a comment to this blog.

       Suzanne, you’d asked an interesting question earlier—why writers select certain scenes to dramatize.   Part of the answer is simple practicality; writers know we can’t turn in 2,000 page books.   So we have to leave certain scenes on the cutting room floor, especially if they involve secondary characters.  That is why I did not dramatize Isabel Neville’s shipboard childbirth scene in Sunne, or why I did not dramatize the capture of the Scots king in Devil’s Brood, although both scenes would have been fun to do.  I tend to follow my instincts when it comes to writing scenes about primary characters; I just seem to “know” when an episode or event needs to be brought center stage and when it can be relegated to the narrative account.

         Shauna, you posed an interesting question, too, asking if there is any evidence that Joanna loved her father.   Sadly, there is very little surviving evidence of medieval emotions; occasionally a chronicler will give us a glimpse into medieval hearts, as when one reported that King Henry III and his queen were grief-stricken at the death of their little deaf-mute daughter or when a chronicler noted that Richard III and Anne were devastated by the loss of their son.  Sometimes a hint surfaces midst the dry facts of the Pipe Rolls, etc, as when Edward I’s crown had to be repaired because “it pleased the king to throw it into the fire.”  This tantrum was caused by his discovery that his daughter Joanna, widow of the Earl of Gloucester, had dared to take one of Gloucester’s squires in a clandestine second marriage; despite Edward’s initial rage, Joanna eventually won him over.   

        So….I have to rely upon common sense and logical deductions about what we know of human nature.  In Joanna’s case, she took a great risk in sending John a secret warning that his life might be endangered if he invaded Wales as planned.   I can think of no other reason for her action except love for her father.    I based my conclusions about her marriage to Llewelyn in great part upon his remarkable act, forgiving her for an adultery that was very damaging to him politically.  By 1230, he was at the zenith of his power in Wales, and Henry III was no threat, a weak king who could not have punished Llewelyn for putting aside an unfaithful wife.  Moreover, public opinion on both sides of the border would have been firmly on Llewelyn’s side had he done so; there was very little sympathy in the MA for faithless wives.  But Llewelyn forgave Joanna and restored her to favor, despite her unpopularity with the Welsh.  Even more significantly, he established a friary in her memory when she died.  So it is difficult for me not to conclude that he loved this woman.  

     What of Joanna’s feelings, though?   Here is where psychology rears its ugly head.  From all that we know of Llewelyn, he was not a man to have nursed an unrequited love for 24 years, for that is how long they’d been wed at the time of her adulterous affair with William de Braose.   If she hadn’t returned his love, his would eventually have withered and died.   Theirs had to have been a marriage of genuine affection and respect in order for it to have survived such a severe test.  And the proof that they were able to repair the damage done is that friary on Llanfaes. 

     Paula, I am so glad that you were impressed by the scene in Falls the Shadow between Simon de Montfort and Rabbi Jacob and his son, Benedict, for I am as proud of that chapter as I am of anything I’ve ever written.  I wanted to show my readers how pre-carious life had become for Jews in the 13^th century, culminating in their expulsion from England by Edward I in 1290.  They were hated and scorned for being money-lenders, yet they’d been forced into this dubious profession, barred from joining the craft and trade guilds, from holding land, or attending universities.   But I also wanted to do something more difficult—to show how a medieval Christian like Simon viewed Jews, that for him, it all came down to salvation.  He recognized the courage it took for Jacob for to come to him and ask to have the rioters punished.  He saw Jacob’s soul as one worth saving and he could not understand why Jacob would not embrace the True Faith, why he courted damnation.

       This scene between these two men goes to the heart of the differences between their world and ours.  In the MA, tolerance was not viewed as a virtue, and we find that very hard to understand.   This was true for all of their major religions–Christian, Jewish, or Muslim; they were all sure that theirs was the only way to God, their faith the only means to gain salvation.     

         I am trying a new tactic to keep these blogs within a manageable length.  I am going to answer some of your queries by posting comments of my own, as I did in thanking Steven for providing the URL to the William of Newburgh chronicle.  So don’t assume I am ignoring you if I don’t respond to your questions in this blog; just check for my re-plies in the last blog!    

      And now on to a subject we seem to be discussing a lot lately—medieval sex!   Paula, you ought to co-authoring this blog with me, as this is another of your queries–the belief that women must experience pleasure during sex to conceive, a question also addressed quite well by Elizabeth Chadwick.  Elizabeth points out that there were various theories about sex, some of them quite contradictory.  For example, there was a school of thought which held that a daughter was conceived only if there was a weakness in the man’s semen; this, however, did not keep them from still “blaming” the woman if she gave birth to a daughter, not a son!   Aristotle’s teachings were quite influential in the MA, and many accepted his belief that the man provided the seed and the woman the material.  But other medieval writers believed that both the man and the woman must provide “seed” for conception to occur.  And there was indeed a belief that conception was linked to a woman’s sexual satisfaction.  I’ve seen it suggested—but never with a citation for a medieval source—that this was one of the arguments which Louis’s advisers used to convince him to divorce Eleanor, insisting that she could never give him the son he so desperately needed because she no longer wanted to share his bed.   You can see the dangers in this argument, though, for rape victims.   By pure coincidence, I am dealing with this very question in my current Lionheart chapter, with a scene between Berengaria and Joanna in which they discuss the “marital debt” and the “sin of lust” and whether conception depended upon a woman’s sexual enjoyment.  BTW, the marital debt was owed by both husband and wife; the marriage bed was the one place where the Church accorded men and women equal rights.   The Church took this “obligation” so seriously that the marital debt was still owed even if one of the partners contracted leprosy.   

     I’m going to end this blog with a mystery.  A reader asked me if any of you might be familiar with a novel about a young woman who moves from her home in the south of England to Northumbria to marry; toward the book’s end, the family meets Richard, Duke of York, father of “my” Edward and Richard.   She can’t remember the author or title, so it’s a challenge.   Anyone up to it?

July 12, 2009

      

  

Before we get to your questions—my favorite part of the blogs—I want to give you a brief report of the Historical Novel Society convention.  There was an unexpected eleventh-hour development.   I’d signed up so late that I wasn’t on any panels and so I was looking forward to being a social butterfly, flitting about visiting old friends and meeting new ones.   But then I had a call from Jane Kessler at HNS.  Edward Rutherfurd was to have been one of the two keynote speakers, but a sudden family illness caused him to bow out at the last minute, and they asked me to step in.   So I ended up giving a speech Saturday night, definitely not the high point of the evening, though, as they then held a lively costume contest, followed by a public reading of their sex scenes by some very brave authors.

        Naturally the air travel portion of the trip was awful; I got in so late on Friday that I missed Margaret George’s much-praised keynote speech that evening.   Aside from that, I really enjoyed myself, getting to spend time with three good friends (Priscilla Royal, Barbara Peters of the Poisoned Pen, and Margaret Frazer) and meeting Michelle Moran and Anne Easter Smith.  Barbara, Margaret, and I had an interesting experience on Sunday night.  We had dinner at a restaurant in the mall across the street from the hotel, and afterward we sought to leave via the mall, only to find it locked up tighter than Fort Knox; we eventually escaped through the tornado shelter.  BTW, in this entire huge and rather posh mall, there was not a single bookstore.   I got to meet C. W. Gortner, who has written a novel about one of history’s most intriguing women, Juana La Loca; it is called The Last Queen and I now have a copy atop my pile of Books to Read.   I also met an American who now lives in Cyprus and she very generously offered to do any on-site research I might need for Richard and Berengaria’s stay in Cyprus! 

        Now, some interesting news about the other writers at the conference.  Good news for those of you who enjoy Margaret George’s books, and that would be anyone who appreciates well written and well researched historical novels.  Margaret’s next book will be about Elizabeth Tudor, beginning with the Armada in 1588.   All you Diana Gabaldon fans are going to be very jealous of me, as I got to hear two of Diana’s sex scenes from her new book, An Echo in the Bone, to be published in September of this year; she chose to contrast the male and female approach to sex, with one scene given from Claire’s point of view and one from Jamie’s.   Since Diana’s book tour is going to cover everyplace but the Falkland Islands, you’ve all got a fairly good chance that she might be coming to a book-store near you!  A slight exaggeration, but in addition to her U.S. tour, she’ll be visiting New Zealand and Australia and the United Kingdom and Germany.  

          Cathy, I was lucky enough to snag a copy of the galley proofs for Michelle Moran’s new book, Cleopatra’s Daughter, which, as you noted, comes out in September.  I expect it will be a great success for her; who can resist both Egypt and Ancient Rome?  I am going to interview Michelle on my blog after her new book comes out.  I will also be interviewing two medieval writers (and friends, in the interest of full disclosure), Priscilla Royal and Margaret Frazer when their new mysteries come out later this year.  And Elizabeth Chadwick (another friend) has kindly agreed to do a “guest appearance” for the American launch of her novel about William Marshal, The Greatest Knight, which will be published in September, 2009.    So if you have questions you’d like to submit to any of these authors, e-mail them to me and I’ll see what I can do.   And Cindy is quite correct; Anne Easter Smith is now working on a novel about Cecily Neville.

        I wish they’d made tapes of the panel discussions available for sale, as they’ve done at the Bouchercons.  Two in particular were fascinating.  C. W. Gortner monitored one on Sunday in which the panel discussed the bias in publishing about male authors writing of female protagonists and vice versa.  I was very surprised that this prejudice is still so prevalent and apparently widespread.  I never encountered it myself and, speaking as an avid reader, all I care about is that a book is well written.

       I especially enjoyed the panel discussion about the fine line writers must walk to balance fact and fiction.  You all know my rather passionate views on this subject, and to judge by your blog comments, I am preaching to the choir here.  I’m happy to report that the panelists were in agreement with us.   Laurel Corona offered a wonderful comment that could well serve as the Eleventh Commandment for historical novelists: “Do not defame the dead.”   That says it all, doesn’t it?   I think I’ve mentioned  my own shorthand for “historical novels” that are not rooted in any time or place:  “The Plantagenets in Pasadena.”   Well, I came away from the panel discussion with two more apt phrases: “costume fiction” and from Margaret Frazer, “Mary Jane visits the castle.”

        Okay, on to your questions.  First of all, thank you for all the Robin Hood recommendations: Jerry was very pleased.   I think my 1185 slip speaks for itself.  Ken, what a lovely compliment, comparing me to Eleanor of Aquitaine.   I only wish I had her inner strength and steely will.   Your comment about medieval archers not being able to take dead aim was fascinating; thanks for sharing your expertise with us.   Your anecdote about the infamous William de Braose was slightly off target, though.  It actually happened to one of his knights and Giraldus Cambrensus claimed that after an arrow pinned one leg to the saddle, he was hit by a second arrow in his other leg.  This is so vivid in my mind because Morgan, Ranulf’s son, related the incident to Richard in an early chapter of Lionheart—and this time there were no bizarre suggestions that longbows were easier to master than crossbows!   I was very interested in your reference to Savoy, Ken, and have an interesting anecdote (which you probably know), but I will have to save it for my next blog, as this one is going to be another whopper.

        Michelle and April, I’m going to have to pass on your questions about casting a film for Sunne.  I don’t have a “dream cast” for any of my novels, have honestly never given it much thought.   Although I am convinced that no actors ever born could have surpassed Peter O’Toole and Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter.  But if some of you want to suggest casting for any of my books, please do share them with us.  And Dave, I think I can speak for women everywhere when I say that Johnny Depp is not a prat!   I’d be utterly euphoric if he wanted to play one of the characters in any of my books.  Well, maybe not Henry Tudor, for there is no way Tudor had Johnny’s humor or sex appeal.

     I’m so glad that some of you will be able to attend my readings in Bailey’s Crossing and Anne Arbor.  Jenny, do bring your old copy of Sunne; I’d be happy to sign it.  Occasionally a bookstore owner will limit the number of previous books customers can bring to a book signing and there are even a few writers who balk at signing their earlier books.  But that is relatively rare and I am delighted to sign any of my books; it is a lovely sight to see a well-worn—hence well-read—copy of Sunne or Dragons.

     Brenna, I’m sorry, but I can’t be of any assistance when it comes to Allison Weir’s Princes in the Tower, as I have not read it.  Nor did I read the Bertram Fields book, though several of my friends were quite enthusiastic about it.   As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I did not keep up on Ricardian reading, moving on to Wales and then the Angevins.   So for that reason, I cannot recommend any Ricardian books published since Sunne.   Can any of my readers help Brenna with this?

      I was interested and somewhat surprised by the comments that Elizabeth Chadwick and several of you made about John in Here Be Dragons.   I never thought that “my”  John was that favorably portrayed.  I was not aiming to “rehabilitate” John, as I obviously was with Richard III; I had a more modest goal, merely to show his humanity.   I did find him an intriguing character to write about, for the ones with dark corners in their souls are always more fun than the saintly ones.   And I don’t think you can really whitewash a man who betrayed his dying father, did his best to keep his brother rotting in a German prison, had his own nephew murdered, hanged a number of Welsh hostages, and starved Maude de Braose and her son to death!  I do think John was quite intelligent, but he was also the most damaged of Henry and Eleanor’s sons, and I think his kingship must be judged a failure—not because of Magna Carta or even that he died alone and virtually abandoned by all, mourned by none.  I think John’s greatest failing as a king was his inability to trust others, and once they realized that, they could not trust him, which was an even more fatal flaw than Stephen’s inability to win respect or fear from his nobles.  It is always interesting, though, to see how other people view “my” characters.  I remember being surprised by some comments on the Historical Fiction On-line forum to the effect that my Richard III was too perfect to be true, for I truly never saw him in that way.  Hey, he did send Hastings to his death without a trial, remember!   Surely the most unique response I ever got came from an Australian reader, who wrote that she could not enjoy Dragons because Llewelyn reminded her too much of an old boyfriend.

      Suzanne, you had a very interesting question, asking how writers pick scenes to dramatize and why some get left on the cutting room floor.  Because that deserves more than a few quick sentences, I am going to save my response for my next blog.  And I’m sure we’d like to hear from you writers out there, too, on this subject.

         Now, Cindy, it is your turn.   You mentioned the massacre of the Jews of York in March, 1190, and you and Blair both brought up Richard’s execution of the Muslim garrison at Acre.  These are serious topics and I want to address them fully.  First of all, your source for the York massacre was very much in error.   Briefly, this is what happened.   Richard had forbidden any Jews to attend his coronation feast.  When I read that initially many years ago, I assumed that this was an anti-Semitic act, for we all knew this was the ugly underside of medieval life.  But Richard’s subsequent actions changed my mind about this; now I think it is quite likely that he was trying to keep the King’s Peace, as whenever a crusade had been declared in the past, the Jews were the first to suffer.  During the first and second crusades, bloody pogroms had flared up as would-be crusaders looked for “infidels” closer at hand than the Saracens.   I think Richard may have been trying to avoid such outbursts of violence in England.  But Benedict and Josce of York, prominent moneylenders from that city, possibly not having heard of the prohibition, showed up at Westminster and were attacked by bystanders.  Soon a mob was surging through the city streets, burning and looting and assaulting any Jews they could find.   Richard was infuriated; the Jews were under the king’s protection and were an important source of royal revenue.  He did what he could to punish the rioters and at once sent out writs to the major cities of his realm, warning that the Jews were not to be harmed.  And they were not.  The writs were obeyed—as long as he remained in England.  But he left for Normandy after Christmas, and that “crusading fervor” soon erupted again, like a virulent plague.   Jewries were attacked in Lynn and Norwich and then it spread to Stamford, Bury St Edmunds, and Lincoln.  Drunken mobs pillaged and looted and the Jews fled to the royal castles for refuge.   Then, in March of 1190, the madness reached York.

       Remember the two York moneylenders, Benedict and Josce?   Josce had escaped the London mob, but Benedict was trapped and forced to accept conversion.  When peace had been restored, Richard had him summoned and asked if his conversion had been voluntary.  When Benedict said it was coerced, he was allowed to recant, although the Archbishop of Canterbury angrily told him that he could be the Devil’s man if he refused to be God’s man.   Benedict died soon after of his wounds, but Josce returned safely to York, where a worse fate awaited him.  

         When the York mob attacked Benedict’s house and killed his family, Josce and the other Jews fled to the castle for safety.   But they did not trust the castellan and when he left the castle, they apparently overpowered the garrison and refused to let him back in.  He then turned for help to the sheriff of Yorkshire, who just “happened” to be in the immediate vicinity, and the sheriff made the fateful decision to retake the castle.  The York mob was only too happy to join in, and by the time the sheriff had second thoughts, the mob was in control.   The trapped Jews held out for two days, but they realized they were doomed and made the desperate decision to die by their own hands rather than to be butchered by the mob.  Husbands slit the throats of their wives and children, Josce being the first one to kill his family.   It is estimated that about one hundred and fifty had taken refuge and most of them chose suicide.  

      Those still alive appealed for mercy and agreed to accept baptism and they were promised that they’d be spared.  But this promise was not kept and when they emerged, they were all slaughtered, men, women, and children.   The mob then revealed the real reason for the rioting.  They forced their way into York Minster and compelled the monks to turn over the Jews’ debt bonds, which they burned right there in the nave of the church.

      When Richard, then in Normandy, learned of this, he was outraged.  We have no way of knowing, of course, if he pitied the victims.  We do know that any medieval king would see this as an act of political defiance.   He immediately sent his chancellor, Longchamp, back to England and Longchamp led an army into Yorkshire, where he found how difficult it is to punish mob violence.   The citizens of York swore that it had been perpetrated by strangers and would-be crusaders, who’d fled into Scotland.  Longchamp dismissed the castellan and the sheriff—more on him in a moment—and imposed heavy fines on the citizens.   And this heavy-handed response was sufficient to keep other cities at peace; there were no other violent outbursts against the Jews during the remainder of Richard’s reign.

        I can highly recommend a first-person account by the medieval chronicler William of Newburgh; a translation was published in 1996.  Blair was quite right that some of the chroniclers did approve of the pogroms against the Jews; Richard of Devizes faulted the citizens of Winchester for protecting their Jews.  But William of Newburgh was horrified by what had been done in his God’s Name.   In a telling phrase, he described how Josce slit the throat of “Anna, his most beloved wife.”    He wrote that the rioters’ first crime was to shed “human blood like water,” their second “acting barbarously,” their third “refusing the Grace of Christ to those who sought it,” and the fourth, “deceiving those miserable people by lying to induce them to come forth.”     And he very clearly stated that the motivation for the rioting was to avoid paying the debts owed to the York moneylenders.

     Now, back to the sherff.   As I said, he was sacked by Longchamp.   Sadly, he was later appointed to another shrievalty by John, though there is no evidence that John played any role in the York massacre; he was in Normandy with Richard at the time.  The disgraced sheriff was none other than John Marshal, older brother of the celebrated William Marshal, and he was either guilty of gross incompetence or he was in collusion with the mob.  

      Okay, on to Richard’s crusade.  This is the story of the siege of Acre.  When it surrendered to the crusaders in July, 1191, an agreement was struck with Salah al-din (more commonly known to us as Saladin) to ransom the garrison.   The ransom was not paid—there are various explanations as to why it was not, the most likely being the mutual mistrust on both sides—and the garrison was marched out onto the plains beyond the city and there killed.   This decision had been made by all the crusade leaders, but there is no doubt that Richard wanted this done.   There is a very matter-of-fact letter of his to the Abbot of Clairvaux, in which he describes the execution of “about two thousand, six hundred” of them being “quite properly” put to death.    He saw this as a purely military decision as his army was about to march out of Acre and he was unwilling to set so many enemy soldiers loose on his rear, apparently having decided that he could not spare enough men to guard them.   Cold-blooded?  Yes, it was, and later historians would judge him harshly for it.  At the time, the chroniclers seem to have accepted it as what needed to be done.  

      You notice that I’ve talked only about the “garrison.”   You will find it said in some histories, including one by the respected historian, Sir Stephen Runciman, that the families of these unfortunate men were slain, too.  But I have so far been unable to find any contemporary source for this.  I have read five English chronicles and two Arab chronicles, one written by one of Saladin’s intimates, and none of them mention the families of the garrison being killed, too.   And in all of the histories or biographies that report this as a “fact,” not a single one cites a medieval source for it.  This is why writers drink.   I am going to continue to try to track down the origin of this story, but if I have no luck, I will most likely follow the medieval sources and then discuss the controversy in my Author’s Note—you guys are getting a preview of it here!

          This is a good example of the challenges that novelists face; it matters greatly to me that I get the facts right, especially about an event of such significance.  It is also a good example of the great gap that sometimes existed between medieval and modern sensibilities.   I’ve seen the massacre of the Acre garrison compared to the killing of captured French knights by Henry V at the battle of Agincourt, which was also done for military reasons.   Obviously we don’t see such killings in  the same light, but I think historical novelists ought to try to view them from a medieval perspective if at all possible.   

      Lastly, there is your question, Marilyn.    Marian Meade was wrong; Richard did not make  a “public confession of his homosexuality.”   If only he had!   That would have saved me so much work and research trying to solve the “mystery” of his sexuality.  What he did do was to summon his bishops to him in Messina and confessed to his sins.  The chronicler mentions “the thorns of lustfulness,” but is not more specific than that.  He says that Richard “received the penance imposed by the bishops and from that hour forward became a man who feared God and left what was evil and did what was good.” 

        This public penance alone would not raise questions about Richard’s sexual proclivities.   It is truly amazing what was held to be sinful by the medieval Church.  In addition to fornication, adultery, and sodomy, medievals were told that they sinned if they had sex in any position other than what we today call the “missionary position.”  They sinned if they had sex on Sundays, holy days, during Advent, Lent, and Pentecost.  Open mouthed kissing was a sin, as was making love in daylight.  Any sexual act that was not procreative was a mortal sin.   According to some canonists and penitentials, a husband who desired his wife with “excessive lust” was guilty of adultery!  

       In a future blog, I will discuss the multitude of medieval sins covered by the term sodomy, which included any sexual act thought to be “against nature.”   This is relevant because a chronicler reported that in 1195 a hermit approached Richard and warned him, “Be thou mindful of the destruction of Sodom and abstain from what is unlawful.”    Historians today have been having some very lively arguments about the meaning of this warning and there is no consensus, any more than there is a consensus about Richard’s sexual inclinations.   Until 1948, no one suggested he preferred men to women.  After 1948, it became accepted as gospel.  But within the last twenty years or so, there has been another reassessment of something we can never really know for certain.   Richard’s pre-eminent biographer, the British historian John Gillingham, is convinced Richard was heterosexual and many historians now agree with him.   Others still believe Richard was either homosexual or bisexual.   As I said, I will be addressing this subject in later blogs.  While doing this research, I’ve come across some very comprehensive and perceptive studies about medieval sexuality and the considerable differences between the way they viewed sex and the way we view it today.   Would you like me to include some of these books on my Recommended Research page?

        Well, here’s another blog stretching out into infinity.  But we’re talking about mutual guilt now.   You all really have to stop asking me such intriguing questions!

June 25, 2009

PS  Ken, thanks for posting the entry on Joanna from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  That is a subject I had to save for a future blog, too.