All posts by daniellecampisi

LIONHEART’S AUTHOR’S NOTE–THE EDITED VERSION

Penman

I hit the road today for the Lionheart book tour, am looking forward to meeting some of you during the course of it.  Meanwhile, I thought it might be of interest to give a preview of my Author’s Note.  The final version sets a record even for me–11 pages.  This is the beginning, with several spoilers deleted so as not to give away plot twists for readers not familiar with the events of the Third Crusade who prefer to learn about it by reading the book.
AUTHOR’S NOTE

Richard I was never one of my favorite kings, although my knowledge of him was admittedly superficial. I saw him as one-dimensional, drunk on blood and glory, arrogant, ruthless, a brilliant battle commander, but an ungrateful son and a careless king, and that is the Richard who made a brief appearance in Here in Dragons. I saw no reason not to accept the infamous verdict of the nineteenth century historian, William Stubbs, that he was “a bad son, a bad husband, a bad king.”

So I was not expecting the Richard that I found when I began to research Devil’s Brood. I would eventually do a blog called “The Surprising Lionheart,” for after years of writing about real historical figures, I’d never before discovered such a disconnect between the man and the myth—at least not since I’d launched my writing career by telling the story of another king called Richard.

The more I learned about this Richard, the less I agreed with Dr Stubbs. I think Richard can fairly be acquitted of two of those three damning charges. I loved writing about Henry II. He was a great king—but a flawed father, and bears much of the blame for his estrangement from his sons. Certainly both Richard and Geoffrey had legitimate grievances, and it can be argued that they were driven to rebellion by Henry’s monu-mental mistakes; see Devil’s Brood. I bled for Henry, dying betrayed and brokenhearted at Chinon, but he brought so much of that grief upon himself.

Nor was Richard a bad king. Historians today give him higher marks than the Victorians did. Yes, he spent little time in England, but it was not the center of the uni-verse, was only part of the Angevin empire. After his return from his crusade and captivity in Germany, he found himself embroiled in a bitter war with the French king, and spent the last five years of his life defending his domains from Philippe Capet. The irony is that he has been criticized in our time for the very actions—his crusading and his military campaigns—that won him acclaim in his own world. By medieval standards, he was a successful king and historians now take that into consideration in passing judgment upon him.

He was, however, a bad husband, his infidelities notorious enough to warrant a lecture from the Bishop of Lincoln. Note that I say he was taken to task for adultery, not sodomy. I discussed the question of Richard’s sexuality at some length in the Author’s Note for Devil’s Brood, will not repeat it here since this Author’s Note is already going to rival a novella in length. Very briefly, the first suggestion that Richard preferred men to women as bedmates was not made until 1948, when it took root with surprising speed; I myself helped to perpetuate it in Here be Dragons, for I’d seen no need to do in-depth research for what was basically a walk-on role. But the actual “evidence” for this claim is very slight, indeed. I’ll address this issue again in A King’s Ransom, for that is where Richard will have his famous encounter with the hermit. The research I did for Devil’s Brood inclined me to be skeptical, and I am even more so after finishing Lionheart, for I had not realized the intensity of the hatred between Richard and Philippe. The French chroniclers accused Richard of arranging the murder of Conrad of Montferrat, of poison-ing the Duke of Burgundy, of plotting to kill Philippe by sending Assassins to Paris, of being bribed by the “godless infidels” and betraying Christendom by allying himself with Saladin. So why would they not have accused him of sodomy, a mortal sin in the Middle Ages, and a charge that would have stained his honor and imperiled his soul? If they’d had such a lethal weapon at hand, we can be sure they’d have made use of it.

Berengaria has remained in history’s shadows, a sad ghost, a neglected wife. She has not received the respect she deserves because her courage was the quiet kind; she was not a royal rebel like her formidable mother-in-law. She has been called a barren queen, unfairly blamed for the breakdown of her marriage. Since I knew of her unhappy marital history, I was somewhat surprised to discover that the marriage seems to have gotten off to a promising start. Because Richard shunned her company after he recovered his free-dom, I’d assumed this was true in the Holy Land, too. But Richard actually went to some trouble to have her with him when he could. It would have been easier and certainly safer to have had her stay in Acre instead of bringing her to Jaffa and, then, Latrun. We cannot be sure what caused their later estrangement, but I have some ideas; as a novelist, I have to, don’t I? I think we can safely say, though, that the greater blame was Richard’s.

What surprised me the most about Richard the man as opposed to Richard the myth? I already knew he was almost insanely reckless with his own safety, so it came as some-thing of a shock to learn that he was a cautious battle commander, that he took such care with the lives of his men. It is a fascinating paradox, and one which goes far toward explaining why he was loved by his soldiers, who seemed willing “to wade in blood to the pillars of Hercules if he so desired,” in the words of the chronicler Richard of Devizes.

It also surprised me to learn that his health was not robust, that he was often ill, for that makes his battlefield exploits all the more remarkable. The Richard of legend smolders like a torch, glowering, dour, and dangerous. But the Richard who comes alive in the chronicles had a sardonic sense of humor, could be playful and unpredictable; Baha al-Din reported that he habitually employed a bantering conversational style, so it wasn’t always easy to tell if he were serious or joking. And while I’d known he was well educated, able to jest in Latin and write poetry in two languages, I admit to being impressed when I discovered him quoting from Horace. Even his harshest critics acknowledge his military genius; he hasn’t always been given enough credit, though, for his intelligence. The mythical Richard is usually portrayed as a gung-ho warrior who cared only for blood, battles, and what he could win at the point of a sword, but the real Richard was no stranger to diplomatic strategy; he was capable of subtlety, too, and could be just as devious as his wily sire.

But I was most amazed by his behavior in the Holy Land, by his willingness to deal with the Saracens as he would have dealt with Christian foes, via negotiations and even a marital alliance. As tragic as the massacre of the Acre garrison was, it was done for what he considered valid military reasons, not because of religious bias, as I’d once thought. He was not the religious zealot I’d expected. The man who was the first prince to take the cross refused to lay siege to Jerusalem, alarmed his own allies by his cordial relations with the Saracens, and although he believed they were infidels, denied God’s Grace, he respected their courage. According to Baha al-Din, he formed friendships with some of Saladin’s elite Mamluks and emirs, even knighting several of them. That was the last thing I’d have imagined—knighting his infidel enemies in the midst of a holy war?

I don’t expect Lionheart to change the public perception of Richard I, any more than The Sunne in Splendour could compete with the Richard III of Shakespeare. But I do hope that my readers will agree with me that this Richard is much more complex and, therefore, more interesting, than the storied soldier-king. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised by what my research revealed. As an Australian friend, Glenne Gilbert, once observed astutely, “There had to be reasons why he was Eleanor’s favorite son.”

October 4, 2011

THOUGHTS ON THE DEVIL’S BROOD

Penman

Henry and Eleanor’s fourth son was born on September 23rd in 1158. He was christened Geoffrey, after his grandfather, and from an early age, was destined to rule over Brittany through his marriage to the heiress, Constance. He is the forgotten son, ignored by historians and novelists alike, probably because he was the only one of the Devil’s Brood never to wear a crown. Readers of my books and blogs know that Geoffrey is my personal favorite of the brothers, and I was very gratified when so many people felt that Geoffey was the most intriguing character in Devil’s Brood. I’ve often recommended Judith Everard’s book, Brittany and the Angevins, for anyone interested in learning more about Geoffrey, Constance, and Brittany; I honestly do not think I could have written Devil’s Brood without it. Or if I did, it would have been a different book and a different Geoffrey, for she brought his Breton career into focus, showing us why he did what he did and totally repudiating the ridiculous notion that he acted from “mindless malice,” as one reputable historian once claimed.

Geoffrey seems to have thrived on challenges. Wedding a woman hostile to the Angevins, he managed to win Constance over, and they had a good marriage. How do we know? For one thing, they were usually together; she was frequently at Geoffrey’s side, both within and outside the duchy, convincing evidence that they enjoyed each other’s company. And Geoffrey shrewdly involved Constance in the governance of Brittany, thus avoiding what I see as one of Henry’s greatest marital mistakes, failing to make use of Eleanor’s keen political skills or to recognize that Aquitaine was as dear to her heart as Anjou was to his. Constance’s biographer in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes her forced marriage to the Earl of Chester after Geoffrey’s death as follows: “In contrast to her first marriage, this appears to have been an unhappy and loveless affair.” Geoffrey was equally successful in gaining the support of the suspicious Breton barons, no easy feat, and during his five year reign of the duchy, he showed himself to be a worthy if flawed son of two very gifted, flawed parents.

What were Geoffrey’s flaws? I don’t fault him for his rebellions against his father. He was only fifteen at the time of the Great Rebellion, and I think his age exonerates him under the circumstances. And he did not ally himself with the French king until Henry’s mind games had pushed him to that point; it is hard to blame him for resenting the way his father withheld two-thirds of Constance’s rightful inheritance as a means of keeping Geoffrey on a tight leash.

So what do I fault Geoffrey for? The answer is one that would have surprised me fifteen years ago. When I began to do serious research for Devil’s Brood, the last thing I expected to find was that Richard would prove to be the brother most sinned against. Given his reputation for aggression, I’d assumed that he’d been to blame for his constant strife with his brothers. But I was wrong. It was Hal who connived with the lords of Poitou to usurp Richard’s duchy, and Geoffrey threw in with him. If Henry hadn’t come to Richard’s rescue, they might have succeeded, too. Several years later, when Henry had an inexplicable “Becket moment” and foolishly told seventeen year old John that Aquitaine was his if he could take it from Richard, it was Geoffrey who provided the money and the men-at-arms for John’s ill-fated invasion. Richard defended himself, but did not strike back at Geoffrey until Henry had refused to punish the culprits. And the pattern held in Richard’s relationship with his youngest brother, John. He seems to have blamed Geoffrey more than John, and once he was king, he provided generously for John. With wonderful perversity, he scorned the men who’d deserted Henry in his last desperate months and rewarded those who’d stayed loyal to the bitter end—with one exception—John. John paid no price for betraying his father, instead got the wealthy heiress Henry had promised but never delivered, and an income of four thousand pounds a year. John, of course, repaid his brother by doing all in his power to make sure Richard rotted in a German dungeon.

I’ve sometimes joked that writing of the Angevins is like watching one of those horror films in which the foolish teenagers insist upon going down alone into the cellar even as the audience is screaming, “No! Don’t go!” I was constantly trying to nudge my characters back onto the straight and narrow. Is this rebellion really a good idea, Eleanor? Are you sure you want to crown Hal in your lifetime, Henry? Why can’t you see that Geoffrey and Richard are very different from Hal and that the only thing worse from not learning from your mistakes is learning the wrong lessons? Richard, can’t you cut your father a little slack? Geoffrey, why must you go out of your way to poison your relationship with your brother Richard? Hal…where to begin with Hal? Or John, for that matter.

Above all, I wish I could have sat Henry and Eleanor down and showed them that parental mistakes can be forgiven, parental sins cannot—and they were guilty of two very serious sins. They had obvious favorites; with Eleanor, it seems to have been Richard, and with Henry, it was Hal and then John, with Geoffrey as neglected by his parents as he would later be by historians. And they failed to instill a sense of family solidarity, to teach their sons to care for one another. I find it very sad. Her brothers rallied around her when their sister Tilda followed her husband into exile, and Richard raised holy hell on Joanna’s behalf when she found herself in dire straits after her husband’s sudden death. But I suspect that if one of their brothers were drowning, the others would have thrown him an anchor as a lifeline. And it is hard not to blame Henry and Eleanor for that. I was recently discussing the Marriage from Hell that Henry’s parents had endured, pointing out that it had gotten off to such a rocky start that the union was probably doomed, and as much as I sympathized with Maude—forced into a marriage she never wanted—I can’t absolve her of blame, for when they wed, Geoffrey was fifteen and she was twenty-six. In other words, she was the adult. So were Henry and Eleanor.

One last thought about this dramatically dysfunctional family. I’ve always dismissed that theory espoused by the French historian, Philip Aries, that medieval parents did not allow themselves to become emotionally invested in their children, supposedly because the child mortality rate was so high. I think that is ridiculous, for the sources are filled with heartrending examples of parental love or grief. It is true that Edward I and his queen seem to have been more devoted to each other than to their children. But I do not believe they were typical of their times. Henry’s love for his children was raw and real and there is no reason to doubt Eleanor when she told Pope Celestine that not a day passed that she did not mourn Hal and Geoffrey. And her grieving for Richard bleeds through the formal language of the charters she issued after his death. Whatever their failings as parents, they loved their children. Sadly, it was not enough.

Lastly, there is still time to enter the second Devil’s Brood book giveaway; just post a comment on the blog titled “Richard and Ragusa,” and when I return from the book tour, I’ll send a signed copy to the winner of the drawing.

September 28, 2011

.

RICHARD AND RAGUSA

Penman

I have always been interested in the Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik. I am not sure why, for I knew little of its history. It may have been the sheer beauty of the locale—the white medieval walls, the red tile roofs, the turquoise of the Adriatic Sea, the mountains rising up in the distance. Whatever the reason, for as long as I can remember, Dubrovnik has been on my Bucket List of places to visit before I die. In all honesty, I never truly expected to make it, though. But that may be changing, thanks to a man dead more than eight hundred years.

When he was attempting to make his way back to England after the end of the Third Crusade, Richard Lionheart ran into more drama in the span of weeks than most people do in the course of a lifetime—storms at sea, an encounter with pirates, two shipwrecks, a mad dash through enemy territory with just twenty men, and then betrayal and capture, an imprisonment that blatantly violated Church law. His first shipwreck was on the island of Lokrum, just outside the harbor of Ragusa. I was both surprised and intrigued to discover that Richard’s Ragusa was my Dubrovnik.

Ragusa was a fiercely independent republic, nominally under the suzerainty of what we today call the Byzantine Empire, known in Richard’s time as the Empire of the Greeks. It had an old and proud history that dated back to the seventh century, and during its Golden Age in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it rivaled the much larger cities of Venice and Genoa. It was an oligarchy, ruled by a small elite of patricians—all male, of course. They served by turns on the great council and elected one of their own to serve as rector, limited to very brief terms. The office of rector was not formed until the fourteenth century, though; Richard would have met the Count of Ragusa. But the government structure was the same.

Richard would have found a prosperous, peaceful city. The streets were cleaner than those he’d have been accustomed to in Europe, and medical care was probably better, for the Ragusans imported physicians from the celebrated medical school at Salerno. Public order was an important aspect of life in the republic, and women could walk the streets in greater safety than in the other cities of Christendom, for any man who molested a woman was swiftly punished, even if she was a serving maid and he of high birth. But this protection was not extended to the home. While a female servant could not be accosted in public, she was fair game for her employer. The Ragusans were not concerned with protecting their women, but rather with the protection of children. The rationale was that a man would assume no responsibility for a child born of a street rape, but a child sired by a servant girl’s master would be taken care of by the household. This system worked so well that there was no orphanage established in Ragusa until the end of the fifteenth century. Nor was this medieval city-state a democracy in the sense that we would use that term. It was true that the benefits enjoyed by the patrician inner circle spilled over to the rest of the citizens. But it was also a city of slaves, 90% of them women; in fact, household slaves trained in Ragusa were highly valued in the Italian slave trade.

Ragusa must have seemed like the Tower of Babel to Richard and his men, for four languages would have been heard on the city streets. The local people spoke Slavic and an Italian dialect and what was known as “Old Ragusan.” Fortunately for the English king, Latin was still the official language, so he could communicate with the count and the great council. Even more fortunately for him, Ragusa was one of the few sites on the Adriatic coast where he would be given a friendly welcome. We do not know how long he stayed in Ragusa, but when he sailed away, he left behind a legacy that is remembered there even today.

As his ship was driven toward the rocky coast of Lokrum, Richard had made a desperate vow, promising God that if He spared them, he would pledge the vast sum of one hundred thousand ducats to build a church wherever he landed. English chronicles and Ragusan records say that Richard wanted to erect his church on Lokrum, but the townspeople convinced him to build it within the city. Richard agreed on condition that the Pope would approve this change to a holy vow and that some of the money would be used to rebuild the Benedictine monastery church on Lokrum. And so an English king became the patron of Ragusa’s great cathedral of St Mary. In appreciation for consenting to this change, the Lokrum abbot was permitted to don the archbishop’s mitre and preach a mass each Candlemas in the cathedral; there is a letter to the Pope from the town council in 1598 which explains the origin of this highly unusual custom. The cathedral was destroyed in the earthquake of 1667, but Richard’s memory burned brightly over the centuries in Ragusa. In 1916, a Serbian official publicly sought England’s aid, reminding the British that “Richard received our hospitality and built for us a beautiful church on the spot where our ancestors saved him from shipwreck on his way back from the Crusade.”

While researching Richard’s time in Ragusa, I stumbled onto another remarkable story, that of the Archbishop of Ragusa. We know very little of this enigmatic man. His name was Bernard and he is believed to have been of Italian or Dalmatian origin. In 1189, he was consecrated as the republic’s new archbishop and there is reason to believe he gave Richard a warm welcome. Two years later, though, his relationship with his flock was so fractured that he fled the city and steadfastly refused to return, claiming his life was at risk. He somehow found his way to Richard’s domains, where the English king repaid the hospitality he’d been given in Ragusa. By 1198, Bernard was in England, and after Richard’s death, he rose in the favor of the new king, Richard’s brother John. He would end his days as the Bishop of Carlisle, far from Ragusa.

I would love to know more about the mysterious Bernard, but that is so often the case with these historical snippets of information. We are told just enough to awaken our curiosity, not enough to satisfy it. But now when I think of the beautiful city of Dubrovonik and my Bucket List, I will also think of Coeur de Lion, a medieval cathedral, and an exiled archbishop who died far from home.

I’d promised that I would do another book giveaway for Devil’s Brood before the October publication date for Lionheart. So again—anyone who posts a comment on this blog will be eligible for the drawing. I probably won’t be able to tend to it until the conclusion of the Lionheart book tour, but upon my return home, I will send a signed copy of Devil’s Brood to the winner. Of course, by then I hope you all will be happily engrossed in reading Lionheart!

PS For those interested in learning more about the Republic of Ragusa, I recommend Susan Mosher Stuard’s A State of Deference: Ragusa/Dubrovnik in the Medieval Centuries. And we ought to remember, too, that Dubrovnik—like Sarajevo—suffered through a siege by the Serbian army in 1991-1992, its unfortunate citizens never dreaming that their medieval walls would one day help them to stave off an enemy invasion. I was writing When Christ and His Saints Slept during the siege of Sarajevo and I was chilled that civilians in our time could be enduring the same danger and deprivations that the siege of Winchester brought to the townspeople in 1141.

September 21, 2011

DEVIL’S BROOD WINNERS AND BOOK TOUR ITINERARY

Penman

I am delighted to announce that we have two winners of the Devil’s Brood Book Giveaway, as both their name tags stuck together when I drew them out, and I didn’t see a fair way to choose between them. I’ve e-mailed you both already, but Kyung and Sherri, you are the winners. I am sorry I don’t have enough copies for you all, but I will do another giveaway for Devil’s Brood in September.

I thought it might be a good idea to post the book tour itinerary again as I’d posted it before in the comments section and not everyone reads through all of them. So here it is.

Author Appearances for

LIONHEART

By Sharon Kay Penman

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4 – PHILADELPHIA

Event: CHESTER COUNTY BOOKS

975 Paoli Pike

West Goshen Center

West Chester, PA 19380

610-696-1661 TEL

www.ccbmc.com

Time: 7:00 PM

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5 – CINCINNATI

Event: JOSEPH-BETH BOOKSELLERS

2692 Madison Road

Rookwood Pavilion

Cincinnati, OH 45208

513-396-8960 TEL

http://www.josephbeth.com/Landing.aspx

Time: 7:00 PM

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6 – lansing, MI

Event: SCHULER BOOKS & MUSIC

2820 Towne Center Blvd
Lansing, MI 48912
517-316-7495 TEL

http://www.schulerbooks.com/

Time: 7:00 PM

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 7 – ANN ARBOR, MI

Event: NICOLA’S BOOKS

2513 Jackson Rd.

Westgate Shopping Center

Ann Arbor, MI 48103
734-662-0600 TEL

http://www.nicolasbooks.com

Time: 7:00 PM

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8 – HOUSTON

Event: MURDER BY THE BOOK

2342 Bissonnet St

Houston, TX 77005

713-524-8597 TEL

http://www.murderbooks.com/

Time: 4:30 PM

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 9 – SCOTTSDALE, AZ

Event: POISONED PEN

4014 N Goldwater Blvd

Ste 101

Scottsdale, AZ 85251

480-947-2974 TEL

http://www.poisonedpen.com/products/hfiction/9780399157851/

Event
http://www.poisonedpen.com/event-calendar/penman-sharon-kay-with-diana-gabaldon/

Time: 2:00 PM

MONDAY, OCTOBER 10 – ST. LOUIS

Event: LEFT BANK BOOKS

at THE St. Louis County Library Headquarters

1640 S. Lindbergh

St. Louis, MO

314-367-6731 TEL (Left Bank Books)

http://www.left-bank.com

Time: 7:00 PM

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15 – PRINCETON, NJ

Event: BARNES & NOBLE

3535 US Route 1

Princeton, NJ 05840

609-897-9250 TEL

http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/store/2646

Time: 3:00 PM

August 22, 2011

DEVIL’S BROOD BOOK GIVEAWAY

Penman

 

 

DEVIL’S BROOD BOOK GIVEAWAY

     

      As I mentioned earlier, I am going to do a book giveaway for Devil’s Brood this month and next, to pave the way for Lionheart.  The rules are simple; anyone who posts a comment to this blog is eligible for the drawing.  I will, of course, post it on Facebook, too, but you will have to make your comments on the blog itself so that I can keep track of the participants.  I’ve used this system in the past for book giveaways and it seems to work well.  The winner can choose either the American or the British edition, both in hardback.   And I will probably do a book giveaway for Lionheart after my book tour in October.     I know the Goodreads website has already had at least one drawing for Lionheart; I assume it is an ARC (advance reading copy, which is the uncorrected ms in bound form, the one that gets sent out for reviewers, etc.)  Lionheart picks up where Devil’s Brood ended, with all of the major characters except Henry, the Countess Maud of Chester, and Henry and Eleanor’s daughter Tilda, the Duchess of Saxony, as they had the misfortune to die in the summer of 1189.  I missed Henry very much, for he’d been hanging around the house since the early 1990’s, and Maud was great fun to write about, too, a scene stealer par excellence who took a relatively minor role and parlayed it into numerous appearances in three books. 

      Dog update—Milo is out of the kill shelter, thanks to Joan, and is being treated for heartworm.  He is a sad boy, half-starved for he was clearly on his own for a long time, and he is understandably very subdued and nervous. Joan has renamed him Oliver, since she says he seems like such a vulnerable little orphan, and she has found a foster home for him while he undergoes treatment for heartworm; he has to be kept quiet for six weeks.  But given half a chance, dogs like Milo/Oliver can blossom, and if the vet can heal him, I don’t see why he can’t respond the way Shadow and Tristan did.   The puppy, named Pebbles, is luckier, for she was adopted. 

       I’ll close with a Lady of the English comment.   Maude and Geoffrey have turned their marriage into a battle zone, and while it must have been hellish for them, Elizabeth Chadwick makes it all seem so vivid and real that the readers feel as if they are the proverbial flies on the wall as the unhappy duo go at it.    Maude’s father, he of the ice in his veins, a.k.a Henri I, is still alive, not having had that ill-advised encounter with a lamprey pie.  Eels did in Stephen’s loathsome son Eustace, too; after that, you’d think they’d have kept them off the royal menu.   (It is my understanding that lampreys and eels are very similar.)  And I believe the lamprey pie story did not surface until some years after Henry’s death.  But it is always problematic when we try to determine the actual cause of death for a medieval figure, unless they were unlucky enough to be shot with a crossbow, (Richard) were trampled in a tournament (Geoffrey) died in childbirth (Ellen de Montfort) or their fatal illness was described in such lurid detail by chroniclers that it is easy to make a diagnosis (The young king, Hal in my novels, who died of what they called the bloody flux and we call dysentery.)  

     Lastly, I have not abandoned the Eleanor of Aquitaine tour, plan to resume blogging about it, but I’ve had to give it a lower priority for now.  I still have to do entries about Fontervrault, Chinon, Angers, and Chartres.   And for those who may not have heard, it looks as if Elizabeth Chadwick will be doing a William Marshal tour next year for Academic Travel.  So what could be better than to close with a marvelous quote from The Scarlet Lion, Elizabeth’s second book about the Marshal, in which he says to King John, “Until the day she died, I carried a torch for your mother, but it never once lit my way to her bed.”

 

August 10, 2011

A Dog on Death Row

Penman
Milo, a dog in need of good luck for a change
Milo, a dog in need of good luck for a change
To some, that may sound melodramatic, but it is an accurate description of Milo’s plight. Milo is a young white German shepherd, just three years old, currently being held at a high-kill shelter in Orlando, Florida. High-kill shelters are overcrowded and under-staffed, and they can offer dogs only a narrow window of opportunity to find new homes and new lives. Milo’s time is running out, for he will be eligible for euthanasia on August 2nd. This doesn’t mean that Milo will automatically be put down on Tuesday, but it does mean that if more dogs come into the shelter and they need room for them, he is likely to be one picked for euthanasia, despite being young, healthy, and friendly. I am in awe of those who work in rescue; I don’t know how they find the strength to persevere, for they get their hearts broken on a daily basis. They cannot save them all, and just as the police do, they get to see the worst of human nature. It is bound to be emotionally and physically exhausting, and yet they keep doing it, one cat or dog at a time. Those who work in horse rescue have an even more daunting challenge, of course. It takes courage and dedication and all of us who love animals should be grateful that they are willing to work on the front lines.
Shadow's Before photo
Shadow
Milo needs a foster home ASAP. Joan, who was Tristan’s Echo angel, can’t take him herself, as she has just started to foster a young female with kennel cough, which she has to keep separate from her own four dogs. Echo does not have any foster homes open at present for Milo. If someone can commit to fostering him, Echo can remove him from the shelter and put him temporarily in a boarding kennel, but only up to a week. And they cannot do that unless they know he’ll have a place waiting for him. I admit that this case hits close to home for me. Milo is three, just like Shadow, and he looks eerily like Shadow; moreover, this is the same high-kill shelter where Tristan was held. Tristan beat the odds, thanks in great measure to Joan, who pulled him on his last day, and to Becky, who offered to foster him, and then to the thirteen wonderful people who volunteered to help get Tristan to his new home, driving him up the East Coast to me, a pilgrimage that my friend Glenne likened to the passing of the Olympic Torch. I very much hope that Milo will be able to beat the odds like Tristan.
Tristan's Before Photo
TristanTristan
Shadow's After Photo
Shadow

As precarious as Milo’s predicament is, he is not even the most endangered dog at the shelter; Joan says there is a seven month old black and tan female there whose time runs out on Saturday. She is just a puppy, and her sad-eyed look is haunting. Here is her photo.
http://apps.ocfl.net/dept/CEsrvcs/animal/NetPets/AnimalDetail.asp?ID=A210090&RT=T
Tristan beat the odds in another way—he was so lucky to be picked up in Orlando County, even though shelter dogs there have a limited opportunity to find new homes. Had he been found in Polk County, where Joan lives, he’d have been doomed from the outset, for Polk County does not adopt out German shepherds, Rotweillers, Dobermans, and pit bulls. They are not offered to the public, are held for five days in case a rescue group is willing to take one, and then are put down, no matter how adoptable they may be. I know that cities like Detroit and Miami do not adopt out pit bulls, which are usually seized in raids on dog fighting rings, for it was believed that these dogs could not be rehabilitated.The Mike Vick pit bulls proved us wrong on that; they were given a rare chance by court order and of the more than fifty dogs taken from his property, only two had to be euthanized. Several have even become therapy dogs.So we ought never to assume that second chances will be wasted—on people or dogs. Sadly, Florida’s many high-kill shelters are not unique; this is a problem in other areas of the country, too, particularly in the South, which is why there are regular caravan runs from these shelters to shelters where the dogs will not automatically be euthanized once their time runs out.
Some of my friends have become volunteers for Echo’s transports in the wake of my adoption of Tristan, and they all say it is remarkably rewarding to know they are helping to give a dog a new home. And by helping these dogs in need, we are helping other people, too, giving joy to those who will adopt them. As I said, this is very personal for me because of my experiences with my three shepherds, all wonderful, smart, loving dogs that could so easily have been euthanized with a little less luck. I am putting up a photo of Milo; I wasn’t able to do so with the young female shepherd whose time is running out, so I just included the link for her. I am also going to post Before and After photos of Shadow and Tristan to show how an abused, neglected animal can thrive in a good home. I am asking all of my fellow dog lovers to post this blog or the information about Milo on your Facebook pages. The more people who know about his peril, the more likely it is that someone may be able to foster him and literally save his life—or the life of the little girl who may doomed to die at seven months of age.
I’ll end this by commenting again upon the enormous admiration I have for those who try to save our society’s throwaway dogs and cats, animals that were once automatically put down. Att least now many of them are given second chances, thanks in great measure to the people who work in rescue, and to those willing to consider adoption. Their efforts remind me of a story I once read, which may or may not be true. A young boy came upon hundreds and hundreds of starfish that had been washed ashore by a high tide and were dying on the sand. He began to pick them up and throw them back into the water. A man passing by stopped to watch and then said, “Why are you bothering to do this? You can’t save them all, so what difference are you making?”The boy returned a starfish to the sea and then said, “It makes a difference to that one.”
If you think you can help, you can contact Joan at jga@catniptrails.com or me at sharonkaypenman@gmail.com.

ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE TOUR–DAY FOUR, POITIERS

Eleanor of Aquitaine Tour, Penman

Breakfast at the Abbaye Royale Hotel is a wonderful way to start any day, for the restaurant is built around the lazar house cloisters. It is like gazing through a window to the past. So despite our rather bumpy introduction to Fontevrault, we were all very happy to be here. And we were eager to begin the day’s expedition. If Henry had left his heart in Le Mans, Eleanor gave hers to the city we would be visiting today, Poitiers.

Like Le Mans, Poitiers is an ancient city and may have been the capital of the Roman province of Gallia Aquitania in the second century. It was known then as Limonum and boasted two amphitheatres that were as large as the Coliseum in Rome. Sadly, not a trace remains of them, for their ruins were utterly razed in 1857 by very ill-advised city councilors. In the Middle Ages, Poitiers was the center of the dominions ruled by the powerful Dukes of Aquitaine. Eleanor was often here during the course of her long and eventful life and in 1199, she issued a charter bestowing autonomy and communal rights upon the city. We felt Henry’s presence very strongly in Le Mans, were sure that we would find Eleanor in Poitiers.

We were lucky, too, to have a very special guide in Mary McKinney. Mary is an American who has lived in Poitiers for the past ten years, teaching at a local university, and if she weren’t a friend, I’d be stricken with envy, for she has the life I’d love for myself. She gets to hear Mass in Eleanor’s cathedral, to visit castles and abbeys whenever she has a free weekend, and she plans to spend Christmas this year in Carcassonne. It doesn’t get any better than that!

When my friend Valerie and I visited Poitiers in 2009, Mary offered to give us a private tour of Eleanor’s city, and we had so much fun that I was determined our tour group would experience one of Mary’s tours, too. She met us in Poitiers and I am sure she surprised Janus by greeting him in Hungarian. Mary spent time in Hungary on her travels; she has probably racked up more frequent flyer miles than Marco Polo, assuming they had them in the 14th century, of course.

For me, the high point of Mary’s tour was the Palais de Justice, the great hall of the palace of the Dukes of Aquitaine. Eleanor’s notorious grandfather, William IX, added a donjon in 1104 and named it after his equally notorious mistress, the aptly named Dangereuse, wife of a neighboring lord, the Viscount of Chatellerault. When he moved Dangereuse into the palace, that was the last straw for his long-suffering wife and she took up residence at Fontevrault Abbey, where she must have had some interesting conversations with her husband’s first wife, a frequent guest. William then added insult to injury by wedding his son to Dangereuse’s daughter; the result of this unlikely union was our Eleanor. In Saints, I have a scene where Henry and Eleanor share their family histories on their wedding night, in between lovemaking. It is not easy to impress a man who can claim the Demon Countess of Anjou as one of his ancestors, but Eleanor manages it with her stories about her grandsire. Henry finds it hilarious that “your grandfather was having an affair with his son’s mother-in-law,” and points out gleefully that “between the two of us, we’ve got a family tree rooted in Hell!”

So the palace must have seen some truly fascinating scenes during those years that the Dukes of Aquitaine reigned over Poitiers. We owe the stunningly beautiful great hall to Eleanor. Today it is known as the Palais de Justice, but in Eleanor’s time, it was called La Salle des Pas Perdus, the “hall of lost footsteps,” for it was huge, one of the largest halls in Europe, 160 feet in length, 55 feet in width. The original beamed ceiling has been replaced, but the splendor remains. Eleanor often held court here and the hall must have resounded with the music of the finest troubadours in Christendom. It was also here that Joan of Arc was subjected to an intense three week interrogation by the Archbishop of Reims in 1429; the churchmen concluded that the king might lawfully receive this “simple shepherd-maiden” for “there was nothing found in her which was not Catholic and reasonable.”

The city ramparts are ancient, too. The first set dates back to Roman times and the second set was ordered and funded by Eleanor. And the city’s main street, the Grand Rue, once echoed with the footsteps of Roman legionnaires, then the pageantry of its medieval dukes—and one unforgettable duchess. The churches of Poitiers are memorable, too. The cathedral of St Pierre was begun in 1162 by Henry and Eleanor, the older cathedral razed to make way for the new one; it was in the older cathedral that Henry and Eleanor were wed on May 18, 1152. The magnificent stained glass Crucifixion Window is said to have been donated by Henry and Eleanor, and they are portrayed in the bottom panel of the window. So our visit to the cathedral was special to all of us.

The church of Notre Dame la Grand is truly superb. It was first mentioned in 924 AD and was rebuilt in the second half of the 12th century. The west front of the church is one of the finest Romanesque facades in France, looking as it did when Eleanor attended Mass there. When I was here in 2009, Mary was telling me about an eagle etched into a window in appreciation for Eleanor’s generosity to the church. She’d never been able to find it, she said, despite numerous attempts to locate it. The words were no sooner out of her mouth than we both happened to glance upward and, lo and behold, there was Eleanor’s eagle. When we first arrived at Notre Dame la Grand, a Mass was in progress; imagine what it would be like to attend services in a church more than eight centuries old. Most of us missed seeing another beautiful church, for we were pressed for time, the abbey church of St Hilaire, a stop on the pilgrim route to San Juan de Compostella. Built in the 11th century over a Roman cemetery, St Hilaire was the site for the funeral and burial in March, 1168 of Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, uncle of the celebrated William Marshal, slain when Eleanor was ambushed by the de Lusignans. And in June of 1172, Eleanor’s son Richard was consecrated as Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine here.

We left Eleanor’s city with reluctance and headed back to the abbey that became her home in the years after Richard’s death. On the way, we stopped for a wine-tasting at a local winery; Chinon is famous for its red wines. We got back to the hotel in time to visit the abbey bookstore, where we discovered that they were selling some of my novels. I was pleased, of course, for they didn’t offer that many English language books, but at least this time I did not give out an excited and undignified squeal the way I did when I was there in 2006 and found one of my novels on their shelves.

J.D. had made dinner reservations for us at the restaurants in Fontevrault, sparing us the need for another emergency run to the McDonalds in Saumur. Some of us dined at the Plantagenet, more of us at La Licorne, the Unicorn. It is remarkable that such a small village would have a restaurant as exceptional as this one. But then, this is France. Afterward, we walked back to the hotel as a misting rain began to fall and got ready for our night tour of the abbey. Stay tuned for that.

ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE TOUR–NIGHT THREE, OUR ARRIVAL AT FONTEVRAULT

Eleanor of Aquitaine Tour, Penman

I pick up the story on Wednesday, June 8th, in early evening. After a delightful afternoon in Le Mans, a wonderful place for communing with our Angevin ghosts, we headed for Fontevrault Abbey; by the way, I use the older spelling instead of the more modern Fontevraud for consistency, as this is what I’ve used since Here Be Dragons. But we were to encounter an unexpected obstacle on the way.

As we approached the Pont de Varennes sur Loire, the bridge spanning the River Loire, it became apparent at once that we had a problem. This was a very narrow bridge and there was no way our large tour bus would be able to stay in its own lane. There was no other route to Fontevrault, though. I’ve always been in awe at the driving skills of those who handle these huge buses; it sometimes seems as if they are trying to get that camel through the needle’s eye, and amazingly enough, they usually do. I’ve encountered tour buses on Welsh mountain roads with my heart in my mouth. Once I saw two behemoth buses trying to squeeze around each other on Aberglasyn Pass; it was like a mating dance of dinosaurs. So I’ve had experience with big buses and narrow roads. But I was not prepared for what happened next.

Fortunately, traffic was very light and once the bridge was clear of other cars, our intrepid guide, J.D., got out to lead us to the promised land, and Janus, our equally intrepid bus driver, began to edge out onto the bridge. It was then that we learned France has its fair share of crazy drivers, for a woman drove onto the other end of the bridge and headed right for us. Now if she failed to notice a six ton bus, she must have had a seeing-eye dog as her co-pilot. But on she came. Meanwhile, several other death-defying drivers seemed about to follow her out onto the bridge. J.D. ran over to her car, explaining politely that she really had to back up since we couldn’t. She was having none of that, though. I wouldn’t have objected had J.D. commandeered her car and backed it up himself, but I guess he didn’t want to see the inside of a French jail. So Janus took up the gauntlet Crazy Lady had thrown down and we began to creep across the bridge, with J.D. doing his best to keep our tour from ending up in the Loire. Thanks to Janus’s remarkable driving skills — and maybe a little help from Eleanor — we managed to squeeze by Crazy Lady’s car without making contact, and the other kamikaze drivers had thought better of it and backed up. As for me, I can only marvel that some people can apparently drive without ever activating their brains. Forget that old cliché about ignoring the elephant in the living room. From now on, I’ll be thinking of the bus on the bridge.

When we reached Fontevrault, Janus must have sworn under his breath at sight of the village. In the Middle Ages, village streets were not designed to accommodate modern tour buses. Janus had to maneuver us along streets that reminded me of a scene in Prince of Darkness, where Justin is caught in an alley that was a sword’s length in width. It was not quite that bad in Fontevrault, but Janus needed nerves of steel and eyes in the back of his head. Eventually we made it to the abbey and J.D. had to ask for admittance at the gate, just as he would have done in the Middle Ages. Well, aside from using an inter-com, of course.

The Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud is one of my favorite hotels, located in the abbey lazar house, or leper hospital. The last time I stayed there, I loved the intimacy, for hotel guests had the free run of the abbey after the other tourists were kicked out. So I felt as if I were coming home — only this turned out to be a home in which the cupboards were bare. The hotel’s restaurant is renowned for its cuisine, and I’d anticipated our group having dinner there. I was truly taken aback when we learned they were fully booked and could accommodate only five people. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I was one of the five, but we assumed the rest of our group would be able to get dinner in the restaurants in Fontevrault. We were wrong.

While the Lucky Five were enjoying a wonderful dinner, our friends were wandering the village in search of sustenance. Some of them were able to get into the last seating at the Plantagenet, but the other restaurants in Fontevrault were closed. It wasn’t that late, but once you are out in the French countryside, you soon find that village life is not like the Las Vegas Strip. Our flock couldn’t have had a better shepherd than J.D. and he arranged for Janus to drive fifteen of the group to Saumur, which is about 20 minutes away. Saumur is not a village like Fontevrault, has a population of over 25,000. But apparently they are larks, not owls, for all of their restaurants were closed by the time our group arrived. Well, there was one place still open, a McDonalds, so they could stave off starvation. But on the way back, they took a wrong turn; the roads in rural France are almost as pitch-black as mountain roads in Wales. They soon found themselves at a dead end, on a very narrow road, with ditches on each side of the bus. Janus is an excellent driver and got everyone safely back to our hotel, but the next time he is asked to leave Hungary for a job in France, he may well head for the hills, and who could blame him?

I’d never encountered a problem like this at the hotel, but I was there in the off-season. This was June and there just wasn’t room at the inn. Nor could we have made reservations in advance, not knowing when we’d be arriving. Their attitude did seem somewhat rigid to me, though, for they must have known that the local restaurants were closing. Couldn’t something have been done for thirty-nine hungry pilgrims? We’d have been happy with fruit and cheese and bread! Had Eleanor and her entourage arrived at the abbey in the middle of the night, they’d never have been turned away. So there is a drawback to democracy, after all. I’d still go back to the Abbaye Royale. Only if I came again in high season, I think I’d be sure to pack some snacks.

Next day we will be visiting Eleanor’s capital city, Poitiers, then after a stop at a winery, we will return to Fontevrault for a night tour of the abbey.

July 14, 2011

ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE TOUR–DAY THREE, MONT ST MICHEL AND LE MANS

Eleanor of Aquitaine Tour, Penman

We arrived at Mont St Michel on Tuesday evening, still early enough to do a little shopping before our dinner at La Mere Poulard. The main street is crammed with small shops, all selling trinkets and souvenirs and any item you could possibly want stamped with the name Mont St Michel. Some people might have thought the scene was tawdry or tacky. Not us, for we knew how very medieval it was. In the Middle Ages, the same row of shops fronted the main street; only then they were selling pilgrim badges instead of post cards. Medieval merchants depended upon the flow of pilgrims just as the modern ones depend upon the crush of tourists. Human nature has not changed over the centuries and we all want mementos. It is just that in the MA, they came in the shape of scallop shells (San Juan de Compostela), badges depicting St Michael slaying the dragon (Mont St Michel) leaden images of the Blessed Mother Mary (Our Lady of Rocamadour) and little vials of the blood of the holy martyr, St Thomas of Canterbury. In Devil’s Brood, Henry cannot resist a snarky comment that it was almost a miracle in itself that Thomas bled enough to keep filling the little tin phials that the monks gave to pilgrims who made offerings at his shrine. But pilgrim badges were an important element of the medieval economy. In the late 14th century, the citizens of Mont St Michel petitioned the French king, complaining that the tax imposed on the sale of pilgrim souvenirs was hurting their livelihoods; the king, who was devoted to St Michael, agreed to exempt Mont St Michel pilgrim badges from taxation in perpetuity. I suspect, though, that today’s merchants on Mont St Michel are not so lucky.

So after hitting the shops, we returned to our hotel, La Mere Poulard, which has been renowned since the 19th century. I’d never stayed there before because I knew none of the island hotels had ascenseurs, lifts, or elevators, and in the interest of self-preservation, I’d chosen to stay at the Hotel Le Relais St Michel at the head of the causeway, which is a bit pricey but offers truly spectacular views of the abbey from the hotel balconies. I thought it was a good idea to book us into La Mere Poulard, though, for I knew our tour group would enjoy the medieval ambiance after all the other tourists had gone home. So for my readers planning to make pilgrimages of your own to Mont St Michel, pick one of the island hotels if you want to be able to wander about after dark. But unless you are as agile as a mountain goat or travel with only a toothbrush since cars are forbidden, it might be best to go with one of the hotels clustered by the causeway.

We had a private dinner that night in the hotel restaurant, and it was so much fun. We really had a good group, and friendships were already being forged that will last long after our memories of the tour start to fade. The food was excellent, with just one disappointment — the Flaming Dessert of Doom, as one of us called it. This was the house speciality, an omelette that actually resembles a soufflé and is cooked over an open fire. It was certainly entertaining to watch its preparation. The result, though, did not live up to the pyrotechnics or to its renowned reputation — at least for most of us. A few dissenters enjoyed it, Paula being one. Being a vegetarian, though, she was probably grateful for any food she could actually eat; French chefs didn’t seem all that interested in offering up tasty alternatives for non-meat eating guests.

The next morning I disregarded my inner warning voice and went for a walk along the steep medieval street. This entailed tackling way too many stairs and by the time we were ready to head out for our tour of the abbey, I was not only in considerable pain again but I was out of breath, too, which alarmed my doctor friend, John. Fortunately, the travel agency had hired a local guide for the abbey visit. So, knowing I would not be able to manage the 900 plus steps without a pair of wings, I sensibly elected to wait for them at the hotel, making use of Motrin and my support pillow. I’d bought a lumbar pillow especially for the trip and it had been very useful on the flight over, but it somehow disappeared between the airport and our Paris hotel. I’d asked J.D., our guide, if he could pick up another one for me and he found a perfectly-sized little pillow that would prove to be a godsend on our bus rides. I mention it because the pillow will figure in the story later on; consider this a clue.

For an abbey, Mont St Michel has a surprising amount of violence in its history. After Philippe Capet took Normandy from John, his Breton allies lay siege to the island, and the town and part of the abbey itself went up in flames. It would be caught up in the One Hundred Years’ War, too, and in 1424, it was once again besieged, this time by the English, and was saved by the Bretons. The French monarch known as the Universal Spider, Louis XI, created the Order of the Knights of Saint Michael, with the Archangel as its first member. Louis also created an appalling punishment for those poor souls who fell out of favor — a wood and metal cage suspended from the ceiling at the Mont; each time the prisoner inside moved, the whole cage would rock wildly. Political prisoners would be sent here in years to come, truly a fate worse than death for many. But ironically, it would be prisoners who saved the abbey from what befell so many other medieval treasures. By the eighteenth century, the buildings were falling into ruin. It is likely it would have suffered the fate of so many castles and abbeys, torn apart by local people in search of building material, had it not been converted into a prison, the “Sea Bastille.” But in the 19th century, people began to realize the importance of the abbey’s past, and in 1874, it was declared a historic monument — for which countless visitors are eternally grateful.

I had time to ponder the history of Mont St Michel during the two hours that the rest of the tour was getting a guided tour of the abbey. Not all of our guides were first-rate; that is the luck of the draw, after all. This one was very good and they told me she brought the past to vivid life for them. I am just sorry the did not get to see Notre Dame Sous Terre, one of the oldest parts of the abbey, an 11th century church where I committed a murder in Prince of Darkness.

As the abbey’s dramatic silhouette slowly faded into the distance, we sped toward our next destination. Le Mans is an ancient city, founded during the reign of the Emperor Augustus around 20 BC, known as Vindinium; its Roman walls are among the best preserved in Europe. To many people today, Le Mans means the Grand Prix. To me and my fellow medieval geeks, it means the city that Henry II most loved, a city that was the beating heart of the Angevin Empire. Henry was born here, christened here, came here often during his long reign, and suffered his greatest defeat here, when he was forced to flee the city before the forces of his son Richard and the French king. The chroniclers reported that he reined in on the crest of a hill and, as he looked back at the burning city, his anguish gave way to a wild, unholy rage. To the horror of his companions, he vowed that since God had taken from him the city where he was born and where his father was buried, he would deny the Almighty his soul.

We had a wonderful guide at Le Mans and she gave us a fascinating tour of the magnificent cathedral of St Julien and the medieval part of the town, known as Cite Plantagenet. La Cathedrale St Julien is one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen. There was a church on this site since the 5th century; the present cathedral was begun in the 11th century, consecrated in 1120. It has a Romanesque nave and a High Gothic Choir, and a collection of stained glass that only Chartres can rival. Above all, it resonates with the history of the Angevin dynasty. Henry’s parents were wed here in June of 1128. Henry was born in the palace, christened here in the cathedral, as were his brothers. Geoffrey was buried here. Henry was a generous patron of the cathedral, paying for the amazing flying buttresses, and as we gazed upon the spectacular stained glass Ascension window, we knew that Henry had often gazed upon it, too.

Our walk through the Cite Plantagenet was an absolute delight — cobbled streets and half-timbered houses, more than a hundred of them. Le Mans has begun to restore the original colors of these medieval houses, vivid reds, greens, and blues. People don’t always realize how colorful the Middle Ages were. Seven of these houses are decorated with bright corner pillars, one way of identifying locations, for all streets did not have names and none had numbers; if directions referred to the “red pillared house,” the inhabitants had a point of reference — rather clever, actually.

In Henry’s time, there were two royal residences in Le Mans, the ancient castle near the cathedral and the palace in the Place St Pierre, where he had been born and where he and Eleanor stayed upon their visits to the city. The palace would also be home for Richard Coeur de Lion’s queen, Berengaria. She was his wife for just eight years; she would be his widow for thirty. Richard had generously provided for her with dower lands in Normandy and England, but they were not to pass to her until after Eleanor died. In the years after Richard’s death, Berengaria lived at Beaufort en Vallee, Chinon, and Fontevrault, as she struggled to get John to honor her dower payments. He treated her very shabbily, and there is no evidence Eleanor ever intervened on her daughter-in-law’s behalf. Berengaria was treated more fairly by the French king, a man not known for his generosity of spirit. But in 1204. Philippe bestowed the city of Le Mans upon her in return for her surrender of lands, including Falaise and Domfront, which had passed to her upon Eleanor’s death. Le Mans would be her home for the remainder of her life, and she became known as The Lady of Le Mans. She devoted herself to works of charity, and founded the Cistercian abbey of L’Epau near Le Mans; here she was buried after her death in December, 1230. I was very pleased to find that she has not been forgotten in her adopted city; there is a street named Rue de la Reine Berengere, and her name graces a local museum, too. Berengaria is a name she would never have heard; she was born Berenguela, and that was translated into the French Berengere at the time of her marriage; Berengaria is the English version and — to me — nowhere near as pleasing to the ear as the musical Berenguela. As for the palace itself, it has been used since 1790 as the City Hall, and all that remains of the original building are the walls and the walled Roman windows.

I’d planned to end this blog with our arrival that evening at Fontevrault Abbey, but it is getting too long. So I am going to stop here, leaving us in the lovely city of Le Mans, so dear to Henry’s heart. Next — our arrival at Fontevrault, and our excursions to the capital of Eleanor’s domains, a local winery, and then a night tour of the abbey.

 July 10, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE TOUR–DAY TWO FALAISE AND MONT ST MICHEL

Eleanor of Aquitaine Tour, Penman

We got a late start leaving Paris and it was afternoon by the time we were approaching Falaise. Its castle was a very important stronghold in Henry’s time. Today the town is small — about eight thousand inhabitants — and, as we found out the hard way, it shuts down so its residents can enjoy a long, leisurely lunch. I was surprised, for the castle is a popular tourist attraction, and this was June, after all, hardly the off season. But all of the appealing little restaurants we found were closed. I’m glad the citizens of Falaise have such an unhurried, laidback life style, but it can be challenging for hungry tourists. We eventually found a small market open and had a picnic lunch on the tables of an outdoor café before going up to the castle.

Falaise means “cliff” in French and it is well named, for the fortress is perched on a crag above the town. The current castle was begun in 1123, constructed by King Henry I on the site of an earlier one. It was in that older stronghold that William the Conqueror was born. He was known during his lifetime as William the Bastard, for his parents never wed. The most popular legend has it that his father, Robert, Duke of Normandy, was standing at a tower window and saw a beautiful girl in the village below. The droit de seigneur that supposedly allowed a lord to claim a bride on her wedding night is a myth, but lords did enjoy other rights and Robert exercised one of them by sending for her; in his defense, he was only about seventeen. The young woman, whose name was Herlive or Arlette, refused to be spirited in the back way, though, and, dressed in her finest clothes, rode proudly in by the front gate. Tradition says that she was a humble tanner’s daughter, but historians are skeptical of this, for she would later marry well and tanners were on the lower level of medieval society. Whatever the truth of her back-ground or her first meeting with the Duke of Normandy, she became his mistress and gave birth to William circa 1028. thus changing the course of history.

Falaise was one of our Henry’s most important strongholds and he was often here. He chose Falaise for his triumphant peace treaty in 1174 with the captive King of Scots, and he and Eleanor held at least one lavish Christmas court here. We do not know where Eleanor was held after she had the bad luck to fall into Henry’s hands in November of 1173; Henry kept her location a closely guarded secret. She was most likely confined for a time at Chinon, but it is my belief that she was eventually taken to Falaise. Henry kept his Christmas court at Caen in 1173, and Falaise was just twenty miles to the south, very convenient for a long overdue reckoning with his rebel queen. Moreover, Falaise would have been a safer choice than Chinon, which was too close to Eleanor’s own lands, and if she were being held at Falaise, it would have been easy to bring her to Barfleur when she and Henry and his court sailed for England in the summer of 1174.

The Lower Keep was built by Henry, with contributions by Richard and John. All of Normandy came under Philippe Capet’s control in 1204 and he modified the castle, building the cylindrical structure known as the Talbot Tower. The city and castle suffered under a lengthy siege by Henry V in 1417-1418, and another one during France’s Wars of Religion, when its once formidable walls could not withstand the barrage of cannonballs. The castle and town were badly damaged in World War II, although the two keeps were miraculously spared. But in 1980 a restoration project was launched in accordance with the guidelines of UNESCO, and both keeps are now open to the public.

What I found most interesting at Falaise was an audio station allowing us to listen to the haunting song, Ja Nus Hons Pris, written by Richard Coeur de Lion while held captive by the Holy Roman Emperor. It is a prisoner’s lament, and interestingly, was addressed to his half-sister, Marie, Countess of Champagne. You can hear it on Youtube at http://wn.com/Ja_Nus_Hons_Pris_ENGLISH_VERSION sung by Owain Phyfe. On the play-list on the right side of the screen, the first two songs are the ones I’d recommend, both sung in French. The first one includes a commentary that is not strictly accurate, but it is amusing to hear Eleanor described as Richard’s “mom.” The second song does not offer a commentary. The third is in English, but the acoustics are bad and it is not easy to hear. A full translation can be found in John Gillingham’s Richard I, pages 242-243. I did find one on-line, but the translation is not that good; for example, when Richard complains about his overlord (Philippe) ravaging his lands, it is translated as “father.” Here is the first verse:

Feeble the words and faltering the tongue

Wherewith a prisoner moans his doleful plight;

Yet for his comfort he may make a song.

Friends have I many, but their gifts are slight;

Shame to them if unransomed I, poor wight,

Two winters languish here.

After our visit to the castle at Falaise, we headed for the abbey at Mont St Michel. Eleanor’s connection to the abbey are somewhat tenuous, for it is more closely associated with Henry. He is known to have visited it and even brought Eleanor’s husband Louis along on an unlikely male bonding expedition in 1158. He may well have visited it again in 1172 after doing penance for Becket’s murder just across the bay at Avranches. The abbot, Robert de Torigny, was a good friend of Henry’s and was even accorded the honor of acting as godfather to Henry and Eleanor’s daughter, her namesake who would later become Queen of Castile. But even if Mont St Michel could not be tied to Henry or Eleanor, I think I would have tried to include it on the itinerary anyway, for it is truly one of the most spectacular sites in the western world.

In 708 AD, the Bishop of Avranches had a dream in which the Archangel Michael commanded him to build a sanctuary on Monte Tombe, an island in the nearby bay. He installed a community of monks there in 709 and gave it a new name, Mont St Michel. Pilgrims were soon trudging across the bay at low tide, calling themselves Miquelots, and by the time of our Henry and Eleanor, it was a very important pilgrimage site. It was also a very dangerous one, for the tide came in faster than a galloping horse, at more than 200 feet a minute, and pilgrims also had to contend with sudden sea mists and quicksand. Today that is no longer true; in fact the bay had become so silted that there were fears the island might one day be part of the mainland again. The result was Projet Mont-Saint-Michel, with plans to build a hydraulic dam and replace the causeway with an elevated light bridge; it is supposed to be completed in 2012.

The first sight of Mont St Michel is truly awe-inspiring; I am convinced I heard a collective catch of breath as our tour bus started out onto the causeway. I hope it won’t seem too prideful to quote from my own books, but I cannot improve upon these descriptions. The first is from Devil’s Brood. Henry has come to Avranches to atone for Becket’s murder, a phone-it-in penalty as opposed to the deadly serious penance he would later perform in Canterbury.

From the castle battlements, Henry had a superb view of the bay and, in the distance, the celebrated abbey of Mont St Michel. It was one of the marvels of Christendom, built upon a small, rocky island that was entirely cut off from the mainland at high tide. It had a dreamlike appearance, seeming to rise out of the sand and sea foam like a lost vision of God’s Kingdom, its high, precarious perch above the waves so spectacular and dramatic that at first glimpse, pilgrims did not see how it could have been the work of mortal men.

Here are two more images of Mont St Michel, both from Prince of Darkness. Brother Andrev is a monk at the abbey’s cell in Genets. As he stands on the beach and looks across the bay, this is what he sees.

As always, his gaze was drawn to the shimmering silhouette of Mont St Michel. Crowned by clouds and besieged by foam-crested waves, the abbey isle seemed to be floating above the surface of the bay, more illusion than reality, Eden before the Fall.

 And now it is Justin de Quincy’s turn.

They reached Mont St Michel as the late-afternoon shadows were lengthening. In spite of his fear for Arzhela, Justin was awestruck at sight of the abbey. At first glance, it looked to be a castle carved from the very rocks of the isle, its towering spires reaching halfway to Heaven, the last bastion of Christian faith in a world of denial and disbelief. A fragment of religious lore came back to him, that St Michael was known as the guardian of the threshold between life and eternity, and that seemed the perfect description for his abbey, too, a bridge between the land of the living and the sea of the dead.

I was planning to relate our arrival at Mont St Michel and our first night at Mere Poulard, a celebrated hotel dating from the 19th century. But I think that can wait until the next blog since this one is already approaching novella length. Instead I will close with Justin’s desperate dash across the bay as the tide comes thundering in. He is well aware of the danger, but he is attempting to prevent a murder from occurring at the abbey.

The wind was cold and wet and carried the scent of seaweed and salt. The muted roar of the unseen sea echoed in Justin’s ears, as rhythmic as a heartbeat. Seagulls screeched overhead, their shrill cries eerily plaintive. His stallion had an odd gait, picking up its hooves so high that it was obviously not comfortable with the footing. One of the tavern customers had told Justin that walking on the sand was like treading upon a tightly stretched drum; he very much hoped that he’d not have the opportunity to test that observation for himself. Behind him, he could hear Durand cursing. Justin kept his eyes upon the glow of their guide’s swaying lantern, doing his best to convince himself that, as St Michael led Christian souls into the holy light, so would this Norman youth lead them to safety upon the shore.

Justin does outrun the tides, but sadly, he is too late to stop the murder. Tomorrow: Mont St Michel, Le Mans, and Fontevrault Abbey. 

July 5, 2011