Would a Medieval Prince Have Had an ‘Office’?

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A reader asked me this the other day, and I thought it worth a post because we think of ‘offices’ as being a modern invention, with computers and fax machines and secretaries. And yet, a medieval prince or king–any ruler, from a sheriff to a thane for that matter–must have had a place for conducting business.  Where were papers kept? Where did he upbraid his inferiors for shoddy work? England in particular has been known for its government system of record keeping back to the Middle Ages. Where did the king keep all that? I chose to use the word ‘office’  because it does, in fact, have ancient roots in the English language and because even if a Welsh prince wouldn’t have used the word ‘office’ (which he actually might have, see below), he still would have needed its function. Read more…


Medieval Moneylending

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Edward Longshankes (Edward I) got himself in debt to various moneylenders in order to fund his wars.  During his reign, he fought with his father in the Baron’s War against Simon de Montfort, against Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the Prince of Wales, against the French, and against the Scots.  All of these wars cost money. A king had a couple of options when on a quest for funds.  One, he can tax his people.  Edward certainly did that.  Two, he can confiscate funds from those over whom he wields power.  I blogged earlier about what he did to Jewish coinsmiths in 1278 (https://sarahwoodbury.com/?p=179).  Henry VIII had the great plan of starting his own religion and confiscating the wealth of the Catholic Church.  That was a little more radical than Edward, who often relied on the third method, money lending. In the Read more…


Marriage in the Medieval Era

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“Perfect love sometimes does not come until the first grandchild.”  –Welsh proverb Marriage as we know it now is a new institution.  While ‘love’ (at least among the upper classes) transformed the internal workings of marriage in the modern age, in Wales prior to the Midde Ages, marriage was a contract between two families, with no relationship to the Church or State at all.  Even once the Roman Church got involved, it still had nothing to do with the State. Probably the change had something to do with taxes. Regardless, what we know of marriage in medieval Wales comes primarily from the Laws of Hywel Dda (see the footnotes in Wikipedia for the English sources):  “The second part of the laws begins with ‘the laws of women’, for example the rules governing marriage and the division of property if a married Read more…


Happy Thanksgiving!

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The American holiday of Thanksgiving officially celebrates the ‘first Thanksgiving’, after the pilgrims who had survived that first winter in Plymouth invited their Indian neighbors to dine.  Or so the story goes. Many Welsh were involved in those years of religious dissent in the UK. Wales has a tradition of religious dissent, dating back to the Dark Ages (see my posts on the Pelagian Heresy and Religious Nonconformity in Wales). Welsh people took advantage of the opening up of the new world very early on, seeing an opportunity for religious, political, and economic freedom that had been closed to them in Britain for centuries. The captain of the Mayflower, Christopher Jones, was Welsh. Puritanism did not flourish in Wales, however, and only small groups of dissenters ever got established. It may be that a significant percentage of Welsh Puritans, Quakers (later in Read more…


Romantic historical fiction series set in 13th Century Wales

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Today, I’m happy to share with you a book review from my local paper, the East Oregonian.  I’d leave the link, but only subscribers can read it, so I thought it would be fun to share it with you in full … Book Review of the After Cilmeri Series by Renee Struthers Pendleton author Sarah Woodbury has been living for the past several years in 13th century Wales — in her mind, at least. Her five-volume “After Cilmeri” series, self-published in 2011 and 2012, follows Marged Lloyd and her children across time to medieval Wales, where they change the life of Llywelyn, the last Prince of Wales, and the history of Great Britain in a world parallel to our own. The series is classed as romantic historical fiction, but these stories aren’t the bodice-rippers that generally come to mind with Read more…


Life in the Middle Ages not so Bad :)

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We have a view of life in the Middle Ages as “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short”, thanks to the quote from Thomas Hobbes.  However, he wasn’t talking about life in the Middle Ages, though somehow that’s what his quote has become to mean. Instead, he is talking about a fictive moment in human history before the development of formal society, which he viewed as the natural state of humanity. He saw it as a “warre of every man against every man”. The cultures of Great Britain have maintained a formal society for thousands of years, and even then, as an anthropologist, what Hobbes might have called ‘primitive societies’ often had a strong social order and a way of life which was very far from his war of every man against every man. The majority of medieval people were ‘poor’ Read more…


Pronouncing Welsh Words and Place Names

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During my trip to Wales last spring, I finally had the chance to really see how bad my Welsh pronunciation was. After two weeks, it was really getting better, but I am by no means an expert. If you want to pronounce the names accurately, the following is a good start.  I can testify that the pronunciation below for Llangollen, for example, is exactly right.  Remember, in Welsh, the emphasis in on the second to last syllable in a word. This post is to follow up on the pronunciation guide. First off are two fabulous maps with audio place names for Wales: http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/whatsinaname/sites/howdoisay/ http://www.plas-coch.co.uk/soundmap.html Below is a quick guide to just a few Welsh place-names: Cymru:  kum-ree Caernarfon:  kyre-nar-von Beddgelert:  beth-gel-airt Llanberis:  /sh/-an-ber-ris Llangollen:  /sh/an-go/sh/-en Felindre:  veh-leen-dreh Gwynedd:  gwin-eth Afon Dee:  av-on dee Bwlch:  boolch Castell Coch:  kas-te/sh/t koch Dinas Emrys:  dinnass emm-riss Ynys Read more…


Children of Time now available at all venues!

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I’m happy to report that my hopes have been fulfilled that November would be the month that all readers could download Children of Time in the format of their choice. It is now available at Amazon, BN, Apple, Smashwords and all the international stores to which these stores distribute. It is also available at Amazon and BN in paper both in the US and internationally. Children of Time (Book Four in the After Cilmeri Series) November 1288. Bereft of a king or rightful heir, England hurtles towards civil war for the second time in a generation. When David, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Lili, travel to London to attend the wedding of William de Bohun and Princess Joan, they have no intention of involving themselves in local politics. But as infighting leads to murder, David and Lili find themselves at Read more…


Uneasy Lies the Crown–Owain Glyndwr

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I have a guest post today on a subject near and dear to my heart … medieval Wales! N. Gemini Sasson has written a book about Owain Glyndwr and the Welsh War of Independence.  Welcome Gemini! ____________________ Owain Glyndwr and the Welsh War of Independence N. Gemini Sasson The history of Wales predates Roman settlements to a Celtic people who called themselves the Cymry.  It was a society as much rooted in warfare as it was in bardic tradition.    Although the Welsh as a society were autonomous from England for many centuries, the proximity of the two countries and the ancient Welsh customs of fostering out sons and dividing inheritances among male heirs destabilized the region by perpetuating territorial feuds. English kings used this lack of unity to their utmost advantage. When Edward I came to the throne of England Read more…


What Scares Me?

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In honor of Halloween, I’d thought I’d share what scares me … (originally posted at: http://toddrwrite.com/blog/2011/what-scares-author-sarah-woodbury.phtml) When I was a little girl, I had an army of stuffed animals to protect me at night.  Cuddly the bear, because he was the biggest, would nestle next to my right shoulder.  Yellow-hopper (the yellow bunny) would buttress my left shoulder, and Mr. Octopus and Raggedy Andy would sit sentry on the pillow.  I stationed all the rest—bears, bunnies, horses—facing the window. I had a big bed too—a double—with a wooden headboard and a gaping foot-high empty space underneath it. That’s where the monsters hung out. Every night, I lay flat on my back, perfectly still, so that I wouldn’t make any noise and my movements wouldn’t bring them out.  I also had a big closet that loomed along the inner wall.  I always Read more…


Scots, Scottish, and Gaelic … what’s the difference?

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What language were people speaking in 13th century Scotland? Undoubtedly, that is a question that keeps most people up at night. In a nutshell, in 1288, in Scotland, people spoke three local languages regularly.  At the time, they called them:  French, English, and Scottish. What is confusing is that those are not the names used to refer to these languages NOW.  French, was Norman French. Robert the Bruce, a great King of Scotland, descended from the Gaelic Earls of Carrick, and on his father’s side from “ancestors in Brix, in Flanders. In 1124, King David I granted the massive estates of Annandale to his follower, Robert de Brus, in order to secure the border. The name, Robert, was very common in the family. Brought up at Turnberry Castle, Bruce was a product of his lineage, speaking Gaelic, Scots and Norman Read more…


Children of Time now available!

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Children of Time, the fourth book in the After Cilmeri series (fifth if you include Daughter of Time), is now available at AMAZON,  AMAZON UK SMASHWORDS and as a PAPERBACK AT AMAZON!  It should arrive soon at other venues (Nook/Sony/Apple). Children of Time November 1288. Bereft of a king or rightful heir, England hurtles towards civil war for the second time in a generation. When David, Prince of Wales, and his wife, Lili, travel to London to attend the wedding of William de Bohun and Princess Joan, they have no intention of involving themselves in local politics. But as infighting leads to murder, David and Lili find themselves at the center of a far-reaching conspiracy. Trapped between history and legend, they must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice to save not only their own country, but the people of England as well. Meanwhile, back in Read more…