Medieval Forensics
Medieval forensics is a real thing, not just the stuff of modern detectives, and is of particular interest to me since I write medieval murder mysteries. In The Irish Bride, my latest medieval mystery, a monk is found dead within moments of Gwen and Gareth’s arrival in Ireland. As medieval detectives, how do they go about finding the killer? What can they possibly determine forensically without laboratories, fingerprints, and all the trappings of modern investigations? Medieval forensics was primitive, but there were some things a medieval detective could determine, including time of death, whether poison was involved, and whether the body was moved (thanks to another author, Jeri Westerson, for some of this information): Time of death: Rigor mortis—literally, “death stiffness,” happens very predictably. Beginning two hours after death and starting from the face and moving down the body, the Read more…
Great Historical Fiction/Fantasy Novels
History is anthroplogy for the past. Great historical fiction brings you into that past world and makes it accessible. Would life in thirteenth century Wales chew me up and spit me out? No doubt. But that doesn’t mean I can’t spend many happy hours living there. I am also partial to the fantasy element of historical fiction in part because I acknowledge that past lives are truly inaccessible to me and if I wanted to read about something that was absolutely true, I would get the non-fiction version. That said the following are some of my most favorite books: Sherwood by Parke Godwin. He’s written a lot of books, but this one has always pulled me in. I’ve read it innumerable times. From Publisher’s Weekly: “Godwin sets his highly satisfying retelling of the Robin Hood legend in the time of Read more…
Leprosy
Leprosy was one of the scourges of the Middle Ages–not so much because of scale, but because when a person caught it, their community cast them out. The lazar house in the Brother Cadfael books, St. Giles, plays a significant role in the series. In the movie, Kingdom of Heaven, Baldwin IV of Jerusalem is portrayed as a leper, which is historically accurate. He ruled from 1174 to 1185. The man who recognized he had the disease (instead of the Baron played by Liam Neeson) was William of Tyre, later Archbishop and Chancellor. As you can see from the following article, the rest of the movie is entirely fictive as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_IV_of_Jerusalem Leprosy, also known as ‘Hansen’s Disease’, is a contagious disease caused by a bacteria, Mycobacterium leprae, which is why it is curable post-antibiotics. Left untreated, leprosy is often Read more…
Brother Cadfael’s Penance (review)
Ellis Peters began her Brother Cadfael series in 1977 with A Morbid Taste for Bones. Twenty books later, she wrote Brother Cadfael’s Penance, my personal favorite. She saved the best for last, as she died in October, 1995. Ellis Peters was the nom de plume of Edith Pargeter. Although she began the Brother Cadfael mysteries towards the end of the life, she had a long career in many other areas. Although she left school at fifteen, she taught herself Czechoslovakian, and then translated a number of works into English. http://www.dawleyheritage.co.uk/unpublished-articles/342/biography-of-edith-pargeter-by-p-wolfe Here’s the pitch for the final book: “For Brother Cadfael in the autumn of his life, the mild November of our Lord’s year 1145 may bring a bitter–and deadly–harvest. England is torn between supporters of the Empress Maud and those of her cousin Stephen. The civil strife is about to jeopardize Read more…
Introducing . . . The Good Knight (A Medieval Mystery)
Intrigue, suspicion, and rivalry among the royal princes casts a shadow on the court of Owain, king of north Wales… The year is 1143 and King Owain seeks to unite his daughter in marriage with an allied king. But when the groom is murdered on the way to his wedding, the bride’s brother tasks his two best detectives—Gareth, a knight, and Gwen, the daughter of the court bard—with bringing the killer to justice. And once blame for the murder falls on Gareth himself, Gwen must continue her search for the truth alone, finding unlikely allies in foreign lands, and ultimately uncovering a conspiracy that will shake the political foundations of Wales. The Good Knight is available NOW at Amazon, Amazon UK and at Smashwords: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/90803
Wisdom Teeth
Although within fiction and movies, there is a sense that hygiene was poor and few people lived into adulthood with all their teeth intact, people did care for their teeth in the Middle Ages. Herbs and mouthwashes existed that allowed people to do so: http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/herbs/teeth.html At the same time, it is certainly true that tooth extraction was extremely common, and probably one of the few means of dealing with a rotten tooth. http://www.ada.org/public/resources/history/timeline_midlage.asppeople If people didn’t care for their teeth, they lost them, as the following image clearly indicates (copyright to the British Library Board). I’ve been rereading Ellis Peters’ Brother Cadfael series. These books are a joy to read, if only because Peters is a master of her craft and it is enjoyable to note how beautifully she strings words together. But she also writes about an area of the Read more…
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