{"id":2875,"date":"2023-12-15T10:53:07","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T15:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/?p=2875"},"modified":"2023-12-15T11:14:33","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T16:14:33","slug":"immersive-historical-fiction-set-in-the-middle-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2023\/12\/15\/immersive-historical-fiction-set-in-the-middle-ages\/","title":{"rendered":"Immersive Historical Fiction set in the Middle Ages"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you’re like me, the winter break is prime historical fiction reading time: there’s nothing better than curling up in front of a roaring fire with a mug of tea and a good book that can take you to another time and place. And if you’re really like me, you particularly enjoy sinking into a novel set in the Middle Ages\u2014a busman’s holiday, I suppose?<\/p>\n

Here are some of my picks for immersive historical fiction, books that bring back to life certain moments in medieval Europe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>First up is Robyn Cadwallader’s The Anchoress<\/em><\/a> (2015), which introduces us to Sarah, a teenager in thirteenth-century England who chooses to enter one of the most confined types of Christian religious life. She becomes an anchoress: someone who “dies” to the world around her in order to spend her life in unbroken contemplation in a tiny room attached to the exterior wall of her parish church.<\/p>\n

In a room only seven paces wide by nine paces long, Sarah hopes to find solace from the pressure to marry and from the grief of losing a beloved sibling\u2014but finds that even when she can no longer freely look on another human face, it’s not so easy to remove herself from the consequences of the past or the events of the present.<\/p>\n

Cadwallader’s prose is gentle and her exploration of issues of the body, gender, and religious belief are deft. It’s not always easy to get a modern reader to sympathise with characters whose motivations and impulses may seem so very alien to many people today, but I think she manages it here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Where The<\/em> Anchoress<\/em> is contained, Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccol\u00f2<\/em><\/a> series (1986-2000) sprawls. This is probably a less famous series than Dunnett’s other one, her beloved Lymond Chronicles<\/em><\/a>, but it’s got the same epic storytelling, fine-grained historical detail, and cunning shapeshifter of a central character.<\/p>\n

The series begins in 15th-century Bruges, then a trading powerhouse and home to one Nicholas vander Poele. Over time, Nicholas (also known as Niccol\u00f2, hence the series title) rises from being a humble dyer’s apprentice to become a powerful force in his own right. Dunnett’s plotting takes us from Flanders to Florence, Iceland to Iberia, Trebizond to Timbuktu, with plenty of political intrigue and adventure along the way.<\/p>\n

I found the books engrossing, but be warned that they’re dense, full of events whose true significance can sometimes take hundreds of pages to become clear and oodles of historical allusions\u2014these are not light reads to skim through while lounging by the pool. But if you’re patient and persistent, Dunnett will reward you with climaxes that make you feel like you’ve been punched in the solar plexus.<\/p>\n

You know, if you’re into that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>If you’re not<\/em> into that but you’d still like a read with some plot to it, try Caroline Roe’s Chronicles of Isaac of Girona<\/em><\/a> (1998-2004). There are eight installments in this series which centres on the eponymous Isaac, a blind Jewish doctor in fourteenth-century Catalonia.<\/p>\n

Isaac uses his medical knowledge, logical thinking, and understanding of human nature to solve murders, helped by his family and his position as friend of and personal physician to the bishop of Girona. These books are all in the “cosy mystery” subgenre\u2014the violence is largely off-screen\u2014and I think if you like the Cadfael <\/em>series, you’ll enjoy these.<\/p>\n

Sadly I think these books are all now out of print, but you should be able to track down secondhand copies\u2014they’re worth picking up if you can find a copy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Travelling back north brings us to The Western Wind <\/em><\/a>(2019) by Samantha Harvey, which is set in a village in late fifteenth-century England. Like the Chronicles of Isaac<\/em> books, there’s a mysterious death here, and the parish priest, John Reve, strains to understand whether it was a case of accident, suicide, or murder.<\/p>\n

This is one of those books where the whodunnit is not the real point. Harvey is far more interested in the daily rhythms and personal relationships of these villagers, and of their relationship with the land around them, and in undertaking a character study of the lonely, anxious Reve. While Harvey is perhaps not as concerned with historical accuracy as some other novelists, the village which she conjures up here feels convincing and the landscape in which it’s set\u2014isolated within the bend of a river\u2014is a vivid one.<\/p>\n

The Western Wind’<\/em>s unusual structure\u2014events unfold in reverse, a day at a time\u2014adds to its feeling of unsettling tension.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Lastly, two epic books about seventh-century northern England: Nicola Griffith’s Hild<\/em><\/a> (2013) and Menewood <\/em><\/a>(2023), which are inspired by the life of the real historical figure, the abbess Hilda of Whitby. Hilda was an important figure in the Christianisation of early medieval England, but we know comparatively little about her. Griffith uses what we do know about her as springboards for books of great imagination married with incredibly close attention to “the pattern of the world.”<\/p>\n

The first two books cover only the first twenty years or so of the life of Hilda\u2014or Hild, as she’s known here. Smart and fiercely observant, Hild learns over time how to deftly navigate the opportunities and the risks that come with being born into a ruling family in the early Middle Ages, and Griffith pays keen attention to the many relationships\u2014of kinship, of affection, of obligation\u2014that tie Hild to those around her.<\/p>\n

If you’re a fan of books with immersive world-building, where you get to see how the ability to read weather patterns and predict the wool yields likely from a particular bit of pasturage can be the difference between success and starvation in a pre-industrial world, I think you’ll enjoy Hild <\/em>and Menewood<\/em>. At several hundred pages each, both of these books are serious commitments of time\u2014but ones that I’ve enjoyed, and I very much hope we get to see this Hild mature into the founder of Whitby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you’re like me, the winter break is prime historical fiction reading time: there’s nothing better than curling up in front of a roaring fire …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resources"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2949,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2022\/10\/24\/entering-the-matrix\/","url_meta":{"origin":2875,"position":0},"title":"Entering the Matrix","author":"admin","date":"October 24, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Novelists have no particular obligation to the past\u2014or at least, no requirement to recreate it with any kind of fidelity. Just as the makers of historically-inspired TV shows or movies may choose to put more of their efforts into telling an engaging story or conjuring up compelling characters than into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Medievalism"","block_context":{"text":"Medievalism","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/medievalism\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/4Matrix_FINAL_cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/4Matrix_FINAL_cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/4Matrix_FINAL_cover.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/4Matrix_FINAL_cover.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/4Matrix_FINAL_cover.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/4Matrix_FINAL_cover.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1339,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/01\/history-carnival-165\/","url_meta":{"origin":2875,"position":1},"title":"History Carnival 165","author":"admin","date":"May 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome to the 165th instalment of the History Carnival, a monthly showcase of some of the best recent blogging on historical topics. The Past in the Present We are living in interesting times, as the euphemism goes, and historians are doing valiant work at helping us to better understand and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Links"","block_context":{"text":"Links","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/links\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Banner image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-14.13.55-e1493489674934.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-14.13.55-e1493489674934.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-14.13.55-e1493489674934.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-14.13.55-e1493489674934.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1288,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2017\/08\/15\/beginners-guide-medievaleurope\/","url_meta":{"origin":2875,"position":2},"title":"A Beginner’s Reading List: Medieval Europe","author":"admin","date":"August 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It's difficult for an academic historian to critique popular history books on the Middle Ages without sounding snotty, or dry, or some unappetising combination of both. Popular history books are where the majority of general readers encounter the medieval past. The issue is that many of the popular history works\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Resources"","block_context":{"text":"Resources","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/resources\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-12.23.51.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-12.23.51.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-12.23.51.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-12.23.51.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-12.23.51.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2581,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2021\/03\/24\/manuscripts-in-the-curriculum-at-geneseo\/","url_meta":{"origin":2875,"position":3},"title":"Manuscripts in the Curriculum at Geneseo","author":"admin","date":"March 24, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm so pleased to be able to say that SUNY Geneseo was one of the colleges chosen to participate in Les Enluminures' Manuscripts in the Curriculum (MiC) programme. Next semester, our campus will have the stewardship of a group of original medieval manuscripts, including an illuminated bible, a psalter, a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Teaching"","block_context":{"text":"Teaching","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/teaching\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/c-13-16-cropped-glossed.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3067,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2022\/12\/04\/the-myth-of-marguerite-de-bressieux\/","url_meta":{"origin":2875,"position":4},"title":"The Myth of Marguerite de Bressieux","author":"admin","date":"December 4, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"This post was originally a thread which I posted on Twitter in October 2017, in response to this post on the Rejected Princesses site which was being widely linked to on social media during that time. Since Twitter's long-term resilience is far from assured, and since Marguerite's story is still\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Medieval France"","block_context":{"text":"Medieval France","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/medieval-france\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/03-1ba973dc.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/03-1ba973dc.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/03-1ba973dc.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/03-1ba973dc.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/03-1ba973dc.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1442,"url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/06\/not-in-this-day-and-age\/","url_meta":{"origin":2875,"position":5},"title":"Not in This Day and Age? On “Feisty, Cheeky, and Rebellious” Women in History","author":"admin","date":"May 6, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"In yesterday's Guardian newspaper, reviewer Mark Lawson called for the makers of television programmes to \"stop horrendously airbrushing history\", to \"stop the madness\" of producing period dramas featuring \"characters with laughably liberal values for their day.\" Lawson was responding particularly to Jamestown, a new series focusing on a group of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Women's History"","block_context":{"text":"Women's History","link":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/category\/womens-history\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/msdouce195_111v.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/msdouce195_111v.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/msdouce195_111v.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/msdouce195_111v.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/msdouce195_111v.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/msdouce195_111v.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Screen-Shot-2017-04-01-at-14.13.55-e1493489674934.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2875"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3322,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2875\/revisions\/3322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yvonneseale.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}