She Was a Martyr’s Trusted Friend

Tags

Charlemagne, Franks, medieval, Middle Ages, Saint Lioba

One challenge of writing historical fiction is what, or in this case whom, to leave out, no matter how interesting. Such is the case with Saint Lioba, featured today on English Historical Fiction Authors.

An altar to St. Lioba at St. Martin in Tauberbischofsheim (photo by Schorle, Wikimedia Commons, permission granted under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License)

A learned woman, the British-born Lioba served as an abbess in Francia, installed by her kinsman Saint Boniface, who needed someone he could trust in his mission to strengthen Christianity in the region. She considered Boniface like a brother and was close to Hildegard, the young queen of Francia at the time of The Cross and the Dragon and The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar.

I had read about Lioba in passing during my research, but it did not occur to me to include her in my novels. In researching the post for EFHA, I found her a woman to be admired – pious, good-natured, rarely without a book in her hands.

So why omit such an interesting woman? There was no place for her in either story.

To have included Lioba would have been a case of an author showing off her research, one of those things that leads the reader to think, if they’re being charitable, “This is interesting, but what does this have to do with the story?”

The nice thing about a blog is I can show off my research, and so I invite you to read about a nun who played a role in solidifying Christianity in medieval Europe.

Historical Novel Society Interview: Susan Spann

Tags

16th century Japan, Historical Fiction, Historical Novel Society, historical novelists, Ninja

In the days leading up the 2013 Historical Novel Society conference, HNS is interviewing featured guest and speakers. I am honored to host two interviews this month for one of my favorite organizations, through which I know today’s author, Susan Spann. Susan will speak on the panel, “Writing the HF Mystery.” Here, she talks about her inspiration and soon-to-be-launched novel, Claws of the Cat. – Kim

How do you find the people and topics of your books?

Susan Spann

I was attacked by ninjas, and they forced me to write about them.

In May of 2011, I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, getting ready for work (I’m a publishing lawyer) when I had the random thought: “Most ninjas commit murders, but Hiro Hattori solves them.”

That idea gave birth to the Shinobi Mysteries, which feature a ninja detective solving murders in 16th century (samurai era) Kyoto.

From there, it was mostly a matter of dreaming up new and interesting ways to kill off my imaginary friends. 

For you, what is the line between fiction and fact?

Facts are what I deal with when I can’t make up something better.

I’m kidding. Well, at least partly.

My novels take place in 16th century Kyoto, and I chose that period because I love its history and details. When writing that backdrop, I stay as close to the facts as possible, and I’d rather alter my plot to fit accurate scenery than alter the details for the sake of a story. For example, Japanese houses didn’t really have hallways until the 17th century. Rooms opened directly onto one another, which impacts the way my characters deal with movement through buildings (and, sometimes, listening at doors). Keeping those details accurate is important to me.

However, my protagonists, ninja detective Hiro Hattori and his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo, are entirely fictitious – which frees me from the need to write within the historically-accurate framework of a person’s life and experiences. They do interact with real historical figures, which both limits and expands the story, but I wanted to work with fictitious protagonist characters to give myself more freedom with my storylines.

Can you tell us about your latest publication?

My debut novel, Claws of the Cat, will be published by Minotaur Books on July 16. It’s the first in the Shinobi Mystery series featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and his Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo.

When a samurai is brutally murdered in a Kyoto teahouse, master ninja Hiro has just three days to find the killer before the dead man’s vengeful son kills both the beautiful geisha accused of the crime and Father Mateo, the Jesuit priest that Hiro has pledged his own life to protect. The investigation plunges Hiro and Father Mateo into the dangerous waters of Kyoto’s floating world, where they quickly learn that everyone from an elusive teahouse owner to the dead man’s dishonored brother has a motive to keep the samurai’s death a mystery.

Basically, you take a ninja, a geisha, a female samurai, a Portuguese weapons dealer, a corpse, and a teahouse owner with something to hide, shake well, and toss in a kitten for good measure – because every ninja detective needs a kitten.

***

For more about Susan, visit her website www.susanspann.com.

Historical Novel Society Interview: Gillian Bagwell

Tags

English History, Historical Fiction, Historical Novel Society, historical novelists, interview

In the days leading up the 2013 Historical Novel Society conference, HNS is featuring speakers and special guests. I am honored to host two interviews this month for one of my favorite organizations. Today’s author is Gillian Bagwell, who will speak on three panels, including “The Feisty Heroine Sold into Marriage Who Hates Bear Baiting: Clichés in HF and How to Avoid Them.” Here, she talks about fact vs. fiction, her influences, and her latest release, Venus in Winter. – Kim

For you, what is the line between fiction and fact?

Gillian Bagwell

When I have the facts, I use them, and for me one of the most interesting parts of writing historical fiction is researching my characters and making discoveries about them – both major events and odd little facts – that will help bring their stories to life.

But inevitably, there are gaps in the record about historical figures, especially before they became well known. That was certainly the case with the heroines of all three of my books, Nell Gwynn, Jane Lane, and Bess of Hardwick. In each case, I invented their early lives, based on what I knew, what seemed probable or possible and would make a good story.

Ultimately, we’re writing fiction, and writing a great story is more important than providing facts.

Do you have an anecdote about a reading or fan interaction you’d like to share?

Well, the two readings from The Darling Strumpet for the Saturday Night Sex Scenes at the 2011 and 2012 HNS conferences were pretty sensational. Chris Humphreys suggested we read the scene between Nell Gwynn and the Earl of Rochester as a scene in San Diego, and I was thrilled when Diana Gabaldon agreed to read the narration.

My agent taped it, and it got about a zillion hits on YouTube. I was pretty nervous, and it showed! The scene was such a success that we did it again in London last fall, with Bernard Cornwell taking the part of Rochester. I was much more relaxed and having a good time! Bernard and Diana were both wonderful, and the audience was peeing themselves laughing. The links to both readings are on my website, www.gillianbagwell.com.

I like readings, and I teach workshops and coach individual authors on giving effective readings, combining my years of theatre experience with my love of books.

What are your favorite reads? Favorite movies? Dominating influences?

I grew up around theatre, and started acting in my early teens when both my parents were working in administration for the original Renaissance Faire and Dickens Christmas Fair. Being immersed in living history certainly deepened my fascination with the daily lives of people in past times.

Around that time there were several films and TV shows that I found compelling and which influenced me strongly: Upstairs Downstairs, Zeffirelli’s Rome and Juliet, The Lion in Winter, Anne of the Thousand Days, and Elizabeth R with Glenda Jackson as the queen. (I still think of Glenda Jackson when I think of Elizabeth!) I’ve acted in a lot of Shakespeare and other classical plays, and eventually began directing and producing, founding the Pasadena Shakespeare Company and running it for nine years, which has certainly helped my writing, both in terms of seeing and feeling the sensory aspects of scenes as I’m writing, and by immersing me in period language, which is one of the things I enjoy most about writing historical fiction.

Can you tell us about your latest publication?

Venus in Winter covers the first 40 years of the extremely eventful life of Bess of Hardwick, a Tudor-era lady who was married and widowed four times, becoming more wealthy and powerful with each successive husband. She built Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall, and is the ancestor of many of the noble families of England, including the current queen.

Bess knew just about anyone who was anyone in the second half of the 16th century and had a close-up view of some fascinating and terrible times. As a young girl, she served in the Grey household, and Jane Grey was like a little sister to her. Later, she was a lady of the privy chamber to Queen Elizabeth. Shortly after her fourth marriage, she and her husband became the keepers of Mary Queen of Scots, an arrangement they expected to be temporary, but which lasted 17 years, contributing to the ruin of their marriage. But that story will have to wait for a second book.

***

Gillian Bagwell’s third novel, Venus in Winter, will be released on July 2, and will be available for early purchase at the HNS conference.

Venus in Winter follows on the success of Gillian’s first two novels, The Darling Strumpet, based on the life of Nell Gwynn, 17th-century actress and mistress of Charles II, and The September Queen, the first fictional account of the extraordinary adventure of Jane Lane, who risked her life to save Charles II and the future of the monarchy after the disastrous Battle of Worcester in 1651.

Please visit Gillian’s website, www.gillianbagwell.com, for links to her research blogs and more on her books and upcoming events.

Reconciling Atom Theory with Religion

Tags

17th century, Atoms, France, Pierre Gassendi

It’s the first Friday of the month, time for another post on the history of atom theory by physics professor (and my dad) Dean Zollman. In this installment, we’re in the 17th century, and a French clergyman seeks to reconcile the scientific theory of ancient Roman philosophers with Catholic teachings. Today is also the last day of the Summer Banquet blog hop, which includes my contribution, Dandelions for Dinner. – Kim

By Dean Zollman

In his book The Atom in the History of Human Thought, Bernard Pullman separates the 17th century development of ideas about atoms by religion. He notes that Catholics, primarily in France and Italy, wanted control over new ideas while Protestants, primarily in England, were somewhat indifferent toward thoughts about atoms. I will follow Pullman’s line of thought and spend a couple of posts looking at some Catholic 17th century views first.

As I discussed in the previous post, the concepts of atoms as expressed by Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius were available, primarily through copies of ancient manuscripts. However, these ideas were mostly rejected in favor of the philosophy and science of Aristotle. Recall that Aristotle’s physics could not include a void and thus he rejected the ideas of atoms. Further, Aristotle’s philosophy had become integrated into Catholic philosophy by this time.

Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655), a French clergyman, set out to change this state of affairs. He wanted to bring together medieval religion, humanism as expressed in the Renaissance, and the science of his day. To do this, he set a goal of making Epicurean thought as acceptable as that of Aristotle.

Pierre Gassendi in a 1750 engraving by Michel Odieuvre (public domain image via Wikimedia Commons)

Gassendi’s writing on philosophy and science are extensive, so I will only touch on a few points here. Foremost, he sought, whenever possible, empirical evidence for his scientific ideas. For example, Galileo has concluded logically that a ball dropped from the mast of a moving ship would fall so that it landed on the ship next to the mast. Gassendi actually had the experiment conducted. Logic alone was not sufficient for him. When it came to atoms, he needed to rely on indirect evidence because direct observation was not possible. As we will see in the next paragraph, he sometimes needed to fudge a little on this point.

Gassendi’s atomism was extensive. To bring these ideas into acceptability for the Church, an important part was allowing God and atoms to both have a place in his worldview. The ancient Greeks stated that atoms were eternal. Creation was not part of their system. Gassendi rejected this idea even though he would be hard pressed for empirical evidence. In his worldview atoms were created by God. Even more, God provided atoms with their motions. Thus, God preordained what would happen because future events would be determined by the motions and collisions of these atoms.

Another issue was the soul. The ancients had concluded that souls as well as bodies were made of atoms. Gassendi’s view was maybe that’s OK for cats and broccoli but not for humans. Human souls had a spiritual component which was created by God.

With topics such as Creation and souls covered, Gassendi could build an atomism that used the ancient Greek’s ideas as a foundation. His atoms were real objects not mathematical points. They were in constant motion in all directions. They had a variety of properties and even combined to form molecules. Overall, Gassendi allowed atoms to be acceptable and not inconsistent with the faith of his day. In Pullman’s words, “From a historical perspective, it could be said that Gassendi added God to atoms, although he probably would have preferred to be seen as having returned atoms to God.” And, atoms were returned to the scientific thought of the 17th century.

Gassendi was almost 30 years younger than Galileo. Of course, Galileo had his own problems with the Church. One (and as far as I can determine only one) historian believes that these problems involved atoms as well as the solar system. We will look at that issue next time.

Previously:

What Are Things Made of? Depends on When You Ask.

Ancient Greeks Were the First to Hypothesize Atoms

The Poetry of Atoms

Atom Theory in Ancient India

Religion, Science Clashed over Atoms

Medieval Arabic Scholarship Might Have Preserved Scientific Knowledge

Rediscovering a Roman Poet – and Atom Theory – Centuries Later

Dean Zollman is university distinguished professor of physics at Kansas State University where he has been a faculty member for more than 40 years. During his career he has received three major awards—the National Science Foundation Director’s Award for Distinguished Teacher Scholars (2004), the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Doctoral University Professor of the Year (1996), and American Association of Physics Teachers’ Robert A. Millikan Medal (1995). His present research concentrates on the teaching and learning of physics and on science teacher preparation.

Dandelions for Dinner

Tags

Historical Fiction, historical novelists, Summer Banquet Blog Hop

Part of the challenge with participating in a blog hop with a food theme is that there are no surviving menus from Carolingian era (eighth and ninth century Europe), the time period for my novels. Not exactly a surprise when you consider that few people, including cooks, could write.

But we can make some pretty good guesses. Dandelions, for example, are an Old World plant, introduced to the States by the Puritans. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine these hardy, easy-to-grow perennials with a long season in medieval peasants’ gardens or simply harvested from the meadows near their homes.

Yours truly serving up a side dish.

Peasants did not eat meat every day, and the summer would be a good time to let animals grow and get as big as possible. However, if they were having a good spring, they would have had plenty of vegetables, including chickpeas, and as anyone who’s ever weeded a flower bed know, dandelions were reliable. Add a little barley, and you have a meal.

So, an inventive medieval peasant woman might have created something like the following recipe, transforming tough, bitter greens into something tasty.

Note: I gathered the dandelion greens from my backyard, where we use no pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers. Nor do we have dogs. I would have spent much less time cleaning the greens if I had harvested the dandelions when the leaves were dry and the trees were not exploding with pollen.

Dandelions and Chickpeas over Barley

1 gallon bag full of dandelion greens (This may seem like an awful lot but they will shrink.)
3 tablespoons salt per 8 quarts of water
2-3 spring onions
1 cup pearled barley (Closest to I can get to what medieval folk might have had in the small Indiana where I live.)
1 1/2 tablespoons of butter
1 can of chick peas (OK, Anachronism Police, I know full well canned food did not exist during the Middle Ages. But chickpeas were in Charlemagne’s gardens. They could be used fresh or dried for later. I’m also cheating by using an electric stove instead of a cook fire, and I’m not about to give up my dishwasher. So there.)

1. Set about 8 quarts of water on the stove to boil.
2. Start the barley and prepare according to package directions.
3. Clean the dandelions thoroughly.
4. Chopped the greens into 2-inch pieces. You should have about 10 cups. (Really, they will shrink.)
5. Chop the onions.
6. When the water is boiling, add salt.
7. Add greens. Cook until ribs are tender, about 10 minutes. (Don’t worry if the greens are still bitter at this stage. They will be tasty when sautéed.)
8. Drain the greens and pour cold water over them.
9. Squeeze out excess moisture. (Told you they would shrink.)
10. Melt 1 tablespoon butter in a skillet.
11. Add onions. Cook a few minutes until softened.
12. Add the greens and sauté until butter is absorbed. This takes only a few minutes.
13. Add chickpeas and cook until heated through. This takes only a few minutes.
14. Add remaining butter, and it’s ready to serve.

Thanks for visiting this stop on the blog hop. I invite you to check out the authors below for their thoughts on food. All of us are offering giveaways.

My prize is an e-book of my first novel, The Cross and the Dragon, a tale of love amid the wars and blood feuds of Charlemagne’s reign. To enter, leave a comment in this space only, with your e-mail address so the winner can be contacted. To get an extra entry, mention that you’d like to get an e-mail (just one, I promise) announcing the publication of my second book, tentatively titled The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar. The contest closes Friday, June  7. A winner will be selected at random and be announced in an update to this post.

Update: The winner of this giveaway is Marsha, and I will soon contact her. Many thanks to all who commented. I enjoyed our conversations.

Hop Participants

1. Random Bits of Fascination (Maria Grace)
2. Pillings Writing Corner (David Pilling)
3. Anna Belfrage
4. Debra Brown
5. Lauren Gilbert
6. Gillian Bagwell
7. Julie K. Rose
8. Donna Russo Morin
9. Regina Jeffers
10. Shauna Roberts
11. Tinney S. Heath
12. Grace Elliot
13. Diane Scott Lewis
14. Ginger Myrick
15. Helen Hollick
16. Heather Domin
17. Margaret Skea
18. Yves Fey
19. JL Oakley
20. Shannon Winslow
21. Evangeline Holland
22. Cora Lee
23. Laura Purcell
24. P. O. Dixon
25. E.M. Powell
26. Sharon Lathan
27. Sally Smith O’Rourke
28. Allison Bruning
29. Violet Bedford
30. Sue Millard
31. Kim Rendfeld

An Interview with Alda of Drachenhaus

Tags

Character Interview, Historical Fiction, The Cross and the Dragon, Writing

A character interview is an interesting and fun exercise for a writer, and you can see the results on today’s post at Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews, where the heroine of The Cross and the Dragon shares her thoughts. On the eve of the Frankish invasion of Hispania, I was somehow able to communicate with Alda of Drachenhaus, despite the language barrier. (Alda lives in the eighth century Francia, before modern English was created.)

So if you’d like to know why Alda prefers Hruodland to Ganelon, why the amulet she gives her husband is charmed, and why King Charles is invading Hispania, check out Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews.

Queen Mother Gerberga: Protecting Her Sons – and Her Power

Tags

Charlemagne, Frankish queens, Franks, Gerberga, medieval, Middle Ages

When brother-in-law King Charles seized her late husband’s lands, Gerberga decided to fight for her sons’ inheritance and her own power as queen mother and regent.

After Frankish King Carloman died at age 20 in December 771, Charles moved swiftly to seize the kingdom. Was it determination or desperation that made Gerberga flee with an entourage to Lombardy? Was it her idea or did her late husband’s magnates persuade her?

We don’t know how she reached the realm of Charles’s ex-father-in-law. She would have either had to cross the Alps or go by sea. The slow travel in general posed the danger of brigands, but add winter weather and at least one boy too young to ride, and this journey becomes especially risky.

A cropped image from the 1882 Costumes of All Nations depicting Frankish costume (public domain image via Wikimedia Commons).

We don’t know much about Gerberga, except that she was a Frankish noblewoman selected by father-in-law Pepin to marry Carloman, but we can make a few guesses. Women typically were teenagers when they married and could be as young as 13. Men could marry at age 16. The most Gerberga and Carloman could have been married was four years, and their elder son was no more than 3 years old, barely old enough to start riding.

That this queen mother, perhaps as young as 17, made a dangerous journey to Lombardy with these two little boys tells us something about her character.

Seeking aid from Desiderius, the king of Lombardy, was not the safest thing to do, either, but she had no other choice. Desiderius had clashed violently with Rome before, and his retaliation was brutal and typically medieval (for more about him, see my guest post on Tinney Heath’s Historical Fiction Research blog). However, he was the powerful ally she needed – and one who was furious with Charles over the Frankish monarch’s repudiation of his daughter.

Desiderius saw her sons as a way to get back at Charles for the insult to his daughter and restore his alliance with Francia. He tried to get the pope to anoint her sons as kings, even seizing papal lands to pressure him. The pope refused and eventually asked for Charles to fulfill his vow as protector of Rome and come to his aid.

When Charles invaded in 773, Desiderius fled to Pavia, and Gerberga and her sons went to Verona, along with Lombard Prince Adelchis and a Frankish nobleman named Autchar. Adelchis escaped Verona and headed toward the Byzantine empire.

Charles, learning of Adelchis’s flight, went to Verona with a contingent of Franks, while most of the army held siege in Pavia. Gerberga surrendered voluntarily when Charles arrived.

The sources don’t say why she surrendered. Perhaps she realized she was deserted, knew there was no way she could win, and wished to avoid further bloodshed or the starvation and disease that accompanies a siege. Perhaps, she thought if she surrendered now, she and her sons would be sent to the cloister rather than executed.

The sources are silent about her fate, but having Gerberga and her sons in the cloister is plausible. They would have been among other troublesome relatives Charles sent to the monastery such as Desiderius and later on Charles’s first cousin Bavarian Duke Tassilo and even his eldest son, Pepin (often called Pepin the Hunchback – medieval folk were a tad insensitive).

Gerberga did not win her battle against her brother-in-law, whom we today called Charles the Great, or Charlemagne, but her story illustrates that medieval women were not damsels in distress waiting for a hero to rescue them.

Sources

Charlemagne: Translated Sources, P.D. King

Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernhard Walters Scholz with Barbara Rogers

“Pavia and Rome: The Lombard Monarchy and the Papacy in the Eighth Century,” Jan T. Hallenbeck, published in 1982 by Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

The Life of Charlemagne, Einhard, translated by Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Edwin H. Zeydel

You also might like
Bertrada: Queen Mother and Diplomat
The Role of Carolingian Queens
A Mystery: Why Did the King Want to Divorce the Queen?
Charlemagne’s High Stakes Family Feud
The Last Lombard King

Bertrada: Queen Mother and Diplomat

Tags

bertrada, carloman, Charlemagne, Historical Fiction, medieval, Middle Ages, The Ashes of Heaven's Pillar, The Cross and the Dragon

In the early months of 772, Bertrada was the queen mother of Francia, one of the most influential political positions, yet I doubt anyone would envy her situation. Her younger son, King Carloman, had died on December 4 at age 20, and her elder son, King Charles, quickly seized his late brother’s realm, denying her grandsons their inheritance.

On top of that, Charles divorced a Lombard princess, the wife that Bertrada had picked out for him, and married Hildegard, the daughter of an important count in his brother’s kingdom.

In medieval Francia, there is more a stake than a mom embarrassed by her son’s scandalous behavior. In royal circles, marriages were a means of building alliances. Charles’s marriage to Hildegard solidified his hold on Carloman’s lands, but his divorce endangered Francia’s relationship with Lombard.

Bertha Broadfoot, 1848, by Eugène Oudiné at Luxembourg Garden, Paris. (copyrighted photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen via Wikimedia Commons).

For a little context, let’s rewind four years. On his deathbed in 768, King Pepin divided his lands between sons Charles and Carloman, following Frankish custom. Charles’s kingdom formed a crescent around Carloman’s. Charles was 20 and Carloman, 17, and both likely were already married to brides their father had chosen.

The brothers did not get along, and tensions increased when Carloman refused to help his brother quash a 769 rebellion in Aquitaine. Enter Queen Mother Bertrada, who had taken the widow’s veil. Bertrada might have wanted to prevent a civil war and preserve the kingdom her husband had built.

It’s unclear whether Lombard King Desiderius or Bertrada thought up a union or two between their children, but she agreed to a marriage between Charles and one of Desiderius’s daughters, even if that meant setting aside Charles’s then wife, Himiltrude, and offending a noble Frankish family. A marriage between Charles and a Lombard meant Charles would have access to Italy without passing through his brother’s realm and therefore less reason to attack his brother.

The spring and summer of 770 was a mix of slow, dangerous travel and diplomacy for Bertrada. She spoke first to Carloman then traveled through Bavaria, the duchy held by the kings’ first cousin (also Desiderius’s son-in-law), and crossed the Alps, traversing steep slopes on horseback. In Rome, she reassured the pope, who had written a strongly worded letter against the idea, that this arrangement would be beneficial, then went to Lombardy and returned to Francia with the princess.

After Charles second marriage, Bertrada’s importance at court is evident. In his letters, the pope addresses her first.

The arrangement strengthened Charles’s relationship with Lombard and Rome, but apparently, one of Carloman’s legates, Dodo, didn’t think it was good for his lord. Whether Carloman agreed with Dodo is unclear – the pope gives the king the benefits of the doubt. Nevertheless, in the spring of 771, the pope’s minister turned on him, with warriors led by Dodo. Desiderius came to the pope’s rescue and used that opportunity to take a brutal revenge on the minister.

Sometime that year, Carloman became ill and died several months later. That’s when Bertrada saw all her handiwork fall apart.

In writing The Cross and the Dragon and The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar, I had to grapple with what it would have been like for Bertrada in the aftermath of Carloman’s death. One element that affects my portrayal of her comes from Einhard’s biography of Charlemagne, in which he says the monarch treated his mother with respect and had her in his household. Their only disagreement was the Lombard princess, whom he had married to please her.

I decided she would support her son, but she would be angry, especially as the Franks go to war with Desiderius in the fall of 773.

Bertrada’s widowed daughter-in-law was not about to let her toddling sons lose their kingdom without a fight. That daughter-in-law, Gerberga, is the subject of next week’s post.

Sources

Charlemagne: Translated Sources, P.D. King

Carolingian Chronicles: Royal Frankish Annals and Nithard’s Histories, translated by Bernhard Walters Scholz with Barbara Rogers

“Pavia and Rome: The Lombard Monarchy and the Papacy in the Eighth Century,” Jan T. Hallenbeck, published in 1982 by Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

The Life of Charlemagne, Einhard, translated by Evelyn Scherabon Firchow and Edwin H. Zeydel

You also might like:
The Role of Carolingian Queens
A Mystery: Why Did the King Want to Divorce the Queen?
Charlemagne’s High Stakes Family Feud
The Last Lombard King

My Playlist? A Writing Quirk? Read the Interview.

Tags

Author interview, Historical Fiction, The Cross and the Dragon

Today, I am visiting with Star at the Bibliophilic Book Blog for a fun interview. Among Star’s thoughtful questions are:

• How did writing this book affect you?
• Do you have a musical playlist you listen to while writing? If so, what kind of music?
• What would you say is your most interesting writing quirk?

Find out the answers at the Bibliophic Book Blog.

The Cross and the Dragon also made a recent appearance at Enchanted by Josephine. In her review, Lucy Bertoldi says, “I really appreciated the author’s in- depth knowledge of the history and her knack to create from it a novel busting with impeccable details that carried me vividly into medieval times. A wonderful debut for Kim Rendfeld!”

Above All, We Must Protect the Saint’s Relics

Tags

Franks, Fulda, medieval, Middle Ages, Saint Boniface, Saxons

778, Fulda – As pagan Saxon warriors closed in, the monks fled for their lives. With them was their most precious possession, the bones of the martyred Boniface.

They feared that their enemy would slaughter everyone and burn their monastery. They spent a night at a daughter house and then three days in tents before learning it was safe to return. Men in the area had rallied beaten back the Saxons.

Saint Boniface Crypt, Fulda Cathedral, Germany (image released to public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

What made Boniface so important that the monks risked their safety to protect his remains? Boniface had supervised the monastery’s founding, but the monks didn’t protect his body only for sentiment. At that time, Boniface might have been canonized – he is “of saintly memory” when the Royal Frankish Annals were written in the 790s – and his bones were now relics, attributed with supernatural power.

Yet that brings up another question: What kind of a life did Boniface lead to make him worthy of sainthood? For that, see my debut post on one of my favorite blogs, English Historical Fiction Authors.