While working on the forthcoming Guided Tour of St. Frideswide’s – treating not only the cloister and nuns but the extensive agricultural and system of varied properties that economically supported them – I needed to say something about the priory’s horses. Most would be of the workaday sort, but the priory’s steward, Master Naylor, needed a good riding horse for all the travel his job entailed. I thought I knew what sort of horse that would be, but did not mind the chance to raid my shelves to find confirmation in the lovely book, The Medieval Horse and Its Equipment. Edited by John Clark, it is a publication of the Museum of London, with scholarly articles based on information from archaeological excavations and generously full of illustrations. It had a handy list of the different sorts of horses available, not delineated by breed but rather by what type of work they would do. The one I wanted for Master Naylor was an ambler, a horse with a gait that gives a particularly comfortable ride by both legs on one side moving together, then both legs on the other side, creating a smooth rocking motion, unlike the more choppy ride made by the diagonal leg movement of other horses.

This smooth gait is especially welcomed if hours are to be spent in the saddle. Most famously, the Wife of Bath in The Canterbury Tales is noted as sitting “upon an amblere esily”, and accordingly on page 7 of The Medieval Horse is the well-known illustration of her from the 15^th century Ellesmere manuscript where very clearly her horse is shown striding forward with both right legs at once:

For good measure, the same page has another illustration, this one from the 14^th century (Queen Mary’s Psalter), showing a huntsman on an ambling horse, both its left legs moving forward:

What struck me immediately was the complete match between the ambling walk shown there and that of the modern Tennessee Walking Horse.

Today if you should google for “ambling horse” a variety of sites come up about gaited horses. There are a large number of modern breeds noted for specialized gaits, but not all of these gaits are “ambling” as understood medievally, and many are deliberately showy rather than simply practical, as a medieval ambler was intended to be. But I was briefly acquainted with a Tennessee Walking Horse once, with even the pleasure of riding him, and that breed’s gait is definitely the same as the Ellesmere’s ambler – an alternating sides stride that sets up a fast, smooth pace designed to cover miles with ease for both horse and rider. Moreover, to my great amusement, the description of the Tennessee Walking Horse referenced a straight face and small ears, with a photo of a modern horse whose head exactly matched the Ellesmere ambler’s.

The breed is supposed to have been developed around 1800 from several breeds – different ones are named in different sources, so apparently there’s some uncertainty regarding exactly which it is supposed to be developed from – for the use of southern plantation owners needing to ride their acres. That’s likely true, but on the visual evidence it can be guessed that some part of the line goes back one way or another a good way farther.

For good measure of delight, if you search out the right Youtube videos, you can watch the medieval ambling of Tennessee Walking Horses to gain a clearer idea of what a medieval rider could experience. When trying to recreate a long-gone world, every such scrap of experience is to be treasured. And isn’t it fun what sideways paths research can lead one? All I wanted was to verify what sort of horse Master Naylor would be riding and ended up watching videos of modern horses and riders.

And people wonder why it can take so long to write a book. It’s the research – it leads the innocent writer astray!

– Margaret

I’m among those readers who need to know how a name is said when I am reading a book.  Since I’m often asked about how to say Frevisse’s name, and sometimes about Joliffe, I thought a small note here may be welcome.

The trick with “Frevisse” is that it is the French version of “Frideswide”.  Being French, it should probably be pronounced “fray-VEES”.  But since she is in England and the English are infamous for what they do to French names, I say it as “FRAY-viss”.

I hasten to add that I have absolutely no objection to a reader pronouncing it the way they prefer.  After all, England is a place of many dialects (and was in the 1400s, too), and there’s no reason you can’t claim “local usage” if your pronunciation differs from mine!

As for “Frideswide”, it is now pronounced “Fryswide” (with a long i in “wide”), but the spelling suggests that at some point the pronunciation was markedly different.  (I say that any language that takes “Belvoir” and pronounces it “Beaver” can’t be trusted in any of its pronunciations.)  So I pronounce it “Frid-es-wid” (with short i’s ), but equally possible in a medieval context it could be “Frid-es-WEEdah”.  I suppose it depends on which side of the Great Vowel Shift you want to be on?

Then there’s Joliffe.  For once, he is less trouble than usual.  I pronounce his name with a short o and no final e.  But if you prefer, it can be said with a long o.  And even with the final e, I suppose.

As you can see, I am not strict about any of this.  I suspect it’s all the reading I do in Middle English that has made my attitude toward pronunciation far more free-form than it once was.  (Not to mention what havoc medieval spelling has made to my spelling.)  So feel free to choose whatever slides easiest through your mind while you are reading and enjoy!

– Margaret

A good article about the local mystery bookstore Once Upon a Crime, with a long quotation from me, was recently published in the Twin Cities Daily Planet.

Check it out.

Once Upon a Crime really is a marvelous little store. I’ve often remarked how blessed my hometown is to have two truly wonderful independent mystery bookstores (Once Upon a Crime and Uncle Edgar’s).

– Margaret

For a limited time only, the international Kindle editions of The Novice’s Tale and The Servant’s Tale are on sale for an insanely low price! You can purchase them for just £0.77 (UK) or 0,89€ (French, German, Italian).

My understanding is that you don’t actually need to live in the UK, France, Germany, or Italy in order to purchase the books from those sites. However, since I don’t control the e-book rights for these titles in America or Canada, you can’t purchase them there. (I wish that wasn’t the case, but it’s out of my control.)

So if you’re a Joliffe fan who’s wondering what the fuss is — or if you know anyone who loves historical fiction or a good mystery — now’s a great time to make Dame Frevisse’s acquaintance.

– Margaret

If you’ve living in the UK, Germany, France, or anywhere outside of the United States or Canada, The Servant’s Tale is now available for the Kindle! It can also be read on any iPad, Android, Windows PC, Mac, or Blackberry device using the free Kindle Reading Apps for those platforms.

As with The Novice’s Tale, I don’t know when an e-book for The Servant’s Tale will be made available in the United States or Canada because I don’t control those rights. I’ve got my fingers crossed that the publisher will make it happen soon, though. Unfortunately, this also prevents me from offering The Servant’s Tale through other booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. But The Servant’s Tale — like the other novels and short stories I control the rights to — is offered through Amazon without DRM, making it easy to convert to whatever formats you like best.

THE PLAY’S THE THING, TO CATCH THE CONSCIENCE OF A KILLER…

The Christmas season brings strange guests to the medieval nunnery of St. Frideswide’s when a troupe of penniless players comes knocking at the gate. They bear with them the badly mangled body of a villager, swearing they found the drunken fool lying in a ditch. But Meg, the victim’s wife and a scullery maid of the cloister, thinks there are far fouler deeds afoot.

As the players rehearse for the nativity, ancient scandals lick at their heels and dark desperation haunts Meg’s steps as she finds cruel feudal laws threatening to strip away the lands that would support both her and her sons in the wake of her husband’s death.

Dame Frevisse must thrust herself between these violent feuds, awakening dreams of her youth that she had believed long buried. Her very faith may be threatened, but Frevisse knows she must unravel a path to true salvation… before false raptures of lust bring ruination upon them all.

Buy Kindle Edition

PRAISE FOR THE SERVANT’S TALE

“Period detail, adroit characterizations, and lively dialogue add to the pleasure of this labyrinthine tale.” – Publishers Weekly

“This mystery is so rich with place and time that they become characters in the story. Dame Frevisse is a stalwart, appealing sleuth and the cold, dark priory and the squalor of Medieval England are fascinating backdrops.” – New Orleans Times-Picayune

“The writing is seamless… The atmosphere of the book is cold and blustery, danger afield. A well-steeped sense of history prevails… They make this novel more than a mystery, but a wonderful historical dark tapestry. We are transported back to the 14th century. One of the 10 best mystery novels of 1993.” – Minneapolis Star Tribune

“I look forward to more murders at St. Frideswide.” – The Mystery Review

“Frazer never falters in this magnificent historical… This is a perfect mystery: It’s flawless.” – Drood Review of Mystery

NOMINATED FOR THE 1994 EDGAR AWARD

As most of you probably already know, The Servant’s Tale is also the first appearance of Joliffe! The story takes place six months before the events of A Play of Isaac. (For a more detailed view of how the two series weave together — including the short stories! — check out the master chronology.)

– Margaret

WARNING: This is the original Author’s Note from A Play of Heresy. It contains light SPOILERS for the book. You may want to finish reading the novel before reading this note.

I was already at work on this book when I went to the symposium “Drama and Religion 1555-1575: The Chester Cycle in Context” at the University of Toronto in May 2010.  Besides the scholarly papers that were given, the entire cycle of twenty-three medieval plays from Chester, England, were performed out of doors on wagons moved from site to site on the campus over three half-days.  The plays began with the Creation of the World and followed through Old and New Testaments to Judgment Day.  Each was done by a different group from schools in Canada and the United States, with no attempt to unify their styles; all was done according to the individual group’s own imagination and resources, their styles widely diverging.

As someone who has seen much theater, both from the audience side and while performing on stages, I was as fascinated by the onlookers’ delight as much as by the productions themselves.  And by “onlookers’ delight” I mean my own as well as what I saw and heard around me.  People watched in riveted delight as the Temptress in the Garden of Eden changed into a slithering serpent; cheered when Moses pulled the tablets of the law from the rocky cliff behind him; laughed ourselves silly at the southern hillbilly shepherds settling down for a night of watching their sheep with their coolers of beer and snacks beside them – and were nonetheless deeply moved by their so-humble but sincere gifts to the Christ child.  Nor is anyone likely to forget Herod on his high throne, sneeringly throwing the occasional grape at the audience – or the silence as we watched the Crucifixion.  And I’m here to tell you that when the demons burst from the Hellmouth, to prowl and snarl only a few yards from our faces, we were truly taken momentarily aback.  Some plays were stronger productions than others, but at the end the overall feeling left was that we had gone on a wonderful journey.  You did not have to be Christian in that audience to be carried along on the mythic strength of the story.

In short — brought alive by theatrical imagination, these medieval plays work.

Which pleased me no end, since that was what I was imagining and trying to do with the plays in A Play of Heresy. Unfortunately, unlike the cycle of plays played in Chester and York, only two of the cycle done in Coventry remain – that of the Shearmen & Taylors and that of the Weavers.  If you should happen on a book titled Ludus Coventriae or the Plaie Called Corpus Christi, full of plays, take note this was published under the misconception that what are now called the N-Town plays were the lost ones of Coventry.  Instead, the book I used the most while writing this story was The Corpus Christi Plays, edited by Pamela M. King and Clifford Davidson, from Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University.  Where occasionally things diverge in my story from the facts given in the book, pray remember that nothing is static and what is recorded of plays and pageant houses in the 1500s is not necessarily exactly how things were in the 1400s, a time for which we have less documentation about the plays.

What is intriguing, besides the surviving plays themselves, are the odd bits of information scattered through the town records, such as where some of the guilds had their pageant houses, and the cost for painting Herod’s face and mending the devil’s garment.  These are winnowed out and gathered together in the delight-filled Records of Early English Drama: Coventry.

A more immediately available experience of drama in medieval Coventry is that staple of Christmas carols – “The Coventry Carol”.  It’s the lullaby that the mothers of Bethlehem sing to their doomed children at the Massacre of the Innocents in the play that, in this book, Basset is directing – one of the two plays that somehow survived when most of the Coventry plays vanished.  Listening to the song’s delicate, sorrowing beauty makes one wonder how much of all too perishable grace and beauty is lost from medieval times.

Now for Coventry itself.  Again I feel obliged to ask readers to move with me past the clichés about medieval towns, lest it be thought I write too rosy a picture of them.  Much of what we “know” about them (such as all their streets were narrow and dark and deep in filth, with people throwing rude things out of upper windows) dates from later centuries, when the shifting economics led to the over-population of towns and cities and the accompanying breakdown of their governmental and social structures.  Citizens of medieval towns — quarrelsome and ambitious among themselves though they might be (and the records show they definitely could be) — tended to be very proud and protective of their towns.  Sponsoring fine civic events such as the Corpus Christi plays was one way of showing it, mixing piety and civic promotion in a combination very common throughout medieval England.  The Tudor economics and their Reformation tore much of that to shreds.  For an in-depth look at the inner workings of medieval Coventry, there is The Coventry Leet Book, published by the Early English Text Society.

A number of records exist from medieval Coventry.  Out of them, I have amused myself by using names of some actual citizens in this story.  There was an actual John Burbage listed in the Coventry subsidy of 1434, when John Burbage of Bayly-lane paid 1s.8d, sign of a prosperous man.  Whether he was in any way an ancestor of Shakespeare’s Richard Burbage, I don’t know, but it’s diverting to know that Stratford-upon-Avon is not far from Coventry and that scholars love to speculate that the young Shakespeare may have seen the last performance of these plays in Coventry before the Protestants shut them altogether down.  (Turns out it was not, in the long run, the Lollards whom folk had to worry about.)  So, if we are speculating, let us speculate that the young Shakespeare perhaps met the young Burbage, descendant of John Burbage, then.  (But, no, I am not going to write that story.)

Johanna Byfeld of Much Park Street is likewise in the records.  And in the town records for 1441 is the order that “Richard Eme and all others, who play in the Corpus Christi pageant, shall play well and sufficiently, so that no impediment may arise in any play, on pain of 20s. to the town wall.”

Less happily, the 1431 Lollard uprising and its aftermath are also real, as are the executions, among others, of a Thomas Kydwa and of Alice Garton, just as told here.   For this background, “Lollardy in Coventry and the Revolt of 1431” by Maureen Jurkowski in The Fifteenth Century, vol. 6: Identity and Insurgency in the Late Middle Ages, edited by Linda Clark, was invaluable.

Of course, should you go looking for medieval places in Coventry mentioned and used in this story, you will find little.  The German bombing of 1940 burned out what was left of the medieval heart of the city, including St. Michael’s church (become, by then, St. Michael’s Cathedral) whose shell remains next to the new and glorious cathedral put up in its place for reminder of the great cruelties of mankind and of the grace of forgiveness and mercy.

For a wonderful site for “seeing” Coventry as it was and is, go to http://www.historiccoventry.co.uk.  There are maps of Coventry at different times over the centuries, and photographs from the late 1800s into the 21^st century.  A journey in time both delightful and sad.

For a clearer understanding of how suicide – a word not used until centuries later – was seen and responded to in medieval times, Alexander Murray’s three-volume Suicide in the Middle Ages was invaluable.

Biblical quotations are from the Bible in English – now known as the Wycliffe Bible — available in England in the 1400s.  Bibles in English were not completely forbidden.  Copies are known to have been owned by several kings, and license from a bishop could be had for lesser people to own one.  The Church’s principal objection to the Bible being in English was the abuse some people made of it, taking from it what they wanted in order to justify what they wanted to do.  It has always sounded better (at least to the perpetrator) to say, “The Bible made me do it.”

By the by, yes, there were organs in medieval England at the time, including portative ones.  Yet again I feel obliged to insist that, despite the tedious media clichés, medieval times should not be summed up as nothing but ignorant, ugly, and brutal, existing under a perpetually overcast sky with plague and warfare every day from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance.  The surviving art and literature and music from the time show a love of complexity, order, and beauty.  Study of the legal structure and the bureaucracy that supported it evidence a society striving to create and maintain an ordered life.  There were of course ugliness and injustices and outbreaks of violence – but those are not exclusive to medieval times and it is grossly unfair to characterize the period as if they were.  Almost needless to say, the simplistic willfulness of those who continue to portray the time as “nothing but nasty”, ignoring everything to the good that the medieval world has to offer, annoys the hell out of me.

Not to mention those who can’t trouble themselves to figure out that how things were in 1250 are not likely to match how things were in 1450.  Think: 1750 versus 1950.  Change happens – in clothing, attitudes, and societal structure.  “Even” in the medieval world.

More cheerfully, for those who also read the Dame Frevisse series and happen to remember a rat-faced spy Joliffe encounters when finding excuse to befriend Arteys in The Bastard’s Tale, you may find that scene plays differently now that you have met Sebastian in A Play of Heresy.

– Margaret

Today is the big wrap-up for our virtual bookclub for A Play of Heresy. In a couple of hours I’ll be posting the Author’s Note from the book here on the website. (Be warned! There are spoilers in there!) Meanwhile, vigorous discussions continue on Facebook — and will probably continue into the New Year — and I also recommend following my Twitter account.

In a few days I’m also planning to post a reading guide for you to use with your local bookclubs. Until them, I’d like to wish you all a Happy New Year! I hope you enjoyed the latest tale of Joliffe.

– Margaret

CHAPTER 21

This being their first time on the pageant wagon itself, with stairs to consider and the need to pattern people’s going out of and into the stage house – the place being small enough to make such considerations very necessary – the practice went unevenly, with more thought on how and when and where to move than on what was being said…

Because with these essays I’ve reached a point in A Play of Heresy where the investigation has become everything, leaving little mention of anything else on which to comment, I’m reverting to an issue that has come up at several points during the story – the matter of Anne Deyster’s property.

Very basically, under the law – keeping in mind that what I write here is in very general terms, with allowances to be made for local variations – a woman was considered to be the responsibility of her father, then of her husband.  How stringent the “I am responsible for you, daughter” was held to would depend on the individuals, however.  Since we know unmarried women left home to work as servants or to go into training for trades or even to pursue their own businesses, fathers couldn’t have been in charge of all the unmarried women all the time.  The same was undoubtedly true in marriages, and certainly among merchants it was possible for a woman to become legally a femme sole – a business woman for whose debts her husband could not be held responsible.  Then, in the fullness of time, a widow was considered to be responsible for herself, expected to make her own decisions and run her own life.  To me, this – and common sense – suggests that women were expected to be doing that to a significant degree before widowhood, rather than being powerless pawns in the male lives around them, then abruptly thrust into responsibility.  Social theory is one thing; reality on the ground is usually something else.

The thing is that all but the very poorest of widows would indeed have property to make decisions about, because under the law at all levels of society a woman was held to have a right to one-third of her husband’s property at the time of his death.  The idea was that a husband’s death should not automatically leave a widow impoverished.  Besides this, there could/should have been agreement made at the time of the marriage regarding dowry and dower.  Dowry was what the wife brought to the marriage – money or property or both.  Dower was the money or property or both that the husband promised would go to his wife should she be widowed.  Often the dower would include what she brought to the marriage as dowry, especially if land was involved.

Besides those provisions for her widowhood, a husband could will to his widow however much more of his property/money he wanted (supposing he was high enough in the social order that some or all of his property was not entailed to go to a specific blood-relation).  To some degree how much a man could will away was limited not only by a possible entail but by the automatic legal provision that a man’s children should have one third of their father’s property at his death.  Since, generally speaking, orphans were given into their widowed mother’s care until they came of age, this inheritance came under her control along with her own.

All of this could make for some very wealthy widows among merchants, gentry, and nobility, but even at the more modest level of the village, a widow could be very desirable remarriage material, and many widows did remarry.  But others did not, and although the little given here barely scratches at the complexities there could be in individual situations, I trust it’s clear that Anna Deyster’s widowhood does give her economic options, with choices to consider and the freedom to make them.

For interesting reading and ample bibliographies regarding medieval wives:

Hanawalt, Barbara.  The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London.  Oxford University Press, 2007

Swabey, ffiona.  Medieval Gentlewoman: Life in a Widow’s Household in the Later Middle Ages. Sutton Publishing, 1999.

– Margaret

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CHAPTER 20

In the Silcok’s yard, standing beside the players’ cart, he considered going up to their room, but it was likely busy with sewing women at present.  Sewing and talking.  Possibly talking about the murder, so maybe there was something to be overheard and learned, but he was suddenly aware of being greatly tired, and instead of anything more ambitious, he loosed the rear flaps of the tilt, crawled in, and tied them behind him…

I’ve written elsewhere about the joy I take in vocabulary and my ongoing attempts to use words that are pre-1500 in my (especially later) books.  So, having come across in this chapter the word “splendidious”, I thought to share some of the vocabulary fun I’ve had over the years (110 double-spaced pages of fun) in my quest for properly medieval words.

To start with “splendidious” itself, it seems I was looking up “splendid” in the Oxford English Dictionary (13 volume edition) to see if it was period.  Here’s what I wrote:  “splendid: as such no, but ‘splendidious’ and ‘splendiferous’; whee!”

As you can see, I get enthusiastic over vocabulary.

And so, to continue with this peek into my working notes — with the note that anything in square brackets are comments I’ve added here:

abash/abashance/abashed/abashing/abachment: yes   [I’m itching for a chance to use some of these variants.]

biscuit: yes, orig. ‘bisket’ — “the senseless adoption of the French spelling with the French pronunciation” according to the OED

chirp: in the form ‘chircle’, yes; see also ‘chirm’

dainteous / dainteth / daintiful / daintily / daintive:  yes

daintiness:  no; but it’s fairly well the same as some of the above, so go for it

dainty: n.+ adj., yes

enjoyment:  no; but ‘enjoyse’ is period and means the same

flagrant:  c.1500 and only in the sense of ‘fiery’, ‘blazing’

garbage: as ‘offal’, yes; otherwise, no; try ‘waste’ or ‘refuse’ or ‘rubbish’

handsome: not in looks until late 1500s, it seems, but many other ways; c1430 it was used to mean easy to handle, to manipulate, or to wield or deal with or use in any way             [Hmm.  So a handsome man in the 1400s would be…]

imp: young shoot of a plant 800s; a child 1300s; child of hell 1500s

jog / joggle:  no, but ‘jot’ meant to jog, so I vote for ‘jog’ being okay for a hard-pressed novelist to use

kith:  yes; and ‘kith and kin’ and ‘kin and kith’

libidinous: yes, and don’t forget ‘lewd’ and ‘lecherous’

marbles:  the game, not by this name; ‘boules’, ‘bowles’, ‘bowlys’, knikkers’ (from the Dutch), and ‘billes’ (in France) all seem to be period.

nervous:  in current sense, late 1700s; in sense of having strong sinews, yes; “sinewy, muscular, vigorous, strong”

occasional / occasionally:  no, but Pecock uses ‘occasionarily’ in this sense, so close enough for me

plot: as small piece of ground, yes; n. otherwise, no, but the form ‘complot’ is period; v. no               
plotter: no, but ‘complotter’?

quarrelous: yes  [And of course in any murder mystery you need at least one quarrelous person, yes?]

rascal: 1300s; a raskyl of boys   [So useful around Piers!]

scribble: yes.  c.1465 Plumpton Correspondence: “scrybbled in haste with my own hand in default of other help”

tousled:  yes; ‘touse’ is to handle roughly; drag or push about; of a dog, to tear at, worry

unconcious: not until 1700s; try ‘insensible’

vengeance:  oh, yes, no trouble. Also venge, vengeable, vengeably, vengeant, vengement, venger, vengeress (name of a spear c.1450), vengesour.  But not vengeful; go figure.

whore / whoredom / whorehouse / whoreson:  yes. Not so incidentally, “horeling” is someone who is a fornicator, whoremonger, adulterer, paramour.  [And by the way, “ho” was a medieval slang word for “whore”. But I’d never get away with using it.]

yammer: yes

Alas, somehow I’ve never had occasion to question a word beginning with an x or z, so here I make an end.

– Margaret

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CHAPTER 19

They parted at the corner of Much Park Street and Earl Street, Burbage saying he would be glad to get back to his proper work, Master Waldeve muttering glumly that he might as well find out a new rope before he did anything else.  Joliffe said nothing but plain farewell to them both.  Since Master Waldeve went rightward and Burbage cut slantwise across the street toward his own Bayley Lane, Joliffe went left.  What he needed to do now was find Sebastian.  Or let Sebastian find him…

Often in my books I often cannot explore aspects of medieval life in as much detail as I enjoy.  For the sake of the story, much has to be left out.  As someone wisely said, 90% (or was it 95%?) of what an author researches does not show up in the finished work.

To the good, that large, unused portion of research usually informs what is there, and without it the finished work would be far poorer.  Thus, in readying for A Play of Heresy I read Alexander Murray’s Suicide in the Middle Ages¹, to add to what other information I gathered from other sources, and yet very little of Murray’s compendious scholarship made it overtly into the novel.  (I should add, by the way, that rather than being as depressing as I feared Murray’s work might be, it was quite humane and fascinating.)  One thing I brought away was how relatively sympathetically the suicide was treated in medieval England.  On the continent, the usual practice seems to have been to drag the dead body publicly from the site of death through the streets to somewhere outside the town or village, for it then to be thrown into a ditch or river or onto waste land, to rot as it would.  In England, there was no such traumatic treatment of the body, and while there was no possibility of burial in consecrated ground, the suicide having damned their soul beyond salvation, burial was allowed in unconsecrated ground without exposure of the body to elements and animals.

Still, the psychology underlying the medieval view of suicide is intriguing, giving insight as it does into a world view unfamiliar to many of us now.  Suicide and attempted suicide were believed to be caused by melancholy — depression, in modern terms – which “was a particularly noxious complaint” in the Church’s eyes, based on St. Augustine, “since the melancholic’s despair suggested that he was not suffused with joy at the certain knowledge of God’s divine love and mercy”, making the melancholic someone “turning away from all that was holy.”²

Worse, deep melancholy was thought to be caused by the possession of a demon, “since in order to control the victim’s soul the Devil creates the delusions and melancholy which often precede such an attempt” at suicide.³ Exorcism sometimes helped, but sometimes it did not and the devil won, and because the victim succeeded in killing himself while his soul was possessed by a devil, he could be considered nothing else except damned.  That must, inevitably, have added another layer of sorrow to the survivors’ grief, but gives us an insight to a world view no longer predominant in Western culture.

Interestingly, while madness was a recognized defense in medieval English courts (with the rider to be watchful for people faking it), such exculpatory madness was never attributed to the Devil except in the case of suicides, so deep did the conviction run that only someone utterly damned would kill themselves.

As a pedantic aside, no one of course could commit “suicide” in medieval England:  The word “suicide” did not come into use until the 1700s.  Before then, the killing of one’s self was termed “self-murder” (which, by the way, in Latin is suicide) and so I call it that throughout Heresy.

– Margaret

Sources
¹ Murray, Alexander.  Suicide in the Middle Ages.  Oxford University Press, USA.
² Solomon, Andrew.  The Noonday Demon. p.292.
³ Goodich, Michael, editor.  Other Middle Ages. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998. p.154.

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