My scribe thinks he knows what it was like on Crusade - I am not so sure he does - it was a lot tougher than he thinks. Anyway, he wrote this guest blog for Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past - thank you for hosting it Sarah)
One of the challenges of writing about the First Crusade is imagining the details of everyday life at the end of the eleventh century. The period is really the tail end of the Dark Ages, and other than the Bayeux Tapestry there is almost no contemporary visual record of how people dressed or how soldiers fought, how far an army might travel in a day and what they might eat when they stopped. All of this has to be imagined. It is not really for the best part of another century that the picture becomes clearer, and by then customs have changed dramatically, not least because of the civilising impact on Europe of the contact made by the Crusaders with the far more advanced cultures of Byzantium and the Moslem world.
But because the First Crusade was such an extraordinary episode in history, there are many contemporary chronicles that relate the events that happened. These are mostly written by monks or priests who travelled with the leaders of the Crusade, and were charged by them with recording what happened. Of course these chroniclers were also charged with showing their individual lords and masters in a favourable light.
So there is the Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolymytanorum (“The Deeds of the Franks and other Jerusalemers”), written around 1101 by a companion of Bohemond of Taranto. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the Gesta Francorum tends to show Bohemond in rather a good light. The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres was probably started around the same time, but not completed until 1127/28, and because Fulcher travelled with Robert of Normandy, Stephen of Blois, Robert of Flanders, and later Baldwin of Boulogne, his perspective tends to be that of the Northern French. Raymond d’Aguilers’ Chronicle favours Raymond, Count of Toulouse, whose chaplain the author was (although his tone changes a bit after his apparent dismissal from this role towards the end of the Crusade!). And the Gesta Tancredi (“The Deeds of Tancred”) by Ranulph de Caen comes close to being a hagiography of Bohemond’s fiery nephew Tancred. Light is shed on the scene from different directions by Anna Comnena in The Alexiad, her history of her father, Byzantine Emperor Alexius I, because she encountered the Crusaders when they passed through Constantinople, and by Moslem historians such as Ibn al-Athir.
One thing that these accounts have in common is that they are not seeking to tell their readers what they already know. So there is little to be gleaned about the humdrum of everyday life from these documents. They relate extraordinary and unusual events, and for these they have provided much of the raw material for my novel The Waste Land. Some of the extreme events that appear in my book may seem exaggerated to modern readers, but they are there in the contemporary chronicles – newborn babies being abandoned on the way across the Anatolian desert in 1097 after the Battle of Dorylaeum, the cannibalism at the siege of Marrat-al-Numan in 1098, accounts of walking over the bodies of the dead after the siege of Antioch, the streets of Jerusalem running knee deep in blood in 1099. The First Crusade was unbelievably harsh. Some historians have estimated that 150,000 souls set out from various parts of Europe in 1096, and that three years later there were just 15,000 left to besiege Jerusalem. It is true that a few went home, like the disgraced Stephen of Blois, in his case only to be sent back to Outremer by his domineering wife Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror to redeem himself and die in 1102 at the second Battle of Ramleh. But based on these numbers, approaching nine out of ten of those who set off died along the way, in battle, of famine, or of plague.
This level of attrition is of course unthinkable in a modern army. But then Pope Urban II had made the Crusaders an offer that they could not refuse at the Council of Clermont, when he guaranteed them a place in heaven whether they made it to Jerusalem or died trying, and gave them carte blanche to behave however they wished on the way. Deus le volt!
Crusader Hugh
He knows the truth about the Holy Grail
Tuesday 21 May 2013
Wednesday 10 April 2013
Taking Liberties with Myths and Legends
(I hope my scribe Simon Acland has not taken liberties with my story. I am beginning to have suspicions after he posted this as a guest blog on WiLoveBooks http://wilovebooks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/taking-liberties-with-myths-and-legends.html)
The history in my First Crusade novel The Waste Land is pretty accurate. I enjoy reading historical novels in part for the insight they provide into real events, and the feel that they give for life at the time. So I have been careful to try to achieve verisimilitude, going back to the original 12th century chronicles written by the Crusaders, their Muslim opponents, and their Byzantine observers for some of my source material. I confess to using my imagination in the way I have drawn the characters: there is no historical evidence that Duke Godfrey de Bouillon liked drink and women; indeed he is often portrayed as a saintly knight, but there might be an element of hagiography in that. Nor is there evidence of his rivalry with his brother Baldwin. And I have put my own spin on the shenanigans around the Holy Lance in Antioch. One of the purposes of the modern story of the St Lazarus dons that ‘wraps’ my First Crusade tale is to point out the reality behind some of the less credible historical facts (the First Crusade was full of truly extraordinary events) and vice versa.
Where I have taken some dreadful liberties, though, is with ancient
myth and legend. I have taken some stories from Ovid, the Holy Grail myths, the
legends about the Assassin sect, and an imaginary Gnostic Gospel, and put them
all in a great melting pot (I use that term deliberately, for reasons that you
will understand if you read The Waste Land).
Apart from this being quite fun, I have the excuse that I am following
in a long tradition. Ovid’s Metamorphoses are based on much older stories from
early Rome, Ancient Greece and Asia Minor. He embroiders them, poeticises them
and makes them his own. The first Holy Grail tale, the Roman de Perceval ,
written by Chretien de Troyes around 1180, takes as its major source King Arthur
and earlier Celtic fertility legends. These are the inspiration for the father
of the Fisher King, whose kingdom is laid waste until the wound in his loins is
healed. Chretien de Troyes died before he finished his masterpiece, whereupon
other writers took his story and rewrote or completed it. Robert de Boron,
writing around 1200, was the first to mix in Joseph of Arimathea and make the
Grail the vessel used by Christ at the Last Supper and to catch his blood when
he died on the Cross. The German Wolfram von Eschenbach was arguably the first
person to bring the Templars into the mix in his Parzival. If you are interested
in the way these myths and legends have developed, have a look at Sir James
Frazer’s great anthropological study The Golden Bough, or Jessie Weston’s From
Ritual to Romance.
In modern times, renewed interest in the Grail was sparked in 1982 by
Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln’s The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. This faux
history set off the idea that the Grail – the ‘San Graal’ – was the bloodline of
Jesus – the ‘Sang Real’ – which was continued by Dan Brown in the Da Vinci Code.
And of course there have been many variations on the theme, mixing in Assassins,
Templars and even extraterrestrials.
But the element of the tradition which I like most is perhaps TS
Eliot’s The Waste Land, from which I have borrowed my own title. Part of Eliot’s
genius was to mix imagery from Ovid and the Grail to create a timeless
masterpiece. He references Frazer and Weston as key influences in the
controversial ‘Notes’ to his great poem. In homage, I have used snippets from
Eliot’s poem for my chapter titles, and hidden 23 direct quotes from the poem
for Eliot enthusiasts to find.
If that all sounds very pretentious, don’t be put off. My The Waste Land is a humble adventure story, or, as I subtitled it “An Entertainment”.
If that all sounds very pretentious, don’t be put off. My The Waste Land is a humble adventure story, or, as I subtitled it “An Entertainment”.
Wednesday 3 April 2013
Sources
for The Waste Land
(My scribe, Simon Acland, tells me that this is an article Adam P Reviews hosted on his blog http://adam-p-reviews.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/guest-post-sources-for-waste-land-by.html , whatever that may mean)
“So are you a historian then?”
That’s the first thing many people ask me when I tell them
I have written a novel set in the First Crusade. When I say, “No, a modern
linguist actually”, and that my inspiration came from studying the
12th and 13th Century Grail Romances, they normally say
“Wow, you must have done a lot of research.”
At that point I feel a bit of a fraud. To me, research
implies toiling in libraries among dusty documents, written in ancient languages
in indecipherable script. For me it was much easier than that.
Because the First Crusade is such an extraordinary period
of history, and occurred at a pivotal point as Europe was making the transition
from the Dark Ages to medieval times, there is a wealth of good books about it.
The modern Granddaddy is Stephen Runciman’s A History of the Crusades
(Cambridge 1951), but has been followed by many other distinguished works. The
main historians other than Runciman on whom I relied are Jonathan Riley-Smith,
Christopher Tyerman, and Thomas Ashridge. And I was able to find some specialist
works, for example about Cluny, the great Benedictine Monastery where my hero
Hugh de Verdon starts his journey, about the fabric of the City of Jerusalem,
and the intricacies of medieval warfare.
For the novelist it is also fortunate that many of the
contemporary chronicles are available in print and in translation. These
fascinating texts were mostly written by monks who accompanied the leaders of
the Crusades to the Holy Land. They tend to support the image and reputation of
the individual leader in whose entourage the authors travelled, for the
prominent Crusaders were always at each others’ throats. But texts such as the
Gesta Francorum, the Gesta Tancredi, and the Historia
Hierosolimitana provide an invaluable direct insight to the way the
Crusaders thought.
The picture would not be complete without the Muslim point
of view, especially because the Arab world was far more civilised, tolerant and
advanced than Christendom at the end of the 11th Century. Ibn
al-Athir is the most distinguished near contemporary Arab historian, and there
are several useful summaries of his and others’ work such as Francesco
Gabrieli’s 1957 Arab Historians of the Crusades. Then Usama ibn-Munqidh
wrote a delightful diary about his life, starting early in the 12th
Century, published as An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of
the Crusades. Although it postdates the First Crusade itself, and so does
not provide any information about the events themselves, it shows the Arab life
at the time and the barbarism of their Christian attackers.
A third perspective is provided by the Alexiad, the
biography of her father written by Anna Comnenos, the daughter of the
contemporary Byzantine Emperor Alexios I. She also shows the Crusaders in fairly
uncivilised light, although she clearly fancied Bohemond of
Taranto!
So the lucky novelist is spoiled for choice. Partly because
of this, and unusually for a novel, I did include a bibliography of the works I
found most useful at the end of my book. A word of warning, though. It is not
just an academic bibliography. You may be surprised to find references to
adventure classics such as John Buchan’s Greenmantle and Henry Rider
Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines. This is because there are a couple of
episodes in The Waste Land that pay homage to these books. And you may be
surprised to see Monty Python and the Holy Grail included on the list.
Well, see if you can spot the knight who says “Ni” in The Waste Land! Or
watch my video at http://www.meettheauthor.co.uk/bookbites/1915.html,
and then you will understand!
Tuesday 26 March 2013
WASTE LANDS MODERN AND
MEDIEVAL
(My Scribe, Simon Acland, tells me this is a copy of a guest blog kindly hosted by Now is Gone at http://katysozaeva.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/guest-post-simon-acland-author-of-waste.html He says it is something to do with my story.)
Almost 750 years separate TS Eliot’s
The Waste Land from the first Grail Romance, Chrétien de Troyes’ Roman de Perceval.
Maybe readers would not have made any connection between the modern poem and the
medieval Grail poems had it not been for Eliot’s mischievous notes at the end of
his poem. To quote: “Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the
symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston’s book on the
Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance.” From the sound of it, without
Jessie Weston’s book there might have been no modern Waste Land at all;
one can imagine Eliot reading From Ritual to Romance when it came out in
1919, three years before his poem, and that sparking off the chain of creative
thought that resulted in one of the 20th century’s greatest
poems.
Most people think of the Grail as
intimately connected with Jesus and Christianity. It is the chalice that was
used at the Last Supper, or the vessel used to catch Christ’s blood when he was
taken down from the Cross. We think of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, selecting
the wooden carpenter’s cup in that cave high above Petra, and using it to save
his dying father Sean Connery. Or maybe we think of it as in The Da
Vinci Code: a symbol of the bloodline of Jesus – the San Graal of
medieval French somehow being a corruption of the modern French sang real
meaning royal blood. That was the idea that Dan Brown borrowed from
Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln’s 1982 pseudo-history The Holy Blood and the Holy
Grail.
But actually, in that first Grail tale,
Chrétien de Troyes does not make
any specific connection with Jesus or Christianity. In the Roman de
Perceval, the knight of the title finds himself in a mysterious castle. He
witnesses a strange procession, the centrepiece of which is a magical golden
grail (in medieval French a graal is a somewhat obscure word meaning a
large serving dish, on which you might place a roast swan or large salmon).
Later on in Chrétien’s poem it
transpires that the grail is used to feed and keep alive a wounded king, and it
is at one point described as ‘tante sainte chose’ (‘such a holy thing’),
but it is not linked specifically with Jesus Christ in any way. The land of this
king (who happens to be Perceval’s uncle) is barren, laid waste, and Perceval
misses the opportunity to lift the spell by asking questions of his host about
the grail. It is suggested that the king, poor fellow, has been wounded through
the loins, and that his resulting infertility has turned his kingdom into a
waste land. So the original grail appears to be a life-giving cornucopia linked
with Celtic legend more than a Christian object. But it is never fully
explained. Thus a great mystery is set up – what is the grail, why is the king
wounded, why is his land barren, and what will happen when the quest is
fulfilled and the spell is lifted?
Chrétien de Troyes was probably the most popular writer of his day (I
will not insult him by calling him the Dan Brown of the 1100’s). A great
storyteller, he would have explained the mystery, but he died around 1180 before
he could complete the romance. Eliot deliberately shrouded the meaning of his
poem, leaving the reader to interpret it; Chrétien did the same by the accident of his
death before the completion of Roman de Perceval.
Of course, my book The Waste Land
does not belong in the same illustrious company. It is sub-titled An
Entertainment. The meat of it is an adventure story about a monk turned
knight who travels East on the First Crusade, discovering the ‘truth’ about the
Holy Grail and losing his ideals along the way. But I had great fun using some
of the same imagery as Chrétien
and Eliot did. There are some physical waste lands in my book – the Turkish
desert where the Crusaders suffer appallingly from thirst, the surroundings of
Antioch razed during months of siege, the bare wilderness around Alamut. And for
my hero Hugh de Verdon the whole Crusade is a spiritual waste land. For that
reason, and as an homage to Eliot, I borrowed his title, used snippets from his
poem for my chapter headings, and hid twenty-three direct quotes in my text for
Eliot fans to find. Most people spot ‘April was the cruellest month’ but some of
the others are harder. Look out for a couple of father figures who are wounded
in rather uncomfortable places too!
Wednesday 20 March 2013
THE GRAIL LEGEND IN
MEDIEVAL AND MODERN FICTION
The opening
conceit of my novel The Waste Land is that a group of desperate Oxford
dons discover an ancient manuscript in their library. They resolve to rescue the
finances of their bankrupt college by turning this manuscript into a
best-selling thriller (think The Da Vinci Code). The manuscript
contains the autobiographical story of Hugh de Verdon, a monk turned knight who
goes on the First Crusade (1096-99) and “discovers the truth about the Holy
Grail”. What is more, the manuscript appears to be the Urtext, the
original source material, for the very first medieval Grail romance written by
Chrétien de Troyes around
1180.
I studied French and German
at Oxford in the 1970s. Back then, Oxford was more than a little old-fashioned,
and I found myself studying 12th and 13th Century Grail
Romances as my special subject (that is Modern Languages at Oxford for
you). However, I found them fascinating and became a fully signed-up Holy Grail
geek. Later I read with amusement the books which adapted the medieval legends –
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, which
caused a storm in 1982 by suggesting that the Holy Grail – the San Graal
in medieval French – was actually a cipher for the royal blood line of Jesus
Christ – the Sang Real in modern French. This was the central idea which
was then taken into The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Not for
nothing is Dan Brown’s villain called Sir Leigh
Teabing.
My novel
The Waste Land jokes that it all started with Hugh de Verdon’s story,
but, in fact, it of course started with that fellow Chrétien de Troyes. Little is known about him,
even though he was the Dan Brown of his day. He wrote several very popular
chansons de geste, long poems with Arthurian themes about chivalry and
damsels in distress, which in places were funny, and for medieval times, even
erotic. Chrétien’s last work is
called the Roman de Perceval.
In the Roman de
Perceval, the knight of the title finds himself in a mysterious castle, and
witnesses a strange procession, the centerpiece of which is a magical golden
grail (in medieval French graal is a somewhat obscure word meaning a
large serving dish, on which you might place a boar’s head or large salmon).
Later on in the poem it transpires that the grail is used to feed and keep alive
a wounded king, and it is at one point described as ‘tante sainte chose’
(‘such a holy thing’), but it is not linked specifically with Jesus Christ in
any way. The land of this king (who happens to be Perceval’s uncle) is barren,
laid waste, and Perceval missed the opportunity to lift the spell by asking
questions of his host about the grail. The grail appears to be a cornucopia
linked with Celtic legend more than a Christian object but it is never fully
explained. So a great mystery is set up – what is the grail, why is the king
wounded, what happens when the quest is fulfilled and the spell is lifted?
But
Chrétien died before he could
finish the story, leaving these questions unanswered. Imagine if Dan Brown had
died before finishing The Da Vinci Code.
Such was
Chrétien de Troyes’ popularity
that several writers soon attempted to complete his story. The first of these to
make a connection between the Grail and the vessel used by Jesus Christ at the
Last Supper and to catch Jesus’ blood when he was taken down from the Cross was
Robert de Boron. This version contains many of the familiar elements of the
legend - Joseph of Arimathea, Merlin, King Arthur, the questing knights – but it
too was followed by other medieval versions which adapted the story to the
individual interests of the writers. One version, Parzival by Wolfram von
Eschenbach, introduced a loose connection with the Templars. Then, with the
passing of the Middle Ages and of the interest in questing knights, the Grail
fades from view. It isn’t really until the rekindling of interest in things
gothic in the 19th Century that the Grail reappears as a cultural
theme in Wagner’s opera Parsifal and the paintings of the
pre-Raphaelites.
Sir James Frazer’s massive
twelve-volume study of anthropology and folklore, The Golden Bough,
published from 1890 to 1915, rekindled 20th century interest in
ancient myth and legend. In 1919 Jessie Weston focussed in on the Grail myth in
her influential work From Ritual to Romance, and tied its origins firmly
back to Celtic fertility legends. Three years later TS Eliot seized on the
imagery of the Grail for his poem The Waste Land. Eliot acknowledges his
debt to both these writers in the controversial notes to his great poem. In my
turn, in homage, I have seized on Eliot’s title for my book, used snippets of
his poem for my chapter headings, and buried 23 direct quotations in my text for
eagle-eyed Eliot enthusiasts.
There was a trickle of Holy
Grail books through the mid-20th Century, and some films, not least
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (to which I have also paid a sort of
homage by dressing up in Monty Pythones-que Crusader costume to do video
interviews about my book). You can watch the video here: http://www.meettheauthor.co.uk/bookbites/1915.html
But it wasn’t really until
the 1982 success of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail spawned a flood of
imitation pseudo-histories and a torrent of similar fiction that the floodgates
really opened. Given the size of the genre, I am not sure that I should have
added to it, but I hope that you enjoy reading my lesser Waste Land if
you have a chance to do so. For all its proud pedigree, it is a simple adventure
story about a knight who falls in love and loses his beliefs, and firmly, as its
sub-title suggests, intended as an Entertainment.
Saturday 16 March 2013
I've been out crusading
I must own to my shame that I have not posted anything here for a while. I've been out crusading (the Naked Rambler is free).
And my scribe/secretary Simon Acland has been absent, working on another manuscript. He calls it Elite - The Secret to Exceptional Leadership and Performance. He tells me it is not about me, although from the title I believe that it is. Whatever the truth may be, I have had Acland severely lashed because either he lies, or he works in another's service against my will.
And what can this Secret to Exceptional Leadership and Performance be, save the Grail?
In spite of my scribe's idleness and deceit, my story The Waste Land has now reached a far off country of which I had not heard before. They call it the United States of America and they tell me there are many there who know their letters. In a city there called New York, Beaufort Books has made my manuscript widely available to all who can read. I believe Beaufort Books take their name from Beaufort Castle in Outremer, or Qala'at al-Shaqif as it is known in the Arab tongue. But perchance they stem from that Beaufort Castle near my master Godfrey's stonghold at Bouillon; perchance not because in my day that was a poor place indeed, just a compound with four weak walls and no towers to speak of.
In any case, I salute the brave Beaufort Books of New York in the United States of America for their courage in risking the wrath of the Templars and promulgating my story.
And my scribe/secretary Simon Acland has been absent, working on another manuscript. He calls it Elite - The Secret to Exceptional Leadership and Performance. He tells me it is not about me, although from the title I believe that it is. Whatever the truth may be, I have had Acland severely lashed because either he lies, or he works in another's service against my will.
And what can this Secret to Exceptional Leadership and Performance be, save the Grail?
In spite of my scribe's idleness and deceit, my story The Waste Land has now reached a far off country of which I had not heard before. They call it the United States of America and they tell me there are many there who know their letters. In a city there called New York, Beaufort Books has made my manuscript widely available to all who can read. I believe Beaufort Books take their name from Beaufort Castle in Outremer, or Qala'at al-Shaqif as it is known in the Arab tongue. But perchance they stem from that Beaufort Castle near my master Godfrey's stonghold at Bouillon; perchance not because in my day that was a poor place indeed, just a compound with four weak walls and no towers to speak of.
In any case, I salute the brave Beaufort Books of New York in the United States of America for their courage in risking the wrath of the Templars and promulgating my story.
Tuesday 1 May 2012
The Naked Rambler - A Gross Injustice
I've just heard that in the cold northern land of Hibernia, in the town gaol of Perth, a man is incarcerated just because he will not wear clothes. What strange injustice is this?
I knew the torment of solitary confinement in that cell at Alamut. But at least for much of that time I was mad, raving for Blanche and revenge, and scarcely aware of my prison walls. Prisoner Stephen Gough does not have that solace; he is as sane as I am now.
Holy hermits who cast off their clothes in penance were revered and honoured in my time, not imprisoned. This man Gough is not a hermit, but something they call in modern parlance a Rambler. He believes that God made him the way he is and that so he should not be ashamed of his body. So he casts off his clothes, like Adam innocent in Eden. I may not agree with his religious beliefs, but I would not have him locked away for his nakedness.
Free the Naked Rambler! Leave him be to lead his life the way he wishes. We all have bodies and we all know what they look like. Why be ashamed? Be tolerant and smile at the eccentricities of others instead of trying to force them to conform. It is the pomposity of judges, the convention of sheriffs, and the narrow minds of bigots that we should abhor. Free the Naked Rambler! He is one of us.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/23/naked-rambler-prison
I knew the torment of solitary confinement in that cell at Alamut. But at least for much of that time I was mad, raving for Blanche and revenge, and scarcely aware of my prison walls. Prisoner Stephen Gough does not have that solace; he is as sane as I am now.
Holy hermits who cast off their clothes in penance were revered and honoured in my time, not imprisoned. This man Gough is not a hermit, but something they call in modern parlance a Rambler. He believes that God made him the way he is and that so he should not be ashamed of his body. So he casts off his clothes, like Adam innocent in Eden. I may not agree with his religious beliefs, but I would not have him locked away for his nakedness.
Free the Naked Rambler! Leave him be to lead his life the way he wishes. We all have bodies and we all know what they look like. Why be ashamed? Be tolerant and smile at the eccentricities of others instead of trying to force them to conform. It is the pomposity of judges, the convention of sheriffs, and the narrow minds of bigots that we should abhor. Free the Naked Rambler! He is one of us.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/mar/23/naked-rambler-prison
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