Next up as promised, here is the list of my primary source research books used in the writing of THE TIME OF SINGING. I don't read Latin, but I can have a good guess at some of the gist when it isn't in translation - although obviously it's a boon when a translation is available. All of the below material is from sources around at the same time as my characters, so I feel they give me an immediate handle into their world and one that I can interpret for myself at first hand, rather than have it go through the filter of later opinion.Not in any order:
Jocelin of Brakelond: Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds.
Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal, vols 1 and 2 - Anglo Norman Text Society
Richard FitzNigel - Dialogus de Scaccario - Oxford Medieval texts
Constitutio Domus Regis - Oxford Medieval Texts
The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England Commonly Called Glanvill - edited and translated by G.D.G. Hall - Oxford Medieval Texts
The Church Historians of England vol 1V part 1. The Chronicles of Melrose and Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle
The Great Roll of the Pipe for the 9th Year of Richard I. Click on the picture below for a larger image and you should be able to see an example of the pleas my hero Roger Bigod was hearing in Yorkshire in this period during his term as a royal justice on the itinerant circuit.
Feet of Fines for the 7th and 8th years of the Reign of Richard I - Pipe Roll Society
Feet of Fines for Norfolk and Suffolk 1199 - 1215
Pipe Roll Society
Court, Household and Itinerary of Henry II - collated and translated by the Rev. R. W. Eyton.
Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History volume 2 part 1. 1170 - 1215 AD
That's about it I think, although there may be one or two others lurking in forgotten corners. Next time round I'll list the political and social history sources that haven't fitted into these first two categories.
5 comments:
Thanks for sharing these with us. I do have a question on our use of music. I listened to your soundtracks for your recent books, WOW!! But my question is do you create this after you have your book plotted if not completed or do you create as your create your characters/plot? Again. WOW !! I love this blog/
Hi Jody,
Glad you enjoy the blog!
Re the soundtracks. I start the soundtrack even before I start the novel - right at the stage when I'm thinking about the characters and their lives. Then as I begin writing I refine and change, add and take away. For e.g. with THE TIME OF SINGING, I had a great deal of the soundtrack laid down about 10 months ago when I started writing. I am now at the big final edit stage. Some of the early tracks have gone - Prayer of the Refugee by Rise Against for example, and some have recently been added in. Lightning Crashes by LIVE for the birth of Roger and Ida's first son, and You Burn First by Alexis On Fire (used in an early battle scene). But basically ALL the tracks will have been added to the soundtrack before the novel is a finished article, never after.
I'm even now working on the soundtrack to the next contracted novel which I won't be starting until about April. At the moment it includes Amoreuse by Kiki Dee and Breathless by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Thank you for asking such an interesting question!
Elizabeth, where do you find most of your primary sources? I assume they're available at your libary? What do you suggest if your library does not have a lot of primary sources? I live in the state of Alabama, and the libraries in my area do not have an abundance of primary sources from the medieval period.
Steven, I confess that I buy most of my primary sources because I need them on a longterm basis. Some of them are expensive, but I can claim them as a business expense on my tax return and they'll be a legacy for my family to sell on when I shuffle off the mortal coil.
I generally buy them from Abe Books if they are second hand, or print on demand from the likes of Oxford University Press. David Brown books in the USA - trading as Oxbow in the UK is a useful source of obtaining some books too. Some primary sources can be found online - so it pays to get proficient at Google. Also try Google Scholar which will point the way to some texts and sources.
Thanks, Elizabeth. I'll look into those. I have used Google Scholar in the past and found that to be very useful.
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