The meat of the matter

With the publication date for the paperback of The Scarlet Lion looming on the horizon, and my cooking efforts for the Conroi de Vey at the Tollerton Show fresh in my mind, I got to wondering what I'd serve up to William and Isabelle Marshal should they suddenly arrive at my door requesting hospitality on their road.

During his youth, William - like many teenagers of today- gained a reputation for doing nothing but eat and sleep. He earned the nickname 'Gasteviande' which roughly translates to 'scoff all'. There is a telling line from the Histoire de Guillaume le Mareschal. The other knights at Tancarville where the young William is being trained to knighthood, say to his guardian:
'This greedy gorger William, in God's name, what good is he doing here?... Just how are you being served by this troublesome fellow, this devil of a glutton, who's always sleeping when he's not eating? The man's a fool who feeds him.' Unfortunately no mention is made of what he was consuming whilst eating his guardian out of house and home. Indeed, although the Histoire makes mention of entertainments and jousts in abundance, there are only occasional references to foodstuffs - but always very interesting.

There's a mention of ship's biscuits (bescuit) when Richard the Lionheart is preparing his crusade. Indeed, we are told that his ship was also laden with 'flitches of bacon, wines, wheat and flour. He also loaded pepper, cumin, wax, and spices and electuaries of the very best available. Also 'many other drinks and jellies and syrup. It would be interesting to know what the syrup consisted off.

On another occasion, William Marshal tricked the citizens of Rouen into providing a feast for himself, and the earls of Salisbury and de Warenne. He promised his companions 'Fine wines and luscious fruits.' The French army had been very close to Rouen but for various reasons had changed direction and retreated. William and the two earls had been shadowing the French, but were too lightly armed to engage in battle with them, however they knew their movements. Since Rouen was close and an ally the Marshal took the English contingent there, and told the citizens that the French army was in the area, but not to worry, he and Salisbury and Warenne would protect them. The citizens of Rouen, mightily relieved and not realising that there was only the smallest grain of truth in this story, fetched out their best for their 'saviours.'
'When it was time to eat, they quickly washes and sat down. The burgesses gave great attention to the matter of preparing their gifts....some made a present of full bodied wines, fine wines, clear, soft on the palate and sparkling, some with cloves, some spiced, according to the preference of the giver....At the end of the meal came the fruit, and they all had in abundance pears, apples and hazel nuts.' Again this is fascinating. I would never have guessed that sparkling wines were around then, but apparently so. It's also interesting to note that they ate fruit at the end of the meal and it was seen as a good and prestigious thing to do - and it was a treat. Which puts paid to the notion I've seen in some places that medieval people did not eat fruit, or treated it with deep suspicion. A pity that the Histoire does not tell us what they ate as the main dish.
Another small food scene from the Histoire is concerned with the time when William Marshal was dying. No longer able to enjoy food, he was subsisting solely on a 'diet of mushrooms'. Also 'Someone had the idea of rubbing the white of bread into small crumbs so that the Marshal would not notice.' Were mushrooms standard sick room food? Or perhaps a favourite dish of the Marshal's that they perhaps had been able to persuade him to eat. I don't know.

As to the dilemma of what to serve to my 'guests' should they visit:
I cooked an Arabic dish at the local show (pictures to follow in a future blog). Known as Mishimishya, it came to England with returning crusaders and the Sicilian cousins of our native Normans. William would probably have eaten it at some point during his sojourn in the Holy Land, and it is very tasty and easy to prepare.
Take around half a pound of good stewing lamb (depending on appetite) per person cut into cubes and half a large onion per person. Chop the onion and fry in a large pan with the lamb until the meat has coloured. Add a teaspoon of cumin per person and a teaspoon of coriander per person. Add a teaspoon of powdered ginger all told and a teaspoon of cinammon all told. Pepper and salt to preference. Cover with water and simmer until the lamb is tender. While this is going on, take half a pound of dried apricots, cover with boiling water and leave to stand. Mush to a puree in a blender or by hand. Once you're just about ready to serve the lamb, add the apricot puree a bit at a time, checking that it's too your taste. You might not need it all. Also scatter in a handful of ground almonds - again it's a case of taste it and see and test for thickness of the mixture. Serve with bread or flat bread if you're feeling Middle-Eastern.

At the Tollerton show, I also served up a pottage of broad beans, carrots, onions and garlic, and a soup made with almond milk and onions for the vegetarians among us. For nibbles there were herb omelettes, soft oatcakes, honey, goat's cheese, bread pudding (I'm working on the provenance!) shortbread, and summer fruits with cream. I think I would serve William Marshal sweet wild strawberries and cherries - and definitely a good wine, or perhaps mead from our local vineyard which I've only just come across, courtesy of a Regia friend. I can't believe it's been in my vicinity for 30 years and I've not known about it. http://www.costock.fsnet.co.uk/page21eglantin.html

Bon Appetit whether you're a 'gasteviande' or not!

Lighting Fires

Jenny Davis' comment about Lords of the White Castle having inspired her to all things Medieval, led me to wonder about my own inspirations as a writer. I'm often asked at talks where I get my ideas. The answer in my case, is frequently that one thing leads to another.
I was eleven when my Dad suggested that if I was lucky whilst digging on the beach at Hunstanton, I might come across King John's treasure. Of course that treasure, if it was ever lost in the Wellstream in the first place, will either be lying in a field inland miles away, or scattered, having been found and melted down/sold on by its discoverers. However, that didn't stop the notion from inspiring me and roughly 30 years down the line, my speculation about what really happened to John's treasure became my novel The Marsh King's Daughter. While researching a piratical character called Eustace the Monk for this novel, I came across the tale of 13thC outlaw Fulke FitzWarin. Realising this was a great swashbuckling tale about a guy who had actually lived, I knew my next novel would be his story - told in Lords of the White Castle. While researching ' Lords'I came across a genealogy chart which featured Judith, niece to William The Conqueror, who had married a Saxon Earl. Norman Lady marries English thegn...hmmm, I thought. Room for conflict here. Thus The Winter Mantle became my next project. Meanwhile, Lords of theWhite Castle had been shortlisted for an award and had sold very well. I found myself becoming interested in the tale of the hero's father, who apparently as an unknighted squire rescued his future father in law from enemy clutches, armed with no more than an old hauberk, an axe and riding a spavined nag. How could I resist? Shadows and Strongholds was the result And so it goes on. Two novels about William Marshal, The Greatest Knight and The Scarlet Lion have interested me in writing a novel about William's father John - A Place Beyond Courage. Still digesting the Marshal material has led me to the Bigod Earls of Norfolk and the current work in progress - the tale of a royal mistress forced to leave her infant son behind when she marries a man striving to rebuild his family's fortunes in the wake of disgrace and treason.
But when did the first ever spark ignite? For me, I think, it comes down to visuals. From being a very small child, even before I could read and write, I was making up stories to pictures in books - having adventures deeper into the picture and imagining new scenes and scenarios in my mind's eye. I would watch Stingray, The Lone Ranger and Champion the Wonderhorse on TV and then go and make up new tales around what I'd seen. Gender and species were no object to my imagination, I'd easily become Troy Tempest or Champion, the Lone Ranger or Silver and spend hours on the 'film set' in my mind, making up the script as I went along and testing out new ideas. When I was older, I transferred my stories to swashbuckling movies such as El Cid, The Warlord, The Vikings. I think it had a lot to do with horses. It was much more fun pretending to gallop around than it was to drive, and horses were organic rather than mechanical. Sounds daft I know, but that was how I felt.
Adolescent hormones kicked in about the same time as Keith Michelle starred in the BBC's Six Wives of Henry VIII and at 14, for the first time, instead of talking my stories out, I actually wrote them down. I began a great Tudor novel, got bored about page 15 and gave up for a while. If not who knows. Philippa Gregory might have had a run for her money in that department! (she says with tongue in cheek). A year later along came a programme on children's TV called Desert Crusader, starring "Thibaud" a dark, handsome French knight in flowing robes, striding around the 12thC Kingdom of Jerusalem. That was it! Love at first sight and suddenly I was desperate to write a story about a lookalike. I wouldn't say it was exactly fan fiction, but along similar lines. Certainly the programme was a very powerful inspiration and the flame to ignite the bonfire stack that had been growing since I was 3 years old. I wrote a 500 page novel over the course of a year and realised that this was what I wanted to do for a living. I was 16 when I finished the novel - titled (very badly) 'Tiger's Eye' after the jewels in the hilt of the hero's sword. My Dad suggested I call it 'Crispin's Capers.' At the foot of the post I've enclosed the first 2 paragraphs of that first ever completed novel.

So, how did others become inspired to write? Or turned on to historical fiction? Or to whatever you do that is your passion. What was the spark that lit the bonfire? I'd be interested to know.

The First 2 paragraphs of "Tiger's Eye", written when I was 15 and revised i.e. edited when I first typed it out when I was eighteen.

Syria, Spring 1136

When he awoke from a restless sleep, the darkness of night was gone and with it the cold. In its place was a dingy daylight and a heat that was already making his skin prickle. His thighs and calves were spasming with cramp in this poky little hole and he ached all over. He was weary of all this hiding, of being a fugitive, he who had never hidden from anyone in his life and he was beginning to wonder if the prize was worth the suffering.
The beaded curtain that led from the back room to the shop counter on the street, clacked to one side. He whipped his dagger from its sheath and, breathing shallowly, prepared to strike.

(If my agent or editor happens to read this - it's available for consideration ladies! :-) )

Just joking....

Italian Lions etc

Just dropping by to say that this is the Italian cover for The Greatest Knight. My Italian publishers, however, are going to call it The Scarlet Lion, to match the device on the cover, and they'll find a new title for the UK The Scarlet Lion. A bit confusing for me the author, but a good idea for the Italian publication. I love the translation of the title. Doesn't it just roll off the tongue!

In other news, I've almost finished with the proofs for A Place Beyond Courage and we're almost there with the cover too. I've also been sorting out future projects in my head. Too soon to talk about them at the moment, but the ideas department is bustling away in the background.

Current Research Reading: The Domesday Book: A Complete translation published by Penguin - rather heavy to hold up in the bath it has to be said!

Fiction: Recently finished New Moon by Stephenie Meyer. Superstar author in the making, mark my words!
About to start Brethren by Robyn Young.

Music - Currently being inspired by HIM and Wicked Game. Cor!
http://tinyurl.com/ynfczr

The proof is out there!

This morning the page proofs arrived for A PLACE BEYOND COURAGE. It's my last chance to add any final tweaks to the novel. After this it'll be cast in stone and any mistakes will be there for posterity. It's been quite a journey writing this novel about John Marshal. I was curious to discover more about the man behind the notorious 'Anvils and hammers' speech that John made when faced with the hanging of his 5 year old son. 'He said that he did not care about the child, since he still had the anvils and hammers to produce even finer ones.' What I've found through my own digging and what he has chosen to reveal to me, have made me realise that despite that apparently callous speech (and sometimes things are not what they seem) without John Marshal's absolute bravery in the face of impossible odds, William himself would not have come to greatness.
I hope to return to more regular blogging soon, but for the moment I beg a moment's indulgence to visit with John.
I open the novel with a few lines from the Histoirede Guillaume le Mareschal and they are, I think, fitting indeed to the personalities of theMarshal men.

Les proz e les vassals
Souvent entre piez de chevals
Kar ja li coard n'i chasront

The brave and the valiant are to be sought
often between the hooves of horses
for never will cowards fall down there.

The Conroi de Vey

As many of you know, I re-enact with living history society Regia Anglorum - which means Kingdoms of England. The society's brief is to accurately portray the peoples living in the UK between the years of 954 and 1066. However it does go outside these parameters and the membership has expertise stretching from early Anglo Saxon through to the late Norman/early Angevin period.
The society is divided into various local branches who take on a particular ethnicity valid to their area during this period. Being as I live not far from Nottingham, and I have a yen for all things Norman, I belong to the Notts branch of Regia, the Conroi de Vey, who are Norman orientated, but also have a very strong Saxon contingent. Recently, thanks to the efforts of Nathan - big beardy chap in the middle of the photo, De Vey has its own website - still an infant, but coming on well. Here's the url. http://livinghistory.co.uk/homepages/ConroiDeVey/index.html
Generally speaking, a conroi is a Norman warband of around 25 troops. (I read the other day that a constabulary was ten. Something I didn't know!). Due to writing and family commitments I don't always get to the shows that Regia Anglorum puts on round the country, but I will be slaving over a hot cauldron at the Tollerton village show next month in good company with the rest of de Vey. Among our ranks we have a skilled weapons smith, a woodturner, a leather worker and a textile expert. I dabble on the cookery side. I may not be able to spin wool worth a bean, but I do manage a mean beef and cumin stew!

Caveat Canem!

Having completed the rewrites of Shields of Pride, I am now playing catch up with my newer contracted word i.e. the Bigod/Marshal novel. However, I thought I'd drop by my blog to have a quick word about research and the little sparks of interest that so often flicker out of the blue.
I have, I confess, a collector's memory that also happens to be extremely untidy. I pick up all sorts of facts along the way and retain them, but after a while, as they gather an interesting layer of mental dust, I can never remember where I found them in the first place. Probably a good job I'm not a professional academic!
Anyway, to cut to the chase....or perhaps the correct analogy would be 'to show the dog the rabbit,' my re-enactment society has been discussing what kind of dogs were around circa 1066. Obviously, despite some rather far-fetched claims on various websites, official breeds were thin on the ground. The greyhound (leporario) was well known, was a high status dog and hasn't changed that much, but what about the others?
The Constituo Domus Regis of 1136 (Oxford Medieval texts) discusses the wages and employment of the King's household hunting staff. Dogs mentioned are the above greyhound, the lime-hound (liemarii) which apparently was held on a leash and only used for finishing off the prey, and the Brach (braconarii), a small hound that hunted by scent. There's no indication of what the latter two looked like.
The Bayeux Tapestry has some interesting mutts - greyhound and spaniel types I'd say. Sharon Kay Penman favours Elkhounds in her novel When Christ and his Saints Slept - also known as Dyrehunds and native to Scandinavia. First introduced into Britain on a formal basis in 1870 but apparently an ancient breed in their homeland. A fascinating snippet emerged during the list's canine ruminations. A complete dog skeleton dating to the 11th Century was found and the dog type, although not its coat shading and texture could be deduced from its bones. The article and abstract are as follows:

An Anglo-Saxon dog from Salter Street, Stafford

Kate M. Clark

Centre for Human Ecology and Environment, Department of Archaeology, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

Abstract

A dog skeleton from a well-dated eleventh century context was recovered from a kiln in Stafford. The animal exhibits particular morphological characteristics, identified metrically, and their similarity to modern comparative animals is discussed. The disposition of the animal in the structure is also described and the possible circumstances of the burial considered. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

It was very interesting to note from reading the article that this particular Anglo Saxon dog resembled in all ways an English bull terrier, except that it was actually the size of an Alsation - scary! Here's the url to the Wikipedia article and a photo of a modern day bull terrier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Terrier
Apparently the skull shape was nigh on identical. So anyway, I now know what at least one 11thC dog would have looked like (more or less!). Not sure if I'd want to own one though.
There's also this 9th Century relation to the corgi. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/3646319.stm
My own favourite Medieval pooch? Has to be the miller's dog from the Luttrell Psalter (illustration at the top of the post) You know he's a vicious ankle biter, but somehow I can just imagine him snickering like Dick Dastardly's Muttley as he goes for it!
The thread on the Regia list has now sensitized me to the Medieval dog and I find that every illustration or painting from that period that I see, I now have to scrutinize it for canine occupancy...

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth!

A brief note to say that I am still frantically busy with my workload. Having delivered back the first lot of edits for A Place Beyond Courage, I am now editing Shields of Pride ready for its December Re-issue. (old issue UK cover on the left, new one to come) It's interesting visiting a novel so long after publication - around 11 years. Boy have I moved on as a writer. The main thing I appear to be doing is cutting adjectives - so I guess I've learned that less is more and I don't need as many words these days to convey what I mean. It's proving a fascinating experience. It does mean though that I am having to put in more hours on the day job in order to keep all the balls in the air. So the blog is just running at maintenance level at the moment. I have a couple of small things to post over the next couple of weeks - new foreign covers, dates of talks, that sort of thing, and I'll try to drop by when I can squeeze a moment.
I was in London yesterday. I had lunch with my editor - glamorous you might think, but actually it was a cheese sandwich in her office where we discussed the cover for A Place Beyond Courage and sales figures for other novels. I also managed to scrounge a copy of Stephenie Meyer's New Moon off the Little Brown bookshelf. I loved the first one in the series, Twilight, and I'm hoping to enjoy New Moon just as much. However The main purpose of being in London was to have a new author photo taken for my novels. Here's the url to his website www.charliehopkinson.com
As long as I don't end up looking like Spike Milligan, I'll be very happy!

While I'm here, I should also add that my literary agency, Blake Friedmann has just gone live with its website. Url here: www.blakefriedmann.co.uk