I love Margaret Frazer's stories and was saddened by her death this years. In her honor, I am rereading my way through her work, beginning with the Dame Frevisse novels, followed by the Joliffe the Player novels. She has a gift for blending together history and fiction into compelling stories of the lives of real people. If Dame Frevisse is a reflection of Frazer, then the writer was a keen observer of human nature. Dame Frevisse engages us as we journey with her through her life of conflict as she struggles to reconcile her very real love of God with her strong intellect and desire to be free. In a society where the only role for a woman of her class was that of wife and mother, she chose a paradoxical freedom in the religious life. Outwardly circumscribed by the routines of the enclosed religious, regulated by bells and the routines of church services, she finds the intellectual freedom she requires to prosper. The occasional murder adds interest to an already fascinating life and gives her the excuse to leave the cloister now and then to respond to the needs of others. Her fictional relationship to the very real son of Geoffrey Chaucer and his daughter Alice, give us a peephole into some of the major players in the Wars of the Roses. Chaucer's wife, Philippa, is sister to Katherine Swynford, mistress and then wife to John of Gaunt. One of their children, Henry Beaufort is the Bishop of Winchester, cousin to Chaucer's son Thomas. When Thomas lies dying, Dame Frevisse his niece crosses paths with the formidable bishop, to their mutual admiration. I like that Frazer chose not to use stilted dialogue to suggest the age. It would be like reading The Canterbury Tales and would require translation. Instead, they talk like real people. In one author's note, she defends her choice because they didn't know they talked funny. Historical accuracy can be taken too far, but Frazer knows when to stop.
What do You think about The Bishop's Tale (1994)?
This is the second Sister Frevisse book I've read in Margaret Frazer's award winning series and, for the most part, it was a very good read. In this book, Sister Frevisse leaves the nunnery to attend to her Aunt in the wake of her beloved Uncle Thomas' death. While at the feast for all those attending the funeral, Sister Frevisse witnesses (along with many others) a rather unpleasant character fall ill in rather dramatic circumstances. What follows has physicians and priests wondering: did God have a hand (quite literally) in this man's fate or was it something far more mundane and sinister? Unconvinced that God played a role, one of the guests, Bishop Beaufort, asks Frevisse to investigate.A bit slow-moving for my taste, the book is nonetheless sprinkled with wonderful historical detail and some real figures (the Bishop of the title for example) and evokes the Middle Ages so well. What I found a bit tiresome was Sister Frevisse's need to prove her searing intellect (and which is evident when she opens her mouth and through her deportment) by quoting from various sources to impress others (that it does is no help). Overall, however, the characters ring true, the plot is tight and the cause of death interesting (the author's explanation of why she used such a method is as well).
—Karen Brooks
