One of the charms of the Brother Cadfael series is the feel for routine experiences, craft methods, etc.This book deals with a poisonous atmosphere of compulsory orthodoxy. It also gives a fairly good description of the art of making vellum.I should say that there's one aspect of the books that has always disturbed me: the apparent authorial complicity in the pervasive societal discrimination against the nocturnal. This isn't unique to this series, but it's the more disturbing in well-written books that often question other forms of discrimination.This volume, as several others do, begins shortly before the date (June 22, remember?) of St Winifred's 'translation'--in 1143, this time. The return of a pair of pilgrims (one coffined, since he died at about 80 on his way home in France) might have been very simple, except that the return reignites stresses that had been in abeyance while the younger pilgrim Elave (who returns alive) was absent. Elave, for example, was always a more talented clerk than the older clerk of the house, Aldwin.There are other things that place this book more concretely in this precise time. Elave and his master, William of Lythwood, spent some time in a Cluniac monastery while William was ill. One of the other residents was Peter Abelard (yes, THAT Abelard). The canon Gerbert who has come more or less by chance to Shrewsbury Abbey is opposed to Cluniacs because he is an Augustinian, and because he has political opponents who are Cluniacs. And he also personally despises Abelard. Not very good reasons to try to destroy a young man's life. But not substantially worse than those of others, come to that.Aldwin is a depressive type who can't really accept that people do truly love and value him, no matter how personally inadequate he may be. Fortunata says of him at one point that if justice is to be denied to the inadequate, grudging, and sad, to whom then is it due? Conan (the shepherd) sees Elave (rather more accurately) as a rival for Fortunata's hand, after Elave himself brings home a fairly substantial dowry for the lass. It never seems to occur to him that Elave had only to keep the box, which, after all, only he and William knew about. And as to whether Conan ever had a chance with Fortunata...well, it seems unlikely on the face of it.Peters had a tendency to try to end her books with a felicity--a miracle, a wonder, a revelation. This one's a doozy. The McGuffin in the book is truly wondrous, and the description is lovingly detailed. It's worth staying around for, even if you find the resolution of the mystery more than a little harrowing (I did. Accidental or not, it was horrific).On the other hand, I wouldn't advise just skipping on to the decorated capital at the end. If we tend to think of the dogmatic disputations in the book as something of a tempest in a teapot, and not worth ruining people's lives, or even killing them, we're right. The disputations weren't that serious, and the idea of dictatorially enforcing dogmas, and forbidding dissent, is rightly reviled. But that doesn't mean they were unimportant. The social history becomes relevant, as well. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Europe was becoming overcrowded, and people too crammed in together tend to inflate any dispute into a tinderbox. Ironically, these problems became less significant because of two changes--the plagues of the fourteenth century and later, and the explorations of the fifteenth century, which made it clear that the world was a lot bigger than the medieval theorists had supposed. But those leavening factors were not really available at the time of these books.Hugh is probably wise to keep his son Giles out of the fever-prone cities, especially in the summer, which even Cadfael, who misses his godson when Giles is absent, really realizes.
Inghilterra, XII secolo. Durante la festa di Santa Winifred, la tranquillità dell'abbazia di Shrewsbury viene bruscamente interrotta dall'arrivo di Elave, un giovane pellegrino che porta con sè il corpo senza vita di William di Lythwood, un vecchio mercante dal torbido passato. Costui, come ultime volontà, desiderava essere seppellito nel cimitero del monastero e donare uno scrigno dal contenuto misterioso a Fortunata, sua figlia adottiva. Tutto si complica quando lo zio della ragazza viene trovato assassinato. A risolvere l'enigma si appresta Cadfael, il sagace monaco dell'abbazia di Shrewsbury. "L'apprendista eretico" è un romanzo che fa parte della collana "Le indagini di fratello Cadfael", raccolta di gialli medioevali creata dalla Peters. Questo romanzo è gradevole da leggere e avvincente al punto giusto, ma forse potrà essere apprezzato solo dagli amanti del genere.
What do You think about The Heretic's Apprentice (1991)?
I didn't love this one as much as I loved the first two Brother Cadfaels I read recently, but what amazes me is the incredible depth and breadth of research that Ellis Peters must have done to put this one together. She had to craft compelling heretical statements and their counter-arguments (and the counter-arguments to the counter-arguments!), write convincingly about vellum-making, and describe a psalter created by an Irish monk a century before it appeared in this story. I believed her entirely.Otherwise, I wasn't that excited by the mystery; when a dead body was found, I thought, oh, come on, you can do better than murder! But once again, things didn't go down the way I expected them to. I could also complain that it took me four days to read this one, after having tossed off the first two in an evening each...but that's silly.
—Anne
SPOILERSAh, so fun to read!! It's like eating cheesecake: sinful and rich, yet also nourishing, and even, arguably, nutritious. I think I loved this particular Cadfael so much because it had to do with one person's obsessive, murderous love of a particular book. Most of the Cadfael books deal with more prosaic (heh heh, get the pun??!) or predictable motives for murder - jealousy, greed, etc. The motive of insatiable book-hunger took me by surprise, hidden as it was behind the plot's focus on a heresy accusation. This dangerous passion took a long time to reveal itself, and left me curious to know the history and development of the man who burned inwardly with the need to possess certain books at any cost to his body and soul. Reminded me of Umberto Eco's "Name of the Rose" to a certain extent, although there, the murderer was driven by a warped love/hate for a particular book and its contents. A book addiction was not an easy habit to feed during the 12th century; it took this 21st century reader some pondering to get to the heart of the insatiable longing that serious readers who didn't have a church vocation must have suffered, in their difficult quest to obtain forbidden fruits. Thank goodness for libraries!
—Doria
A young man returns home after several years in the Holy Land with the body of his master, who died on the way home in France. He's accused of heresy after repeating some of the thoughts of said master, and later, one of his accusers is murdered, and suspicion naturally falls on him. As usual in the Cadfael stories, there is a young couple in love. Also present is a beautiful box which might have contained a priceless book. I found the talk of the heresy very interesting; it shows how logical thought can lead you to doubt strict church teachings.
—Vicki Cline
