The Hermit Of Eyton Forest (1994) - Plot & Excerpts
In mid-October 1142, a pupil at the abbey loses his father. This is probably not the only case of a person injured in battle who died months or years later. We tend to assume that people either die of their injuries or they survive--but this was not so safe an assumption at the time--compare with Godfrid Marescot from An Excellent Mystery. And Godfrid had Saracen physicians. Richard Ludel The Elder did not.It's not clear when the lord of Eaton began to consider what would happen to his son when he died. But he did carefully think it out, and made a compact with the abbey, stipulating that his son be kept at school until the boy reached the age of 18.Young Richard is regarded by some as being unusually aware of the machinations of those around him. But I think the people who regard him as abnormal just don't remember what it was like to be ten years old. What the new lord of Eaton knows and what he's ignorant of seem to me pretty much in accord with what I remember about being ten. And I can calibrate pretty nicely, because we moved house when I was ten, so that when I can remember where something was, I can tell when I knew something. Therefore, a child who really has only a vague concept of death but has a very clear understanding that his grandmother wants to marry him off and to prevent him from finishing school doesn't seem at all unlikely to me. Nor do I have any problem with the idea that, though he trusts the authorities at the abbey, he feels the need for somebody to be his personal agent.The person he chooses is a somewhat uncanny youth who has taken the name Hyacinth, and denies that he took the name from a bishop, but rather from classical mythology. Hyacinth has a position I personally found to be a complete surprise. I didn't know that it was customary for hermits to keep errand-boys (?and girls? I mean, if hermits could be women...) to deliver blessings, and warnings, and such. It's not surprising that 'Hyacinth' proves to be a runaway villien. This has come up before. In this period, more and more people were becoming enslaved, as the formal structure of feudalism was established. Many (probably most) were landless peasants, who took land on condition of service rather than pay cash they didn't have for it. But others were small craftsmen (and women, probably). And they were the absolute property of the lords of the districts. If those lords were benign, this was still a bad situation. But if, as too often happened, they were violent and cruel themselves, and hired violent and corrupt overseers, it was a situation that was so abusive that one reason that the cities set up as charter boroughs was to provide an escape for misused serfs, villeins, bordars, cottars, etc. The rule was that if a fugitive unfree person could escape from the domain of his or her birth, and keep from being captured for a year and a day, then nobody could re-enslave these burghers, who were free thenceforth.Into this volatile situation come people in search of 'Hyacinth' by his former name, and people in search of a traitor to the besieged Empress Maud. Complications ensue, many of which revolve around the question of the history of the newly installed Hermit of Eyton Forest.One note about format: Peters experimented with various formatting and narrative techniques. In the edition I have, chapters begin with a decorative capital, as in books of the time, and there's a decorative border as well. This could get distracting, if overdone, but if it's only at the beginning of chapters, it's not too overwhelming. There's a lot of information about how forests were managed in England at the time. The description of coppicing is very interesting, and is one of the practices that would merit revisiting, as also would the practice described elsewhere of releasing hoofed animals into mowed fields to eat the aftermath, fertilize the fields with their dung, and aerate the soil with their hooves. I should note that there's a tendency to distinguish in these books between murder from ambush and direct attacks on people who are armed and able to defend themselves. I don't grant the distinction, and I suspect others will not, either. But I have more of a problem with the idea that ANYBODY 'deserves' death. And I don't think that it makes any difference whether one believes in an afterlife. But characters in the books DO accept these concepts. The shock that causes Dame Dionisia to change her plans is not being brought into sudden, unexpected contact with unexpected death. It's being brought into contact with someone who died without a chance to confess his sins, atone for them, and be absolved. That is a very significant fear for people of the time.
1st Recorded Reading: October 12, 2005Once again Brother Cadfael goes wandering forth from the Abbey, involving himself in at least two murders and one set of sweet young lovers in and around Shrewsbury. In fact, he is the sole finder of the first body, and once again, it never occurs to anyone to wonder if the finder of the body is not the killer. But of course, Brother Cadfael is pure of heart, and would never do such a thing (one hopes). I found this one to be one of the more interesting books in the series, as there are something like four or five separate plot threads that intertwine to form one dandy mystery book. It is now October of 1142, and the Empress Matilda is under siege in the castle at Oxford by her cousin and opponent in the Civil War for the English Crown, King Stephen. Just before the siege ring closed, the Empress had managed to send out a man, one Renuad Bourchier, with money and jewels and a letter for her closest supporter, Brian FitzCount; but his horse was found stayed near the road, with a blood-stained saddle and empty saddlebags. Closer to home, one Richard Ludel, hereditary tenant of the manor of Eaton, has died finally of wounds that he incurred while fighting in the Battle of Lincoln for King Stephen, in February 1141. His heir is ten-year-0ld Richard Ludel, who was placed by his father at the Abbey for his education until he should come of age. The boy’s grandmother, Dame Dionysia, would much rather have the boy home at the manor, so that she can arrange a marriage with the daughter of a nearby landowner, but Abbot Radulfus is firm in his right to keep the boy at the Abbey. The boy is quite aware of his grandmother’s designs, and would much rather be at the Abbey being educated with the other boys than be married to a woman who he regards as quite old (at least eighteen).Dame Dionysia enlists the aid of Cuthred, a holy hermit who has just arrived in the neighborhood (along with his servant, a young personable man named Hyacinth), to try to get the boy back to the manor. Meanwhile, one Drogo Bosiet, a lord from Northhamptonshire, has arrived at the Abbey; he is in search of a villien of his who had attacked his steward and then run away. Bosiet, a hard cruel man, means to have the hide of his villein, and will stop at nothing to find him.In short order, a dead body is found in the forest (by Brother Cadfael), and the young Richard disappears; and it falls to Brother Cadfael to be the one to find out what has happened, and to resolve all of the mysteries that center on Eyton Forest in a satisfactory manner. In doing so even he is conscious of having absented himself without leave quite too often from the Abbey, and he pledges at the end of the book to bide dutifully within the bounds of the Abbey during the coming winter.Again, I very much enjoyed this book, and loved how all the different threads finally came together, thanks to Brother Cadfael, who remains one of my favorite solvers of mysteries (at least now, while I am re-reading the books in the series).
What do You think about The Hermit Of Eyton Forest (1994)?
In 1142, 10 year-old Richard Ludel, a student at the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, hears the news that his father has died of wounds in battle. An arrangement with the Abbey had been made that Richard would stay there until he was 18, but his grandmother, Dionysia, wants him to come home and make a convenient marriage. A newcomer to the region is the hermit, Cuthred, who enjoys the favor of Dionysia. Cuthred’s companion (a hermit has a companion??) is a young man who has taken the name of Hyacinth, and whose past is suspicious. All this leads to murders and another big puzzle for Brother Cadfael to solve. Brother Cadfael mysteries aren’t always my favorites. I would rate this one a B, perhaps a B+.
—Linda
Once again there is the backdrop of the political turmoil that surrounds the civil war interweaved in the story. Without it, the mystery would not stand, and by far that makes the telling the weaker. There are several nice twists to arrive at a conclusion but that we need something that touches the war between Maud and Stephen seems a stretch once again.Ellis is gone and Cadfael shall have no new mysteries in the canon, but with the knowledge of others in the field, the violent times of the dark ages should more than lend itself to murders without the need for princes and kings. The Abbey and Shrewsbury have more than an abundant wealth of detail that we have seen previously to support a rich environment for mayhem.This story and the mystery seem to stem from just such an environment, but the murders that come about end up being related once more to our civil war and the impetus of life going on in spite of such a war is denied.
—D.w.
Rates as 3.5 stars but since whole stars only allowed , I'll click 4...Easily one of the best of Edith Pargeter's, aka 'Ellis Peters', Cadfael mystery series set in the middle ages. It contains a complex plot which includes forced marriage, treason, murder, and a runaway villein; a free man indebted to his landowner-just above a slave, really. Of course there is also a love story developed among two young people that most Cadfael stories contain. "The Hermit of Eyton Forest" book is mostly involved with the non-lovers, thank goodness. Some of the previous works by Edith Parageter depend too much on a conflict keeping two hearts apart and become predictable.
—Murphious
