medieval

The King’s Mistress

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:00:00 +0000

I’ve always had a special affinity for historical fiction, more specifically, historical fiction about the English courts of medieval times. As someone who has never excelled in the complex maneuverings of office politics, I find the level of intrigue and skulduggery that existed then alternately fascinating and mind boggling. The stakes were pretty high; if you found yourself on the wrong side of history, you could end up imprisoned in the tower of London, or worse still, with your head dangling on a pike for all to see.

Until I signed on to review The King’s Mistress for the virtual book tour, I was unaware that Alice Perrers is one of the most despised villains in British history. Perrers has been reviled by her peers and scholars alike—characterized as a woman who used her beauty, sensuality, and cunning to take advantage of an aging king for her own material and political gain. Described as the world’s leading authority on Alice Perrers, Compton has set about revealing the truth of the matter with a fascinating text that both rehabilitates and humanizes her.

It’s no secret that the combination of intelligence, erotic allure, and beauty is a dangerous mix for women, and throughout history these women have both fascinated and repelled us as far back as Eve. Because this novel falls in the genre of historical fiction, Campion admits in her author’s notes to taking some liberties with the facts to breathe new life into Perrer’s story, but much of this voluminous novel comes from her extensive research on Perrer’s life and times.

When we first meet Alice, she is fourteen, and her beauty is already in full bloom. Her mother, an aging and discontented beauty, seems to view Alice as competition, yet resents her father’s decision to betroth Alice to a charismatic, wealthy merchant twenty years her senior. Alice fears leaving the comfort and safety of her family, but is excited to embark on this new chapter in her life. What she doesn’t realize is that her husband is withholding secrets that she will only discover once she is enmeshed in her own web of intrigue.

Suffice it to say, Compton’s sympathetic rendering of Perrer’s story presents her as a woman who finds herself in circumstances beyond her control, and forced to use her attributes to survive in a world where a person who appears to be your ally one day could turn out to be your enemy the next. Emma Campion has reimagined history into “herstory” in this beautifully written, riveting novel.

Written by: Gita Tewari, July 26th 2010

The Blue Manuscript

admin — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 00:29:00 +0000

By Sabiha Al Khemir

Verso

The Blue Manuscript, featuring an indigo cover laced with gold detail, aesthetically embodies its elusive subject, a legendary medieval copy of the Quran. Al Khemir's novel traces the archaeological expedition in search of the manuscript yearned for by collectors and scholars alike. Led by the enthusiastic Professor O'Brien, the eclectic group of researchers meets in Cairo as they prepare to embark upon a collector funded expedition in the remote village of Wadi Hassoun.

Donatella (an Italian archaeologist), Mark (an American project manager), Kodama San (Japanese site surveyor), Hans (the German conservator playfully nicknamed "Glasses" by a flirtatious Donatella), Alan (the professor's prized British student) and Mustapha (an Egyptian guide) compose the mosaic of expedition participants, which expands throughout the novel as more local figures (including the go-between Rayyed Ahmed and the young boy Mahmoud) become associated with the group. Zohra, the English-Tunisian interpreter, perhaps best echoes the life of the author as she occupies a privileged (albeit at times frustrated) narrative position within the novel.

Upon arriving in Cairo, each of the expedition's members experiences his or her own unique sense of foreignness. None of them, aside from the professor, are intimately familiar with the region yet all are crucial to the project's research, being at once at home and foreign within their new surroundings. Al Khemir delicately captures moments of meeting and simultaneous intimacy so common to the dynamic of international research projects: "Different people, of different races, cultures, and from different social backgrounds, thrown into a primal situation, the only link between them the buried past of a civilization alien to them."

Zohra's role, as interpreter is least related to the research at hand and for this, she feels an outsider among outsiders. She struggles with the notion of belonging in the face of cultural and linguistic hybridity; she describes herself as "being in-between," "Half-half. Rarely did people want to know about both halves, about her other half. The other half was always the other, depending on where she was." Zohra finds the role of intermediary dissatisfying and rejects her "in-betweenness." She longs for a voice of her own and dreams of writing a novel as she patiently waits for the words to emerge from the dictionary that she guards by her bedside.

Upon reading The Blue Manuscript, the reader departs on her own expedition where what is unknown overshadows what has already come to light. Al Khemir's writing is seductive; her mosaic cast of characters develops alongside the expedition itself. Descriptions are at first sparse, even frustrating to the reader, leaving her to excavate her own meaning and anticipate further discovery. Detailed physical descriptions of the characters, for example, are not revealed until well into the work, forcing the reader to partake in her own journey of discovery.

Interspersed within the tale of the expedition in the search of the Blue Manuscript are first-century fictional narratives depicting the writing of the document, creating a rich tapestry of voices that at once embrace and dissolve differences and contribute to a kaleidoscopic rendering of one of the most treasured documents in Islamic history.

Written by: Melissa McCarron, March 6th 2009

Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship: Maria de Luna

admin — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:30:00 +0000

By Nuria Silleras-Fernandez

Palgrave MacMillan

In Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship, Nuria Silleras-Fernandez examines the life of the Spanish queen, Maria de Luna, from her childhood amongst the sons and daughters of the royal court, to her successes and failures as queen in the Crown of Aragon until her death in 1406. Silleras-Fernandez systematically demonstrates how “in an age in which queens were expected to act as no more than intersectors between supplicant subjects and the authority of the king, Maria [de Luna] was an active and independent political agent.”

Maria de Luna understood that the source of her power as queen was inextricably tied to the success of her husband’s rule as king, but she also had an understanding of the measures necessary to ensure the preservation of his power, an understanding that was, many times, far superior than her husband’s. She had great foresight for the implications of and potential repercussions from political and military actions, and she took the reins when she saw her husband or son acting in ways that might jeopardize their hold on the crown. Through the course of this book, Silleras-Fernandez shows how Maria de Luna manipulated all aspects of her life to serve her power-hungry agenda, particularly those of patronage and piety. Her acts of sponsorship were used to make loyal dependents out of her subjects, while her pious acts toward the Christian clergy and her husband were used to portray a queenly image that would win the support and respect of those over whom she ruled.

Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship demonstrates how exceptional Maria de Luna was at navigating the politics of the fourteenth century, and I believe that she would be a skilled politician according to today’s standards as well. Unfortunately, that is because she managed to use her relationships to further her political aims and maintain power. She was by no means a feminist, and her patronage was extended to the women in her court insofar as she could help educate and refine them so the could be strategically married off to suitors who would fortify certain political bonds.

Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship offers interesting insight into the life of an exceptional woman, who had an understanding of the politics of power far superior to that of most men of her time, but she relied on and clung to the power of her husband all the same. Thankfully, the past few years in Chilean, Israeli, and American politics (to name a few examples), have proven that women have come a long way from the days where their power was only derived from their male counterparts.

Written by: Rebecca McBride, October 12th 2008