A Morbid Taste for Bones

Medieval Grave Robbing in the Name of Religion

In A Morbid Taste for Bones, Ellis Peters overlaid historical fact with a veneer of fiction to create (arguably) one of the first historical crime fiction novels. Her impact on the genre was so profound that the CWA established the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger in 1999.

Peters’s depiction of medieval crimes and the shrewd monk who solved them became a publishing, television and radio sensation.

Synopsis

When a monk at Shrewsbury Abbey starts suffering from fits, his companions hope for a miracle to cure him. They find one after he makes a pilgrimage to the little-known Saint Winifred’s grave in mid-Wales and makes a full recovery. This is a clear case of divine intervention.

The Prior and Abbot see an opportunity to increase their religious and political sway and hatch a plot to appropriate Saint Winifred’s holy bones for their Abbey. Pilgrims to Shrewsbury could worship and honour the saint in an Abbey as is her due. That would be far better than having her languish in a rural Welsh backwater.

The Welsh villagers are, however, attached to their saint and unwilling to let her go. Matters come to a head when the local landowner and chief objector to the exhumation is found dead in a clearing, with an arrow lodged in his chest.

Brother Cadfael, one of the Benedictine monks sent to claim the relic, attempts to find the murderer and soothe ill-feeling between the villagers and monks.

Review

Ellis Peters based her novel on historical events. In 1138, relics of St Winifred were carried from a Welsh valley to Shrewsbury. There, they formed the basis of an elaborate shrine. Peters uses the event to explore the motives and desires of the monks and villagers, creating a macabre tale. The self-interest and greed of the medieval cast are not so different from our own. Their behaviour and actions are perfectly plausible.

Peters overlays politics with a robust satirical eye and persuasive characterisation. She shows no mercy toward  Robert Pennant, the ambitious, pious Benedictine Prior who claims the saint’s bones for his Abbey. Brother Cadfael’s wry humour is quietly derisive, as are his occasional swipes at clerical arrogance and religious piety.

Finally, Peters applies a fascinating mix of forensic evidence, customs and religious beliefs to help Cadfael solve the crime. This is, after all, the Middle Ages.

Ellis Peters’ Cadfael Chronicles were popular in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, selling over six and a half million copies. They earned Cadfael’s home — Shrewsbury — plenty of tourists. Try the book before you make the pilgrimage.

Excerpt

‘He had it all planned beforehand,’ said Brother John over the bed of mint, between envy and scorn. ‘That was all a show, all that wonder and amazement, and asking who Saint Winifred was, and where to find her. He knew it all along. He’s already picked her out from those he’s discovered neglected in Wales, and decided she was the one most likely to be available, as well as the one to shed most lustre on him. But it had to come out into the open by miraculous means. There’ll be another prodigy whenever he needs his way smoothed for him, until he gets the girl here, safely installed in the church, to his glory. It’s a great enterprise, he means to climb high on the strength of it. So he starts out with a vision, and a prodigious healing, and divine grace leading his footsteps. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’

‘Are you saying,’ asked Brother Cadfael mildly, ‘that Brother Columbanus is in the plot as well as Brother Jerome, and that falling fit of his was a fake too? I should have to be very sure of my reward in heaven before I volunteered to break the paving with my forehead, even to provide Prior Robert with a miracle.’

A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters