The Enthusiast by Jon M. Sweeney

The Enthusiast: How the Best Friend of Francis of Assisi Almost Destroyed What He Started.  The best friend in the title is Elias of Cortona, who was in from the start of the Franciscan movement, an attempt to bring the church back to the people and to the poverty of Christ, to make religious figures more humble and to have them live in Christ's poor footsteps.

This is a biography of St. Francis of Assisi "through the lens of the relationship that most consoled him", with Brother Elias of Cortona.  Elias is called "Francis's friend, confidant, and source of strength."  Elias often played the role of social buffer for iconoclast Francis, and many other traits of the men melded well so that Elias could be called Francis's soul mate.

The reader gets a front row seat for the conflict in the real medieval world between an idealist and a realist, Francis the idealist, Elias the realist.  Today's pilgrims to Assisi know mainly the monuments created by the realist to honor the idealist, even if the basilicas in Assisi are the last things Francis would have wanted built.

Elias could envision the future for Assisi as "the world's pilgrimage destination" to honor the "greatest saint since the apostles".  The first basilica was designed by Elias, and built under his supervision so he could do something special for his late friend, Francis:  "make his name great on earth, as it is now in heaven".

The author set out to show the "complexities of a relationship between two men and shows how it changed their world...how idealism can be undone by the enthusiasm of one devoted follower."  An understanding of fame and the growth of a business along with human psychology informs the author's work.

While a visionary, charismatic person can start a revolution, it is the strong, practical administrator with a sound, realistic vision who guides a revolution through to the established phase.  As a new venture grows, the founder is often pushed aside for a new leader to run the show during the consolidation phase.  The author shows that that applied to Francis's movement, and Elias was the leader who replaced him.

But when a revolution has to do with morality and faith, as in the case of St. Francis's new, modest religious orders, the risk is that the needs of politics and secular society will undermine the original intent of a movement.  In many ways that did happen, and Elias repented of that later in life, and of his own vanity, greed and self-importance.

The reader learns along the way of Francis's childhood and some of the history of the era in which he lived.  Francis's struggle to found an order of poverello brothers, poor brothers living as Christ preached, not as the contemporary church lived, in luxury, is detailed.  This is Francis's story told with a greater focus on the people around him.

The author uses some conjecture and invents dialog to tell his story, attempting to humanize the caricatures that have crept into the history of Francis.  The reader is reminded that real historical people surrounded Francis as he built his movement from the ground up.  This book has a literate yet approachable style, with a strong novelistic feeling.  The overall result is very entertaining.

I enjoyed most the clear view of the types of people who are drawn to a charismatic figure.  True believers are there, as are those who see an opportunity for personal advancement.  Sometimes, as in the case of Elias, those people are one and the same.  The reader is treated to an account of how the central focus of a new movement, like St. Francis, can lose his position when his movement becomes bigger than him.

From the book's description:

Popular historian and award-winning author Jon M. Sweeney relates the untold story of St. Francis’s friendship with Elias of Cortona, the man who helped him build the Franciscan movement.  Sweeney uses the complexities of their relationship in a gripping narrative of how their efforts changed the world and how Elias’s enthusiasm betrayed the ideals of his friend.

Few biographies of St. Francis have examined his complicated relationship with close friend Elias of Cortona.  In The Enthusiast, award-winning author and historian Jon M. Sweeney delves into this little-known partnership that defined and then almost destroyed Francis’s ideals.

Blending history and biography, Sweeney reveals how Francis and Elias rebuilt churches, aided lepers, and entertained as “God’s troubadours” to the delight of everyday people who had grown tired of a remote and tumultuous Church.  At the height of their spiritual renaissance, however, Elias became “the devil” to many of the other friars; they believed him to be a traitor to their ideals.

After Francis’s premature death, the movement fractured.  Scorned by most of the Franciscan leadership, Elias followed a path that would leave him a lonely, broken man.  Sweeney shows how Elias’s undoing was rooted in his attempts to honor his old friend.

This is the book's lovely trailer:

 

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

I review other books by the same author on this site:

- The Complete Francis of Assisi

- When St. Francis Saved the Church

And I review a walking guide of Assisi too, that is FREE!: Assisi Walking Adventure Guide

The Lost World of Byzantium by Jonathan Harris

Byzantium is the name we give to the Eastern Roman Empire, but they called themselves Romans.  They carried on the traditions of the Roman Empire until they were defeated after 1000 years (the book spans from 330 to 1453).  The Byzantine Empire was the Christian Roman Empire.  The author offers not a comprehensive history, but:

a personal journey through the long history of Byzantium

He tries to explain how it managed to last as long as it did during very tumultuous times, and why it seemingly disappeared so completely.  The book reads like a one-sided conversation with someone who loves the Byzantine era and know pretty much all there is to know about it.  The author presents some questions and possible answers, some personalities, and some events that stand out.

To appreciate this book, it is best to have a basic grounding in the Byzantine Empire's history.  Think of this book as a text to accompany an advanced seminar at university, after you've taken all the introductory courses.  The writer adds greater detail to the framework of what you already know, fleshing it out, and sharing his enthusiasm for all things Byzantine.  History is storytelling, and this book is full of stories, and characters.

The starting date set for this Byzantium is the inauguration of Constantinople in the year 330, a city ordered constructed by the Roman Emperor Constantine so he could have a monumental base in the east of the empire, to match Rome in the west.  The ending date used is the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.  

So why did the empire last so long?  The author offers lots of examples of how the Christian faith was a unifying and inspiring force in an empire made up of disparate people spread out over many lands.  The Emperor was the chief defender of the faith.  The Emperors also provided for smooth succession from one emperor to the next, something Western Rome rarely managed.

Other things helped, like having many talented leaders and soldiers, the great wealth which helped when bribing bad guys to behave, a magnificent and intimidating capital city that was amazingly defensible, practical plans for organized integration and resettlement of the inevitable migrants to the safe and wealthy empire, and skillful foreign relations which forged friendships and alliances.  

Interestingly, the author points out that the powerful church and the popular holy men and women played the role of a check & balance institution on the Emperor's powerful military and civic administration.  The church leaders checked excesses, provided social services, and even took on various positions in the State when necessary during times of crisis.

The perceptive reader of history will always find in the past, parallels to the present, which is part of the fun of reading histories, and this book is full of those parallels.  The author doesn't bang you over the head with them, but the very fact that he includes certain stories in the book suggests that he understands the parallels very well.  

The beautiful, literate English style of writing makes the long book a reading pleasure, but the sheer volume of stories and eras and events means it is best to take the book slowly.  Battles, betrayals, theological disputes, invasions, truces, and treaties can become monotonous without a break now and then.  I found the middle section of the book less interesting just for that reason:  I should have taken a break from reading but I didn't!   

A rough summary of the book's contents would be to say that it touches on the most active and known leaders:  Constantine, Justinian, Heraclius, Leo III, Constantine V...  And in the book, you'll get good explanations of:

• why the feudal system developed,
• how the trading city-states of the late middle ages and the early Renaissance shaped the Mediterranean,
• how the texts saved over time by the Byzantines fueled the High Renaissance,
• why the Catholic Church split between Orthodox and Church of Rome,
• the continual threat from military leaders to secular leaders,
• why there is always strain between the cities and the heartland, and
• what the heck icons were really about.

One strong message in the book, as in any book about the past, is that we are all bastard peoples created from massive mixing of genes and cultures.  The era of the nation-state has fueled the false nationalistic belief that we form unique peoples and cultures.  This book show that to be utter nonsense.

Another message that comes across is that much of the present world still behaves and reasons as if the early middle ages never ended.  Western policy makers of today would benefit from reading this book so they could better understand the savage so-called reasoning the crazies of today use to justify their massacres, hatreds and utter barbarism.

The third message, that is very timely, is that the Byzantine Empire survived over 1000 years because they were able to integrate outsiders, to reward them for their efforts, and to harness their skills for the society's good.  That is a not-so subtle message to rich countries today that resist migrants, and marginalize them when they do let them enter the countries.

From the book's description:

For more than a millennium, the Byzantine Empire presided over the juncture between East and West, as well as the transition from the classical to the modern world. Jonathan Harris, a leading scholar of Byzantium, eschews the usual run-through of emperors and battles and instead recounts the empire’s extraordinary history by focusing each chronological chapter on an archetypal figure, family, place, or event.

Harris’s action-packed introduction presents a civilization rich in contrasts, combining orthodox Christianity with paganism, and classical Greek learning with Roman power. Frequently assailed by numerous armies—including those of Islam—Byzantium nonetheless survived and even flourished by dint of its somewhat unorthodox foreign policy and its sumptuous art and architecture, which helped to embed a deep sense of Byzantine identity in its people.

Enormously engaging and utilizing a wealth of sources to cover all major aspects of the empire’s social, political, military, religious, cultural, and artistic history, Harris’s study illuminates the very heart of Byzantine civilization and explores its remarkable and lasting influence on its neighbors and on the modern world.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

If you are really interested in the Byzantine Empire, but don't wish to spend the 20+ hours needed to read this book, or you wish to have a basic grounding before reading this book, here is a 3 hour video documentary about the Byzantine Empire that you can watch at your leisure.

 

The Complete Francis of Assisi Edited, Translated, Introduced by Jon Sweeney

The subtitle of this book is His Life, The Complete Writings, and The Little Flowers.  This book is the ultimate St. Francis fan's collection at 400+ pages.  I had been wanting to read (and re-read) all these works for quite a while but now I'm very glad I waited.

The introductions and footnotes provided by the editor of this collection were wonderful and really helped me get the most out of the books, especially Sabatier's classic biography of St. Francis.

The editor says that he intends this collection for two audiences:

for those who already love St. Francis and want to be in his company

also ideal for someone new to the world's most popular saint...the little poor man from Umbria

Those are lovely thoughts, and one does feel in Francis's company when reading the story of his life, and the words written by his own hand, and the charming book Fioretti/Flowers, which reads like an attempt at a Gospel of St. Francis by those who loved the man.

I would add a third audience:  those who are about visit Assisi, Italy, especially those who are visiting the town as a religious pilgrim.

The first book in the collection is The Essential Biography of St. Francis by Frenchman Paul Sabatier, written in 1894.  Necessarily, the author included much material relating to the history of the times and the church in the late middle ages when Francis lived.  The editor's footnotes were very helpful in providing extra background information on these subjects for the modern reader.

Sabatier's style is easy to read and his book includes all the important moments in St. Francis's life.  For pilgrims to Assisi, this book will provide all the locations one would want to visit, explaining the importance of each to Assisi's most famous son.

I found most interesting the parts where Sabatier explained how Francis was viewed by his contemporaries.  That the man was considered a saint during his own lifetime was very impressive, and it explained why he was canonized within only two years of his death.

Sabatier also offers some of his own philosophical observations, which are beautiful in their own right, such as:

The greater number of people pass through life with souls asleep.  Yet the instinct for love and for the divine is only slumbering.

Francis provided in his religious community a refuge for "suffering souls thirsty for the ideal".

The second book is a collection of 19 writings attributed to Francis of Assisi:  Francis of Assisi in His Own Words:  The Essential Writings.  9 of the writings are prayers.  4 are rules for his Franciscan Order.  6 are letters Francis wrote to members of his orders (he founded 3 orders).

The prayers will appeal the most to readers, I suspect, for the same reason that St. Francis appeals to so many people:  their simplicity and their embodiment of Francis's heartfelt love of Christ.  The message is consistent and clear:  love, charity, faith, and humility.

Throughout the writings one sees a real man who is fully human yet inspirational in the path he chooses and the courage he shows in following through with his desire to live a life that emulates Christ's example.

The third book is a medieval collection of 53 stories about St. Francis and his followers:  The Little Flowers of Saint Francis Collected by Brother Ugolino.  The editor has arranged them in chronological order, and if you read them after having read the first two books in the Complete Francis of Assisi, they will be like icing on the cake.

The little flowers, or sweet little stories about St. Francis, read like a Gospel of Francis, a collection of stories and parables to bring glory to the man and to show to the world his sanctity and his Christ-like nature.  What comes across too, through the stories, is the love that people had for Francis during his lifetime, and that he was seen as a saint long before the church canonized him.

Just a note:  for modern readers, the physical abuse that Francis subjected himself to will be rightfully disturbing.  Today's Catholic Church does not condone extreme behavior such as extreme fasts and flagellation.  Today's emulators of Christ, and St. Francis, are along the lines as Mother Theresa of Calcutta, and others like her, who are sanctified for their good deeds, personal sacrifices, and unlimited compassion.

The Complete Francis of Assisi is a wonderful book for pilgrims, and for people who wish to know more about the poor little man from Umbria who set out to live as Christ lived and ended up founding three religious orders, and inspiring so many to strive to live their lives with more love, charity, faith and humility.

From the book's description:

There are many editions of the writings of Francis, and biographies about him, but here in one volume are both, plus the complete text of the late medieval work The Little Flowers, which did more to establish the legend of the man than any other work.

This “Paraclete Giants” edition includes the complete Road to Assisi, Paul Sabatier’s groundbreaking and foundational biography of the saint, first published in French in 1894 and reissued and expanded in 2002; the complete Francis in His Own Words: The Essential Writings; and The Little Flowers, thus offering the best introduction to St. Francis yet available between two covers.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

The editor of this book has published other books about St. Francis.  Here is a selection of them with direct links to their Amazon.com pages.

Please visit the author's website, or follow him on Twitter.

The Complete Francis of Assisi is published by Paraclete Press.  Here is a description of the press in their own words:

Paraclete Press is a publisher of essential Christian wisdom. It is our mission to publish books, music and videos which remind us, “Never lose hope in the mercy of God.” (The Rule of St. Benedict)

Although Benedictine spirituality is at the heart of all we do, we are an ecumenical publisher and as such we present works that unite us and enrich our understanding as Christians, whether Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or Evangelical.

Paraclete publishes about 40 books a year and distributes the recordings of Gloriæ Dei Cantores and the Monks of Solesmes, France. We also publish sheet music and an award-winning line of educational videos. Our sales department directly serves over 5,000 churches and 5,000 bookstores, and we distribute our books and music through Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Books-a-million, Sam's Club and other major retailers.

Here is a link to a very detailed article about St. Francis in The New Yorker magazine. I review other books by this author on this site:

Sweeney - The Enthusiast by Jon M. Sweeney
Sweeney - When Saint Francis Saved the Church by Jon M. Sweeney

How Dante Can Save Your Life by Rod Dreher

The subtitle of this memoirs/self-help book is The Life-Changing Wisdom of History's Greatest Poem (Dante's Divine Comedy).  The author offers an engaging read about his midlife crisis and how Dante's masterpiece helped him through it, along with help from his pastor, his therapist, his down-to-earth wife, and his supportive and accepting friends.

The book is presented as an inspirational text for those who might be tempted to make their own Dante pilgrimage, a journey of self-discovery and self-realization, by way of atonement and renewed motivation to lead a decent life.  To be honest, I felt it could just as effectively have been written as a straight memoirs, and the self-help aspect left for readers to discover on their own if they felt the need.

In the author's words:

This medieval masterpiece, perhaps the greatest poem ever written, reached me when I thought I was unreachable, and lit the way out of a dark wood of depression, confusion, and a stress-related auto-immune disease that, had it persisted, would have dangerously degraded my health.

The memoirs is in four parts:

1. Part I - From the Garden to the Dark Wood
2. Part II - Inferno, or Why you are Broken
3. Part III - Purgatorio, or How to be Healed
4. Part IV - Paradiso, or The Way Things Ought to Be

It is said that all of life is in the Commedia divina, as the Divine Comedy is known in its original Italian.  The epic poem can be read on many levels:  as a fantastical adventure, as a religious tract, as a philosophical treatise, or as the author uses it as a guide to how to live a moral life.  Some have even conjectured that one reason Dante wrote it was to take revenge on his enemies.

What is the poem about?  In the author's words:

Dante's tale is a fantasy about a lost man who finds his way back to life after walking through the pits of hell, climbing up the mountain of purgatory, and ascending to the heights of Heaven.  But it's really a story about real life and the incredible journey of our lives, yours and mine.

The family travails that trigger the author's crisis are not unique, especially if you have watched the TV sitcom Fraser which dealt with the father-son and the sibling dynamics, but that does not lessen the author's suffering, nor should it lessen our compassion for his suffering, and for his family's suffering. 

From his descriptions in the book, one can deduce that he is an erudite intellectual, curious about the world and the world of ideas, and he is fact and reality addicted.  His immediate family are tradition-based, change-averse, narrow-minded fantasists; like many insecure and fearful people, they prefer the world they imagine to exist, to the world that really does exists.

Given those differences, conflict was inevitable. 

If a person like the author is placed, either by birth or by choice, among people like his described family, he will most certainly be harassed and ostracized until he either kills himself, gets killed, or leaves to maintain his sanity and health.  That is the way it has always been and it is probably the way it will always be.

Inexplicably, the author chooses to return to that environment, and to remain in it even when his sanity and health falters.  He puts the well-being of his wife and children at risk in a stubborn (and selfish?) attempt to understand why the poor treatment he receives leaves him disoriented and disappointed. 

As a writer, the author had often advocated a return to small, religion and tradition-based communities.  I suspect much of his disorientation and disappointment was at the poor reception he received when he took his own advice and moved back to just such a community.  He had certainly romanticized the community of his youth, because the reality of it seemed to shock him to the core.    

The author's journey back to physical and mental health came from meditation through prayer, guided self-analysis, and through his own intelligence by using Dante's Divine Comedy as bibliotherapy, which produced joy in him through the intellectual stimulation it provided. 

 

I have my doubts about the author's ability to stay healthy in the narrow-minded community in which he has chosen to live.  His emotional, sensitive, over-intellectualizing, mystical, highly moral, and at times monomaniacal character is not well-suited to the severe, defensive, rural society he calls home.  And I suspect that the publication of this book will not improve his place in the eyes of his extended family and small community.

What carried me through this challenging book was the fluid, engaging writing that linked together extracts from Dante's poem with biographical sections, and with discourses on philosophy and theology.  The author has a talent for explaining thoughts, feelings, conundrums, faith, loss, conflicts and characters concisely, with a seemingly effortless prose style that is a joy to read.       

From the book's description:

The opening lines of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri launched Rod Dreher on a journey that rescued him from exile and saved his life.  Dreher found that the medieval poem offered him a surprisingly practical way of solving modern problems.

Following the death of his little sister and the publication of his New York Times bestselling memoir The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Dreher found himself living in the small community of Starhill, Louisiana where he grew up.  But instead of the fellowship he hoped to find, he discovered that fault lines within his family had deepened.  Dreher spiraled into depression and a stress-related autoimmune disease.  Doctors told Dreher that if he didn’t find inner peace, he would destroy his health.  Soon after, he came across The Divine Comedy in a bookstore and was enchanted by its first lines, which seemed to describe his own condition.

In the months that followed Dante helped Dreher understand the mistakes and mistaken beliefs that had torn him down and showed him that he had the power to change his life.  Dreher knows firsthand the solace and strength that can be found in Dante’s great work, and distills its wisdom for those who are lost in the dark wood of depression, struggling with failure (or success), wrestling with a crisis of faith, alienated from their families or communities, or otherwise enduring the sense of exile that is the human condition.

Inspiring, revelatory, and packed with penetrating spiritual, moral, and psychological insights How Dante Can Save Your Life is a book for people, both religious and secular, who find themselves searching for meaning and healing.  Dante told his patron that he wrote his poem to bring readers from misery to happiness.  It worked for Rod Dreher.  Dante saved Rod Dreher’s life—and in this book, Dreher shows you how Dante can save yours.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

I have a page about Dante's masterpiece on my Italian Culture website, Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, which includes many of the illustrations that the author includes in his book, and which I use on this review page.  I also have links to free editions of Dante's poem in both Italian and English.

Direct link to my Dante page

Please visit the author's Facebook page.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Rome The Biography of a City by Christopher Hibbert

This book attempts to cover 3000 years of history in 400 pages, so you can't blame this writer for suffering a sort-of history-whiplash.   Hundreds of years are compressed into a single page, over and over again.  Tidbits and trivia are sprinkled throughout to try to keep the reader's interest, and to differentiate the book from a Wikipedia entry on The History of Rome, Italy.  I'm not sure the trivia actually works.

The author works hard to focus his story on the city of Rome, but that is difficult since the city was once the capital of an empire, and is now the capital of a country, and it is the capital of a religious faith.  Take any name, date or event mentioned in this compressed history book, and you will find dozens of books in print about it.  The history of Rome and her citizens and invaders is so rich that this books sometimes feels more like an Index than a book.

The book boasts a detailed Notes and Index section.  In fact, the Notes section feels like a book in its own right.  Perhaps the book that the author should have written?  I don't know, but in the Preface the author states that the book is intended for those who may tour Rome.  The book hopes to offer some historical background to what visitors to modern Rome may see.  The Notes section points out just what bits and pieces are still to be seen, and includes some teasing information about them.

Sadly, modern Rome is like ancient and medieval Rome after they have been put through a blender and mashed with a potato masher and then buried in your back garden.  There is not much left where it originally stood, or in its original condition.  Tourists to Rome have to deal with traffic, pollution, filth and graffiti, lines and crowding, to see collections and buildings that are like jigsaw-puzzles made up of bits and pieces, or missing bits and pieces.

I cringed right at the beginning of this book when I read the author thank his wife solely for her Index-making skills.  Ouch.  Cold.  The male-of-a-certain age feeling remained throughout the reading of the book, especially when mentions of women resorting to prostitution in order to survive were treated as moments of amusement or curiosity. 

Wouldn't the readers find it so amusing to hear Samuel Johnson's Boswell's precise words about how he abused Roman women resulting in his infamous venereal disease?  No, this reader did not find it amusing, as I suspect no female readers found it amusing, and perhaps many men did not find it very nice either.  The diary quotes were not uninteresting per se, but they seemed too many and too much of another era to be entertaining.  Actually, some things about that other era provoked my envy:  Rome was open, inexpensive and often free for well-educated tourists.

The author has a fluid prose style and a command of his subject matter, although he his fond of historical gossip and probable invented innuendo.  He also has an academic's studied disdain for religion, which will annoy if not offend those of faith.  That was an odd thing to indulge when writing a book that would surely interest religious pilgrims to the home of Catholicism and the Christian faiths, and to the sites of so many religious martyrs, including two apostles of Jesus.  

The author keeps the 3000 years moving along at a quick pace.  We retrace Rome's long history of bloodshed and sadism, ruinous ambition, rampant misogyny, aristocratic destructive narcissism, invasion by thugs, looting by everyone and anyone.  It does become tiresome after a while.

The overall feeling from reading the book, for me, was this is too much history in too short a book.  3000 years in 400 pages; do the math and that is an average of 7.5 years per page.  That would be the history of Fascist Italy on one page.  You see what I mean?  Actually, the author allows a chapter to cover Royals and Fascists, but that means some pages cover hundreds of years of history.  All of post WWII Rome is summed up in the Epilogue.

The book chapters briefly cover:

• Romulus and Kings
• Roman Republic and Empire
• Christians
• Anarchy and the Fall of Rome
• Papal Rome, Charlemagne, Aristocrats
• Renaissance Excess
• Sack and Recovery
• Baroque and 1700s
• Napoleon
• Unification
• Royals and Fascists
• Today

From the book's description:

This beautifully written, informative study is a portrait, a history and a superb guide book, capturing fully the seductive beauty and the many layered past of the Eternal City.  It covers 3,000 years of history from the city's quasi-mythical origins, through the Etruscan kings, the opulent glory of classical Rome, the decadence and decay of the Middle Ages and the beauty and corruption of the Renaissance, to its time at the heart of Mussolini's fascist Italy.  Exploring the city's streets and buildings, peopled with popes, gladiators, emperors, noblemen and peasants, this volume details the turbulent and dramatic history of Rome in all its depravity and grandeur.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

The author has several books in print about Italy.  Here are links his other books at Amazon.com:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Shroud for the Archbishop (Sister Fidelma Series) by Peter Tremayne

Shroud for the Archbishop is book two in the Sister Fidelma historical traditional-mystery series set in Europe's Middle Ages (circa 660-670).  Most of the stories take place in Ireland and England, but this second book in the series brings Sister Fidelma, an Irish investigating-judge and religious woman, to Rome. 

Fidelma comes to medieval Rome not as a pilgrim, which was the main source of Rome's wealth at the time and for many centuries to come, but to receive a papal blessing for her Irish religious order of St. Bridgid.  Also in Rome is her friend and fellow mystery solver Brother Eadulf, a Saxon religious man, and secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury-elect.

I review on this site a book called Pagan and Christian Rome.  Much of what is described in that book as life in Medieval Rome, is shown in Shroud for the Archbishop.  So if you are a Roman history buff, and you like traditional mysteries (Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio Marsh...), then this book will fascinate you.  The author is knowledgeable and likes to share that knowledge. 

The mystery aspect is methodically developed, with all the usual steps:  introduction to scene, introduction to characters and possible suspects, a crime occurs, our protagonist is drafted in to investigate, the body is viewed, suspects are questioned, theories are formed and reformed, events progress often involving more murders and crimes, and finally our detective rounds up everyone and explains everything and exposes the murderer and the convoluted plot. 

That the two main characters are members of religious orders should ring true to those who know their history.  For intelligent, ambitious people in the Middle Ages, the church was the only real avenue for advancement and education.  Religious institutions did not require their members to be celibate, only to be believers and to pray and to contribute to the community, or more accurately, to the commune.  That is how Sister Fidelma and Brother Eadulf can marry in the course of the series and have a child together.

What sort of woman is Fidelma?  Well, let me start by saying she is difficult to like.  She is a 30-something intellectual who is out of touch with her own emotions.  She is prickly, proud, blunt to the point of rudeness, impatient, and vain about her own cleverness.

Her sidekick for most of her investigations is Eadulf, a 30-something, widely educated man whose greatest quality is his ability to put up with Fidelma.  He protects her from harm and acts as her sounding board.  He provides medical knowledge from time to time. 

If this description of Eadulf brings to mind Sherlock Holmes's Dr. Watson, then you get the point.  Except in this incarnation of Holmes and Watson, the two eventually get married and have a family! 

The author is not the smoothest at conveying romantic attraction, and often his two characters seem like sexually and emotionally stunted adults.  They are overly rational, so perhaps that is part of the problem.  Here is Fidelma rationalizing her attraction to Eadulf:

In spite of their differences in attitudes, Fidelma had to admit that she felt some comfort in being with Eadulf.  She could tease him on their contrasting opinions and he would always rise good-naturedly to the bait but there was no enmity between them.

Celtic history comes to the fore in all the books, since Fidelma is an Irish Celt.  Catholic religious debates are shared with the reader too, debates that often tread the same ground as today's religious debates, such as the celibacy of members of religious orders, acceptable sexual mores, and the role of women within the Church.

Shroud for the Archbishop allows the reader to tour Medieval Rome with Fidelma, Eadulf and the others.  See the Lateran Palace, a Christian cemetery and catacomb, the Basilica of St. John of Lateran, the streets, alleys and avenues of Rome, the Tiber.  Meet the pope, bishops, monks, nuns, papal guards, innkeepers, beggars and more of Rome's residents.

The writing style is workable, if stilted and at times repetitive, but that does not detract from what this is, a historical traditional mystery, full of history for buffs, and a twisted plot for mystery fans.  The author uses third-person limited narration letting us into Fidelma's mind, and at times other characters' minds. 

Do not confuse the Sister Fidelma books (25 to date, see list below) with the cute-cozies that are popular today.  Fidelma's story is for mystery traditionalists who know more than a bit about Europe's Middle Ages, and are looking for a work of fiction to bring that time to life.

 

Books in the Sister Fidelma Celtic Mystery Series:

1. Absolution By Murder
2. Shroud for the Archbishop
3. Suffer Little Children
4. The Subtle Serpent
5. The Spider's Web
6. Valley of the Shadow
7. The Monk Who Vanished
8. Act of Mercy
9. Our Lady of Darkness
10. Hemlock At Vespers (short stories)
11. Smoke in the Wind
12. The Haunted Abbot
13. Badger's Moon
14. Whispers of the Dead (short stories)
15. The Leper's Bell
16. Master of Souls
17. A Prayer for the Damned
18. Dancing with Demons
19. Council of the Cursed
20. The Dove of Death
21. The Chalice of Blood
22. Behold A Pale Horse
23. The Seventh Trumpet
24. Atonement Of Blood
25. The Devil's Seal

From the description of Shroud for an Archbishop:

Wighard, archbishop designate of Canterbury, has been discovered garrotted in his chambers in the Lateran Palace in Rome in the autumn of AD 664.  The solution to this terrible crime appears simple as the palace guards have arrested Brother Ronan Ragallach, as he fled from Wighard's chamber.  Although the Irish monk denies responsibility, Bishop Gelasius is convinced the crime is political and that Wighard was slain in pique at the triumph of the pro-Roman Anglo-Saxon clergy in their debate with the pro-Columba Irish clergy at Whitby. 

There is also a matter of missing treasure:  the goodwill gifts Wighad had brought with him to Rome and the priceless chalices sent for the Holy Father Vitalian's blessings have all been stolen.  Bishop Gelasius realises that Wighard's murder could lead to war between the Saxon and Irish kingdoms if Ronan is accused without independent evidence.  So he invites Sister Fidelma of Kildare and Brother Eadulf to investigate.  But more deaths must follow before Fidelma is finally able to put together the strange jigsaw in this tale of evil and vengeance.

The first book in the series is Absolution by Murder:

In A.D. 664, King Oswy of Northumbria has convened a synod at Whitby to hear debate between the Roman and Celtic Christian churches and decide which shall be granted primacy in his kingdom.  At stake is much more than a few disputed points of ritual; Oswy's decision could affect the survival of either church in the Saxon kingdoms.  When the Abbess Etain, a leading speaker for the Celtic church, is found murdered, suspicion falls upon the Roman faction. 

In order to diffuse the tensions that threaten to erupt into civil war, Oswy turns to Sister Fidelma of the Celtic Church (Irish and an advocate for the Brehon Court) and Brother Eadulf of the Roman church (from east Anglia and of a family of hereditary magistrates) to find the killer.  But as further murders occur and a treasonous plot against Oswy matures, Fidelma and Eadulf soon find themselves running out of time.

Here are direct links to the first two book in the Sister Fidelma series at Amazon.com, where many of the books in the series are available for 1-cent (plus shipping) as second-hand mass-market paperbacks:

Please visit the International Sister Fidelma Website for everything you could possible wish to know about the series, author, era and Fidelma herself.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.