Author's Foreword
The major political events of this novel actually did take place in 1146-47 in England, and the book is based upon the chronicle of these events in the Gesta Stephani¹ (Deeds of Stephen), the most reliable source for the period of Stephen's reign. Only the central characters and their retainers, their influence on affairs, and their relationship to the other characters are fiction.
The entire reign of Stephen was one of hopeless confusion and continual warfare on both a national and a private scale,² and frequently national and private quarrels blended so that it is difficult even for historians to sort out events into a clear pattern. No chronicle could even attempt to record all the petty enmities or all the minor engagements that took place, and therefore the Gesta gives only a record of the major events concerned with the struggle for the throne. Under the circumstances, the author felt free to involve the hero in any personal conflict necessary to the plot, provided that the involvement did not alter the truly historical events with which the book is concerned.
On the physical conditions of life—clothing, housing, and food—the author has attempted to be accurate within a period of about one hundred years, except in one matter. Mentions of money used for purchasing items like cloth or needles or spices are an anachronism. In the twelfth century, nearly all commerce was carried out by the barter system; however, a literal description of this method of exchange would have been so complicated as to impede the progress of the story with very little gain.
One more explanation about social and political concepts must be offered to those readers not familiar with medieval civilization. In the twelfth century, most men had no idea of a country as a national unity nor of our concepts of individual freedom, equality, and patriotism. Their lives were regulated largely by personal attachment that was achieved in several ways. First and foremost was the bond of blood, or blood relationship. This included families related by matrimony and the tie of godparent to godchild. This bond, even when not enforced by affection, had deep religious significance based on the precepts of the Bible and the dogma of the Church. Next in importance was the bond of fealty which a man contracted with his overlord when he did homage to him. The act of homage was also invested with religious as well as personal significance, since fealty was sworn on holy relics. Thus a man who violated his homage had sinned against God as well as smirched his personal honour. Related to the bond of blood, but apart from it, was the tie of fostering. Most male children of the nobility were sent away from their own homes between the ages of seven and ten to be educated by other noblemen, and these children were often very loyal to their foster-parents and foster-brothers and -sisters, Below this level were further bonds which determined the lives and actions of medieval people: the bonds of friendship; those of responsibility to the lower-class people (all too often neglected) who laboured on their lands; and those of hospitality and charity.
It will be noted that every important bond of moral obligation mentioned had religious aspects, and the Church encouraged this in every possible way, attempting to make every living action come under its influence in one way or another. In whatever light we regard this at the present time, it was by no means all bad in the medieval period. The Church was the chief influence for good, mitigating to some small degree the brutality of life in this period, in spite of the abuses to which religion was put. One of the abuses, the superstitious belief that the devil walked the earth in human form marked off from his fellow man only by some deformity such as a tail, horns, or a horn hoof, is one of the themes of this novel. The reader should not allow a twentieth-century freedom from superstition to prevent him from recognizing the real terror and horror with which medieval people, even those who were themselves so afflicted, regarded congenital deformity. The question of whether all deformity was a bond with the devil because God created only perfect things was a real one at this time.
The frequent mention of peace in this novel must also be clarified. No medieval person dreamt of either peace or war as we know them today. War was never total, although it meant that large armies devastated large tracts of territory for political reasons. Frequently the devastated areas belonged to men who were not technically involved in the conflict. As, frequently, the possessions of one or more of the active belligerents were totally untouched. On the other hand, peace never meant a cessation of fighting. It merely referred to a condition in which minor bands of armed men attacked clearly defined objectives for personal and private reasons rather than for reasons of state. When, therefore, the hero of this book strives so desperately for peace, he does not mean that he wishes to give up all fighting, which every medieval knight enjoyed. He means that he wishes to avoid large-scale devastation for causes that usually meant nothing to the people who were hurt.
1. Gesta Stephani, K. R. Potter, ed. and trans., Thos. Nelson & Sons, Ltd, London, 1955.
2. The Peterborough Chronicle, under the years 1137 and 1140. A review is given under these dates of the situation of England during the reign of Stephen.