| The Dark Ages, Enlightened |
October 26, 2009
Peter Tremayne's Sister Fidelma mysteries are simply wonderful. Rich in fascinating history, with compelling characters, complex plots, and always sigh-worthy conclusions of great satisfaction, Sister Fidelma novels excite and please. Tremayne's latest, due out November 3, is entitled The Council of the Cursed and it succeeds on all counts.
Before reading Tremayne's Sister Fidelma mysteries, I thought the centuries leading up to the first millennium were the Dark Ages all over Europe, years of misery and strife, when life was universally short and hard. Then I met Sister Fidelma and entered Ireland of the seventh century; I saw, under her guidance, just how wrong I had been. In the seventh century Ireland was known to its people as the land of five kingdoms and to outsiders as Hibernia. The laws governing civil and religious life were strict in respecting the value of life, property, and self-governance. What was most shocking to me the first time I read a Sister Fidelma mystery was the almost equal status shared by men and women under secular and religious laws. In fact, the scope of freedoms granted to women in the seventh century would not be seen by females again in Ireland until the end of the twentieth century. Women could be warriors, lawyers, poets, artisans, doctors, rulers, and leaders of religious communities. The Celtic church was not yet bound to Rome and men and women both played vital roles in the Church; members of religious orders were allowed to be married and have children, and men and women were allowed to question and debate religious doctrine. Religion did not yield the same power over civic matters as it would come to hold (stranglehold, some might say) in the centuries that followed. In mundane details of life Ireland was well beyond the rest of Europe with advanced notions of hygiene, comfort, and cuisine. In scholastic matters, the places of study, including monasteries, were open to both exploring new ideas and preserving ancient knowledge, and widely revered for learning and scholarship. In the Dark Ages, Ireland shown a light of relative tolerance and respect for all humanity.
Sister Fidelma is a member of a religious house, an agile and intelligent lawyer, wife to a Saxon lawyer and fellow religieuse, and a noblewoman, as sister to the king of one of the five kingdoms. She is also hot-headed, impatient with superstition and prejudice, and quick to feel empathy for the mistreated and misunderstood. In The Council of The Cursed, Fidelma and Eadulf arrive at the historically-true Council of Autun in the year 670. The council has been called to gather support for one issue relative to the increased control of Rome over all western Christians lands. A delegate from the Five Kingdoms is murdered and Fidelma must investigate: what she discovers is a plot encompassing the power of religious relics, the imposition of celibacy on married clergy by the Roman church (and what to do with all those now-forbidden wives and children), and the political power machinations between the Franks and the Burgundians. The resolution of the murder case is clever, unforeseen, and thoroughly gratifying; the background story of daily life in seventh century Autun is interesting; the issue of celibacy in clergy is timely; and the underlining history of the aims of both kings and the pope to hold and extend power is captivating.
From the time I first read a Sister Fidelma mystery I have been singing both her praises and Tremayne's. Read one, read them all, and find the light that was Ireland in the seventh century.
Per FTC rules, the book reviewed today was received as a review copy from the publisher.
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