I’m delighted
that Patricia Bracewell has agreed to share her research journey for her series on Emma of Normandy. Patricia was kind enough to donate 100 copies of Shadow on the Crown to attendees at the HNSA 2015 Conference in Sydney last weekend. So generous! Many thanks! And I’m pleased to say that her new book, The Price of Blood, has reached Australian shores, too.
Patricia's love of
stories led to degrees in Literature, a brief career as a high school English
teacher, and an unquenchable desire to write. She experimented with personal
essays and short stories before turning her attention to the novel. Shadow on the Crown, the first book in
her trilogy about an 11th century queen of England, was published in 2013, and
has been translated into Italian, German and Russian. Her second novel, The Price of Blood, continues the
gripping tale of Emma of Normandy, whose marriage to an English king set in
motion a series of events that would culminate in the Norman conquest of
England. Patricia recently spent two weeks in Wales where she was honored to
serve as Writer-in-Residence at Gladstone’s Library. She has two sons and lives
with her husband in Oakland, California.
Here is Pat's post. Enjoy!
I want to thank Elisabeth Storrs for
inviting me to share with my HNS colleagues in Australasia something of the
research that went into my novels about the 11th century queen of England, Emma
of Normandy.
I suspect that every historical novelist
tends to turn to books first when it comes to research, and the very first book
that I picked up as I began to examine the life of this queen was the Encomium
Emmae Reginae. It was a Latin manuscript written by a Flemish monk in about
1041; I read an English translation that was first printed in 1949 and
reprinted in 1998 accompanied by copious notes, thank heaven, since my Medieval
Latin is nonexistent.
Encomium Emmae Regina
The author of the Encomium addressed Queen Emma
in his Prologue, stating that the book had been written at her behest, and that
it was a “record of deeds…which touch upon the honour of you and your
connections.” He knew of these deeds presumably from Emma herself, and reported
them as she wanted them reported. Intriguingly, there were some surprising
omissions; for instance, any mention of Emma’s first husband, King Æthelred and
their children – something that has been the cause of speculation among
scholars for centuries. (Was the marriage unhappy? Did Emma despise the king,
despise her children? Was the very mention of an Anglo-Saxon king unwise in the
Anglo-Danish court where the book was produced?) And so my quest began.
I searched for the answers to these
questions and dozens more in documents, academic journals and histories having
to do with the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, the Vikings and the major figures who
lived in that 11th century world.
Emma of Normandy,
from The Life of Edward the Confessor
Of course, a great deal of what we read as
we research never makes it into our fiction. I don’t think I’m alone in having
been astounded by something I’ve discovered that was totally useless material
yet utterly riveting. A few months ago, in the stacks of Gladstone’s Library in
Wales, I found a book published in 1831 that contained the text of Aethelred’s
coronation ceremony. It was of absolutely no use to me, but I read it all the
way through, stunned, imagining an event that took place in 978 when Aethelred
was only 10. The very fact that it existed and that I was holding it in my
hands made me want to weep.
Gladstone’s Library
Sometimes the most mundane bits of trivia
will provide the kind of telling detail that brings a story to vivid life. In
an 1134 inventory of the treasures of Ely abbey (Liber Eliensis) there was a
list of items that had been donated by Queen Emma, including a blood-red altar
cloth. And so in The Price of Blood, when Emma’s son is bundled off to Ely for
schooling, she sends a red silk altar cloth with him as a gift for the abbey,
which, quite possibly, she actually did.
Occasionally suggestions for a line of
research came from serendipitous sources. On a train journey from Kalamazoo to
Chicago I met an English professor who mentioned that the Sami people of Norway
were known for practicing magic. I’d never heard of the Sami, but the resulting
research led to the appearance of a Sami gerningakona (witch) in The Price of
Blood.
Ringmere battle site
There were times, too, when I went in
search of experts who could advise me on subjects with which I was unfamiliar.
An expert horsewoman and member of the Society for Creative Anachronism happily
responded to all my equine-related questions. For swordplay I turned to someone
from the Oakeshott Institute, an organization with the goal of “furthering
research and education in the fields of ancient arms and armor.” And because I
had to kill off 10 characters in The Price of Blood I met several times with a
pathologist to brainstorm possible causes of death in the early Middle Ages.
Fecamp ducal palace
My research took me to Europe as well. In
Fecamp, Normandy, I prowled among the ruins of the ducal palace after
surreptitiously stepping over the chain with the DO NOT ENTER sign slung across
the entrance to the site. In Roskilde, Denmark I measured the bones of Viking ships
and studied their full scale recreations at the Viking Ship Museum. On my many
trips to England I explored all of the settings for my books, from Winchester
to Holderness to York and every place in between. One of the most poignant
sites I visited was Ringmere, an all-but-forgotten battle site, nothing more than
an empty field. It receives barely a mention in my novel – not even a
description, really. But I made my way there as a kind of tribute to the Anglo-Saxons
who died defending their lands against a Danish tide that would eventually
overwhelm them.
And all the while I was searching for Emma,
trying to imagine the England that she would have known, the events that she
would have witnessed, and what she might have felt about the deeds that touched
upon her honour. In doing so I hoped to re-create for my readers that 11th
century world and a very remarkable woman.
1006 AD. Queen Emma, the Norman bride of England’s King Æthelred,
has given birth to a son. Now her place as second wife to the king is
safe and Edward marked as heir to the throne. But the royal bed is a
cold place and the court a setting for betrayal and violence, as the
ageing king struggles to retain his power over the realm. Emma can trust
no one, not even the king’s eldest son Athelstan, the man she truly
loves.
Elsewhere Viking threats to the crown are gaining strength, and
in the north the powerful nobleman Ælfhelm is striking an alliance with
the Danes. His seductive daughter Elgiva, former mistress to the king,
is forced to act as a pawn in his plan, and is given as wife to a Viking
Lord. Can King Æthelred finally listen to Athelstan, whose plan to
strengthen the kingdoms’ ties will put off the Viking threat once and
for all?
Emma must protect her only child without abandoning her noble
position. And her inner conflict, between maternal instinct and royal
duty, will be played out against the dramatic and bloody struggle for
Britain’s rule.
Praise for
The Price of Blood
“A deep and stirring novel, elegant in detail and convincing in execution.” – Cecelia Holland, author of
The Secret Eleanor
“From the bones of the Anglo Saxon Chronicles, Patricia Bracewell has
wrought a thrilling story of vibrant flesh-and-blood characters,
consumed with passion and hatred and battling for power and survival.” –
Gillian Bagwell, author of
Venus in Winter
“In
The Price of Blood, Patricia Bracewell proves once more
that she is an alchemist. She turns the leaden chronicle accounts of
Emma and Aethelred’s embattled kingdom into a narrative thrumming with
life, the historical figures heartbreakingly human.” –Emma Campion,
A Triple Knot and
The King’s Mistress
“Vividly written,
The Price of Blood offers readers
something different: a rarely explored era of dark superstitions, where
one woman must seize power the only way she can.” – C.W. Gortner, author
of
The Queen’s Vow.
Feel free to share this post. Here’s a tweet you could use!
Emma of Normandy @patbracewell Learn about her #research on #HNSA blog @histnovsoc #history #newrelease #histfic http://ow.ly/KS9oI
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