by S. D. Sykes
I find it a very special and inspiring place. And though it is located in the populous south-east corner of England, it still retains an otherworldly, remote feel. In the fourteenth century, it must have been very isolated indeed – the perfect location for a family seeking refuge from the Plague.
In writing The Bone Fire, I have returned to the theme of plague, which cast such a dark shadow over the middle decades of this century. Whereas Plague Land and The Butcher Bird take place during the Black Death of 1348–51 (when roughly half the population of England were killed by this disease), The Bone Fire is set thirteen years later, when plague makes a very unwelcome return. People had only heard the rumours of the deadly pestilence spreading northwards through Europe before the Black Death arrived in 1348 – but in 1361 they knew exactly what was coming. This knowledge and the panic it must have created explain why my fictional family, the de Lacys, chose to seek sanctuary on the Isle of Eden. Oswald knew, from his own bitter experience during the first outbreak, that the only guaranteed way to stay safe from plague was to keep well out of its way.
Unlike the people of the fourteenth century, we now know that this infectious disease, often referred to as the Bubonic Plague, was caused by Yersinia Pestis – a bacterium that lives in the digestive tract of rodent fleas. It was transferred to the human population via flea bites, and caused death in one of three ways: via the lymph glands, causing the most well-known form of the disease, Bubonic Plague – but also via the lungs, causing Pneumonic Plague; or the bloodstream, causing Septicaemic plague. Once the sufferer was infected, plague could then be passed from person to person via the usual forms of contagion, i.e. touching or coughing.
When plague returned in 1361, it arrived with a new mutation – killing wealthy young men and boys in greater numbers than other parts of the population, causing it to become known as the Children’s Pestilence. Modern day studies have suggested an interesting explanation for this – that many bacterial pathogens require a good supply of iron for growth. In those times, young, wealthy males were the most likely to have enjoyed a diet rich in meat and therefore high in iron – whereas the poorer in society and menstruating women were often prone to iron deficiency. Ironically, it seems that the healthier and wealthier you were, the more likely you were to die from plague.
In The Bone Fire, every character that you meet during the story is fictional, except for John Wyclif and Simon Islip, the Archbishop of Canterbury. I wanted to say a little about John Wyclif in particular, since he had such an influence on one of my characters, Godfrey of Eden. For many years Wyclif was the master at Balliol college in Oxford, enjoying the protection and friendship of Simon Islip, and thus having a certain amount of freedom to speak his mind. Whilst at Oxford, Wyclif did much to promote the reading of the scriptures – something for which the church itself lacked enthusiasm. I must say that this really surprised me when researching this book, as the bible is so central today to the Christian faith – but in those times, as Oswald points out, many priests did not read the bible at all, preferring to study the works of the thirteenth-century religious philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus.
Wyclif’s calls for the scriptures to be at the heart of the church’s teachings caused suspicion at first, and then alarm – particularly as Wyclif also courted controversy with many of his other ideas. He was opposed to many fundamental beliefs of the church, particularly the sale of indulgences and relics, and the doctrine of transubstantiation (the belief that the bread and wine of communion are transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ). Wyclif was greatly affected by the Black Death, claiming it was a punishment on the clergy for their many corruptions, and warning that the End of Days was coming if they did not repent. Wyclif attracted a group of followers at Oxford, men such as my character Godfrey of Eden – idealists who shared his apocalyptic view of the future. Men who were also impatient to start spreading the Word of God through the reading of the scriptures.
In The Bone Fire, my character Godfrey secretly makes a translation of the New Testament into English. This translation is entirely my own invention, but is based on the fact that Wyclif himself translated the bible into English in his latter years, before disseminating this work through a network of sympathetic priests. His bible proved to be immensely popular, as people were intrigued to hear the scriptures in their own tongue for the first time, but this popularity also alarmed the church – this time to the point of repression. In The Bone Fire, Oswald is reluctant to become involved with Godfrey and his work, fearing the retribution of the church. This fear was not unfounded, for the church did not willingly tolerate dissent, burning many of Wyclif’s followers, a group known as the Lollards, at the stake for heresy. As for Wyclif himself, he died of natural causes in 1384, but was excommunicated after his death. His corpse was exhumed in 1415, his bones were burnt and then his ashes were thrown into a river.
Wyclif’s works might have been banned and his followers might have been driven underground – but ultimately the church failed to suppress his ideas and his desire for a bible in English. Wyclif and the Lollards were the first vocal non-conformists in England, sharing many views with later reformers such as Luther, Calvin and Zwingli – thus paving the way for the Reformation and England’s historic break with Rome.
Lastly, I wanted to say a few words about time-keeping in the fourteenth century. It is hard for us today to imagine a life without knowing the precise time, but this is how people lived before the advent of clocks – their lives defined by the rising and setting of the sun, or by the bells in the abbeys ringing out the canonical hours – time set aside for prayers such as Lauds or Vespers. Either way, time itself was an imprecise concept. The first mechanical clocks were developed in the early fourteenth century, but we don’t see the grand astronomical clocks in the abbeys and palaces of England until the latter decades. By the end of the century there were such clocks all over Europe – changing the pattern of the working day forever, as clocks finally came to govern our lives.
Acknowledgements
My heartfelt thanks go out firstly to my editor Nick Sayers, and to my agent Gordon Wise. Your continued support, encouragement and words of guidance with this book are so greatly appreciated. My thanks also to my American publisher Claiborne Hancock and Jessica Case at Pegasus in New York, and agent Deborah Schneider at Gelfman Schneider. What a wonderful team behind my books! I would like to also thank my friends from the world of writing – the Prime Writers and the Historical Writers Association – and in particular, Martine Bailey, Nick Brown, Antonia Hodgson and Rebecca Mascull. My husband Paul continues to be a writer’s dream partner – always keeping well out of my way when I’m obviously struggling with a knotty plot problem, and then turning up at just the right moment with a cup of tea, or glass of wine. And I must mention my children, Natalie and Adam, who are not only my trusted early readers, but also my most loyal cheerleaders – even books need some unconditional love. I want to save my biggest thanks, however, for my sister Kathy. We’ve had a difficult couple of years as a family, but she has been our tower of strength with her energy, love and sense of purpose.
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