The Plague Charmer

by Karen Maitland

  He knows that too, but I tell him anyway. ‘After many years of flying back and forth searching for the lost children, the kite was crying his strange tale from the sky when the King of the Forest, a great bear, heard the song of the bird and understood its meaning. The King of the Forest was angry that the King of the Underworld should steal from his domain. So he descended into the dark caverns and there challenged the King of the Underworld to combat.

  ‘So fierce was their battle that the earth above trembled as they smote their battle-axes against their shields and trees came crashing down at the roar of their battle cries. The clash of their swords could be felt beneath the earth for miles around, so that all the villagers, huddling in their cottages, trembled at the sound. They fought all through the night, but finally at dawn, the great bear slew the King of the Underworld and burst out of the rock on the side of the hill, leaving a great cleft in it, which is there to this day.

  ‘The kingdom beneath the earth vanished and the lost children found themselves alone in the cold, dark forest. Eventually they found their way back to their village, but they had been gone for so many years that everything had changed. They knew no one and no one knew them. And they sat, day after day, staring out at the sea, as if they were in a trance from which they couldn’t wake, and the villagers called them the children of the dead, for they had come home without their souls.’

  Historical Notes

  In the spring of 1361, the Great Pestilence returned to London with a vengeance, only thirteen years after it had first struck England. King Edward III ordered measures to prevent its spread, including banning the slaughter of animals at Smithfield, but nothing could contain the deadly epidemic. That year, on the Eve of Ascension on 6 May, the sun vanished in a total eclipse at midday, which many in England saw as an evil omen, coming as it did after many strange sightings already witnessed over France and in other parts of Europe. These ‘omens’ added to the sense of fear and foreboding among the people. The royal family and court fled to safety at Beaulieu Abbey in the New Forest, but even such isolation could not protect the king’s own daughters, Mary and Margaret, who were both destined to die of the pestilence in September of that year.

  In a cruel twist, the second wave of the Great Pestilence seemed to be attacking the young and fit – adolescents, working men and the wealthy. Three times as many men were dying as women, while the old and infirm were left unscathed or recovered. There have been many attempts to explain why this outbreak of the plague should have caused the disproportionately high death rate among fit, working-age men and young people. Women and the elderly appeared either not to contract it or to survive it if they did. Some have argued that women’s deaths were under-recorded, but the many eye-witness accounts of communities being left with few able-bodied men to work the land or in the trades show this not to have been the case.

  One theory is that those who survived the second plague had developed some kind of immunity from having been exposed to the Black Death in 1348, but if this was true, you might expect more or less equal numbers of adult men and women to survive the plague of 1361.

  It is also interesting that the plague of 1361 appears to have flourished in hot, dry conditions as opposed to the wet and cold of 1348, and there are marked differences in some of the key symptoms between the two plagues recorded at the time. While eyewitnesses in mainland Europe recorded the presence of buboes on victims in 1347, mention of this very obvious symptom is curiously absent from many accounts of the disease when it finally reached Britain in 1348, which suggests the plague had either mutated or three different forms of the disease – bubonic, pneumonic and septicaemic plague – were spreading simultaneously. It is now thought to have been pneumonic plague which dominated in Britain in 1348, spread from person to person by coughing. The wet, cold conditions would have been perfect for transmitting this form, causing people to huddle indoors in close proximity for long periods.

  But during the second outbreak in 1361, eyewitnesses in England record the characteristic painful swellings in the armpits and groin, which we now associate with the bubonic plague, or Black Death, transmitted by rodent fleas. So, was the plague of 1361 a mutation of the same one that had entered Britain in 1348 or was it a separate disease?

  One possible theory that has been put forward for the differing death rates between men and women in the second outbreak is that the form of the disease that struck in 1361 required the iron from its human host in order to multiply rapidly. Working men generally have more iron in their bodies than women of child-bearing age, the infirm or the elderly. In poorer families what little red meat there was would have been given first to the working men and boys, as is often still the case in developing countries, because it was vital for the survival of the whole family that the men remained fit and strong.

  The bacillus would therefore have been more virulent in men and also in the wealthy classes, who ate far more fresh red meat than the poor and would therefore be likely to have had more iron in their blood. As women tended to have depleted levels of iron, due to menstruation, the bacillus would not have been able to multiply so rapidly, and their own immune system would have had a chance to fight it, enabling them to recover.

  The plague died down in the autumn of 1361, although, as we now know, it simply lay dormant and would return many more times in future centuries, as it still does in countries such as the USA, though we now have the means to treat it. But in 1361, the shattered communities were to face yet more disasters, for the year that had begun with a terrible drought saw storms and gales batter the country throughout that autumn and winter. They culminated on St Maurus Day, 15 January, when the worst hurricane ever to strike England in recorded history swept across the country, ripping off the towers of great cathedrals and smashing all in its path. Known as the St Maurus Wind, it changed the shape of the British coastline. Cliffs crumbled, spits and peninsulas vanished and harbours were destroyed, while the debris was swept ashore elsewhere to block river mouths and ports, and create beaches where there had been none before. That year, England lost many ancient trees and historic buildings.

  Porlock Weir and Kitnor

  Porlock Weir is an ancient fishing village at the foot of Exmoor and is famous for its medieval fish weirs, the traces of which are still visible. It is now a very popular and picturesque tourist spot.

  Kitnor, now known as Culbone, is a village in an isolated forested valley or coomb further along the coast. The church there, St Beuno’s, is said to be the ‘smallest complete parish church in England’ and many people still visit it by walking from Porlock Weir along a new footpath created through the forest. The church is mentioned in the Domesday Book and sits 400 feet above the wild and dramatic Exmoor coast. It has many original features including twelfth-century walls. Parts of the nave are Saxon, dating back to before 1066.

  It is believed that this valley was first inhabited in AD 430 by seven monks from a Celtic monastery in Wales, who sailed across the sea by boat and gave it the name Kitnor meaning the place of the cave. The monks lived as a community of hermits in individual stone beehive-shaped huts, the ruins of which were used and reused for centuries, long after the monks left or died out around 518.

  In around 1265, about a hundred years before the setting of this novel, Kitnor was used as a place of banishment for heretics, witches and the mad, who lived in the stone beehive huts surrounding the church. The men, women and children survived well over the next forty years, repairing the church and building a thriving community, in spite of having little contact with the outside world. After they left, the place fell into ruins, but in 1385 it was again used as a penal colony, this time for male criminals banished there for months or years for such crimes as theft and adultery. Left to fend for themselves, many committed suicide. It was closed as a penal colony in 1478, but in 1544 became a leper colony.

  Centuries later, thirty-eight East Indian charcoal-burners were sent to live in Kitnor. They had been taken prisoner during the Brit
ish Raj and were sent to what by then had become known as Culbone to live and work for twenty-one years, before they were granted their freedom. Twenty-three lived long enough to leave Culbone, but they could never afford the passage back to India.

  Stone Markers

  The Culbone Stones, which Will and Sara stumbled across, are ancient, some carved with the symbol described in the novel. They were probably erected around the time of Stonehenge and may once have led the way to a stone circle in the area or even to Kitnor itself, since the valley was believed to have been sacred in ancient times. Indeed, that might have been what originally attracted the Celtic monks to come to the place when they saw the fires of the old gods burning in the darkness, since they would have been visible from the coast of Wales, just across the narrow stretch of sea. The Culbone Stones are currently on private land, but public access via a footpath is permitted once a year to view those that are still visible, though archaeologists believe many more may have fallen and lie hidden beneath the soil or dense undergrowth.

  Sir Nigel Loring

  Nigel Loring was born between 1315 and 1320. In 1335, he served in the Scottish campaigns and was sometime esquire to the Earl of Salisbury. In 1340, during the Hundred Years’ War, he was knighted for ‘conspicuous valour’ at Sluys, although his armour and weapons had been stolen on the evening before the battle, and in 1341 a tournament was held in his honour, attended by Edward III and Queen Philippa.

  Around 1343, Sir Nigel married Margaret, daughter of Sir Ralf Beaupel of Knowstone, Devon, and it is possibly through this marriage that he acquired the Manor of Porlock in Somerset. He appears not to have spent much time in Porlock, if any at all, for it wasn’t until 1366 that he applied for a charter to hold a fair there. In 1345, Sir Nigel was sent on his first diplomatic mission to Rome to arrange a dispensation for the Black Prince to marry Margaret of Brabant, a marriage that never took place. Shortly after, Sir Nigel entered the service of the Black Prince, becoming a lifelong confidant and friend. He was one of the founding knights in the new Order of the Garter. In 1351 he became chamberlain to the Black Prince, a post he held for twenty-four years and at the battle of Poitiers he acted as a member of the prince’s personal bodyguard.

  He became lord of the manor of Chalgrave in Bedfordshire which he inherited from his father in 1346. It was a substantial and wealthy property. Also, after each of the campaigns and envoy duties he performed for the prince, he was generously rewarded with gifts, lands and properties right across England, including the manor of Drakelowe, and revenues from tin mines in Cornwall and estates in Devon. He was appointed steward of the lordship of Macclesfield and, in addition, received revenues from several churches. The income from all these rights and properties must have been vast. Sir Nigel retired from military service in 1370 on an annual pension of 100 marks (£1,200). He died in 1386. The manor house of Porlock burned down in the nineteenth century, but stood on what is now the site of Court Place Farm.

  Brother Praeco and the Chosen Ones

  Throughout the history of the major world religions, cults have emerged from time to time that follow a particular pattern, often referred to as apocalyptic or millenarian cults. There were many of these in the Middle Ages, arising at times of pandemics, economic crisis or other catastrophes, such as flood or famine, when itinerant preachers roamed the land warning that the end of the world was nigh and denouncing the corruption of the Church, king and sinful populace. Some preachers were ignored or arrested, but others were able to collect bands of fanatical followers.

  Each movement was different, but most had the following elements in common.

  The cult centred around a charismatic leader, well versed in religious text and imagery. In the case of medieval Europe the imagery was frequently taken from the Book of Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse of St John, found in the New Testament, which the leader used to explain current disasters and justify his extreme actions. He was able to convince others that he had personally received a divine message or revelation.

  Cult members believed they were living in the ‘end days’ when God would destroy the sinful or unbelievers in a series of cataclysmic events or in a great battle, which would wipe out all those who refused to accept the truth of their message. Only the true believers would survive to enter a new, purified world in which they would be rewarded by God for their faith and sacrifice. So strong was the belief that they would be divinely rewarded that members could be persuaded to commit acts that resulted in violence or even in their own suicides. Bizarrely, though cult leaders preached against sin and immorality, and claimed that was why God was destroying the world, the robbery, rape and murder of non-believers by cult members was sanctioned by some leaders both to protect the group and to punish those who did not believe.

  Leaders were able to convince the group members to accept their view of the world by separating them from the rest of society, often confining them in an isolated place and using a combination of positive persuasion and terrible threats. Extreme millenarian cults still arise from time to time today and some have ended with mass suicide such as occurred in Jonestown, Guyana, 1978 or murder as happened in 2000 in Uganda by leaders of the ‘Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God’.

  In this novel, Brother Praeco refers to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, described in the Book of Revelation. Most medieval people would have been familiar with these references, having seen the terrifying depictions of these riders in psalters and in wall paintings. They knew that the horsemen symbolised the catastrophes that would destroy men in the end days. Down through the centuries preachers have ascribed different meanings to the horsemen to fit the events of the time, but in the Middle Ages the rider of the pale horse was thought to represent death and disease, especially pandemics. The red horseman was usually interpreted as war and bloodshed. The black horseman was famine, and the rider of the white horse was the Christ figure come to judge the world and sweep away corruption and evil. When Brother Praeco referred to ‘the pale horseman’, his disciples knew it was another name for death.

  Bears

  Although the wild bear is believed to have been hunted to extinction in Britain by the twelfth or thirteenth century, bears were a familiar sight in medieval Britain. In 1252, the King of Norway sent to King Henry of England the gift of a ‘pale bear’, probably a polar bear, which was housed in the Tower of London, but which the sheriffs of London were obliged to provide money to feed. They had the bright idea of tethering it on the banks of the Thames where it could fish for itself, which drew many fascinated spectators.

  But a far more common sight was the brown bear: no medieval fair or great celebration would have been complete without a dancing bear. Bears were also trained to appear to tell fortunes by choosing certain objects such as stones or bones from a selection scattered before them. Those bears were perhaps the luckier ones, for many more were used in the lucrative ‘sport’ of bear-baiting. Bear pits were constructed outside the town walls, where tethered or loose bears would be set upon by dogs. The dogs would be trained to snatch ribbons or flowers stuck on the bears’ heads with pitch, or simply to fight them. In spite of Edward III’s attempts to discourage it, this was a favourite pastime in the medieval period and many fortunes were won or lost betting on the outcome. By the reign of Henry VIII ‘many herds of bears’ were kept for this purpose in towns across Britain. Elizabeth I was so addicted to this ‘sport’, she forbade the performance of plays on Thursdays as they clashed with the bear-baiting. In 1620, the town of Congleton, Cheshire, had raised money to buy a new Bible, but when the town bear died, they used the money to pay for a new one instead.

  Given the huge number of bears kept in captivity and being led round the country from fair to fair in medieval times, it was inevitable that occasionally bears would escape and turn feral. They would not have learned how to hunt or forage, and would have known humans as a source of food and also of pain, so raids on isolated homes in search of food, with attac
ks on people, dogs and livestock, were bound to occur.

  According to folklore, if a person kills a bear, the bear’s ghost will continue to haunt that spot and terrorise all who encounter it. There were reports of the ghost of a bear that had been killed haunting Martin Tower in the Tower of London. It was seen by a guard on duty there, and so terrified him that he collapsed and died.

  Vade retro satana

  The invocation that Harold tries to use on the cliff top is known as the Vade retro satana (‘Get thee behind me, Satan’). It was the medieval Catholic formula for driving back any form of evil. It is believed to have originated with the Benedictine monks, but some of the phrases within it are based on the words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels, when he was tempted by Satan during his forty days in the wilderness. This invocation was regarded by the Church as a spoken sacrament. In its full form it reads: Crux sacra sit mihi lux. Non draco sit mihi dux. Vade retro satana. Numquam suade mihi vana. Sunt mala quae libas. Ipse venena bibas. It translates roughly as: ‘The Holy Cross be my light. The dragon will not lead me. Get thee behind me, Satan. They will never tempt me. Who proffers evil to me, let him the poison drink.’

  This formula was used throughout the Middle Ages to repel or disarm witches and sorcerers. In the witchcraft trials of the seventeenth century, people accused of witchcraft were forced to confess they could not perform a spell in any place near a cross where these words were written or spoken. Since the late eighteenth century, the initial letters of each word of the invocation have been added to St Benedict medals or to crucifixes to protect the wearer.

  Medieval Riddles

  All the riddles that head Will’s chapters were told in the Middle Ages. Many medieval riddles are no longer asked now, because the world they describe is so different from our own. For example: