The Clerkenwell Tales [Paperback]

Peter Ackroyd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2003

From a master historian -- a brilliantly original historical novel set in late-14th century London.

“I am sister to the day and night. I am sister to the woods.” Sister Clarisse, a nun in the House of St. Mary at Clerkenwell, experiences visions. She dreams of the English King. Are her prophesies the babblings of the crazed? Or can she “see” a future in which Henry Bolingbroke overthrows Richard II?

This clever and colourful novel begins with The Nun’s Tale, and continues with The Friar’s Tale, The Merchant’s Tale and The Clerk’s Tale. Thus, story by story, Peter Ackroyd builds his portrait of medieval London. The people are disenchanted with the Church, with its wealth and corruption, its Pope in Rome and its Pope in Avignon. But heresy is dangerous -- almost as dangerous as rebellion. This is a novel about spies and counterspies, radicals and idealists, murderers and arsonists, sects and secret societies. It is a tale richly atmospheric and satisfying in its historical detail.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ackroyd (The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde; Hawksmoor; etc.) brings late medieval London to life in this latest of his fascinating historical novels. Working with a cast of characters drawn from The Canterbury Tales, Ackroyd deploys his usual meticulous research to reconstruct the background of Chaucer's England in a prose idiom congenial to modern readers. The thriller plot concerns a visionary nun, a sect of violent religious heretics and a shadowy group of power brokers trying to orchestrate the ouster of King Richard II by Henry Bolingbroke. But the rather creaky conspiracy narrative, supposedly based in fact, is just a peg on which to hang a panorama of 14th-century life that takes in the cathedrals, cloisters, brothels, taverns and law courts while instructing readers on all things medieval, from medicine (dove droppings applied to the feet is the recommended cure for insomnia) to fast food (at street stands, roast finches can be had two for a penny). It's a society where elaborate courtesy balances gross indecency, pious ritual shades into sadomasochistic fetish, reflexive orthodoxy is troubled by new philosophies from the universities, corrupt and worldly churchmen contend with anti-clerical revolutionaries and science struggles to be born from a morass of superstition, alchemy and astrology. The characters seem both secure within and frustrated by the confines and mysteries of their narrow worldview and are badly in need of a renaissance. Ackroyd's brilliant evocation of their ideology and psychology lets us recognize the traces of our own time in this archaic past.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

London in 1399 is rife with suspense and intrigue. Richard II is about to lose the crown to Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster. In the House of Mary in Clerkenwell, the prioress has her aristocratic hands full, literally of her pet monkey, figuratively of 18-year-old Sister Clarice, who is having visions and concocting veiled prophecies. Meanwhile, friar William Exmewe guides a cabal of heretics--all commoners--in a series of terrorizing explosions in church precincts, which he reports on to Dominus, a cabal of atheist materialists--all aristocrats--avid to be powers behind the throne of the prospective Henry IV. And closely related bystanders notice Clarice's tete-a-tete with Exmewe, among other odd encounters. Most of Ackroyd's characters have the same occupations, but not the same personalities, as those of their contemporaries, the storytellers of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The thrillerlike scenario through which they career, and in which some of them fatally crash, should enthrall history buffs far more than fiction readers who prize deep characterization. Make sure said buffs don't miss it. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Minerva (September 1, 2003)
• ISBN-10: 0749386355
• ISBN-13: 978-0749386351
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,227,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Canterbury Tales with a twist, January 22, 2005

By 

K. Huff (Radnor, PA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Clerkenwell Tales (Hardcover)

Peter Ackroyd draws on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to tell a tale of suspense and intrigue in late-14th century London. The characters are all Chaucer's, but Ackroyd chooses to display them in a much different light.

In the 14th century, there was much dissention in the church. The advent of the Black Death earlier in the century had changed people's belief systems. While most of England remained Catholic, there were many people who wanted to break away from the Church. One of these groups was the Lollards, declared heretics for their liberal views on religion. In this book, there is a group of people who want to rock the foundations of the church to its core, and the burning of churches in London is ascribed to the Lollards. The fictional story also includes the mad prophesies of a nun called Clarice.

Like the Canterbury Tales, the Clerkenwell Tales have a structure, though the vignettes are in a different order than the original Tales. Ackroyd does a great job of discussing each character in great detail, adding on to what we know of the characters from Chaucer. While Ackroyd does not stick with the genres of the Canterbury Tales (ie fabliau, romance, etc), he does give his reader a peak at another aspect of medieval English life: the mystery plays, or the stories of the Bible as performed by the members of the town's trade guilds. Ackroyd does a fantastic job of pulling bits and peieces of medieval English life together in one coherent whole.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars veritable time-travel, September 28, 2004

By 

Donald Kerr "video-audio-bibliophile" (Turtle Creek, Pa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Clerkenwell Tales (Hardcover)

the author has created a delightful, pensive, historical fiction whose genesis is Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales." This 213-page opus is recommended to all medievalists, early-renaissance lectors and avid readers of English history. If one enjoys "The Canterbury Tales" one should find pleasant satisfaction in this delicious re-creation.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For the literati, a mighty tasty bit of a tome, October 5, 2004

By 

KatPanama "katpanama" (Readerville) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Clerkenwell Tales (Hardcover)

It's 1399; do you know where your Chaucer is? Ackroyd borrows both form and characters but puts them to different tasks. Who knew (I guess I should have) that the Puritan concept (also Presbyterian) of predestination actually had its roots in an intense debate within The Church in the 13th and 14th centuries. Wonderfully written and enjoyable. E.g., Part of the secret tunnels that connected the Clerkenwell cloister to the priory of St. John of Jerusalem now can be seen in the basement of the Marx Memorial Library at 37a Clerkenwell Green, London. Who says history doesn't have a sense of humor?