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The Novice's Tale (Sister Frevisse Medieval Mysteries)

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In 1431, the convent of St. Frideswide's peaceful English September is disrupted by the arrival of a familiar but less-than-welcome guest. Lady Ermentrude, great aunt to the saintly novice Thomasine, always enjoys tormenting the timid girl by threatening to find her a husband before Thomasine can take her final vows. This time she's just two weeks away from that great moment. So when Ermentraude dies of poisoning in St. Fridewide's guest hall, after a hard and hasty ride on some mysterious family business, Thomasine - unlikely murderess though she might make - is nevertheless everyone's prime suspect.

Everyone's, that is, except Sister Frevisse. Although she has to admit that Thomasine does look guilty, the convent's hosteler looks elsewhere instead of accepting the too-easy answer (in contrast to the "crowner" who investigates on the King's behalf, and the rest of Lady Ermentrude's family).

I seldom read mysteries. I picked this one up because of its setting in time and place, hoping for a few hours of amusement; and author Frazer delivered that in spades. Sister Frevisse, a mixture of involuntarily learned worldliness and devotion to the godly, contemplative life that's her choice, is a thoroughly original character. So, in their different ways, are the tale's other major players. What pleased me most, though, was the simple joy of reading a novel that depicts medieval nuns as people. That by itself would have been more than worth the read.

It was easy to forget among the quiet patterns of St. Frideswide's that its nuns were the daughters, granddaughters, sisters of men who held their inheritance by right of arms and battle skills. As nuns and women their daily life held little need for their inheritance of courage, but their blood remembered.

Yes! Exactly!

Thomasine D'Evers, a frail 17-year-old, has wanted only the cloister since she was eight years old, driven mostly by intense piety - but partly from fear of the childbirth that killed her mother, and shyness intensified by the isolation of many childhood illnesses. This September of 1431, when Thomasine's final vows will be pronounced at Michaelmas (September 29th), her great-aunt, Lady Ermentrude Fenner, has arrived to pay an unannounced visit.

Lady Ermentrude likes to drop in on the priory's guesthall without warning and *with* a large following of servants, men-at-arms, and obnoxious pets. ("'A monkey,' Domina Edith repeated, sounding as if she had been given a second hundred years in Purgatory.") Since one of Ermentrude's favourite pasttimes is arranging family marriages for fun and profit, every visit is accompanied by rude, half-teasing offers to take Thomasine away and arrange a marriage for her with a vigorous young husband (or an older rich one, whichever strikes her fancy). (Robert Fenner, the one young man who seems to admire Thomasine for herself, has sense enough to hold his tongue rather than let the pushy old lady make things worse - for one thing, he knows he's not a good enough match.)

On this visit, Ermentrude arrived when Thomas Chaucer was visiting his niece, Dame Frevisse. The current events discussion of the war in France - the Hundred Years' War - is interesting; Henry VI is still a little boy. After meeting with the prioress, Dame Frevisse (who's in charge of the guesthall), and Master Chaucer, Ermentrude leaves the bulk of her retinue to settle in while she dashes off for a quick visit to Thomasine's married sister Isobel. But Ermentrude returns the next day in a frenzy, swearing that Thomasine shan't be forced to take vows, and that she 'has a good husband coming to her after this' - and that she's taking her away from this horrible place at once. She's been nearly raving all day, as Isobel and Sir John, arriving hard on her heels, can attest.

Within a few hours, Lady Ermentrude is dead of poison, together with a kitchen servant who sampled one dish too many.

Far too many people had opportunity, and with Lady Ermentrude, there's not far to look for motive. Lady Ermentrude had recently left Queen Katherine's service, dropping broad hints of impending scandal - did someone take steps to shut her mouth? Dame Alys, cellarer and chief cook, comes of a family embroiled in a feud with the Fenners, and could be counted on *not* to use new bread for the lady's milksop, but that which could have been tampered with. The lady's servants led a hard life - did something become too much for one of them? Worst of all, of course, Thomasine brought the milksop meant to soothe Lady Ermentrude's throat.

Master Montfort, the local 'crowner' (coroner) of northern Oxfordshire at this point in the series, is intensely irritating; he'll bend over backward for an easy explanation. ('Easy' in this case is the quickest resolution that'll let Lady Ermentrude's son Walter return to his rich uncle's deathbed.) Montfort's also a pig; he badmouths any information from any of the sisters, especially Frevisse, who he thinks gets above herself. It galls him that the sisters are under Church jurisdiction rather than his own.

Frevisse, with her cleverness and the worldly experience of much travel on pilgrimage in her youth, is left to save Thomasine by figuring out what happened. (However, the expertise and intelligence is distributed among the sisters - for instance, Domina Edith, the prioress, is the first to realize what they'll have to cope with, and Dame Claire the infirmarian is the medical expert.) After her parents died, Frevisse was raised in her aunt's household, but was far closer to her uncle, Thomas Chaucer - Geoffrey Chaucer's son. Chauncer is an anomaly, a powerful, wealthy commoner who refuses all titles, with a lot of noble and even half-royal relations; through him, Frevisse is well connected.

All the Dame Frevisse stories have titles after the fashion of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. However, rather than being narrated by the title character as in Chaucer's tales, they're told in limited 3rd person, alternating between the title character and Frevisse. The title character is always a major supporting player in the story, but not necessarily a suspect. The means employed by each murderer vary from story to story, and unlike, say, Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael mysteries, years go by between events at St. Frideswide's. Set 24 years before the Wars of the Roses began, signs of the approaching turmoil, like tremors before an earthquake, can be seen.

This Benedictine priory differs from Brother Cadfael's abbey, for more reasons than the three centuries separating them. St. Frideswide's holds fewer than a dozen sisters, who are cloistered and who observe the rule of silence. While provided for, the priory isn't particularly wealthy, and since it's only a priory, it must answer to the abbot of another house. Apart from that of the prioress, elderly Domina Edith, the offices are swapped around each quarter, so a sister won't necessarily stay with one job all her life.

This was the first Sister Frevisse book I've read, and I can't wait to read more. The characters are vivid, our sleuth multi-dimensional, and the historical details seem well researched (although I'm no medievalist). This book has a great little twist at the end, and will keep you guessing!

Margaret Frazer delivers another excellent medieval mystery with her book the Novice's Tale. The tale begins with Thomasine poised to become a nun in a few short weeks. Thomasine is a very gentle novice who has always wanted to become a nun. she has a saintly disposition and is afraid of men. Her hopes may be dashed by her very eccentric aunt Lady Ermentrude. Everyone at St. Frideswides dreads the arrival of her aunt who is very taxing person to be around.

She appears unannounced, then quickly disappears, only to return the next day in a state of wild inebriation. In her drunken state Lady Ermentrude is determined to take the gentle Thomasine from the Abbey. Just as quickly as all this happens she is dead. Could Thomasine have murdered her or is it someone else whose life she has disrupted.

Sister Frevisse is determined to find out who caused her death. she does not want Thomasine to be falsely accused. She diligently questions the people in the abbey to determine who could be the one to gain from Lady Ermentrude's death.

This novel like the others in the series will appeal to mystery and medieval addicts alike

I read this book for a junior year British Lit course and found it very interesting. Margaret Frazer brings to reality the life of a novice in a priory in the 1400's which at first glance would seem very ordinary and boring, but proves to be otherwise.

The story follows a few days in the life of Thomasine, a novice at St.Frideswide priory, who is overcome with the fear and anxiety at the appearance of her aunt, Lady Ermentrude, who she does not care for. Lady Ermentrude visits the priory, unannounced and unwelcomed, for reasons that are revealed at the end of the book. Lady Ermentrude is intensely rude, and unliked by almost all who know her. She breaks the rule of silence; she brings all her maids and men and even a monkey! She comes to take Thomasine away from the priory for reasons only known to her. Tomasine seems to be the most likely suspect for the murder until Sister Frevisse does a little detective work on her own and proves this theory wrong.

I really enjoyed this book. It keeps you quessing til the end. If you enjoy mysteries, this is the book for you.

Hope you enjoy it!!

THE NOVICE'S TALE, the first of Margaret Frazer's Dame* Frevisse mysteries, set in England at the time of Thomas (son of Geoffrey) Chaucer, is adequate enough in setting the framework for the series; IMHO, the series doesn't really take off until the fifth book, but there's still enough here to hold your interest.

Sister** Thomasine, the novice of the title, is a frail yet extremely spiritual girl who loves God and dreads nothing more than being rendered unable to serve God by being married off (her mother died in childbirth and she overheard the women tending her say that Thomasine had inherited her frailty and, thus, would likewise be doomed). Unfortunately, her overbearing (and wealthy) aunt/guardian tends to "tease" her about reneging on her promise, both to Thomasine and to the always financially strapped convent of St. Frideswide, to let the girl realize her dream. Understandably, Thomasine has come to dread her aunt's visits, but this time, her aunt isn't teasing. And the aunt ends up dead. And Thomasine becomes the prime suspect.

Enter Dame Frevisse (the French version of Frideswide), a less-than-perfect nun who, nonetheless, is determined to serve God. Related by marriage to the Chaucers, she sees that there is no possible way, despite all the evidence piling up to the contrary, that this girl who is so obviously destined for sainthood is a killer. Unfortunately, Dame Frevisse is up against the aunt's blowhard son, who is so convinced of his cousin's guilt that he all but invades the convent to have her dragged off to face "justice", aided by an overly arrogant local representative of the law. Chaucer, on one of his visits to St. Frideswide, barely manages to buy Thomasine some time, but it soon becomes clear he is privy to information that might clear the young novice -- except that revealing it might set off a scandal that could be ruinous for England.

Will Dame Frevisse find the true murderer and save young Thomasine from certain death? Read the book and find out.

* Dame - medieval term for "Sister"
** Sister - medieval term for "Novice"

The Novice's Tale, a book by Margaret Frazer is a suspensful tale interlaced with deception, lurid accounts, and quite frankly strange surprises. Of all places the murder mystery takes place in the quiet walls of a fifteenth century convent, run by a motley bunch of inquisitive nuns who don't quite conform to the sterotypes of the'straitlaced' sister. The narrator and main character is Thomasaine, who is a novice or a so-called 'student nun', hence the title the Novice's Tale.' She had a predilection to becoming a nun, because she was attracted to the profession's quiet, and peacful atmosphere. Sadly, Thomasaine recieved more than she bargained for. Through the innocent perception of Thomasaine the story provides the reader with a very origional twist to the grisly murder mystery. The irony in this situation, is that the credulous Thomasaine believes everything in the convent is and will be innocent, and then in her first begining weeks, as a novice she is forced to witness unholy and most certainly uninnocent acts of murder. The good thing that amounts from the grusome murder or murders, is that, it forced Thomasaine to break out of her anti-society shell. I must say the murder or murders that took place were pretty crazy. Well, crazy enough to push the extremely reserved Thomasaine back into society. In the Novice's Tale any reader will be able enjoy suspence, action, nuns in action, humor , and sentimental value. The Novice's Tale is a easy and fun book to read wether your an addicted book junkie or just a picture browser.

This is only the second book that I have read by Margaret Frazer but I was so impressed by the attention to historical detail that I will now be on the lookout for any others that I can lay my hands on. It is very refreshing at a time when a lot of the historical novels being churned out at the moment are mediocre in the extreme to find an author who loves her subject and is prepared to take the time to research it. Many authors think that the time taken to research their subject matter is better employed churning out another book. Some reader's may say that there is too much historical detail but I thought that it added more credence to the story.

The novel takes place in 1431 and has as the leading character Sister Frevisse who is soon called to hone her skills as a solver of mysteries. The arrivalo of the lusty blaspheming dowager lady Ermentrude is a shock to the system of most of the inhabitants of St. Frideswide convent, but before she can get what she came to the convent to retrieve, her niece, the novice Thomasine, the calm and tranquility of the convent is even more disrupted when she is found murdered.

The Novice's Tale was a very interesting book to read. It was exciting, filled with drama and suspense. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a good mystery book. I LIKED A LOT!

THE NOVICE'S TALE by Margaret Frazer. 1431 -- England enjoys a relative period of peace between the conflicts of who shall rule. The year when a widowed queen married Owen Tudor and change the history of England.
Sister Frevisse of St. Frideswide priory is a niece by marriage to Thomas Chaucer. Her life of contemplative peace is disrupted when Lady Ermentrude arrives foaming with fury and drink demanding that her niece by marriag, Tomasine be removed before she takes her vows.
Lady Ermetrude, along with a kitchen maid die and all evidence points to Tomasine as the killer.
A good medieval tale of bond and ties that only death can break.
Nash Black, author of SANDPRINTS OF DEATH.