The Potters Field: The Seventeenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael [Hardcover]

Ellis Peters (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1990

The year is 1143 and this is the 17th chronicle of Brother Cadfael of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, at Shrewsbury. Once again, the gentle monk is forced to leave the tranquility of his herb garden and use his knowledge of the human nature to solve a murder--this one frighteningly close to home. 2 cassettes.

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Peter's 17th mystery featuring Brother Cadfael finds the 12th-century monk at his most sober and reflective, but his detecting talents are as dazzling as ever. When a newly tilled field recently given to the Benedictine abbey yields the hastily buried body of a young woman, Brother Cadfael takes a keen and immediate interest in the situation. Ruald, the former tenant of the land, entered the abbey as a novice a year earlier, abandoning his beautiful, young and extremely resentful wife, Generys. She has since mysteriously disappeared. Though it seems likely that the body is hers, Ruald is quickly cleared of suspicion via an unlikely source. Sulien Blount, a monk fleeing homeward from the devastating civil war near his own abbey, has solid proof that Generys was recently seen alive. When a second suspect, an itinerant peddlar, is arrested in connection with the murder, Sulien is again able to clear him. Brother Cadfael, deeply troubled, feels that Sulien knows much more than he is saying. An unusual air of melancholy pervades this novel as war, illness and human frailties take their tolls on the weary citizens of Shrewsbury. Created with Peters's consummate skill, Brother Cadfael's world is here seen through a darker glass.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

'A pleasing and unusual mixture of suspense and historical fiction.' EVENING STANDARD --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 179 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Press (October 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892964197
• ISBN-13: 978-0892964192
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,058,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling and Touching Mystery, July 12, 1999

By 

Stacey M Jones (Conway, Ark.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Potter's Field: The Seventeenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the first Brother Cadfael I have been talked into reading, and I loved it. The characters are compelling and touching and the perpetrator of the crime is understood by the Benedictine monks, and, thus, the reader. It's the mystery that sucks you in, but it's the character development and the way the author tells of Medieval life that are the value here, I think. At the end, I teared up a bit. I'm anxious to read more about Brother Cadfael and his colleagues!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Troubling Matter, November 1, 2010

By 

harpergirl "harpergirl" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Potters Field (Cadfael Chronicles) (Paperback)

I have read all the books in the Cadfael series, and enjoy the gentle manner of most of the characters. Ms. Peters' historical setting is intriguing, although she represents the medieval world as seen through rose-colored glasses. Yes, there is sex, violence, and other villanies, but there are no lurid details, and this is refreshing to my palate.

But there is one matter in this book which really troubles me. I cannot accept that Brother Ruald, after making matrimonial vows to his wife, Generys, can simply walk away from those vows to make another vow as a monk. From a very human point of view, he abandons a blameless woman who has been faithful and loving, in order to fulfill his OWN desires to be a monk. How selfish! Does the call to a religious vocation absolve one from vows previously taken and from responsibilities freely accepted in the world? Ruald's abandonment of his wife seems to me a great sin and the fact that he later repents of his treatment of her is not satisfying.

Perhaps not a flaw in Peters' writing, plotting, and historical research, but troubling nevertheless.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Buried memories, May 12, 2006

By 

Beverley Strong (Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Potter's Field: The Seventeenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael (Mass Market Paperback)

In this 17th chronicle of the detective monk, Brother Cadfael is asked to help to identify the body of a woman who was discovered when the monks of the Abbey of St.Peter and St.Paul began to till a field which had just been donated to them. The field was previously occupied by Ruald, a local potter who abandoned his wife of many years to become a monk, claiming that he had a divine calling from God, and the fact that he was leaving his wife neither free nor widowed, was immaterial. Local rumour has it that Ruald's wife, Generys, ran off with a lover and, as she was a very beautiful woman who certainly did not appreciate being dumped, even for God, this rumour was generally accepted. It's the year 1143 and the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud is still raging, with the armies of both sides doing great damage to the countryside and the people. When an Abbey in the fens was seized by renegade soldiers under Geoffrey de Mandeville, the monks were forced to flee to safety and one of them, a young man who was still a novice, comes to Shrewsbury. Sulien Blount is the younger son of a local noble family and begs admission to the Abbey to continue his novitiate. Sulien has a ring belonging to Generys and claims that he obtained it recently from a silversmith near the besieged Abby, which proves that she is still alive and so the body which was found cannot be hers. When the Sheriff, Hugh Beringar is commanded by the king to take a troop of soldiers to the fens to flush out the marauders, he takes the opportunity to visit the silversmith to find out the truth about Generys ring. Between them, Cadfael and Hugh discover the truth behind the body which was buried in unconsecrated ground...an unbelievably shocking thing in those times.