Yorkshire 1361.
Sir Ralph de Mandeville has been appointed one of the first justices of the peace by King Edward iii and he travels bringing law to the villages and hamlets in the wapentakes of Yorkshire.
Wapentakes were the administrative divisions of Yorkshire equivalent to the ‘hundreds’ of the other counties. Armed with a map of the wapentakes and the Court Rolls of Yorkshire from 1361-1364 I was able to identify and visit where the sessions were held and what sort of cases were viewed, ranging from cut-pursing, to burglary and homicide, I could picture Sir Ralph and his assistants as I fleshed out their adventures.
Their first adventure is told in Desolation, which was set in the Langbarugh wapentake of North Yorkshire. The second entitled Sacrilege is set in Swaledale. In plotting them Iscourold maps then visit priories, abbeys and old manor houses, walk the moors, follow the rivers and scout out old lead mines. All of these have found their way into Sacrilege.
The novels are set against the backdrop of the second epidemic of Plague, when devotion to the Church offered many their best hope of survival and salvation. Monks, nuns, friars and vicars held great influence and were revered–until they sinned, killed or ended up dead.
The River Swale runs through the valleys of Swaledale in Sacrilege, linking the nuns at Marrick Priory with the Canons of Easby Abbey. The dale’s slopes around the delightful village of Marske, where Ralph holds a sessional court, have been pocked by lead mines since the days of the Romans. Add few unexplained, brutal murders and the adventure begins.
You never know, if you are out and about in Yorkshire you might bump into me, just don’t expect me to be wearing a smock or a monk’s hood. You’ll find plenty of them in my novels–usually fairly blood-soaked…
Read Sacrilege now!