Gwynned and Powys and Normandy, oh my!

Medieval historical novels and mysteries are perfect because they are so far removed from anything relevant to my life (except that one medieval history course seven years ago). Since I randomly found a medieval mystery by Sharon Kay Penman back in July at the St. Louis airport, I've been on a kick of hers.

Here Be Dragons was perfect for a 9-hour cross-country trip. It's the first of Penman's trilogy about the wars and dynasties of England and Wales in the 12th and 13th centuries. Basically, this first novel is about Llywelyn the Great of Wales and his wife Joanna, King John of England's illegitimate daughter. It spans a good 40-something years, from Richard I's to Henry III's reign. What I liked was that Penman frequently used the viewpoints of children and women to introduce new storylines and events. Since theses are the voices omitted from chronicles, I appreciated her creative license and imagination. (Those voices were absent from the Robert the Bruce trilogy Grandpa made everyone in the family read years ago.) I liked how she didn't attempt to put modern notions into the minds of her female characters; she made them believably strong within the religious and gender confines of the times.

More fascinating was Penman's depiction of the relationship between Joanna and her father, the notorious John of Robin Hood legend and Magna Carta grievances. Throughout the book, Joanna struggles to come to terms with the atrocities her father committed against so many people, and the kind and merciful parent she knew. I'd also forgotten the extent of the almost-incestuous ties between all the nobility of the era -- but by placing the reader in the middle of all the plots to marry off daughters to create political alliances, Penman does a good job of conveying how powerless women of all stations were in determining their lives. A little family tree or chart at the beginning would have been helpful, but it also would have given away half the story. (Strangely enough, all those marriages didn't really prevent any wars. And meanwhile the Pope kept excommunicating and un-excommunicating leaders and placing whole countries under interdict, then re-extending the sacraments to them. It's kind of a wonder that the Reformation needed the printing press three centuries later in order to happen....)

Penman also tells of a very multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Britain: Saxon descendents who don't speak French, French-speaking Normans who still don't identify with the land they've ruled for over a hundred years, Welsh feuding with each other and the English Marchers settling in the borderlands. She seems to romanticize the Welsh a little more than anyone else, but I guess that's her perogative, since the book is about Llywellyn's attempt to unify Wales.

The one embarrassing thing was worrying that the person on the plane next to me, a sweet little old lady who reminded me of my grandmother, was reading the sex scenes over my shoulder. But I don't think she was doing that. They were pretty tame, anyway. . .

Waiting for the second book to come from the library.