Tania BayardCritiques

Paris 1393 and scribe Christine de Pizan discovers a body, one that has been stabbed. Later Hugues de Precy, is found murdered, poisoned and his wife is accused. But Christine believes her innocent.
Unfortunately I struggled to finish this as I do enjoy historical mysteries of various kinds. I found it difficult to engage with the characters and therefore the story.
A NetGalley Book

I love a good historical mystery with a central character that is someone I know from history, but I've never really considered as an individual. Murder in the Cloister features just such a "detective": Christine de Pizan, 14th Century feminist, scribe, and writer. Under the cover of copying a valuable book for the Prioress, Christine is sent to the Priory of Poissy. Her real responsibility is uncovering the events and people behind the death of a novice—and Christine needs to act quickly as the priory faces threats from those who object to women directing their own lives, even when they are cloistered.

The mystery is solid, though the revelation when it comes isn't completely unexpected. Readers can see the finger of guilt pointing in a particular direction, but don't know exactly what has transpired to point it that way. What makes this mystery successful isn't that plot line so much as its cast of characters, strong, intelligent women and men with very different views of how the world should be ordered, but who nonetheless must work together to arrive at justice for the victim.

This is the first book in this series I've read, though it is the fourth volume, and I had no trouble following the plot line or grasping the relationships among the characters. I want to go back and read the earlier volumes not to clarify any back-story specifics, but just because I like those characters as depicted by Tania Bayard and want to spend more time with them. I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

1399: Superstition, madness and politics.

Murder and more in an ancient French priory near Paris. A Religious House supported by the King of France.
An interesting medieval mystery read in terms of the history of the times and the widespread beliefs about sorcery.
Christine de Pizan is tasked by King Charles VI, upon the request of the Dominican Prioress, to journey to the Royal Priory of Saint-Louis at Poissy, ostensibly to to copy an important manuscript and visit her daughter who has taken orders there. Christine knows there's more to the matter. The Priory has no need of her expertise, having plenty in house. She will be accompanied by Brother Michel from the Abbey of Saint-Denis and Henri de Picart.
Christine is warned by a member of Queen Isabeau's retinue that, ‘Something is wrong at Poissy, and they’re willing to do what the prioress asks because they’re concerned for their daughter.’ Politics and power play a part in Kingdoms and religious communities.
The Illuminated manuscripts, the nuns singing constantly for France and King Charles the Sixth, who is suffering from melancholia and madness form part of the background. The priory' mission, their 'chief function is to sing the divine office perpetually, to offer prayers to God for the royal family, and for all of France.'
The story flowed easily, the untimely death of a nun becoming an itch in Christine's mind. The characters are well rounded, although the antipathy between Henri and Christina seems to have a long history. Maybe to do with Henri's seeming disparagement about women’s abilities. (I’m not privy to what's gone before). Or does Henri challenge Christine to inflame her? His last efforts makes me think he’s more kindly inclined towards her than she thinks.
Introductions to each chapter with excerpts from various commentaries of the time including Christine's L’advision and Hildegard of Bingen are a fascinating way to illuminate the next episode of the tale.
I really enjoyed descriptions of the nuns singing, the feeling of various listeners being carried away to another dimension by their voices was well portrayed.
This is my first Christine de Pizan Mystery and I'm fascinated to find out about her life before now.

A Severn House (Canongate Books) ARC via NetGalley
Please note: Quotes taken from an advanced reading copy maybe subject to change

This is the third in the series featuring Christine de Pisan, and I would suggest starting from the beginning with In the Presence of Evil and In the Shadow of the Enemy and many of the characters in this instalment have their origins in the first two books, as does the historical background.

It is three years since the events in the previous books; the French court is still a hot bed of political intrigue, the King is still battling bouts of insanity, and witchcraft and sorcery are being touted as the causes for all that has befallen France.

Someone is out to blacken the name of Valentina Visconti, Duchess of Orleans, and it the Fools of the Duke, her husband, that provide both the impetus and clues that Christine will need to solve this mystery.

I am enjoying the series as the setting is medieval France and features Christine de Pisan. These would fall into the category of mystery; they are not particularly action driven though do provide us with an insider's view of the French Court. I am looking forward to the next in the series.

Christine de Pizan is at work when the Duke of Orleans' fools bring her a babe found in the gardens. It isn't hard to see the mischief at hand to implicate the Duchess in witchcraft. Christine sets out to follow the thread to its source. Or will danger find her and her friends first?

Jumping into this series without reading the first two books was not a good idea. There are a lot of characters to keep track of. If it had stayed with Christine instead of jumping to her friends, I think I would have followed it better. Christine made an excellent heroine to follow as she balances her work with family.

I will give the book credit for giving the reader all the relevant information about who is who. There's just so many of them! I also didn't care for how the narrative jumped around from person to person as I found myself confused.

Overall, not a terrible read, Just not an immediate favorite for me. I received a free copy through NetGalley and am reviewing of my own choice. All opinions expressed are my own.½

1393, Christine works as a scribe for Queen Isabeau...

When she comes across a prostitute carrying a bundle while being chased by a big barefoot man, the story takes shape. Christine gets a fleeting glimpse at the cover of the book, leather bound w/ odd symbols stamped into the cover.

Later the same man breaks into the brothel, tearing it apart finds the bundle and takes it to King Charles, who is suffering from severe bouts of maniacal fits.

Later when visiting the palace, Christine finds the man dead, stabbed to death by a familiar dagger behind a large chest, book missing.

After the wedding festivities of one of the Queen's ladies turns into a flaming nightmare, Christine's friend, Alix de Clairy' is found face down next to her husband, who has been poisoned; Alix's hand over the flask.

Christine knows her friend Alix is innocent and sets out to prove it. With the help of a local prostitute, Marion and against the urging of most everyone, Christine investigates the murder of the mysterious man & Alix's husband.

The story had its merits, its plot held my interest. But I found the characters, other than Marion, bored me; they were flat and not particularly likable.

Christine's children were mannerless brats whom she did not discipline, the daily girl was lazy and was allowed shoddy work and manners, her mother disrespectful of the fact that Christine worked because otherwise there would have been no money to keep the household going.

I'll not be reading another.½

Tania Bayard has translated portions of a manual of moral
and domestic instruction written in 1393 by an elderly citizen
of Paris for his fifteen-year old wife.

THE MEDIEVAL HOME COMPANION certainly succeeds as a charming
curiosity of domestic advice from fourteenth-century France. The author, an elderly husband eager to instruct his much younger wife in all the niceties of deportment and housekeeping, offers kindly advice on subjects ranging from respectable dress to ridding the bedroom of fleas to managing servants to the proper season for planting various edibles. He even includes some of his favorite recipes for compote (using five hundred new walnuts), hippocras, four kinds of wafers and candied orange
peel.

Illustrating the text are reproductions of forty medieval
woodcuts depicting such daily tasks as grinding spices, caring
for the sick and bargaining with a merchant.

A reader unfamiliar with the Middle Ages will certainly gain
a feel for the daily lives and responsibilities of householders.
The author, a prosperous citizen with wide-ranging knowledge,
obviously dotes on his young wife, and desires to teach her how
to not only please him, but also to please a second husband, a
likely possibility given the gap in their ages.

Beyond the charm of the book, however, lies little of value
to more informed readers. Bayard has only chosen to include
less than one-fourth of the original text, admittedly omitting
lengthy discussions about chastity, worship, and honor. While
this decision was made to make the book more approachable to
twentieth-century readers, it not only undermines the scholarly
usefulness of the text, but also the broad picture of medieval
life it purports to convey.½

This small volume comprises selections from a middle-aged Frenchman's instructions to his much younger bride on a wide range of topics, most of which guide the practical matters of running a medieval household. The gentleman's devotion to detail, and the time he apparently spent preparing these written instructions, is impressive. I would be interested in reading a translation of the full text.

I thought this was going to be one of those "written by a historian, this is what life was like way back when" books. In fact, it's an actual housekeeping guide written by a 15th-century French guy and edited and translated by Tania Bayard. I probably wouldn't have picked it up if I had known. But it is a good illustration of both medieval housekeeping and the medieval mindset, and valuable to people researching the period.

If you're interested in what a young woman married off to an older man in the 14th century was expected to do then this is a great read. I found this book a fascinating look into a history of normal people rather than the normal look at history through major events.

$2000 mxn

Abridged translation of Le Menagier de Paris.