The Pilgrim of Hate
Encyclopedia
The Pilgrim of Hate is a medieval mystery novel by Ellis Peters. It is the tenth in the Brother Cadfael series, and was first published in 1984.
's casket at Shrewsbury Abbey
as described in the first Brother Cadfael novel, A Morbid Taste for Bones
. The holy festival has attracted hundreds of hopeful pilgrims from all over England, but the festival also promises to tax the ability of Abbot Radulfus and sheriff Hugh Beringar to protect the crowds of worshippers from pickpockets and other unscrupulous travellers.
Two parties of pilgrims in particular attract Brother Cadfael's attention. Arriving early is a middle-aged widow, Dame Alice Weaver, shepherding a crippled teen named Rhun and his beautiful sister, Melangell. Aunt Alice has brought her nephew to pray to St. Winifred for relief from the pain caused by his clubfoot, but Rhun is more concerned that Melangell find something to give her life more meaning than caring for him. He accepts Cadfael's help, but the herbalist can do little for the boy's withered muscles and tight, knotted sinews than offer massage and pain relief.
More puzzling are two taciturn young men: Ciaran, who claims to be suffering from a terminal but otherwise asymptomatic illness, claims he is under vow to hobble barefoot on bleeding feet as far as Wales while hampered by a great iron cross around his neck; and his apparent inseparable friend Matthew, who will give no explanation of who he is or why he too has vowed to see Ciaran through to the end of his penitential journey. Cadfael also notices a third party of pilgrims, three merchants who have none of the physical signs of their purported trades and whose suspicious actions lead him to tip off Beringar that they may be masterless men.
In graver matters, Abbot Radulfus has brought news of the legatine council called by Bishop Henry of Winchester
from which he has just returned. Henry called the council, Radulfus tells Beringar, as an attempt to end The Anarchy
, a civil war between the forces of King Stephen
, the lawfully anointed king and Bishop Henry's brother, and Empress Maud, the lawful heiress of her late father King Henry I. This dispute has had the nobility and clerics of England at each others' throats; the dispute comes to a head in Winchester when Stephen's wife Queen Matilda sends an inflammatory message to the bishop, calling him a turncoat. Later that evening, the messenger who delivered the Queen's missive is ambushed in a Winchester alley by supporters of the Empress. A knight named Rainald Bossard, also an Empress's man, steps forward to defend the young clerk and berates his allies for being so foul as to punish the messenger for the contents of his message. The attackers then turn on Bossard, murdering him in front of his men before making their escape. Abbot Radulfus feels Bossard's death very deeply and orders mass to be sung in Shrewsbury Abbey for the repose of his innocent and honorable soul.
Beringar, himself a King's man, receives this news with grave worry about his own future. However, he is cheered when the Empress's envoy sent to court his allegiance turns out to be none other than Olivier de Bretagne, the mysterious knight with whose help Hugh rescued Yves Hugonin from the bandit baron Alain La Gaucher in The Virgin in the Ice
. Olivier also recognizes Hugh as the brave officer whose cavalry charge enabled him to pull off the rescue, and the two rejoice that they can now exchange proper identities and enjoy each others' company without fear of arrest or treason.
Olivier reveals to Hugh that he is in Shrewsbury to search for Bossard's adopted son, Luc Meverel, who has gone missing following his lord's murder. Meverel's absence is a matter of great urgency as Bossard's widow needs his assistance in running the manor; moreover, his sudden disappearance has acquaintances whispering about his own possible motives for murder. Luc was last seen bound north on the road from Winchester; Olivier hopes that he may be one of the many pilgrims crowded at the Abbey. This will also give Olivier an excuse to find an old friend of his, one for whom he "holds the Benedictine habit in kindness," a good old monk who "used [Olivier] like his own son" during their adventure with the Hugonins the previous year.
Brother Denis the hospitaler and Brother Cadfael the herbalist are only too glad to go through their list of guests and patients to look for the name of Luc Meverel. Their failure to find such a name does not discourage Olivier, who assumed from the start that the fugitive Luc might be traveling under an assumed name. His description—that of a dark, well-bred, taciturn young man traveling on his own—does indeed apply to two of the abbey's guests: Ciaran and Matthew. Neither can satisfactorily account for his origins or his destination, and either could be a young nobleman evading his family and friends. However, neither Ciaran nor Matthew is traveling alone. Indeed, they move about as if joined at the hip, which leaves Cadfael and Olivier wondering whether one of the two is Meverel, and if so who the other one is. The mystery intensifies when Ciaran announces that a ring given to him by Bishop Henry to assure his safe passage to Wales has been stolen; the ring is later found in the hands of a young goldsmith who bought it from one of the suspicious tradesmen, thinking it was worth more than the asking price. Cadfael also finds out that Matthew and Ciaran spent part of their trip to Shrewsbury in the company of Dame Alice and her charges, and that Melangell and Matthew had come to an understanding of some sort on the way.
The evening before the festival, Ciaran comes to Melangell and tells her that he is leaving Shrewsbury for Wales that evening. He begs her not to tell Matthew that he's leaving early and says that he's doing it only so that Matthew and Melangell can be together without him being in the way. Melangell believes him implicitly and promises not to reveal the truth. Ciaran limps away westward over the fields, still barefoot, still wearing the heavy cross around his neck.
St. Winifred's day begins with a procession from the abbey church to the leper hospital of St. Giles, where the casket was taken in preparation for the festival, and back to the church. Cadfael worries that he made the wrong decision four years ago in Wales, when (unbeknownst to his fellow monks) he removed Winifred's actual remains from the casket and returned them to Welsh soil. The casket, Cadfael knows, contains instead the remains of a monk who had committed murder in Wales and who was himself killed in self-defence by the victim's daughter and her lover. Cadfael worries that the very fact that Winifred's relics are not in the casket means that her grace does not actually shine on Shrewsbury, and agonizes over whether he returned her to Welsh soil for his own reasons or because (as he fervently believes) she wished it. He looks around at the crowd surrounding the procession and sees Matthew and Melangell together, but not Ciaran.
Once the procession returns to the abbey church and St. Winifred is again placed on her altar, pilgrims, among them Rhun, line up to make their requests of the saint. When it is Rhun's time he is advised by Prior Robert that the saint will understand if he cannot kneel on his withered leg, but Rhun claims he can kneel. As if in a trance, Rhun drops his crutches; as he puts his foot to the ground and climbs the stairs to the altar, the congregation can see his leg fill out and his foot untwist. He kneels at the altar and prays in an atmosphere of complete silence; when he steps back, his foot whole and fully functional, the church is suddenly filled with shouts of praise for the saint who has performed such a miracle.
Later on, Matthew notices that Ciaran is missing and searches for him, but Melangell tries to stop him, saying over and over again that he doesn't need to, that Ciaran doesn't need him any more. He reacts with inexplicable rage, shoving Melangell aside. She grabs at his clothes, desperate and uncomprehending, but he throws her away, smashing his fist into her face to dislodge her grip. Moments later he leaves the abbey and Shrewsbury, hot on Ciaran's trail.
Abbot Radulfus asks Cadfael if Rhun's recovery could be feigned or exaggerated, or if Cadfael's treatments could have caused an improvement that the boy could have taken as a miracle. Cadfael replies confidently that the boy is thoroughly honest and, furthermore, that his defect could not have been repaired by the greatest doctor in the world. Radulfus, moved and reassured, asks Cadfael to bring Rhun to him. They return with a linen carryall ("scrip" in Peters's words) left behind by either Matthew or Ciaran.
Olivier de Bretagne hears that Ciaran and Matthew have left for Wales. He leaves quickly, taking the most likely route, but soon finds that the two have not passed that way. Cadfael speaks to Melangell and finally gets out of her that the two left separately and both headed out over the fields instead of along the north road. Sending word to Hugh Beringar, he borrows a horse from the abbey and follows them. He finds the wounded, half-dead Ciaran and his apparent friend Matthew in a clearing some miles west of Shrewsbury, besieged by the three "merchants" who are indeed felons waiting for darkness to finish the two of them off. As he and Hugh's men fight the three felons as Olivier arrives, one of the felons grabs at the cross around Ciaran's neck, pulling it off before he runs away in an ineffectual attempt at escape. Cadfael turns to Matthew, points at Ciaran, and says, "his life is forfeit: take him!" Matthew glares at Cadfael, looks back contemptuously at Ciaran, and throws down his dagger.
It turns out that Ciaran, a Irishman in the service of Bishop Henry, had stabbed Bossard, wrongly believing that his master would condone the crime. But Henry was horrified both at the fact of the murder itself and at the possibility that he himself could be blamed for his man's actions. Intent on hiding the identity of the killer but loath to let him go scot-free, Henry instead banishes Ciaran from England, telling him that he must make his entire journey barefoot while wearing a heavy iron cross. If anyone finds him wearing shoes or removing the cross at any time, he tells Ciaran, he may be killed without scruple. These instructions are overheard by Bossard's man Luc Meverel, who followed the attacker back to the Bishop's house. He too realizes that publicizing the killer's identity would lead to the end of any possible peace, but unlike Henry also realizes that nobody will hold Ciaran to the Bishop's orders if he does not follow him. Luc therefore accompanies Ciaran under the name "Matthew", hoping that the other man disobeys the Bishop's order so that he may kill him without sin or compunction. But by the time he has the ability to do so, Ciaran is a half-dead shadow of a man who is not worth killing or even accompanying.
Luc/Matthew returns with Cadfael, Hugh, and Olivier to Shrewsbury, where he once again pays court to Melangell. They are married shortly afterwards. Word suddenly comes from London that the Empress Maud has lost London and has had to retreat to the southwest. Olivier declares his intention to follow her, first taking his leave of Cadfael. Beringar, watching him leave, mentions casually that he resembles Cadfael in some ways; the monk replies that Olivier is Cadfael's son.
, a civil war which raged through England from 1135-1154. During the course of the story, King Stephen, having been captured by Robert of Gloucester at the Battle of Lincoln (February, 1141), is now imprisoned in Bristol by the Empress Maud. The plot, which takes place in June of 1141, also details the unsuccessful attempt by Maud and her brother Robert to have her crowned in London, from which she was chased by the Londoners before she could be crowned Queen. As this version stresses, Maud made herself extremely unpopular by the strictures of her government, her arrogant disposition, and her demands for money. The next novel in the series, An Excellent Mystery (novel)
, details Maud's retreat to Winchester, where she was besieged and routed, and her legendary escape from snowbound Oxford in 1142 is mentioned at the end of The Rose Rent
.
Filmed on location in Hungary, this episode starred Sir Derek Jacobi as Cadfael. It aired on December 28, 1998, and was the last of Ellis Peters' novels to be adapted for the screen.
Plot Summary
In June of 1141, the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul is about to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the arrival of St. WinifredWinefride
thumb|right|300px|St Winifred's Well, [[Woolston, north Shropshire|Woolston]], ShropshireSaint Winefride was a legendary 7th-century Welsh noblewoman who was canonized after dying for the sake of her chastity...
's casket at Shrewsbury Abbey
Shrewsbury Abbey
The Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, commonly known as Shrewsbury Abbey, was a Benedictine monastery founded in 1083 by the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery, in Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire, England.-Background:...
as described in the first Brother Cadfael novel, A Morbid Taste for Bones
A Morbid Taste for Bones
A Morbid Taste for Bones is a medieval mystery novel by Ellis Peters, first published in 1977. It was adapted for television in 1996 by Central for ITV. It is the first novel in the Brother Cadfael series.-Plot summary:...
. The holy festival has attracted hundreds of hopeful pilgrims from all over England, but the festival also promises to tax the ability of Abbot Radulfus and sheriff Hugh Beringar to protect the crowds of worshippers from pickpockets and other unscrupulous travellers.
Two parties of pilgrims in particular attract Brother Cadfael's attention. Arriving early is a middle-aged widow, Dame Alice Weaver, shepherding a crippled teen named Rhun and his beautiful sister, Melangell. Aunt Alice has brought her nephew to pray to St. Winifred for relief from the pain caused by his clubfoot, but Rhun is more concerned that Melangell find something to give her life more meaning than caring for him. He accepts Cadfael's help, but the herbalist can do little for the boy's withered muscles and tight, knotted sinews than offer massage and pain relief.
More puzzling are two taciturn young men: Ciaran, who claims to be suffering from a terminal but otherwise asymptomatic illness, claims he is under vow to hobble barefoot on bleeding feet as far as Wales while hampered by a great iron cross around his neck; and his apparent inseparable friend Matthew, who will give no explanation of who he is or why he too has vowed to see Ciaran through to the end of his penitential journey. Cadfael also notices a third party of pilgrims, three merchants who have none of the physical signs of their purported trades and whose suspicious actions lead him to tip off Beringar that they may be masterless men.
In graver matters, Abbot Radulfus has brought news of the legatine council called by Bishop Henry of Winchester
Henry of Winchester
Henry of Winchester was the nickname of:* Henry III of England * Henry of Blois , abbot of Glastonbury Abbey and bishop of Winchester...
from which he has just returned. Henry called the council, Radulfus tells Beringar, as an attempt to end The Anarchy
The Anarchy
The Anarchy or The Nineteen-Year Winter was a period of English history during the reign of King Stephen, which was characterised by civil war and unsettled government...
, a civil war between the forces of King Stephen
King Stephen
King Stephen can refer to a number of individuals. Note that medieval rulers in Serbia and Bosnia used Stephen as an honorific as well as a personal name.Kings named Stephen include:...
, the lawfully anointed king and Bishop Henry's brother, and Empress Maud, the lawful heiress of her late father King Henry I. This dispute has had the nobility and clerics of England at each others' throats; the dispute comes to a head in Winchester when Stephen's wife Queen Matilda sends an inflammatory message to the bishop, calling him a turncoat. Later that evening, the messenger who delivered the Queen's missive is ambushed in a Winchester alley by supporters of the Empress. A knight named Rainald Bossard, also an Empress's man, steps forward to defend the young clerk and berates his allies for being so foul as to punish the messenger for the contents of his message. The attackers then turn on Bossard, murdering him in front of his men before making their escape. Abbot Radulfus feels Bossard's death very deeply and orders mass to be sung in Shrewsbury Abbey for the repose of his innocent and honorable soul.
Beringar, himself a King's man, receives this news with grave worry about his own future. However, he is cheered when the Empress's envoy sent to court his allegiance turns out to be none other than Olivier de Bretagne, the mysterious knight with whose help Hugh rescued Yves Hugonin from the bandit baron Alain La Gaucher in The Virgin in the Ice
The Virgin in the Ice
The Virgin in the Ice is a medieval mystery novel by Ellis Peters, first published in 1982. It was adapted for television in 1995 by Central for ITV. It is the sixth novel in the Brother Cadfael series.-Plot summary:...
. Olivier also recognizes Hugh as the brave officer whose cavalry charge enabled him to pull off the rescue, and the two rejoice that they can now exchange proper identities and enjoy each others' company without fear of arrest or treason.
Olivier reveals to Hugh that he is in Shrewsbury to search for Bossard's adopted son, Luc Meverel, who has gone missing following his lord's murder. Meverel's absence is a matter of great urgency as Bossard's widow needs his assistance in running the manor; moreover, his sudden disappearance has acquaintances whispering about his own possible motives for murder. Luc was last seen bound north on the road from Winchester; Olivier hopes that he may be one of the many pilgrims crowded at the Abbey. This will also give Olivier an excuse to find an old friend of his, one for whom he "holds the Benedictine habit in kindness," a good old monk who "used [Olivier] like his own son" during their adventure with the Hugonins the previous year.
Brother Denis the hospitaler and Brother Cadfael the herbalist are only too glad to go through their list of guests and patients to look for the name of Luc Meverel. Their failure to find such a name does not discourage Olivier, who assumed from the start that the fugitive Luc might be traveling under an assumed name. His description—that of a dark, well-bred, taciturn young man traveling on his own—does indeed apply to two of the abbey's guests: Ciaran and Matthew. Neither can satisfactorily account for his origins or his destination, and either could be a young nobleman evading his family and friends. However, neither Ciaran nor Matthew is traveling alone. Indeed, they move about as if joined at the hip, which leaves Cadfael and Olivier wondering whether one of the two is Meverel, and if so who the other one is. The mystery intensifies when Ciaran announces that a ring given to him by Bishop Henry to assure his safe passage to Wales has been stolen; the ring is later found in the hands of a young goldsmith who bought it from one of the suspicious tradesmen, thinking it was worth more than the asking price. Cadfael also finds out that Matthew and Ciaran spent part of their trip to Shrewsbury in the company of Dame Alice and her charges, and that Melangell and Matthew had come to an understanding of some sort on the way.
The evening before the festival, Ciaran comes to Melangell and tells her that he is leaving Shrewsbury for Wales that evening. He begs her not to tell Matthew that he's leaving early and says that he's doing it only so that Matthew and Melangell can be together without him being in the way. Melangell believes him implicitly and promises not to reveal the truth. Ciaran limps away westward over the fields, still barefoot, still wearing the heavy cross around his neck.
St. Winifred's day begins with a procession from the abbey church to the leper hospital of St. Giles, where the casket was taken in preparation for the festival, and back to the church. Cadfael worries that he made the wrong decision four years ago in Wales, when (unbeknownst to his fellow monks) he removed Winifred's actual remains from the casket and returned them to Welsh soil. The casket, Cadfael knows, contains instead the remains of a monk who had committed murder in Wales and who was himself killed in self-defence by the victim's daughter and her lover. Cadfael worries that the very fact that Winifred's relics are not in the casket means that her grace does not actually shine on Shrewsbury, and agonizes over whether he returned her to Welsh soil for his own reasons or because (as he fervently believes) she wished it. He looks around at the crowd surrounding the procession and sees Matthew and Melangell together, but not Ciaran.
Once the procession returns to the abbey church and St. Winifred is again placed on her altar, pilgrims, among them Rhun, line up to make their requests of the saint. When it is Rhun's time he is advised by Prior Robert that the saint will understand if he cannot kneel on his withered leg, but Rhun claims he can kneel. As if in a trance, Rhun drops his crutches; as he puts his foot to the ground and climbs the stairs to the altar, the congregation can see his leg fill out and his foot untwist. He kneels at the altar and prays in an atmosphere of complete silence; when he steps back, his foot whole and fully functional, the church is suddenly filled with shouts of praise for the saint who has performed such a miracle.
Later on, Matthew notices that Ciaran is missing and searches for him, but Melangell tries to stop him, saying over and over again that he doesn't need to, that Ciaran doesn't need him any more. He reacts with inexplicable rage, shoving Melangell aside. She grabs at his clothes, desperate and uncomprehending, but he throws her away, smashing his fist into her face to dislodge her grip. Moments later he leaves the abbey and Shrewsbury, hot on Ciaran's trail.
Abbot Radulfus asks Cadfael if Rhun's recovery could be feigned or exaggerated, or if Cadfael's treatments could have caused an improvement that the boy could have taken as a miracle. Cadfael replies confidently that the boy is thoroughly honest and, furthermore, that his defect could not have been repaired by the greatest doctor in the world. Radulfus, moved and reassured, asks Cadfael to bring Rhun to him. They return with a linen carryall ("scrip" in Peters's words) left behind by either Matthew or Ciaran.
Olivier de Bretagne hears that Ciaran and Matthew have left for Wales. He leaves quickly, taking the most likely route, but soon finds that the two have not passed that way. Cadfael speaks to Melangell and finally gets out of her that the two left separately and both headed out over the fields instead of along the north road. Sending word to Hugh Beringar, he borrows a horse from the abbey and follows them. He finds the wounded, half-dead Ciaran and his apparent friend Matthew in a clearing some miles west of Shrewsbury, besieged by the three "merchants" who are indeed felons waiting for darkness to finish the two of them off. As he and Hugh's men fight the three felons as Olivier arrives, one of the felons grabs at the cross around Ciaran's neck, pulling it off before he runs away in an ineffectual attempt at escape. Cadfael turns to Matthew, points at Ciaran, and says, "his life is forfeit: take him!" Matthew glares at Cadfael, looks back contemptuously at Ciaran, and throws down his dagger.
It turns out that Ciaran, a Irishman in the service of Bishop Henry, had stabbed Bossard, wrongly believing that his master would condone the crime. But Henry was horrified both at the fact of the murder itself and at the possibility that he himself could be blamed for his man's actions. Intent on hiding the identity of the killer but loath to let him go scot-free, Henry instead banishes Ciaran from England, telling him that he must make his entire journey barefoot while wearing a heavy iron cross. If anyone finds him wearing shoes or removing the cross at any time, he tells Ciaran, he may be killed without scruple. These instructions are overheard by Bossard's man Luc Meverel, who followed the attacker back to the Bishop's house. He too realizes that publicizing the killer's identity would lead to the end of any possible peace, but unlike Henry also realizes that nobody will hold Ciaran to the Bishop's orders if he does not follow him. Luc therefore accompanies Ciaran under the name "Matthew", hoping that the other man disobeys the Bishop's order so that he may kill him without sin or compunction. But by the time he has the ability to do so, Ciaran is a half-dead shadow of a man who is not worth killing or even accompanying.
Luc/Matthew returns with Cadfael, Hugh, and Olivier to Shrewsbury, where he once again pays court to Melangell. They are married shortly afterwards. Word suddenly comes from London that the Empress Maud has lost London and has had to retreat to the southwest. Olivier declares his intention to follow her, first taking his leave of Cadfael. Beringar, watching him leave, mentions casually that he resembles Cadfael in some ways; the monk replies that Olivier is Cadfael's son.
Historical Background
This novel, like the rest of the series, is set during The AnarchyThe Anarchy
The Anarchy or The Nineteen-Year Winter was a period of English history during the reign of King Stephen, which was characterised by civil war and unsettled government...
, a civil war which raged through England from 1135-1154. During the course of the story, King Stephen, having been captured by Robert of Gloucester at the Battle of Lincoln (February, 1141), is now imprisoned in Bristol by the Empress Maud. The plot, which takes place in June of 1141, also details the unsuccessful attempt by Maud and her brother Robert to have her crowned in London, from which she was chased by the Londoners before she could be crowned Queen. As this version stresses, Maud made herself extremely unpopular by the strictures of her government, her arrogant disposition, and her demands for money. The next novel in the series, An Excellent Mystery (novel)
An Excellent Mystery (novel)
-Plot introduction:August 1141, and two monks arrive at Shrewsbury with news of the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Maud. The Abbey of Hyde Mead at Winchester has been burned to the ground. From the moment he meets them Cadfael recognises a bond between the two refugees that goes...
, details Maud's retreat to Winchester, where she was besieged and routed, and her legendary escape from snowbound Oxford in 1142 is mentioned at the end of The Rose Rent
The Rose Rent
The Rose Rent is a medieval mystery novel set in the summer of 1142 by Ellis Peters, first published in 1986. This is the thirteenth novel in the Brother Cadfael series...
.
Television Adaptations
The Pilgrim of Hate was adapted by Central for ITV as the last episode of the fourth season of Brother Cadfael. Sometimes referred to as a "maladaptation," this episode bears almost no resemblance to the novel. In this version, a well-aged corpse is found in the baggage of the pilgrims on St. Winifred's day, and its identity, not the murder of a faraway knight, becomes the subject of the mystery. Matthew and Ciaran are brothers, pointing fingers as to who is responsible for their father's death. In this adaptation Matthew turns out to be the villain.l Crippled Rhun, far from being one of Cadfael's most promising future novices, confirms Father Abbot's suspicions that he is only faking his condition to earn the charity of those around him; his sister Melangell he has guilted into waiting on him hand and foot, and even stealing to support their needs. "Only Cadfael," says one cynical reviewer, "is still interested in the truth, even if it disarranges the plans of any of these unsympathetic characters."Filmed on location in Hungary, this episode starred Sir Derek Jacobi as Cadfael. It aired on December 28, 1998, and was the last of Ellis Peters' novels to be adapted for the screen.