Marguerite Makes a Book

Did I say I was through discussing research books on illuminated manuscripts? Then I lied…but only because I forgot about this JEWEL of a book that my sister gave me several Christmases ago!

The books I cited previously that I used in drawing together information for my medieval novel, Illuminations of the Heart, told me much about the art of medieval illumination. But this beautiful little children’s picture book shows, as well as tells. That’s the wonderful thing about using children’s picture books, as we’ve discussed before. They’re all about showing, as well as telling, which for the visually minded writer, can be a priceless gift.

Marguerite Makes a Book is just such a gift. Written by Bruce Robertson, with illustrations by Kathryn Hewitt, this book was published by the J. Paul Getty Museum to give museum goers, children and adults alike, a greater appreciation of some of the treasures contained in that museum.

Marguerite Makes a Book is a story of a young girl, the daughter of a medieval illuminator named Jacques, who is commissioned to create an illuminated prayer book for a beautiful noblewoman. But Papa Jacques is growing old, his hands now shake, his eyes are growing dim, and furthermore, he is injured in an unexpected accident. His family needs the money this book will bring, but how will the prayer book ever be finished in time?

Enter his daughter, Marguerite, who has grown up learning much of her father’s craft. Determined to save both the family income and her father’s reputation, Marguerite sets out to gather the materials necessary to finish “illuminating” the prayer book. We follow her, in both word and picture, as she travels into town to buy some necessary parchment; gathers feathers from which to make pens; purchases herbs and minerals to make paints, and even some sheets of gold leaf. Armed with all these ingredients, she returns to her father’s workshop and finishes the paintings her father is unable to complete. And we get to watch her along every step, thanks to Ms Hewitt’s beautiful illustrations! There is even a page pull-out section where Marguerite demonstrates how she makes each of the four paint colors she needs for her task: red, yellow, green, and blue (the latter made from that precious lapis lazuli mentioned in my earlier posts and included as one of my Medieval Words of the Day).

The visuals in Marguerite Makes a Book are absolutely gorgeous. Many of the pages are bordered with designs similar to what one might find in an actual illuminated manuscript, with scrolling flowers, nesting birds, and little touches of shimmering gold paint (or an excellent imitation thereof) that gave the “illumination” to the “illuminated manuscript”.

This book should delight any child. But it should also delight any adult who would like to “see” as well as “read” about how books were illuminated in the Middle Ages.

More on Castles

Remember how I’m always harping that, when doing research, you need to be sure your medieval “facts” are applicable to your particular era of the 1000 years that made up the Middle Ages? Well, a very helpful comment from British medieval novelist Elizabeth Chadwick, left on my post And In the Children's Section, We Have..., tipped me off to an excellent book to simplify some of your research all in one source, at least where castles are concerned. The book is called The Castle Story, by Sheila Sancha. After reading Elizabeth’s comment, I ordered a used copy through Amazon, and have discovered for myself what a truly splendid book this is!

The Castle Story not only traces the evolution and changes in castles through the Middle Ages, it does so in a lively narrative fashion (this is no dull and boring scholarly tome), accompanied by a liberal number of photos, captions, sketches, drawings and explanatory arrows.

The book is made up of thirteen chapters:

“(1) A Glance at Early Fortifications”, beginning with Iron Age forts through the early Anglo-Saxon period;

“(2) Digging in Behind Earth and Timber Defences”, the evolution of castles in Normandy;

“(3) A Quiet Life in Hall and Chamber” continues with the building of Norman castles in England after the Conquest of Duke William of Normandy, and gives us a feel for the domestic side of castles;

“(4) Great Stone Towers and How to Take Them” turns early wooden castles to stone as we proceed through the reigns of William’s sons, William Rufus and Henry I;

“(5) Siegecraft, Chivalry, and Sheer Brute Force” describes castle developments, and methods invented to overcome castle defenses, during the war between Henry I’s rival successors, King Stephen and the Empress Matilda;

“(6) Changing Times” traces new castle developments during the reign of Henry II, son of the Empress Matilda and successor to King Stephen;

“(7) The Rise of the Gatehouse and the Decline of the Keep” describes castle innovations during the reigns of Henry II’s sons, Richard I (the Lionheart) and (Bad) King John;

“(8) Gothic Arches and Painted Chambers” deals with the great building projects of John’s son, King Henry III, who (as many a history book has suggested), would have been a better architect than he was a king, while…

“(9) Trouble in Wales and Other Matters” shifts the focus to Welsh castles, still during the reign of King Henry III;

“(10) The Heyday of English Military Architecture” describes the great castle building projects of Henry III’s son, King Edward I;

In “(11) Castles Begin to Lose Their Importance” we begin to see the long, slow decline of the castle through the reigns of Edward I’s descendents, Edward II and Edward III;

At the same time, in “(12) The Return of the Square Stone Keep” we follow a fresh surge of castle building taking place in Scotland;

And in “(13) Ending the Story”, we finally come to the end of the great era of castles as the defenses that at one time seemed nearly impenetrable now fall before the discovery of an overwhelming weapon…gunpowder.

I have given you the briefest overview of the chapters above, merely so you can see how in a single book, the chronology of castle development is presented. Choose your characters, choose the king they lived under, and you can then move quickly to study the chapter aligned with that king to help you invent an historically appropriate castle for your characters to inhabit in your own story.

In addition to the chronological advantage of this book, The Castle Story is also chockfull of incredibly useful sketches, drawings and photos. You’ll find examples of castle floor plans, cutaway views of castles, with explanatory arrows pointing to (for instance) the kitchen (on floor one), the chaplain’s chamber (on floor two), another kitchen (on floor three), a water cistern (on floor four), and a guard room (on floor five). On the opposite side of the same castle drawing, arrows demonstrate where the prison would be (below ground level), the portcullis and lobby (first floor), the chapel (second floor), an outdoor fighting deck, and a stair turret.

There are miniature drawings of archers, including how they cocked a crossbow, and miniature men engaging in numerous other means of defense, such as using hand slings, firing a catapult (and how a catapult worked), hurling stones over the castle walls on the heads of their enemies, etc. There are also a multitude of castle photos, many of them with sketches of miniature people “inserted” into the photos. One example: a photo of an actual castle hall, with sketched in people setting up the tables for an upcoming meal.

This book is both incredibly useful and utterly charming in its presentation. Once again, like so many truly excellent research books, The Castle Story, by Sheila Sancha, is out of print, but used copies are available at reasonable prices on Amazon and Alibris.

And in the Children’s Section, We Have…

Okay, I admit it. One of my favorite visual sources for information on the Middle Ages is children’s books.

If you want to know exactly how a castle was built, you can’t beat David Macaulay’s Castle. Why this book insists on being filed almost exclusively in the children’s section of bookstores (along with its companion volumes, Cathedral, City, Underground, and Pyramid, only the first of which actually fits our time period) remains a mystery to me. Yes, it won the Caldecott Honor Medal, which is undoubtedly why libraries and bookstores place it where they do, but it’s such an invaluable resource to adults as well, that if it does not occur to one to wander occasionally into the children’s section to browse the history books, a would-be writer/researcher might never stumble across it.

The Preface to Castles reads:

“Lord Kevin’s castle, although imaginary, is based in concept, structural process, and physical appearance on several castles built to aid in the conquest of Wales between 1277 and 1305. Their planning and construction epitomized over two centuries of military engineering and accomplishments throughout Europe and the Holy Land.

“The town of Aberwyvern, also imaginary, is based in concept and physical appearance on towns founded in conjunction with castles in Wales during the same twenty-eight year period. This combination of castle and town in a military program displays both superior strategical skill and farsightedness required for truly successful conquest.”

Macaulay provides outstanding sketches throughout the book in addition to verbal descriptions, to assist those of us who are still awaiting an opportunity to visit a “real” castle in England. (Or France, or Spain, or Italy…) Do you want to know the difference between an arrow loop and a typical castle window? Just flip to pages 30 and 31, and voila! You couldn’t ask for a clearer mental picture to incorporate into your own stories.

Exactly where was the castle dungeon, and how did one access it? Check out page 40.

Remember our castle garrison from The Castle Explorer’s Guide? If you’d like to know where their living quarters were and what they were like, you can find a description on page 54 of Castles.

Many, many more treasures await you in this book. But unless you search for it online, you’ll have to wander into the children’s section of bookstore or library to find it!

Bonus: Castle, hosted by David Macaulay, is also available as a DVD, available on Amazon.com.

Another of my favorite children’s resources is A Medieval Castle: Inside Story by Fiona Macdonald and Mark Bergin. Through colorful illustrations, this book describes: “A Day in the Life of a Workman” (crafters/builders)—literally—by breaking the pictures and short descriptions into “time increments”. When did the worker arise? 5:30 am. What was he doing by 7 am, by 7:15 am, by 7:30 am, by 8:30 am, clear through till bedtime about 10 pm? Page 11 of A Medieval Castle will break it all down for you.

What did medieval farmers do in January, February, March, April, May, and on through the end of the medieval year? Look up “The Farmer’s Year” on page 23 of A Medieval Castle.

Of course, there are also sections on “The World of the Castle”, “Food and Drink”, “Meals and Manners”, “The Village Fair”, “Hunting and Hawking”, “Tournaments”, and many, many more fascinating subjects, all beautifully illustrated to help your imagination along.

A Medieval Castle (Inside Story) is, like many of my favorite books, no longer in print, but can be bought used on Amazon.com and undoubtedly a
Google search on the title will lead you to other buying options.

If you find yourself stumped to know how to describe, let’s say, a medieval castle kitchen in your fiction, you can’t beat children’s books for a wealth of pictorial ideas. I once drew on a picture of exactly that…a “typical” medieval kitchen from The Oxford Children’s History of Britain: The Middle Ages, by Roy Burrell. There was a boy sorting through a basket of fish, another man boiling fish in a huge iron cauldron, and what particularly leaped out of the picture at me were the two dead geese with their heads dangling over the edge of the table, undoubtedly waiting to be plucked and dressed and served to the lord of the castle for dinner. I wrote a kitchen scene employing a verbal description of snippets of that picture (including the geese with the dangling heads) in my medieval novel, Loyalty’s Web. Sadly, I ultimately had to take out the dangling geese heads during a later word cutting edit, but the fish remain an active part of my scene, as those of you who have read my novel will find on page 29 of Loyalty’s Web.

Again, The Oxford Children’s History of Britain: The Middle Ages is no longer in print, but used copies can be found on Amazon, Alibris, and probably other online book dealers if you Google the title.

However, if you can’t find a copy, there are probably many, many more current, in print books of similar usefulness if you’ll only take the time to visit the children’s history section the next time you wander into a bookstore. (And don’t forget, there’s always your friendly neighborhood public library, too!)

One caveat: Children’s books on the Middle Ages often address their subject with broad, general strokes. If you’re writing a period-specific story, you’ll need to double check the “facts” in these books, to be sure they line up with the era of your own story. For example, jousting (a popular feature of children’s books) did not become a part of the tournament until the 1200s. If you’re writing in the 1100s, you’ll have to stick to the mêlée. Plate armor also came into use much later than the 1100s, so you’ll need to stick to chain mail, regardless of the armor described as “medieval” in an illustrated children’s book. In other words, just double check to be sure the information is historically compatible with the medieval era your story is placed in, and you’ll be fine.