The Leper Of St Giles

Brother Cadfael sets out to visit the Saint Giles leper colony outside Shrewsbury, knowing that a grand wedding is due to take place at the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. As he arrives at Saint Giles the nuptial party passes the colony's gates.

In this mystery in the award-winning series featuring a twelfth-century Benedictine monk, Brother Cadfael must travel to the heart of a leper colony to root out the secret behind a savage murder. Setting out for the Saint Giles leper colony outside Shrewsbury, Brother Cadfael has more pressing matters on his mind than the grand wedding coming to his abbey. But as fate would have it, Cadfael arrives at Saint Giles just as the nuptial party passes the colony’s gates. When he sees the fragile bride looking like a prisoner between her two stern guardians and the bridegroom—an arrogant, fleshy aristocrat old enough to be her grandfather—he quickly discerns this union may be more damned than blessed. Indeed, a savage murder will interrupt the May–December marriage and leave Cadfael with a dark, terrible mystery to solve. Now, with the key to the killing hidden among the lepers of Saint Giles, the monk must ferret out a sickness not of the body, but of a twisted soul.

Kriminalroman.

A savage murder interrupts an ill-fated marriage set to take place at Brother Cadfael's abbey, leaving the monk with a terrible mystery to solve. The key to the killing is hidden among the inhabitants of the Saint Giles leper colony, and Brother Cadfael must ferret out a sickness not of the body, but of a twisted mind.

Saint Peter's Fair is a grand festive event, attracting tradesmen from across England and beyond. There is a pause in the civil war racking the country in the summer of 1139, and the fair promises to bring some much needed gaiety to the town of Shrewsbury. Until, that is, the body of a wealthy trader is found in the River Severn. Was Thomas of Bristol the victim of murderous thieves? And if so, why were his valuables abandoned nearby? Brother Cadfael offers to help the merchant's lovely niece Emma. But while he is seaching for the killer, the man's wares are ransacked and two more men are murdered. Emma almost certainly knows more than she is telling, as others will soon realise. Cadfael desperately races to save the young girl, knowing that in a country at war with itself, betrayal can come from any direction, and even good intentions can kill.

One of the most unusual contributions to the crusading era was the idea of the leper knight - a response to the scourge of leprosy and the shortage of fighting men which beset the Latin kingdom in the twelfth century. The Order of St Lazarus, which saw the idea become a reality, founded establishments across Western Europe to provide essential support for its hospitaller and military vocations. This book explores the important contribution of the English branch of the order, which by 1300 managed a considerable estate from its chief preceptory at Burton Lazars in Leicestershire. Time proved the English Lazarites to be both tough and tenacious, if not always preoccupied with the care of lepers. Following the fall of Acre in 1291 they endured a period of bitter internal conflict, only to emerge reformed and reinvigorated in the fifteenth century. Though these late medieval knights were very different from their twelfth-century predecessors, some ideologies lingered on, though subtly readapted to the requirements of a new age, until the order was finally suppressed by Henry VIII in 1544. The modern refoundation of the order, a charitable institution, dates from 1962. The book uses both documentary and archaeological evidence to provide the first ever account of this little-understood crusading order.DAVID MARCOMBE is Director of the Centre for Local History, University of Nottingham.

Medieval monk Brother Cadfael races to save a young man he believes is falsely accused of robbery—in the Silver Dagger Award–winning mystery series. In the gentle Shrewsbury spring of 1140, the midnight matins at the Benedictine abbey suddenly reverberate with an unholy sound—a hunt in full cry. Pursued by a drunken mob, the quarry is running for its life. When the frantic creature bursts into the nave to claim sanctuary, Brother Cadfael finds himself fighting off armed townsmen to save a terrified young man. Liliwin, a wandering minstrel who performed at the wedding of a local goldsmith’s son, has been accused of robbery and murder. The cold light of morning, however, will show his supposed victim, the miserly craftsman, still lives, although a strongbox lies empty. Brother Cadfael believes Liliwin is innocent, but finding the truth and the treasure before Liliwin’s respite in sanctuary runs out may uncover a deadlier sin than thievery—a desperate love that nothing, not even the threat of hanging, can stop. The Sanctuary Sparrow is the seventh book in the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, featuring a “wily veteran of the Crusades.” The historical mystery series earned Ellis Peters a Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger Award—and a legion of devoted fans (Los Angeles Times).