Search This Blog

Thursday, May 25, 2017

A Medieval Female Exorcist - Dark Maiden. Historical Romance by Lindsay Townsend

Yolande, the heroine of my latest medieval historical romance novel, 'Dark Maiden' is an exorcist. Her father, who was born in Ethiopia (a country with very ancient Christian roots) was an exorcist. Her mother was born in York.

As is now being discovered, there were people of African descent living and working in Britain, especially in cities and ports like York. Archaeology discovered a Romano-British grave in York where a woman of black African and mixed race heritage had been buried in a rich tomb with grave goods. Archaeology also uncovered a tomb of a man of north African descent buried at a medieval friary in Suffolk, England, close to the port of Ipswich. According to bone specialists he had a bad back! The thirteenth century statue of Saint Maurice in Magdeburg cathedral in Germany clearly shows him as African.

Half-African, half-English, Yolande is the dark maiden of the title, a spiritual wanderer and warrior, helping those tormented by the restless dead and assisting the restless dead themselves to find final peace. She lives and works in England during the time of the Black Death.

Statue of St. Maurice at Magdeburg
I chose this time period quite carefully. Women during the Middle Ages could not be priests but during the period of the Black Death, when thousands died, including hundreds of priests, the church allowed women to take confessions from dying people. In early 1349 the bishop of Bath and Wells wrote to his priests to encourage all men to confess, before they were taken by the pestilence. He added that if they had no priest they should follow the teaching of the Apostles and confess to each other 'or, if no man is present, even to a woman'.  (From translation in Philip Zeigler, The Black Death, page 125).

Medieval people also believed that in a crisis anyone, priest or lay person, could perform an exorcism because every Christian has the power to command demons and drive them away in the name of Christ.  I took these ideas and developed them, allowing my Yolande to become an exorcist.

In 'Dark Maiden' I have Yolande and Geraint  (a travelling player who becomes her friend, help-mate, lover and finally husband) face several encounters with both restless spirits and also demons. My ideas have always been shaped by the real beliefs of the time. So in 'Dark Maiden' there are evil spirits, restless ghosts called revenants, an incubus and vampires - all paranormal creatures with a medieval slant.

I'll talk about these in other blog articles.



Read Chapter One

Lindsay Townsend

4 comments:

  1. Very interesting! Your book sounds wonderful, Lindsay!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's a challenge to write strong, independent women during historical time periods when it was difficult to impossible (and dangerous) for so many women to be outwardly strong and independent. Yolande certainly seems like a woman who was able to break out of traditional roles and become her own woman. It's interesting to me that out of tragedy/hard times/hopeless often comes drastic change and opportunity. The wide-spread devasttion of the Black Death opened up opportunities for women that hadn't been available before. Best of luck with this story.

    ReplyDelete
  3. History, heroines, love, what's not to enjoy. Doris

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for your comments, Doris, Kaye and Kristy. I agree, Kaye, about hard times often being the spur to change. After the Black Death in medieval England the survivors had more chances. Brutal, but true. It was the attempted suppression of rising wages that led to the Peasants' Revolt.

    ReplyDelete