Hello!

[Lauryn]

Hello, everyone!

I just stumbled onto this site, after poring over Sharon Kay Penman's site. HF is one of my favourite ways to spend a day (or week, or month). My bookshelves have space for SKP, as mentioned, Elizabeth Chadwick, Diana Gabaldon, Philippa Gregory, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Libba Bray, Manda Scott, Reay Tannahill, Edward Rutherford, Bernard Cornwell .... to name a few. I'm certain that my collection will grow by leaps and bounds as I peruse the forums here, too.

I'm delighted to see so many published and aspiring authors here - not only because it adds a marvellous depth and breadth to the conversations, but as encouragement, technical support and cheerleading for those of us who believe we may have a book in us somewhere.

I have recently felt the urge to start researching the life and times of William the Conqueror, who sometimes appears to have emerged fully formed from the fog and the mist of medieval Normandy. I hope this develops into a book, time will tell.

[diamondlil]

Hi Lauryn and welcome to the site! Thanks for introducing yourself.

I look forward to seeing you around the boards! You do have some very good authors listed there!

Marg

[Divia]

Welcome aboard.

And yes I agree the published authors here have given us a wealth of knowledge. They rock :)

[Anna Elliott]

Hi Lauryn,

It's great to meet you and welcome! I smiled reading your post because your list of favorite authors could easily have been mine. Nice to see you mention Libba Bray--I don't often meet anyone familiar with her books, and I love them!

[diamondlil]

Another big Libba Bray fan here Anna! I really need to hurry up and read the third book in her trilogy

[Divia]

I liked them, but I wont lie the third was a tad winded for me. Shes working on a new one, but it doesnt interest me much.

[juleswatson]

Hi Lauryn, and welcome to the forum. Diana G and Marion ZB are my all time favorite authors. Great list!

[Vanessa]

Hi Lauryn

Hello and welcome - hope you enjoy it here!

[Anna Elliott]

Another big Libba Bray fan here Anna! I really need to hurry up and read the third book in her trilogy

Oooh, no spoilers, but I'll be interested to hear what you think of the third book's ending! :)

[Leyland]

Welcome to HFO, Lauryn. Very cool about your William research - his background also interests me. I've hopped and skipped through David C Douglas' biography William the Conqueror that I'm keeping in my permanent library, but need to get more in depth with it someday. http://www.amazon.com/William-Conqueror-England-English-Monarchs/dp/0520003500/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240060213&sr=1-1

[MLE]

Welcome, Lauryn. I love historically accurate fiction, glad to hear more people thinking of writing it!

[EC2]

Welcome to the forum Lauryn. It's a great place for discussion - and so pleased you found it from SKP's blog. SKP is one of my favourite authors too.
I am hoping to be working on 3 novels about the women (and men!) of the Norman Conquest. I think W the C had a very interesting back story. I have studied it before - but a long time ago and I need to get back up to speed and brush the cobwebs off my basics.

[Lauryn]

Thank you to everyone for your welcome - I'm more excited about this site, the more I explore!

Libba Bray is an author I stumbled onto after a chat with my friend's teenaged daughter. I'm known as the History Geek in our circle of friends, and she wanted to ask me questions about the historical background to A Great and Terrible Beauty, which of course meant that I had to read it. (Oh the sacrifices we make for our friends!;) )

Thank you, Leyland, for the referece on William - I'm going to track that down now!

To EC2, I am really delighted to be able to chat with writers such as yourself. The first title of yours I discovered was The Conquest, which wasn't
the novelized biography of Himself that I had set out looking for that day, but gave me a pretty clear notion of day-to-day life at the time of the great events. The bibliography at the end was a treasure too - although I have only just begun to track down those titles, I have a partial roadmap into his past, and that is tremendously reassuring for a self-taught researcher.

One aspect of his reign has always been very intriguing to me, as an avid needleworker, being the Bayeux Tapestry. I have read a few opinions on it, regarding the design, and the political bias in the depictions, but most of those opinions appear to have been from a textile perspective, and less of an historical one. One question which arose for me, that i hope one day to work out an aswer to, is this: If it was intended as propaganda, or as a tribute to him, why are there so few other works celebrating subsequent monarchs? (I would say "none" but I'm sure I'm simply not aware of quite a few.) What makes this one so much more famous than anything that may have been done in celebration of, say, Richard Lionheart or Henry Tudor the VII? The man himself doesn't seem to have been any more or less loved - or feared.

I'm in danger of starting a whole novel right here, so I'll stop while I'm ahead!

[Madeleine]

Welcome Lauryn, and good luck with William.

[EC2]

T

To EC2, I am really delighted to be able to chat with writers such as yourself. The first title of yours I discovered was The Conquest, which wasn't
the novelized biography of Himself that I had set out looking for that day, but gave me a pretty clear notion of day-to-day life at the time of the great events. The bibliography at the end was a treasure too - although I have only just begun to track down those titles, I have a partial roadmap into his past, and that is tremendously reassuring for a self-taught researcher.

One aspect of his reign has always been very intriguing to me, as an avid needleworker, being the Bayeux Tapestry. I have read a few opinions on it, regarding the design, and the political bias in the depictions, but most of those opinions appear to have been from a textile perspective, and less of an historical one. One question which arose for me, that i hope one day to work out an aswer to, is this: If it was intended as propaganda, or as a tribute to him, why are there so few other works celebrating subsequent monarchs? (I would say "none" but I'm sure I'm simply not aware of quite a few.) What makes this one so much more famous than anything that may have been done in celebration of, say, Richard Lionheart or Henry Tudor the VII? The man himself doesn't seem to have been any more or less loved - or feared.

I'm in danger of starting a whole novel right here, so I'll stop while I'm ahead!

The Conquest was written before I got a taste for the full biographical fiction, but was where I got my grounding in the period - along with being a member of Regia Anglorum!
Have you read Helen Hollick's novel Harold the King and her take on the period? There's also Carol Wensby Scott's Proud Conquest (I think that's the title). I read it yonks ago, but really enjoyed it. Valerie Anand's Gildenford series set around this time is superb. Sarah Bower's The Needle in the Blood is about Bishop Odo, his mistress and involves the stitching of the tapestry.
Very interesting what you say about the Bayeux Tapestry. The usual comment I've heard is that there probably were other works but they've been lost. The survival of early period textiles is pretty hit and miss and it is quite likely that there were other pieces to do with the lives of royalty that got eaten by moths/destroyed by fire and flood/looted/unravelled etc etc.
I wonder if the BT was originally hung up where people had to form a queue, so that as they advanced slowly along the line they got the full story!
I've just been at the Tower of London and seen the Queen's coronation cloak. Wow! I am in awe of such delicate and rich needlecraft. The medieval seamstresses who embroidered the famous 'Opus Anglicannum' pieces must have been skilled indeed.

[Carla]

Hello and welcome!

I wonder if the Bayeux Tapestry was intended to be hung in a feasting hall. Embroideries for that purpose have to be long and fairly narrow, because they have to be hung high enough for people to see them over everyone else's heads but not so high that they disappear into the shadows. That's quite a narrow space, hence a narrow embroidery. A similar embroidery survived in one of the Viking period graves in Norway, I think it was the Oseberg ship burial, but don't quote me on that. It was long and narrow like the Bayeux Tapestry and had been rolled up for storage in the ship. The Normans were only a few generations on from the original Viking settlers by the time of William and Odo, so I wonder if this was a Norse tradition that was carried into Normandy?

[boswellbaxter]

Hi, Lauryn! Glad to have you here.

[annis]

Hi Lauren, welcome to the forum.

If you can track down a copy, you might find John Wingate's 1983 novel, "William the Conqueror" interesting. it's quite detailed, and almost reads as faction. For the Conquest from the Norman POV , Merlin Douglas Larsen's "Jackals in Iron" (http://www.amazon.com/Jackals-Iron-Merlin-Douglas-Larsen/dp/1888106832) is well worth a read. It's the story of Count Guy of Ponthieu.

Carla's idea about the Bayeux Tapestry's use makes sense. I'm just reading a novel about the Tapestry at the moment- Peter Benson's "Odo's Hanging" (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/book-review--embroidering-our-history-odos-hanging--peter-benson-hodder-1499-pounds-1455962.html) It's a beautifully written little story, not only about the creation of the Tapestry, but about art, God and the natural world, and features the designer, Thurold, his mute assistant, Robert, the nuns who embroider it, and a very unpleasant Odo, who is much more as I imagine him to be than "Needle in the Blood"'s version.

* Edit The BT was lucky to survive the French Revolution. During the anarchy of 1792 it was suddenly requisitioned as a covering for a military cart in need of canvas, from which peril it was rescued by a Commissary of Police; but again, in 1794, it was in danger of being cut up and used as a decoration during a civic festival, from which fate it was happily once more rescued. In 1803 it was taken by order of the First Consul Napoleon for exhibition in Paris, but returned to Bayeux the next year. Its condition did dteriorate as a result of mishandling, though.

[Carine]

Hi Lauryn, welcome here !
You've mentioned some of my favourite authors there as well !
The Bayeux Tapestry intrigues me too, last year I went on a trip to Normandy and have seen it.

[sweetpotatoboy]

Welcome to the forum. I share many of your favourite authors!! And I definitely think there's room for a book on William.

[zsigandr]

Hello and welcome Lauryn! I too enjoy some of the authors that you do and we can always use another HF novel! :)