When Christ and His Saints Slept

by Sharon Kay Penman

Book Overview

With this novel Sharon Penman moves to a new set of characters and to 12th Century England and the early civil war between Stephen and his cousin, The Empress Made - A long fight to won the English... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805010157
• ISBN13: 9780805010152
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 746 Pages
• Weight: 2.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.2" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

A nineteen year coma

The reign of England's King Henry II, and his stormy marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine, is, for me, history's most fascinating story. I was afraid that Sharon Kay Penman's treatment of the beginning of that tale in her historical novel WHEN CHRIST AND HIS SAINTS SLEPT would be a frivolous chick-book. Not so.It's 1135, and England's monarch, Henry I, dies. His designated heir is his daughter Matilda, the widow of the German Emperor, who's now married to Count Geoffrey of Anjou. However, many of England's nobles are unwilling to kneel to a woman, and so they persuade Matilda's cousin Stephen, the son of Henry I's sister Adela, to claim the throne. Thus follows a nineteen-year civil war as Matilda contests for the crown, first for herself and then for her first-born son by Geoffrey, Henry. King Stephen fights for himself, and for the right of his son, Eustace, to inherit.If this book had been pure fiction, the author could have been faulted for dragging it out over 738 paper-backed pages as the fortunes of war see-saw back and forth, and England's powerful land barons change from one side to the other, and back again. But the major events of the conflict are all based on historical fact, and one wonders why JC and his saints would sleep so long while the countryside and its inhabitants were caught between opposing sides and brutalized. Were they on illegal substances, you think?During the first five-hundred or so pages, before young Henry is of sufficient age to take serious part in the bloodletting , the author displays fancy footwork in providing a protagonist for the reader to like. After all, Stephen makes an odd villain. He's an honorable man, loving father and husband, and a courageous soldier - but a poor king. Matilda, on the other hand, is brave, steadfast, and a loving mother, but infuriatingly tactless and totally inept at winning and keeping the loyalty of her potential English subjects. So, Penman creates the easy-going character of Ranulf, a fictional illegitimate son of Henry I and a loyal supporter of his half-sister in the wearisome struggle. As Ranulf follows Matilda from slaughter to slaughter and crisis to crisis, he has the time to carry on an adulterous affair with an old flame, and then find his own true love in the mountain fastness of Wales. (Come to think of it, maybe this is too much a chick-book!) In any case, at the risk of unnecessarily extending the storyline, he makes for an engaging character.The last two-hundred pages pick up as the young Henry meets Eleanor of Aquitaine, who's then married to King Louis of France. It's during this last part of an excellent book that we see the man and monarch that Henry is to become, and which makes me look forward to the next volume in the trilogy, TIME AND CHANCE, especially since, through my knowledge of English history, I know what's going to happen. Count Geoffrey otherwise gives us a clue when he advises his eldest son:"The best marriages are those based upon detached goodwill

Penman Vol. 1

Penman emerged long ago as one of the best historical novelists and continues to solidify her reputation with each new release. Her special genius lies in the bright and shining historical detail that she can weave into both plot and dialog (she's a very good student of history and at times is absolutely brilliant in conveying to us the workings of medieval minds).Chronologically, this is the first book. It's also the first in the Henry & Eleanor trilogy (the others are Space & Time and Devil's Brood).There is no doubt When Christ And His Saints Slept will stand as a superior work for ages to come. There is certainly a very complex plot (because this era of English history was quite convoluted). Penman does an excellent job of keeping it all straight for us as she leads us through the maze of characters. Yes, it's complicated but if you read the history of these times you quickly come to see what a great job she did in her design of the story.There are touching moments (everybody seems to remember her scene of Henry meeting Eleanor in the garden of the Cite Palace) and Penman is great at establishing dynamic moments for a wide range of events (the deaths of Kings, Maude & Eleanor's machinations, etc.). But the true genius is the broad historical scope that is painted on top of the shimmering details of brief moments. It truely does feel as if you are living the story yourself, and it is this bringing us readers in as witnesses that stands as Penman's contribution to the art of the historical novel.If you prefer to read in chronological order:1101-1154 When Christ And His Saints Slept (Vol 1 of Trilogy)1156-1171 Time And Space (Vol 2 of Trilogy)12th Cent Devil's Brood (Vol 3 of Trilogy)- not yet released1192-1193 The Queen's Man1193 Cruel As The Grave1183-1232 Here Be Dragons (Vol 1 of Welsh Trilogy)1231-1267 Falls The Shadow (Vol 2 of Welsh Trilogy)1271-1283 The Reckoning (Vol 3 of Welsh Trilogy)1459-1492 The Sunne In Splendour

Fabulous story

There are times when you wonder why people have to make up stories when history provides such wonderful tales. The events in English history portrayed here are an excellent example of this, and Ms Penman does a wonderful job narrating them.We have the fabulous characters of Steven and Maude, and their seemingly endless conflict, and we meet her son Henry and the wonderful Eleanor of Aquitaine, some of the most remarkable people in history. Ms Penman does a wonderful job in animating them for the modern reader.There are adventures aplenty, like Maud escaping from a castle in a snow storm wrapped in a white cloak, as well as all the richly embroidered details of every day life you expect from a great historical novel.Ms Penman is a great writer, as she showed so well with "The Sunne in Splendour", and this is a great book.

Extraordinarily well researched, AND well written!

I've long been interested in the period of history from the fall of the Roman Empire to Elizabeth I of England. Most of my reading about this period has been non-fiction until now. I usually find most historical fiction takes too many liberties with the facts and/or deteriorates into the "bodice-ripper" genre all too common when historical fact is scarce.Ms. Penman's work is, therefore, a pleasant surprise. She sticks to the facts where it matters. She introduces fictional characters as *observers* to the action (as in the character of Ranulf, purported to be one of Henry I's many illegitmate children), rather than active participants who could change the course of history. Where these fictionalized characters were involved in action, it was always along side one of the non-fictional participants, as a "witness." Penman is very careful not to let her fictional characters do too much. Seeing the long civil war through Ranulf's eyes made it seem very personal, and revealed what was probably the real human cost of the bloody and largely unnecessary conflict. It is a device used also by Edward Rutherfurd in _Sarum_ (his description of the of the plague and its contagious consequences from the perspective of the rat is brilliant).I felt that I was looking at a sort of historical "connect the dots" -- there exists some documentation about this period, but there are gaps. Penman has adeptly connected the the known factual battles, seiges, etc. with fictionalized-but-plausible minor events dealing with day-to-day life. I particularly liked her inclusion of concluding notes, in which she explains which characters are fictional, which are "real," and some of the background including different (sometimes conflicting) theories on how/why certain characters acted and reacted.All in all, an excellent effort in shining light on the darkness that fell on England in the twelfth century, a period of chaos followed the Plantagenets, starting with Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. I'll be looking forward to Penman's next book in this series.

Excellent historical fiction

Anyone who loves historical fiction knows how difficult it can be to find a writer who remains historically accurate while at the same time using creative license to flesh out the characters. Sharon Kay Penman does this wonderfully. At the end of the story, she goes into detail and explains exactly where she's taken that creative license, so the reader can separate fact from fiction. I've enjoyed every page of this lengthy saga about the battle between Stephen and Maude for the throne. I read somewhere that this book was the first in a trilogy to be written about the Plantaganet dynasty, and I'm eagerly looking forward to reading more. I'll read anything this woman writes!