My Tuesday Talk Guest Nicole Evelina
After the Historical Novel Society
Conference in Oxford, England, Helen was kind enough to ask me to be a guest on
her blog, so I thought it would only be fair to talk about something related to
the conference.
My favorite panel was Beyond the Temporal,
in which four authors (Essie Fox, Karen Maitland, Antoinette May, and Mary Sharratt) shared their
experiences of incorporating religion and spirituality into their historical
fiction, as well as highlights from their period research. I liked this lecture
because I’ve always been fascinated by religion and it played such an important
part in nearly every aspect of people’s lives until recent history.
For those unable to attend, here are a few
of my favorite tidbits:
Middle
Ages
- The
demons and fantastic animals portrayed in the architecture of medieval
churches and buildings were very real to the average person.
- At one
point the Church declare it heresy to not believe in vampires and
werewolves.
- Witchcraft
and sorcery were not illegal, though you could be charged with heresy if
you practiced without Church permission.
- As late
as the 15th century, pagan Celtic and Norse beliefs/practices
were still mixed in with Catholic ones.
- It was believed that corpses could climb out of their graves, so criminals were buried at a crossroads, their bodies spun around and placed face down so they couldn’t find their way back to their village.
Renaissance
- Because
the Reformation did away with superstition and created a “pure” religion
based on the Gospels, many people felt unprotected and turned to folk
magic.
- This also
led to a conflation of Catholicism with pagan practices, and some
Catholics were unfairly accused of witchcraft.
- Witch finders were very real. Some believed family members could be the Devil in disguise. Others believed there were vast groups of witches trying to undermine male authority and government.
Victorian
Period
- This time
period was torn between new inventions of science and old beliefs of their
ancestors.
- There was
a firm belief in ghosts.
- The cult
of mourning and death came partially out of the fact that there was a high
mortality rate and death was all around.
- Mail
order companies existed to fill all your mourning needs from clothing to
memorial jewelry.
- Seemingly miraculous (and invisible) advances like x-rays, electricity and the telegraph enhanced the idea that one could see or communicate with the spirit world.
In my own books, you’ll find ample
reference to the religion(s) of the time and place. The pagan/Druidic religion
of the Celts plays a strong part in my Guinevere’s tale stories (Daughter
of Destiny and Camelot’s
Queen – a BRAG Medallion winner – are currently available. Mistress of Legend should be out in
2017) which are set in late 5th and early 6th century
Britain. One of the things I wanted to explore in this series was the tension
between the old religion of Britain (which I’ve chosen to define as the Druid
faith) and the ascending power of Christianity. We really don’t know for
certain when Christianity came to Britain or when it became dominant. Some
scholars say it was already the main religion of the people by the time my book
opens in 491 AD, especially given that Constantine legalized it in the early
300s. However, as the Celtic Church’s later squabbles with Rome show, change
took a long time to travel from Rome to Britain, and when it did, it was often
slow to be adopted. Therefore, it’s my personal belief that the period of my
novel was still a time of transition when the old ways were dying out and
slowly being replaced by Christianity.
Establishing Guinevere as an Avalonian
priestess and showing the old beliefs during her time on Avalon gives the
reader a baseline to contrast with the predominance of Christianity that she
experiences once she leaves Avalon, and later on into later books. I spend
quite a bit of time in Daughter of
Destiny on Guinevere’s time in Avalon because I wanted to show an
approximation of what Druidic training may have been like. Due to the nature of
a novel and the rest of the story I had to tell in the first book, I had to
speed up the historical 20-year process to four years, but I have my students
study subjects that Druids likely did. In addition, in keeping with Celtic
belief, my magic is more subtle than in a lot of fantasy. I show rituals based
on neo-paganism because we don’t have sources from that time period to draw
from.
Moving ahead 1,300 years in time…You
wouldn’t think that a book about the first female presidential candidate of the
United States would have a religious aspect, but Madame
Presidentess does. Victoria
Woodhull, whom the book is about, was a Spiritualist and a practicing medium
who believed she had clairvoyant and healing powers. Victoria’s mother
encouraged her and her sister Tennie in this belief and her father used these
gifts to make money even off of them when the girls were very young. Victoria
maintained her whole life that she was guided by the spirits, especially that
of the Greek orator Demosthenes, whom she identified as her spirit guide. She
claims he predicted her success in New York as well as her candidacy. Victoria
said she consulted the spirits regularly, supposedly even for stock tips
(though there’s a secular explanation for that as well). She was even president
of the National Spiritualist’s Association.
Regardless of the time or place, religion
was interwoven with daily life of people for most of the last 3,000 years or so.
From the ancient Egyptians to the strict Christian/Catholic upbringing of many
people into the 1950s/1960s, religion directed gender roles, life choices and
social morals, so I feel it is an important way to give historical fiction
novels authenticity, as well as explore cultural aspects that impact the
characters.
Website: nicoleevelina.com
Twitter @nicoleevelina
Daughter of Destiny
Reviews; Grand Prize, Chatelaine Awards, Women's Fiction/Romance; Gold Medal Winner, Fantasy, Next Generation Indie Book Awards; Gold Medal Winner, Fantasy, Readers Choice Awards; Winner Colorado Independent Publisher's Association (CIPA) EVVY Awards, Fairytale/Folklore
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
Reviews; Grand Prize, Chatelaine Awards, Women's Fiction/Romance; Gold Medal Winner, Fantasy, Next Generation Indie Book Awards; Gold Medal Winner, Fantasy, Readers Choice Awards; Winner Colorado Independent Publisher's Association (CIPA) EVVY Awards, Fairytale/Folklore
Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
Madame Presidentess
a historical novel about Victoria Woodhull, America's first female Presidential candidate (Chaucer Award Winner, First Place US History Category, Historical Fiction)
a historical novel about Victoria Woodhull, America's first female Presidential candidate (Chaucer Award Winner, First Place US History Category, Historical Fiction)
A lovely informative post. Funnily enough, I'm just writing a piece and taking issue with someone who complains about the constant mention of and reference to God in a novel about the Tudors. I'm pointing out that to them, He was an abiding presence and that yes, they really did pray. Often.
ReplyDeleteHi Anne! Thanks for reading. Yeah, I find it odd when people don't realize how important religion used to be to most people (and still is to many). Good for you for setting them straight!
DeleteToo many today wish to write historical fiction with 21st century attitudes and sensibilities. And that's not going to work.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. As a writer, I can say that it's a hard situation to be in because you are trying to balance making the story relatible/appealing to a modern reader with being historically accurate. It's my hope that most historical fiction writers take that challenge seriously.
DeleteThank you Annie and Mystic Scholar for dropping by - and thank you Nicole for such an interesting article!
ReplyDelete