Medieval Feasts and Famines

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet

World Without End by Ken Follet

I read Pillars of the Earth last year at the behest of multiple devoted fans.  I had seen it all over storefronts and read the book jacket, but I always wound up putting it back.  After I devoured the 900 page book at top speed, I was similarly enthralled. 

Pillars is set in medieval England, and trumpets the tales of a robust cast of characters including Tom Builder, a humble mason who sets out to build the grandest cathedral in all England; his stepson Jack, who has an Asperger's propensity for mastering cathedral design and building; and Jack's mother, the incandescent Ellen who lives in the forest, eschews Christianity, but manages to wrap the monastery bishop around her fingers.  This novel is a sweeping story of medieval politics and religion, set during the dawning of an architectural renaissance in England.  What I liked about it is that you feel like you're in the cathedral town in the 1100s, living through the cold winters in rough hewn houses, enduring the arbitrary and back-breaking rules of the nobility, eating coarse bread with ale for breakfast, and watching arrogant earls gallop by on their warhorses, laughing about the destruction in their wake.  The scope of this book is vast, but it is brought together with simple, elegant language in such a way that it is not overwhelming.

I was delighted to find that World Without End picks up 200 years after Pillars leaves off.  The town of Kingsbridge has flourished, thanks to the economic groundwork laid by the townspeople from Pillars, and a new set of dilemmas comes to Kingsbridge, including the plague.  There are some of the same plot devices from Pillars, including strong female protagonists who gamble everything for the good of their families and the town, and a few nefarious, amoral noblemen who do everything they can to keep the townspeople from prospering.  Prominently featured is strong willed Caris, a shrewd young businesswoman who is forced into the monastic vows while in the throes of an enchanting romantic relationship; and Merthin, a young, visionary mason whose life work is to make Kingsbridge thrive. After witnessing clerical misdeeds nearly ruin the town, after multiple famines, and two devastating bouts of the plague, the Kingsbridge people, embodied by Merthin and Caris, finally achieve glory for themselves by crowning the Kingsbridge Priory with the tallest cathedral in all of England.