One of the things I want in a historical is a sense of place as well as a strong sense of time. In Lion of Kent, most of the action takes place in Sir Robert’s household and the surrounding woodlands, so—like many historical writers—we had to ‘build’ an imaginary castle. The best way to convey a sense of place is, of course, to write about a real location, tweaked accordingly to fit the status of our twelfth century lord.

Now, the UK has more castles than there are days in the year, with constructions ranging from scrappy baileys with collapsing walls to earthworks to massive fortresses still inhabited by nobility. Some of them are even in Kent. However, the castle I used as a model for Sir Robert’s household was Warkworth Castle in Northumberland, a place I’d visited back in February.

Lion of Kent is set in 1176, and though Warkworth Castle was constructed at a slightly later date, the basics of medieval castle building changed little in the interim. Warkworth was laid out around 1180-1200 by Roger fitz Roger and developed by its subsequent owners, the powerful Percy family, earls (later dukes) of Northumberland. The great tower was built for the first earl in 1377 by the master mason of Durham Cathedral, and it’s the interior of the great tower that provided the inspiration for a pivotal moment in the story. In this snippet, the hero, young squire William Raven, is returning to the festivities in the great hall when he hears an odd noise:

As he made his way back to the great hall, William heard a sound. He stopped, listening, filtering out the shouts and music from the hall and the hum of noise from the kitchens. At length the strange sound came again, and this time he identified it as two men speaking in urgent whispers. Curious as to who had slipped out of the hall or kitchen for a conversation, William followed the whispers around the dark walls.

Another low murmur, and William drew back. The men were standing directly opposite him on the other side of the light well. From the direction of their voices, the whisperers must be standing in the lower part of the chapel, the section reserved for the household servants. It was as good a place as any for a clandestine meeting, and he wondered who they were and what they were doing.

Light wells are often used in castles not just to provide daylight for interior rooms, but also to collect rainwater to sluice out latrines. Visitors often don’t realise the light wells exist—and certainly I’d never paid any attention to them before!—but the construction of the great tower at Warkworth made a real feature of the light well, which does indeed have a window from a corridor looking across the light well into the chapel.

This is the castle chapel from the direction of the light well—you can see the corbels that originally supported the balcony/mezzanine floor where the lord and his family would have gathered to worship, and at the front you can see the piscina and the edge of the sedile as well as the dais for the high altar. The sacristy is tucked away just to the right. You can see how narrow the chapel is—now imagine it full of household servants. At the height of the Percy’s power, Warkworth had a permanent staff of 166. Our fictional Sir Robert would of course have far fewer servants and retainers, but even so, it’d be quite a crowd!

Throughout Lion of Kent we’ve tried to give a flavour of the hustle and bustle of daily life in a castle, from the food and drink on the table to the procedure for bath times to a knighting ceremony to the various types of entertainment—singing and dancing as well as that most masculine of entertainments, the hunt. We hope you’ll join us in sharing the medieval experience.

- Kate Cotoner (www.katecotoner.co.uk)

My professor was a storyteller. He was a huge inspiration, even if we were slightly scared of him. He’d lunge at you in the small room, point a finger and ask a random question about the Middle Ages. I’ll never forget when it was my turn, first week of my studies: “Who were the Salians?”

I blinked, shocked after having escaped the hugely crowded law studies auditoriums. There was a professor that not only saw me but addressed me, asking a question. What the hell?

My response “a dynasty” was as startled as automatic. I’ve always been into the Middle Ages and read a lot before I’d embarked on the “breadless” subject of Medieval and Ancient History, despite my family moaning about how they didn’t respect me for dropping out of law (having a lawyer in the family could have saved them a lot of money after all).

It was something of a received wisdom to “sit well to the back” in Professor H’s lectures. He’d do that. Sit down on your table and grill you. He radiated boundless energy, sheer glee at his topic, true passion, which can be overwhelming when you’re a first semester still trying to work out what dishes in the canteen are actually edible and which should be avoided at all costs, whereas the other professors were true academics – dry, razor sharp and much more concerned with dates and factual accuracy than what people were like, what they thought and felt.

Over my studies, I was constantly drawn to Professor H’s lectures. It was not only the topics – he did a lot of social history and history of ‘mentality’ – how people and certain groups thought and saw themselves – but the way he delivered the lectures. Walking around, talking like an ancient orator, discussing with himself as much as with us, and asking questions. I remember him telling a story about a duke and a king and a duchess, and the duchess leaving the duke for the king. He got really worked up about this, voice vibrating with emotion, face flushed, saying things like “How could she?” and “That faithless bastard.” I only later learnt that he was going through a difficult divorce himself.

He was the only professor who thought that fiction was a legitimate way to talk about history. “There’s “story” in “history”, you know,” he said one day in the canteen. (In German, “Geschichte” – history – and “Geschichte” – story – is the same word). He was the only professor whom I told that I was writing historical novels. The others sniffed at the idea of leaving the purity of facts behind and asking “what if”?

Back then, I wanted to be a serious historian, and they told you that fiction was not serious. Certainly not serious history. But I just couldn’t help getting inspired by a throwaway comment of Professor H’s. I can now confess that my frantic scribbling in his lectures wasn’t note-taking.

In many ways, Professor H, with his reckless passion and hard questions, was the inspiration behind writing historical fiction. I wondered about the people that had no voice, who lived in the cracks of medieval society, whose life depended on keeping their loves hidden, and how they still managed to stay true to themselves and find a way to live. Those questions turned into stories.

Fourteen years separate “Who were the Salians?” from Lion of Kent. I left university with a degree that wasn’t quite as breadless as my family expected, even though I left academia – and didn’t, because I’ve taken all my history books and keep buying more.

I still sometimes email Professor H, and his passion is still as alive as it was back then. It’s heartening to think that he’ll sit on a first semester’s table and ask them unexpected questions, and that he’ll inspire more writers to move beyond pure facts and find the story in history.

- Aleksandr Voinov
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