I discovered Sansom’s Matthew Shardlake series nine years ago, after a legal colleague introduced me to them. Since then, I have occasionally added one to my reading list - I am a sucker for a good mystery, and these are, shall we say, far above average.
Sadly, Sansom recently passed due to cancer, and there will be no more of these books forthcoming.
I have previously blogged about Dissolution, Dark Fire, and Sovereign.
One comment that I have seen about the series (although I can’t remember who said it) was that while most historical mysteries feel like modern stories in dress costumes, Sansom’s actually feel of the time in which they are set. The sights, the sounds, and especially the smells come to life. And, even more importantly, the characters act like people from their era, not like modern people transported back in time. This book is an excellent example of that.
Just one humorous example is that Shardlake notes that he is past age 40, and can no longer pass for a young man.
Another is the mention of The Castle of Perseverance as a commonly performed play.
Set after the fall of Thomas Cromwell, and the execution of Catherine Howard, the story opens with London abuzz about the potential marriage of Catherine Parr to the king - she was a widow who intended to keep her head on her neck - and she managed to do so, outliving Henry VIII.
At this time, there was also incredible ongoing religious unrest. Initially after Henry’s break with the Catholic Church, there was a push to reform religious institutions. The first book in the series, Dissolution, is all about the confiscation of the monasteries. Things swung back around, as they tend to, and by the time of this book, a new royal adviser was suppressing dissenting congregations - which meant anything that wasn’t like the new Church of England in belief and forms.
As this swirls around London, Shardlake, formerly an earnest reformer, finds himself doubting his faith altogether. It isn’t difficult to see why, with the endless violence and repression. As he notes, with the reform project increasingly looking like a new veneer to political power and oppression, it was hard for those who, twenty years prior, had been “hoping for a new Christian fellowship in the world.” That’s very much me these days, disillusioned, and disappointed that such a fellowship seems limited to a few friends.
Along with this, there has arisen a number of radical sects, with the obsession with “holiness” that would characterize the Puritans later, and the belief that the end of the world was imminent.
Thus the title: the obsession with the book of Revelation and the end times drives all of the plots in this book.
A little background here. When what we now call the New Testament, or Christian Scriptures, was being compiled and assembled a couple hundred years after Christ, there was a huge debate about what to include and what to reject.
Contrary to what I was taught in Evangelicalism, the decision was not made based on whether the writer personally knew Jesus or had a divine experience like St. Paul. Rather, the decision came down to whether the committee that selected the library felt that the book was “useful” for Christian practice.
That’s not subjective at all, of course, right?
So, not only were the books that were written earliest - the genuine Pauline epistles (Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon) included, many later books, including the known and obvious forgeries (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus), anonymous books (Hebrews), and books written by Greek or Roman authors who never knew Christ (Luke, Acts) were included.
The most controversial inclusion, however, was Revelation, aka the Apocalypse. (Both mean “revealing.”) Purportedly written by St. John, although that attribution is dubious for several reasons, it was nearly not included, and barely made the cut.
As to authorship, it clearly is not written by the same author as the Gospel of John, or the epistles of John. (And it is also doubtful that St. John would have been literate at all - few fishermen could read and write back then.) During the arguments about inclusion, there was a fierce debate about who actually wrote it, with several known heretics offered as possible authors.
The best modern guess is that it was written by a mystic and spiritual leader, who used “John” either for “in the style of” or because he shared the name with the apostle. He wrote quite poorly in Greek - one of the challenges of translation is his poor command of the language.
The genre is that of “apocalyptic” literature - you can find it in the second half of the book of Daniel, and in numerous other writings that are not part of scripture. It is a response to persecution, and is a commentary on current and past events and a hope for future justice. It is not in any sense, a literal prediction of the future, and would not have been understood as that in its time.
These days, however, thanks to religious charlatans like John Nelson Darby, who invented Dispensationalist eschatology in the 19th Century, most purported Christians believe Revelation is exactly that: a prediction of the End Times™ which are surely upon us.
Back in the days of Henry VIII, there was another period of obsession with Revelation, which is the background to this book. Then as now, there was a period of great cultural and religious change, driven by forces greater than any one man - or any one nation - could control. The Plague left Europe short of workers, leading to changes in the economic systems, faltering faith in the Roman Church, and the rise of national identities.
Many of those who felt powerless in the face of these forces driving volatility and upheaval turned to Revelation and obsessive religion for a sense of control and security that they lacked in their own lives.
Much like we see today.
Against this background, Sansom chose to tell a tale of a serial killer. What’s that you say? Isn’t that a modern idea?
Yes it is…but also no. Sansom explains in his Historical Note at the end that some of the serial killers of the middle ages and early modern age were real - he looked up their cases. The one he uses as an example in England is fictional, but based on other European people.
The genius of how Sansom handles the issue is in the way his characters try to understand what a serial killer is.
Is he possessed by the Devil? Is he insane? Oh, and that is the other plot - a young man goes insane and ends up at Bedlam, where Shardlake is appointed to represent him. What is insanity?
At this point in history, there is ample evidence of these questions being asked, and the dawning realization that “possessed” was not a helpful way of understanding severe mental illness.
The particular twist that Sansom puts on the serial killer is fascinating. The killer has clearly become obsessed with the passages in Revelation where the wrath of man and God is poured out on humanity. The seals/vials become patterns for his killings - each killing must in some way match the curse in the book.
Not only that, but the targets of the murders, while initially seeming unconnected, eventually are revealed as being former reformers who have “backslidden” in some way - either they have lost their fervor for reform (like Shardlake’s colleague and friend Roger) or fallen into sexual sin (a pastor who had a prostitute on the side.) And, after the seven murders, who is next? Will the killer go after “the great whore”? And who might that be?
So, the murder plot, the young man gone insane for unknown reasons, religious obsession and fanaticism, a crackdown by the government…what else? Oh, can’t forget that old Bealknap, Matthew’s nemesis, is still around, still grasping for money and trying to steal his cases. And Matthew’s assistant, Barak, is having marital problems after a still-birth; his friend, the Moorish ex-priest and physician Guy seems to be being blackmailed by his assistant, and Matthew himself is having all kinds of faith crises.
It’s good stuff. As usual, Sansom writes a well-plotted story, includes so much period detail and historical accuracy, and brings to life the philosophical questions that we still ask today.
I found also that Shardlake’s journey paralleled mine quite a bit. We both see in the corruption, violence, and hate that springs from religion a significant reason for doubt. We also see uncertainty - and room for differences - as necessary for a functional religion, and indeed a functional approach to reality. We value freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and freedom of thought.
As I will note below, this includes a deep skepticism of all who claim to speak for God, and even more suspicion of those who use God to justify their own cruelty and self-righteousness.
I haven’t tended to quote from these books, preferring to enjoy them as a whole; however, this one had so many fascinating lines, mostly related to the faith journey, that were so applicable that I had to mention them.
In keeping with the usage of the times, the radical religious folk refer to themselves as “the godly” - a term that entered the vernacular. Kind of like “fundamentalist” today refers not merely to reactionary movement against modern science, but to retrogressive cultural values. Shardlake experiences these sorts of people largely how I do.
In the dealings I had had with the godly men I had found them difficult to deal with, crude hard men who drove at you with biblical verses like a carpenter hammering in nails.
Sound familiar? How about this one?
That was the paradox - the vicious struggle between papists and sacramentaries was driving many away from faith altogether. Christ said, by their fruits shall you know them, and the fruits of the faithful of both sides looked more rotten each year.
This is why I find the increasingly shrill insistence that nefarious conspiracies are driving the young away from religion to be laughable. No, really, it’s the FRUIT. Christianity in America right now smells like a fucking outhouse that has been shaken vigorously and left in the sun for a few weeks.
Unsurprisingly, the worst of the sects in this book are the Calvinists. Just like now, Calvinism is arguably the strongest force for evil in our churches today. Something about being part of the “elect” that makes people cruel and hateful. And so sure of themselves in their own self-righteousness.
Historically, Sansom notes, there actually was a whole new form of mental illness that arose after Calvinism appeared – the terror of being damned described in this book. Sansom didn’t make that one up at all.
Guy, the former (and maybe current) Catholic, ostracized for both his race and his religion, has a good perspective on this.
“I too have seen the wildness that follows when fanatics without self-doubt gain power. But mark this. Whatever wrongs it has done, the Catholic Church has always believed in free will, that men by their actions as well as their faith may choose to come to God. This new Protestant radicalism will not allow for that, everyone is either saved or damned through God’s will, not free will.”
Beware the fanatics without self-doubt, which is the most apt description of the religious right I have seen. And, sadly, of my parents since they embraced authoritarian fundamentalism. Zero self-doubt.
Also very apt for today’s time is this observation, about the pastor who had the prostitute in his back room, as described by one of his servants.
“Funny thing, since he brought Abigail here you’d think he’d be happier, but he only ranted against sin more and more. Bad conscience, I suppose. Religious folk are mighty strange, I say.”
Ted Haggard comes to mind here… Whenever you hear someone raging against sin, particularly sexual sin, look a little closer. There is a reason for that.
In contrast to those who are immune to self-doubt, the truly decent people are full of it. That is the paradox. There is a passage in the book where Shardlake, having helped Bealknap, ponders his own motives.
Why had I done this, I asked myself. I realized that if Guy was able to help Bealknap, which was at least possible, it would be me who in a way would have scored a point against my old enemy. And given myself a sense of virtue, too. I wondered if that was partly why I had offered to help him. But if we never acted except when we were certain our motives were pure, we would never act at all.
Isn’t that the truth? But also, isn’t it better to do good with mixed motives, than to do evil, convinced you are on the side of good? Another conversation between Shardlake and Guy regarding both the killer and the mentally ill young man illuminates this.
“How can he believe that what he is doing is inspired by God?”
“Have we not seen enough these last years to know that men
may do cruel, wicked things, yet believe they have communion with God?”
“Yes. Belief in God and human sympathy can be very different things.”
I’ll end with one final insight from Guy.
“We are in the middle of a bitter conflict between two religions. It has driven men to extremes, to the impious arrogance of believing they alone can comprehend the vast mysteries of Scripture, let alone the mind of God. Such people are incapable of understanding even their own minds, for they confuse their own needs, for certainty or power, with God’s voice speaking to them. I am only surprised that more are not driven to stark madness. I try in my poor way to follow the much harder path of humility. Facing squarely the terrible mysteries of suffering and cruelty in God’s world, doubting whether through prayer you have understood God’s will or his voice or even his presence. Yes, I believe humility is the greatest human virtue.”
We are indeed in the middle of a bitter conflict between two religions. But not the religions that the fundamentalists think. Rather, the religion of White Supremacy (and the patriarchy and anti-LGBTQ bigotry that are part and parcel of that religion) is facing its greatest challenge. Forces beyond its control are threatening it - and will eventually overwhelm it. Oceans rise, empires fall…
On the other side is the aspirational Kingdom - the upside down one Christ preached, without hierarchy, without oppression, without unmet needs.
This isn’t to discount the various geopolitical struggles at all, but to point out that the cause of the rise of fanatical religion today is inseparable from white supremacy and indeed the systems of hierarchy themselves.
So many are so very damn sure they know the mind of God - and that he happens to agree with their cultural preferences completely. Go figure.
For that reason, I may have enjoyed this book the most of all the Sansom ones I have read so far. It feels so timely. And of course, legal stuff too. I would definitely start at the beginning of the series, as the later books assume knowledge of what came before.
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