Review: Outstanding Medieval Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 5, 2012
History and Romance are my favorite topics.  So I really enjoy Historical Romance!  "Historical romances", however, rarely contain much history.  The main characters are usually 21st century people in old time houses and clothes.  This is particularly true of romances, which take place in the Middle Ages.  When I read them, I enjoy the romance and hate the history.Unlike almost all novels set in the Middle Ages, Ms. Domning's characters are true to their time period.  They think and act like people living in the time in which they are situated.  Real people who lived at the time of her story, who are acting exactly as they did, also appear in her books.  This adds to the feeling of reality.  I was impressed to see my 25 greats uncle mentioned in one of her books.  At the time the story took place, he was well known and powerful.  Today only medieval historians (and the few members of his family who are history buffs) know about him.The plot of each of Ms. Domning's books revolves around a problematic aspect of medieval culture.  Being romances, the main characters end up happy and in love.  But the aspects of medieval culture she examines probably resulted in many unhappy endings.Other readers' reviews strongly suggest reading this series in order.  Although each book can stand alone, I agree with this suggestion.  From first to last they are:  Winter's Heat, Summer's Storm, Spring's Fury, Autumn's Flame, A Love for All Seasons.  I also suggest her Warrior series, which is just as good and, in some ways, better than this series.Winter's HeatIn this story, the first in Denise Domning's 5 book series, the author  addresses the absolute power of medieval men - fathers, brothers, and husbands.  In the opening scene a father literally drags his daughter out of a convent where she had lived for most of her life.  Although people object, no one tries to stop him.  The book goes on to show the absolute power a father had over the choice of whom his daughter married. As was typical at that time, the father's interest was the groom's property.  The groom's interest was the bride's dowry.  They both were interested in furthering military alliances and social position.  No one - including the groom - worries about whether the groom and bride will even like each other.Domning's story depicts the consequences for the bride.  Right after the heroine's marriage, her groom dumps her in his castle and rides away.  She doesn't know whether he will ever come back!  He eventually reappears several months later.  What the bride does in the interim gives us an excellent description of castle life.The author realistically depicts the daily activities and the social order in a castle.  Since birth control was unknown but sex outside of marriage was common, there are both legitimate and illegitimate offspring.  Fathers of illegitimate children often raised them. At the time, the legitimate and illegitimate offspring often resided together.  (At around the same time, in my own family, after a father died, an adult, illegitimate son took over the task of raising his oldest, still very young legitimate son!)  Domning shows how these half siblings related to each other.Domning also deals with the communication problems in England at that time.  In 1066, French speaking William The Conqueror defeated Anglo-Saxon speaking King Harold.  For about 300 hundred years, communication was difficult.  The defeated Anglo Saxons became the lower class and continued to speak Anglo Saxon.  The conquerors became the aristocracy and continued to speak French. She shows how difficult this made communication.After many months, the husband returns home.  Domning describes his horrified reaction to the decisions his wife has made during his long absence.  Apparently he believed she would just wait until he arrived before solving any problems!  The rest of the book shows how, despite role assumptions, the couple builds a happy marriage.Summer's Storm, the second book in this series, addresses the plight of medieval child brides. The heroine is married at age 12 into a family living far from her parents. (Among royalty, the bride was often much younger.  It was not unusual for a 3-year old royal child to be married and living with her in-laws.)  The groom is much older - although not as old as often occurred.  Domning shows that the consequences of this custom could be dire.  The bride's family had no idea what was happening to her and never checked.  In this story, a land dispute brings the girl's situation to her own family's attention and enables them to rescue her.  In actuality, many young girls like the heroine probably just suffered until they died.  Although the plot is fairly simple, the descriptions of medieval life are detailed and the characters, except for the truly evil people, are mostly sympathetic.Spring's Fury is the third and most complex novel in this series.  It is about the value of land, the effects of a weak central government, forced marriage, fostering, and medieval war.The consequences of weak central government are the core of the problems in this book.  Each landowner must defend his land against neighbors who want it.  Since there is no law beyond a castle or town, to accomplish this, each must have his own a small army and defensive dwelling.  When traveling, he must be armed and have his own soldiers protecting him.  A woman traveling alone is fodder.  When a neighbor covets land, he invades.  The result is a mini war.  The stronger army wins all of the land.  Domning describes such a war in detail showing the tactics and weaponry employed.In addition, the novel addresses the custom of fostering.  In the Middle Ages, in order to train for knighthood, young boys left home at the beginning of adolescence to live with powerful knights.  In this book, the consequence for the boy is salutary.  But I doubt that was always the case.  Influential, rich knights often had several fostering boys.  These boys formed very close friendships, which became alliances that lasted throughout their lives.Domning again addresses the issue of forced marriage.  The heroine is forced to marry a man whom she witnessed killing her beloved father.  Needless to say, she was not happy about this!The author also addresses female sex roles.  Through an unusual set of circumstances, the heroine in this book has adopted male sex roles.  This makes her - at the least - strange and unmarriageable.  Through amazingly good fortune, she ends up with a husband who likes this.Although in many ways I liked this book the best in the series but I thought the end was rather silly.In Autumn's Flame, the fourth book in this series, Ms. Domning again addresses the absolute power of Medieval men....in this case, government officials (Sheriffs).  In it Ms. Domning tackles the fate of aristocratic widows without family.  Apparently widows were not allowed to continue living by themselves in the home of their marriage.  The property was given to the male heir and she had to leave.  This was true of my 24 greats grandmother.  When her husband died, she went back to her parents' home and had to get her father's permission when she wanted to remarry.Widows without family, like the heroine of this book, became the responsibility of the government.  The king cared for highly placed aristocratic women without family.  A less important aristocratic widow apparently became the responsibility of the Sherriff of the county in which she lived.A Medieval Sheriff, with absolute power backed up by a mini army, was like a king of a county.  Communication with the central government (the king) was slow and cumbersome.  Decisions often had to be made quickly.  Therefore the Sheriff enjoyed great power.  One of the Sheriff's duties, apparently, was to look after aristocratic widows without families.  For such a widow, accustomed to a position of power during her husband's lifetime, the loss of power over herself and her children was a drastic change.  Autumn Flame is a story of one such widow and the Sheriff responsible for her.A Love for All Seasons is the fifth book in Denise Domning's 5 book season series.  Unlike books one through four, it can stand alone.  The other 4 books in the series only tangentially relate to this one.  In it Ms. Domning addresses marriage among the merchant class, merchant issues, the result of maternal death from childbirth, starvation following local crop failure, the result of liaisons between noble men with non-aristocrat women, such as maids, and their offspring.  She revisits the terrible consequences of fathers arranging marriages.  Among the merchant class, as among the nobility, the fathers' criteria for selection were purely economic.  The feelings of the bride do not enter into the equation.  She also visits the role of religion - a topic she rarely touches in her other books in this series.In many ways, this is my favorite book in the series.  I really enjoyed it because Domning describes how non-aristocratic people lived at that time.  If we were lucky, this is how you and I might have lived.  (Domning and other authors about the Middle Ages rarely describe how the vast lower classes lived.)  As usual the story is replete with detail.  Domning tells you how people worked, ate, slept, dressed, washed, urinated etc. etc.  By the time I finished the book, I felt as though I had visited an actual place.If you like this series, I highly recommend Ms. Domning's other medieval series:  The Warriors.