The Waste Land chronicles the
adventures of Hugh de Verdon, monk turned knight, during the extraordinary
historical events of the First Crusade. He journeys from the great Benedictine
monastery of Cluny to Constantinople, Antioch and Jerusalem. He encounters the
Assassins, endures a personal epiphany and discovers the ‘truth’ behind the
Holy Grail.
Hugh de Verdon’s tale is retold by a group of desperate Oxford professors, based on his autobiographical manuscript, discovered in their College library. Their humorous - and murderous story also provides a commentary on the eleventh century events and shows that they are perhaps not all they seem.
Hugh de Verdon’s tale is retold by a group of desperate Oxford professors, based on his autobiographical manuscript, discovered in their College library. Their humorous - and murderous story also provides a commentary on the eleventh century events and shows that they are perhaps not all they seem.
In his guest post, Simon writes about his experience in researching and writing The Waste Land. I hope you enjoy!
Sources for The Waste Land
By Simon Acland, author of The Waste Land
“So are you a historian then?”
That’s the first thing many people ask me when I tell them I
have written a novel set in the First Crusade. When I say, “No, a modern
linguist actually”, and that my inspiration came from studying the 12th
and 13th Century Grail Romances, they normally say “Wow, you must
have done a lot of research.”
At that point I feel a bit of a fraud. To me, research
implies toiling in libraries among dusty documents, written in ancient
languages in indecipherable script. For me it was much easier than that.
Because the First Crusade is such an extraordinary period of
history, and occurred at a pivotal point as Europe was making the transition
from the Dark Ages to medieval times, there is a wealth of good books about it.
The modern Granddaddy is Stephen Runciman’s
A History of the Crusades
(Cambridge 1951), but has been followed by many other distinguished works. The
main historians other than Runciman on whom I relied are Jonathan Riley-Smith,
Christopher Tyerman, and Thomas Ashridge. And I was able to find some
specialist works, for example about Cluny, the great Benedictine Monastery
where my hero Hugh de Verdon starts his journey, about the fabric of the City
of Jerusalem, and the intricacies of medieval warfare.
For the novelist it is also fortunate that many of the contemporary
chronicles are available in print and in translation. These fascinating texts
were mostly written by monks who accompanied the leaders of the Crusades to the
Holy Land. They tend to support the image and reputation of the individual
leader in whose entourage the authors travelled, for the prominent Crusaders
were always at each others’ throats. But texts such as the Gesta Francorum, the Gesta
Tancredi, and the Historia
Hierosolimitana provide an invaluable direct insight to the way the
Crusaders thought.
The picture would not be complete without the Muslim point
of view, especially because the Arab world was far more civilised, tolerant and
advanced than Christendom at the end of the 11th Century. Ibn
al-Athir is the most distinguished near contemporary Arab historian, and there
are several useful summaries of his and others’ work such as Francesco
Gabrieli’s 1957 Arab Historians of the
Crusades. Then Usama ibn-Munqidh wrote a delightful diary about his life,
starting early in the 12th Century, published as An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the
Period of the Crusades. Although it postdates the First Crusade itself, and
so does not provide any information about the events themselves, it shows the
Arab life at the time and the barbarism of their Christian attackers.
A third perspective is provided by the Alexiad, the biography of her father written by Anna Comnenos, the
daughter of the contemporary Byzantine Emperor Alexios I. She also shows the
Crusaders in fairly uncivilised light, although she clearly fancied Bohemond of
Taranto!
So the lucky novelist is spoiled for choice. Partly because
of this, and unusually for a novel, I did include a bibliography of the works I
found most useful at the end of my book. A word of warning, though. It is not
just an academic bibliography. You may be surprised to find references to
adventure classics such as John Buchan’s Greenmantle
and Henry Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s
Mines. This is because there are a couple of episodes in The Waste Land that pay homage to these
books. And you may be surprised to see Monty
Python and the Holy Grail included on the list. Well, see if you can spot
the knight who says “Ni” in The Waste
Land! Or watch my video at http://www.meettheauthor.co.uk/bookbites/1915.html,
and then you will understand!
ABOUT SIMON ACLAND
Simon Acland worked
as a venture capitalist for over 20 years and wrote several books on investing
and leadership. The Waste Land is his
first novel. For more information,
visit his website at :http://www.simonacland.com/wasteland.htm
My review of Simon's book, The Waste Land will be posted tomorrow :)
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