- You have referred to this book as a “medieval history mystery.” This isn’t a genre one sees often. How would you compare it to Name of the Rose or The Da Vinci Code in this respect?
This is a relatively new genre for novels. It was popularized—really in just the last few decades—by Ellis Peters, in her series of murder mysteries featuring the monk detective Brother Caedfil. Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose also has a monk detective as its main character, whose task is to unravel a string of mysterious deaths at an Italian monastery. Both of these authors use fictional characters to solve fictional cases.
My novel, like theirs, has a medieval setting, but I base it on an actual event, the kidnapping and hiding of the remains of Saint Francis of Assisi at the instigation of the head of the Franciscan Order. The mystery in this book is not a murder, but the resolution of what appears to be a case of religious deception. It has this much in common with The DaVinci Code.
But while The DaVinci Code also explores actual events and organizations that originated in the time of the crusades, Dan Brown gave his book a modern setting with a pair of detectives who have all the communications equipment of the 20th Century at their disposal. Many of the characters in my novel are based on real people alive in the 1200s who might have exposed the deception but for one reason or another did not.
- How did you become interested in this particular subject? What are the origins of this novel?
Back in the mid-1980s, when the world was celebrating the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis’ birth, I published a young-adult novel called The Wolf in Winter through Paulist Press. That novel was based on Francis’ early career, when he was a teenager with no particular direction. During this period he evolved from the carousing son of Assisi’s wealthiest merchant, to soldiering and fantasies of knighthood, to repairing churches, to a period as an orderly at a leprosarium, to life as a religious hermit. He wasn’t a hermit for long, of course, as other young men and women of Assisi began to join him, which led to the founding of the Franciscan Order and its female counterpart, the Poor Sisters of St. Clare.
While researching the young-adult book, I learned a lot about Francis and his companions, and also a lot about leprosy—its incubation and symptoms, how it’s transmitted, and so forth. That got me speculating about how Francis’ early contact with Hansen’s Disease, as it's called now, might have affected him personally.
- How long did it take you to research and write The Franciscan Conspiracy? What were some of your primary sources?
This was a five-year project, begun in the late 1980s. After I finished the book, it sat under my desk for another five years before I connected with White Cloud Press.
My main sources were the writings of Francis’ contemporaries: the biographies (or Legends) of Francis life written in the forty years following his death plus the chronicles of the wandering friar Salimbene who appears in the novel. A rather voluminous biography written early in the last century by Arnaldo Fortini, a former mayor of Assisi, provided a lot of detail about the town and surrounding region and, surprisingly, so did an old Baedeker from the early 20th century that I stumbled across in a used book store. John Moorman’s History of the Franciscan Order has a lot of good information about the rival factions in the order’s early history—the Conventuals and the fraticelli, or Spiritual, faction.
When I was researching this book, the Internet was just coming of age, so mostly I did my research the old-fashioned way—reading a lot of books, making a lot of notes.
- You say in your disclaimer that this is a work of fiction and that even the historical characters and events are used fictionally. Could you give us some idea of which events actually happened and who those historical characters are?
The historical event that triggered the novel was the kidnapping of Francis’ body. One version of that story had his body being removed by stealth at night from its temporary resting place. Another version, the more dramatic of the two accounts and the one I use in my novel, claims his coffin was seized by force during the procession to the new basilica and hidden there. Workmen digging out a crypt beneath the basilica finally found it 600 years later, in 1818. Ostensibly, the reason for the kidnapping was to protect his remains from relic seekers, but I felt there was more to it.
The crusades and various Church Councils described in the book refer to historical events also. The popes and leaders of the Franciscan Order, as well as most of the friars in the story are based on real people. The main subplots related to the Brotherhood of the Tomb and to the young couple, Amata and Orfeo, are pure fictions, however, although older members of “Amata’s” family actually were castellans living outside Todi. The character Illuminato is a composite of two friars who had that name.
Again, although you claim this work is fictional, it’s pretty clear that you share the conclusion that Conrad, the friar detective, reaches. How did you come to this conclusion so forcefully that you felt compelled to write this book?
I went through much the same process in my own reading as Conrad does in his research. At one point, I remember writing down a list of thirteen “proofs” for my conclusions about Francis’ stigmata. At the time, I thought of writing a straightforward article explaining my theory and submitting it to some Catholic magazine. Nothing more ambitious than that! Later I considered writing a book-length work of nonfiction on the subject.
- Why did you choose to write a novel rather than a work of scholarly nonfiction?
Well, I got in with a group of writers who used to meet regularly at the old Blue Mountain Café in Ashland, Oregon, or in each others’ homes. When I proposed the nonfiction idea, the response was a lot of yawning and glazed eyes. I had to agree that this had the potential to be a very boring book, and began thinking of ways to present my findings in a novel. After all, what I could I prove from a distance of 800 years anyway?
The fact that several women in the group were writing historical romances probably added some elements to the story that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise, such as the subplots involving Amata, but hopefully the book will appeal to a wider audience as a result.
- In your personal background do you have any familiarity with the Franciscan or Benedictine lifestyles? You seem very comfortable with the monastic setting for example. Or with the details of village and country life in this period, for that matter. Are we talking past lives here or just thorough research?
Actually, I did spend a couple of years as a novice in a Trappist monastery as a teenager as well as a short spell in a Hindu ashram in India. The Trappists follow the same Rule of Saint Benedict as do Benedictines (the “black monks” of the novel). I’ve often thought that, given the possibility of reincarnation, I must have led such a life before, probably in Germany in the middle ages. Don’t ask me why—just a gut feeling.
The day-to-day details of medieval village and country life came from research. I mention some of those sources in my bibliography—books about clothing, games people played, country fairs, castle life and so forth.
- Did language or vocabulary present a problem?
That was a rather interesting exercise. For example, at one point I wanted to say a character was “mesmerized,” but then I realized Mesmer wouldn’t be born for another 450 years. I wanted to say a certain action “triggered” a reaction, but had to ask myself whether any weaponry of the period had triggers. Okay, yes, they had crossbows. I suppose, the author in such cases can get away with more modern language, but of course the characters wouldn’t be able to use anachronistic words like “mesmerize” in their speech.
The setting of the story did lead to more use of Latinate words than, say, Ken Follett could get away with in Pillars of the Earth, which was set in medieval England. Generally, the use of Latinates over short, pithy English terms is a “no-no” among modern authors.
- Authors sometimes speak of characters getting away from them or taking on a life of their own. Did you experience that while writing this book?
Of course! The story lines and characters evolved in very unexpected directions once I set them in motion, which I suppose is much of the fun of writing a long fiction piece.
I also found this can lead to great sadness. I have to admit I was crying most of the way through the scene of Conrad’s torture even as I was writing it. I’d really come to love the guy and I didn’t know that was going to happen to him. I probably shed a few joyful tears too during Amata’s reunion with her brother.
Situations developed, often unexpectedly, and I’d find myself asking, “Given what I know of these people, how should they react in this situation?” Even if I didn’t care for the outcome of the situation, I had to remain true to the psychology of the characters as it had emerged in earlier scenes.
- The middle ages seem to be a particularly violent period and we see examples of that in your novel. Why do you think this is so?
Again, more violence emerged in the story than was in my plot outline, although these scenes are true to the period. At the same time, I don’t think the middle ages were more violent than our own time. It’s just that the people of that era confronted their enemies face-to-face and bludgeoned each other using rather crude weapons of limited destruction such as axes and broadswords. Today we are just as violent, but we can kill each other from miles away with bombs and missiles. We never have to see the dismembered bodies or even know how many people we killed. Violence is just a lot more anonymous now that it was eight centuries ago. War really has become a video game.
- The cover of your book is quite striking and dramatic. Could you tell me more about it?
The RiverWood Books team came up with that. It really floored me when I first saw it.
The jacket is based on a painting by the Spanish artist Francisco de Zuburan. He completed this particular work, St. Francis of Assisi in His Tomb, in the early 1630s. He did a number of Francis paintings, I suspect because Francis was his patron saint. This one was based on a legend popular in Zuburan’s day, a supposedly miraculous vision by Pope Nicholas V in 1449 in which the Pope saw Francis hovering above his tomb, deep in contemplation. The original work is now in the Milwaukee Art Museum.
- Do you plan any follow-up novels using some of the same characters? You seem to leave open that possibility in your Epilogue.
Hmmm. Good question. When I completed The Franciscan Conspiracy in the early nineties I was envisioning a trilogy. The second book was to follow the rivalry and careers of Jacopone da Todi and Benedetto di Gaetani to their conclusions in the early 1300s. The third would return to Amata, Orfeo and Teresina and tie in with the Sicilian Vespers. In the ten plus years since I finished this novel, however, my writing interests and priorities seem to have changed. Still, I’ve learned “never to say never.” If the book turns out to have a wide readership who care as deeply for these characters as I and who fr want their stories to continue, who knows? It could still happen.
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