My working life started in
archaeology. Trowel in hand, I laboured
on sites around Britain and Europe, mainly as a volunteer, living in tents with
similarly crazy people. I went on to
become a secondary school teacher, then a Museum Education Officer and finally
a mother of three.
But when I came to write my first novel,
the influence of my early passion was still strong. Archaeology, in the main, looks at the
discarded and unwanted remains of daily life, the broken things most people do
not consider important.
In The
Errant Hours, I wanted to uncover what life was like for the people who did
not make it into the history books. To
present the daily lives of people who lived in the distant past - their fears,
hopes and beliefs.
I enjoyed furnishing the medieval past with
the commonplace and extraordinary objects that made Plantagenet Britain so
severe and exuberant. It was like
Frankenstein running electricity through his monster: what was dead and in
pieces I could bring to life, renewing the ruined sites, such as Acton Burnell
Castle, in my mind and on the page.
Acton Burnell Castle -
Shropshire
Medieval Illuminated manuscripts were
another important source of inspiration. These exquisitely painted unique books
were illustrated with subversive, ridiculous and beautiful imagery, showing the
natural, the supernatural, and everything in between. They give a visceral
sense of what stoked the medieval imagination.
(The Alphonso Psalter, BL Add
MS 24686 13th century)
But the manuscripts were not just
appreciated for their aesthetic qualities. Many were considered to be able to
bring the reader into direct communion with the Divine.
I was researching on the British Library
website, when I came across a very special but neglected manuscript, detailing
the torture and death of St Margaret. I read the translation and I knew
straight away: this manuscript would be the touchstone of my story.
Margaret of Antioch was a virgin who
converted to Christianity in the early 4th Century AD. According to the legend of her martyrdom, before
she was beheaded she promised safe childbirth to those who read about her death. And so, in accordance with medieval logic,
books telling of the horrific torture of a virgin became a birthing aid, and St
Margaret became the patron saint of childbirth.
So far, so strange. But it was the illustration on the final page
of this manuscript that gave me a profound sense of connection with the past.
British Library MS Egerton
877 folio 12
The image of the saint in the birth chamber
is smeared and distorted because medieval women in labour kissed the picture
and sent up prayers to St Margaret to save them and their babies. Through this poignant trace of real belief and
desperation, the plot of the book began to take shape before my eyes.
The
Errant Hours is a fast-paced adventure, following
the heroine as she struggles to save the life of her brother, and herself, in
the face of poverty, violence and corruption.
But it is also the story of a mother who loses and finds a daughter, and
the story of a powerful and sacred book that unites a knight and a lady.
The two stories intertwine, bind, resist
and console each other, as all our stories do.
Kate Innes writes
fiction and poetry in Shropshire. Kate’s novel The Errant Hours is available from Amazon, many bookshops and her
website www.kateinneswriter.com
Twitter:
@kateinnes2
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