The Third in the "Joliffe" series of Medieval Mysteries
England, the spring of 1435
In the third in this new series of books by Margaret Frazer, Master Bassett's wandering players, now known as Lord Lovell's Men, travel to the village of Ashewell, in the vale beneath the Uffington White Horse to perform, but also to investigate, on behalf of Lady Lovell, an undercurrent of trouble in the area that no one has yet been able to put their finger on or do anything about.
And of course, among the players it is Dame Frevisse's friend Joliffe who is the sleuth.
Three families, the Ashewells, the Medcotes and the Gosyns, are at loggerheads. An accidental killing by a young boy has never been forgiven ot forgotten. Now, in addition to that, young people are being forced into marriage with those they hate.
Then the first murder is committed - near the field where the players are camped. Of course, suspicion falls on them. To a lazy "crowner", they would be convenient scapegoats. And while Joliffe is investigating, desperately trying to clear himself and the other players, a second murder occurs.
A little slow perhaps, sometimes, but that is not a problem when you enjoy the world and the company as much as I do those in Margaret Fraser's books. Her characters, both major and minor, are better than most, and her in-depth knowledge of the period frequently leaves me with my mouth open. I am happy just to go on turning the pages, am always sorry when one of her books comes to an end.
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But I want to quote a paragraph from the Author's Note which I found very much to the point and in need of saying. By the late Middle Ages [...] the feudal system still existed but no longer had the stranglehold on society that it had had even two hundred years before. Times do change. Think how different the lives we lead now are from those of two hundred years before our present time, and how different those times were from two hundred years before then. The Middle Ages were not a monolith that clunked down upon Europe with the fall of Rome and lasted like a solid, witless lump until the Renaissance arrived to Make Everything Better. There was change and growth, experiments in government and thought and religion that made the Renaissance possible ...
Don't miss this one if you are a Margaret Frazer fan.
JM
