Ricardian Fiction

Why Write History As A Mystery?

Sharan Newman

I began writing mysteries several years ago because I was a historian. That might sound like nonsense until one remembers all the mystery writers who have become historians in order to delve into various unsolved crimes of the past. The murder of the Princes in the Tower is the most prevalent, starting with Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time. Everyone wants to know who killed them. Richard? Henry Tudor? And when? Or perhaps they weren't murdered at all. Perhaps they were smuggled out of England altogether and grew up to found families who are still sworn to take over the throne when the time is right. As with the fate of the last Romanovs (even after DNA testing), people will undoubtedly speculate forever on the disappearance of those two little boys.

Every historian is a detective. We're faced with incomplete information, muddled clues and inaccurate or misleading witnesses. All of these are compounded by the biases of previous detectives on the case. One of the most dangerous things a historian can do is to trust someone else's data. There are so many interpretations of primary documents and artifacts that studying them through the lenses of earlier scholars only makes it more likely that the resulting conclusions will be distorted. I've read so many reviews of historical research accusing the author of writing fiction that it seemed only sensible for me to put it some dialogue and call it that.

That doesn't mean that I feel one can play fast and loose with the truth just because one is writing "popular" fiction. I do as much primary research for my mysteries as I ever did for academic papers. As a matter of fact, last year I delivered a paper based on the work I did for the third mystery, The Wandering Arm. Afterward, a woman asked me if I had got the idea from reading the book. (No one remembers author's names.) Some people find my agonizing over minor points a bit bizarre, but I know many other authors who do so. Most of the best historical mystery writers today have degrees in history or related fields. Elizabeth Peters is an Egyptologist, Leonard Tourney a Shakespearean scholar and Miriam Grace Monfredo is a librarian with an undergraduate degree in American history. There are many more.

Why do we bother? I've spoken with many of my fellow history/mystery writers and we all agree that we owe it to the readers, most of whom will never take a course in the period in which our books are set. And too often, the courses they've had previously were general surveys. In these the Middle Ages particularly are still presented as a dark gap between Rome and the (so-called) Renaissance. Even the best teachers can't hope to present a culture so varied and complex in a ten-week period. Therefore, the information we give the reader must be as accurate as possible.

Also, the form of fiction is a wonderful chance for the historian to give a synchronic view of a short span of time, instead of the linear framework that most classes need to follow. We can take one year or even one day and present it from a multitude of viewpoints. Instead of separating political, military, artistic, literary, religious and social history, we are forced to combine them all in order to give as accurate as possible a portrait of the way people lived and thought. For me, it is the way people thought, the way they perceived the world and their place in it that is the most interesting. It is also why I find the mystery the best fictional medium to express my view of the twelfth century. I have always found it very difficult to communicate to students the wide variety of beliefs at this time. The concept of a long block of history in which everyone was credulous, superstitious and mentally enslaved by "The Church" is pervasive in our society. Sometimes I would spend most of a term just gettingstudents to read the primary documents without prejudice. And I didn't always succeed. In a mystery novel, the thought processes of the characters are essential to the solving of the crime. At last I can show people of differing beliefs, from different backgrounds trying to understand each other. I can deal with minority points of view and the broad range of attitudes toward them by those in authority.

I believe that human beings have changed little emotionally in recorded history. Therefore the underlying motives for crime haven't changed, either. Greed, fear, love, hate and revenge are all understandable today. So the reader has something familiar to hold on to while I take them into the medieval permutations of these traits. Someone might commit murder in a misguided attempt to assure an enemy of eternal damnation. Someone might kill to protect a relic or to cover up a sin. Or a murderer might be brought to confession through fear of losing his soul. In between, I can discuss the attitude toward relics, the debate between Abelard and St. Bernard, the precarious place of the Jews in Christian Europe, the anomalous position of women throughout society and many other aspects of the time that fascinate me.

In this essay, I've tried to answer two questions: why write historical fiction and why the mystery. For me, it's another way of teaching about a time I love and intend to continue studying for the rest of my life. Hopefully for the reader it's a chance to visit another time and place and to see it in a new light. My goal is to interest people in my field enough that they will hunt out the primary material, even in translation, and perhaps even return to the university to learn more about the reality of the Middle Ages. There are plenty of fine professors there who would love to fill them in.

About the Author: Sharan Newman is the author of an Arthurian fantasy trilogy; Guinevere, The Chessboard Queen and Guinevere Everemore, now being reprinted by Forge Books, and also the Catherine LeVendeur mystery series; Death Comes as Epiphany, The Devil's Door, The Wandering Arm, Strong as Death and, forthcoming July 1998, Cursed in the Blood. They are all set in mid-twelfth century France. She has an MA in Medieval Lit and is finishing her doctorate in History. She has taught at Michigan State University, Temple University, and The University of California, Santa Barbara but now is a full-time writer and freelance lecturer. She recently moved home to Portland, Oregon with her husband and plans never to move again.

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