The Pillars of the Earth

This article is about Ken Follett's novel. For the television miniseries adaptation, see The Pillars of the Earth (TV miniseries).

The Pillars of the Earth

First edition
Author	Ken Follett
Language	English
Genre	Historical fiction
Publisher	Macmillan
Publication date	1989
Publication place	United Kingdom
Published in English	1989
Media type	print
Pages	816
ISBN	0-333-51983-3
Followed by	World Without End

The Pillars of the Earth is a historical novel by Ken Follett published in 1989 about the building of a cathedral in the town of Kingsbridge, England. It is set in the middle of the 12th century, primarily during the Anarchy, between the time of the sinking of the White Ship and the murder of Thomas Becket. The book traces the development of Gothic architecture out of the preceding Romanesque architecture, and the fortunes of the Kingsbridge priory and village against the backdrop of historical events of the time.

Before this novel was published, Follett was known for writing in the thriller genre. The Pillars of the Earth became his best-selling work. The book was listed at no. 33 on the BBC's Big Read, a 2003 survey with the goal of finding the "nation's best-loved book". The book was selected in the United States for Oprah's Book Club in 2007. Follett published a sequel, entitled World Without End (2007).

Plot

Setting

The sinking of the White Ship leaves King Henry I of England without a clear heir, and The Anarchy begins upon his death. Henry's nephew Stephen of Blois and Henry's daughter Maud) fight for the throne. Ambitious nobles and churchmen take sides, hoping to gain advantages. The novel explores themes of intrigue and conspiracy against historical events. It explores the development of medieval architecture, the civil war, secular/religious conflicts, and shifting political loyalties.

The story is divided into six sections plus a prologue. The headings are:

• Prologue, 1123
• Part One, 1135–1136
• Part Two, 1136–1137
• Part Three, 1140–1142
• Part Four, 1142–1145
• Part Five, 1152-1155
• Part Six, 1170–1174

Plot summary

A man is hanged for theft, and his pregnant lover curses the men who condemned him.

Construction of a house for William Hamleigh and his future wife is halted, forcing Tom builder and his family to seek work. Tom abandons his newborn because he has no food for him. The baby is found by Ellen and taken to a monastery. Tom meets Ellen, and his family settles in Kingsbridge with Ellen and her son Jack. Philip, the leader of the monastery, learns of a plot against the new king, Stephen. Philip tells the archdeacon Waleran and travels to Kingsbridge Priory. He is elected prior in a deal with Waleran, who becomes bishop. Waleran tells the Hamleighs that the earl of shiring is plotting against the king. The earl of shiring's daughter, Aliena, is the one who rejected William. The Hamleighs arrest the earl. Prior Philip wants to expand his priory by rebuilding a cathedral. Jack burns down the old Romanesque cathedral without getting caught. Philip hires Tom to build the cathedral.

Philip and Waleran go to King Stephen to ask for stone from Shiring, but Waleran wants the stone for his own castle. The Hamleighs are given ownership of the Shiring with Philip getting rights to the stone. Percy Hamleigh does not support the cathedral. William attacks Aliena and her brother Richard at their castle. He rapes the girl and injures the boy. Homeless and destitute, Aliena and Richard petition the king for aid. Their dying father Bartholomew is in prison and demands they swear an oath to work to regain the earldom. Aliena supports Richard financially by becoming a wealthy wool merchant, with Phillip's help. William and Waleran try and fail to have the cathedral moved to Shiring.

Tom's son Alfred bullies Jack. Brother Remigius charges Ellen and Tom with fornication. Waleran, who was cursed by the woman at the hanging, orders Ellen to live apart from Tom. Outraged, Ellen returns to the forest with Jack. Tom befriends Prior Philip and, when Ellen returns, he persuades Philip to allow them to marry. Jack and Alfred fight over Aliena. While the better mason, Jack is expelled from the cathedral construction. He becomes a monk to stay in Kingsbridge. Richard becomes a knight and gains the king's favour by defending him at the Battle of Lincoln in the civil war against Maud.

William and Richard compete for the earldom, which Maud gives to William, but its market is being outcompeted by a new market at Kingsbridge. Attempting to restore his fortunes, William burns down Kingsbridge and kills many people, including Tom Builder. After losing her fortune again, Aliena agrees to marry Alfred if he supports Richard. Jack learns that his father, a French jongleur who washed ashore, was framed for theft. Jack and Aliena make love on the morning of her wedding. When she marries Alfred anyway, Ellen curses him, making him impotent.

Jack goes to France to hone his skills as a mason and to meet his father Jacques Cherbourg's family in Cherbourg, staying committed to Aliena throughout.

Alfred persuades Philip to replace the wooden roof with a stone vault, which collapses during a service, killing many people. Aliena gives birth to a red-headed son, and Alfred abandons her. Aliena follows evidence of Jack's sculpture through France, finding him in Paris.

They make love, and she tells him of the collapsed roof and lost relic. He completes a cathedral, and a miracle attributed to him brings support for a journey to Kingsbridge with their baby, where they seek permission to marry. Philip orders them apart until her marriage to Alfred is annulled. This requires Waleran Bigod’s recommendation to the archbishop, but Waleran and the Hamleighs intend to ruin Philip and Aliena. Waleran allows William to attack Kingsbridge again, but it fails. Jack learns his father was hanged by Waleran.

Many years of famine pass. Richard attacks William's land. Richard has joined the forces of Maud's son, Henry, Count of Anjou. When Henry invades, Stephen agrees to have Henry succeed him, with all properties to revert to their former owners prior to Stephen’s reign. However Stephen is not forcing the handovers, meaning that Richard might not gain the earldom until Stephen's death. Aliena persuades William's young wife, who loathes William, to hand the castle over to them before William returns, making Richard the righful earl. William returns to the village of Hamleigh, and Waleran proposes to sell him the position of sheriff of Shiring. They plan again to move the diocese from Kingsbridge to Shiring, and Alfred supports them. Richard kills Alfred for trying to rape Aliena. Richard is sent to fight in the Holy Land where he dies. Aliena and Jack can now marry.

After many years, Kingsbridge cathedral is completed. Waleran accuses Philip of fornication by claiming the monk Jonathan is Philip's son. Ellen swears that Jonathan is Tom Builder’s son. After Waleran accuses her of perjury, she exposes his own perjury in the framing of Jacques Cherbourg. Brother Remigius confirms her testimony, and Waleran is convicted. Jacques was framed because he was the sole survivor of the sinking of the White Ship carrying William Adelin, heir of King Henry I. Ellen made sure there was plenty of wine aboard the ship to dull the crew's response to any sabotage or attack. However, the wine itself was enough. When the crew asked William Adelin for wine, he supplied it in abundance before the ship had even left port. The drunken crew ordered the captain to try to overtake the king's ship, and when the White Ship set off in the dark, it struck a rock and capsized.

Meanwhile, William Hamleigh has become involved with the plot to assassinate Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, so that Peter of Warehem can be appointed bishop of Kingsbridge. William is convicted of sacrilege and hanged. The Pope forces King Henry’s public repentance and symbolic subjugation of the crown to the church.

Background

In the 1999 preface to The Pillars of the Earth, Follett tells readers that he grew up in a Puritan-based family, whose worship space was very spare. In preparing for writing, he was reading about medieval architecture, and:

...developed an interest in cathedrals. Before too long, it occurred to me to channel this enthusiasm into a novel. I knew it had to be a long book. It took at least thirty years to build a cathedral and most took longer because they would run out of money, or be attacked or invaded. So the story covers the entire lives of the main characters. My publishers were a little nervous about such a very unlikely subject but, paradoxically, it is my most popular book. It's also the book I'm most proud of. It recreates, quite vividly, the entire life of the village and the people who live there. You feel you know the place and the people as intimately as if you yourself were living there in the Middle Ages.

The Preface includes the following sources:

1. An Outline of European Architecture, by Nicholas Pevsner.
2. The Cathedral Builders, by Jean Gimpel.
3. The Medieval Machine, by Jean Gimpel.

The novel's Kingsbridge is fictional. He set it in Marlborough, Wiltshire; Follett chose that location because the cathedrals of Winchester, Gloucester, and Salisbury could be reached from there within a few days on horseback. Kingsbridge Cathedral as described is based on the cathedrals of Wells and Salisbury.

Historical accuracy

While the book has been praised for its description of Medieval life, it also features some historical inaccuracies. Some of these might be to make the characters and the plot more suited for modern readers while some are clear anachronisms:

• The English nobility of that period were Norman French immigrants. Norman French was the language of the court and upper class and it did not spread far into the rest of the English society. The ability of ordinary Englishmen to speak French was considered unusual. Thus many of the encounters across social classes presented in the book have been characterized as implausible by some critics, although in fact bilingualism was then emerging in English society for practical and mercantile reasons. For example, the noblewoman Aliena (presumably a native Norman French-speaker) becomes a successful wool merchant, communicating with the Anglo-Saxon-speaking locals and running a successful business among them.
• Sugar is mentioned several times in the book. Sugar was not available in England at that time, except in courtly circles: "It is reported that the household of Henry III was using sugar in 1264, but not until 1319 was sugar in more general use in Britain."
• Lots of people in the book are reported as having breakfast. There is some debate on whether all people in those times ate breakfast at all.
• Tom tries to find a hibernating squirrel "in the dead leaves on the forest floor […] to put in the broth. He was unlucky." Squirrels found in the UK do not hibernate, although they are known to be lethargic in times of deep cold. (These would have been red squirrels in Medieval times.)
• The priory storeroom is said to contain hops. Hops were not used in the UK for food production until centuries later.
• One of the characters is called Francis. It is unlikely that anybody would bear this name fifty years before the birth of Francis of Assisi. Indeed, Francis (Italian: Francesco, meaning "frenchman") was the saint's nickname, while his Christian name was Giovanni (John). The name became widespread only due to the saint's fame.
• Significantly, Tom and Ellen are rebuked for perpetuated fornication, and try an excuse that there was no priest at hand. Yet the diriment impediment "lack of form" dates back to no earlier than the Council of Trent. The contemporary practice (as treated, for instance, by St. Thomas, S. th. Supp. 45) would have well made it possible for them to marry at once, without a priest, possibly taking their children as witnesses. Even more significantly, unmarried couples were fairly common throughout medieval society, and while the social standing of the woman would have been somewhat lowered by being a "concubine" and not a married woman, the fact itself carried no social stigma and scarcely provoked any intervention by law and church.

Major characters

• Jack Jackson (known also as Jack Builder): son of Jack Shareburg (Jacques Cherbourg) and Ellen; he becomes an architect and skilled stonemason.
• Tom Builder: A builder whose lifelong dream is to build a cathedral.
• Ellen: daughter of a knight. She was unusual in knowing English, French and Latin, and in being literate. The lover of Jack Shareburg and the mother of Jack Jackson, she is discovered by Tom Builder while living in the woods.
• Prior Philip: A monk who dreams of Kingsbridge rising to greatness with a cathedral.
• William Hamleigh: The son of a minor lord, he temporarily gains the earldom of Shiring but eventually loses it to Richard, the son of the former earl, Bartholomew.
• Aliena: daughter to the Earl of Shiring, and the intended bride of Alfred.
• Richard (Richard of Kingsbridge): Aliena's younger brother, a knight who becomes a skilled soldier and leader, depending on Aliena for revenues from her wool business.
• Alfred Builder: Tom's son, a mason who later marries Aliena, but abandons her after he finds out that she is pregnant with Jack's child.
• Agnes: first wife of Tom Builder and mother of Martha and Alfred.
• Martha: daughter of Tom, sister to Alfred, stepsister to Jack.
• Bishop Waleran Bigod: an ambitious and corrupt cleric constantly scheming his way to more power.
• Jonathan: Son of Tom and Agnes Builder, he was raised from infancy by Prior Philip.
• Lord Percy Hamleigh, Earl of Shiring: father of William, he disposes of the rebel Earl Bartholomew and gains the earldom.
• Lady Regan Hamleigh, Countess of Shiring: William Hamleigh's mother.

Minor characters

• Jack Shareburg (Jacques Cherbourg): a jongleur who survives the wreck of the White Ship to become the lover of Ellen and father of Jack Jackson; executed.
• Francis of Gwynedd: Philip's brother, orphaned with him in Wales and raised by monks; became a secular priest with royal connections.
• Tommy (later called Thomas): son of Jack and Aliena. With a talent for administration and command, he becomes the Earl of Shiring. He reluctantly oversees William Hamleigh's hanging.
• Sally: daughter of Jack and Aliena. She becomes a stained glass artisan working on the Kingsbridge Cathedral.
• Raschid Alharoun: Jack's friend in Toledo, a Christian Arab merchant who introduces him to the scholarly world.
• Walter: William Hamleigh's groom/squire. Accompanies him through much of the novel.
• Johnny Eightpence: A gentle, simpleminded monk who cares for baby Jonathan.
• Remigius: The former Sub-Prior of Kingsbridge who tries to secure the position of Prior. Primarily motivated by envy and spite.
• Cuthbert Whitehead: Kingsbridge Priory's cellarer. An early ally of Philip after his arrival in Kingsbridge.
• Milius Bursar: Kingsbridge Priory's bursar, he is an early ally of Philip.
• Elizabeth: betrothed to William Hamleigh, she is beaten by him on their wedding night. Later befriended by Aliena and surrenders the keep to Richard's forces.
• Bartholomew, Earl of Shiring: father of Aliena and Richard, he earns the enmity of the Hamleighs and is jailed for treason.

Adaptations

Board games

Board game by Michael Rieneck and Stefan Stadler

Three separate board games have been developed that are based on The Pillars of the Earth:

• A German-style board game by Michael Rieneck and Stefan Stadler was published in 2006 by Kosmos and released at the Spiel game fair as Die Säulen der Erde . The game sold out long before the fair ended. It has been awarded the 2007 Deutscher Spiele Preis, the Spanish "Game of the Year 2007" and the Norwegian "Best Family Game of 2007" and the GAMES Magazine Game of the Year 2007.
• A 2-player game was published by Kosmos in Germany and reprinted in the US as Pillars of the Earth: Builder's Duel.
• A trivia game, attributed to E. Follett, was first published in 2008 by the British publisher Sophisticated Games.

Television adaptation

Main article: The Pillars of the Earth (TV miniseries)

A German-Canadian co-production was developed by the Munich-based Tandem Communications and Montreal-based Muse Entertainment, in association with Ridley Scott's Scott Free Films, to adapt the novel for a television movie. It premiered on July 23, 2010, in Canada on The Movie Network/Movie Central and in the United States on Starz. Its UK premiere was in October 2010 on Channel 4. The Australian premiere was 9 December 2012 on ABC1.

See also

• The Cathedral by Joris-Karl Huysmans
• Anno 1404

External links

• The Pillars of the Earth on Ken Follett's website
• IMDb listing for Mini-series
• Tandem Communications' Pillars pages