The Pillars of the Earth

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

The Pillars of the Earth

File:PillarsOfTheEarth.jpg First edition
Author	Ken Follett
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Historical fiction
Publisher	Macmillan
Publication date	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 fictional 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

Prologue

A red-headed man is hanged for theft after being condemned by a priest, a knight, and a monk. His pregnant lover curses the men who condemned him, declaring that their children will be hanged, their enemies will prosper, and that they will live the rest of their lives with regret and sorrow.

Part One

Circumstances leave mason Tom Builder and his family destitute and starving. After his pregnant wife Agnes dies in childbirth, Tom abandons his newborn by his wife's grave in the snowy woods, having no way to feed the infant. He later has a change of heart and returns, but finds the baby missing. After meeting up with an outlaw named Ellen and her son Jack, whom they had first met earlier, the group discover that Tom's infant has been taken to a monastery cell belonging to the Kingsbridge Priory. Knowing that he will be charged with abandonment if he says the baby is his, and confident that the monks will be able to look after him, Tom decides to leave the infant to the monastery.

Philip, the leader of the cell, is visited by his brother Francis, a priest, who warns him of a plot by the Earls of Shiring and Gloucestershire against King Stephen. Philip tells Waleran Bigod, the archdeacon to the Bishop of Kingsbridge, of the plot, and travels to Kingsbridge Priory where the prior has died only a few days before. Waleran promises to make Philip the bishop's nomination for prior, practically guaranteeing Philip's election, in return for Philip's support to later make Waleran bishop though Waleran conceals that the bishop is also already dead. Philip agrees as the priory is destitute, financially and spiritually, and he believes he can correct that. He wins, making enemies of the rivals for the post, in particular the sub-prior Remigius. Tom's infant, now named Jonathan, is sent to live with Philip at the priory.

Unsure of the validity of Philip's words, Waleran goes to the Hamleighs, a noble family who have been enemies of the Earl of Shiring ever since the earl's daughter, Aliena, rejected a marriage with William, the only son of the Hamleighs. Seeing this as an excuse for them to take their revenge, the Hamleighs take Bartholomew's castle and arrest the earl, forcing Tom, Ellen and their children into homelessness once again. They eventually settle in Kingsbridge, Tom hoping to get a job rebuilding the cathedral there. To ensure that Tom will have work, Jack burns down the old Romanesque cathedral, telling no one else of his actions. After some convincing, Philip hires Tom to build the new cathedral.

Tom's strong son Alfred physically bullies smaller and weaker Jack through repeated acts of battery which creates friction with Ellen as Tom sees no fault in his son and never disciplines him. Brother Remigius, who is opposed to Philip as prior, charges Ellen and Tom with fornication. Waleran, who was cursed by the woman at the hanging, orders Ellen to live apart from Tom. Outraged by Tom's willingness to accept this, Ellen returns to the forest with Jack.

Part Two

Philip and Waleran go to King Stephen in the hope of convincing him to give Bartholomew's estates, including a huge limestone quarry, to the church, so that they can be used to pay for the new cathedral's construction. Initially believing that Waleran will be loyal to him as a fellow cleric, Phililp learns from the Hamleighs that Waleran intends to use the earldom solely to boost his own position. Realising that the Hamleighs are trying to divide him and Waleran so that they can take the earldom for themselves, Philip secretly conspires with the Hamleighs. They agree that Kingsbridge Priory will be given the quarry and some other lands with the rest of Shiring going to the Hamleighs, but the Hamleighs betray this deal and are given ownership of the quarry with Philip getting rights to, not ownership of, the stone. Furious at being foiled, Waleran vows to never let Philip build his cathedral.

Finding her still living in Shiring Castle, William attacks Aliena and her brother Richard. He mutilates the boy to coerce Aliena into not resisting as he and he his man-at-arms gang rape her. Homeless and destitute, Aliena and Richard travel to Winchester. 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 (by, as described in the book, the hitherto unheard of act of buying wool from the farmers on their farms and selling it at market rather than the farmers having to travel to market themselves, saving them time and effort), with Phillip's help when the existing wool merchants pay Aliena less because of her sex. William and Waleran try and fail to have the cathedral moved to Shiring by claiming that Kingsbridge lacks the resources and manpower to build one, but Philip foils them again by gathering a huge workforce of volunteers, offering them penance for their sins in exchange for their labour.

Part Three

William's father, Percy Hamleigh, passes away, and William learns that the earldom will either go to him or Richard, now a knight, since they are both sons of an Earl of Shiring. In order to restore his fortunes so that he can raise an army with which to impress King Stephen, William leads an attack on the quarry, which the Hamleighs had unsuccessfully attempted to barricade against Philip, killing and expelling the priory's quarrymen.

Tom befriends Prior Philip and, when Ellen returns, he persuades Philip to allow them to marry. After some time, Alfred proposes to Aliena, but she turns him down, She also strikes up a friendship, and falls in love with Jack, now working as an apprentice mason at Tom's suggestion, but she shuns him after Alfred catches the two of them kissing, being reminded of WIlliam's attack on her. The two stepbrothers continue to be at odds, and Alfred later claims that Jack's father was hanged for thieving, starting a fight that leads to damage and a loss of construction materials. Jack is expelled from the cathedral construction, but Philip contrives a new construction overseer position for Jack that he can have, on the condition that he becomes a monk. Jack reluctantly agrees to this, in order to stay in Kingsbridge. Later on, Ellen claims that Jack's father was innocent.

William proves a hapless and merciless lord who mishandles the earldom financially and routinely rapes any peasant women he wishes. Attempting to restore his fortunes, William leads an attack that burns down Kingsbridge and kills many people including Tom Builder. In the chaos, Aliena's entire stock of wool, in which she had invested all her money, is destroyed in the fire.

Part Four

After losing her fortune again, Aliena agrees to marry Alfred if he supports Richard. For his continued infringements (largely for fraternizing with Aliena) Jack is imprisoned. However, he is imprisoned in the same room that his mother used to break into to meet with Jack's father. Ellen breaks in and Jack learns that his father, a French jongleur who washed ashore, was framed for theft. Freed by his mother, Jack and Aliena make love on the morning of her wedding. When she marries Alfred anyway, Ellen curses him. He blames this for making him impotent and he and Aliena never consummate their marriage. When he learns she is pregnant Alfred forces Aliena to sleep on the floor and she realises he never loved her, he simply didn't want Jack to have her. Jack goes to Spain and France to hone his skills as a mason.

After years of putting off the decision following the death of Earl Percy Hamleigh, Stephen finally gives the earldom to William. Alfred persuades Philip to replace the wooden roof of the cathedral with a stone vault, but fails to reinforce the structure at the higher levels. This causes the cathedral to collapse during a service, killing many people. Aliena gives birth to a red-headed son, and Alfred abandons her.

On Ellen's advice, Aliena leaves with her son to find Jack, and follows evidence of Jack's sculpture through France, finding him in Paris. They make love, and she tells him of the collapsed roof. Jack helps to complete a cathedral and a miracle is attributed to his statue (a wooden statue of a woman he was given by a spice merchant he befriended that appears to weep; Jack determines it only happens when the statue is taken from a hot place to a cold place). Jack leverages this "miracle" for financial support to rebuild the cathedral in Kingsbridge.

As he travels home, Jack makes his way to Cherbourg where he is mistaken for the ghost of his father, Jacques Cherbourg, before meeting his grandmother and other relatives. They reveal that Jacques had supposedly died when the White Ship, of which he was a passenger, had sunk while crossing the English Channel. Returning to Kingsbridge, Jack convinces Philip and the clergy to make him the cathedral's new master-builder, drawing up a new design for the cathedral based on his observations in France and Spain.

Aliena and Jack live together until their unmarried status, as happened to Jack's mother, is pointed out, and Philip orders them apart until Aliena's 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 and permission is refused. Waleran allows William to attack Kingsbridge again but it fails as Richard overhears fighters discussing the attack in another town. The warning allows the villagers to build a set of masonry and wooden walls and earthen ramparts in about two days and they kill many of the attackers.

Part Five

Many years of famine pass, which are further exacerbated by William's poor leadership. Alfred has left Kingsbridge for Shiring, but following a downturn in business he returns to Kingsbridge and begs for a job from Jack. Waleran and William plan once again to move the diocese from Kingsbridge to Shiring and Alfred supports them. (as the priory is short of money Philip wants to lay off half the workers immediately and they, described as a new idea in the book, decide to strike; Alfred launches this 'coup d'état', promising to take all the workmen to Shiring in return for being in charge of Shiring's cathedral construction)

Inspired by Aliena, Richard organises the starving peasants who have turned to outlawry into a militia, and goes to war with William, robbing him on multiple occasions. William learns of the location of Richard's forces from Remigius, in return for making the monk the head of Shiring's future chapter, and plans an overwhelming attack to kill all the rebels. When he arrives, he learns that Richard's men have left to join the forces of Maud's son, Henry, Count of Anjou, who has invaded the country on the advice of Francis.

Eventually, Stephen agrees to have Henry succeed him. Philip learns that as part of their deal, all properties will revert to the owners who held them prior to Stephen’s reign, thus making Richard the official earl, but Stephen will not have to force the handovers, meaning that Richard might not gain the earldom until Stephen's death. With the help of William's young wife, who loathes William, Aliena is able to allow Richard to capture the earldom's castle. William returns to the village of Hamleigh, and Waleran proposes to sell him the position of sheriff of Shiring so that he can oppose Richard and keep funding the cathedral.

Richard proves to be little better as an earl than William, and refuses to grant the priory access to the quarry, on the basis that it was once part of the earldom. After Aliena calls him out for his ingratitude towards Philip, she is attacked and nearly raped by Alfred, who is out of work again after Shiring Cathedral is abandoned. Richard arrives and kills Alfred in the ensuing fight. Seeing a chance to regain the earldom, William obtains a warrant to arrest Richard for murder on the king's behalf. Realising that Richard has no chance of a fair trial due to the attitudes towards marital rape of the time period and the hostility of both William and Stephen towards him, Philip proposes that Richard fight in the Crusades as penance for killing Alfred; William would be unable to arrest him, and Aliena would be allowed to look after her brother's lands, therefore giving the earldom both a competent ruler and one willing to co-operate with the priory. Aliena and Jack marry within the new cathedral.

Part Six

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, now a well liked and committed monk, is Tom Builder’s son and this is largely accepted by most but Waleran accuses her of perjury. She exposes his own perjury in the framing of Jacques Cherbourg. Brother Remigius, now elderly and contrite over his many years of antagonistic behaviour in the priory, confirms her testimony. Waleran is convicted, ultimately losing his position as bishop of Kingsbridge.

Later on, William and Waleran become involved with the plot to assassinate Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in order to protect their now crumbling positions of power. William leads the attack, and despite the efforts of Philip, who had travelled to Canterbury to meet with Beckett, the archbishop is brutally murdered. Upon seeing the distraught congregation, Philip is inspired to treat Beckett's death as a martyrdom, and urges the congregation to spread word of the murder across Christendom. William is subsequently convicted of sacrilege by the efforts of both Aliena and Jack's son Tommy as well as Philip, and hanged, with the King not daring to defend one of Beckett's killers.

At Kingsbridge, Jack meets with a ruined and repentant Waleran, now living as a monk in the priory, to learn why his father was framed. The former bishop explains that a group of barons had arranged the sinking of the White Ship in order to kill the king's son and heir, with the belief that they would be able to influence the succession and gain more independence from the crown as a result. After Jacques Cherbourg survived the sinking, the barons had him imprisoned in England, out of fear that he would expose their conspiracy if left to roam free. They later chose to have him killed after he learned English and started attracting unwanted attention. Elsewhere, the Pope forces King Henry’s public repentance and symbolic subjugation of the crown to the church, in which Philip, now Bishop of Kingsbridge, participates.

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 immigrants, together with other continental nationalities such as Bretons, Frenchmen (Paris and Île-de-France), Flemish and Angevin people. Anglo-Norman 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, but Thomas Beckett's parents for example, who did not belong to the nobility, were traders and emigrated to England from Normandy and they were not the only one. 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, as is an imaginary person when Philip is lying to Waleran Bigod in Chapter 2, ii. 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.
• Shareburg could not have been anglicized as such, because in the Norman pronunciation of the modern town Cherbourg, the Cher- element was pronounced [tʃɪr-] or [tʃɛr-] and was the same in Anglo-Norman, [tʃ] would have been retained in Middle English as well. [ʃɛr-] is Modern French. In the Old and Middle English and Anglo-Norman documents, Cherbourg is mentioned with different spellings from the 11th to the 15th century : Kiæresburh, Chirburg(h), Chierebour, Cheerebourg, Chierbourg(h), Ch(i)erburg(h), Chierbourc, Chirbourg(h), Chirburt, Chireburgh, etc.
• 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.
• Follett depicts Toledo, in medieval Spain, as a country with no wheat supposedly due to a lack of proper flat terrain to cultivate it. In reality, the Kingdom of Castile's plains, to which Toledo belonged, were actually famous for their rather extensive wheat fields.
• Santiago de Compostela, northwest of Spain, is portrayed as a very hot city, like southern Spain is. In reality, Galicia, the northwest region of Spain, is about as cold and rainy as the south of England.

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 Bartholomew, the original Earl of Shiring, and the intended bride of William Hamleigh.
• 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, Alfred and Jonathan.
• Martha: Daughter of Tom, sister to Alfred and Jonathan and 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 (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.

Video game

Game developer and publisher Daedalic Entertainment has announced their intention to develop an adventure game based on The Pillars of the Earth, to be released in 2017.

See also

• The Cathedral by Joris-Karl Huysmans

External links

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