The village of Ulewic (the place of the owl in Old English)
had a difficult year with crops, animal disease and
flooding in 1321. But a community of women living outside
the village didn't suffer the same damage to plants and
animals. The women in these communities, called beguines,
lived an austere and religious life without being nuns.
They had the freedom to make choices and cared for the sick
and hungry in the village. The women rarely turned people
away including individuals cast out by the villages. Rumors
also ran rampant that the women practiced evil sexual acts
amongst themselves.
Whether from fear, revenge, or in search of an easy
scapegoat, the Owl Masters, who held with ancient pagan
traditions and rituals, blamed the women for the village's
troubles. The Owl Masters ruled the village, and the
villagers knew it and feared them more than any punishment
from the lord or Church. After all, the priest, Father
Ulfrid, wouldn't burn a man alive for sleeping with a maid
already promised to another man. The manor lord, Robert
D'Acaster, and Father Ulfrid hold secular and religious
posts at the whim of, or at least with oversight, of the
Owl Masters.
The story revolves around the Owl Masters revenge against
the beguinage, and the women's response. The author
includes sub-plots throughout the story, introducing the
reader to numerous well-drawn characters: Beatrice, a
beguine obsessed with having her a child of her own;
Agatha/Osmanna, the youngest daughter of D'Acaster who
becomes a beguine; Pisspuddle, a young village girl who
covets a spot with the tumblers who come to every May Day
celebration; and Father Ulfrid, the village priest who has
some of his own skeletons hidden in his closet.
Karen Maitland draws the reader back nearly 700
years in this tale of religion, mystery and evil, but it
might as well be yesterday with the ease with which she
recreates this village of long ago. While Maitland tells us
that Ulewic itself is a fictionalized village, many
villages of its kind dotted the English coast, and 1321 was
a bad year for drought and animal sickness. Beguinages had
cropped up throughout the Netherlands and Belgium and while
some had traveled to England, none survived long. With
exquisite and vivid descriptions, lyrical prose and complex
characters, Maitland brings history to life. You can almost
hear the pulsing of ritual drums and feel the branches lash
at your face in the forest in the midst of a storm.
From the author of Company of Liars, hailed as “a jewel of
a medieval mystery”* and “an atmospheric tale of treachery
and magic,”** comes a magnificent new novel of an
embattled village and a group of courageous women who are
set on a collision course—in an unforgettable storm of
secrets, lust, and rage.England, 1321. The tiny village of
Ulewic teeters between survival and destruction, faith and
doubt, God and demons. For shadowing the villagers’ lives
are men cloaked in masks and secrecy, ruling with
violence, intimidation, and terrifying fiery rites: the
Owl Masters. But another force is touching Ulewic—a newly
formed community built and served only by women. Called a
beguinage, it is a safe harbor of service and faith in
defiance of the all-powerful Church. Behind the walls of
this sanctuary, women have gathered from all walks of
life: a skilled physician, a towering former prostitute, a
cook, a local convert. But life in Ulewic is growing more
dangerous with each passing day. The women are the subject
of rumors, envy, scorn, and fury…until the daughter of
Ulewic’s most powerful man is cast out of her home and
accepted into the beguinage—and battle lines are
drawn.Into this drama are swept innocents and
conspirators: a parish priest trying to save himself from
his own sins…a village teenager, pregnant and terrified…a
woman once on the verge of sainthood, now cast out of the
Church.…With Ulewic ravaged by flood and disease, and with
villagers driven by fear, a secret inside the beguinage
will draw the desperate and the depraved—until masks are
dropped, faith is tested…and every lie is exposed.*New
York Times Book Review**Marie Claire
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