Chronicles of Brother Cadfael Series (20 Books) - Ellis Peters

Category: Historical Fiction, Mystery
Language: EnglishKeywords: Cadfael

Written by Ellis Peters
Format: MP3
Unabridged

Brother Cadfael is the main fictional character in a series of historical murder mysteries written between 1977 and 1994 by Edith Pargeter under the name “Ellis Peters”. The character of Cadfael himself is a Welsh Benedictine monk living at the Abbey of St Peter and St Paul, in Shrewsbury, western England, in the first half of the 12th century. The historically accurate stories[1] are set between about 1135 and about 1145, during “The Anarchy”, the destructive contest for the crown of England between King Stephen and Empress Maud.

As a character, Cadfael “combines the curious mind of a scientist/pharmacist with a knight-errant”.[2] He entered the cloister in his forties after being both a soldier and a sailor; this worldly experience gives him an array of talents and skills useful in monastic life. He is a skilled observer of human nature, inquisitive by nature, energetic, a talented herbalist (work he learned in the Holy Lands), and has an innate, although modern, sense of justice and fair-play. Abbots call upon him as a medical examiner, detective, doctor, and diplomat. His worldly knowledge, although useful, gets him in trouble with the more doctrinaire characters of the series, and the seeming contradiction between the secular and the spiritual worlds forms a central and continuing theme of the stories.

Cadfael novels
A Morbid Taste for Bones (written in 1977, set in 1137)
One Corpse Too Many (1979, set in August 1138)
Monk’s Hood (1980, set in December 1138)
Saint Peter’s Fair (1981, set in July 1139)
The Leper of Saint Giles (1981, set in October 1139)
The Virgin in the Ice (1982, set in November 1139)
The Sanctuary Sparrow (1983, set in the Spring of 1140)
The Devil’s Novice (1983, set in September 1140)
Dead Man’s Ransom (1984, set in February 1141)
The Pilgrim of Hate (1984, set in May 1141)
An Excellent Mystery (1985, set in August 1141)
The Raven in the Foregate (1986, set in December 1141)
The Rose Rent (1986, set in June 1142)
The Hermit of Eyton Forest (1988, set in October 1142)
The Confession of Brother Haluin (1988, set in December 1142)
The Heretic’s Apprentice (1990, set in June 1143)
The Potter’s Field (1990, set in August 1143)
The Summer of the Danes (1991, set in April 1144)
The Holy Thief (1992, set in August 1144)
Brother Cadfael’s Penance (1994, set in November 1145)