The Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries

Marshfield and Colerne are two ancient English villages which I portray as settings in the life of my heroine, the Lady Apollonia, in Effigy of the Cloven Hoof, my first novel in the Lady Apollonia West Country mystery series.  Marshfield in Gloucestershire is the fictional Lady’s birthplace.  She is of noble birth, her father being the Earl of Marshfield.  Colerne Leat was the name I used for her home village after her first marriage to the knight, Geoffrey Montecute.  It is, of course, based on Colerne in Wiltshire.  Despite being in different shires, the two villages are less than five miles apart, a ten-minute drive and a walkable distance in medieval times.

I chose the two villages for personal and family reasons.  My grandmother was born in Marshfield from which she emigrated to Ohio where she met my grandfather, her first cousin who also emigrated to Ohio from England.  Although Grandpa was born in Atworth in Wiltshire, his ancestors had lived for many generations in Colerne.  In 1993 on one of our visits to Colerne with my brother, Jim, we met a resident of the village with the same name as our father, Henry Aust.  This Henry was a distant cousin to my father’s family and was the last Aust remaining in Colerne.  He told us that in previous centuries there were so many Austs that one part of the village had been called Aust End.

In both villages, the churches are medieval.  Saint Mary the Virgin Church is a major building in Marshfield.  In 1986, I climbed the tower and was shown how to wind the clock. The church tower gave us a marvellous overview of the village and the surrounding area.  In the church interior, I found a plaque for the Isaac family from which my grandmother descended.  A church has been on this sight for a thousand years, but the Church of Saint Mary was consecrated in 1242.  Of special meaning to our family, I also found Aust graves in the church cemetery.  The picture above shows my nephew, Michael Aust, and his wife standing in front of the church on a 1993 visit.

The church is an important survivor from medieval times and there is also an adjoining tithe barn from the middle ages.  Portions of the present church building are over 800 years old, and fragments of a Saxon cross used in a burial in 709 are on display in it.  It was a beautiful surprise for me to find that its graveyard, too, contains countless stones from various members of the Aust side of my family.  Sadly, these grave markers deteriorated markedly from air pollution between my first visit in 1986 and the most recent in this decade.

For more information on Marshfield, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshfield,_Gloucestershire
or on https://www.achurchnearyou.com/marshfield-st-mary-the-virgin/ .

For more information on Colerne, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colerne
or on http://www.colerneparishchurch.org.uk/ .

The Anglican Church in Aust existed in the period when I created my fictional heroine, Lady Apollonia of Aust.  Before Henry VIII’s 16^th century departure from the church of Rome, it was a Roman Catholic church in the Diocese of Worcester.  John Wycliffe, Oxford scholar and reformer of the church, also had a connection with the Aust Church when in 1362 he was granted a prebend at Aust which meant that some of his income during the years when he was at Oxford came from this source.  It is not known how much time, if any, Wycliffe spent in Aust.

Nevertheless, since Wycliffe’s connection with Aust would have been during the years when Lady Apollonia and her second husband, Edward, were raising their five sons in the village, I could not resist using John Wycliffe as a character of my first story, Effigy of the Cloven Hoof.  I have also worked some of his ideas of church reform, as well as those of his followers, the Lollards, into other books in the Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries.

The church in Aust is mentioned in the Domesday Book as having ties to Westbury on Trym which is a suburb of Bristol some nine miles away.  In the 14^th century we are told that the parish at Aust was part of the Church of Westbury.  There was no way to see inside the church when I first visited the village.  It was not open to visitors because it had been declared redundant.  Aust church had no patron saint because I was told it was due to its having been built on a pagan site.  On our first visit to Aust in 1986, the village seemed to be in decline due to the replacement of the Aust ferry with a motorway bridge in 1966.

When I visited Aust with my husband in 2014, the village seemed more welcoming and prosperous, and best of all, the church was being used for worship once again.  It is now called the Chapelry of Saint John and is used for services two Sundays a month.  The term “chapelry” is a Church of England title meaning a daughter church of another parish, in this case the church in nearby Olveston.  For the first time in my family’s experience we could get the key and go inside.  The church is simply charming, still lit by candles and oil lamps.

For more information on John Wycliffe, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe .

For more information on the church in Aust, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aust .

The River Severn is an important geographic feature of the towns and villages where all but three of the Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries are set, and in one of the settings away from the river, it still plays a role in the story.  The Severn is the one of the longest rivers in England, second only to the Thames, and it is tidal.  I have written about its famous tidal phenomenon called the Severn Bore in my previous posting.  Although not the precise political border between England and Wales, the Severn River is key to the separation of the history and economy of the peoples of both countries.

The picture on the left shows the river in Gloucester, setting of my third novel, Memento Mori, in the Lady Apollonia West Country mysteries.  It is taken looking south from the medieval quay, an important location in the story.  The buildings in the background are modern, only going back to the 19^th century.  My most recent book, King Richard’s Sword, is set in Worcester, further upriver than Gloucester where some of my characters in the story live on the far side the Severn from the medieval city.

Aust, the home village of Lady Apollonia, occupies an important location on the estuary of the Severn.  It is at the narrowest place of the estuary as one approaches from the Bristol Channel and is only a mile wide at Aust, widening as one goes upstream.  Since the time of the Romans, people have used Aust, the village named for the Latin prefix meaning south, as the southern-most place to cross from England into Wales and back again.  A regular ferry service operated at Aust throughout the middle ages and down through the centuries until 1966 when it was replaced by a motorway bridge.  The medieval ferry plays an important role in Effigy of the Cloven Hoof, the first novel in my series.  In the 19^th century, this area was chosen for a railway tunnel connecting England with Wales, again because it is the narrowest crossing point between the two countries.

Joseph of Arimathea’s Treasure, the fifth of the Lady Apollonia novels, opens with two Druids from Ireland getting off the ferry at Aust and then walking upriver some distance to throw a gift into the Severn in thanks for their safe crossing.  This was an expression of their Celtic reverence for the river.  The Welsh name for the river was Habren while the Romans called it Sabrina.  The English name of Severn may be a corruption of these.

For more information on the legends and naming of the river, click on
http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/sabrina.htm .

For more information on the Aust Ferry, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aust_Ferry .

In my last posting, I shared some personal reasons why I selected Aust as the home of my heroine, Lady Apollonia.  Today I would like to discuss another unique feature of the region around Aust that inspired another early aspect of my first story, Effigy of the Cloven Hoof.  There is on the Severn River an extraordinary natural phenomenon called the Severn Bore.  I only became aware of it in March of 1993 when an English friend asked me and my husband to accompany her and her son to witness the best example of the Severn Bore which would occur in the 20^th century.

A bore is a steep-fronted wave which is caused by the tide rushing up a narrowing estuary.  When this occurs on the Severn River, it can be mightily impressive because the tide in the Bristol Channel and the Severn Estuary is one of the highest tides in the world, normally forty feet, sometimes 50 feet, second only to that in the Bay of Fundy in Canada.  The tidal phenomenon acts like liquid being poured into a funnel when this enormous tide rushes up the river.  Picture this funnelling affect by looking at the Severn River on the map of Lady Apollonia’s West Country.  The tidal bore happens twice a day for about 30 days around the time of the equinoxes in the spring and autumn.

We travelled with our friend and her son from Devon up the Severn beyond Aust to a place called Elmore Back in order to witness the bore rushing upstream as a tidal wave.  We were far enough upriver that we could see Gloucester Cathedral in the distance, and we could see surfers gather on the river hoping to ride the wave when it came.  We could hear it approaching before we could see a couple of boats come around a bend, followed by the wave.  When it got to the surfers, they were completely unsuccessful in catching the wave, and simply fell from their surfboards when it passed.  The wave roared by us sounding like a freight train with objects as large as a big tree trunk floating upstream.

As a witness to this extraordinary natural phenomenon, I decided I must use a description of it along with a great storm near Aust to begin my story of Effigy of the Cloven Hoof.

For more information on the Severn Bore, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_bore
or on http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/ .

To view an example of the Severn Bore, click on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKA39LQOIck .

Effigy of the Cloven Hoof, the first book in my Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries, is set in the village of Aust on the English side of the River Severn.  I have visited this village many times since 1986 when I first travelled to England to meet surviving family and trace my roots.  The picture on the left shows me with my brother, Jim, at the village sign on our first visit to Aust.  The parents of our father, Henry Aust, had immigrated to Ohio from the West Country of England.  We visited Aust and other towns and villages where family still lived.

With the help of an English friend, we traced back more than 13 generations of my family in England to a man in the 15^th century named Ferdinando Aust, an unusual name for an Englishman.  The name of Ferdinando is repeated in several later generations along with more typical English names such as Richard and Henry.  Is it possible that the first Ferdinando came from Spain or from Flanders in the Spanish Netherlands?  Could he have taken his surname by entering England at Aust using the ferry from Wales?  These kinds of questions led me to visit Aust over the years when I was stopping in Wiltshire where I still had family resident.

Over twenty years ago, while my husband, Lou, and I were living in Devon, England, I began to draft a fictional mystery story about the medieval Lady Apollonia of Aust.  This led eventually to the publication of book one, Effigy of the Cloven Hoof, in 2010.  This month I would like to use my postings to talk about various aspects of the village of Aust and some other family locations that play a role in Lady Apollonia’s story.

The location of Aust on the River Severn is important.  Future postings will discuss the Aust ferry which operated from Roman times until 1966.  I will also describe unique events which occur on the tidal river, such as the Severn Bore, which plays a role in my story. 

There is a historic connection between the 14^th century reformer, John Wycliffe, and the church in Aust.  Wycliffe would have been a contemporary of my heroine and he appears in Effigy of the Cloven Hoof and some of my later novels.

For more information on Aust, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aust .

Thomas Walsingham was a real life monastic chronicler who plays a minor role in King Richard’s Sword, my new novel in the Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries.  Walsingham was a Benedictine monk who spent most of his life at Saint Albans Abbey which is not far from London.  King Richard’s Sword is set in Worcester in the West Country of England in 1399-1400, so you might wonder why someone with no connection to Worcester would have a role in my story.

I have referred to Walsingham in my story because he is well known as a fourteenth century historian and for being in charge of the scriptorium at Saint Albans Abbey.  He is perhaps the best contemporary source we have concerning Wat Tyler and the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381.  Soon after 1388 Walsingham bitterly assailed the actions and motives of the career of John of Gaunt, the wealthiest man in England and father of Henry IV.  Walsingham is our best source of information for the reign of King Richard II, who ruled until he was deposed in 1399, and the reign of his cousin, the usurper, King Henry IV.  The modern cover of one of Walsingham’s chronicles is shown above portraying the fourteenth century Peasants’ Revolt.

Lady Apollonia is made aware of Walsingham and his scholarly position at Saint Albans because, in King Richard’s Sword, she seeks to find a monastic house where she can send a very intelligent boy who is precious to her.  The child is named Elwin and, although he is deaf and dumb, he risked himself to save her life.  Apollonia determines that serving in the scriptorium of Walsingham’s monastery would offer an excellent career possibility for young Elwin.  The boy is thrilled to be enabled to even consider such a career.

For more on Thomas Walsingham click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Walsingham
and on http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15542b.htm .

Usury, or the practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest, is a criminal activity in my new book, King Richard’s Sword, set in Worcester, England, in 1399-1400.  The church banned any charging of interest, and England did not legalise lending with interest until the time of Henry VIII which is more than a century later than my book.  As the 14^th century was coming to a close, some villains in my novel were able to take advantage of illiterate and poorly educated residents of Worcester to defraud them of significant amounts of their meagre earnings.

The history of usury is ancient.  Many important religions have condemned any charging of interest, and some nations have outlawed it in the last three millennia.  The Roman Empire did come to legalise lending with reasonable interest.  By the 12^th century of the Common Era, the Roman Catholic Church banned anyone who took interest on loans from receiving sacraments or Christian burial.  Charging any interest was forbidden by church law and could only be done secretly. 

In 1290 the Edict of Expulsion had forced all Jews out of England unless they converted to Christianity with their practice of usury given as the official reason.  One of the major characters of the story discovers that his family had been part of this forced conversion.

Usury is an age old problem but one which especially enables two of my villainous characters on both sides monastic walls.

For more information on medieval usury, click on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury or http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/articles/1998_usury.htm .

In King Richard’s Sword, the sixth novel in my Lady Apollonia West Country Mysteries, I have used a National Trust property, Greyfriars House and Garden, as my inspiration for the home of Apollonia’s son, Sir Hugh, on Friar Street in Worcester, England.  Lady Apollonia and some of her affinity are temporarily living with Sir Hugh in this book.  Greyfriars was built some decades after my story in 1399, but it is a good example of the kind of house that would have been occupied by Sir Hugh.  I was able to visit it with my husband in 2014 when doing research for this story.

The name of the house is based on the Greyfriars Friary which was adjacent to this property before the dissolution of all the monastic houses by King Henry VIII in the 16^th century.  It is a good example of a late medieval merchant’s house and was built for Thomas Grene, a 15^th century brewer and High Bailiff of Worcester.  It seemed fitting for Sir Hugh who was Sheriff of Worcestershire at the beginning of the 15^th century.

The picture above shows the back of the house which is quite different from the front facing Friar Street.  Behind the house is a large garden which is not visible to people on the street but provides privacy for the family and their guests.

My husband and I also enjoyed the interior of the house which is two storeys, including rooms to receive guests, a parlour, a library, and bedrooms.

For more information on Greyfriars, click on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyfriars,_Worcester
or  http://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=3640