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When Christ and His Saints Slept
by: Sharon K. Penman

List Price: £10.99

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140166361
ISBN: 014016636X
Label: Penguin Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
Number Of Pages: 928
Publication Date: December 07, 2000
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Studio: Penguin Books Ltd
Sales Rank: 12908

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Another excellent novel
Sharon Penman is one of the best writers of historical fiction living today. This book is the first in a trilogy about Henry II of England and his tumultuous marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine. The book opens some years before Henry's birth and deals with the civil war that ravaged England between 1135 and 1154. The death of Henry I, second son of William the Conqueror, leaves his barons with a dilemma. His only legitimate son has drowned, and he names as his heir his daughter Maude, widow of the Holy Roman Emperor and now married to Count Geoffrey of Anjou. The barons have no desire to be ruled by a woman, and so her cousin Stephen takes the throne. Penman is very fair in her judgment of the main protagonists - Stephen is shown as a courageous ... Read More:

Rating:

- A great historical novel of politics , intrigue and war
When Christ and His Saints Slept is the story of Maude, the daughter and only legitimate heir of Henry I. Upon his death the barons who happen to not like the idea of a woman to rule them. Even though the Kings wishes is for Maude to be Queen they crown her cousin Stephen in her stead. And so starts the brutal and drawn out civil war, which caused great strife and turmoil to the people of the realm. A war to reclaim her crown. Being a woman in the medieval world and married, she acts like a liberated woman. Though her husband still seems to have his medieval rights.

This is a wounderful read. The author seems to have a great grasp of the times and characters. They seem to come alive.The plot is interesting from start to finish. She has ... Read More:

Rating:

- From friends to foes: civil war in the 12th century - a magnificient re-creation of a dark time
Often the picture painted of medieval ages is a romantic one: knights in shinning armor following a strict code of chivalry and enjoying sumptuous banquets in pristine castles. The reality is much more sobering.

When King Henry I died in 1135, Stephen - grandson of William the Conqueror - grabbed the throne from Henry's daughter Matilda leading to an extended period of civil war. It was a period of lawlessness descended upon the countryside, endangering the safety of peasant and noble alike. This lasted almost twenty years ending only with the death of Stephen and the rise of Henry II to the throne. It was a time when Christ and his saints were asleep, truly a dark time in England's history.

After having read the scholarly ... Read More:

Rating:

- A Sad and Tragic Period in England's History and.....
truly a time when Christ and his Saints slept. A fascinating, complicated tale with a huge cast of characters, many with similar names. It was hard to keep track of at times, a list of who's who at the front of the book would have been helpful, as SKP did in the next book, Time and Chance.

The characters were well written, and I appreciated that neither Stephen (who did steal the crown) nor Maude were written as black and white/evil vs. saint -- all had flaws in their characters. Adding the fictional Ranulf gave a nice perspective to the tale. I also appreciated the way the author brought us the viewpoints of the common folk, who didn't care who ruled, as long as there was peace.

The first 2/3 of the book are mostly about the ... Read More:

Rating:

- Not Penman's best
I am a fan of Penman but was disappointed with this book after 'Sunne' and the Welsh trilogy. I've always found her slightly disjointed story-telling a bit awkward at times, where she jumps time from chapter to chapter, but it was most obvious in this book where because of the long-drawn out history of the civil war she frequently jumps years.

My biggest problem, though, was the characters: whereas I think she brought Richard III and Edward IV to life as real people, with hopes, thoughts, loves, desires, I just didn't feel that happened with Maude, and, most irritatingly, with Stephen.
The central problem of how the affable, charming cousin ever came to snatch the throne was glossed over in one of those time-jumps I disliked: one minute ... Read More:

Books : When Christ and His Saints Slept