A tail of two archbishops
Nov. 28th, 2010 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altivoNanowrimo word count: 48022 words (2550 today)
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Story draft available here.
No, I'm leaving out Mme. La Farge. The "two" archbishops makes for an interesting historical twist. England has only ever had two archbishops, Canterbury and York. There was a longstanding feud between the two over which was pre-eminent. This was finally settled when the Pope decided that the Archbishop of York was in fact the "Primate of England" but the Archbishop of Canterbury was the Primate of All England." Yes, I know, but church politics just like civil politics is mostly made up of absurdities. Anyway, not only was Henry II infamous for having condoned and possibly caused the murder of Thomas à Becket, Abp. of Canterbury, but he also became notorious for leaving various sees vacant so that the government could collect their incomes. When Roger de Pont L'Évêque, Abp. of York died in 1181, the cathedral chapter, the Pope, and the king could not reach an agreement on someone to succeed him, and consequently the see remained vacant until after Richard became king in 1189. So in the time of my story, there was only ONE archbishop in England and that was Baldwin of Exeter, Abp. of Canterbury. Richard nominated Geoffrey Plantagenet, his own half-brother and Henry's illegitimate son to occupy the see, and Geoffrey was accepted in spite of 1) not being a priest and 2) having previously been elected Bishop of Lincoln where he had dragged his feet for several years about getting ordained and elevated until the Pope ordered him to either be consecrated or abandon the see. He abandonded the see. Anyway, in the newest installment I let Richard explain just why he choose Geoffrey.
Almost there. Less than 2000 words to go, and two days to write them in. That's plenty of margin, though I usually try to run over by several hundred words before running it through the official word counter. (No two programs count words exactly the same way.) Of course, that final installment will merely mean that I've reached the mandated 50K words for NaNoWriMo, and not that the novel is complete. It's looking like this one has to be at least double that to get to where I want it to end, with Richard's return to England after his German captivity in 1193-94.
Sponsor me!Story draft available here.
No, I'm leaving out Mme. La Farge. The "two" archbishops makes for an interesting historical twist. England has only ever had two archbishops, Canterbury and York. There was a longstanding feud between the two over which was pre-eminent. This was finally settled when the Pope decided that the Archbishop of York was in fact the "Primate of England" but the Archbishop of Canterbury was the Primate of All England." Yes, I know, but church politics just like civil politics is mostly made up of absurdities. Anyway, not only was Henry II infamous for having condoned and possibly caused the murder of Thomas à Becket, Abp. of Canterbury, but he also became notorious for leaving various sees vacant so that the government could collect their incomes. When Roger de Pont L'Évêque, Abp. of York died in 1181, the cathedral chapter, the Pope, and the king could not reach an agreement on someone to succeed him, and consequently the see remained vacant until after Richard became king in 1189. So in the time of my story, there was only ONE archbishop in England and that was Baldwin of Exeter, Abp. of Canterbury. Richard nominated Geoffrey Plantagenet, his own half-brother and Henry's illegitimate son to occupy the see, and Geoffrey was accepted in spite of 1) not being a priest and 2) having previously been elected Bishop of Lincoln where he had dragged his feet for several years about getting ordained and elevated until the Pope ordered him to either be consecrated or abandon the see. He abandonded the see. Anyway, in the newest installment I let Richard explain just why he choose Geoffrey.
Almost there. Less than 2000 words to go, and two days to write them in. That's plenty of margin, though I usually try to run over by several hundred words before running it through the official word counter. (No two programs count words exactly the same way.) Of course, that final installment will merely mean that I've reached the mandated 50K words for NaNoWriMo, and not that the novel is complete. It's looking like this one has to be at least double that to get to where I want it to end, with Richard's return to England after his German captivity in 1193-94.
