The Camino de Santiago de Compostela, now the most famous pilgrimage route in the world, was founded in the early ninth century, largely due to the efforts of Bishop Theodemir of Iria Flavia. As with most people of this period, nothing seems to be known of his early years. What follows, therefore, is pure invention.
Theodemir returns footsore and disillusioned to his uncle’s villa in Iria Flavia, where he meets Agnes, his uncle’s gatekeeper, a woman of extraordinary beauty. He falls immediately in love. But Agnes has a fierce, though absent, husband; a secret past; another name, Elswyth; and a broken heart.
Witteric, Theodemir’s cruel and lascivious uncle, has his own plans for Agnes. When the king of Asturias asks Theodemir to undertake an embassy on his behalf to Charles, King of the Franks, the future Charlemagne, Theodemir plans to take Agnes with him to keep her out of Witteric’s clutches.
But though Agnes understands her danger as well as anyone, she refuses to go. And Theodemir dares not leave without her.
The main character of The Wanderer and the Way is Theodemir of Iria Flavia, an historical character of some significance, since he is credited with the founding of the Camino de Santiago, the most famous pilgrimage route in the world, which runs from a village in southern France through the Pyrenees and across the plains of Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostella. So, you might ask, what does the historical record tell us about Theodemir?
The answer is, almost nothing. We know that he was bishop of Iria Flavia at that time when the bones of St. James were supposedly discovered by Pelagius the Hermit, that he supposedly wrote of the news to Alphonso the Chaste, King of Asturias, who then became the first pilgrim of the Camino, following what is now called The Camino Primitivo over the mountains from the city of Oviedo, then the capital of Asturias. And that, as far as I can tell, is about it.
When was he born? What was his childhood like? What was his character? We don’t know. And this is quite normal for historical figures of this period. They emerge into the historical record when they perform some action of note. The year of their death may be noted, but the year and place of their birth seldom is. For this historical novelist, this presents both a problem and an opportunity. Where little or nothing is known, the novelist is free to ascribe a character and a history to an historical figure for their own purposes.
This is not the first time that I have done this in my Cuthbert’s People Series. Eardwulf, king of Northumbria, is known from a couple of entries in the chronology of the kings of Northumbria and for little else. I borrowed him and moved up his ascension to the throne by a couple of years because in St. Agnes and the Selkie I needed and young king for romantic purposes, and the incumbent at the time was an old king. So little is known about either of these kings that I had little compunction about fudging their dates.
I should say too, that with The Wanderer and the Way I did not set out to write a book about Theodemir. Rather, at the end of St. Agnes and the Selkie I had my main series character, Elswyth of Twyford, the “it girl” of the eighth century, kidnapped by a lovesick viking and carried off to Northern Spain. Then in an epilogue to The Needle of Avocation, which told the story of her sister, Hilda’s marriage to an ealdorman’s son, I had her turn up on Hilda’s doorstep. That left me with the problem of getting her back from Spain and a reason why she would have abandoned the other women who were kidnapped with her in St. Agnes and the Selkie. I plucked Theodemir from the utter obscurity of his past to serve as my agent for getting Elswyth back to Northumbria.
The research problem was then to give him a past that would be consistent with his eventually becoming a bishop and developing an interest in the one project for which history remembers him. But the past I created for him had also to do the job of getting Elswyth plausibly back to Northumbria while creating a compelling moral arc for Theodemir himself, since he was to be the main character of the book. Finally, I wanted his story to fit as much as possible into what little is known of the Kingdom of Asturias in that period.
This research led me to Alphonso the Chaste, King of Asturias, whose reign was consumed by ongoing wars against the Moors and who sent several embassies to the court of Charlemagne, asking for recognition and aid. This provided the motivation for the journey that I needed Theodemir to take, and it was then a matter of finding a reason for him to take Elswyth with him. The wars with the Moors also gave me the dangers of the road that are essential to every novel that is built around a journey. And so Theodemir and Elswyth travelled the road that would become the Camino Frances, the most famous pilgrimage route in the world.
My method is different from that of many historical novelists who immerse themselves in research and then, only when they know their subject intimately, begin to spin a novel out of it. My approach is to begin with the story I want to tell and then go hunting through the historical record for plausible places, events, ideas, and people with which I can stage and frame my story. There seems to be a certain serendipity that attends those of us who work this way. This was particularly true in the case of The Wanderer and the Way in which I was stuck for a plausible reason for Theodemir to set off on a road that would eventually bring Elswyth back to Northumbria. This discovery of Alphonso’s embassies to Charlemagne was the perfect piece of historical serendipity that allowed me to set my story and my characters in motion. As a novelist, I believe that whatever circumstance or event you require to drive your story forward can be found somewhere in the past if you only look for it hard enough.
Born in England to a teamster's son and a coal miner's daughter, G. M. (Mark) Baker now lives in Nova Scotia with his wife, no dogs, no horses, and no chickens. He prefers driving to flying, desert vistas to pointy trees, and quiet towns to bustling cities.
Thank you so much for hosting G. M. Baker, with such an interesting post linked to his new novel, The Wanderer and the Way.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
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