The Pillars of the Earth

This article is about Ken Follett's novel. For the television miniseries adaptation, see The Pillars of the Earth (TV miniseries).

The Pillars of the Earth

File:Us pillars of the earth.gif The cover art of Pillars of the Earth (US edition)
Author	Ken Follett
Language	English
Genre	Historical fiction
Publisher	William Morrow, NY (US edition)
Publication date	1989
Publication place	Great Britain
Media type	Print (hard / paperback)
Pages	976 (US paperback edition)
ISBN	[[Special:BookSources/ISBN+0451207149%3Cbr%2F%3E%28US+paperback+edition%29 |ISBN 0451207149 (US paperback edition)]]
Followed by	World Without End

The Pillars of the Earth is a historical novel by Ken Follett published in 1989 about the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Kingsbridge, England. It is set in the middle of the 12th century, primarily during the Anarchy, between the time of the sinking of the White Ship and the murder of Thomas Becket. The book traces the development of Gothic architecture out of the preceding Romanesque architecture and the fortunes of the Kingsbridge priory against the backdrop of actual historical events of the time.

Before this novel was published, Follett was known for writing in the thriller genre. The Pillars of the Earth became his best-selling work. The book was listed at no. 33 on the BBC's Big Read, a 2003 survey with the goal of finding the "nation's best-loved book." The book was also selected for Oprah's Book Club in 2007. A sequel, entitled World Without End, was released in October 2007.

Plot

In the 12th century A.D., Tom Builder is a poor, honourable stonemason working on a new house for young aristocrat William Hamleigh, whose parents hope to arrange his marriage to Lady Aliena, daughter of the Earl of Shiring. When Aliena spurns him, William, a selfish and petulant young man, angrily halts work on the house and fires Tom. By winter, Tom and his family are homeless and destitute. Tom's wife, Agnes, dies in the forest while giving birth to their third child. Tom cannot feed the baby boy and in his grief, leaves the child on Agnes's grave, taking his other children, Martha and Alfred. Tom and his family fall in with Ellen, a literate young woman who ran away from a convent after becoming pregnant, and her son Jack, whom Tom meets in the forest. Alfred comes to despise Jack because he is clever and can read. After many hardships, the family settles down in Kingsbridge, where Prior Philip, the upright and godly head of the local monastery, hopes to build a cathedral and to make his religious establishment the centre of a thriving market town.

Philip's brother, Francis, a priest, is secretary to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, a bastard son of King Henry I. Before Henry's death, he insists the feudal barons of England, including Robert, the king's nephew Stephen of Blois, and Bartholomew, Earl of Shiring, swear to support his daughter, Empress Maud, as his successor. When Henry dies, however, Stephen seizes the throne. Francis knows that his master and Earl Bartholomew plan an armed rebellion in support of Maud. He believes Stephen would have a better relationship with the Church, and asks Philip to find a way to warn Stephen, enlisting the aid of the Bishop of Kingsbridge. Unable to see the Bishop, Philip reveals the secret to the Bishop's archdeacon, the cunning and ambitious Father Waleran Bigod. Father Waleran suggests to Sir Percy and Lady Hamleigh and their son William that they can earn Stephen's favour by arresting Earl Bartholomew before he can act.

The Hamleighs, humiliated by Aliena's rejection of William, are only too glad to cause the downfall of her father. They succeed in taking Bartholomew's castle by force and the earl is arrested and sent to Winchester for judgment. Aliena and her brother, Richard, remain at their father's castle, bewildered and unsure of what to do. Sir Percy is made Earl of Shiring by Stephen as a reward for his actions. William is sent to the castle to prepare it for his parents' occupancy. Finding Aliena and Richard there, he rapes Aliena and forces Richard to watch. Afterward, the pair escape by stealing the horses of William and his groom, Walter. Aliena succeeds in seeing Earl Bartholomew before his death. Bartholomew asks Aliena to swear that she will never rest until Richard is earl. Penniless and alone except for Richard, Aliena takes up buying and selling wool in Kingsbridge, and meets Prior Philip, who agrees to buy her wool for a fair price. Prior Philip buys Aliena's wool before she has bought it from the sheep-farmers, thus providing liquidity for her business; in return, he obtains the wool at a discount. Meanwhile, Ellen and Tom marry, and Jack becomes enamoured of Aliena.

The story then moves ahead 4 years; Prior Philip is succeeding in making Kingsbridge a successful, respectable town, but it is difficult with war raging between Maud and King Stephen, who are fighting for the throne. Under Tom's tutelage, Jack has become a skilled stone carver and work on the cathedral is going well. William Hamleigh and Aliena's brother, Richard, are both fighting for Stephen, financed by the earldom of Shiring and Aliena's successful wool business respectively. Despite her thriving business, Aliena is lonely and unhappy, eventually becoming friends with Jack over a love of stories. Over the summer, Aliena's feelings for Jack turn from friendship to love without her realising. The rivalry between Alfred and Jack has not disappeared and, after a drunken brawl between them, Tom is forced to dismiss one. Jack is dismissed but given the chance to remain at Kingsbridge by becoming Prior Philip's overseer on the building and a monk.

When Sir Percy dies, William finds the earldom is out of money due partly to Kingsbridge taking valuable trade away from Shiring. William attacks Kingsbridge, burning much of the town including Aliena's fortune in wool. Tom is killed in the attack. Aliena, with no income to finance her brother, marries Alfred, now a wealthy master mason, in return for his promise to pay Richard's expenses. Aliena makes love to Jack just before her wedding with Alfred (who is cursed by Ellen), and Jack leaves England, heartbroken. Alfred is cold, abusive and impotent. Alfred persuades Philip to let him replace the cathedral's wooden roof with a stone vault. The walls were not designed for this and the church collapses, killing 79 people on the day of its consecration. In the rubble, Aliena gives birth to a baby with bright red hair like Jack, and Alfred throws her out. Ellen arrives to see her grandson and advises Aliena to look for Jack, who was heading for Compostela to look for work. During his pilgrimage, Jack meets Moorish scholars and mathematicians in Toledo and helps build Saint Denis Basilica in Paris, thus learning how to build rib vaulting and pointed arches. He is reunited with Aliena in St. Denis. Passing through Cherbourg, Jack learns that his father came from there (the name "Jack Shareburg" was anglicised from "Jacques Cherbourg"), and meets his grandmother, cousins, and other family members. But when he comes back to Kingsbridge, Prior Philip refuses to marry Jack and Aliena, stating that she is still married to Alfred. Philip insists they live apart until Aliena's marriage to Alfred can be annulled, assuring them it shouldn't be more than a year.

Seven years later, Bishop Waleran Bigod and the Hamleighs have teamed up, aiming for the downfall of Kingsbridge, Philip, and Aliena. (They attempted to build a cathedral at Shiring but ran out of money). Jack and Aliena are still living apart, due to Walaran delaying the annulment. The strain is taking its toll on both of them. Alfred has moved to Shiring and builds houses for the gentry but returns to Kingsbridge, destitute, when the work runs out. Out of pity, and in memory of Tom, Jack gives him a job on the cathedral.

Richard has joined the forces of Maud's son, Henry, Count of Anjou, who is pressing her claim to the throne of England. When Henry comes to England with an invading force, negotiations with King Stephen lead to a deal in which Henry is to succeed Stephen on the throne and all properties are to be returned to those who owned them before Stephen became king - including the earldom of Shiring. Richard, now regarded by the people of the district as "the rightful Earl," has many soldiers under his command, but lacks sufficient force to retake the castle of Shiring, held by William. Aliena befriends William Hamleigh's miserable young wife, Elizabeth, and helps Richard take the castle of Shiring from within, finally securing the earldom and fulfilling her oath to her father. Later, Alfred succumbs to his envy for his stepbrother and lust for his wife; he tries to rape Aliena and is killed by Richard. William Hamleigh, now Sheriff of Shiring, tries to arrest Richard but Prior Philip sends Richard on crusade. Richard escapes William Hamleigh and leaves Aliena to run the earldom, who can finally marry Jack.

Many years pass. Kingsbridge cathedral is finally completed, in the "French Style", and becomes famous around England for its beauty: it is the first Gothic cathedral in England. Jack has solved a vexing problem—transverse stresses from wind, which causes hairline cracks in the clerestory— by independently inventing the flying buttress. In a sudden attack, Bishop Waleran publicly accuses Prior Philip of breaking his vow of chastity; Waleran claims that the monk, Jonathan, (Tom Builder's son, now grown and raised in the monastery) was Philip's secret child. Jack connects Jonathan with Tom Builder's lost baby and Ellen swears, in court, that Jonathan is Tom Builder's son. Bishop Waleran accuses her of lying under oath so she accuses Waleran of perjury, resulting in a fight and the death of her lover, Jack's father. It is revealed that Percy Hamleigh (William's father), Waleran Bigod, and the former Kingsbridge Prior James conspired to kill the only survivor of the White Ship — namely, Jack Shareburg — to cover up the fact that the sinking of the White Ship was an assassination by powerful barons who wanted to throw the succession into confusion so they could get a monarch they could better control. Bigod is ruined by this scandal, and lives out the rest of his days as a humble monk.

Meanwhile, William Hamleigh has led a miserable, wasteful life, weaving in and out of the political web. His ultimate downfall occurs when he joins a group who plot to assassinate the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. Prior Philip happens to be with Becket when the assassination occurs, witnessing everything, and uses the rage and injustice felt by the people to lead a protest against Hamleigh and the King, claiming Becket as a saint and a martyr. Hamleigh is arrested by Aliena's son, charged with sacrilege (for laying hands on a priest celebrating Mass); convicted and hanged. The Pope lays an Interdict on Henry's Norman possessions until King Henry repents and is symbolically whipped by leading clergymen, including Philip (now Bishop of Kingsbridge). At the end, the author concludes that with the submission of the King to this humiliation, royal authority is no longer absolute.

Background

In the 1999 Preface to The Pillars of the Earth Follett informs readers that: "When I was a boy, all my family belonged to a Puritan religious group called the Plymouth Brethren. For us a church was a bare room with rows of chairs around a central table... So I grew up pretty much ignorant of Europe's wealth of gorgeous church architecture."

When Follett embarked on the task of writing The Pillars of the Earth he notes that he

...read a couple of books on architecture and developed an interest in cathedrals. Before too long, it occurred to me to channel this enthusiasm into a novel. I knew it had to be a long book. It took at least thirty years to build a cathedral and most took longer because they would run out of money, or be attacked or invaded. So the story covers the entire lives of the main characters. My publishers were a little nervous about such a very unlikely subject but, paradoxically, it is my most popular book. It's also the book I'm most proud of. It recreates, quite vividly, the entire life of the village and the people who live there. You feel you know the place and the people as intimately as if you yourself were living there in the Middle Ages.

The Preface names some sources:

1. An Outline of European Architecture, by Nicholas Pevsner.
2. The Cathedral Builders, by Jean Gimpel.
3. The Medieval Machine, by Jean Gimpel.

The novel's Kingsbridge is fictional and not Kingsbridge, Devon, or any other British town of the name. Its location is that of Marlborough, Wiltshire; Follett chose it as Winchester, Gloucester, and Salisbury can be reached within a few days on horseback. Kingsbridge Cathedral is based on the cathedrals of Wells and Salisbury.

Major characters

• Jack Jackson (known also as Jack Builder): Son of Jack Shareburg (Jacques Cherbourg) and Ellen; a clever young architect and skilled stonemason who has spent his life loving Aliena and dreaming of building a cathedral. He learns mathematics in Spain and the techniques of Gothic architecture in France, then builds a new Kingsbridge Cathedral, the first Gothic Cathedral in England. He has a love for poetry and a knack for storytelling inherited from his father. His lifelong curiosity about his father is finally satisfied at the end through revelations from Ellen, Remigius and Waleran.
• Tom Builder: A penniless builder and architect whose lifelong dream is to build a cathedral; stepfather to Jack. Loyal and diligent, he has a love for building and family, though he is blind to Alfred's cruelty. Noted for his great height, he was later killed by William Hamleigh in a raid that burnt down Kingsbridge.
• Ellen: Daughter of a knight. She was unusual in knowing English, French and Latin, and in being literate. The lover of Jack Shareburg and the mother of Jack Jackson, she lives in the woods and is considered by some to be a witch after she cursed the men responsible for her lover's execution; it is thought that eventually her curse destroys Percy Hamleigh and his odious son William, Prior James and Waleran Bigod. She later becomes the wife of Tom Builder. She later curses the marriage of Aliena and Alfred: the curse is thought to have effectively destroyed Alfred.
• Prior Philip: A resourceful and dedicated monk, whose dream is to see Kingsbridge rise to greatness. He becomes the benevolent ruler of Kingsbridge — allocating resources, organizing commerce, resolving disputes and meting out justice, essentially without armed force. His moral strictness frustrates several sympathetic characters, but is completely devoid of malice. In the novel finale he became Bishop of Kingsbridge.
• William Hamleigh: The son of a minor lord, with a sadistic streak and an obsession with Aliena — who, by refusing to marry him, had blocked his rise from the country landed gentry to the nobility. He temporarily gains the earldom of Shiring but eventually loses it. He lives for power and revenge, but fears Hell, which often gives both his adversaries and his allies an advantage over him. In the end his ambitions destroy him.
• Aliena: Daughter to the Earl of Shiring, the intended bride of William Hamleigh. She refuses to marry him and is raped because of it, after her father loses the earldom; later she becomes the lover/wife of Jack. She is very beautiful and haughty. Makes an ill-considered vow to her dying father that she would help her brother regain the earldom, then becomes a wealthy wool merchant to support her brother's knightly ambitions. Unwisely marries Alfred and, after a long struggle, is finally reunited with Jack.
• Richard (Richard of Kingsbridge): Aliena's younger brother, a knight who as a young boy witnesses his sister's rape by William Hamleigh. Becomes a skilled soldier and leader, although he is completely dependent on Aliena for money. Organizes the town's defenses before William's attempted second raid on Kingsbridge. Becomes the Earl of Shiring but is obliged to join a Crusade after killing Alfred. Settles in the Holy Land leaving Aliena to run the Earldom. Upon Richard's death in an earthquake, Aliena's son, Tommy, becomes Earl.
• Alfred Builder: Tom's son, a dimwitted and often cruel mason who later marries Aliena. As a youth he repeatedly beats Jack; as a man he marries Aliena for spite, to keep Jack from having her, and is consistently impotent with her. Without strengthening the supporting walls, he builds a stone vault on Kingsbridge Cathedral, which collapses, killing dozens, the day it is dedicated. He is eventually killed by Richard when he tries to rape Aliena.
• Agnes: First wife of Tom Builder and mother to Martha and Alfred; dies in the woods while giving birth to Jonathan.
• Martha: Daughter of Tom, sister to Alfred, stepsister to Jack. Timid and mild-mannered, often bullied by Alfred. She is in love with Jack, but realizing he will never return her feelings, she dedicates her life to serving him and his wife and children, remaining unmarried.
• Waleran Bigod: A cunning, devious, morally bankrupt cleric, who constantly schemes his way into more power. Allies himself with the Hamleighs and often plots with William to bring about Philip's and Aliena's downfall. Eventually outwits himself: he accuses Philip of fornication and being Jonathan's father, but Ellen exposes his perjury (which had falsely condemned Jack Shareburg for theft) and ends his career.
• Jonathan: Infant son of Tom and Agnes Builder but raised by Prior Philip and the Kingsbridge monks when Tom abandons him on Agnes's grave. Grows up to be even taller than Tom. Eventually succeeds Philip as Prior of Kingsbridge.
• Lord Percy Hamleigh, Earl of Shiring: Power-driven and greedy father of William. After disposing of the traitor Earl Bartholomew, Percy is given the earldom by King Stephen. He is an effective ruler who is largely influenced by his wife, Regan. He dislikes sharing the Shiring stone-quarry with Kingsbridge Priory and impedes the building of the cathedral. He dies of a seizure, leaving a weakened and indebted earldom. He was one of the three perjurors who had had Jack Shareburg hanged.
• Lady Regan Hamleigh, Countess of Shiring: William Hamleigh's mother. She is physically hideous, but is smart and manipulative and effectively has control over her husband and son. She influences many of the decisions made by William and is the one person he truly loves. She instills in him a fear of Hell and dies of a heart attack at about the age of 60. William has a church built in her memory.

Minor characters

• Jack Shareburg (Jacques Cherbourg): a jongleur who is the only survivor of the wreck of the White Ship, later lover of Ellen and father of Jack Jackson; hanged in the Prologue.
• Francis of Gwynedd: Philip's brother, orphaned with him in Wales and raised by monks; chooses to become a secular diocesan priest rather than a monk affiliated with a religious order. Becomes the secretary of Robert of Gloucester, later of Empress Maud, then of Henry II. More worldly than Philip, he saves his brother when he is taken prisoner after a battle; he gives him valuable political insight and inside information.
• Tommy (later called Thomas): son of Jack and Aliena. With no talent for building but a talent for administration and command, he becomes the Earl of Shiring and orders William's hanging for his involvement in the assassination of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
• Sally: daughter of Jack and Aliena. She takes after Jack and becomes an artisan working on the Kingsbridge Cathedral, designing and making the stained-glass windows.
• Raschid Alharoun: Jack's friend in Toledo, a Christian Arab merchant, who introduces Jack to many scholars, scientists, and mathematicians (who are engaged in translating Euclid from Arabic into Latin). Jack comes close to marrying Raschid's daughter, but he decides he'd rather build a cathedral in Kingsbridge than rich merchants' houses in Toledo; he resumes his travels and is found by Aliena.
• Walter: William Hamleigh's groom/squire. Accompanies him through much of the novel, joining in many of his crimes, and assists in the memorable attack on Aliena and Richard.
• Johnny Eightpence: A dimwitted yet resourceful monk who nurses baby Jonathan by dipping a twisted rag in goats' milk. This act prompts Philip to take Johnny with him to Kingsbridge to assist in young Jonathan's upbringing.
• Remigius: The former Sub-Prior of Kingsbridge under the old Prior James. He attempts to secure the position of Prior, but Philip's appearance and election foils Remigius's ambitions. He then serves as Philip's Sub-Prior, but also becomes an ally to Waleran Bigod. After leaving the Abbey, then subsequently falling from Waleran's favour, he is forced to beg until being invited back by Philip, to live out his days as a lowly monk. His testimony at Philip's trial helps to clear Philip, as he had heard the last confession of Prior James (Philip's predecessor) regarding Jack Shareburg's framing for theft.
• Cuthbert Whitehead: Kingsbridge Priory's cellarer. An early ally of Philip after his arrival in Kingsbridge.
• Milius Bursar: Kingsbridge Priory's former kitchener and later bursar, responsible for the accounts of the Priory, he is also an early ally of Philip's and aids him in becoming Prior and running the priory.

Adaptations

Board games

There have been three separate board games based on The Pillars of the Earth.

A German-style board game by Michael Rieneck and Stefan Stadler was published in 2006 by Kosmos and released at the Spiel game fair as Die Säulen der Erde . The game sold out long before the fair ended. It has been awarded the 2007 Deutscher Spiele Preis, the Spanish "Game of the Year 2007" and the Norwegian "Best Family Game of 2007" and the GAMES Magazine Game of the Year 2007. An expansion pack was published in 2007 and English-language versions of both the base game and the expansion have been published by Mayfair Games.

A 2 player game was published by Kosmos in Germany and reprinted in the US as Pillars of the Earth: Builder's Duel.

A different, trivia game attributed to E. Follett was first published in 2008 by British publisher Sophisticated Games.

Television adaptation

Main article: The Pillars of the Earth (TV miniseries)

A Germany-Canada co-production spearheaded by Munich-based Tandem Communications and Montreal-based Muse Entertainment in association with Ridley Scott's Scott Free Films signed up actors to bring this historical novel to television. It premiered on July 23, 2010, in Canada on The Movie Network/Movie Central and in the United States on Starz. Its UK premiere began in October 2010 at 9pm on Channel 4.The series includes the following cast:

• Ian McShane as Waleran Bigod
• Donald Sutherland as Earl Bartholomew
• Rufus Sewell as Tom Builder
• Matthew Macfadyen as Prior Philip
• Tony Curran as King Stephen
• Sarah Parish as Regan Hamleigh
• David Oakes as William Hamleigh
• Robert Bathurst as Percy Hamleigh
• Hayley Atwell as Aliena
• Sam Claflin as Richard
• Eddie Redmayne as Jack Jackson
• Liam Garrigan as Alfred Builder
• Skye Bennett as Martha Builder
• Gordon Pinsent as the Archbishop
• Natalia Wörner as Ellen
• Anatole Taubman as Remigius
• Goetz Otto as Walter
• Jody Halse as Johnny Eightpence
• David Bark Jones as Francis
• Alison Pill as Princess Maude

External links

• The Pillars of the Earth on Ken Follett's website
• The Pillars of the Earth series official website
• IMDb listing for Mini-series
• Tandem Communications' Pillars pages