Gilles of Bec and The Cage Full of Birds

‘It is through suffering that good and evil are manifested. We cannot distinguish the good from the wicked unless we have first endured trials and shown strength.’ Gilles of Bec, Prior of Stiveton.

In 1138, Gilles, a monk barely into manhood, is sent by the great Benedictine abbey of Bec in Normandy to its estate of Stivetun in Berchescire. His charge seems routine: to oversee the farming of the abbey’s lands and to cure the souls of its peasant tenants.

But England is in a state of political and religious upheaval, a morass that draws the naïve Gilles into a series of dilemmas which will test his ingenuity and his faith. He must contend with the self-serving Bishops of Wyncestre and Sarum; Alvric, the obdurate reeve of the village; and the seductive Maud of Walingeford. And then there is the guileful Peter of Waneting, his old mentor from Bec, who is forever shifting shape.

Gilles’ sense of justice and truth thrusts him to the forefront of calamitous events and compels him to make choices that will seal the fate of some and the salvation of many.

The Cage Full of Birds is story of real people who lived and struggled in The Anarchy of twelfth century England; a stirring tale of self-discovery, the triumph of hope over doubt and, ultimately, of good over evil.