Canticle
A Novel
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3.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
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“Atmospheric and unforgettable.”—People
A masterful debut novel following a spirited young woman’s explorations of faith, agency, and love in thirteenth-century Bruges.
Aleys is sixteen years old and unusual: stubborn, bright, and prone to religious visions. She and her only friend, Finn, a young scholar, have been learning Latin together in secret—but just as she thinks their connection might become something more, everything unravels. When her father promises her in marriage to a merchant she doesn’t love, she runs away from home, finding shelter among the beguines, a fiercely independent community of religious women who refuse to answer to the church.
Among these hardworking and strong-willed women, Aleys glimpses for the first time the joys of belonging: a life of song, meaning, and friendship in the markets and along the canals of Bruges. But forces both mystical and political are at work. Illegal translations of scripture, the women’s independence, and a sudden rash of miracles all draw the attention of an ambitious bishop—and bring Aleys and those around her into ever-increasing danger, a danger that will push Aleys to a new understanding of love and sacrifice.
Grounded in the little-told stories of medieval women—mystics, saints, anchoresses, and beguines—and introducing a major new talent, Canticle is a luminous work of historical fiction, vividly evoking a world on the verge of transformation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Edwards debuts with an inspired tale of a devout and defiant young woman in medieval Bruges, in Flanders. Aleys, 16, grows up with adoration for the church. After her mother dies, she becomes more devout. Her friend Finn teaches her Latin and she falls in love with him, but her hopes for their future together are dashed when he says he's joining the monastery. Then her father declares that she'll marry the head of a guild. Distraught, Aleys runs away from home. She's taken in by the beguines, a group of women who secretly translate religious texts from Latin into Dutch. Deeply committed to finding her calling, she asks God, "What's my gift," and an answer seems to come while she prays for a deathly ill boy, whose infected wounds disappear. Nervous about the attention paid to Aleys for the miracle, the bishop places her in isolation, where she's preyed upon by a sexually abusive priest. Her efforts to escape threaten the beguine community, already under scrutiny for the translations, and Aleys is forced to make an impossible choice. Drawing on stories and biographies of medieval saints, Edwards faithfully highlights the lives of 13th-century religious women and the sacrifices they were forced to make. Readers of Lauren Groff's Matrix ought to take a look.
