Happy Conclave to All Who Celebrate

This Friday will be a Cat-alogue of Pupdates, so please send in pic of your furry friends to juliaspencerfleming care of Gmail, using the subject line "Pet pics."

 

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today's the day the eligible cardinals (under the age of 80) get locked into the Sistine Chapel (and the Domus Santa Marta guest house) to pray, talk, argue with each other and vote - repeatedly - for one of them until they land on the man to be the next pope.

Why is this conclave different from all other conclaves? Because the October 2025 movie CONCLAVE has been seen by about a gazillion people all over the world (it's free on Amazon Prime right now! Check it out!) and now we are ALL experts on the whole Papal election scene. From the wax door seal, to the rounds of votes on very, very nice card stock, to the little groups of cardinals puffing away on cigarettes, we've got this down.

I grew up extremely Catholic-adjacent. My dad used his Tridentine missal his whole life. My sister and her family are Catholic, and my three kids attended Catholic schools. Despite this, I don't think I ever heard anyone paying much attention to a conclave, other than in prayers at mass.

 

 

But now, thanks to Robert Harris's novel-turned-movie (read the book, too! It's excellent!) everybody is tuned into the ancient and arcane process by which a group of mostly old guys (120 out of the 135 voting cardinals are between 60 and 80) discerns who next takes the Apostolic See (from the Latin sedes, meaning 'seat.')

Here are a few fun facts to throw around at your next dinner party (but make it fast, because over the past century conclaves have averaged 2-3 days before acclaiming a new pope.) 

 

Cardinals have been getting together to pick a new Holy Father since 1059, and the process is the oldest still-extant way of electing the leader of a state. It's a little state, but still.

 

 The word conclave derives from the Latin cum clave, 'with a key,' a refinement that started in 1274 after outsiders' lobbying became so noxious, Pope Gregory X decreed the medieval version of Project Graduation.

 

Gregory X himself had been elected after the longest conclave ever - a few months shy of three years. Eventually, the frustrated residents of the town the cardinals were meeting in locked the building, tore its roof off, and reduced their meal delivery to one a day. That got things moving pretty effectively.

 

Before the guest house was built in 1996, cardinals were put up in cots stuffed into rooms near the Sistine chapel.  Eventually, someone realized collecting a whole bunch of elderly men in an area with inadequate sanitary facilities was a bad idea. 

 

In modern times, the Sistine Chapel has been swept for bugs and wireless signal jammers are used to prevent any communication from the outside world. Which makes it tough for any cardinals who are regulars on Instagram, I guess.

 

 Apparently, one of the goals of the electors is to hit the sweet spot in papal age: old enough to lead for a time without being a generational presence, but young enough not to, well, you know. Throughout the history if the church, 26 popes were, unfortunately short-timers (3 days to 6 months) but 25 sat on the chair of St. Peter for  20-31 years. That averages out nicely, so good job, your Eminences!

 

Dear readers, this is where I usually ask a question for you to respond to, but honestly, I can't think of any that wouldn't have made me dad give me the side-eye. Tell me what you think in the comments!

What We're Writing: Jenn Plunders History

I am a plunderer of history. Sorry. Not sorry.

I say this because most of my settings are fictional or a mashup of fact and fiction as I don't want those pesky facts to get in the way of my story. This is one of the many reasons I admire historical novelists (looking at you, Rhys) who just intuitively know how to weave historical facts into their work, making you feel as if you're right there in that moment in time. 

As I sit at my desk in my office, looking at the clownish lovebirds on the birdfeeder outside my window... pause to admire birdies...

...I am debating how to use Arundel Castle in West Sussex as a setting for my mystery solving hat shop duo without actually using the castle itself -- just its history or the bits I want, thank you very much. After much internal debate, I decided to create an adjacent castle, called Waverly Castle but I stuck it in East Sussex and there you go. The original Arundel Castle was founded by the Earl of Arundel, Roger de Montgomery, during the reign of Edward the Confessor so I had Waverly Castle established around the1060's as well, specifically, 1060-ish. I really like to use the "ish" factor in my novels which, again, keeps the annoying details at bay. 

Since I can't book a trip to England and tour Arundel myself for inspiration right now (thanks, pandemic), I have to stick to studying other people's travelogues. If you're a a castle lover, this one is fabulous: https://handluggageonly.co.uk/2018/05/21/the-magnificent-arundel-castle-in-west-sussex-england/

Arundel Castle

I've enjoyed reading up on the history of castles in England -- there are said to be over 4,000. Fascinating and another factoid to work into the manuscript -- yes, of course, I did. 

Here's a snippet of Fatal Fascinator, from its infancy of a first draft -- which feels much like plowing a rocky field in the pouring rain with a horse with an attitude.

Back story: My sleuths are attending a wedding at the castle, that is, until the groom is found murdered. Don't worry. We don't like him. But here my American heroine, Scarlett Parker, learns a little bit about Waverly Castle. I find I like to throw information into dialogue because it's less boring (to me) that way.  

     “Did you know that Waverly Castle was built during the time of Edward the Confessor?” I asked Viv as I re-entered the sitting room.

     “It was established then,” Viv said. “But was nothing like the building we're in now. It was a motte and bailey castle to start with.”

     I thought about pretending to know what she was talking about and just look it up later, but I knew Viv wouldn’t judge me for not knowing the intricacies of castles since, as I mentioned to Harry, we don’t really have that many of them in America. McMansions, sure, but castles not so much.

     “Explain,” I said. 

     “A motte is a raised piece of earth where a wooden keep is built,” Andre said. He entered the sitting room from the opposite bedroom. He had his camera in his hand and was fussing with a lens. “And a bailey is an enclosed courtyard that sits at the base of the motte, also constructed out of wood.”

     I thought about the hill where Harry and I had found the door and realized it must have been the original motte. I wondered if the secret tunnel had been built then, too. “Not exactly a fortress then,” I said.  

     “No, thus making for a lot of raiding and pillaging,” Viv said. “Small wonder our ancestors were always at war. It can’t have been that hard to knock over a wooden fence.”

Arundel Castle - originally a motte and bailey castle

The scene goes on and I weave in more historical facts while twisting the setting to suit my purposes, naturally. I will say this, I am DEFINITELY going to visit Arundel Castle one day, you know, if we're ever allowed to do anything ever again. Sorry, I have the Covid grumpies.

So, how about it Reds and Readers, do you mind if an author plunders history for their own purposes? What line should they not cross? 

A Day That Will Live In Famey

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: So, sometimes I like to look at these "What happened on this date" sites for ideas on topics I might write about here. (It's also very useful when you're setting fiction in the past - a quick and easy way to remind yourself of world events and entertainments trends your characters would have experienced. Let me tell you: January 30th takes it to a new level.

It turns out January 30th is some sort of Day of Destiny. Don't believe me? Check it out:

1848 - California Gold Rush 

James Marshall finds the first gold nugget at Coloma, California, leading to more than half a million people racing westward to find the precious metal (and incidentally giving the state it's nickname.)

   

1933 - The rise of Hitler

After the Nazi Party retained its position as the largest party in the November 1932 parliamentary elections, Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor by German president Paul von Hindenberg. 

1948 - Mahatma Gandhi assassinated  

After the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, sectarian violence spiked across India. Mohandas Gandhi responded by traveling to troubled areas, fasting and praying for peace and meeting with local leaders of all religions. He was keeping a vigil in New Delhi when he was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist.

 

1968 - the Tet Offensive

The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army launched a series of well-coordinated surprise attacks in South Vietnam, the largest military action of the war up to that point. Although it failed to cause the collapse of the South Vietnamese government, the Tet Offensive started a major escalation of the war, which would see an additional 200,000 American soldiers deployed, and led in time to the collapse of public and political support for the war in the US.

1969 - Beatles last public performance

 The Beatles make their last public performance in an impromptu concert (meant to be the climax of the documentary Let It Be) on the roof of their Saville Row recording studio. In April 1970, Paul McCartney formally announced the group's breakup.

1972 - Bloody Sunday

In Londonderry, Northern Ireland, British soldiers shot 26 unarmed demonstrators, protesting the British policy of internment without trial. British authorities had ordered the march banned, and sent troops to confront the demonstrators when it went ahead. The soldiers fired indiscriminately into the crowd, killing 13 and wounding 17. 

 

You see what I mean? That's a lot to take on one day. (Today is also the birthday of Dick Cheney and FDR - make of that what you will.) Going from historical precedent, I'd suggest this is a good day to stay snug at home - or to take a refreshing walk with no one else around. 

What personal history are you going to be making today, dear readers?

The Consolations of History

Congratulations to our own Hank Phillippi Ryan, whose novel THE FIRST TO LIE has been nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award!!

 

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: It's no secret I'm a big fan of history. I double-majored in history and theater as an undergraduate, and when in grad school for museum studies, my academic concentration was 17th century colonial history. 

 

When I switched from working in museums to law school, I wrote my thesis on 17^th century colonial legal codes (a good writer never throws away material, she only recycles.) 

 

 

As a reader, I love historical fiction, historical mystery, historical romance, etc. etc. I’m not sure of my love of studying the events of the past come from being dragged around Important Sites in Europe as a child, touring the revolutionary battlefields of eastern New York, or just hearing tales of my own family in days gone by.

 

However, I’ve recently discovered, along with most of the rest of us, that actually living through History-with-a-capital-H is not as much fun as one might suppose. Many the time I have wondered, “What was it like for people living through --------?” Fill in the blank with war, migration, plague, invasion, etc. Well, now I know. It sucked, that’s what it was like, and the ordinary folks of the 11^th or 14^th or 17^th century (or those living through WWI and the Spanish Influenza) spent a lot of time wishing things would just calm the heck down and go back to the way they used to be.

 

Lately, for consolation, I’ve been listening to a new history podcast (having already gone through Mike Duncan’s excellent History of Rome and Patrick Wyman’s riveting The Fall of Rome.) The latter introduced me to my new obsession: The Fall of Civilizations, by writer and man of letters Paul M.M. Cooper.

 

So far, I’ve made it through the end of Roman Briton, the Mediterranean Bronze Age collapse, the disappearance of Vikings from Greenland, the toppling of the Mayan empire and the fall of the mighty Khmer empire, once centered at the great city of Angkor. There are themes in common: most of the civilizations that went down relied on scarce resources, often from far away. They were part of networks of trade and alliances that worked until they didn’t. And almost every one so far suffered from climate change; ether the end of the Roman Climactic Optimum, some nasty volcanic explosions, or the Little Ice Age. No cities fallen into disuse and people scattered due to a warming earth—yet. I’m only up to the 16^th century, after all.

 

Why am I enjoying the experience of reliving so many disasters? It actually gives me hope. The Maya and the Khmer and the Britons didn’t disappear from the earth, after all. They went different places, and lived different lives. Now, were they as comfortable and easy as in days of yore? No. But they did go on, to quote Celine Dion.

 

And so will we.

 

So, dear readers, what periods of history do you find fascinating? And which ones inspire you?