The Butcher of St Peter's [antikvár]

Author's NoteOne aspect of my books which has caused upset to some readers, I know, is my depiction of the attitudes and behaviour of religious men and women in the early fourteenth century.For many people (myself included when I first began to research this period) it is hard to believe that those who were supposed to have dedicated their lives to God could have been quite so avaricious, argumentative and violent. However, I have not invented much. The tales about cormiving canons and their inends in the friary are not made up. In particular the case of Sir Henry Ralegh's burial is well documented.Sir Henry had lived for some years as a confrater of the monks, and although there's no evidence that he actually took the oaths it seems clear that he wanted to be buried in their church. Many people at this time wanted to be buried in churches or cathedrals, because it was felt, logically enough, that the nearer the corpse lay to the altar, the better their prospects in the afterlife.However, as Sir Henry and the friars would have known perfectly well, in Exeter, the cathedral had a monopoly on funerals and burials. This was not a privilege which the cathedral was likely to give up without a fight because it was worth a lot of money to them - there were the sales of funeral cloths and candles, and the potential donations from family members.