The Pillars of the Earth

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The cover art of Pillars of the Earth, US edition

The Pillars of the Earth is a historical novel by Ken Follett about the building of a cathedral in Kingsbridge (a fictional town located roughly in the area of the present-day town of Marlborough, Wiltshire in England). It is set in the middle of the 12th century, primarily during the time of war known as The Anarchy. Follett's publishers were apprehensive about both the content and the length, which is 973 pages. When the novel was published in 1989, Follett surprised his readers, since he had previously been known for thrillers. However, this book became Follett's best-selling work.

The novel covers the period between the sinking of the White Ship and the murder of Thomas Becket.

The book features some explicit sexuality, including a rape scene. In 1994, it was banned by the Chanute, Kansas school library.

In late 2004, Ken Follett announced on his official website that he is working on the sequel World without End. He expects to release the new book in December 2007.

[edit] Plot summary

In a prologue, the White Ship sinks in the English Channel, carrying the English Crown Prince and several alternate heirs. Then the book proper opens with the execution by hanging of a red-haired man condemned for theft. Before he dies, he sings a beautiful song to a pregnant girl, a brunette with hypnotic golden eyes, who is crying in the crowd. Upon his death, the girl curses the men involved in the execution--a knight, a monk and a priest--and disappears.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Several years later, we encounter Tom Builder, a poor but honorable mason who is trying to make ends meet to feed his family. He has a steady job building a home for William Hamleigh, the son of a minor lord who is expected to marry soon, but Tom loses his job when William's intended fiancée refuses to marry him. Starving and destitute, Tom's wife Agnes dies in the forest while giving birth to their third child; Tom cannot afford to feed the baby boy, and in his grief he leaves the child on Agnes's grave, takes his remaining two children, Martha and Alfred, and leaves. Later he encounters Ellen, a mysterious woman living in the woods, and her odd, red-haired son Jack. It is revealed later in the book that Ellen is the golden-eyed brunette who cursed the men at her lover's execution, and that Jack is the son of that thief. They live in the woods as outlaws. Ellen tells Tom that she saw his son picked up by a traveling priest and taken to a nearby monastery, and Tom decides for the good of the baby to leave him with the monks, who can care for him better than he can. Ellen and Tom begin a relationship, and though Jack and Martha get along, Jack is bullied by the older, stronger Alfred. The family travels to the nearby city of Shiring to find work for Tom, encountering the widowed Earl of Shiring, Lord Bartholomew, and his teenage children, Aliena and Richard. Jack falls in love with Aliena, who is five years older and very lovely, though headstrong and spoiled. They find no work for Tom and so the family has to leave. When they come to the small village Kingsbridge -- the same place where Tom's infant son is being raised by monks -- the head monk, Prior Philip, tells them there is no work, but clever Jack secretly burns down the church. Needing a new church built, Philip hires Tom, who is delighted because his lifelong dream has been to build a cathedral. However, it is discovered that Ellen is a witch, and when she defiles church property, she takes Jack back to the woods to live. Tearfully Tom asks her to come back soon, and she promises she will.

We are introduced to William Hamleigh, the haughty, cruel son of a wealthy family who is humiliated that his intended fiancée -- none other than the Lady Aliena -- has refused him. Secretly he burns with lust for her, and when it is discovered that Lord Bartholomew is plotting to overthrow the English king, William takes great pleasure in arresting Bartholomew, ransacking the castle and raping seventeen-year-old Aliena while her younger brother is forced to watch. The Hamleighs take the title of Earl of Shiring in Bartholomew's place. Now the penniless children of a traitor, Aliena and Richard make their way to the city, encountering robbers, cheats and predators along the way, and Aliena is forced to grow up quickly to ensure her and Richard's survival. They visit their father, who is dying in jail, and Bartholomew makes them both swear life-binding oaths, Richard that he will not rest until he is made the rightful earl of Shiring, and Aliena that she will help her brother accomplish this. Aliena takes up buying and selling wool, and in a twist of fate meets Prior Philip, who agrees to buy her wool for a fair price. Aliena and Richard go to live in Kingsbridge, where Tom Builder and Prior Philip are working together to commence building the cathedral. They encounter hardships with the bishop Waleran Bigod, a selfish, power-driven priest who seeks to see Philip fail, but eventually the Crown approves the building of the cathedral, and Ellen and Jack return to Kingsbridge. Ellen and Tom marry, and Jack, upon glimpsing the much older and wiser Aliena, is thrilled to see "The Princess" again.

Years later, plans for the Kingsbridge cathedral are underway, with Tom as the master builder living comfortably with his family. He is also able to watch his young son, whom the monks name Jonathan, grow up close by. Though Tom never claims the child as his own, he plays with him as often as he can and forms a bond with him. Alfred has also taken up building, as has Jack, though it is obvious Jack is much more clever and intelligent than Alfred. Jack also has significant skill in stone carving, a gift that Tom is proud of but somewhat intimidated by. Aliena has built herself up from nothing to wealth, now a successful wool merchant, she has had many offers of marriage but has turned them all down. Jack has only fallen deeper in love with her during the years that they have lived as neighbors, but he has no idea how to win her over when the most eligible bachelors have failed. In a private encounter in the woods, Jack finds Aliena reading a story book, and he charms her by reciting long poems that his mother taught him. The two become friends, much to Jack's happiness. Prior Philip is working hard to turn Kingsbridge into a successful, respectable town, but it is difficult to do so with the civil war raging through England and the battles between Queen Maud and King Stephen, fighting for the throne. Jack and Aliena's friendship grows, to the point where Jack steals a kiss while telling Aliena stories. Though she is beginning to realize the feelings she has for him, Aliena cannot forget the horror of her first sexual encounter and turns away from Jack. Meanwhile, the Hamleigh family has risen in power with King Stephen, but William's sadistic love of rape and pillaging has not dimmed, nor has his obsession with Aliena. In a twisted expression of hatred and love, he sets the village of Kingsbridge on fire, killing Tom Builder and nearly killing Aliena, who is saved by Jack. All her wool, her hard-earned life is ruined, and most of the village is destroyed. In desperation and without their master builder, Prior Philip abandons the idea of a cathedral and instead hires Alfred to build a small church to hold Mass. Though she now recognizes her love for Jack, Aliena agrees to marry Alfred because he promises to help Richard rise in the social ranks, and she feels bound by her oath to her father. A brokenhearted Jack joins the monastery to train as a monk, though his wild nature secretly resents the limitations and rules set by the church and Prior Philip. Though he is under house arrest, Ellen helps Jack break out of the monastery to see Aliena the night before her wedding, and the two make love before Jack leaves Kingsbridge to find work on another cathedral. Tom's dream to be a master builder for a cathedral has now become Jack's dream. During Aliena and Alfred's wedding, Ellen appears and in a similar manner as at her lover's hanging, she curses the marriage, to the horror of Prior Philip. She then vanishes into the woods again.

With the rise and fall of King Stephen, the Hamleigh family is struggling amidst English politics and their own greed for power. William Hamleigh has become a respected soldier during the war, though to his shock, so has Richard of Kingsbridge, Aliena's brother, whose hatred of his sister's rapist has not dimmed despite the years. William finally takes a wife, a young girl who reminds him of Aliena, and he finds great pleasure in beating and raping her while dreaming of Aliena. Meanwhile, Aliena's marriage to Alfred is a failure, to the point where despite Alfred's lust, he is impotent every time he tries to have her. Aliena takes to sleeping on the floor until one day when she is with Alfred's sister Martha, she realizes she is pregnant and knows the baby is Jack's because she and Alfred have never had sex. Afraid of Alfred's violent temper, Aliena hides her pregnancy until she goes into labor during the first Mass being held in the new church Alfred built. For reasons unknown to the people inside but carefully explained to the reader (an example of dramatic irony), the vaulted roof of the church collapses, killing many people, but miraculously, Aliena and her baby -- a redheaded boy -- survive. Alfred disowns them, claiming the child is not his, and Aliena goes to live in her brother's house with her new son, whom she refuses to name until she can consult with Jack. Ellen arrives from the forest to see her grandson and advises Aliena to seek out Jack, who was heading for Compostela to look for work. Thrilled at the idea, Aliena and the baby travel on a year-long pilgrimage across Western Europe to find Jack, who has been working here and there at various churches across the continent, leaving his mark with unusually crafted stonecarvings: he is a sculptor rather than a stonecutter. Jack and Aliena are reunited, to both of their joy, and the baby is named Tommy, after Tom Builder. During his pilgrimage, Jack meets Moorish scholars and mathematicians and helps build Saint Denis Basilica, thus learning how to build rib vaulting. He also meets various members of his extended family, relatives of the father he had never known, and he learns a little about his dead father, who had been French. Inspired by the techniques he has learned on his travels, Jack accompanies Aliena back to Kingsbridge, where he is named master builder by Prior Philip and resumes building the Kingsbridge cathedral. But because Alfred has left town and Aliena is still legally married to him, Prior Philip cannot allow Jack and Aliena to marry. Heartbroken, the lovers agree to live apart but will meet every Sunday in the woods to "break their promise," as Aliena calls it.

Much later, the cathedral is being built and Alfred suddenly returns to Kingsbridge, where he asks Jack in the name of Tom Builder to give him work. To honor the memory of his stepfather, Jack agrees, though he hates Alfred. Meanwhile, Jack's son Tommy is a grown boy and Aliena has given birth to another of Jack's children, a girl named Sally; however, the family cannot live together under Philip's orders. Bishop Waleran Bigod and the Hamleighs have teamed together, aiming for the downfall of Kingsbridge, Philip, and Aliena. Several attempts at the destruction of the village have failed, thwarted by the clever Jack as well as Aliena's brother Richard, now an accomplished soldier and knight. In a swift move of attack, Aliena befriends William Hamleigh's miserable young wife and takes the castle of Shiring from within, urging the villagers and soldiers to surrender to Richard, "the rightful earl." In this move, Aliena and Richard liberate themselves from their dead father's binding oaths. Later, Alfred succumbs to his envy for his stepbrother and lust for his own wife and attacks Aliena. Richard comes to his sister's defense, killing Alfred in the process. Sensing a new angle of attack, William Hamleigh -- now the sheriff of Shiring rather than the earl -- comes to arrest Richard for murder, denying a self-defense plea by arguing that a man cannot rape his wife. Richard takes sanctuary in the monastery, where Aliena, Ellen, Jack, and Philip decide that the best thing to do is for Richard to go to fight in the Holy Wars, the Crusades in Jerusalem. Richard escapes William Hamleigh and leaves the earldom to be run by Aliena, who can finally, at long last, marry Jack. The entire village turns out for the wedding, cementing the lovers' bliss.

Many years pass. The Kingsbridge cathedral is finally completed, famous around England for its beauty. (Jack has solved a vexing problem -- transverse stresses from wind -- by independently inventing the flying buttress.) Jack and Aliena's children are fully grown, the family living prosperously, visited frequently by Ellen, who still resides in the forest. In a sudden plan of attack, the bitter Archbishop Waleran Bigod publicly accuses Prior Philip of breaking the clerical law of chastity; Waleran claims that the monk Jonathan (Tom Builder's son, now grown) was really Philip's secret child whom he had raised in the monastery. The idea is ludicrous, especially considering that Philip is an honorable man with a deep love of the church, but no one can prove that it isn't true until Philip reveals that his brother, Francis, was the traveling priest who had found the baby on a hastily-dug grave in the woods. In a flash of realization, Jack connects Jonathan with Tom Builder's lost baby, and Ellen swears in court that Jonathan is indeed Tom Builder's son, thus saving the reputation of her old enemy, Prior Philip. When Archbishop Waleran Bigod accuses her of lying under oath, she loses her temper and begins shouting at Waleran of corruption and treason, as well as the murder of her lover, Jack's father, an accusation that shocks Jack, but Waleran refuses to admit to anything. Meanwhile, William Hamleigh has gone on leading a miserable, wasteful life, weaving in and out of the political web. His ultimate downfall occurs when he takes up with a group, under the flag of King Henry, who plot to assassinate the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket. Prior Philip happens to be with Becket when the assassination occurs, witnessing everything, and he uses the rage and injustice felt by the people to lead a revolt against Hamleigh and the King, claiming Becket as a saint and a martyr. The Pope lays an Interdict on England until King Henry repents.

The final section of the book opens, like the first section, with the same line: "The small boys came early to the hanging." But this time Aliena, much older, is in the crowd. Her son Tommy is now the acting earl of Shiring, after the death of her brother Richard in the Crusades, and she has come to watch the hanging of, we now realize, her old enemy William Hamleigh. Hamleigh was found guilty of plotting the murder of Thomas Becket, and unlike Jack's father, who had a quick death, Hamleigh's hanging is long and slow. Aliena feels satisfaction and relief watching him die, and turns away from the body to return to her family. Sally is now grown and working as a stained-glass artist with her father, Jack, and though she is still unmarried, we see that she is like her mother was at a young age, choosy about her suitors. Jack and Aliena, after all these years, are still affectionate and very much in love, but their tryst is interrupted when Jack is summoned to the chambers of Waleran Bigod, no longer an archbishop. He confesses to Jack that his father was on the White Ship from France bearing the heir to the English throne and was the only survivor when the ship sank. However, Jack's father was a witness to what was actually an assassination of the crown prince, and so Waleran Bigod, Percy Hamleigh (William's now-dead father), and the former Kingsbridge prior James (Philip's now-dead predecessor) framed Jack's father for theft and had him executed. Only Ellen knew that her lover was innocent all these years, and her curse eventually destroyed the lives of all three men -- the priest, the knight and the monk from the hanging. Meanwhile, Philip -- now Bishop of Kingsbridge -- is at the Royal Palace taking part in the symbolic whipping of King Henry, who has confessed to being the unwitting cause in the murder of Thomas Becket. Philip steps up to take the whip and do his part. "After today," he thinks to himself, "the world will never be quite the same."

[edit] Major characters

Jack Jackson (also known as Jack Fitzjack): A clever young architect and skilled stonemason who has spent his life loving Aliena.
Tom Builder: A penniless architect whose lifelong dream is to build a cathedral; stepfather to Jack. Loyal and diligent, has a love for building and family though he is blind to Alfred's cruelty. Was most noticeable for his great height.
Ellen: Mother of Jack, lives in the woods and is considered by some to be a witch after she cursed the men responsible for her lover's execution; later is the wife of Tom Builder
Prior Philip: A resourceful and dedicated monk whose dream is to see Kingsbridge rise to greatness
William Hamleigh: The cruel son of a minor lord, with a sadistic streak and an obsession with Aliena
Aliena: Daughter of an Earl, the intended bride of William Hamleigh who refuses to marry him and is raped because of it; later, the lover of Jack
Richard (Richard of Kingsbridge): Aliena's younger brother, a knight who as a young boy witnessed his sister's rape. A skilled soldier and leader but is very lazy and is completely dependent on Aliena.
Alfred Builder: Tom's son, a dimwitted and often cruel builder who later marries Aliena
Bishop Waleran Bigod: A power-hungry clergyman; seeks to destroy Prior Philip
Percy and Regan Hamleigh: the parents of William Hamleigh, harsh and power-driven. Percy was one of the men involved in executing Jack's father. Regan is renowned in the book for her physical, repulsive ugliness
Agnes Builder: first wife of Tom Builder and mother to Martha and Alfred; dies in the woods while giving birth to Jonathan
Martha Builder: daughter of Tom, sister to Alfred, stepsister to Jack. Timid and mild-mannered, often bullied by Alfred
Waleran Bigod: A cunning, devious, morally bankrupt monk who constantly schemes his way into more power. Allies himself with the Hamleigh's and often plots with William to bring about Phillip's downfall. In the end, he repents and joins the Kingsbridge Priory following Thomas Becket's murder.
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.