Sarum

By Edward Rutherfurd

This massive novel tells the story of the area around the British city of Salisbury, starting from early prehistoric times and up to the 1980s. In a series of loosely connected stories, Rutherford lays out the history of this place which includes the famous Stonehenge site, the construction of which is also dealt with in this novel. Also detailed is the construction of Salisbury Cathedral, a famous and beautiful building, dating from the 13th Century.
Rutherford traces this history through a handful of fictional families, running from lowlife river people, through craftsmen and farmers and including the landed gentry. He drops into his character's lives at key moments in history, such as the first appearance of the plague in Britain and Britain's struggles with Napoleon. He also mentions the American revolution as an influence on British attitudes towards the rights of the individual, an idea that didn't have much weight at that time in Britain.

Necessarily, to cover such an immense span of time, the story is somewhat piecemeal. The key families substitute for the characters one would normally follow in a novel. To do so, Rutherford gives these families traits that carry through the centuries, such as big heads, thin faces, or cold dispositions. I doubt that such traits would remain consistent unless the families were totally inbred. Still, it is a device to engage the readers in a bunch of new characters every few chapters. This is the novel's biggest weakness, the lack of identification with characters that are constantly changing despite the author's effort to make them nearly identical to their antecedents. It's a big topic, and, as a kind of mini-history of England it was pretty interesting. Not surprisingly some parts are more engaging than others. I sort of lost interest in the story as it moved up into the later centuries, the 18th, 19th and 20th. For the most part, despite the unavoidable disjointedness of the story, it was an entertaining and informative read.

Review by Kirkus Reviews.

New Words
Agger & cambered: An agger is the built-up foundations of a Roman road, sometimes surviving as a long bank of earth. To camber means to give a slight arch to. "This was the famous raised agger. Then on top of this they packed chalk, a handspan deep and cambered down from the centre, to ensure that the road surface would be well drained."
Haruspices: The plural of haruspex, a man trained to practice a form of divination called haruspicy, the study and divination by use of animal entrails, usually the victims of sacrifice. "What had become of the old values -- the stoicism of the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius, the solid virtues of the Roman gentlemen who read the classics, consulted the haruspices and built shrines for their ancestors?"
Pallium: a woollen vestment conferred on archbishops by the Pope. "New bishoprics were founded and the archbishop received his pallium from Rome."
Decurions: A decurion was an officer in charge of ten men in the ancient Roman army; also a member of local government in the Roman Empire. "For under the late empire it had been possible for decurions to obtain exemption from the financial burdens of holding local offices by taking priestly orders, and many local landowners had entered the priesthood for this reason."
Quartan: A fever whose symptoms recur every four days; recurring every four days; especially in designating a form of malaria with such symptoms. "As for Bishop Roger, he had hardly been seen since his return, and there were rumours that he was sick with a quartan fever."
Exchequer & chirograph: Exchequer is the financial department of the royal government; the treasury. Chirograph is a writing which, requiring a copy, was engrossed twice on the same piece of parchment, with a space between, in which was written the word chirographum, through which the parchment was cut, and one part given to each party. "There was a separate court and exchequer for the community; and there were a number of towns where the official records of all moneylending transactions were kept in the archae, the great chests for holding these chirograph documents."
Villeins & heriot: A villein is a non-free man, owing heavy labor service to a lord, subject to his manorial court, bound to the land, and subject to certain feudal dues, but better than a serf. The heriot is, in feudal law, the right of a feudal lord to take a tenant's best beast or other chattel on the tenant's death. "For although the villeins and free tenants who should have worked his land had gone, he still had the right to the heriot tax payable when a peasant died."
Demesne: the land on a manor not held by free or villein tenants but directly cultivated for the lord by an agent. "During the previous year he had paid high wages to cultivate at least part of his own demesne lands."
Murrain: any of several highly infectious diseases of cattle and sheep such as anthrax; the word means death. "And he had been hard hit, like many others, by a murrain which had carried off most of his sheep."
Woad: common name of the plant Isatis tinctoria whose leaves are used to make a blue dye; the dye made from the plant Isatis tinctoria. "Only two months before he had imported a load of twenty-five tons of woad for making dye through the port of Southampton on which he had made a handsome profit."
Chequers & close: Close is an enclosed place, especially land surrounding or beside a cathedral or other building; also a narrow lane or alley. Chequer is a square. "'That's the place with the best views,' he would say: for from Harnham you could see the whole city - cathedral, close, market place and chequers laid out as clearly as on one of Speed's maps."
Bye-laws: Bye-law or by-law is a law that is less important than a general law or constitutional provision, and subsidiary to it; a rule relating to a matter of detail; as, civic societies often adopt a constitution and by-laws for the government of their members. "Soon he was familiar with the complex set of bye-laws that regulated the villagers' intense cultivation of their jointly owned flocks and hedged fields."
Prebendary: A prebendary is a post connected to an Anglican or Catholic cathedral or collegiate church and is a type of canon. Prebendaries have a role in the administration of the cathedral. A prebend is a type of benefice, which usually consisted of the income from the cathedral estates. A canon is a priest serving a cathedral or collegiate church or a member of a religious community living under common rules and bound by vows. "Many a rector or prebendary lived like a gentleman and at Sarum at least, the dean lived like a lord."
Tractarians: also called the Oxford movement, Tractarians wanted to reform the Anglican church, to go back to the Catholic roots of the English church; their views were expressed in series of tracts, thus the name Tractarians. "I have Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Tractarians, and others who may be anything."
Trenchant: keen, incisive; penetrating; forceful; effective; clear-cut. "Porters nodded absently as Ebenezer Mickelthwaite, agent to Lord Forest, expressed these trenchant views."