Brother Cadfael Chronicles

Brother Cadfael is the fictional main character in a series of historical murder mysteries written by the linguist-scholar Edith Pargeter under the name "Ellis Peters". The character of Cadfael himself is a Welsh Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey, in western England, in the first half of the 12th century.

As a character, Cadfael is an unusual monk, having spent half of his life on the Crusades; this experience gives him an array of talents and skills useful in monastic life. He is a skillful observer of human nature, a talented herbalist, which he learned in the Holy Lands and while a prisoner of the Muslims. He is also inquisitive by nature, energetic, and has an innate, although modern, sense of justice and fair-play. Abbots call upon him as a medical examiner, detective, doctor, and diplomat. His worldly knowledge, although useful, gets him in trouble with the more doctrinaire characters of the series, and the seeming contradiction between the secular and the spiritual worlds forms a central and continuing theme of the stories.

In all, Pargeter wrote twenty Cadfael books between 1977 and 1994. Each draws upon the storyline, characters, and developments of previous books in the series. Pargeter apparently planned the 20th installment as the final book of the series; Brother Cadfael's Penance brings together the loose story ends into a tidy conclusion. Pargeter herself died shortly after its publication, following a long illness. Many of the books were adapted into both radio episodes in which Glyn Houston and subsequently Philip Madoc played the monk, and a television series starring Derek Jacobi as Cadfael.

The Anarchy or The Nineteen-Year Winter refers to a period of English history during the reign (1135-1154) of the Norman King Stephen of Blois, which was characterised by civil war and unsettled government. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle describes this as the time during which "Christ and his saints slept".

The period was marked by a succession crisis between the supporters of Stephen, and those of his cousin, the Empress Matilda. Though Stephen was crowned king, the state of war between the two camps prevented effective government in England for nearly all of Stephen's reign. The issue was resolved only shortly before Stephen's death, when he signed the Treaty of Wallingford, which named Matilda's son Henry Curtmantle as his heir. Henry was crowned king upon Stephen's death in 1154, establishing the Plantagenet dynasty as Kings of England.

Shrewsbury ( or ) is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish and is home to 70,689 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council. Consequently, it is the second largest town in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, after Telford.

Shrewsbury is a historic market town with the town centre having a largely unaltered medieval street plan. The town features over 660 historic listed buildings, including several examples of timber framing from the 15th century and 16th century. Shrewsbury Castle, a red sandstone castle fortification, and Shrewsbury Abbey, a former Benedictine monastery, were founded in 1074 and 1083 respectively, by the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery. The town hosts one of the oldest and largest horticultural events in the country, Shrewsbury Flower Show, and is known for its floral displays, having won various awards since the turn of the 21st century, including Britain in Bloom in 2006.

Today, lying east of the Welsh border, Shrewsbury serves as a cultural and commercial centre for the ceremonial county and a large area of mid-Wales, with retail output alone worth over £299 million per year. There are some light industry and distribution centres, such as Battlefield Enterprise Park, located mainly on the outskirts. The A5 and A49 trunk roads cross here, as do five railway lines at Shrewsbury railway station.

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict around 529.

Used as a noun, the term denotes their members, the Benedictines. By extension it is sometimes applied to other adherents of the Benedictine spirituality.

During the subsequent centuries many more Benedictine communities were founded, not only for monks but also for nuns, first throughout Europe and eventually also other areas of the world. This led to the formation in modern times of the Order of St Benedict. In addition to those autonomous Benedictine communities, a number of independent monastic orders were founded on the rule of St Benedict, and so are also Benedictines in that sense. Such orders include the Congregation of Cluny, the Cistercians, and the Trappists. Benedictine communities are primarily found in the Catholic Church but several Benedictine communities exist within other Christian communities, though small in number.

The current Abbot Primate (religion) of the global Benedictine Confederation of the Order of St. Benedict is a German Benedictine, Notker Wolf. The center of the Confederation is Sant'Anselmo in Rome where every four years the abbots of the Benedictine order from around the world meet for a Confederation Congress. In 2000, there were 8,182 Benedictine monks, 7,179 nuns, and 10,000 "Active Benedictine Sisters."Terance Kavenagh, "Benedictines" in Encyclopedia of Monasticism ed. William Johnson (New York: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2000), 326.

:For the railway station, see Shrewsbury Abbey railway station.

The Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, commonly known as Shrewsbury Abbey, was a Benedictine monastery founded in 1083 by the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery, in Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire, England.

The Welsh people () are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.

John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain,Davies, John (1994) A History of Wales. Penguin: p.54; ISBN 0-14-01-4581-8. although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have been spoken in Wales far longer. The term Welsh people applies to people who identify themselves as Welsh, and who are identified by others as Welsh. They may perceive themselves, or be perceived, as having a shared cultural heritage, or shared ancestral origins.

An analysis of the geography of Welsh surnames commissioned by the Welsh Assembly Government found that 718,000 people, or nearly 35% of the Welsh population, have a family name of Welsh origin, compared with 5.3% in the rest of the United Kingdom, 4.7% in New Zealand, 4.1% in Australia, and 3.8% in the United States, with an estimated 16.3 million people in the countries studied having Welsh ancestry.

Edith Mary Pargeter, OBE, BEM (28 September 1913 ? 14 October 1995) was a British author of works in many categories, especially history and historical fiction, and was also honoured for her translations of Czech classics; she is probably best known for her murder mysteries, both historical and modern.