The Sanctuary Seeker

Author’s Note

Any attempt to give modern English dialogue an ‘olde worlde’ flavour in historical novels is as inaccurate as it is futile. In the time and place of this story, late twelfth-century Devon, most people would have spoken early Middle English, unintelligible to us at the present time. Many others would speak western Welsh, later called Cornish, and the ruling classes would have spoken Norman French. The language of the Church and virtually all official writing was Latin.

Exeter Cathedral, as described in these pages, is not the same building as can be seen today, with the exception of the two massive towers, which were there in Crowner John’s time.