Cassandra Clark is the author of the Abbess of Meaux Medieval Mystery Series published by John Murray (UK) and St Martin's Press (U.S.A).

Hello. This site is to welcome you to the world of Hildegard of Meaux - sleuth, spy, Cistercian nun and future abbess.

Hildegard was one of many strong, independent women in the fourteenth century who for social reasons took the veil in order to live a life of power and influence. The Order she chose was one of the wealthiest in England due to its involvement in the European wool trade. Its abbots and prioresses were the advisors of kings and princes. It is this world Hildegard inhabits after the death of her husband, a knight in the service of the young King Richard II.

At this same time Chaucer was writing about the Wife of Bath. Lady Katharine Swynford was creating a scandal with her notorious affair with John of Gaunt.

The threat of the Black Death was ever present. The Hundred Years War still raged. And plot and counter-plot to remove Richard from the throne kept England on the edge of civil war. Above all, terror at the approaching Apocalypse
stalked the land.

Welcome, then, to Hildegard's world.

Meaux: how to say it ... Around the site where the great and famous Abbey of Meaux once stood people refer to it as Me-oos but in the south of England, following the pronunciation of the French mother House near Citeaux which gave the abbey its name, they say Mow to rhyme with hoe. I know which I prefer - but I leave it up to you!