World Without End

“‘God will provide.’ This infuriating platitude was always Anthony’s answer.”

Anthony’s attitude shows that he lacks the political acumen to use the power of the church to improve the lives of those around him. At its worst, this passive and profoundly conservative attitude makes him resistant to changes the town and church need to prepare for a fast-moving world. His failure to lead ultimately paves the way for more assertive leaders, such as Godwyn, to take over.

“Priests and monks study the works of the ancient philosophers. They know more than we do.”

Edmund’s response to Caris’s questioning of the monks’ medical treatment of her mother reflects one of the reasons ordinary people respect the decisions of the monks—a deference to authority of both the church and the old texts upon which the monks rely for knowledge. Caris’s early propensity to question authority and accepted wisdom is apparent here, making this passage an early indication of her coming conflict with the church’s authority.

“When you were a boy, our father’s business fed you and clothed you and paid for your education. Since you’ve been a monk, the citizens of this town and the peasants of the surrounding countryside have kept you alive by paying you rents, tithes, charges for market stalls, bridge tolls, and a dozen other different fees. All your life you’ve lived like a flea on the backs of hardworking people. And now you have the nerve to tell us that God provides.”

Edmund takes Prior Anthony to task because Anthony and the church fail to take care of the town. Anthony has spiritual authority over the town because he is the church's representative in Kingsbridge, and he has economic and political authority over the town according to the legal charter that defines the relationship between the town and the priory. Edmund's reproach redefines that overlord-town relationship by labeling it a host-parasite one. Edmund's criticism of his brother is a personal one, but it is also an attack on the authority of the church and Anthony's leadership. This conversation represents one of the central conflicts of the novel, the contest between the merchants and the church for power.

“There was not much a peasant could do to oppose the will of a squire, especially when the squire was wearing the livery of a great earl.”

This is Ralph’s thought as he decides to grope Annet despite her protest that she is already betrothed and that her father will not approve. His statement reflects his understanding of power relations between ordinary people and the nobility in a feudal system. Ralph exploits his status to dominate and abuse subordinates. Ralph’s refusal to acknowledge Perkin’s and Wulfric’s roles shows his general disregard for order.

“She had nowhere to go, but that made no difference. To stay here, and eat the bread her father put on the table, would be to yield to his authority. She would be accepting his evaluation of her, as a commodity to be sold. She was sorry she had drunk the first cup of ale. Her only chance was to reject him immediately and get out from under his roof.”

This is a coming-of-age moment for Gwenda. She assumes more control over her life by rejecting her father’s authority and society’s belief that she is the property of her father. This is a defining moment in her fight to improve her life. Her determination is just one of many examples of women attempting to carve out nontraditional roles for themselves.

“You’re young, Brother Godwyn. You’ll learn that men of power never show gratitude. Whatever we give them, they accept as their right.”

This quote shows Cecilia’s understanding of relations of power between nobles and everyone else. She has a keen understanding of her place in the hierarchy and uses that to her advantage as she attempts to protect the nunnery. Her comment also shows that early in his career, Godwyn has little understanding of these power dynamics.

“He picked up another bone. He was frightened, knowing that he more than Carlus was to blame for what had happened; but his intentions had been pure, and he still hoped to mollify the saint. At the same time, he was aware that his actions must look good in the eyes of everyone present: he was taking charge in a crisis, like a true leader.”

Godwyn rationalizes his scheme to discredit Carlus by telling himself that the ends (becoming prior) justify the means (harming another and mishandling venerated objects for his order). This quote captures his belief that what is good for him is good for the church. In addition, the quote shows that he believes the appearance of goodness is more important than actual virtue. These two attitudes influence how he gains and wields power.

“He felt as if he were explaining something to a child. ‘Because we can’t spend the rest of our lives living with our parents and stealing kisses when no one’s looking. We have to get a home of our own, and live as man and wife, and sleep together every night, and have real sex instead of bringing each other off, and raise a family.’”

Merthin understands his loose connection to Caris as just a step to a traditional marriage, which in his mind is an important rite of passage to adulthood. His perspective that Caris’s desire to maintain autonomy is childish shows an inability to see her desire for freedom as a legitimate vision for a woman. This fundamental mismatch between Caris and Merthin presages the decades-long conflict they have over their relationship.

“A clergyman can influence the mass of the people. If he preaches a sermon against the earl, or calls upon the saints to bring misfortune to the earl, people will begin to believe that the earl is cursed. Then they will discount his power, mistrust him, and expect all his projects to be doomed. It can be very hard for a nobleman to oppose a truly determined cleric. Look what happened to King Henry II after the murder of Thomas Becket.”

At this stage in his ecclesiastical career, Godwyn understands enough of how power works to instruct Philemon in what makes the church a political force that contends with secular authority. This contrasts with his previous, ineffective efforts to secure a scholarship to study at Oxford. His rival then was Saul Whitehead, who managed to win the scholarship. In this scene, he is on his way to dispatch Saul as a rival for the position of prior, and he wins the contest this time because of this shift in how he sees power.

“A prior may have enemies, and any mystery is a weakness. And then, of course, by the leader’s vulnerability the institution itself is threatened. My brain should have led me where Friar Murdo’s malice led him—to the conclusion that a man who does not want to answer questions about his past cannot be a prior.”

Thomas is here addressing the monks to explain why he must withdraw from the race to become the prior. He enters the race initially because he believes his ethics will make him a good religious leader; his reversal shows his understanding of how individuals who lead an institution can either damage or enhance the credibility of an institution. When he withdraws, however, he leaves the church vulnerable to Godwyn. His choice to take the most ethical path leads to a poor result for the priory in the end. The conscientious choices of good men are part of the conditions that allow people like Godwyn to thrive.

“‘What happened to Marguerite Porete? Is she still alive?’

‘No,’ said the prioress. ‘She was burned at the stake.’”

This quote comes in an exchange during which Caris rejects Cecilia’s suggestion to take vows to become a nun. Cecilia alludes to Porete to help Caris understand that prioritizing personal autonomy in the church is dangerous for women. Within the church, women’s obedience is assumed as the natural order, so violating that order can result in death. Cecilia’s effort to recruit Caris shows the prioress’s insight into Caris’s difficulties with accepting traditional gender roles. The church, at least, offers a life independent of a husband in exchange for obedience to one’s vows and the church’s authority.

“A woman’s life was a house of closed doors: she could not be an apprentice, she could not study at the university, she could not be a priest or a physician, or shoot a bow or fight with a sword, and she could not marry without submitting herself to the tyranny of her husband.”

Follett uses the metaphor of the house of closed doors to show Caris’s resignation to the fact that none of the choices available to her will allow for personal autonomy. Subsequently, she tries on each of the roles that are available to her—businesswoman, nun, prioress—but she runs into these closed doors each time she tries to deviate even slightly from these gender roles.

“Although everyone paid lip service to the untrustworthiness and general inferiority of women, in practice several of the town’s wealthiest and most important citizens were female. There was Mother Cecilia, sitting now at the front with her personal assistant, Old Julie. Caris was here—everyone acknowledged that she was Edmund’s right hand.”

Merthin is here observing the mix of men and women at a parish guild meeting. His description of relations of power between men and women shows that the secular world is more hospitable to women’s exercise of power. Unlike some of the more conservative tradesmen, such as Elfric, Merthin is willing to do more than tolerate women’s presence, reflecting Caris’s influence on him.

“I wasn’t born to be happy. But I help people, I make a living, and I’m free.”

Mattie responds to Caris’s question about whether her life as a healer makes her happy. Mattie is one of the few women who initially seems to have found a way around the constraints of traditional gender roles for women. Mattie’s response shows that she sees Caris’s perspective on women’s lives as naïve. Caris learns the lesson Mattie is teaching her: Embracing meaningful work is a pragmatic response to sexism. This conversation takes place as Mattie helps Caris abort her fetus, however, foreshadowing the fact that Caris’s desire to be a free woman will foreclose certain possibilities for her, including biological motherhood.

“My father hated people who preached about morality. We’re all good when it suits us, he used to say: that doesn’t count. It’s when you want so badly to do something wrong—when you’re about to make a fortune from a dishonest deal, or kiss the lovely lips of your neighbor’s wife, or tell a lie to get yourself out of terrible trouble—that’s when you need the rules. ‘Your integrity is like a sword,’ he would say. ‘You shouldn’t wave it until you’re about to put it to the test.’ Not that he knew anything about swords.”

Caris explains to Mair why she continues to give their food away to hungry men roaming the French countryside. Her response shows that she rejects the show of virtue used by people like Godwyn to gain power. For Caris, virtue is about action rather than words. The need for integrity and alignment between one’s values and actions are central to how she exercises power later in the novel.

“The king was a man after Ralph’s own heart. Edward III loved to fight. When he was not at war, he spent most of his time organizing elaborate tournaments, costly mock battles with armies of knights in specially designed uniforms. On the campaign, he was always ready to lead a sortie or raiding party, hazarding his life, never pausing to balance risks against benefits like a Kingsbridge merchant. The older knights and earls commented on his brutality, and had protested about incidents such as the systematic rape of the women of Caen, but Edward did not care. When he had heard that some of the Caen citizens had thrown stones at soldiers who were ransacking their homes, he had ordered that everyone in the town should be killed, and only relented after vigorous protests by Sir Godfrey de Harcourt and others.”

This quote shows the impact that the actions of leaders have on those who follow them when it comes to the exercise of power. The brutality that Ralph takes home to England is one he learns by watching how the king acts. Ralph also learns that norms are for the breaking as long as it is a powerful person violating those norms. Ralph’s decision to reject mercy and to brutalize subordinates might be extreme, but the models of leadership offered to him by powerful interests are an important part of the context for his actions in England. The feudal power structure enables him to carry on abusing Gwenda, Annet, and Wulfric, for example, and almost no one stands up to him because they accept his actions as his right based on his role as a lord.

“‘Is that so important to you?’ Merthin said incredulously. ‘That people fear you?’

‘It’s the most important thing in the world’ said Ralph.”

Ralph explicitly articulates his belief that he should rule by inspiring fear in others. This belief is one of his central motivations as a character, and it explains why he engages in actions that damage his own interests.

“As the deaths went on and on, and people buried their relatives, neighbors, friends, customers, and employees, the constant horror seemed to brutalize many of them, until no violence or cruelty seemed shocking. People who thought they were about to die lost all restraint and followed their impulses, regardless of the consequences.”

Caris observes that although the plague is a physical illness, one of its consequences is that there is a shift in the moral decision-making that formerly guided people’s actions. Her insight here is that she understands the plague to be a source of anarchy. As acting prior, Caris attempts to use her power to contain anarchy. She experiences only partial success, however.

“Just at the moment when the townspeople needed their spines stiffened, the flight of the monks had the opposite effect. It demoralized everyone. God’s representatives had left: the Almighty had abandoned the town.”

The church fails to provide effective leadership when the plague unleashes anarchy on the town. Godwyn places self-preservation and self-interest ahead of his responsibility to provide comfort and care to members of his church. Caris in this passage recognizes the damage Godwyn’s actions have done not only to the townspeople but to the credibility of the church. The practical help she provides subsequently shows that servant-leadership—placing the needs of her people ahead of the needs of the church—might be one of the few ways the church can still be of use to Kingsbridge. The efforts of Bishop Henri and others to reinstitute an order in which the people serve the church leads to failure as long as Caris tries to work within the church.

“For a long time Kingsbridge has been held back by the dead hand of priory rule. Priors are cautious and conservative, and instinctively say no to any change or innovation. Merchants live by change—they’re always looking for new ways to make money, or at least the good ones are. If we want the men of Kingsbridge to help pay for our new tower, we must give them the freedom they need to prosper.”

Caris negotiates with Bishop Henri to allow the town to pursue greater independence from the priory by securing a borough charter. Henri is a pragmatic leader whose acceptance of her proposition acknowledges that the church no longer has the credibility to demand service from the people. Caris recognizes that merchants are the ascendant power now. Her insight reflects the historical reality of what the plague did to existing power structures. It reorganized them, allowing openings for greater secular power over the church.

“She found it deeply ironic that fate had cast her in this role. She had never been a rule keeper. She had always despised orthodoxy and flouted convention. She felt she had the right to make her own rules. Now here she was clamping down on merrymakers. It was a miracle that no one had yet called her a hypocrite. The truth was that some people flourished in an atmosphere of anarchy, and others did not. Merthin was one of those who were better off without constraints.”

One of the ironies in the novel is that it is people who are open to change who are most prepared to reimpose order after the plague destroys the status quo. Caris’s self-awareness of the mismatch between who she believes she is and her actions show maturation that she did not have as a younger woman and nun, so this is an important moment in her character arc. Her description of Merthin shows that she recognizes crises like the plague as moments of opportunity for change for the right person. Unspoken here is that Merthin has more room to navigate because he is a man.

“The old texts have never proved very useful to me, Jonas. I was first taught how to make medicines by a wise woman of Kingsbridge, called Mattie, who sadly left town for fear of being persecuted as a witch. I learned more from Mother Cecilia, who was prioress here before me. But gathering the recipes and treatments is not difficult. Everyone knows a hundred of them. The difficulty is to identify the few effective ones in all the dross. What I did was to keep a diary, over the years, of the effects of every cure I tried. In my book, I included only those I have seen working, with my own eyes, time after time.”

Caris explains to a buyer how she compiled The Kingsbridge Panacea. She is an effective healer because she uses the scientific method, grounded in reason, experience, and observation, to discover how best to treat physical illness. Her approach contrasts with that practiced by the monk-physicians, who rely on authority, even the authority of antique authors, to guide their practice. Her willingness to take another approach shows that unorthodox thinking can be a strength for those in positions of power, especially during moments of crisis. In addition, her willingness to value the work of the nuns and Mattie shows what is to be gained by rejecting the church’s subordination of women. The Panacea is thus a symbol for the power of reason and women when they are acknowledged for what they have to offer.

“She had wanted freedom for herself, as Ralph knew. She had never achieved it—but Ralph was right: Davey had. That meant that her life had not been completely without purpose. Her grandchildren would be free and independent, growing what crops they chose, paying their rent and keeping for themselves everything else they earned. They would never know the miserable existence of poverty and hunger that Gwenda had been born to.”

Gwenda is the woman with the least economic power and status out of all the central women in the novel. While Caris gets most of what she wants at the end, success for Gwenda is not her own freedom. She defines success as improved opportunities for her family. The arc she traces from her generation to the next also reflects historical changes in society that occurred as a result of the upheaval of the plague. Like Merthin, Gwenda used the chaos to her advantage.