The Pillars of The Earth - Background

Background

In the 1999 Preface to The Pillars of the Earth Follett tells readers that he grew up in a Puritan-based family, whose worship space was very spare. In preparing for writing, he was reading about medieval architecture, and

...developed an interest in cathedrals. Before too long, it occurred to me to channel this enthusiasm into a novel. I knew it had to be a long book. It took at least thirty years to build a cathedral and most took longer because they would run out of money, or be attacked or invaded. So the story covers the entire lives of the main characters. My publishers were a little nervous about such a very unlikely subject but, paradoxically, it is my most popular book. It's also the book I'm most proud of. It recreates, quite vividly, the entire life of the village and the people who live there. You feel you know the place and the people as intimately as if you yourself were living there in the Middle Ages.

The Preface includes the following sources:

  1. An Outline of European Architecture, by Nicholas Pevsner.
  2. The Cathedral Builders, by Jean Gimpel.
  3. The Medieval Machine, by Jean Gimpel.

The novel's Kingsbridge is fictional. He set it in Marlborough, Wiltshire; Follett chose it as the cathedrals of Winchester, Gloucester, and Salisbury could be reached from there within a few days on horseback. Kingsbridge Cathedral as described is based on the cathedrals of Wells and Salisbury.

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