Copy of Crispin: The Cross of Lead

Crispin:

The Cross of Lead

by Avi

• Setting: England in 1377
• A fourteen-year-old boy, Crispin, has just lost his mother. A poor peasant, he has few options.
• A priest has important news for him--but is murdered before getting the chance to tell him.
• Inexplicably, Crispin is named a "wolf's head" by the townspeople, meaning he should be killed immediately.
• Crispin begins a life on the run, and soon meets a protector of sorts, Bear.
• Bear is a large man with a large personality. He teaches Crispin how to dance and play the lute, and how to protect himself.
• Bear is involved in a plot for uprising, and unsuccessfully tries to keep Crispin out of the fray.
• Crispin discovers why he is hunted: on the cross necklace (made of lead) his mother had given him, it is inscribed that Crispin is the son of the late Lord Furnival.
• The story ends with Crispin's pursuer slayed, after which Crispin and Bear flee the city.
• The story continues in Crispin at the Edge of the World.

England

in the 14th century

Time

The Church was the Roman Catholic Church.

Churches were places of sanctuary (where Crispin first hides

and is safe).

Formal time for prayers dominated the day (in the book:

prime, matins, compline).

The Church had so much power because it was believed

to be the authority on matters of a person's admittance

to heaven or hell.

Also, kings were believed to have the divine right to govern.

For safety and for defense, people in the Middle Ages formed small communities around a central lord or master. Most people lived on a manor, which consisted of the castle, the church, the village, and the surrounding farm land. These manors were isolated, with occasional visits from peddlers, pilgrims on their way to the Crusades, or soldiers from other fiefdoms.

In this "feudal" system, the king awarded land grants or "fiefs" to his most important nobles, his barons, and his bishops, in return for their contribution of soldiers for the king's armies. At the lowest echelon of society were the peasants, also called "serfs" or "villeins." In exchange for living and working on his land, known as the "demesne," the lord offered his peasants protection. (http://www.learner.org/interactives/middleages/feudal.html)

*1381 Peasant's Revolt*

-Peasants believed that Christ

was the only Lord (preachings by

John Wycliff)

-Scriptures were the only authority

-John Ball (in the novel, a local

agitator) advocated social equality

Found Poetry

Asta's son

Mother died

Wolf's head

Forever cast aside

Baptized Crispin

A dense forest of people

bound to Lord Furnival

They're looking for someone

Led into a trap

They killed the priest

Anyone may kill me

I was being accused of a theft I had not done

Not for men to know what God does or does not wil

I had to decide everything for myself

There's bad and good

I had to decide everything for myself

I forced myself along

Choose a path ahead of me

The only cross you'll need

is the one in your heart

Recommendation

A good Prezi response

to literature

(Your Project)

King

Nobles, barons,

lords, bishops

Peasants, serfs

Feudalism

From p. 15:

"Our lives never changed, but went round the rolling years beneath the starry vault of distant Heaven. Time was the great millstone, which ground us to dust like kerneled wheat. The Holy Church told us where we were in the alterations of the day, the year, and our daily toil. Birth and death alone gave distinction to our lives, as we made the journey between the darkness whence we had come to the darkness where we were fated to await Judgment Day. Then God's terrible gaze would fall on us and lift us to Heaven's bliss or throw us down to the everlasting flames of Hell."

Religion

Revolt

Music

Plague

-Began in the early 1330s

-Known as the "Black Death" and

"Great Mortality"

-Nearly 1/3 of Europe perished

(approx. 25 million people)

-Led people to search for meaning...why?

The Author

Avi talks about being a writer and

the myth of "writer's block"

Other Avi novels you would know:

Nothing But the Truth, Poppy, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

Created by Ms. Pangle

The story

Students in 6th-8th grades would enjoy Crispin. (Younger than 6th grade might be a

bit young to understand the politics discussed in the novel.) There's quite a bit of

intrigue around the various characters, and the action keeps the story moving. (The

priest is brutally murdered in the opening ten pages--what a way to begin!)

By the time Crispin understood who his father was, I had guessed that so that was a

bit predictable. However, after Crispin meets Bear, the pacing of the story picks up,

and it became a quick read, despite the book's 297 pages.

I appreciated the way the story gave me a glimpse of life in the Middle Ages: the

reliance on the people above you for protection, the way the day was organized

around prayer, the importance (and lack thereof) of literacy.

Although the book wraps up with a sense of closure, the reader can definitely tell this

is meant to be a series. There are too many questions left about revolt and freedom

and justice for the peasants (many themes, interestingly, that come up in our study

of Laurie Andersen's CHAINS and the American Revolution.) Check out the sequels!