A PERFECT LOCATION: AT THE HEART OF THE NOVEL

Many terrible events occurred in the year 843 A.D., previously mentioned in the article HISTORICAL SETTING OF A NOVEL.

We can also add the creation of the Kingdom of Alba in Scotland and the defeat of Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, at the hands of the Danes in Carhampton, Somerset, in present-day England, where the crews of 35 Viking ships prevailed over the Saxon forces from across the Channel.

As we have seen, the Saxons on the continent fared even worse, especially this year, as Louis the German, King of the East Franks, crushed Saxon's revolt, known as the Stellinga revolt, in a bloodbath with the approval of the Church of Rome, given the uproar about the return to pagan beliefs among these populations.

In reality, what the Saxons were demanding was the restoration of their body of laws and not to be subjected to the discriminatory laws of the Franks any longer.

This fact brings us to one of the crucial knots of the novel and this historical time: the relationship between the Church and the Empire in the 9th century.

Particularly in the territory of interest, based on the discoveries made by scholars about the origin of the fabulous Ulfberht swords, which are the magnificent inspiration for the narrative, as explained in the article INSPIRATION FOR A NOVEL: THE SECRET OF THE ULFBERHT SWORDS, we find that the Benedictine abbeys were the meeting point between these powers and had characteristics that might surprise us today.

These abbeys were, and still are, located in present-day Germany, but we are particularly interested in one of them, in the area that once constituted the County of Thuringia.

The abbey directly involved in the matter of the Ulfberht swords is that of Fulda in East Hesse.

THE ABBEY OF FULDA

Saint Sturmio founded the Abbey of Fulda in 747 to preserve the relics of his master, Saint Boniface. This fact alone had already made the religious center very important, making it a preeminent Christian pilgrimage site in the German territories, giving Fulda many economic repercussions.

In those years, Emperor Charlemagne sponsored Fulda Abbey, ensuring that its scriptorium and chancellery were the centers for the collection of documents and books, funding the ceaseless work of the monks in preserving knowledge and ancient works.

Another significant event demonstrating Fulda's importance was that, during those years, Pope Zachary removed the monastery from episcopal jurisdiction, placing it directly under papal jurisdiction.

This monastery soon became a center of wealth and power derived from the material goods it produced, the earnings from religious pilgrimages, and, not least, the cultural assets dictated by the work of the chancellery and the scriptorium.

Subsequently, during the Middle Ages, these factors contributed to establishing the Fulda Abbey and its territories as an actual principality within the context of the German states that constituted the Holy Roman Empire. But this is not our concern, as we want to focus on 843 and the reasons that make Fulda a key location in the novel.

What does Fulda have to do with the mystery of these Ulfberht swords?

SCIENCE REVEALS THE MYSTERIES OF THE PAST

The archaeologists found one of the Ulfberht swords in Lower Saxony, and they examined it using computerized tomography, revealing that it had been entirely produced in the same forge, as even the same artisans crafted the hilt and pommel.

The weapon, dating back to the 10th century, was also subjected to chemical analysis by the Leibniz University in Hanover, and the results revealed that the lead used in the hilt came from the Schiefergebirge massif, which lies near the abbey of Fulda.

The abbeys and monasteries were economic centers of significance that would surprise us today, and in the case of the Frankish Kingdoms at that time, they were also required to produce goods for the security of the kingdom, including weapons and armor to supply the imperial army, with quantities and timelines meticulously set by royal officials.

Furthermore, as we have seen in previous articles, the sale and trade of weapons, especially prodigious weapons like the Ulfberht swords, which did not lose their edge and whose steel quality had reached only a thousand years later, were regulated by strict imperial laws.

What better place, then, than a powerful and well-equipped monastery to jealously conceal the secret of the Ulfberht swords?

That is the reason Fulda is one of the significant locations in the novel The Arcane Secret of Ulfberht's Legacy, where Arnar, a young Frank raised among the Vikings, Alberic, a scholar Benedictine monk, and Astrid, a young Saxon "witch" are involved in unraveling the mystery of Ulfberht steel, in an intrigue where ruthless and dangerous antagonists challenge them in a breathtaking crescendo.