In May 1364, a monk from the convent of San Goffredo, set in the harsh moorlands of Yorkshire, receives a secret assignment from the Papal Curia. Thus begins a journey along the Via Francigena, through silent abbeys, plague-scarred medieval towns, and landscapes marked by war. Brother Elara, accompanied by a young novice, crosses Europe in search of clues to a series of enigmatic desecrations in sacred places.
His path weaves through ancient beliefs, forgotten cults, relic traffickers, and underground plots that challenge both faith and reason. Investigation at Saint Peter’s is a historical tale of mystery, faith, and inquiry—rich in atmospheric detail and authentic references—ideal for readers who love period fiction, religious thrillers, and medieval settings.
An Investigative Monk, Stolen Relics, and Ecclesiastical Mysteries in the Heart of the Fourteenth Century: the Lengthy Inquiry of Brother Elara from York to Rome
Brother Elara on the Via Francigena. May 1364. Chapter 1
The monastery of Saint Goffredo, perched on the harsh moorland of the eastern Yorkshire, rose like a boulder blackened by age and by the salt‑laden wind blowing in from the North Sea. Dawn on 14 May 1364 found Brother Elara—his monastic name chosen in honour of an Irish hermit who had lived two centuries earlier—receiving a letter sealed with the papal leaden bulla.
The red wax, already laced with fine cracks, bore the imprint of the triple‑crowned tiara and the two crossed keys. The courier, a Provençal groom in a threadbare livery, refused even a bowl of broth: he merely delivered the scroll, requested a receipt mark, then wheeled his horse toward Hull, where he would board a ship bound for Calais and thence to Avignon, seat of Pope Urban V.
Elara—forty‑five years old, of middling height yet broad‑shouldered within a coarse wool habit—broke open the parchment in the library, heavy with the winter odour of vellum and mould. The uncial letters, penned by the apostolic secretary Arnaud de Villemur, invested him with a task no Yorkshire monk would have dared imagine even in dreams of glory: travel to Rome to investigate a series of desecrations in the papal tombs of the ancient Constantinian basilica of Saint Peter.
Unknown thieves had slipped in by night among the sarcophagi of the early popes and stolen only their skulls, leaving the remaining bones, reliquaries, and funerary goods untouched. No gems, no precious metals had been disturbed.
Why steal the crania and not the treasure? The question echoed among the shelves along with the hiss of wind across the leaded panes. From the text Elara gleaned little else: three violations in quick succession; the last, at the beginning of April, had seen the tomb of Pope Symmachus—dead in 514—defiled. The Curia feared a necromantic cult.
Urban V, ascetic by temperament and eager to reform ecclesiastical morals, demanded clarity, yet the Roman factions were divided and mutually suspicious. An outsider was required, someone impervious to local patronage—someone who, if need be, could vanish again into the shadow of his cloister without demanding reward or preferment.
The prior of Saint Goffredo, Father Anselmo, authorised the mission with a tremor of pride.
He chose as Elara’s companion a nineteen‑year‑old novice, Athelred of Whitby: agile, steady‑handed at copying codices, blessed with a memory that seemed a parchment ever fresh with ink.Though Athelred had not yet pronounced his final vows, he spoke limpid Latin and knew the langue d’oïl thanks to a Breton merchant who, escaping the plague years earlier, had taken refuge in Whitby, teaching his language in exchange for bread and candles.
The prior knew that sending a novice across Europe entailed peril; yet he also knew Elara, solitary by nature, would need young eyes—a scribe capable of recording depositions and clues in the margins of a codex viaticus destined for the Pope.
