In The Devil's Novice, Cadfael describes his life

His personality reflects more modern, pragmatic attitudes and progressive ethics than those of his time, which often puts him in conflict with his brethren, particularly with his superior Prior Robert and Robert's clerk Brother Jerome, who disapprove of Cadfael for his casual attitude toward rules and for the privileges that are allowed him by their Abbot.

Cadfael works closely with his friend Deputy Sheriff ( later Sheriff ) Hugh Beringar of Maesbury in the north of the shire, often bending the Abbey rule to travel with or visit him.

Cadfael regards Brother Oswin, who becomes his assistant, almost as a son, caring for him deeply and revering his innocence.

As the monastery's highly literate herbalist / gardener, holding a rare skill set in demand in both town and abbey, Cadfael is the equivalent of the mediaeval physician, possessing an independent authority that sets him aside from his fellows.

When a villein addresses him as " Master ", Cadfael promptly corrects him: " No man's master, every man's brother, if you will.

Cadfael has, however, voluntarily chosen to join an English monastery rather than a Welsh one, and make his home in England – although close to the borders with Wales-his secular history having made him too cosmopolitan to blend in his own homeland.

Pargeter wrote under a number of pseudonyms ; it was under the name Ellis Peters that she wrote crime stories, especially the highly popular series of Brother Cadfael medieval mysteries, many of which were made into films for television.

He also has a special affection for the martyred maiden Saint Winifred who lies at the centre of the first book in the series, A Morbid Taste for Bones, ( though this was not originally the novel chosen to launch the chronicles ), in which Cadfael takes part in an expedition to Wales to excavate the saint's bones and bring them to the Abbey in England, establishing it as a pilgrimage site of healing relics.

Later recalling the event Cadfael says: " It was I who took her from the soil and I who restored her-and still that makes me glad-from the moment I uncovered those slender bones, I felt in mine that they only wished to be left in peace [...] the girl was Welsh, like me ".

The looser structure, run at the discretion of the abbot, would suit well a man like Cadfael who was in the secular world for forty years before entering the order.

On a less factual note, Trefriw was the birthplace of Brother Cadfael, the fictional detective in a series of murder mysteries by the late Edith Pargeter writing under the name " Ellis Peters ".

His full name was Cadfael ap ( son of ) Meilyr ap Dafydd and he was born around 1080 to a villein ( serf ) family.

Cadfael explains his neutrality by saying " In my measure there's little to choose between two such monarchs, but much to be said for keeping a man's fealty and word.

In a sense he " creates his own theology " to suit the situation ; Pargeter herself agreed that Cadfael is a situational ethicist, basing his actions in any given situation on " the right thing to do " rather than on a strict moral code.

Peters shows Cadfael at the heart of healthy, fulfilling monastic life, which may be flawed by its humanity but is well-intentioned.

See The Cadfael Chronicles for the full list of books and stories, plus radio and TV adaptations.

On his many travels before the chronicles open, Cadfael had relationships with at least three women: Bianca, a Venetian girl ; Ariana, a Greek boat girl ; and Mariam, a young Syrian widow, with whom he lived for many years in Antioch.

After Cadfael takes vows, he has a close affection for at least two young women: Sioned, the daughter of a Welsh lord ( A Morbid Taste for Bones ) and Godith Adeney ( One Corpse Too Many ).

" When witnessing a failed peace conference, Cadfael forms the opinion that Maud's half-brother Robert would have made a better monarch then both of them, but for his illegitimate birth ( which would not have debarred Robert in Wales, with its law having a different definition of a bastard ).

Cadfael likes to speak in Welsh, is exuberant when getting an opportunity to go back into Wales, and feels closer to many Welsh ways of doing things than Anglo-Norman ways: for example, letting all of a man's acknowledged children, whether born in or out of wedlock, share in his inheritance ; and recognizing degrees of crime, including homicide, which allows leniency to killers in certain circumstances, rather than the inflexibly mandatory capital punishment of Norman Law, administered reluctantly by Hugh Beringar and rigidly by his superior, Sheriff Gilbert Prestcote.

Such stories subsequently remained an oddity, with the current trend for historical whodunnits only really beginning in the late 1970s with the success of Ellis Peters and her Brother Cadfael novels, set in medieval Shrewsbury.

In addition to being a founder member of the Royal National Theatre and winning several prestigious theatre awards, Jacobi has also enjoyed a successful television career, starring in the critically praised adaptation of Roberts Graves ' I, Claudius, for which he won a BAFTA ; the titular role in the acclaimed medieval drama series Brother Cadfael, and Stanley Baldwin in The Gathering Storm.

An accounting of Geoffrey's outlaw actions and the taking of the Ramsey abbey provides for elements of the backstory for Ellis Peter's " Brother Cadfael " book, ' The Potter's Field '.

However, according to the version presented in Ellis Peters ' A Morbid Taste for Bones, first book in the successful " Brother Cadfael " series, the Saint's bones were in fact secretly reinterred at her original resting place, and the bones taken to England and venerated there until the time of Henry the Eighth were of an entirely different ( and far from saintly ) person.

The moving of Winifred's bones to Shrewsbury is fictionalized in A Morbid Taste for Bones, the first of Ellis Peters ' Brother Cadfael novels, with the plot twist that her bones are secretly left in Wales, and someone else is put into the shrine.

His many subsequent appearances have included episodes for The Bill, Boon, Casualty, Holby City, Benidorm, Doctors, Peak Practice, Playing the Field, Robin Hood, Inspector Morse and Cadfael, The Sculptress, The Queen's Nose, Jane Hall and Yellow Thread Street and memorably as Tommy the council worker in Shameless, Being April and his own children's series Snap.

He has directed many TV programmes and series, among them I, Claudius, the television version of The Norman Conquests ( 1977 ), episodes of Tales of the Unexpected, 10th Kingdom, The Woman in Black, some of the Cadfael television films and three episodes of Inspector Morse.

Cadfael became a monk only in middle age and, as a result, is more familiar with the secular world outside the monastery than most of his brother monks.

But there any resemblance to the comparatively warm-hearted Cadfael series ends: the tone and subject matter of the Gregory novels is far darker and does not shrink from portraying the harsh realities of life in the Middle Ages.

Cadfael became a man at arms ( foot soldier ) in the war waged by Henry I of England to secure the union with Normandy, and returned again to England in the service of a nobleman, Roger Mauduit, who kidnapped Prior Heribert of Shrewsbury Abbey in an attempt to foil a lawsuit.

Abbot Radulfus, who is himself a shrewd and worldly man, allows Cadfael a certain degree of independence and appreciates that there are circumstances under which the rules of the Order must be bent in order to serve a greater and more practical good.

The character of Cadfael himself is a Welsh Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey, in western England, in the first half of the 12th century.

Cadfael has close contacts with the other Welsh people living in Shrewsbury including the boatman Madog, who has an important role in several books.

A rebec featured prominently in one of Ellis Peters ' ( 12th century ) Brother Cadfael stories: Liliwin, the title character of The Sanctuary Sparrow, earned his living by playing that instrument.

Brother Cadfael is the fictional main character in a series of historical murder mysteries written between 1977 and 1994 by the linguist-scholar Edith Pargeter under the name " Ellis Peters ".

As a character, Cadfael " combines the curious mind of a scientist / pharmacist with a knight-errant ".

Both Robert and Heribert also serve to show the cloistered and worldly perils, respectively, that Cadfael balances through his " constant war of conscience ".

`` The Dictionary Of Occupational Titles '' published by the U. S. Department of Labor describes him as follows: `` Designs, plans and furnishes interiors of houses, commercial and institutional structures, hotels, clubs, ships, theaters, as well as set decorations for motion picture arts and television.

The jacket biography describes him as a former racing driver, and he may indeed have been, although I do not recall having encountered his name either in the records or the literature.

Tarrou describes him as about thirty-five-years-old, of moderate height, dark-skinned, with close-cropped black hair.

describes him as the most handsome man in the kingdom.

This describes how the gods revealed to him in a dream the constellations that would be most favorable for the planned construction of a temple.

R. G. Watson ( History of Persia, 128-9 ) describes him as “ the noblest of the Kajar race ”.

Frank Stenton describes this omission as " a scholar's dislike of the indefinite "; traditional material that could not be dated or used for the Bede's didactic purposes had no interest for him.

When Smith asks if Big Brother exists, O ' Brien describes him as " the embodiment of the Party " and that he will exist as long as the Party exists.

By the time Esther was written, the foreign power visible on the horizon as a future threat to Judah was the Macedonians of Alexander the Great, who defeated the Persian empire about 150 years after the time of the story of Esther ; the Septuagint version noticeably calls Haman a " bully " ( βουγαῖον ) where the Hebrew text describes him as an Agagite.

Similarly, when Jean de Schelandre wrote about Banquo in his Stuartide in 1611, he also changed the character by portraying him as a noble and honourable man — the critic D. W. Maskell describes him as “… Schelandre's paragon of valour and virtue ”— probably for reasons similar to Shakespeare's.

In book three, Adomnán describes different apparitions of the Saint, both that Columba receives and those that are seen by others regarding him.

Howard once describes him as having a hairy chest and, while comic book interpretations often portray Conan as wearing a loincloth or other minimalist clothing, Howard describes the character as wearing whatever garb is typical for the land and culture in which Conan finds himself.

" Romare Bearden described Alston as "... one of the most versatile artists whose enormous skill led him to a diversity of styles ..." Bearden also describes the professionalism and impact that Alston had on Harlem and the African American community: "' was a consummate artist and a voice in the development of African American art who never doubted the excellence of all people's sensitivity and creative ability.

For him, the sense of an expression in language describes a certain state of affairs in the world, namely, the way that some object is presented.

A contemporary source describes him as a " small black Man.

The Bible describes Jesus ' tomb as being outside the city wall, as was normal for burials across the ancient world, which were regarded as unclean, but the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is in the heart of Hadrian's city, well within the Old City walls, which were built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in 1538 Some have claimed that the city had been much narrower in Jesus ' time, with the site then having been outside the walls ; since Herod Agrippa ( 41 – 44 ) is recorded by history as extending the city to the north ( beyond the present northern walls ), the required repositioning of the western wall is traditionally attributed to him as well.

Because of his frequent association with creatures, scholars often describe Cernunnos as the " Lord of the Animals " or the " Lord of Wild Things ", and Miranda Green describes him as a " peaceful god of nature and fruitfulness ".

In his biography in the Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Suetonius attests to Domitian's ability to quote the important poets and writers such as Homer or Virgil on appropriate occasions, and describes him as a learned and educated adolescent, with elegant conversation.

Arrian describes Epictetus as being a powerful speaker who could " induce his listener to feel just what Epictetus wanted him to feel.

It describes events in the Old Testament of the Bible, specifically Exodus 7: 16: " And the Lord spoke unto Moses, go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me ", in which God commands Moses to demand the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.

It generally resonates better with existing Muslim views than with Christianity: it foretells the coming of Muhammad by name ; rather than describing the crucifixion of Jesus, it describes him being raised up into heaven, similar to the description of Elijah in 2 Kings, Chapter 2 ; and it calls Jesus a " prophet " whose mission was restricted to the " house of Israel ".

Petrarch describes how Pietro Petrone ( a Carthusian monk ) on Boccaccio's death bed sent another Carthusian ( Gioacchino Ciani ) to urge him to renounce his worldly studies.

Tom Wolfe, in his book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, describes a character's thoughts during an acid trip: " He looks down, two bare legs, a torso rising up at him and like he is just noticing them for the first time ... he has never seen any of this flesh before, this stranger.