Stephen and his supporters appear in Ellis Peters ' historical detective series Brother Cadfael, set between 1137 and 1145.

( 2000 ) " Ellis Peters: Brother Cadfael ," in Browne, Ray Broadus and Lawrence A. Kreiser.

Owain is a recurring character in the Brother Cadfael series of novels by Ellis Peters, often referred to, and appearing in the novels Dead Man's Ransom and The Summer of the Danes.

* The Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters, and the TV series made from them starring Sir Derek Jacobi

* In the third book of the Brother Cadfael series, Monk's Hood, the herbalist Cadfael uses aconite as an ingredient in a liniment, which is later stolen and used to poison a victim.

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.

The Brother Cadfael Chronicles drew international attention to Shrewsbury and its history, and greatly increased tourism to the town.

" The Ultimate Penance of Brother Cadfael.

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 ".

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.

In the stories, Brother Cadfael regularly disobeys the heads of his abbey, acts to bring about his own sense of compassionate justice ( as against church or feudal law ), and does not condemn relationships outside wedlock.

Brother Mark ( Monk's Hood, The Leper of Saint Giles and The Summer of the Danes ) worked with Cadfael in the herbarium on joining the abbey.

Cadfael is also close to Prior Leonard of Bromfield Abbey ( The Virgin in the Ice ); Brother Paul, the master of the novices and schoolboys ; Brother Edmund the infirmarer, who treats the sick and supervises the Abbey infirmary ; and Brother Anselm the precentor, who is in charge of music and the order of the worship services.

* Kaler, Anne, K ( ed ) ( 1998 ) Cordially Yours, Brother Cadfael, Bowling Green State University Popular Press ISBN 087972773

* " The world of Brother Cadfael " Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Winter, 2008 by H. Wendell Howard

Stephen, Matilda and their supporters feature in Ellis Peters's historical detective series about Brother Cadfael, set between 1137 and 1145.

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.

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.

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.

Peters wrote that she found the name " Cadfael " only once in the records, given as the baptismal name of Saint Cadog, who later abandoned it.

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.

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.

It is Cadfael, the fulcrum, who helps to maintain the health and perspective that overcomes crises of justice that arise from within and without the community.

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

Edith Pargeter, who under her pen name of Ellis Peters wrote the Brother Cadfael novels, went to school in Dawley.

These books may have some aspects in common with the Ellis Peters Cadfael series, the mediaeval adventures of two men, a highly intelligent physician and a Benedictine monk who is senior proctor of Cambridge University.

Cadfael himself is a Welshman and uses patronymics in the Welsh fashion, naming himself Cadfael ap Meilyr ap Dafydd ( Cadfael son of Meilyr son of Dafydd ) as his full name.

Through the course of the stories, it emerges that Mariam had a son by Cadfael, although he only comes to realise he is a father by accident ( The Virgin in the Ice ).

Born in Antioch, and named Daoud, Cadfael's son never knew his father, but his mother Mariam always described Cadfael in loving terms.

Cadfael is on good terms with people on both sides of the English war ; his best friend Hugh is a staunch supporter of King Stephen, and his son Olivier is just as much committed to the Empress Maud.

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

Cadfael is tolerant and caring towards most of his fellow brothers, but has several particularly close friendships.

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 ).

Cadfael describes him: " He was my right hand and a piece of my heart for three years, and knows me better than any man living ".

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.

" 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.

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.