Book Review
Blood and Roses By HELEN CASTOR
Reviewed by PEGGY BARNETT
We Americans often are assigned in elementary school the task of learning the presidents in chronological order. Those who kicked against this task should be grateful that they were not in England. Not only is the history much longer, it also includes many, many heads of state. One of the most turbulent centuries in English history was the fifteenth, when the crown changed hands six times during the struggle called the War of the Roses.

The title refers to the York and Lancaster families whose symbols were the white and red rose, respectively. Except for the book's title, the roses do not matter to the reader of Blood and Roses. It does matter, though, that the family whose letters form the plot of this non-fiction work allied with different branches of the antagonists to their peril and sometimes to their gain.

Helen Castor acknowledges that the Paston letters were published years ago. She has used them to make vivid the life of the common people of the time. William Pastor, the founder of the family, was a peasant, but an industrious and talented one, who was able to change the status of his descendants. Castor explains how this was possible in his lifetime because of the conditions in England and Europe then.

The horrors of the "Black Death" plague, which swept through England in the 1340s, changed the social situation forever. Because of the devastated population, opportunities to move, to change jobs, to defy the manor lords arose. In spite of attempts by the government and the church to keep the old system, the Middle Ages began to give way to the mostly modern world.

Castor smoothly weaves the story of the Paston family into the story of the English ruling families as power shifts back and forth. Interesting information about customs and beliefs include the concept of purgatory, restrictions on wearing apparel for the workers, and how the poll (head) tax arose. More absorbing is the continuing attempt of the Paston family (documented in over a thousand private letters) to rise in class and economic status.

A map of East Anglia and family trees of the Pastons and the Yorks and Lancasters clarify what was happening. Education and land were the keys to success for the laboring classes. John Paston became a lawyer and a landowner. Holding on to the estates he established became the challenging task of his sons as control and influence moved rapidly between factions during the wars. "The difficultywas that there could scarcely have been a worse time to be looking for help from powerful men."

Romance, battles, challenges to wills, to say nothing of sketches of Edward IV and Richard III, enliven the account. Though the fifteenth century Pastons believed that their legacy would be in the physical property they amassed, little now remains. "What did survive, against all odds, was not bricks or marble, but hundreds of fragile pieces of paper."

Blood and Roses is available at the Mary Willis Library.

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