My vampire twin brothers, Olivier and Thierry, emerged out of a short story I’d written in university. Then they’d been twinks, obsessed with each other as much as they were with blood. They were nymph-like creatures, sensual, ethereal and amoral.
They changed a lot since appearing in that short story, growing into what they are today. But why did I decide to set their origins in Carcassonne in the late 1300s? The answer has very little to do with vampires.
Around the time I was writing Beckoning Blood, I was also studying French at the local Alliance Française. An exercise in the book talked about a person visiting Carcassonne and wanting to stay at l’auberge de jeunesse, or youth hostel. Apart from a photo and a cartoon drawing of this ancient walled city, I didn’t know much about it, but hearing it was an ancient walled city was enough to pique my interest.
Surprisingly, however, this interest didn’t extend so much towards finding out about this city and its rich history, but to whether it played host to witch burnings at any time during the centuries.
Olivier and Thierry’s witch sister, Aurelia, had revealed herself early on in the draft, and while I couldn’t burn her at the stake in the first book, I knew it was going to happen at some point. So I searched for ‘Carcassonne witch burnings’.
A great sense of serendipity came over me as the results showed what I’d hoped to find: witch burnings in Carcassonne in the middle ages. Of course, I shouldn’t have been surprised that witch burnings took place here considering that 40,000–50,000 people are estimated to have suffered this terrible fate over a roughly 350 year period. It nevertheless felt good to know that history backed me up somewhat.
Here’s a bit of what I found, thanks to Witches and Witchtrials in France:
1320-50: 400 tried by Inquisitor for ‘magic’, and 200 executed.
1335: Andre Ciceron burned alive
1335: 74 people tried by Inquisitor for heresy, sorcery (killing, love magic), and diabolism.
1335: Catala and Paul Rodier burned alive
1357: 52 people tried by Inquisitor for heresy and witchcraft; 31 executed.
1387-1400: 200 people tried by Inquisitors for heresy and magic; 67 executed.
While the burnings and executions weren’t constant, and some sources are highly dubious, to me this was enough to be getting on with and I could make a reasonable assumption about what was happening at the time to include a realistic historical backdrop. And from there, I just ran with it. I had my time, I had my place and I had my characters. The rest just had to be written.
The second book in the Bonds of Blood series, Burning Blood, is out now on your favourite e-tailer and features Aurelia’s burning at the stake in Carcassonne.
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