The Pillars Of The Earth

Philip thought all monks should be thin. Fat monks provoked poor men to envy and hatred of God’s servants.

The most expensive part of a building is the mistakes.

“Knotty theological questions are the least worrying of problems, to me.”

“Why?”

“Because they will all be resolved in the hereafter, and meanwhile they can safely be shelved.”

“A wooden statue weeps,” Reynold said. “How much of a miracle do you want?”

“The weeping is unexplained. That doesn’t make it a miracle. The changing of liquid water into solid ice is also inexplicable, but it isn’t miraculous.”

“Euclid is a funny name for an Arab,” said Ismail, Raschid’s brother.

“He was Greek,” Jack explained. “He lived before the birth of Christ. His work was lost by the Romans but preserved by the Egyptians-so it comes to us in Arabic.”

“And now Englishmen are translating it into Latin!” Raschid said. “This amuses me.”

The first book that really appealed to Jack told the whole history of the world from the Creation to the founding of Kingsbridge Priory, and when he finished it he felt he knew everything that had ever happened. He realized after a while that the book’s claim to tell all events was implausible, for after all, things were going on everywhere all the time, not just in Kingsbridge and England, but in Normandy, Anjou, Paris, Rome, Ethiopia, and Jerusalem, so the author must have left a lot out. Nevertheless, the book gave Jack a feeling he had never had before, that the past was like a story, in which one thing led to another, and the world was not a boundless mystery, but a finite thing that could be comprehended.

Aliena was surprised, until she reflected that Prior Philip was their lord, and when your lord asked for volunteers it was probably unwise to refuse. In the past year she had gained a startling new perspective on the lives of ordinary people.

The king gets money from taxes. Lords have rents. Priests have tithes. Shopkeepers have something to sell. Craftsmen get wages. Peasants don’t need money because they have fields.

“Every citizen has the right to petition the king.”

“But the poorer sort generally are not foolish enough to try to exercise that right-”

“Yes, Father. I want you to appoint me master builder,” he said as calmly as he could.

“Why?”

Tom had not expected that question. There were so many reasons. Because I’ve seen it done badly, and I know I could do it well, he thought. Because there is nothing more satisfying, to a master craftsman, than to exercise his skill, except perhaps to make love to a beautiful woman. Because something like this gives meaning to a man’s life. Which answer did Philip want? The prior would probably like him to say something pious. Recklessly, he decided to tell the real truth. “Because it will be beautiful,” he said.