The Pillars of the Earth

A decade later, in spring of 1135, Tom Builder and his son Alfred work on an estate for Lord Percy Hamleigh, who intends to give the estate to his son William as a wedding present for his betrothal to Lady Aliena of Shiring. Tom is a thoughtful craftsman who is inspired by having once worked on a great cathedral in Exeter. He dreams of working on a cathedral again. He often turns down work in order to hold out for more prestigious building jobs, which is a source of tension for himself and his wife, Agnes, who informs him that she is due to have another child come winter. 

Word arrives that the Lord William’s wedding is off, and a day later, William comes to the worksite to announce that Tom and his workforce are to be let go. In an act of desperation, Tom grabs the reigns of the lord’s horse and demands pay for himself and his men, which he receives in a tense exchange.

Tom, Alfred, Agnes, and Martha, their young daughter, stay in the village through the summer and do field work. By autumn they have a pig, which represents most of their wealth. As they travel on a wooded road in search of work they are waylaid by outlaws. A man with a disfigured mouth strikes Martha and steals their pig. Tom and Alfred chase the outlaw, but he escapes. When they return, Agnes and Martha have been joined by a passerby, who happens to be Ellen from the Prologue, and her son Jack. Ellen knowledgeably cares for Martha’s wound and tells them her own story. She was a tomboy as a young child, she says. She ran away from a nunnery and had Jack with a Frenchman before he died, though she does not recount the events of the Prologue. Jack, though he seems slow to the others, is said to have extraordinary literacy. She informs the family that the man who stole their pig’s name is Faramond Openmouth, and that the nearby town of Salisbury is having their cathedral rebuilt. The two families part ways.

Tom learns that the cathedral in Salisbury is nearly completed, and that they can take no more workers. Passing a shop, they see their pig, already sold to a butcher. They wait for Faramond Openmouth at the city gate and confront him. In the ensuing scuffle, they kill Faramond and discover that his money’s already been spent.

“By Christmas they were starving,” the narrator says (60). The family travels throughout Wiltshire looking for work but finds none. They cook and shelter in the cold air, and Tom goes without food so that Agnes may eat and support her pregnancy. One night after eating, Agnes goes into delivery. She loses a lot of blood and dies by the morning. In a delirium of grief and hunger, Tom buries Agnes and leaves the child to die on the gravesite, but he thinks twice about it and returns to find the baby is gone. He falls asleep near the grave and Ellen visits him. He mistakes her for an angel and has sex with her at her initiation. The next day, she tells Tom that she saw a traveling monk take their child. She shows him the very amenable cave in which she lives, feeds them, and then takes them to the nearby monastery cell belonging to the Kingsbridge priory, where he sees the baby being cared for by a prior named Philip. He leaves the child to the monks and asks Ellen to marry him, though she holds him off.

Many years ago, the Welsh parents of Phillip and his brother Francis were killed by the English, and the brothers were sent to an abbey. They thrived. Now, the devout and even-tempered Philip runs the Kingsbridge monastery cell, where he decided that they will keep the baby recently brought to them. Francis visits Philip and informs him that the King Henry I is dead, and warns him of a plot by Earl of Shiring Bartholomew and the earl of Gloucestershire against the recently crowned King Stephen (Henry I’s nephew). 

Philip travels to the Kingsbridge abbey. On his way there, he offers charity to Tom and his family, who keep their relationship to the recently orphaned child secret. Philip stops at the archdeacon to the Bishop of Kingsbridge Walerian Bigod’s home and warns him of the plot against the king. The archdeacon cautions secrecy. Philip travels to the abbey, where he discovers that Prior James has died; despite himself, his ambition is stoked:  “Now there would be someone new, someone who would discipline their lazy servants, repair the tumbledown church, and harness the great wealth of the property, making the priory a powerful force for good,” thinks Philip (127).

He runs afoul of the sour-tempered Andrew of York and the sub-prior Remigius, the interim leaders of the abbey until a new prior is named. A cellarer named Cuthbert suggests that Philip should campaign for the role, and soon after Philip wins the trust of many of the Abbey’s administration. Victory, however, depends upon the nomination of a new prior by the sealed writ of the bishop of Kingsbury. Walerian, empowered with this writ, makes a deal with Philip to make him prior of Kingsbridge if Philip will in turn support Walerian’s bid to become bishop. Philip agrees, and he becomes prior of Kingsbridge. Walerian quickly begins politicking for the support of Percy Hamleigh against Bartholemew, the earl of Shiring. Finally, Philip learns that the bishop is already dead, a fact Walerian had kept from him. Walerian is to become the new bishop.

William Hamleigh travels to Kingsbridge with his mother, Regan, and father, Percy. The family’s honor has diminished from William’s rejection by Lady Aliena, the earl of Shiring’s daughter, and William recounts the rejection with bitterness. Walerian informs the family of Bartholomew’s scheme to dethrone King Stephen and suggests that “anyone who could get rid of Earl Bartholemew, and stop the rebellion before it gets started, would earn the eternal gratitude of King Stephen and the Holy Mother Church” (163). William and Percy are eager to take revenge on the family that jilted them, but Regan urges caution. William decides to go to the Shiring house on a fact-finding mission under the pretense of attempting to win back Aliena’s hand.

At the Shiring house, it is apparent that a meeting is happening with many knights and men-at-arms present. William confronts Aliena and is rebuffed again. “I don’t like you because you can barely read. I don’t like you because you’re only interested in your dogs and your horses and your self,” she says, eliciting the laughter of nearby knights (172). William leaves humiliated and newly spurred toward revenge. On a nearby road, he and his men waylay Gilbert Catface, one of the knights who had laughed at him. William and his men overpower the lone knight and torture him by hanging him over a fire. Half-dead, Gilbert admits Bartholomew’s scheme against the king. On the way home with his prisoner, William runs into Tom Builder and his family. He attempts to humiliate his former employee but loses his courage when the Builders gesture at their own self-defense.

Tom and his family travel to the Shiring home at a suggestion from Philip. Ellen is disturbed by Alfred’s bullying of the other children, but Tom does not see the problem. Tom convinces Bartholemew to hire him to repair his battlements, and the family is invited to dinner. Jack, Ellen’s son, carefully observes the details of the family’s travels in his eccentric way, and develops a crush on Lady Aliena, who, with Alfred, ridicules him for his peculiarities. 

William strikes in the morning, bringing with him a hundred men-at-arms. Though not well-equipped enough to siege a castle, William devises a plan to distract Bartholomew’s men and take out his sentries. The plan works, and Bartholemew surrenders. Tom, once again out of work, departs to Kingsbridge priory, following rumors of new leadership.

Tom meets the cellarer Cuthbert upon his arrival to Kingsbridge and notes with delight that the castle of the church has a fallen tower. For a moment he is allowed to hold Jonathan, who is now in the care of the church. As a disciplinarian, Philip prefers putting the monks to work on the castle. He recognizes Tom and informs him that they have no money to pay him. “I’ll pray for a thunderbolt to strike the church and level it to the ground,” says Tom (222).

Jack, in his eccentric reading of events, decides to burn the church down while everyone is asleep as a favor to Tom and his mother. He takes a long, detailed tour of the castle before discovering that the roof was made with timber and pitch. He sets it off with a candle, nearly traps himself in the flame, and returns unscathed to his bed, begging silence from Martha, who was the only one to notice his absence.

Philip is drawing up plans to get the church in order, including improving the finances through modern-sounding efficiencies in taxation. His plan eventually involves the rebuilding of the church. He is called out by the fire alarm and sees the roof fire. The fire soon becomes all-encompassing. With the help of Tom and Cuthbert (and with very little from the cowardly Remigius), he can save the remains of Saint Adolphus and several other treasures. No one is hurt. The next day, Tom volunteers to help clear the rubble and rebuild for the promise of back-pay, room, and board. Remigius immediately voices concern about Ellen, and soon unearths the fact that they are an unmarried couple. Walerian, now the bishop-elect, gives Ellen a command: leave for a year and return to marry Tom in a Christian ceremony. As she and Jack leave, she sings the same song sung by the Frenchman in the Prologue, forcing a horrified reaction from the powerful bishop-elect.