Other Books History - Caleb Carr & The Alienist Books

The Italian Secretary, 20 Years On – Part One

Posted on November 25, 20252 Comments

View Part One of The Italian Secretary 20th anniversary series.

As the year draws to a close, it brings with it two significant milestones: the 20th anniversary of The Italian Secretary, and with it, the 20th anniversary of 17th Street itself. Although I fell in love with Caleb Carr’s work several years before opening 17th Street, it was The Italian Secretary — Caleb’s homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author who shaped his literary life — that ultimately inspired me to pay my own tribute to Caleb’s work, a tribute that has continued to grow over the past two decades. To mark this occasion, I have therefore decided to put together a short blog series to honor the book that inadvertently started it all.

In the first two parts of this series, we will explore the various facets of Caleb’s inspiration for the novel, ranging from the supernatural (Part One) to the historical (Part Two). The series will conclude in Part Three with the intriguing hypothetical raised in the novel’s afterword: What might have happened had Caleb decided to take the plunge and blend the world of The Alienist with that of Conan Doyle? The afterword framed the idea as a meeting that would delight and fascinate mystery readers (“Dr. Kreizler, Mr. Sherlock Holmes…”), but is that truly the direction Caleb would have taken?

So, if you haven’t done so already this year, I hope you’ll join me in picking up your copy of The Italian Secretary for its 20th anniversary to explore it in a way you may not have done before. Let us leave 17th Street behind then, to journey back to 221B Baker Street and the Scottish border beyond!

No Ghosts Need Apply

I attempted the most severe tone possible, given the increasingly late hour and our growing need for haste: “You might have shown more respect for her beliefs, Holmes, different though they are from your own.” At that, I hurried off to my bedroom, and began hurriedly packing some few items into a Gladstone.

Holmes’s distinctly puzzled voice drifted in: “And what makes you think they are so different, Watson?”

“All I mean to say,” I elaborated, going into a closet to fetch my rods and tackle, “is that if Mrs. Hudson entertains notions about hauntings and ghosts, why go out of your way—”

“Oh, but I entertain such notions myself, Watson.”
The Italian Secretary, Chapter 2

The notion that Caleb Carr, a lifelong Sherlockian and creator of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, pioneer in forensic psychology, would write a Holmes tale in which the eminently rational detective entertains the possibility of a supernatural — indeed, ghostly — origin for a series of murders might, at first glance, invite surprise. It was Holmes, after all, who famously stated in The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire: “The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply.” The occult does not feature in the Alienist novels either. Readers might recall Dr. Kreizler’s exchange with John on the topic following the secret exhumation of Matthew Hatch in The Angel of Darkness:

“Do you think Matthew Hatch will reach out from the grave, Moore?” the Doctor needled. “To rebuke you for disturbing his eternal rest?”

“Maybe,” Mr. Moore answered. “Something like that. You don’t seem too damned troubled along those lines, Kreizler, I must say.”

“Perhaps I have a different understanding of what we’ve just done,” the Doctor answered, his voice growing more serious. “Perhaps I believe that Matthew Hatch’s soul has not yet known peace, eternal or otherwise—and that we represent his only chance of attaining it.”
The Angel of Darkness, Chapter 33

Why, then, did Caleb decide to write a tale centered on other-worldly subject matter for his contribution to the Holmes legacy? As it turns out, the idea was not his at all. In the afterword of The Italian Secretary, the U.S. representative to the Conan Doyle Estate, Jon Lellenberg, explained that he and co-editors Daniel Stashower and Martin Greenberg had decided to commission a set of short stories for a new collection, Ghosts of Baker Street, in which Holmes would be brought face-to-face with the paranormal. Lellenberg acknowledged feeling some misgiving at the decision. After all, ghosts are “non-canonical,” and he was not at all sure that Conan Doyle would approve. Nevertheless, there is no denying that the detective’s most famous adventure was about a spectral canine; and so, with The Hound of the Baskervilles providing “excuse and inspiration,” he gave permission to proceed. This, however, doesn’t explain why Caleb agreed to contribute.

The Sherlock Holmes Companion: An Elementary Guide

That Caleb would be willing to accept a commission to write a Holmes tale at all requires no explanation. From his youth, he was an avid reader of Conan Doyle. As he explained in an interview for The Sherlock Holmes Companion in 2009: “I grew up in a very crazy household and the stories’ appeal was that process of using reason to deal with people and the extreme things they do.” His love of Holmes extended to the film adaptations as well. When asked how hard it was to write in Conan Doyle’s voice in an interview with CBS in 2005, he responded that it wasn’t difficult for him: “I could speak like Basil Rathbone being Sherlock Holmes by the time I was ten.” Yet, this still doesn’t answer the beguiling question of why he chose this particular story.

It seems fair to say that Caleb’s love of Holmes, longstanding friendship with Lellenberg, and inspiration he drew from a trip to Edinburgh several years earlier (more on this in Part Two) all played important roles in his willingness to accept the Estate’s commission. Indeed, according to the novel’s afterword, it was Caleb’s fascination with the real historical crime that sits the heart of the story which resulted in it growing to such an unwieldly length that it necessitated separate publication as its own novel, rather than forming part of the original commissioned collection. But even this doesn’t explain why he decided to accept the challenge of a Holmes story with supernatural themes.

The nearest answer one can get can be found in his interview with The Sherlock Holmes Companion. When asked what challenges he faced in writing a new Holmes story, he responded in part:

The big challenge was to make it faithful. When I was asked to do it, they said I should try to be faithful but try to add something of my own. That threw me into a bit of a loop for a while. Because I wanted it to be as faithful as possible, but I knew that they didn’t just want a carbon copy. I wasn’t originally going to do anything connected to the supernatural, even though I’ve always been fascinated by that part of Conan Doyle’s life […] There are a lot of fans who really don’t think Holmes should or would be involved in any supernatural stuff. They quote the line about ‘no ghosts need apply’ but on the other hand there are lots of stories where he concedes the possibility of other dimensions in life. And that conveniently gets forgotten. So that was another reason to bring in the supernatural element. But I knew that would be hard. It had to play a crucial role but not the crucial role. The story would have to work without it. And that was a difficult line to walk.

Thus, to understand how Conan Doyle’s interest in the supernatural may have played a role in Caleb’s decision to agree to include a supernatural element in The Italian Secretary, it is necessary to explore Conan Doyle’s involvement in Spiritualism and how this influenced his own work.

Conan Doyle and the Unseen World

Perhaps the greatest of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries is this: that when we talk of him we invariably fall into the fancy of his existence. Collins, after all, is more real to his readers than Cuff; Poe is more real than Dupin; but Sir A. Conan Doyle, the eminent spiritualist of whom we read in Sunday papers, the author of a number of exciting stories which we read years ago and have forgotten, what has he to do with Holmes?
T.S. Eliot

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his family arrived in New York City in 1922, he was at the height of his fame. Now 62 years of age, the creator of Sherlock had published all four Holmes novels, four collections of Holmes short stories, numerous works of historical and science fiction, volumes of military history, and even collections of poetry. Yet, this trip was not a book tour. The eminent British author had made the passage across the Atlantic to embark on a three-month-long speaking tour of the United States and Canada about his new life’s passion: Spiritualism.

Founded in 1848, the Spiritualist movement emerged in upstate New York, when the Fox sisters’ rappings (said to be produced by communication with spirits) were put on display during a series of public demonstrations across the Northeast. From these humble origins, the movement expanded into private homes, churches, and public halls across America and Britain, drawing in those who were skeptical, grieving, or simply eager for the possibility that death did not sever the bonds of affection. Spiritualists believed that human personality survived bodily death, that communication between the living and the departed was not only possible but natural, and that mediums served as intermediaries capable of bridging the two worlds. By late century, séances, trance sittings, table tilting, and automatic writing were no longer fringe spectacles but part of a widespread cultural conversation about consciousness and the limits of the material world.

If it seems strange that Conan Doyle, whose most lauded creation reveled in the rational, had become a passionate defender of this new metaphysical movement, it is worth remembering that the public of the time were no less enthusiastic. On his 1922 tour alone, he filled Carnegie Hall six times with standing-room only crowds. The following year, he filled it three times. Despite its detractors, Spiritualism had moved into the mainstream, with many of the most enlightened minds of the age, including such luminaries as psychologist William James and physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, wishing to investigate the reported phenomena. To facilitate this, the Society for Psychical Research was established in 1882 to bring scientific scrutiny to claims of apparitions, mediumship, telepathy, and other experiences that challenged traditional explanations. It was in this environment, where the scientific and the spiritual met, that Conan Doyle’s own interest deepened and eventually transformed into the lifelong passion he would champion so publicly.

Although modern readers of Sherlock may scoff at Conan Doyle’s involvement with Spiritualism, particularly when it led to him endorsing the ‘coming of fairies’ which was later exposed as a hoax, it is noteworthy for our purposes here that Caleb did not share this cynical attitude. As noted earlier, Caleb explained in his interview for The Sherlock Holmes Companion that he was “always fascinated” by this part of Conan Doyle’s life, going on to say:

I understood why he got involved with Spiritualism and the fairy hoax. There was some kind of pathos in the story that I found very humanizing. At times you could almost lose sight of him as a human because he was so larger than life and he lived by these principles that he exhorted other people to live by. When his son died in the war it was such a crushing thing for him and he got more heavily involved with that stuff, seeing mediums to try and talk to his son.

Beyond this general sympathy, Caleb was also of the view that there were Holmes stories in which the detective “concedes the possibility of other dimensions in life”. In addition to The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is the clearest example of Holmes confronting an ostensibly supernatural threat, several other stories demonstrate that Conan Doyle was open to allowing the uncanny to cast its shadow before unveiling the rational explanation behind it. The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire is the most frequently cited case, with its teasing suggestion of vampirism (even if this was the story where Holmes stated ‘no ghosts need apply’). The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot, too, places Holmes and Watson in an atmosphere that borders on the occult. In each instance, Conan Doyle ultimately reasserts reason, yet the stories themselves suggest an author comfortable letting the boundary between the natural and supernatural blur just long enough to unsettle both his characters and readers.

We can therefore see that The Italian Secretary was, in fact, exploring subject matter that was both within Conan Doyle’s own field of interest and wasn’t out of keeping with the canonical Holmes stories. However, to gain insight into why Caleb chose the specific haunting that lies at the heart of the novel, we must turn from Conan Doyle’s worldview to the real historical crime that first captured Caleb’s imagination, a story that takes us to the Royal Palace of Holyroodhouse.

I hope you’ll join me next month for Part Two as we delve into the true crime that inspired the novel, before we conclude our celebration by exploring how the worlds of Holmes and Kreizler might have come together, as suggested in The Italian Secretary’s afterword.

The Legendary Panthers of Davon Wood – Part Two

Posted on August 16, 20142 Comments

View Part One and Part Two of The Legendary Panthers of Davon Wood series.

We took a short break from the Alienist books two weeks ago to recognise our author’s birthday with the first half of a special investigative history blog examining the truth behind the legendary panthers of Davon Wood who feature in The Legend of Broken, Mr. Carr’s 2012 epic set in Northern Germany during the Dark Ages. We discovered in Part One that the impressive proportions of “Davon panthers”–that is, nine-foot bodies from nose to tail base and weights of over 500lbs (226kg)–ruled out the possibility of the great cats having been relatives of either the European (or Eurasian) jaguar (Panthera gombaszoegensis) or the ancestors of modern African lions (Panthera leo), and instead favoured the hypothesis that Davon panthers would more likely have been relatives of the equally impressive European (or Eurasian) cave lion (Panthera spelaea spelaea)¹, a Pleistocene felid species capable of reaching weights of up to 617lbs (280kg).

Having established that the lengths and weights of the Davon panther fall into the same ranges as those of the European cave lion, we open Part Two with the more intriguing question of lifestyle: do the hunting styles, prey choices, and environmental preferences of Davon panthers also support the European cave lion hypothesis? We will be reviewing fascinating research into mitochondrial DNA and bone collagen isotopic signatures to answer this question, as well as investigating possible extinction hypotheses for the European cave lion and the implications these have for the likelihood of Davon panthers having really survived through to the Dark Ages.

Lone cats, not lone wolves.

We are told in The Legend of Broken that Davon panthers were solitary hunters, a characteristic of their species that might initially appear to be at odds with the hypothesis that these legendary cats were relatives of the European cave lion. Until recently, the European cave lion was assumed to hunt cooperatively in a large pride structure like the modern lion. Palaeolithic cave paintings such as the panel found in the Chauvet Cave in Ardèche, France, which depicts a large number of cave lions in close proximity to one of their proposed prey species, the bison, has been taken as evidence in support of this assumption (Bocherens et al., 2011). Moreover, the assumed diet of the cave lion, which includes large ungulate prey such as horse, bison, reindeer, and woolly rhinoceros, along with juvenile members of megaherbivore species such as mammoth, has been modelled on the diet of the modern lion, a species that relies on cooperative hunting methods to bring down the large adult ungulates (zebra and antelope) that form the foundation of their diet, and will even prey on the modern equivalents of megaherbivores–juvenile weaned elephants–when prides are large enough (i.e., up to 30 members) to support the collective hunting required to feasibly target such large prey (Bocherens et al., 2011). However, two mitochondrial DNA studies (Burger et al., 2004; Barnett et al., 2009) and two bone collagen isotopic signature studies (Bocherens et al., 2011; Yeakel et al., 2013) have recently called into question the assumption that European cave lions shared behavioural traits such as collective hunting with the modern lion.

During the Pleistocene, felids that resemble the modern lion covered territories from Africa and Europe, through Asia, and into North America. Mitochondrial DNA research carried out on fossil specimens now clearly demonstrates that the European cave lion, the American lion, and the modern lion should be viewed as three distinct species. Specifically, Burger et al. (2004) and Barnett et al. (2009) have both shown that although the American lion (Panthera atrox, see left) and the European cave lion (Panthera spelaea) shared common ancestors approximately 200,000 years ago, both species were “genetically isolated” from the ancestors of modern lions and did not contribute mitochondrial DNA to the modern lion population. This is supported by the additional interesting finding that there were several points of cross-contact between the three species at various stages of the Pleistocene–one area of cross-contact for American lions and European cave lions was located between the Yukon/Alaska and Southern Canada, while another area of extended cross-contact for the ancestors of modern lions and European cave lions was located the Near East–and yet no inter-breeding appears to have taken place, indicating that the American lion, the European cave lion, and the ancestors of modern lions were, indeed, three distinct felid species (Barnett et al., 2009). In addition to shedding further light on felid taxonomy during the Pleistocene, this important finding also brings into question the assumption that European cave lions and American lions shared the collective hunting behaviour of modern lions, a unique trait that is not observed in any other modern Panthera species.

An independent line of enquiry utilising bone collagen isotopic signatures has recently provided more direct evidence for the hunting behaviour of European cave lions and competing predator species throughout Europe during the Pleistocene. Because the ratios of stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes for prey species are recorded in the tissues of predators, Pleistocene predator-prey networks have been able to be reconstructed using bone collagen isotopic signatures to a degree of accuracy that has even allowed the proportional contributions of specific prey species in the diets of different predators to be determined (Yeakel et al., 2013). The first comprehensive study of European cave lion prey choices was conducted by Bocherens et al. (2011) using the fossilised remains of various predator species and their potential prey species from 25 sites around Belgium, Germany, France, and Switzerland that were dated as falling into one of two time periods: before the Last Glacial Maximum (pre-LGM: i.e., approx. 24,000 to 40,000 years ago), and after the Last Glacial Maximum (post-LGM: i.e., approx. 12,000 to 14,000 years ago). Interestingly, the cave lions showed a wide scattering of isotopic values, suggesting that different individuals were preying on species with contrasting isotopic signatures, a finding that the authors argue strongly supports the hypothesis that cave lions were solitary hunters with individual prey preferences rather than hunting collectively in prides (Bocherens et al., 2011). | Continue reading →

The Legendary Panthers of Davon Wood – Part One

Posted on August 2, 2014No Comments

View Part One and Part Two of The Legendary Panthers of Davon Wood series.

In recognition of our author’s birthday today, I’m taking a short break from the Alienist books for a fun diversion (for me, and hopefully for our author, too): an investigative history blog about the legendary panthers found roaming the forests of Northern Germany in his 2012 novel, The Legend of Broken. For those visitors of 17th Street who haven’t read the book, you may be wondering why a big cat is featured on the cover. If this is the case, prepare to be enlightened! For those of you who have read the book, while you will already be familiar with the legendary panthers of Davon Wood, perhaps you are less clear on what species the great cats are most likely to correspond to: Mr. Carr presented the European (or Eurasian) jaguar (Panthera gombaszoegensis) and the European (or Eurasian) cave lion (Panthera spelaea spelaea¹) as candidate species², but refrained from providing an argument in favour of one over the other. In the following post, we will review the evidence before us from the latest research into these ancient big cat species–including two studies published earlier this year–to put forward such an argument, and hopefully illuminate a little more of the true history of these great predators of ancient Europe.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Carr!

Who were the legendary panthers of Davon Wood?

Within The Legend of Broken we are transported back in time to the year 750 A.D., to the heart of the time period we know today as the Dark Ages that spanned the fourth or fifth century A.D. to the eleventh century A.D. The walled city of Broken, located on the peak of the Harz Mountain Range in Northern Germany, is surrounded by rugged terrain, with the Thuringian Forest (known in the novel as “Davon Wood”) bordering the region to the south. It is here that the exiles of Broken, known as the Bane, have learned to live in harmony with a variety of predators, including the most fearsome of them all–the rarely seen, solitary big cats known as “Davon panthers”.

The Legend of Broken, Chapter I:{ii:}

“What is it, Keera?” [Heldo-Bah] whispers urgently. “Wolves? I thought I heard one.”

Wolves in Davon Wood grow to extraordinary sizes, and are more than a match for any three Bane—even these three. Keera, however, shakes her head slowly, and answers: “A panther.” Veloc’s face, too, fills with apprehension, while Heldo-Bah’s shows childlike panic. The solitary, silent Davon panthers–which can reach lengths of twelve feet, and weights of many hundreds of pounds–are the largest and most efficient killers known, each as lethal as a pack of wolves and, like all cats, nearly impossible to detect before they strike. They are particularly fond of the caves and rocks near the Cat’s Paw.

When we finally do meet one of these legendary panthers, we can understand the awe with which the Bane regard these magnificent creatures. Described as reaching proportions of over nine feet from nose to tail base–twelve feet with tail included–with coat colours ranging from darkest gold to the palest gold/sand adorned with rich dark spots and stripes, presumably on the underside of the body and legs, it is not difficult to imagine why the cats achieved legendary status with their human cohabitants. Solitary hunters, they seem to have learned to survive on the deer, boar, and wild horses that roam the forest, or even to venture close to human habitation to poach shag cattle when times are tough.

However, instead of simply accepting the existence of the impressive “Davon panthers” as the Bane do, we twenty-first century readers are compelled to ask a very twenty-first century question upon meeting these remarkable creatures (or at least, this twenty-first century woman is): What are these great cats? Our author tells us in the endnotes of the novel that, “The Legendary ‘European panther’ is far more than a myth,” and goes on to cite two potential candidate species: the smaller European jaguar (Panthera gombaszoegensis), and the larger European cave lion (Panthera spelaea spelaea), both of which could be found over an enormous geographical range that included Northern Germany during the Pleistocene, an epoch that ended approximately 11,000 years ago. See the map below for a overview of the known geographic range of the European cave lion in and around Northern Germany (two key locations for The Legend of Broken–the city of Broken itself and Davon Wood–are also marked), including radiocarbon dates of known cave lion finds. Perhaps the reason our author refrained from providing an argument for one species over the other was due to the the fact that both the jaguar and the cave lion had their strengths and weaknesses as candidate species. Nevertheless, on the basis of very recent research, I propose that the strengths of one candidate species now outweighs the strengths of the other. So, let’s revisit the mystery and review the evidence as it currently stands.

Title	Category	Address	Description	Link

In the case of the Davon panther, size matters.

The first and most important evidence to review in order to solve the mystery of the Davon panther relates to the sizes of the candidate species under consideration. After all, repeated descriptions of Davon panthers as having nine foot bodies from nose to tail base with weights of over 500lbs (226kg) simply can’t be disregarded, and as the European jaguar and cave lion were in entirely different size brackets, the proportions of the cats must be considered the first and most important differentiator between the two species. Perhaps the most compelling evidence in relation to size comes from a recent paper by Marciszak (2014) who conducted a comprehensive overview of size variability among European jaguars in the late Middle Pleistocene in relation to contemporary European Panthera species including the European cave lion and the European leopard on the basis of remains found for all three species collected from Biśnik Cave, Poland, in 2010.

On the basis of tooth size, previous research has established approximate body mass ranges for European jaguars of 330lbs to 418lbs (150-190kg) for males, and 220lbs to 286lbs (100-130kg) for females. Despite the fact that the jaguar from layer 19d of Biśnik Cave was evaluated to be a large, male specimen at the top of the size spectrum with an estimated body mass of 396lbs (180kg), the specimen was still strikingly smaller than contemporary cave lions found in layers 19b-d of Biśnik Cave (see the figure drawn to scale from Marciszak, 2014, below). Importantly, after reviewing specimens from almost all sites where fossil material for the European jaguar has been found, no size increase was observed for the species over its evolution, indicating that there is no reason to suppose the European jaguar would have almost doubled its maximum body mass by the period in which The Legend of Broken was set, assuming they had not died out by that period. On the other hand, the estimated weights for European cave lions do fall well within the range proposed for Davon panthers with a maximum estimated weight of up to 793lbs (360kg) for Panthera spelaea fossilis and 617lbs (280kg) for Panthera spelaea spelaea (Guzvica, 1998), although changes in size for the species throughout its evolution have recently been shown to be more complex than previously theorised.

Left to Right: European cave lion (Panthera spelaea), European jaguar (Panthera gombaszoegensis), European leopard (Panthera pardus spelaea)
Source: Marciszak (2014)

It is now generally accepted that the earliest cave lions in Europe (Panthera spelaea fossilis), which first appeared during the Middle Pleistocene, were gradually replaced by the more evolutionarily advanced Panthera spelaea spelaea during the Late Pleistocene. By once again performing comparative analyses of specimens from the palaeontologically important Biśnik Cave in Poland, Marciszak and Stefaniak (2010) observed a clear evolutionary progression from fossilis in the Middle Pleistocene, through intermediate forms that shared features with both fossilis and spelaea in the late Middle Pleistocene, to the cave lion’s final spelaea form in the Late Pleistocene. Although this evolutionary progression involved changes to cranial and dental morphology, as well as an overall decrease in body size, a more recent review of the evolution of Panthera spelaea from the fossilis to spelaea subspecies by Marciszak, Schouwenburg, and Darga (2014) includes data from a new specimen found in the San River in Poland which has shown that the evolutionary decrease in size may not have been as definitive as the 2010 study suggested.

Although both Radiocarbon and Uranium-Thorium dating methods failed on the San River specimen, the advanced cranial and dental morphology of the specimen is consistent with a male Late Pleistocene Panthera spelaea spelaea, most probably from the first half of the last glacial. Nonetheless, no intact male spelaea skull from the last glacial has exceeded 400mm (1.31 foot) in length, while the San River specimen was 451mm (1.48 foot) in length (see the image adapted from Marciszak et al., 2014, to the left), suggesting a body size in line with earlier fossilis forms. Consequently, the authors suggest that either the San River specimen is from an earlier period than the cranial and dental morphology indicate, which they consider to be unlikely, or it may simply be evidence that cave lions with impressive dimensions did continue to survive into the Late Pleistocene, even if such specimens were rare. Taken in combination with the fact that the number of fossilis and spelaea specimens is currently so limited that it is not possible to perform a statistically reliable analysis of European cave lion size at the present time (Marciszak et al., 2014), this is a particularly important finding to take into consideration when assessing candidate species for Davon panthers as the decreasing size for the European cave lion might otherwise be considered problematic for the hypothesis that the panthers were living descendants of Panthera spelaea spelaea.

First, one would presume that over the several thousand years between the Late Pleistocene when Panthera spelaea spelaea appears to have died out and the time period in which The Legend of Broken is set, the size of any remaining cave lions (assuming it was possible for any to have survived) would have continued to decrease, not maintain their former megafauna proportions. Indeed, by the end of the cave lion reign in Europe in the first part of the last glacial, “dwarf” cave lions with dimensions similar to medium-sized modern African lions were appearing among the European cave lion population. The finding of a fossilis-sized cave lion from a much later time period than had previously been thought possible for the Late Pleistocene Panthera spelaea spelaea therefore helps the argument that separate lineages of cave lions may have continued to exist in Europe (see also Guzvica, 1998, for further evidence of separated lineages in European cave lion populations), which further helps the case that Davon panthers may have retained their impressive megafauna dimensions over several thousand years.

Second, it is also important to note that, like the European jaguar, the European cave lion was strongly sexually dimorphic with male skulls typically exceeding female skulls by an average of 3.93 inches (10cm) in length. Given the fact that it was a female Davon panther that was said to exceed 500lbs (226kg) in The Legend of Broken, in order for the immature male panther we meet early in the novel to grow to the correspondingly large size the female’s weight would indicate, the only possible way this could have happened is if the original megafauna proportions had been retained. Incidentally, this point also rules out the possibility that Davon panthers were relatives of the ancestors of modern African lions. Although isolated finds indicate that modern lions colonised areas of South-Western Europe as late as the Iron Age (Stuart & Lister, 2011), there is no evidence that they would have reached the proportions required for a Davon panther, nor that any separate line of modern lion would have evolved to increase in size rather than decrease in size.

To Be Continued

Although the size requirements for Davon panthers have now ruled out the possibility of the great cats having evolved from European jaguars or the ancestors of modern African lions, we are faced with the question of the panthers’ hunting and living habits. Within The Legend of Broken we are told that Davon panthers were solitary hunters rather than hunting collaboratively in prides. Does this correspond to the hypothesised hunting pattern of European cave lions? Perhaps surprisingly, recent mitochondrial DNA and bone collagen isotopic signature findings suggest that it does! We will overview this fascinating research, as well as investigating possible extinction hypotheses and the implications these have for the likelihood of Davon panther existence, in Part Two of The Legendary Panthers of Davon Wood series over the coming weeks. | Continue reading →

Weapons in the Dark Ages: Military Technology of The Legend of Broken

Posted on September 13, 2013No Comments

This month’s history blog was written by a guest blogger, Tiffany, who has previously donated wonderful character art to 17th Street that can be viewed on the Alienist character analysis pages. In addition to art, Tiffany also has a keen interest in military history and therefore decided to focus this month’s history blog on the military technology included in Caleb Carr’s latest novel, The Legend of Broken. For more information about Tiffany or to contact her, please visit her art portfolio.

In this blog post we will discuss the weaponry and use of military technology presented in The Legend of Broken. The novel takes place near the Harz Mountains in Germany at a time after the fall of the Roman Empire and before the rise of Charlemagne in the later part of the eighth century. We will use the term “dark ages” to refer to the time period between A.D. 400 through 800, which has been also called the Early Middle Ages and the Migration Period.¹ In this post we shall address what weapons were available during this time period and how they were used in battle.

The majority of weapons used in the Early Middle Ages and onward include the short- and longbow, the sword in its many variations including daggers and long knives, spears, lances, and halberds, as well as heavier siege artillery such as the siege tower and catapult with its variants, the ballista and trebuchet. Armor came in various fashions and styles, but almost always included the helmet, greaves for leg armor, and scale, chain mail or whole plate armor to cover the torso – made of any number of materials available at the time including iron.

Armor

The accoutrements of a Dark Ages warrior usually consisted of a helmet, body armor including the arms and legs, and possibly a shield to deflect bladed weapons and small artillery. A type of plate armor known as greaves — also called sarbein in The Legend of Broken (632) — were worn on the legs to protect the shins from blunt force. Chain mail was in much use covering the torso from shoulders to hips. Because chainmail could be penetrated by a well placed arrow, scale mail was much more effective in weapon deflection, but neither were more safe and damage resistant than plate armor, a whole piece of metal armor worn over the torso. The spangenhelm is very similar to the helmet mentioned in the novel, and is referred to by native etymology in the endnotes (667). One particular helmet found worn by a Frankish warrior of the sixth century provides insight to what Germanic warriors of this time and region would have utilized.

Swords and Bladed Weapons

In the novel, The Legend of Broken, a few types of swords mentioned are “raiding”, “marauder”, and “short-” swords, or what is also known as an arming sword. Although there are several types of swords, as catalogued by Oakeshott’s typology², we will focus only on those mentioned in the novel. During the Migration Period in the Germanic region, the sword most often in use was a type of Roman sword known as the spatha, a long, straight sword, which is possibly a descendant of the Roman gladius. The majority of swords at this time were made of bronze or iron available in the region, created by methods known as pattern-welding or damascening — a process of inlaying various metals into one another.

Historians have speculated that swords and other bladed war implements were named for the peoples who used them. The Saxons favored the seax, or sax, a type of dagger with wooden or horn hilt used by the Germanic people. Spear implements such as the Frakki or frakka or “Francisca” were used by the Franks during the Merovingian period. The Longobardi were supposedly named — by the Romans — after their long-handled axe, or the long halberd.

Employment of the economic and easily crafted spear was used by cavalry and infantry. The spear consisted usually of only two parts, a leaf-shaped blade wedged into a long wooden staff. Another member of the long-hafted bladed weapon family was the halberd, typically a long handled implement with a metal axe head which was used to cleave and chop.

Bows

There are a few types of bows, but those most commonly found in this particular era and region, according to archaeological record, are short- and longbows, and composite bows. The longbow gets its name from its length which is usually similar in height of the person wielding it (between five and six feet). It is typically constructed from a single piece of wood, usually of the yew tree, but other wood materials have been found just as hardy. The composite bow’s design and construction consists of various materials laminated together such as wood, and animal horn and sinew. Both long- and composite bows were used by infantry soldiers and highly trained horse-mounted archers. Longbowmen required years of training to develop the strength to use a longbow effectively.

In later centuries, the crossbow would eventually replace the longbow completely mainly because of its ease of use and its efficacy of penetrating chain mail due to the mechanical advantage inherent in the mechanism of loading the weapon. | Continue reading →