Crispin: The Cross of Lead

Avi, who studied history in college and won the Scott O’Dell award for historical fiction for his 1985 novel The Fighting Ground, demonstrates attention to detail in situating the novel’s fictional events within a broader historical framework. Crispin: The Cross of Lead is set in Late Middle Ages England. During this period, English society was organized according to a feudal structure. At the top of the hierarchy was the monarch, in this case King Edward III, who claimed ownership of all land in England. The king then portioned off the land to the care of various nobles, such as the novel's Lord Furnival, who served as vassals in overseeing the land.

Below the vassals are the stewards and other officials, like Aycliffe, who directly oversee the work of the peasants. At the bottom of the social hierarchy, peasants and serfs were bound to serve a particular lord and received minimal wages for their work. Crispin is raised as a serf to Lord Furnival, and he finds his life a miserable one, which makes it easy for Bear’s ideas of social upheaval to resonate with him later on.

Life in medieval society can also be categorized into three orders or estates. The first consists of those who pray (the clergy), the second includes those who fight (nobility), while the third consists of those who labor (peasants). Throughout the text, Avi demonstrates attention to the roles and influences of each estate. Next to his mother, the priest and the steward of Stromford are the main influences on Crispin’s childhood, representing the first and second estates. Additionally, Crispin’s first-person narration reveals the extent to which his perspectives are shaped by religious and political forces. The same holds true in Great Wexly, where the town’s central square is dominated by a cathedral and a palace. When Crispin and Bear escape from Great Wexly and proclaim themselves free, to a large extent they are simply stating that they have escaped the controlling influences of the church and the king.

Avi also explores specific historical events through Crispin’s perspective. The story is set in 1377, four years before the Peasants’ Revolt, a 1381 uprising among thousands of rural English peasants to demand an end to serfdom. Among other causes, the Hundred Years’ War between England and France that spans this period necessitated heavy taxation, which increased resentment toward the nobility. The revolt spread quickly but was ultimately unsuccessful. John Ball, a radical priest whose sermons helped incite the Peasants’ Revolt, appears in the novel as the leader of the secret organization to which Bear belongs. Considering Ball’s subsequent execution as a leader of the revolt (a historical fact not mentioned in the text), Bear’s warnings that revolution was not yet viable appear all the more prescient.

Avi also touches on the Black Death, a bubonic plague that peaked in England in 1349, killing roughly half of the population; it would take over a century to return England’s population to its former levels. Crispin first encounters Bear in a village that was abandoned as a result of the plague, and large swaths of the countryside show no signs of human life. When Asta lies about Crispin’s father, she refers to the plague to explain away his absence, showing just how commonplace and widespread its impact was. Thematically, the social changes brought on by the plague, which contributed to tensions leading to the Peasants’ Revolt, tie into Avi’s observations about death bringing new life.