In fifteenth-century Holland, Gerard Eliassoen of Tergou, a gifted scribe and illuminator, loves Margaret Brandt, but his family intends him for the Church. Forced to flee, he travels on foot through Burgundy, Germany and Italy toward Rome with the swaggering crossbowman Denys, meeting thieves, inns, plague and every condition of medieval life, while Margaret waits at home.
Reade’s 1861 novel imagines the parents of Erasmus and is among the most richly researched historical novels of its century. Download the free EPUB.