Profile

Cadfael is a 60-something-year-old Benedictine monk living at Shrewsbury Abbey in western England, in the first half of the 12th century, but that's the simplest possible description.

He was born into a villein family in North Wales, and at the age of 14, became a servant to a wool trader - which first took him to Shrewsbury. Later, he joined a crusading company under Robert of Normandy and stayed in the Middle East for some years after the fighting was done, travelling through Syria and the Holy Land and working as a sailor, until eventually he returned to England and again became a foot soldier for a time, fighting in Normandy. By this point, he was in his forties and made a final return to England under a new master - who proceeded to kidnap the Abbot of Shrewsbury in an effort to foil a lawsuit. Cadfael freed the abbot, losing his position in the process, and being tired of the world at large, went back to Shrewsbury with him and took the cowl.

He's more scientifically minded than some of his time, and works primarily as the abbey's herbalist and physician - which often includes examining corpses to determine how they died. For this reason, he's become something of an amateur detective and cares deeply about finding the truth of every mystery he comes across, especially when someone might hang for it. He also values justice very highly, even if sometimes this comes into conflict with the laws of church or state or his own superiors, and is compassionate when it comes to, for example, sex outside marriage when the couple are in love.

He is also, though he doesn't know it until some time after they meet, Olivier de Bretagne's father from a liaison with Mariam when he was a young man in Antioch.

Cadfael is from the Brother Cadfael novels and TV show, and is the property of Ellis Peters or her estate. He appears here solely for the purpose of role-playing in milliways_bar, from which no profit whatsoever is being made.