The Evening and the Morning is a historical fiction novel by Welsh author Ken Follett.
It is a prequel to The Pillars of the Earth set starting in 997 AD, and covering a period in the late Early Middle Ages and under the backdrop of Viking raids, through the year 1007.
Rather, marriage is a civic ceremony; a man may "put away" his wife at his pleasure and marry another, or have two wives.
Ethelred says that a king's duty is national security, sound currency, and little else, but other characters note that his purview does technically include other things, such as the welfare of noble widows.
Ethelred's primary duty of defending the country from Viking raids creates tension between him and the nobles upon whom he depends to raise and lead armies.
In the aftermath of a Viking attack on the coastal town of Combe, a young boatbuilder named Edgar moves with his remaining family to Dreng's Ferry.
This tiny village has an alehouse, a small minster, and a nunnery on a nearby island where nuns care for lepers.
A young Norman noblewoman named Ragna travels to England to marry Aelderman Wilwulf of Shiring only to find she is his second wife.
He had put his first wife aside, angering both the king and the clergy (with the exception of his own half brother, Bishop Wynstan).
Over the next several years, Aldred works with Edgar, Ragna, or both to address local problems, including bandits, corruption at the minster, acquisition of holy relics for the monastery, problems in the villages that pay taxes to Ragna, and attempts by Bishop Wynstan to produce counterfeit coinage.
After Wynstan escapes punishment for counterfeiting, Aldred is sent away from Shiring's large monastery, where he had had some authority, to run the tiny minster at Dreng's Ferry.
She learns through other women that Wynstan is showing signs of an illness called "whores' leprosy" (possibly neurosyphilis).
Wynstan develops more severe symptoms of whores' leprosy, including memory lapses and moments of rage and confusion.
Ragna, realizing she had nothing left to lose, tells Aldred the reason for Wynstan's erratic behaviour.
Ragna moves with her three older sons to Dreng's Ferry, then called Kingsbridge, and befriends Blod.
Dreng's wife promises to free Blod and the other girl in her will, which Ragna has her dictate to Aldred in front of witnesses.
Aldred brings him to the leper colony near Kingsbridge, where the nuns care for him alongside other sick and mentally ill people.
Bogran of the Washington Independent described The Evening and the Morning as "more of the same, with variation" relative to Follett's other books set in Kingsbridge.
"[6] Kirkus Reviews described this book as long and predictable, but acknowledged, "Follett is a powerful storyteller who will hold [the reader's] attention anyway.