The mystery is set in the Anarchy, the continuing battles between King Stephen and Empress Maud, now besieged in Oxford Castle.

Sheriff Hugh Beringar and Brother Cadfael work together to resolve murder and kidnap, the first done in connection with the anarchy, and the second dealing with property and marriages in 12th century England.

One review at the time of publication referred to the "ever-fascinating Brother Cadfael chronicles", said that author "Peters continues to enthrall", and described the "unpretentious but literate style" of this novel.

[1] Another reviewer was less impressed, and said that characters were in the main "glibly superficial: lovers are fair and pure; villains cruel and swarthy.

They felt that "Brother Cadfael is more an observer than an actor in this work" but overall, the "bodies and red herrings pile up in a satisfying way before all the puzzles are solved.

"[2] On 18 October 1142, Richard Ludel, lord of Eaton manor, dies of wounds sustained at the battle of Lincoln in February 1141.

Her goal is to marry the boy to Hiltrude, daughter of Fulke Astley, who will inherit the estates on either side of Eaton manor: Wroxeter and Leighton.

Returning to the hermitage, Hyacinth saves Eilmund in Eyton Forest by rolling a fallen willow tree off him.

Drogo Bosiet and his groom Warin of Northamptonshire appear at the abbey, hunting a villein named Brand who fled his manor.

After Vespers, Brother Jerome meets with Drogo to tell him his suspicion that Brand is in fact Hyacinth, living under a false identity.

In the morning, Hugh Beringar and Cadfael find that Drogo was stabbed as he walked his horse on the forest path en route to the abbey.

The abbot mentions Brother Jerome's conversation, revealing that Drogo intended to visit the hermitage, and was probably on his return journey when killed.

Hearing a young woman travelling with her father Astley on horseback in the darkness, he runs ahead of them to find Richard locked in a room.

The following morning, Abbot Radulfus and Hugh Beringer find Cuthred lying dead within the hermitage, his own knife near his hand.

It is revealed that Cuthred was in fact Renaud Bourchier, having stolen the Empress's jewels and abandoned his horse and knightly clothes in order to avoid detection.

The plot focusses on "a different war being waged there, however, after the death of Richard Ludel, Lord of Eaton", whose son was kidnapped from the Abbey.

Their commentary on the novel was that it was "Swift-moving, intricate plotting, richly tapestried background, and unpretentious but literate style in the telling once again work their magic as Peters continues to enthrall.

Although Brother Cadfael is more an observer than an actor in this work, bodies and red herrings pile up in a satisfying way before all the puzzles are solved.

The prior year, King Stephen had been taken and imprisoned for several months, as his own brother, Henry, Bishop of Winchester turned his coat twice.

Even with the field thus clear, Empress Maud was unable to garner sufficient support in the key city of London to be crowned.

King Stephen's wife, Queen Matilda, led the army when her husband was imprisoned, and succeeded both in pressing London with their forces just outside the city and in taking Robert of Gloucester as prisoner.

After a period of illness, King Stephen began again to take strategic towns, like Wareham and besieged Empress Maud in Oxford, all as related in the story.

Geoffrey of Anjou, second husband of Maud and father of their children, was more interested in conquests in Normandy, where he was in the time of this novel, than in helping his wife in any way.

During the siege of Oxford, Brian Fitz Count was running low on funds at his place in Wallingford Castle, supporting soldiers in her cause.

[13][14] The choice of the name Hyacinth for the attractive and handsome young man who arrives in the novel as the boy to assist the hermit Cuthred is also of the medieval period.

In pre-Hellenic myths, he was the "classical metaphor of the death and rebirth of nature", which well suits the villein who is fought over by his lord, disappears from his home to reappear in a new place, fall in love, make new friends and a new life.

Hyacinth relates a very brief version of the Greek myth as an "old story" he heard from a priest, when Abbot Radulfus asks about his name when the two first meet.

In the feudal system, they owed allegiance to their liege lord, and had both free and villein workers doing the work on the land or in the house.

[18] The group of characters who were either free men or villeins held distinctly different views of the Sheriff, and the law in general, as a protector of their life and property.

[19] Goodreads lists 33 editions of The Hermit of Eyton Forest, in English, Italian, French, German, Polish, Dutch.