Novels Set on the Continent, 14th-15th Centuries

This section includes novels set in France, Germany, Flanders and the Low Countries, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Eastern Europe, and even a fictional island in the Mediterranean Sea.

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Deborah Alcock, Crushed yet Conquering: A Story of Constance and Bohemia in the Days of John Huss (1891; also titled A Torch to Bohemia), about two brothers who become followers of the religious reformer Jan Hus (anglicized to John Huss) during his trial and execution, and then help spread his reforms in Bohemia in the face of persecution.

Jeannette Angell, The Crown and the Kingdom (2010), about the French King Philippe IV and Pope Clement V, who moved the Papal See to Avignon; self-published; available as an e-book only.

Radwa Ashour, Granada (1994-1995 in the original Arabic as a trilogy; English translation 2003), about a Muslim bookbinder and his family in Granada after 1492 and the end of Arabic rule in Moorish Spain.

Michael Augustyn, Vlad Dracula: The Dragon Prince (1995), a biographical novel about Vlad Dracula, a fifteenth-century prince of Wallachia (once part of Hungary, now in Romania); self-published.

Lisa T. Bergren, The Begotten (2006), a fantasy thriller set in 1339 Italy about a lost letter of St. Paul and a group of Christians with unusual spiritual gifts who come together, according to the prediction in the letter, to fight Satan's power during the Inquisition; #1 in the Gifted trilogy.

Lisa T. Bergren, The Betrayed (2007), a fantasy thriller set in fourteenth-century Italy about a lost letter of St. Paul and a group of Christians with unusual spiritual gifts who come together, according to the prediction in the letter, to fight Satan's power during the Inquisition; #2 in the Gifted trilogy.

Lisa T. Bergren, The Blessed (2008), a fantasy thriller set in fourteenth-century Italy about a lost letter of St. Paul and a group of Christians with unusual spiritual gifts who come together, according to the prediction in the letter, to fight Satan's power during the Inquisition; #3 in the Gifted trilogy.

David Blixt, Master of Verona (2007), about Dante’s 17-year-old son and the Italian city of Verona in 1314, around the time of Romeo and Juliet.Review

Tracy Chevalier, The Lady and the Unicorn (2004), a novel set in medieval France that imagines how the fifteenth-century "Lady and the Unicorn" tapestries were created.

Hendrik Conscience, The Lion of Flanders (1838), a romantic nineteenth-century novel about Robert of Bethune, who ruled Flanders during the early fourteenth century and later became a symbol of Flemish nationalism.

Thomas B. Costain, The Moneyman (1947), set in fifteenth-century France.

Sharon Cramer, The Execution (2012), about a priest who hears the confessions of those about to be executed in fourteenth-century France; self-published.

Michael Crichton, Timeline (1999), about a group of historians who travel back in time to the year 1357 in France.

Matt Cutugno, In Dracula's Time (2011), about a fifteenth-century biography of Vlad the Impaler which became the inspiration for Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.

Andrew Davidson, The Gargoyle (2008), about a modern man severely injured in a car wreck who is visited in the hospital by a mysterious woman claiming to have healed him before when she was a nun in fourteenth-century Germany. Review

Grant de Graf, Cavalier's Call (2010), about a Portuguese prince on the eve of the Age of Discovery; self-published, available in ebook format only.

Maurice Druon, The Iron King (1955; also titled The Ardent Infidels ), about a French nobleman in the time of King Philippe IV (1285-1314) who believes his aunt has cheated him of his inheritance; #1 in the Accursed Kings series.

Maurice Druon, The Strangled Queen (1955), about a French nobleman in the time of King Louis X, and his schemes to reclaim the inheritance he believes his aunt cheated him of; #2 in the Accursed Kings series.

Maurice Druon, The Poisoned Crown (1957), about the last months of the reign of King Louis X; #3 in the Accursed Kings series.

Maurice Druon, The Royal Succession (1958), about the struggle for the succession after the death of King Louis X; #4 in the Accursed Kings series.

Maurice Druon, The She-Wolf of France (1960), about Queen Isabella of France and her love affair with the English nobleman Roger Mortimer during his exile in France; #5 in the Accursed Kings series.

Maurice Druon, The Lily and the Lion (1960), about King Edward III of England, King Philippe of France, and their competing claims to the throne of France, which led to the Hundred Years' War; #6 in the Accursed Kings series.

Maurice Druon, When a King Loses France (1977), about the early years of the Hundred Years' War, which were disastrous for France; #7 and final in the Accursed Kings series.

Ellen Ekstrom, The Legacy (2004), about a knight in fourteenth-century Tuscany who must fight both the church and his own family to retain his inheritance.

Ildefonso Falcones, Cathedral of the Sea (English translation 2008), about a Spanish serf and the rise in his fortunes during the building of the Church of Santa Maria in fourteenth-century Barcelona.

Lion Feuchtwanger, The Ugly Duchess (1923), about Margarete Maultasch, the last Countess of independent Tyrol in the fourteenth century.

Anne Fortier, Juliet (2010), about two young women, one a modern American, the other her mysterious possible ancestor in fourteenth-century Italy who inspired Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Hella S. Haasse, In a Dark Wood Wandering (1949; English translation 1989), about the fifteenth-century French King Charles VI.

Titania Hardie, The House of the Wind (2012), about a present-day San Francisco woman who stays at a villa in Tuscany, and about the shy young woman who lived in the same villa in the fourteenth century.

Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund (1930), a literary novel about a novice monk and an artist who become friends in medieval Germany.

Cecelia Holland, Rakossy (1966), set in sixteenth-century Hungary during the wars with the Turks

Cecelia Holland, The Lords of Vaumartin (1988), about an orphaned nobleman in fourteenth-century Paris. Review

C.C. Humphreys, Vlad: The Last Confession (2009), about a small group of men summoned with messages and fragments of the sword of Vlad Dracula, with the prospect of reforming his Order of the Dragon; historical fantasy based on the story of the historical Count Vlad of Wallachia.

Jeanne Kalogridis, The Burning Times (2001), about a clairvoyant midwife caught up in the Inquisition in fourteenth-century France.

Mitchell Kaplan, By Fire, By Water (2010), about Luis de Santángel, a Jewish convert to Christianity who served as finance minister to Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella as the power of the Inquisition grew. Review

Geraldine McCaughrean, Vainglory (1991), about an aristocratic French family's obsession with wealth and castle-building through five generations beginning in 1429. Review

Joyce Elson Moore, Jeanne of Clairmonde (2009), historical romance about a French heiress forced to depend on the squire sent by the king to evict her from her estate at the beginning of the Hundred Years War.

Irene Reti, Kabbalah of Stone (2009), about the spirit of an Old Testament prophetess and a young man from a converso family in 1491 Spain, on the eve of the expulsion of the Jews. Review

Melodie Romeo, Vlad: A Novel (2002), a biographical novel about Vlad the Impaler, a fifteenth-century prince of Wallachia (once part of Hungary, now Romania); self-published.

Rafael Sabatini, Bellarion the Fortunate (1926), about a chivalric knight of humble origin in medieval Italy, loosely based on the life of the fourteenth-century mercenary soldier Sir John Hawkwood

Alan Savage, Queen of the Night (1993), about Queen Joanna of Naples.

Lawrence Schoonover, The Spider King (1954), about the late medieval French king Louis XI, who was born during the Hundred Years War when his father Charles was still the uncrowned Dauphin.

Henryk Sienkiewicz, The Knights of the Cross (1900; also titled The Teutonic Knights), a tragic story about a young Polish knight, his lady-love and the Battle of Grunwald (or Tannenberg) in 1410, in which the Poles and Lithuanians defeated the Teutonic Knights.

Barry Unsworth, Stone Virgin (1985), a literary novel set in Venice during the eighteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Peter Vansittart, The Tournament (1959), about the rituals and ceremonies surrounding a challenge to combat between a nobleman and the ruler of a fictional duchy resembling late medieval Burgundy, interrupted by a plague epidemic.

Peter Vansittart, A Safe Conduct (1995), about a children's revolt in a small German principality in the 1490s and the nobleman whose life it complicates. Review

Jill Paton Walsh, Knowledge of Angels (1994), about a young woman raised by wolves, a prince who is an atheist and an agent of the Inquisition who meet on a fictional Mediterranean island.

Florian Stone Wells, The Sword and the Shield of the Realm (2008), about a boy who inherits a mysterious legacy as fifteenth-century Hungary is threatened with invasion by the Ottoman Turks; includes a comprehensive glossary; #1 in a planned 7-book series.

Florian Stone Wells, Field of the Blackbirds (2008), about about the 1389 Battle of Kosovo; #2 in a planned 7-book series.

Jess Wells, The Mandrake Broom (2007), about a woman herbalist who works with Paracelsus to save the old medical knowledge and blend it with the new medical learning as the witch persecutions of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries endanger herbalists.