The fourteenth century was an age of unprecedented catastrophe for western Europe: widespread famine due to climate change, economic collapse, uncontrollable heresies, social upheaval, endemic war and, to compound the misery, the physical and psychological devastation of the Black Death. In all of recorded history there has never been before or since a period of such utter disaster: one half of Europe's population died due to the effects of famine, war and the Black Death. As a result, Europeans emerged from the fourteenth century profoundly - and frighteningly - changed. Medieval Europe had been an intensely spiritual society: the salvation of the soul was paramount. Fifteenth century Europe abandoned spirituality for secularism, materialism and worldliness, its peoples embraced technology and science, and developed the most aggressively invasive mentality of world history. Why this profound shift from the internal quest for spiritual salvation to a craving for world domination? Was it just the end result of over a hundred years of catastrophe ... or was there another reason? The Crucible is a historical fantasy trilogy based on the grim events of the fourteenth century and on the medieval Catholic Church's deliberate misinterpretation of the story of the death of Jesus. It recreates the world as medieval people understood it, a world of evil incarnate, a world where demons and angels walked among mere mortals, a world where every event was as a result of either the hand of God, or of the Devil, or of the blessed intervention of Christ Himself. In this world none of the multiple crises and miseries of the fourteenth century were 'accidental', or the results of natural forces, they were the by products of an extraordinary battle between the forces of good and evil, between the religious orders of the Church, aided by mysterious and often frightening angels of God, and the horrifying shapeshifting minions of the Devil: demons, imps and the even more infernal creatures that swarmed out of the dark forests of central Europe. The Devil had come to confront God, and he had picked Europe as his battleground. The trilogy is set around the adventures of Thomas Neville, an English nobleman and Dominican friar. As nobleman and priest, Neville has the connections and influence to move within the most powerful circles of Europe. As a former soldier and scholar, he also has the qualifications and experience to circulate within the more shadowy and arcane cliques of medieval society. With his experience and talent, as well his religious zeal, it is not surprising that Neville has not only become one of the Church's most effective spies, but will also become one of its leading soldiers in the ultimate battle against evil.

The only problem is, does Neville truly understand the nature of evil? As the trilogy progresses, Neville is forced to confront the terrifying possibility that everything he has built his world upon is a lie, that the entire doctrine of the Catholic Church has been built upon a terrifying evil, and that if Christ Himself is to be saved, then only Neville can do it.

But once Neville discovers who Christ really is, will he want to save Him ... or condemn Him?

The action takes place in Rome, central Germany, France, and England. THE CRUCIBLE is based on historical fact, and uses historical figures but do not expect it to be true to fact. This is the medieval Europe of a parallel world, and so events happen differently than they have done in this dimension. (Physicists theorise that if someone travelled back in time - and we know that time travel is possible, but aren't sure how to travel back even if we know how to travel forward - their mere presence in a past world would necessarily so alter that world's future it would become a parallel world.) Whatever, the sudden shift in mentality in the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries is a well documented fact. Scholars about the world twist themselves into knots trying to discover the cause. Was it only the psychological devastation of the Black Death ... or something else? Possible causes include the introduction of the clock, or the introduction of the zero which had not been in use before. The Church fought long and hard against the zero, believing it an instrument of the Devil (because it represented 'nothing'), but it failed ... and the European mind was forever changed. Upon such small ideas does the course of human history falter.