World Without End

Follett sets World Without End in a tumultuous time in English and European history. From the highest to the lowest ranks of society, characters are forced to determine how best to respond to challenges to the world as they have always known it. The character arc of Ralph Fitzgerald in particular shows that what constitutes anarchy or order is often determined by existing power structures. Either state can create opportunities for good or for ill.

The deposing of Edward II is the first challenge to order, one that creates both opportunities and dangers for the central characters in the moment that they encounter Thomas Langley struggling for his life. Their responses are emblematic of their approaches to anarchy later in life. Merthin stays behind to problem-solve. Gwenda flees. Caris tries to take care of Gwenda by replacing Hop. Ralph responds with violence by shooting one of the queen’s men during the initial confrontation and then runs away with the others. He learns early on that force and violence are appropriate responses when faced with disorder.

As a squire, Ralph relies on an existing political and economic order in which subordinates are powerless to counter their overlords and might makes right. His ideas about order are shaped by training for war and the battlefield, “where strong men were kings and the weak counted for nothing” (49). As an overlord, he works in the king’s interests by supporting the Ordinance of Laborers, which explicitly tries to roll the economic relationship between laborers and lords back to 1347. When Ralph faces down the villagers of Outhenby a second time, this law quells any efforts to counter Ralph because they know that his efforts to reinforce the old order have the weight of the king behind them. Ralph thrives in settings where he has a clear mission and in which that mission is to apply force in the interests of powerful men.

Ralph’s troubles come when he introduces anarchy into the smooth functioning of that power structure. When Ralph rapes Annet, Roland of Shiring tells Ralph, “I don’t want to be bothered, in peacetime, with damned priests whining about serfs’ wives being raped” (35). Ralph’s actions are a disturbance, in other words, because they inconvenience the earl and because Ralph is using violence that Roland only wants deployed in France or in war time. Ralph’s days as an outlaw on the outskirts of Kingsbridge only end because he angers the town by disturbing trade (neither the earl nor the church are willing to intervene).

Still, Roland is willing to overlook Ralph’s chaotic, violent nature as soon as war comes. He rescues Ralph from hanging because he knows there is use for a man like Ralph on the battlefield. After the war, when law and order have broken down as a result of the plague, Ralph applies the skills he learned in war by sacking the nunnery. He gets away with this egregious violation of the church, a place of sanctuary, both because the general sense of lawlessness provides cover for his actions and because Gregory Longfellow needs information. He learns that as a lord and a man working on behalf of royal interests, there is no apparent limit to his actions.

What Ralph doesn’t account for is the anarchy he creates will rebound on him. As a lord, Ralph’s responsibility is to be a good steward of the land, resources, and people in his care. His poor management leaves him almost bankrupt, however. When he is forced to prioritize his lands over his vendetta against Gwenda’s family by giving Davey a copyhold, he cannot resist his impulse to punish Gwenda. Gwenda is only in the lodge where she and Sam kill Ralph because Ralph has forced her to come there, and the same can be said for Sam, who owes his existence to Ralph’s impulse to dominate. When Ralph dies, the existence of outlaw bands—more sign of the anarchy created by the plague—provides cover for Gwenda and Sam’s actions. No one pursues the matter closely because Ralph’s death ends his ability to be a disruptive force for peasants and overlords alike.

Other characters, such as Merthin and Caris, have different responses to anarchy and threats to order. Merthin creates his own order by flouting the guilds, leaving town, and using innovative building techniques that undercut people like Elfric. His disturbance of the power relations in town is allowed to continue so long as the town benefits economically from them. His ability to apply his knowledge of building is his most powerful tool when it comes to disrupting the smooth functioning of the guild and apprenticeship systems in a way that benefits both him and the town.

Caris initially engages in the same kinds of disturbances to order when she creates Kingsbridge scarlet; her near-death experience at her trial for witchcraft changes her approach, however, and the existential threat of the plague pushes her firmly in the camp of maintaining order. She notes closer to the end of the novel the irony of a woman who “despised orthodoxy and flouted convention” reimposing order in the plague-ridden town, while a man like Merthin is one of those who “flourished in an atmosphere of anarchy” (840). Whether others identify Caris’s moves as either anarchic or supporting the status quo is determined largely by how they see women. In the end, anarchy and order are neither inherently good nor bad. The responses of powerful people determine the impact of these states on the communities where anarchy upends order.