"The scene is London in 1399. The strangest and most interesting king in English history, Richard II, is on the throne. Over the past several years his reign has been troubled by peculiar signs and portents, and as the turn of the century approaches, there is talk of an apocalypse. Meanwhile a mad nun, who was born beneath the convent of Clerkenwell, is visited by visions of the future. As Sister Clarice's prophecies signal the beginning of dark days of reckoning and retribution, a mystery soon unfolds that involves a secret sect called the Predestined Men, who are plotting to overthrow the established Church, dethrone Richard, and set off explosions in churches in five parts of London; a double-crossing conspirator; and Sister Clarice herself." "Peter Ackroyd looks back to Chaucer, the great poet of the period, to tell the story of these mysterious events, creating at once a remarkable tribute to and a deft adaptation of The Canterbury Tales. Set against a backdrop of fourteenth-century London, Ackroyd evokes the squalor and splendor of the city at a time during which politics and religion, moral responsibility and superstition collide. A mystery of insurgency, The Clerkenwell Tales is a blend of well-researched fact and fiction."--BOOK JACKET