Cadfael: The Rose Rent

The Set-up: A man, Edward, lays in his bed writhing in agony, crying out in pain as his wife, Judith, holds his hand. Tears rolling down her face she asks where the healer is. Brother Cadfael (Derek Jacobi) walks in at that moment, with a special concoction to ease the man's horrible pain - milk of the poppy with the addition of hemlock. One thimble full will deaden the man's pain, Cadfael advises, and two thimbles full will deaden the pain forever.
The next scene is the funeral procession for Edward who has succumbed to his disease. The body is carried by Benedictine monks to be buried at the Abbey for Edward was a generous patron of the church, the Abbey in particular. It appears that a fair number of business owners in Shrewesbury have turned out for the funeral, and two stand and discuss which one of them will be man to marry the beautiful, wealthy dowager.
When next we see Brother Cadfael, he is comforting Judith and assuring her that she did the right thing by ending her husband's pain.

The Rest: Judith gives her home to the Abbey so that they may rent it out, but charges them the rent of one white rose per year from her favorite rose bush for the rest of her life, along with the brothers praying for her deceased husband's soul until judgement day arrives.  The young monk Eloric who cares for the rose and is responsible for delivering the yearly rent asks to be relieved of his job after the first delivery, for he has lust in his art for the widow; but he does not mention that after delivering the rose he was confronted by one of the business owners who wants to see Judith so he can start wooing her. Eloric sneaks out of the Abbey to go to the rose bush to pay for forgiveness and is murdered there.
After Eloric's murder, Judith considers going to a convent, but is kidnapped. We learn the kidnapper is one of her would-be suitors, but not the murder, for one of her man-servants discovers her location and is forced to flee only to fall in the river and be drowned by the killer, while the kidnapper is still with Judith.
Cadfael and the Sheriff (Eoin McCarthy) are mislead by a boot print at the scene of the first death, and by a witness after the second to think that the killer is the new bronzesmith, which of course it is not.

Commentary: I know that Ellis Peters did a lot of research for the books, which this and the other episodes of the series are based on, so I'm going to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt and say that they either did their own research or accepted hers in their portrayal of medieval life - in particular the life of the Benedictine monks. During the wedding processional, there is one fellow, a monk of course, who's job is to carry a mask in front of his face and every few steps turn to someone along the route, shove the mask at them and say "boo" - which I'm presuming is to keep evil spirits away. But, what I'm really thinking about is, will there be a new actor portraying Deputy Sheriff Hugh Beringar? And will he have even poofier hair? It took a while for him to appear, but yes! No wait... Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Hugh the second and a half! He has more hair and all of it's poofy, so I declare Hugh the second and a half the poofiest! (Yay poofy haired guy! Yay. Right?) I don't know how often folks changed their hairstyles in the Middle Ages. I presume it's not too different from now, so I guess he could have just gone for a more "natural" look, but the series 3 incarnation of Hugh Beringar has allowed the shaved sides and back to grow in to their full poofdom. I seriously thought it was a different actor until I got a good look at that mug of his.
Brother is Oswin is doing his best to follow in Cadfael's shoes and learn the ways of a detective, perhaps some day Peters will write the Chronicles of Brother Oswin.

The Proof: a bootprint which Cadfael makes a wax cast of.