Adam of the Road

Summary

Adam of the Road follows eleven-year-old Adam Quartermayne through a year of wandering in the England of Edward I, beginning in June 1294. Adam is boarding at the abbey school of St. Albans, learning his letters with his friend Perkin, a ploughman's son who longs to study at Oxford, while his red spaniel Nick lodges with an old woman, Dame Malkin, because dogs are not allowed at school. Adam's father, Roger, is a minstrel who has been in France gathering new romances, and Adam wants nothing more than to follow him. Roger rides up at last on his warhorse Bayard and takes Adam and Nick on the road. They join the household of Sir Edmund de Lisle, where Adam plays his harp, earns the respect of the knight's son Hugh by his horsemanship, and makes a friend of the daughter, Margery. At the wedding of Sir Edmund's daughter Emilie the minstrels gather, among them the smooth-tongued Jankin, and Roger gambles away his money and Bayard to him. Father and son set off on foot toward London, but at an inn Jankin slips away with Nick. Adam races after him, crosses the river at Guildford with the help of a ferryman's family, and loses both the thief and his father. Alone, he falls in with Daun William, a merchant whom he helps against an attack by a robber knight, and travels with him to St. Giles's Fair at Winchester, where he searches the crowds in vain. A fall while watching a play leaves him injured, and a kindly parish priest, Master Walter, and his sister, Dame Prudence, nurse him; Walter would make a clerk of him, but Adam keeps to his calling. He tries the company of a family of strolling players, leaves them over their thieving, and learns that Roger has recovered Bayard and gone to Sir Edmund's London house. Arriving there, he finds Roger has been called away to Wales, and he spends the winter in the household. Meeting Jankin on a frozen stream, he learns that Nick escaped from the thief long before. The trail leads back to St. Albans and on to Perkin's village, where Adam works to help Perkin go to Oxford. In Oxford Adam finds Perkin and Nick together, and Roger soon arrives. Offered a chance at schooling, Adam chooses to stay a minstrel at his father's side. The Viking Press published the novel in 1942 with drawings by Robert Lawson, and it received the Newbery Medal in 1943.

Plot or Argument

• St. Albans and the return of Roger

  Adam waits at the abbey school with Perkin, visits Nick at Dame Malkin's, and leaves school when Roger arrives on Bayard from France.

• Sir Edmund de Lisle's household

  Father and son serve a knightly family; Adam struggles with his harp before an audience, wins Hugh over in the saddle, and befriends Margery.

• The wedding and the wager

  At Emilie de Lisle's wedding Roger loses his purse and his horse Bayard to the minstrel Jankin, and the two set off on foot.

• Nick is stolen

  Jankin takes Nick from an inn; Adam chases him to the river at Guildford, is helped across by the ferryman's family, and loses track of both Jankin and Roger.

• With Daun William to Winchester

  Adam travels with a merchant, helps beat off a robber knight, and searches St. Giles's Fair without finding his father or his dog.

• Injury and the priest's house

  Hurt in a fall while watching a play, Adam is nursed by Master Walter and Dame Prudence and declines the offer to become a clerk.

• Players, London and winter

  Adam leaves a family of dishonest players, finds Roger gone to Wales from Sir Edmund's London house, winters there, and learns from Jankin that Nick ran away.

• Perkin's village and Oxford

  Adam returns to St. Albans, works in Perkin's village so his friend can study, and is reunited with Nick, Perkin and Roger at Oxford, choosing the road over the schoolroom.

Characters

• Adam Quartermayne, protagonist

  Eleven-year-old son of a minstrel, a harper and singer who wants to follow his father's trade.

• Roger, Adam's father

  A minstrel of romances who loves the road, generous and skilled but careless with dice.

• Nick, Adam's dog

  A red spaniel whose theft sets the whole search in motion.

• Perkin, friend

  A ploughman's son from the St. Albans school who hopes to become a scholar at Oxford.

• Jankin, antagonist

  A rival minstrel who wins Bayard from Roger and steals Nick.

• Sir Edmund de Lisle, patron

  The knight whose household Roger serves, with houses in the country and in London.

• Hugh and Margery de Lisle, the knight's children

  Hugh, first scornful and later friendly, and Margery, kind to Adam from the start.

• Daun William, merchant

  A trader who takes Adam along to the Winchester fair.

• Master Walter and Dame Prudence, caregivers

  A parish priest and his sister who nurse the injured Adam and hope to keep him.

Lessons

• A calling worth keeping

  Adam is offered safer lives more than once: a clerk's place with Master Walter and schooling at Oxford. He chooses the minstrel's trade because it is the work he loves and the work of his father. The novel shows a boy weighing comfort against vocation and learning what his chosen trade will demand of him.

  • Why does Adam refuse Master Walter's offer to train him as a clerk?
  • What does Adam know about the minstrel's life at the end that he did not know at the beginning?
  • Was Adam wise to turn down the chance to study at Oxford?

• Faithfulness in searching

  For months Adam keeps looking for Nick and Roger, through injury, winter and false leads. Gray makes the search the shape of the book, and Adam's persistence is rewarded only after he has also learned to help others along the way.

  • At what moment does Adam come closest to giving up, and what keeps him going?
  • How does helping Perkin's family lead Adam to what he was looking for?

• Strangers on the road

  A ferryman's family, a merchant, a priest and his sister all take in a boy they do not know. The players he travels with, by contrast, steal. The book teaches young readers to recognize trustworthy people and to see hospitality as a mark of a good life.

  • Which stranger shows Adam the greatest kindness, and what did it cost that person?
  • Why does Adam leave the company of players even though they offer him work?
  • How should Adam treat Jankin when he meets him again on the frozen stream?

• Fathers and their faults

  Roger is a loving father and a fine minstrel, but his gambling costs him Bayard and sets off every misfortune that follows. Adam continues to honor him without pretending the loss did not happen.

  • How does Adam feel about Roger's lost wager?
  • Can a son honor a father who has made a serious mistake?

Context

The novel is set in the reign of Edward I, in the 1290s, when minstrels travelled between noble households, fairs drew merchants from across Europe, and abbey schools such as that at St. Albans taught boys their letters in Latin and French. Its route links real places: St. Albans, Guildford, Winchester with its great St. Giles's Fair, London and Oxford, where the university was already a century old.

Composition

Gray began gathering material for stories of minstrels while researching her biography of William Penn in the Chiltern Hills, and the book grew around the boy Adam rather than around the minstrels' tales. Robert Lawson, who had won the Caldecott Medal in 1941, provided the illustrations, and the Viking Press issued the book in 1942.

Reception

Adam of the Road received the 1943 Newbery Medal from the American Library Association. Kirkus Reviews called it a good yarn, well told, and readers have praised the care of its historical detail about medieval travel, fairs, households and minstrelsy. It has remained in print and is widely read in history units on the Middle Ages.

Comparisons

• the-door-in-the-wall

  Another Newbery-winning story of a boy alone in medieval England, separated from his father; Robin must learn patience in a monastery while Adam learns it on the road.

• the-canterbury-tales

  Chaucer's pilgrims travel the roads of England about a century after Adam, telling the same kinds of romances and fabliaux a minstrel like Roger would carry.

• the-merry-adventures-of-robin-hood

  Pyle's greenwood ballads are the sort of minstrel material Roger performs, and both books show medieval England as a world of open roads, fairs and outlaws.

• the-black-arrow

  Stevenson's Dick Shelton is another boy thrown alone onto English roads in a time of disorder, though in the fifteenth-century Wars of the Roses rather than Edward I's peace.

• the-pilgrims-progress

  Bunyan's journey allegory and Gray's realistic road story share the shape of a traveller tested by companions good and bad, and Roger's saying that a road is holy echoes the pilgrim tradition.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Roger's teaching that a road is holy, and the moments when Adam recalls it while travelling alone.
• The wager at Emilie de Lisle's wedding, and how every later trouble flows from the loss of Bayard.
• Each stranger who helps Adam: the ferryman's family at Guildford, Daun William, Master Walter and Dame Prudence.
• Adam's harp, and how his playing changes from the nervous performance at Sir Edmund's hall to his later confidence.
• The two offers of a settled life, from Master Walter and at Oxford, and how Adam answers each.

Key terms and names

Minstrel

A travelling singer, harper and teller of romances who entertained in noble halls and at fairs. Roger is a minstrel of the better kind, and Adam is training to be one.

St. Albans

The abbey town north of London where Adam attends school with Perkin and where the search eventually leads him back.

St. Giles's Fair

The great autumn fair on St. Giles's Hill at Winchester, drawing merchants and entertainers; Adam searches its crowds for Roger and Nick.

Bayard

Roger's warhorse, a sign of his standing as a minstrel, lost to Jankin in a wager and later recovered.

Clerk

A man in minor church orders who could read and write and might serve a parish or a lord. Master Walter hopes Adam will become one.

Romance

A long tale of knights and adventure, often in French verse. Roger went to France to learn new ones for his English audiences.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why does Nick live with Dame Malkin instead of with Adam at the St. Albans school?
2. Comprehension How does Roger lose Bayard, and how does Jankin get hold of Nick?
3. Comprehension Who helps Adam after he is separated from his father, and what does each person do for him?
4. Interpretation Roger tells Adam that a road is a kind of holy thing. What does he mean, and how does Adam's journey test the saying?
5. Interpretation Why does Adam leave the family of players even though he is alone and needs work?
6. Interpretation How has Adam changed between his first nervous performance in Sir Edmund's hall and the reunion at Oxford?
7. Big Question Adam chooses his father's trade over schooling. How should a young person decide what work God is calling him or her to?

Faith Connections

• Psalm 121:8 (Scripture)

  The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in. Adam's year of goings out ends with a safe coming in at Oxford, and he prays for help at Winchester when the search seems hopeless.

• Luke 10:30-37 (Scripture)

  The Good Samaritan helps a stranger hurt on the road. Master Walter and Dame Prudence take in and nurse an injured boy they have never met, as the ferryman's family and Daun William also help him.

• Proverbs 17:17 (Scripture)

  A friend loveth at all times. Perkin keeps Nick safe, and Adam works in Perkin's village so that his friend can study at Oxford.

• Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, General Prologue (Great Conversation)

  Chaucer's pilgrims set out on the road to a holy shrine about a century after Adam's journey, telling tales as Roger does; the two books share a picture of the English road as a place of devotion, trade and storytelling.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: A boy who has known the road only at his father's side loses father, dog and horse through a gambler's wager and a thief's trick. Travelling alone, he is helped by honest strangers, refuses the dishonest, and keeps searching while he also gives help. Therefore he finds what he lost and returns to his father not as a dependent child but as a minstrel who has chosen the road knowing its hardships.

Rhetorical device: framing journey (circular structure). The book begins with Adam waiting at St. Albans for Roger and brings him back through St. Albans before the reunion at Oxford, so that the returning route shows how much the boy has grown.

Debate: Resolved: that Adam was right to choose the minstrel's life over a chance to study at Oxford.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Choose three people who help Adam after he loses Nick and Roger, and argue what each one teaches him about the kind of man and minstrel he wants to become.

Comparison with The Door in the Wall: Adam and Robin are both boys of medieval England separated from their fathers. Compare how each grows up while apart, and argue which boy's trial asks more of him.

Medical Lens

Medicine is incidental. After Adam is hurt in a fall at Winchester, he is nursed through his recovery in a parish priest's house by the priest and his sister, an accurate picture of the household and church-based care that served most medieval English people outside the few hospitals of religious foundations. No physician or treatment is described in detail.

• Winchester and Master Walter's house

  Adam's fall while watching a play at St. Giles's Fair and his convalescence under the care of Master Walter and Dame Prudence.

  Nursing Caregiving Pain

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  On a map of southern England, trace Adam's route from St. Albans to Guildford, Winchester, London, back to St. Albans and on to Oxford, labeling what happens at each stop.

• Fiction

  Tell the story of Nick's escape from Jankin and his journey home, from the dog's point of view.

• Poetry

  Write a short minstrel's song, with a refrain, that Adam might sing about his year on the road.

• Dialogue

  Write the conversation between Adam and Roger at Oxford when Roger offers Adam the chance to study.

Further Reading

• Windows for the Crown Prince, Elizabeth Gray Vining

  The author's own account of her years tutoring Crown Prince Akihito.

• Penn, Elizabeth Janet Gray

  Her biography of William Penn, whose research led to Adam of the Road.

• The Door in the Wall, Marguerite de Angeli