September and October Summary

Catherine, Called Birdy opens in September of 1290. Catherine begins with some everyday details about her life: she talks about the fleas she has to pick out of her bedding and off of her body, about how she hates spinning and her father, and how she secretly wishes she were a villager and not the daughter of a country knight. She reveals that she is writing this journal because her brother, Edward, is a monk and taught her to write. She introduces the reader to Morwenna, her nurse, to her friend Perkin, the goat boy, and to her other brothers, Robert and Thomas, who are off on the Crusades. Although her father is a knight, the family is not wealthy, and Catherine's father keeps trying to marry her off to different men; this begins right away with a wool merchant...