Peterborough Chronicle: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 00:33, 11 November 2005

Revision as of 01:09, 11 November 2005

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:"ævric rice man his castles maked and agenes him heolden; and fylden the land ful of castles. Hi suencten suythe the uurecce men of the land mid castelweorces; tha the castles uuaren maked, tha fylden hi mid deovles and yvele men. Tha namen hi tha men the hi wendan that any god hefden, bathe be nihtes and be dæies, carlmen and wimmen, and diden heom in prison and pined heom efter gold and sylver untellendlice pining; for ne uuaerern naevre mas martyrs swa pined alse hi waeron."

::("Every chieftain made castles and held them against the king; and they filled the land full of castles. They viciously oppressed the poor men of the land with castle-building work; when the castles were made, then they filled the land with devils and evil men. Then they seized those who had any goods, both by night and day, working men and women, and threw them into prison and tortured them for gold and silver with uncountable tortures, for never was there a martyr so tortured as these men were.")

The monastic author sympathizessympathises with the average farmer and artisan and talks about the devastation suffered by the countryside. He is outraged by the accounts of torture he relates and laments,

:"Me henged up bi the fet and smoked heom mid full smoke. Me henged bi the þumbes other bi the hefed and hengen bryniges on her fet. Me dide cnotted strenges abuton here hæued and wrythen it ðat it gæde to þe haernes.... I ne can nelne mai tellen alle ðe wunder ne all ðe pines that he diden wrecce men on ðis land."

::("One they hung by his feet and filled his lungs with smoke. One was hung up by the thumbs and another by the head and had coats of mail hung on his feet. One they put a knotted cord about his head and twisted it so that it went into the brains.... I neither can nor may recount all the atrocities nor all the tortures that they did on the wretched men of this land.")

Dearth and famine followed, as the farms were depleted and farmers murdered. If a mounted travelertraveller came to a village, the monk said, everyone fled, for fear that he was a robber knight of one of these barons. Trade therefore came to a standstill, and those in want had no way to get supplies. Those travelingtravelling with money to purchase food would be robbed or killed along the way. The barons said that there was no God. Common peasants, the monk says, thought that Jesus slept and that God had turned his face away from the land, and he says that "all this and more we suffered 19 winters for our sins."

After the account of The Anarchy, the chronicler goes on to church matters. He speaks of the abbot Martin, who replaced the illegitimate Henry, as a good abbot. Martin had a new roof put on the monastery and moved the monks into a new building. He also, according to the author, recovered certain monastic lands that had been previously held "by force" by noblemen. Which lands these are is unclear, but they had probably been claimed by the nobles through the practice of placing younger sons in monasteries, gifting and revoking the gift of land, and by some early form of [[chantry]]. The Chronicle ends with a new abbot entering upon the death of Martin, an abbot named William. This abbot presumably halted the writing of the Chronicle.