Item: On losses
By the late spring of 1345, the king’s forces had suffered grievously at the hands of their enemies. None knew how but whilst the king’s ability continually to put large numbers of men in the field was increasingly restricted, the infidel were able to produce prodigious armies despite being so far from their heartland. In almost every battle King Phillippe’s beleaguered troops were outnumbered. It was a testimony to the king’s martial prowess that he not only won several encounters but even pushed he infidel back over the Loire for a short while. But the inevitable could not be postponed indefinitely, and at length, defeated in the field and unable to raise an army to defend it, in August, the king surrendered Anjou to the heathens and fell back upon Nantes.
Hither was he chased by his foes, and fighting a rearguard action throughout the county, the king’s forces held the enemy at bay until Advent Sunday, when faced with the inevitable, and in order to spare his people further suffering, with a heavy heart the king surrendered his great castle of Nantes to the infidel.
But these losses were as naught to that which befell the kingdom on the very eve before Christmas when it pleased the Almighty to take into his tender care the infant prince Edward. This was the most shocking news for the whole kingdom. The king sent a proclamation out to all religious houses and cathedrals up and down the land. The lord abbot showed me the manuscript and bade me lodge it safe within the abbey’s library. This is what it said:
Phillippe, by the grace of God king of England, Ireland and Scotland duke of Brittany et cetera earnestly require and ask your friendship now that we are solemnly and with devotion celebrating the obsequies of our beloved child, Edward, late prince. We require and request that you commend his soul to the most High God, with singing of masses and other aids of devout prayers, specially enjoining the same upon all the religious under your charge. Given under our signet this thirty first day of December in the year of our Lord 1345 at our royal city of York.
The lord abbot did as he was bidden and we sang a full requiem mass daily for three weeks, save on holy days, when prayers were offered for the soul of the infant prince at each of the divine offices. Our period of mourning ended at Candlemas but I am sure I was not the only brother who continued to remember prince Edward in our personal devotions for some time.
Item: Terra firma?
In the year of Grace 1346, towards the end of the month of February, there was a violent tremor that shook our house at Kirkstall. I had experienced a similar event in my youth, but this was a much more alarming experience. It was sometime between Vigils and Prime that I and the whole community were awoken by a violent disturbance that shook the whole of the dormitory. My cot was moved several feet toward that of my neighbour and books and other impedimenta were thrown to the floor from the stools on which they had so solidly rested but seconds beforehand. The movement was accompanied by a loud rushing sound, similar to that of a mighty wind. The phenomenon lasted no more than 10 or 15 seconds, but at the time it seemed to go on for ever. I am ashamed to relate that several of us broke the vow of silence such was our consternation. We confessed later that day at Chapter and were given but a light penance, for the lord abbot said that it was human nature to speculate upon the mysteries of God’s universe, and besides, there was nothing in the Rule that covered such an unearthly experience.
Item: An ailment
It was in this same year of our Lord that news reached us at Kirkstall of a strange ailment that was sweeping across Europe. People in their scores were succumbing to a most unpleasant illness from which it seemed once caught there was no escape. The symptoms were an initial rash, followed by sneezing and then the rash turned into sinister black swellings called buboes, which gave the illness its nickname of the Black Death. I pray earnestly that we will be spared this on our island kingdom, for maybe the ill humours will not be able to carry over the water.
With the losses in France, the sudden death of the heir to Phillippe’s throne, the earth tremor and now this deadly disease afflicting our brothers and sisters in Christ over the water, truly it seemed as if God and all his angels slept.
Domine Jesu Christi, qui me creasti, redemesti at preordinasti ad hoc quod sum, tu scis quid de me facere vis: fac de me secundum voluntatem tuam cum misericordia. Amen