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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Effigy of Effigy in Great Malvern Church is in Monumental Effigies of Great Britain.
THIS unappropriated figure is of the same period with that of Longespee, Earl of Salisbury. There are some remarkable peculiarities in the arms which it bears. In the right hand is a formidable martel de fer, horseman's hammer, or pole-axe, formed on the same principle as the pick-axe of the labourer, but shorter in the head, which measures about nine inches, and has one cutting and one pointed end; apparently a most efficient weapon for breaking defensive armour, beating down and wounding opponents. In the left hand is a circular target, eighteen inches in diameter. On the left side is suspended the broad-bladed sword of the time.