Chronicle of William Nangis

PROLOGUE

Since the deeds of past ages are infinite, and those who have recorded them are very many, and since they cannot all be possessed or read by everyone, I have not thought it useless to gather a few things out of the countless many and compress them into a single compendium, which may provide both pleasure and profit to those who read. Jerome, that distinguished doctor of the Church and almost wholly versed in the Scriptures, speaks in such terms of the book of Chronicles that he declares a man to mock himself who claims knowledge of the divine Scriptures without it; and he adds the reason for his assertion, namely that it touches upon histories omitted in other books, by whose understanding innumerable questions of the Gospel are resolved. Therefore, one who is ignorant of history rightly mocks himself if he claims to possess knowledge either of Holy Scripture or of worldly wisdom. For, as a certain pagan author says, the life of others is our teacher, and he who is ignorant of the past rushes blindly into future events. Indeed, knowledge of histories or chronicles is useful for establishing or overturning claims, and for confirming or weakening privileges; and, after the grace and law of God, nothing more rightly and effectively instructs the living than knowledge of the deeds of their predecessors. For here is described how the world has unfolded, how it has been advanced or worn down by hardships; how things have changed, kingdoms transferred, and the glory of kingdoms brought to nothing; how, finally, after the coming of Christ, Christianity has grown, impiety fallen, and piety triumphed. It is clear that from the contemplation of such things arises both a contempt for the present and a regard for the future. For then, as Bede says, we profitably apply our minds to the Scriptures, when in them we consider not only the virtues and rewards of the just, but also the vices and punishments of the wicked, as incentives to live rightly.

Following, therefore, the ordered sequence established by Eusebius of Caesarea, Jerome, and Sigebert, monk of Gembloux, and inserting here and there certain statements of other doctors and historians, I have carried the thread of my narrative from the beginning of the world down to my own time. Eusebius, beginning from the birth of Abraham, arranged the succession of kingdoms and kings down to the vicennial celebration of Constantine the Great, emperor of the Romans. Jerome, translating that little work from Greek into Latin and adding certain things of his own, continued it down to the death of the emperor Valens. After him, Sigebert, instructed by much study and reading, wove it together with very careful order down to the year of Our Lord 1112. As for the rest, I, Brother Guillaume, monk of Saint-Denis in France, adding things that had indeed been set down by others, though not arranged in the same fashion, have composed them and compiled other matters of my own time. Moreover, I ask that no one reading this should accuse me of presumption because I have undertaken so great a work, nor condemn these writings before first examining carefully from where they are drawn and in what manner they are derived. For thus he may perceive that they are not the product of my own indiscretion, but have been faithfully drawn from the works of others.

1113. Sigibert, a monk of Gembloux, a most distinguished writer of times and reigns, when dying made an end of his chronicle. After this there followed him Brother William of Nangis, a monk of Saint-Denis in France.

In the same year Bernard of Clairvaux, with more than thirty companions, under Abbot Stephen Harding, entered Cîteaux Abbey, in the twenty-second year of his age; where how great a devotion and religious spirit, and how great a fervour he showed, can scarcely be expressed by the tongue. For from the very moment of his entrance he strove to afflict his body with such strict discipline that afterwards throughout his whole life he suffered from many infirmities; and it came about that after a short time the abbey of Cîteaux, which had been poor and barren in possessions and in people, now gave birth to several very noble abbeys¹. The first was La Ferté Abbey; the second Pontigny Abbey; the third Clairvaux Abbey; the fourth Morimond Abbey; the fifth Preuilly Abbey.

1114. In the district of Brabant, around Tournai, so great a snow fell on the ninth day before the Kalends of May [23rd April 1114] that it even broke the forests by its weight. Near Ravenna and Parma, cities of Italy, in the fields and within the walls, blood rained in the month of June. Also on the Ides of November [13th April], in the suburb of Antioch, the earth opening by night swallowed many towers and many neighbouring houses with their inhabitants.

Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, went with Roger, count of Antioch¹, against the Turks; but when Roger, with his army, had halted beside a certain river, the king advanced with his own forces to reconnoitre the approach of the Turks. The Turks, however, having occupied a certain mountain, laid ambushes in four places, assigning four thousand horsemen to each ambush. From these, Baldwin was suddenly surrounded on all sides, and, after fifteen hundred of his men had been slain, he escaped by a wretched flight. The Turks utterly destroyed the monastery situated on Mount Tabor, killed the monks, and plundered everything there.

Note 1. Baldwin I of Jerusalem, brother of Godfrey of Bouillon, succeeded him in the year 1100 and reigned until 1118. Roger of Salerno, son of Richard, seneschal of Apulia, and son-in-law of Hugh I of Rethel, governed in 1114 the principality of Antioch as guardian of Prince Bohemond II of Antioch.

Note 2. Such is the reading of our manuscript and of no. 4918. The other manuscripts and the editions read præcessit i.e. preceeded.

At that same time three councils were also held in Gaul by Conon, legate of the Apostolic See: the first at Reims, the second at Beauvais, the third at Châlons¹.

Note 1. Council of Beauvais, 6th December 1114; council of Reims, 22nd March 1115; council of Châlons-sur-Marne, 12th July 1115. In these three councils the emperor Henry V was excommunicated.

King Louis of France¹ lays siege to the castle of Gournay-sur-Marne against Hugh of Pomponne, lord of Crécy, who, intent on plundering, despoiled the ships of merchants passing along the river and carried the spoils to Gournay. There came, however, to the aid of the said Hugh Guy the Red, lord of Rochefort, the father of Hugh himself, and Theobald², count of Champagne; but as the king fought valiantly, he put them to flight, received the castle into surrender, and entrusted it to the Garlande³ family.

Note 1. Louis VI, called the Fat. He reigned from 1108 until 1137.

Note 2. Theobald IV, called ‘the Great,’ Count of Blois, of Chartres, and of Brie in 1102, and of Champagne in 1125; died on 8 January 1152.

Note 3. The Garlande brothers were then four in number, assuming that Gilbert, the eldest, had died in the East, where he had distinguished himself in the First Crusade. They were Anseau, seneschal, to whom Louis the Fat gave the lordship of Gournai-sur-Marne; Guillaume, who replaced his brother in the office of seneschal in 1118; Gilbert the Younger, lord of Garlande and of Livri, cup-bearer of France in 1126; and finally Étienne, bishop of Beauvais, archdeacon of Paris and chancellor of France from 1108, who in turn also held the office of seneschal after the death of his brother Guillaume. Anselm, vol. V, p. 1, 31 and following. The events recounted here by our chronicler are explained in the Life of Louis the Fat by Suger, Chapter 11: 'When therefore the day had been appointed on which the aforesaid Count Theobald would bring reinforcements and remove the siege by force of arms, the lord king gathered the army he could, not at a distance but close at hand, and, mindful of the excellence of royal dignity, boldly eager for battle, leaving the tents and their defenders behind, advanced joyfully to meet him. Sending someone ahead to report that they were coming and wished to fight, he himself summoned the barons, arranged the cavalry and infantry in battle order, and set the archers and spearmen in their proper places. When they caught sight of one another, the trumpets sounded, the courage of horses and riders was stirred, and battle was joined very quickly. The Franks, however, continually trained in war, attacked the men of Brie, unused to fighting because of long peace, drove them back, overthrew them with lances and swords, pressed on with the victory, and did not cease to attack them vigorously both with cavalry and infantry until they turned their backs and sought safety in flight. The count himself, preferring to be first rather than last in fleeing, so that he might not be captured, tried to escape and return home, abandoning his army. In that engagement some were killed, many were wounded, and many more were captured, making the victory famous and celebrated everywhere. Having thus obtained so great and timely a victory, Lord Louis returned to his camp, drove out the townsmen who had been deceived by false hopes, kept the castle for himself, and entrusted it to the men of the house of Garlande.'

Ivo, bishop of Chartres, who compiled that book which they call the Decrees of Ivo, died; to him succeeded Geoffrey, a man of venerable life¹.

Note 1. The testimonies do not agree on the date of the death of Ivo of Chartres. The authors of the Histoire littéraire adopted the opinion of Mabillon, who places it in the year 1116 (vol. X, p. 113). But Geoffrey of Lèves, his successor, was certainly bishop of Chartres at the beginning of that year; on the other hand, there exists a charter of Ivo dated 1115. One must therefore rely on the necrologies of the cathedral of Chartres and of Saint-Jean-en-Vallée, which place the death of the holy prelate on the 10th of the Kalends of January 1115, that is to say, 23rd December 1115. Gallia Christiana, vol. VIII, col. 1131 and following.

1115. Around the same time, Louis, king of France, was so pressed by his neighbouring barons and knights that he could scarcely go out safely from the city of Paris. At last, by the power of God and the help of the blessed martyrs Dionysius, Rusticus, and Eleutherius, whose aid he always invoked, he took courage against his enemies, and very powerfully subdued Hugh of Puiset in Beauce and Theobald, count of Blois, and completely destroyed the castle of Puiset. He also permanently disinherited Odo, count of Corbeil, Hugh of Crécy, Guy of Rochefort the count, and Thomas of Marle, a tyrant who opposed him; he likewise overcame Aimon, lord of Bourbon, dismantling his fortifications, and brought the towns of all the aforesaid men back under his jurisdiction. Moreover, fighting at various times and in different campaigns with Henry, king of England¹, he often defeated him in remarkable warfare.

Note 1. Henry I, called Beauclerc and the Lion, third son of William the Conqueror, crowned in August 1100, died on 1 December 1135.

Lambert, bishop of Arras, of good memory, died. From the time of Saint Vedast up to him, the church of Arras, deprived of its own bishop, had been subject to the bishop of Cambrai.

The monastery of Clairvaux is founded under its first abbot, Saint Bernard. Clairvaux, moreover, is not far from the river Aube; in ancient times it was a den of robbers and was called the Valley of Wormwood because of the bitterness that befell those who fell among the robbers. At that time the monks living there often prepared for themselves a dish from beech leaves. Their bread was like that prophetic bread made from barley, millet, and vetch, and it appeared more earthy than made of bran.

The monastery of Pontigny is also founded.

1116. While a certain priest was celebrating Mass in the monastery of Dol, a child appeared on the altar in place of the host.

At this time Norbert, founder of the Premonstratensian order, born in Lotharingia, renowned for wealth, lineage, and eloquence, inflamed with divine fervor and ordained a priest, clothed himself in the garment of Christ’s poverty; and, following Christ in poverty and spreading everywhere the word of preaching with bare feet, he converted many from error.

1117. Anselm, the most renowned master of the city of Laon, famous for his learning, died; he, among his other works, arranged marginal and interlinear glosses on the Psalter.

There also died Alexius, emperor of the Greeks, to whom his son John succeeded.

Note 1. John Komnenus succeeded his father, Alexios I, on 15 August 1118.

1118. The king of Jerusalem, Baldwin I, died; he was succeeded by Baldwin of Bourcq¹, his kinsman, count of the city of Roas, which was formerly called Edessa.

Note 1. Baldwin I died on 2nd April 1118. Baldwin II of Bourcq, son of Hugh I, Count of Rethel, crowned on Easter Day in the year 1118, died on 21st August 1131.

In the month of January, in some places earthquakes occurred, milder in some areas and stronger in others, so that parts of certain cities, together with their churches, are said to have collapsed. The river Meuse also, near the abbey called Sustula, seemed, as if hanging in the air, to have abandoned its bed. In the same year the city of Liège was struck by many calamities. In the month of May, on the fifth day before the Nones [3rd May 1118], while Vespers were being celebrated in the principal church, suddenly thunder with an earthquake threw everyone to the ground, and lightning, entering from the left side of the church, burned the altar curtains and leapt here and there. Then entering the tower, it split many beams. An intolerable stench followed, so that it could scarcely be driven away even with much incense. Likewise, in the month of June, on the seventh day before the Ides [7th June], about the ninth hour, a rain-cloud suddenly torn away from the mountain called Robert overwhelmed and utterly destroyed the part of the city lying beneath it, so that it threw down many houses and destroyed an immense quantity of provisions. It also killed a woman who was holding two infants in her arms, one on each side, and crushed eight other people in different places. While the bells were ringing for Vespers on Saturday, a certain woman, while washing a boy’s head, had her hands reddened with flowing blood. On the Kalends of July [1st July 1118], about the sixth hour, a very violent and dark whirlwind covered the city, and a cloud suddenly split apart struck the entire roof of the great church so that it was left open to the rain and the whole pavement was flooded. Immediately lightning, entering from the north side, killed a cleric reading in the pulpit behind the altar of Saints Cosmas and Damian, another praying before the crucifix, and a third coming out of the church scriptorium at the very entrance of the church.

A certain monster was born at Namur, the like of which has never or rarely been seen, namely a two-headed infant. This child was double in sex, but in the rest of the body’s structure it was single.

On the thirteenth day before the Kalends of January [20th December 1118], in the first hour of the night, fiery lines appeared in the sky from the north toward the east; then, scattered across the whole sky, they were for a great part of the night a marvel and astonishment to those who saw them.

Pope Paschal died; he was succeeded by John, chancellor of the Roman Church, who was called Gelasius. But the emperor Henry, since he had not been present at the election, set over him a certain Spaniard named Burdinus. Pope Gelasius, however, since he was driven from the holy see by the emperor and by the tyranny of the Romans, fled for protection and refuge to Louis, king of France, and to the compassion of the Gallican Church, as the Roman pontiffs his predecessors had formerly been accustomed to do, and he convoked a council at Reims.

At this time the abbey of Preuilly was founded by Theobald, count of Champagne, and by his mother Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, who had married Stephen, count of Chartres.

1119. Pope Gelasius died at Cluny and was buried there; he was succeeded by Guy, archbishop of Vienne, brother of Stephen, count of Burgundy, and was consecrated at Cluny and was called Calixtus II. He held the council at Reims which his predecessor had convened, where simoniacs and those demanding payment for burial, chrism, or baptism were excommunicated; and there the keeping of wives and concubines was completely forbidden to priests, deacons, and subdeacons.

While he was there negotiating with the envoys of the emperor for the reconciliation of the emperor and the Church, and had made no progress, Pope Calixtus excommunicated the emperor himself together with his supporters.

Then Baldwin, count of Flanders, nephew of Pope Calixtus through his sister Clementia¹, wishing to establish William, son of Robert, duke of Normandy, who had been held captive by Henry, king of England, in the inheritance of his father, after occupying a large part of Normandy, was struck on the head and died from the wound². His cousin Charles, son of King Cnut³ of the Danes, succeeded him in the county. William⁴, however, son of Robert, duke of Normandy, married the sister of the wife of Louis, king of France, and after the death of Count Charles⁵ the county of Flanders was granted to him.

Note 1. Clementia, daughter of William the Great, count of Burgundy, and sister of Pope Calixtus, had by her first husband, Robert II, count of Flanders, who died in 1111, three sons, two of whom William and Philip died in childhood before their father. The third, Baldwin of the Axe, or Hapkin, took the county of Flanders in 1111.

Note 2. Baldwin, Count of Flanders was killed at the Battle of Bures-en-Bray on 17th July 1119.

Note 3. King Cnut IV of Denmark, around 1042-1096.

Note 4. William Clito, son of Robert Curthose, duke of Normandy, married in the year 1127 Joan, daughter of Rainier, marquis of Montferrat, maternal half-sister of Adelaide, wife of Louis the Fat, and, through the intervention of this monarch, was elected count of Flanders after the death of Charles the Good, which occurred on 2 March of the same year. See below under the year 1127.

Note 5. Charles, Count of Flanders, 1084-1127, was murdered whilst at church in Bruges.

Tunc Balduinus, comes Flandriae, Calixti papæ de sorore Clementia nepos, volens Guillermum, filium Roberti ducis Normanniae, a Henrico rege Angliæ captivatum, in hereditatem patris instituere, post occupatam magnam Normanniae partem, in capite vulneratus [a militibus Angliæ regis], occubuit; cui consobrinus ejus Karolus, Canuti (i) reg is Danorum filius, in comitatu successit. Guillermus vero, filius Roberti dticis Normannise, duxit in uxorem sororem uxoris Ludoreici regis Franciæ, concessa ei Flandria post obi turn. Karoli comitis (2).

1120. The Order of Prémontré began; the founder of that place and order was the man of God Norbert. At the same time the Order of the Knights of the Temple also took its beginning under Hugh¹, their master.

Note 1. Hugh of Payens, of the house of the counts of Champagne. He died in 1136.

At Vézelay, on the vigil [21st July 1120] of Saint Mary Magdalene, by some uncertain judgment of God, countless people of both sexes and of every age and rank were burned when the church suddenly caught fire at the twilight of night and day.

Pope Calixtus, after the Council of Reims, set out for Rome and was gloriously received by the whole senate and people. He had not remained long in the see when the Romans, favoring both his noble birth and his generosity, captured Burdinus, the schismatic and antipope, who was residing at Succa¹ and was forcing clerics passing to the thresholds of the Apostles to kneel. Clothing him in raw and blood-stained goatskins, they led him through the middle of the city and, by command of Pope Calixtus, condemned him to perpetual imprisonment in the mountainous regions of Campania. To preserve the memory of so great a vengeance, they depicted him trampled under the feet of the lord pope in a chamber of the palace.

1121. Henry, king of England, took as wife Adeliza¹, daughter of the duke of Louvain, because of her beauty, for she was very beautiful.

Note 1. Three months after the White Ship Disaster King Henry I of England married Adeliza of Louvain, he aged fifty-three, she eighteen, no doubt to provide an heir given his son William Adelin had drowned in that disaster and his only remaining legitimate child was Empress Matilda. Despite having more than twenty illegitimate children, and being married for fourteen years, Henry and Adeliza had no issue. Following King Henry's death in 1135 she married William D'Aubigny, Earl of Lincoln and Arundel, with whom she had seven children.

In the same year the abbey of the Oratory [Map] was founded in the diocese of Angers by Fulk, count of Anjou, and his wife Ermengarde.

Eodem anno fundatur abbatia Oratorii in episcopatu Andegavensi, a Fulcone comite Andegavensi (2) et Eremburge. ejus uxore.

Note 1. Fulk V, called the Young, count of Anjou in 1109, king of Jerusalem in 1151, died on 13 November 1143. It was on returning from a first journey to the Holy Land that he founded, on 4th September 1121, the abbey of Notre-Dame du Loroux [Map] in the diocese of Angers.

1122. At this time the church of Auxerre was governed by Lord Hugh, the devout abbot of Saint-Germain of Auxerre, nephew of Saint Hugh of Cluny, a man distinguished for his virtues and forever worthy of veneration.

Suger, a monk of Saint-Denis, renowned for his knowledge of the Scriptures and promoted only to the order of the diaconate, was sent by Louis, king of France, to the Roman court on matters of the kingdom. While he was returning, his abbot Adam having died, he was elected abbot; and, when he had returned in the presence of the king, first ordained priest, he was blessed by the archbishop of Bourges in the church of Saint-Denis.

1123. At Rome, under Pope Calixtus, a council of three hundred or more bishops was held, in which peace between the kingdom and the priesthood concerning the dispute over episcopal investitures was restored. There the privilege that the emperor Henry had extorted from Pope Paschal regarding investitures was annulled and declared void by a perpetual anathema.

In the church of Saint-Denis, in the diocese of Paris, religious discipline was reformed through the diligence and good purpose of Suger, abbot of that place. For, through the negligence of the abbots and of certain monks of that church, the regular observance had been so cast aside there that the monks scarcely maintained even the appearance or habit of religion.

Note 1. These words, 'or habit', are given only by manuscript 10298-6.

After the death of Daimbert, archbishop of Sens, Henry, surnamed Aper, succeeded him.

The church of Saint Martin of Tours and the castle were burned during a conflict between the clergy and the townspeople.

1124. Pope Calixtus died; he was succeeded by Lambert, bishop of Ostia, who was called Honorius II.

Fulk, count of Anjou, captured the castle of Montreuil, which he had besieged against Girard Berloi¹.

Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, was captured by the Saracens when they attacked him unexpectedly; but after a long captivity he was released upon payment of money.

Emperor Henry, having long harboured resentment in his heart against Louis, king of France, because in the kingdom, at Reims, he had been bound by an anathema in the council of Pope Calixtus, gathered a great multitude of troops and resolved to invade France, intending to destroy the city of Reims by the sword. But when Louis, king of the Franks, came to meet him with a large army, the emperor, fearing the boldness and valour of the French, very quickly withdrew to his own lands.

When the Franks learned of this, they could scarcely restrain themselves from devastating the land of the emperor, and did so only at the prayer of the archbishops, bishops, and religious men.

1125. The winter was harsher than usual with frost and extremely dreadful and oppressive because of the accumulation of frequently falling snow. Many poor children and women died from the severity of the cold. In many fishponds the fish, trapped beneath the ice, perished; for the ice was so thick and strong that loaded vehicles were drawn over it and people rode as if over solid ground. In Brabant countless eels, driven from their marshes because of the ice, fled and hid in haylofts, something remarkable to relate; but there, overcome by the excessive cold, they died and rotted. The mortality of animals was also very great. After the winter there followed an unhealthy state of the weather, with snow, rain, and frost alternating in turn, quite harmful until the middle of March. Afterwards the trees scarcely flowered even in the month of May, and the earth barely revived with the greenness of herbs and grasses. Rain then afterwards fell continually each month and almost destroyed the crops of the fields; for rye and oats largely failed to produce their expected yield. Many people were also afflicted with the sacred fire.

Tyre, besieged by the Christians by land and sea, was captured and brought under the rule of Christ.

A great famine also devastated the kingdom of France.

1126. In Spain a low-born woman gave birth to a monster of a double body, joined together with their faces and bodies turned away from one another. In front it had the appearance of a human being, with the whole order of body and limbs complete; but behind it had the face of a dog, likewise with the form and limbs of the body intact. In Brabant, in the village of Nerisca, another woman gave birth to four boys in a single birth.

Emperor Henry, moved by repentance, abandoned the empire and, withdrawn from the knowledge of men, was afterwards neither seen nor recognized. Some, however, said that he was seen at Angers in a hospital for the poor and, having been recognized by his wife through confession, died and was buried there. Elsewhere it is written that, while coming to celebrate Pentecost at Utrecht, he died of the dragon's disease¹, to which he had been subject from birth. His body, the entrails having been removed and sprinkled with salt, was taken to Speyer.

Note 1. Henry, V Holy Roman Emperor, died at Utrecht on 23rd May 1125, leaving the empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I, king of England, a widow without children.

The emperor having thus died, the empress Matilda, his wife, being without children, returned to her father Henry, king of England.

At that time Hugh of Saint-Victor, canon of Saint-Victor in Paris, flourished, renowned for his religious life and learning, and second to none of his time in mastery of the seven liberal arts. Among the many useful works he wrote, he also produced a very necessary book on the sacraments, contained in two volumes¹.

After the death, or disappearance, as said above, of the emperor Henry, when certain princes of Swabia and Alemannia wished to raise Conrad¹, the nephew of Emperor Henry, to the kingship, others advanced Lothair, duke of Saxony, a man of counsel and warlike character, as king.

Note 1. Conrad, duke of Franconia and of the Rhenish Francia, did not reign until after Lothair, duke of Saxony, who was elected on 30 August 1125 and died in December 1157. The date of Lothair’s election has led us to leave this paragraph under the year 1126, as in the previous editions, although in manuscript 10298-6 it is placed at the beginning of the year 1127.

1127. In Syria the army of the Christians fought the Saracens twice. In the first battle two thousand five hundred of the pagans fell, while only fifteen Christians were killed. In the second, however, the Christians did not have a bloodless victory; but although a very great part of them perished, yet, strengthened by the help of God, they crushed and defeated the enemy in countless numbers.

Norbert, founder of Prémontré and its first abbot, was elected archbishop of the city of Parthenopolis, that is, Magdeburg.

Charles, count of Flanders, son of the king of the Danes, who had succeeded Baldwin, son of Robert of Jerusalem, by right of kinship, was killed by treachery by Burchard, provost of the church of Bruges¹, while he was hearing Mass in the church of Saint Donatian the martyr at Bruges during the days of Lent. This crime was quickly and vigorously avenged by Louis, king of France, for by various punishments he chastised all the traitors who had killed Charles. He was succeeded in the county of Flanders by the election of the princes and with the aid of Louis, King of the Franks, by William, son of Robert, duke of Normandy, whom his uncle Henry, king of England, had disinherited while his father was imprisoned. Henry, king of England, stirring up the princes of Flanders against the said William, his nephew, caused them to summon Thierry of Alsace, cousin of Charles, against him. When William died after two years, the princes raised Thierry to the principality of Flanders².

Note 1. In manuscripts 4917–20 and in the earlier editions one reads: 'a Buchardo nepote Buchardi Brugensis ecclesiæ præpositi'. Both readings may equally be accepted. Bouchard, nephew of the provost of Bruges, had particular motives of hatred and vengeance against Charles the Good. He was in fact one of the leaders of the conspirators and, according to Suger's Life of Louis the Fat, the one who struck off the count’s head with a sword blow: "When therefore he had come to Bruges one day and, early in the morning, was present in the church of God, lying prostrate on the pavement and holding a book of prayers in his hand, he was praying when suddenly a certain Burchard, nephew of the aforementioned provost, a savage henchman, together with others of the same most wicked stock and other accomplices in that vile treachery, silently approached him from behind as he prayed, indeed as he spoke with God. Carefully drawing his sword, he gently touched the count’s neck as it lay bowed to the ground so that, when it was raised slightly, it might unexpectedly meet the striker’s blade; placing the sword against him, with a single blow the impious man most wickedly beheaded the pious one, the servant his lord." But the provost himself was the soul of the conspiracy; only the name of this provost is distorted in all the manuscripts of our Chronicle, his name was Bertulf. See Galbert, Life of Charles the Good: "It was in the year 1127, on Wednesday, the second day of the month of March and the third of the second week of Lent. The pious count was at Bruges, in the church of Saint-Donatian, prostrate to hear the morning Mass. According to his devout custom, he was distributing alms to the poor, his eyes fixed on his book of psalms and his right hand extended to give charity. His chaplain, charged with this duty, had placed many coins near the count, which he distributed while continuing his prayers. When the Pater Noster had been recited, the count, as was his custom, began to pray and to read aloud. Then, after so many counsels, oaths, and pledges which they had given one another, already murderers in their hearts, the detestable traitors struck the count while he was absorbed in devout prayer and giving alms, humbly prostrate before the divine majesty. They pierced him repeatedly with their swords and left him dead. Thus his sins were washed away by the streams of his blood, and his life, having ended in good works, the count obtained from God the palm of martyrdom. As death approached, amid the blows and wounds, he strove to raise his face and his royal hands toward the Lord of all men, offering himself to God as the morning sacrifice. His blood-stained body was abandoned and remained without the respectful care of his servants. He received no funeral honours except the tears of those who learned of this event and who, weeping, called upon God for so great a prince who had died a martyr."

Note 2. Thierry of Alsace remained the peaceful possessor of the county of Flanders after the death of William Clito, which occurred on 27 July 1128.

Gilbert, archbishop of Tours, died; he was succeeded by Hildebrand¹, previously bishop of Le Mans, renowned for his skill in versifying and composing prose, of whom someone said:

Illustrious both in prose and in verse, first in all things,

Note 1. Commonly Hildebertus. (Note by d’Achery.)

Note 2. Ms. 4919, 'Hildebrand certainly smells of roses.'

1128. Many in the kingdom of France were afflicted with the sacred fire; gathering at Soissons in the church of the blessed Mary, Mother of God, they were healed by the merits and prayers of that most holy Virgin.

At Laon, in the church of Saint John, by the counsel of Louis, king of France, and of the princes, the nuns who were of ill repute having been expelled, monks were placed in their stead. There Drogo, venerable for his religious life and eloquence, was ordained the first abbot by Bartholomew, bishop of Laon; he was later consecrated at Rome by Pope Innocent II as cardinal bishop of Ostia.

Fulk, count of Anjou, leaving the county of Anjou to his son Geoffrey and setting out for Syria, took as wife¹ Melisende, the eldest daughter of Baldwin, king of Jerusalem.

Note 1. Fulk, count of Anjou and Melisende were married on 2nd June 1129. When her father Baldwin II died in 1131 Fulk and Melisende became King and Queen of Jerusalem.

Louis, king of the Franks, raised an army against Thomas of Marle, lord of Coucy. Ralph, count of Vermandois, coming to his aid and engaging in battle with the said Thomas, delivered him to King Louis mortally wounded; and shortly afterwards, deprived of the divine Eucharist, he wickedly breathed out his spirit. He had indeed grievously troubled the churches of that land and robbed passing merchants of their goods¹.

Note 1. For the life of Thomas of Marle, the History of the House of Coucy by A.; and the History of the Counts of Amiens by Du Cange, book IV, chapters 1 and 2 and Suger, Life of Louis the Fat, Chapter 31: "Yet the utterly wicked man [Thomas] could be compelled neither by wounds, nor by imprisonment, nor by threats, nor by entreaties to restore the merchants whom he had treacherously robbed under safe-conduct and kept imprisoned with all their goods. When, by royal permission, he had summoned his wife [Ida of Hainaut], he seemed to grieve more over the restitution demanded for the merchants than over the loss of his life. And when, already almost pressed to death by the extreme pain of his wounds, many urged him to confess and receive the viaticum, he scarcely consented. But when the Body of the Lord was brought by the priest into the chamber where the wretched man lay, as though the Lord Jesus himself would not in any way enter the miserable vessel of a man who did not repent, no sooner had that wicked man raised his neck than it suddenly snapped back broken, and he breathed out his foul spirit deprived of the divine Eucharist. The king, disdaining to pursue further either the dead man or the dead man’s lands, compelled his wife and sons to free the merchants and to surrender the greater part of his treasures; and, peace having been restored to the churches by the death of the tyrant, he returned victoriously to Paris."

1129. Norbert the archbishop, at Magdeburg in the church of Saint Mary, removed the secular canons and installed brothers of the Premonstratensian order.

Philip, the firstborn son of Louis, king of the Franks, was anointed king at Reims on Easter Day, in the presence of his father and of Henry, king of England.

Note 1. This young prince Philip was born on 29 August 1116; he died at the age of fifteen, on 30 October 1131.

Certain nuns of ill repute were expelled from the church of the Blessed Mary of Argenteuil, and the church, which had formerly belonged to the church of Saint-Denis, was restored to the right and property of the said Saint-Denis through the efforts of Abbot Suger; monks from the church of Saint-Denis were installed there in their place. The church of Ursicamp near Noyon and the abbey of Vallis-Lucens were founded.

Matilda the empress, daughter of Henry, king of England, was given in marriage [on 17th June 1128] to Geoffrey, count of Anjou. By her he fathered Henry, who later became king of England, and William Longsword, and Geoffrey Plantagent, who took as wife the daughter of Conan, count of Brittany¹, together with the county.

Note 1. The author here is incorrect. Geoffrey Planatagenet, son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Empress Matilda, did not marry. He did, in 1152, attempt, unsuccessfully, to abduct Eleanor of Aquitaine following the annulment of her marriage to King Louis VII; two months later she married his older brother Henry, the future King. It was Geoffrey, son of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine who married Constance, daughter of Conan, Duke of Brittany, and who became Duke of Brittany, when they married.

1130. After the death of Pope Honorius, Cardinal Gregory and Peter Leonis were elected to the papacy. Gregory took the name Innocent II, and Peter the name Anacletus; and the Roman Church was troubled by a serious schism. Since Peter, because of the strength of his family, remained at Saint Peter’s, Innocent left Rome and came to Gaul. Meanwhile a council was convened at Étampes by Louis, king of France, and by the Gallican Church. Saint Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, persuaded them to recognize Innocent, whom King Louis of France afterwards received with honour at Orléans.

From there he was led to Chartres by Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres, a man of great virtues, where Henry, king of England, met him with honour. Visiting the Gallican Church as circumstances required, he then made his way to the regions of Lorraine. There, at Liège, the emperor Lothair, meeting him with a great company of archbishops, bishops, and nobles of the German kingdom, most humbly offered himself as his strator [one who leads the horse]. Taking the horse’s bridle in one hand and a staff in the other to clear the way, he led the pope through the midst of the sacred procession to the episcopal church, as though leading his lord. When he dismounted, the whole procession supporting him, he carried him forward, thereby making the exalted dignity of his fatherhood known to all, both known and unknown. After this the pope returned to France and celebrated Easter at Saint-Denis.

A monastery at Belmont was founded, with Alexander as its first abbot, by Robert de Candos, above the Dead Sea.

1131. Philip, a boy, son of Louis, king of France, recently anointed king of the Franks, while riding on horseback in the city of Paris, when a pig by chance ran beneath the horse’s feet, caused the horse to fall headlong upon him, his head being dashed against the pavement, and by his sudden and pitiable death [on 13th October 1131] brought grief upon the French. His body, however, was buried in the church of Saint Denis. For at about the same time [as is found in the life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux]¹ Louis, king of France [his father], was hostile toward certain bishops of his kingdom, whom he had driven from their cities and sees. For the restoration of peace among them Saint Bernard, sending several letters² to the king, achieved nothing. It afterwards happened that, with the holy man Bernard present, many bishops, wishing to soften the king’s anger, threw themselves down in all humility and held only his feet, yet even so they obtained no favor. Because of this the man of God, Bernard, moved by bold religious zeal, on the next day rebuked the king more harshly for having despised the Lord’s priests, and freely declared to him what had been revealed to him that same night: "This obstinacy," he said, "shall be punished by the death of your firstborn son Philip," which indeed happened, as is clear above.

MCXXXI. Philippus puer, regis Franciæ Ludovici filius, nuper in regem Francorum unctus, dum in civitate Parisius equo vehitur, porcus equi pedibus se forte submittens, equum super ipsum prapcipitem dedit [capite ejus ad pavimentum illiso], et de ejus subita et miseranda morte Francis luctum induxit. Corpus vero ejus in ecclesia beati Dionysii est sepultum. Infensus enim erat circa idem tempus [sicut invenitur in vita sancti Bernardi Clarevallis] (2), rex Franciæ Ludovicus [pater ejus] quibusdam episcopis regni sui, suisque eoscivitatibus et sedibus exturbarat. Pro quorum pace reformanda sanctus. Bernardus plures epistolas (3) regi mittens nihil profecit. Accidit autem [postea] ut Præsente sancto viro Bernardo episcopi multi, regis indignationem flectere cupientes, tota humilitate prostrati solotenus ejus tenerent vestigia et nec sic gratiam obtinerent. Qua ex re vir Dei Bernardus, animosa religiositate permotus, altera die regem durius increpans quod sprevisset Domini sacerdotes, libereeidem denuntiavit quod eadem nocte sibi fuerat revelatum: «Haec, inquit, obstinatio primogeniti tui Philippi morte «mulctabitur»; quod ita accidit sicut patet superius.

A great synod is held at Reims by Pope Innocent II, in which, many things having been arranged for the honour of God, Lord Innocent crowned Louis, [another son of Louis, king of the Franks], in place of his brother Philip, whom a pig had killed after he had been thrown from his horse, as king while his father was still living.

The church of Saint Medard at Soissons is consecrated by Pope Innocent.

Baldwin of Bourcq, king of Jerusalem, died [on 21st August 1131]; he was succeeded by his son-in-law Fulk [count of Anjou].

1132. The holy man Hugh, bishop of Grenoble, died; his very religious life was written by Guigo, prior of the Chartreuse. At about this time the appearance of the Church was beautiful and splendid, surrounded by the diversity of various orders and professions: while on the one hand the Cluniac and Cistercian monks, and on the other the Premonstratensians and the regular canons, and also nuns and women devoted to God of different habits and professions, living in continence and poverty under the yoke of obedience according to rule, stirred one another by the fervor of religion and competed in founding new monasteries in various places. Along with these, the Carthusian monks also were gradually spreading, especially throughout Gaul. Being more continent than the others, they set limits to the plague of avarice, by which we see many laboring under the habit of religion, since they established a fixed number of possessions and animals which they were in no way permitted to exceed. And each of them, having his own cell, seldom came together except either for the worship of God or for mutual consolation in charity; thus they chose more perfectly to die to the world and, the more diligently as they lived more secretly, to live for God. In addition, the knights of the Temple of Jerusalem and the brothers of the Hospital, living continently under a religious habit, were spreading everywhere as they multiplied in religious devotion. Moreover, the bishops of the churches and the princes of the world most readily favored the religious, freely offering lands, meadows, woods, and other things necessary for building monasteries.

The church of Saint Mary in the episcopal residence, and almost the entire city of Noyon, were consumed by fire, by a just misfortune, as it is said, because many of the city had received the supreme pontiff Innocent dishonourably.

Clairvaux produced two monasteries on one day, Easter, namely Longpont and Rievaulx, and after a few days Vaucelles.

1133. Emperor Lothair prepared an expedition into Italy and, together with archbishops, bishops, and other prelates, brought Pope Innocent to Rome against Peter Leonis, who had fortified the church of Saint Peter. He then honourably installed him in the papal seat at the Lateran, and there Pope Innocent consecrated that same Lothair as emperor.

1134. Norbert, archbishop and founder of the Premonstratensian order, died. Hildebert also, archbishop of Tours, ended his final day; he was succeeded by Hugh.

The abbey of Asnières is founded in the diocese of Angers.

1135. The monastery of Prato was founded.

Henry, king of England, died [in Normandy] and was buried at Reading in England. After his death, Stephen¹, count of Boulogne, his nephew through his sister, son of Stephen, count of Blois, and brother of Theobald, count of Champagne, came to England and, with the help of his brother, the bishop of Winchester, was crowned king of England. The empress Matilda, daughter of the late King Henry of England, confronting him with her husband Geoffrey, count of Anjou, would not allow him to reign in peace. Not long afterward the empress herself, with the assistance of Louis, king of the Franks, occupied the duchy of Normandy, while her supporters in England vigorously defended her cause so that King Stephen might not extend his rule.

Note 1. Stephen, count of Mortain and of Boulogne, was the son of Stephen, count of Blois, and of Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror.

1136. A very great wind occurred on the fifth day before the Kalends of November [28th October 1136], which destroyed many towers. The English sea also, having passed beyond its bounds, submerged part of Flanders with its inhabitants.

John¹, emperor of Constantinople, died, and his son Manuel succeeded him.

Note 1. John Comnenus died on 8th April 1143. He was succeeded by his son Manuel.

In the same year William¹, count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine, setting out on pilgrimage to Saint James, died on Good Friday and was buried before the altar of Saint James, leaving two daughters, Eleanor and Petronilla. As he was dying, he charged the nobles whom he had with him that his elder daughter Eleanor should be given in marriage to Louis the Younger, king of the Franks, together with the duchy of Aquitaine.

Note 1. William "Saint" Poitiers X Duke Aquitaine, X Duke of Aquitaine died on 9th April 1137 which, being before Easter, the author places in the year 1136. Eleanor of Aquitaine married Louis later in the year 1137 and shortly after her husband succeeded as Louis VII King of France.

1137. An unheard-of drought occurred from March until September, so that springs, wells, and even many rivers dried up.

Louis, king of France, having heard of the death of William, duke of Aquitaine, sent his son Louis, already crowned king as was said above, into Aquitaine to betroth Eleanor, daughter of the aforesaid duke. Taking her in marriage together with the duchy of Aquitaine, he married her at Bordeaux; by her he later begot Mary, countess of Champagne, and Alix, wife of Theobald, count of Blois. Within a month after the marriage of Louis the Younger, his father Louis, king surnamed the Fat, died on the Kalends of August [1st August 1137] and was buried in the church of Saint Denis in the diocese of Paris; he was succeeded by his son Louis, called the Younger.

The abbey of Mortemer, in the forest of Lyons, was founded; Waleran, abbot of Ourscamp, receiving it as a daughter house, sent his monks there¹.

Note 1. It has been seen above (year 1130) that an abbey had been founded in a place of Normandy called Beaumont by Robert de Candos. This Robert was castellan of Gisors. After his death, his son, instead of continuing to protect the monks of Beaumont, forced them by many vexations to seek another refuge. They therefore went, in 1134, to build in a place in the forest of Lyons, covered with marshes and called for that reason Mortemer i.e. dead waters, a new abbey which they placed, three years later, under the authority of the abbey of Ourscamp, of the Cistercian order, in the diocese of Noyon.

Emperor Lothair, making a second expedition into Italy, while returning to his homeland after Italy and Apulia had been subdued, died; he was succeeded by Conrad, the nephew of Emperor Henry through his sister.

1138. Peter Leonis, who through schism had seized the papacy for eight years, perished, struck down by the judgment of God. Then Pope Innocent degraded those ordained by him and decreed that they should not thereafter be promoted to orders.

At this time flourished Theobald, count of Champagne, father of orphans, judge of widows, eye of the blind, foot of the lame, singularly generous in supporting the poor, and incomparable in his liberality toward all religious in the building of monasteries. He built the abbey of Saint-Florent of Saumur and the Cistercian abbey of l’Aumône¹, as well as many others. By his wife Matilda², of noble German lineage, he begot Henry, count of Champagne; Theobald, count of Blois; Stephen, count of Sancerre; William, first elected bishop of Chartres, then archbishop of Sens, afterwards of Reims; and also Adela, queen of the Franks³, [Matilda] countess of Perche, [Agnes] countess of Bar, and [Marie] wife of the duke of Burgundy.

Note 1. The author here is mistaken. The abbey of l’Aumône, called the little Cîteaux, may have been founded by Count Thibaut; its origin goes back to about the year 1121. But the abbey of Saint-Florent, founded around the middle of the seventh century in the castle of Saumur, had already been rebuilt near the town at the beginning of the eleventh century.

Note 2. Matilda, countess of Champagne, was the daughter of Engelbert II, duke of Carinthia and margrave of Friuli.

Note 3. Adela, third wife of King Louis the Younger. his first two wives being Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Constance of Castile.

There also flourished William, the illustrious count of Nevers, whose remarkable devotion shone forth when, from being a powerful prince of the world, he became in the Chartreuse a humble poor man of Christ.

Note 1. William II, count of Auxerre, Nevers, and Tonnerre, became a Carthusian in the year 1147.

There also flourished Saint Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, and Saint Malachy in Ireland, who raised a dead man.

There also flourished Master Gilbert, surnamed Porrée¹, an outstanding teacher of both the liberal arts and the divine Scriptures, and almost incomparable in learning. After Master Anselm, he composed a commentary on the Psalter and on the Epistles of Paul, compiled from the sayings of the holy Fathers.

Note 1. See, on Gilbert de la Porée, the Histoire littéraire de la France, vol. XII, p. 466. Two almost entire volumes of this valuable collection are devoted to Saint Bernard: the first is the work of the Benedictines, the other that of M. Daunou.

1139. John of the Times died, who had lived three hundred and sixty-one years from the time of Charlemagne, whose squire he had been.

In these times a certain false emperor arose in the regions of Germany, who, after living for several years in seclusion at Solothurn, came out from there and falsely declared that Emperor Henry had perished. And when by deceiving many he had drawn them to himself, so that even serious battles and killings were fought on his behalf, some accepting him while others openly declaring him an impostor, at length his fraud having been exposed, he was tonsured as a monk at Cluny.

1140. Master Hugh of Saint Victor, a regular canon of Paris, died. The dwelling of the servants of God, the Carthusians, was built in the place called Mont-Dieu. The monastery of Saint Mary of Froidmont, in the diocese of Beauvais, of the Cistercian order, was founded. At the same time Henry, the full brother of Louis, king of France, became a monk at Clairvaux, and not long afterward was appointed to the bishopric of Beauvais¹. Besides this Henry, other brothers of the king of France were Robert, count of Dreux, and Peter, lord of Courtenay.

Note 1. The authors of the Gallia Christiana assign to the year 1134 the foundation of the monastery of Froidmont by monks from Ourscamp, according to these two ancient verses:

The year one thousand one hundred and thirty-four

was the fourth when Cold Moor came forth from the Bear.

However, Manasses, the first abbot of Froidmont, does not appear in the charters before the year 1142. Gallia Christiana, vol. IX, p. 830.

Pope Innocent founded at Acquae-Salviae¹ a monastery of Saint Anastasius the martyr, and after monastic buildings had been constructed there, he requested from Clairvaux a community of monks and an abbot. Bernard, formerly vice-dominus of the church of Pisa, was sent there with the community²; he afterwards became Pope Eugenius.

Note 1. This monastery, situated three miles from Rome, is also called 'Abbatia Trium Fontium'; in the vernacular, 'Le Tre Fontane'.

Innocentius papa fundavit apud Aquas-Salvias (2) monasterium sancti Anastasii martyris, et constructis ibidem cœnobialibus mansionibus, petiit a Clarevalle conventum [monachorum] etabbatem. Mittitur autem illuc cum conventu Bernardus Pisanæ ecclesiæ (3) olim vicedominus, qui postmodum fuit papa Eugenius.

At this time the Gallican Church flourished through men illustrious in religion and wisdom: Milo, bishop of Thérouanne, outstanding in the virtue of humility; Alvisus, bishop of Arras, renowned for generosity, counsel, and eloquence; Godfrey, bishop of Langres; Hugh, bishop of Auxerre; Goslin, bishop of Soissons; Geoffrey, bishop of Chartres; Alberic, archbishop of Bourges, most renowned for learning and prudence in counsel; and Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis in France, a very learned man.

Among these and many other men then distinguished for learning, Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, a man of most renowned religion, shone most eminently. Performing many miracles, a most fervent preacher of the word of God, and founder of very many monasteries, he offered the greatest gains of souls to God; so much so that masters of the schools, with a great company of clerics, even from distant regions, flocked to his desirable teaching and filled the house of probation with a hundred or even more novices, and in one day forty became monks.

There also flourished Master Richard of Saint Victor, a regular canon of Paris, who wrote many things useful to the Holy Church in various books and treatises. There likewise flourished at this time Hugh of Fouilloy, a monk of Saint Peter of Corbie, who composed a book on the cloister of the soul and the body. Others say that this Hugh was a regular canon in the district of Amiens.

At the same time at Sens, in the presence of Louis, king of the Franks, an assembly of bishops and religious abbots was held, through the efforts of Saint Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, against Peter Abelard, who was scandalizing the Church by a certain profane novelty of words and meanings. And when he was questioned by them¹ concerning articles of faith and was about to respond in judgment, fearing them he appealed to the hearing of the Apostolic See. And thus escaping, not long afterward, while he was on the journey to the Roman Church, he died at Chalon at Saint Marcellus [on 21st April 1142]. For he had built a monastery in the diocese of Troyes, near Nogent on the Seine, in a certain meadow where he had been accustomed to read, which he named the Paraclete. In it he gathered many nuns and placed over them a certain religious woman, formerly his wife, learned in Latin and Hebrew letters, who had become a nun at Argenteuil but had afterward been expelled from there with several others through the action of Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis in France; he appointed her abbess over them. She, truly his beloved, faithfully preserved devotion to him after his death through constant prayers. She also transferred his body from the place where he had died to the aforesaid monastery of the Paraclete, in whose tomb this epitaph is inscribed:

It is enough in the title: here lies Peter Abelard,

to whom alone was open whatever could be known.

Note 1. Here is the reading of the previous editions and of manuscripts 4917–4920: "Peter Abelard, a master distinguished and most renowned in dialectic, first married, then a monk of Saint-Denis in France, afterwards appointed abbot in Brittany, where he had been born, was summoned at Sens before bishops and abbots; and there, being questioned by them, etc."

For she, as it is said, when placed in her final illness, ordered that after her death she should be laid within her husband’s tomb. And so, when she had died and was carried to the opened tomb, her husband, who had died many days before her, raised his arms and received her; and thus embracing her, he clasped his arms around her.

1141.

Roger of Sicily, after occupying the principality of Calabria and Apulia, having been excommunicated because he usurped the investitures of churches, captured Pope Innocent in battle; but afterward, when some sort of peace had been made with him, he obtained from him that he be crowned king of Sicily. Thus he was the first of the Norman race to assume the title of king, and afterward he acquired almost the whole of Africa.

Note 1. The previous editions describe this Roger as the son of Robert Guiscard; this is an error which does not occur in our manuscript. Roger, the first king of Sicily, being the son of Roger, the twelfth child of Tancred of Hauteville, was therefore not the son but the nephew of Robert Guiscard. Du Cange, Familles normandes; Ystoire de li Normant, published by M. Champollion-Figeac for the Society of the History of France, pp. 553, 555, and 558. Moreover, this prince was crowned king of Sicily in 1130, and not in 1141 — ibid., p. 559.

Stephen, king of the English, was captured by the Empress Matilda, daughter of King Henry; but soon afterward escaping from his captivity, he vigorously defended his kingdom against her.

Then, a dispute having arisen between Pope Innocent and Louis, king of France, the Gallican Church was troubled. For when Alberic, archbishop of Bourges, had died, Peter was sent by the pope and consecrated pastor of that church. But he was rejected by King Louis and not received in the city, because he had been ordained without his consent. Yet King Louis had granted the church of Bourges the liberty of choosing as bishop whom they wished, except the said Peter, and had publicly sworn that, while he lived, he would not become archbishop. Nevertheless, when he had been elected, he went to Rome and was consecrated by Lord Pope Innocent, who said that the king, being a youth, should be instructed and restrained lest he become accustomed to such things; and he added that the freedom of election is not truly freedom where someone is excluded by a prince, unless perhaps he proves before an ecclesiastical judge that he ought not to be elected, for then he is heard like anyone else. But the king, as said above, excluded the archbishop when he returned; however, Theobald, count of Champagne, received him in his land, and all the churches obeyed him. Indignant at this, the king of France stirred up nearly all his nobles so that together with him they might wage war against Count Theobald.

1142.

Ralph, count of Vermandois, dismissed his wife and took Petronilla, sister of Eleanor, queen of France; because of this, at the urging of Theobald, count of Champagne, Ivo, legate of the Roman See in France, excommunicated Count Ralph and suspended the bishops who had carried out that divorce.

The emperor of Constantinople, after besieging Antioch for some time, made peace with the prince and entered the city. Then, after many strongholds had been taken, while he was engaged in hunting and was drawing his bow too forcefully, he was wounded in the left hand by a poisoned arrow from his own bow and died; his son Manuel succeeded him in the empire.

1143.

In the month of January there was an unheard-of wind, which overturned churches and houses and leveled to the ground aged trees.

Louis, king of France, leading an army against Theobald, count of Champagne, captured the castle of Vitry, where, when a church had been set on fire, one thousand three hundred persons of different sexes and ages were burned in the flames. Moved with compassion over this, he is said to have wept, and for this reason he is thought by some afterward to have undertaken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The king, however, gave Vitry to Odo of Champagne, nephew of Count Theobald, who had taken away his inheritance from him.

Pope Innocent died; he was succeeded by Celestine II, who immediately restored peace with Louis, king of the Franks.

In festo beati Martini æstivalis (2), dum Fulco rex Jerosolymitanus venatum iret et leporem sequeretur, equo cespitante ruens mortuus est per miraculum rupto collo. Ipse enim, [ut tradunt aliqui], antequam esset rex Jerusalem, quamdiu comitatum Andegavensem tenuit, ecclesiam beati Martini [Turonensis] in quantum potuit infestavit. Quo ita mortuo, Balduinus tercius (3), íìlius ejus, cum matre [Milisande regina] regnavit. MCXLIV.

Pope Celestine died; he was succeeded by Lucius II.

Through the mediation of Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, peace was restored between Louis, king of France, and Theobald, count of Champagne. The Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry, king of England, devastated England and harassed King Stephen of England. At that time a certain man named Arnold of Brescia was preaching at Rome, reproaching the excesses and riches of the clergy. Many people followed his words, because of the strict life he led, being deceived by him. But he was captured by some and was hanged and burned. For, as blessed Bernard says in his letters, he was a man who neither ate nor drank, but with the devil hungered and thirsted for the blood of souls; whose manner of life was honey but whose doctrine was poison, who had the head of a dove and the tail of a scorpion; whom Brescia vomited forth, Rome shuddered at, France rejected, and Germany abhorred.

1145.

Edessa, also called Roas, a city of Mesopotamia in which were the bodies of the apostles Thomas and Thaddeus, and which had never been polluted by the filth of idolatry since it was first converted to Christianity, was besieged and captured by the Turks. There, the bishop of the city having been beheaded and the holy places profaned, many thousands of people were slaughtered and many were reduced to slavery.

Pope Lucius besieged the senators of the Romans who had risen against the Church on the Capitol, but not long afterward he died; he was succeeded by Eugenius III. He had first been vice-dominus of the church of Pisa, then a monk at Clairvaux and a disciple of blessed Bernard, and afterward was made abbot of Saint Anastasius the martyr at Acquae-Salviae, a man worthy both of honour and of everlasting memory. Against him the Romans raised up Jordan as patrician and senator, and they drove him out of the city.

Therefore he, when a sedition had arisen among the people, shook the dust of his feet against those who were quarreling and, leaving them, came to France; in whose company Saint Bernard performed many miracles. To this pope the same holy man Bernard wrote a book of great subtlety and usefulness, whose title is On Consideration.

At the same time a great famine arose in France.

Saint Bernard performed many miracles in Germany, where at the city of Speyer there was such a great crowd of people around him because of the wonders he worked among the sick that King Conrad, lest the crowd crush him, laid aside his cloak and, taking him in his own arms, carried him out of the basilica.

1146.

Louis, king of France, inflamed with zeal because of the capture of the city of Roas in Mesopotamia, or, as others think, pricked by conscience because of the burning of Vitry, at Vézelay at Easter time, having the sign of the cross affixed to himself, resolved to undertake the pilgrimage overseas together with the princes of the kingdom and an innumerable multitude.

The church of Tournai, which for about six hundred years from the time of Saint Medard had been under the bishop of Noyon without its own bishop, began to have its own bishop, when Anselm, abbot of Saint Vincent of Laon, was consecrated by Pope Eugenius and appointed bishop of that city.

In the regions of Germany there was a certain remarkable virgin of advanced age, to whom divine power had granted such grace that, although she was a laywoman and unlearned, she was nevertheless often wondrously rapt in ecstasy and learned sublime things, not only to express them in words but also to dictate them in Latin writing, and by dictation to compose books of Catholic doctrine. This was, as they say, Saint Hildegard, who is said to have foretold many things about the future.

Note 1. This probably refers to Saint Hildegard, abbess of Mont-Saint-Robert, whose revelations were approved by Pope Eugenius III at a great council held at Trier in the year 1147. But, whatever our chronicler says, she cannot have been very advanced in age in 1146, since she died only on 17 September 1180. See the Bollandists under 17 September.

1147.

When Emperor Conrad was at Frankfurt on the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Mary, Saint Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, affixed the sign of the cross for the overseas expedition to the king and to almost all the princes of Germany, and the companions of the pilgrimage multiplied beyond number. Afterwards the naval army of God, gathered from England, Flanders, and Lotharingia, having set out from the port of Dartmouth in England with nearly two hundred ships on the day before the Ides of April [12th April 1147], arrived at Lisbon, a city of Spain, on the fourth day before the Kalends of July [28th June 1147], on the vigil of the apostles Peter and Paul. After a siege of four months they captured it by the power of God and their own efforts. Although the Christians numbered only thirteen thousand, they killed two hundred thousand five hundred Saracens. And thus, entering the city with hymns and songs, they dedicated a church there and ordained a bishop and clerics. At the bodies of the Christians who had been slain, three mute persons recovered the power of speech.

Emperor Conrad, in the month of May, having undertaken the pilgrimage with an innumerable multitude, after successfully crossing the Bosphorus, when he unwisely turned aside to attack Iconium, the grasses of the land having been consumed and provisions failing, and his men afflicted by hunger, returned unsuccessful; and while the Turks pursued him, he lost many thousands of his men. Louis, king of France, on the third day before the Kalends of June, that is, on Wednesday after Pentecost¹, set out on the overseas journey with his wife, Queen Eleanor; and with countless and well-equipped thousands of his men, proceeding by land into Hungary and crossing the Bosphorus, he was received on meeting Emperor Conrad. The emperor, many of his men having returned home because of want and only a few accompanying him, was kindly received by the French and went on with them for some time; but because of the approaching winter and for the recovery of his men he returned to Constantinople. After the winter had passed, with the help of the Greek emperor he was conveyed by his ships to Jerusalem.

Note 1. Odo of Deuil also fixes the king’s departure on the fourth day, that is, Wednesday in the week of Pentecost. But this day, in 1147, was 10th June 1147, and not 30 May. One should read 'the fourth day before the Ides of June' instead of 'the third day before the Kalends of June', which is given by the previous editions and by all the manuscripts, without excepting no. 10298-6. Odo of Deuil, in M. Guizot’s collection, p. 289.

At the same time the administration of the whole kingdom of France was entrusted to Suger, abbot of Saint-Denis.

1148.

At Reims a council was held by Pope Eugenius, in which council the blessed Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, publicly refuted Master Gilbert, surnamed Porreta, disputing with him alone as though he were the singular champion of his time. This Gilbert was bishop of Poitiers, greatly exercised in the sacred writings, but by searching into higher matters he fell into folly. For, not thinking simply nor writing faithfully about the unity of the Holy Trinity and the simplicity of the divinity, he set before his disciples hidden breads and offered them stolen waters. Nor did he readily confess to authoritative persons what he thought, or rather how greatly he erred; for he feared what they say Peter Abelard once told him at Sens:

"Now your own affair is at stake when the neighbouring wall is on fire."

At length, however, when scandal among the faithful over this matter had already grown strong and murmuring increased, he was summoned to judgment and ordered to hand over the book in which he had poured forth blasphemies, grave indeed, though surrounded by a certain covering of words. Saint Bernard therefore first, by subtle questions drawing out everything that he was trying to conceal by verbal evasions, refuted him in a two-day disputation both by his own arguments and by the testimonies of the saints. But when he saw that some of those who presided already recognized the blasphemy in the doctrine yet were still turning away the injury from the person, he was inflamed with zeal and summoned the Gallican Church, which was subject to him, apart. Finally, by common counsel of the fathers of ten provinces, together with many other bishops and abbots, a new creed was set against the new doctrines, dictated by the man of God, and the names of each were also subscribed to it, so that the zeal of them all might be made known to others, as blameless just as the doctrine was blameworthy. Thus at last that error was condemned by apostolic judgment and by the authority of the universal Church. Bishop Gilbert was asked whether he consented to the same condemnation. Agreeing, and publicly refuting what he had previously written and affirmed, he obtained pardon—especially since from the beginning he had entered the disputation on the condition that he would promise, without any obstinacy, to correct his opinion freely according to the judgment of the holy Church.

It happened after the council, when the lord pope was celebrating Mass in the principal church and the chalice was brought to him by the ministers according to Roman custom, that the blood of the Lord, through some negligence of the ministers, was spilled upon the carpet before the altar. This greatly terrified the wiser men, since there prevailed the undoubted opinion that such a thing had never happened in any church without some grave danger threatening it from every side; and because this had occurred in the apostolic see, the danger of the universal Church was feared. Indeed the opinion was not mistaken. For in that same year Emperor Conrad, as was said above, barely escaped in the East after his armies had been destroyed by the Saracens. King Louis of France also and the Gallican army, hastening through the deserts of Syria toward the Holy Land, suffered very great losses through the treachery and cunning of the Greeks and the frequent assaults of the Turks, being tormented by extreme hunger so that some ate the flesh of horses and asses. They also say that lightning struck at Jerusalem in the temple of the Lord or on the Mount of Olives, and that this was a presage of that misfortune. Wolves also in many places and villages were devouring men.

Alfonso, count of Saint-Gilles, arrived in Palestine with a naval army; and when it was hoped that he would accomplish something great, he died at Caesarea of Palestine, having been poisoned with a harmful drink, as they say, through the treachery of the queen of Jerusalem. Then his son, a youth, fearing for himself, entered a certain castle of the count of Tripoli, his uncle; but through the treachery of the same queen he was captured by the Turks together with his sister¹.

Note 1. The son and the daughter of Alfonso Jourdain, count of Saint-Gilles and of Toulouse, who are mentioned here, were natural children. Raymond I, count of Tripoli, who was not their uncle but their nephew according to the Breton manner of reckoning, instead of protecting them, delivered them to the Turks. The son, named Bertrand, was later set free, and his sister became the wife of Nūr ad-Din, sultan of Aleppo. Vaissete, Abrégé de l’Histoire de Languedoc, vol. III, pp. 50 and 55.

1149.

Pope Eugenius returned from the regions of Gaul to Italy and fought with the Romans with varying success, but achieved little.

Louis, king of France, his forces having been broken in the deserts of Syria, came to Antioch, where he was honourably received by Prince Raymond, brother of William, duke of Aquitaine of good memory, father of Queen Eleanor. But while he stayed there to console, support, and restore the remnants of his shipwrecked army, Queen Eleanor, deceived by the cunning of her uncle, the prince of Antioch, wished to remain there; for the prince hoped that, by the king of France remaining there, he might obtain victory over the Turks who were near him. When the king prepared to remove her from there, she, mentioning their kinship, said that it was unlawful for them to remain together any longer because they were related in the fourth degree. Wherefore the king, greatly disturbed, although he loved her with almost excessive affection, would have agreed to dismiss her if his counsellors and the nobles of the French had allowed it. She was therefore forcibly taken away and compelled to proceed with the king, her husband, to Jerusalem; but in the heart of each of them the injury remained, though they concealed it as much as they could. Emperor Conrad of Germany and King Louis of France, having joined at Jerusalem, set out by the counsel of their barons to attack Damascus. When Damascus had been besieged for three days by the French, Germans, and men of Jerusalem, and the outer walls which surrounded the gardens had already been taken, and the city was thought to be about to fall, the siege was withdrawn, through the treachery, as they say, of the princes of Palestine; for they had taken it badly that, after its capture, the kings had granted it to Thierry, count of Flanders. Thus, after the withdrawal, the king of the Franks and the emperor, having again appointed a day to besiege Ascalon, met with their forces at Jaffa. But since the men of Jerusalem did not come according to the agreement, Emperor Conrad was conveyed by ships to Constantinople. King Louis of France, his barons returning home, remained at Jerusalem for a year with only a few companions.

Then Roger, king of Sicily, invaded Africa with a naval army; and after capturing the city called Africa and several fortresses, he sent back free to his see the archbishop of Africa, who had come to Rome from servitude to be consecrated.

The church of Saint Geneviève at Paris was changed from the status of regular canons¹.

Note 1. This paragraph is missing in the editions and in manuscripts 4917–4920, but the sentence is inaccurate or incomplete. One must read: "Mutata est … in statum," or else: "From the status of secular canons to the status of regular canons." Indeed it was in 1149 (old style) that the secular canons were replaced at Sainte-Geneviève by regular canons of Saint-Victor.

Conrad, emperor of the Romans, and Manuel, emperor of the Greeks, meeting in Greece, prepared an expedition against Roger, king of Sicily. But when their army was afflicted by famine and the harshness of the weather, Conrad returned to his homeland.

Saint Malachy, bishop of Ireland, returning from Rome, died at Clairvaux and was buried there; his life was written by Saint Bernard.

1150.

Louis, king of France, sailing from Palestine to return to his homeland, encountered the ships of the Greeks, who had prepared an ambush for him. And when he was being led by them to be presented to Emperor Manuel, who was besieging Corfu, George, commander of the fleet of the king of Sicily, attacked them. For, after devastating and plundering the provinces of the Greeks, he had advanced as far as the imperial city of Constantinople itself, had shot fiery arrows into the emperor’s palace, and, after burning the suburbs, had violently carried off the produce of the king’s gardens. Returning from there, he encountered the ships of the Greeks which had captured King Louis. Attacking them, he rescued the king and, rejoicing in his triumph and victory, led him with honour to Sicily. For the king of Sicily had arranged that this should happen, fearing the treachery of the Greeks and desiring an opportunity to show the devotion he had toward the king and the kingdom of the Franks. The king, having been honourably escorted by him as far as Rome and magnificently and gratefully received by Pope Eugenius, from there, by the Lord’s favor, returned safely to France.

After Hugh, the archbishop of Tours, died, Engebaud succeeded him.

1151.

After assemblies had been held throughout France, with Pope Eugenius consenting that Saint Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, should be sent to Jerusalem to urge others, a great discussion about an overseas expedition again took place; but it was entirely nullified by the Cistercian monks.

Bartholomew, bishop of Laon, in the thirty-eighth year of his episcopate, having despised the fashion of the world, put on the monastic habit at Foigny.

Theobald, count of Champagne, died and was buried at Lagny, about whom someone said:

Your goodness gave you wholly to everyone, most excellent lord;

now only your lasting fame accomplishes the same.

In this same year, those of the bishopric of Cambrai, together with those of Thérouanne, burned very many towns of the land of Lord John of Hainaut. And nevertheless, although by agreement with Lord John of Namur, who at that time was acting on behalf of the king of France, they were supposed to engage in battle on the Thursday of Holy Week [Maundy Thursday, 13th April 1340], when they themselves came to the place of battle, that same Lord John did not appear at all. Instead, he deceitfully turned aside to a village called Aubenton, whose men had gone out ready for battle, and he burned it and plundered it.

In this year [1339], two very strong fortresses in the land of Gascony—namely Bourg and Blaye—were captured by the forces of the king of France; and there, that is to say in the capture of the castle of Blaye, certain nobles were taken prisoner, especially the lord of Caumont together with the brother of the lord of Albret.

In the same year, a certain town in the county of Eu, called Le Tréport on the sea, together with the abbey that was there, was burned by the forces of the king of England.

In the same year, all the Genoese soldiers, who had guarded the sea throughout the whole summer together with Norman, Picard, and Breton seamen, and had greatly harmed the kingdom of England, returned to their homes around the feast of Saint Michael.

In the same year [1399], around the same feast [St Michael, 29th September], the king of England gathered a great army of Englishmen, Brabanters, Germans, mercenaries, and raiders, in order to invade the kingdom of France. The king of France, wishing to oppose him, assembled a very great, strong, and powerful army at Saint-Quentin in Vermandois. But since he wished to enter the frontiers of the empire more easily, he delayed battle for some time and waited for his army, which was not yet fully assembled. Meanwhile, the king of England, with his raiders, entered the kingdom of France in hostile fashion and burned and plundered a considerable part of Thérouanne. Then the king of France, using, one knows not what, counsel, delayed confronting him; for which reason great scandal and murmuring arose against him, not only in the army but throughout the whole kingdom. At length, when he heard of the enemy’s advance, he met him one Friday near a place called Buironfosse; and, no longer wishing to delay battle, he immediately took up arms and, armed, rushed forth to exhort his dukes, barons, all his knighthood, and the entire army to fight. But when some men, moved, I know not by what spirit, dissuaded him from battle, putting forward four chief reasons: first, reverence for God, because, as was said, it was Friday; second, because he had already ridden five leagues that day with his army; third, because neither he nor his horses had eaten or drunk that whole day; fourth, the difficulty of a certain pass lying between him and his enemies, he agreed, though resisting strongly, to delay the battle until the next day, warning and commanding all to be ready for battle on the morrow, and to fortify themselves diligently with the sacraments of confession and of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ. This delay was greatly harmful not only to him but to the whole kingdom; for, with a much smaller army than he possessed, he could have defeated his enemies and freed his realm from them, yet instead he gave them the opportunity to depart from their position and escape his hands. For when the king of England learned of his strength through his informants, and fearing it, he began his flight about midnight and withdrew from the kingdom of France, retreating, like a fox fleeing to its hole, within the frontiers of the empire.

1340. In this year of calamity and misery, of disgrace and confusion, between the two kings of the French and of the English nothing praiseworthy was accomplished, because whatever was done in it is to be believed to have proceeded not from the Holy Spirit, but from an angel of Satan. For whereas in the two or three preceding years many burdens had been brought upon poor churches, and also most grievous exactions upon the common people, in this same year the greatest confusions increased, not, however, to the advantage of the commonwealth of the aforesaid kingdoms in any respect, but, alas! to the disgrace and confusion of all Christendom, and of the holy and universal mother Church, whose aforesaid princes ought chiefly and most of all to be its support and prop; this is known to have happened.

In this year, when the King of England, Edward III, had withdrawn from the Flemings, especially from those of Ghent, with whom he was allied, and had crossed over to England, as was said, in order to gather money and reinforcements, leaving in his place in Flanders the Earl of Salisbury¹ and Earl of Suffolk; these same counts, having taken counsel together to lay siege to Lille, assembled a considerable army of English and Flemings. Leaving this army about two miles or so from the town, they advanced with only a small force, about two hundred men, as if to reconnoitre a suitable place for the siege, though not proceeding very cautiously, trusting in the army they had left behind. When the men of Lille saw them advancing incautiously, they suddenly sallied out of the town against them. The Earl of Salisbury was struck by a lance, shamefully unhorsed, and grievously wounded; and he, together with those who had come with him, and before help could arrive from his army, they captured him and had him presented to the king of France. There too a certain nobleman was killed, and his enemies, having cut off his head, completely concealed his identity. Many said that he was the King of England himself, because at that time he kept himself so hidden that he could scarcely or never be found; but in the end the outcome proved the contrary.

Note 1. Manuscript 435, Sabarie; manuscript 999, comitemque Sabaudiæ. This is a gross error; it is a question here of Guilliame de Montagu, count of Salisbury. In place of the count of Oxford (Auxoniæ or Oxoniæ), Froissart names the count of Suffolk. But this is again an inaccuracy, as we learn from a note of M. Dacier, made from the original documents. To make the duke of Brabant consent to his passage into England, Edward promised, on the 4th of December 1559, to leave in Flanders the count of Salisbury with Henry of Lancaster, count of Derby, and to send there the counts of Northampton and of Suffolk toward mid-Lent of the following year. Froissart, I, 97, vol. I, p. 270.

In this year, King Edward of England, having gathered a very strong army of English, Flemings, Germans, Brabanters, and Hainaut men, laid powerful siege to the very strong city of Tournai in the kingdom of France; and having remained there for a long time, he almost forced it to surrender through lack of provisions. In the same year, King Philip of France, hearing that the king of England had besieged the city of Tournai with a strong force, and that its citizens, together with those in the town on his side, were being greatly oppressed, moved his camp from the place between Lille and Douai, where he had stayed for nearly five weeks; and, crossing the bridge of Bouvines, he pitched his tents about two miles or so from the army of the king of England. There, between the two kings, messages passing back and forth both on their own behalf and on that of the Supreme Pontiff, negotiations for a truce were carried on for a long time, for nearly six weeks. At length, by the counsel of worthy men, chiefly through the mediation of the most noble and religious lady, the aged Countess of Hainaut, sister of the king of France and mother of the count of Hainaut, with the assistance of the prudent King John of Bohemia, the count of Luxembourg, Arnulf, bishop of Liège, Ralph, duke of Lorraine, Aymon, count of Savoy, and John, count of Armagnac, a truce was granted, with the will and consent of both kings, from the twenty-fifth day of September until the next following feast of Saint John the Baptist, and until sunrise on the day after, in the manner that follows.

Not long afterward, the King of England, Edward III, having come again to the Continent, was once more received by the Flemings, and, by their counsel, caused himself to be called King of France as well as of England. He divided his arms into quarters, placing the arms of England and France together on his shield and elsewhere, thereby signifying a new claim to sovereignty. While he was staying at Ghent, his wife, Philippa of Hainaut, who had come from England with him while pregnant, gave birth to a son, and ordered that he be baptized and named John of Gaunt. Thus at that time he assumed and adopted the title and arms of the King of France, combining them with his own, which caused no small scandal and indignation to the King of France, Philip VI of France, and to many others, both churchmen and laymen. At that time, the said King of England also obtained from Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor, who then held the empire against the will of the Church and was therefore regarded as excommunicated and schismatic, that he should be appointed his vicar in the regions of Hainaut and Cambrai. Having received this, he passed through Hainaut intending to attack the city of Cambrai, because the bishop and the citizens were giving aid to the King of France. The people of Cambrai, however, resisted him bravely, though they suffered many hardships from the King of England and the men of Hainaut who supported him. Then the cardinals, who had been sent by the Pope into France to arrange peace, established a truce between the kings. Thus the King of England returned to Flanders, where he remained for a long time, planning to invade the kingdom of France, which he later did, as will be related. But first we shall speak of certain other events that occurred in various regions during this period.

1348. In the year of the Lord 1348, the people of France, and, as it were, of almost the whole world, were struck, and this in a manner different from war. For just as famine, as was said at the beginning, and wars, as was related in the course of this narrative, had occurred, so pestilences and afflictions again arose in various parts of the world. Thus, in the same year 1348, in the month of August, a certain star was seen over Paris¹, toward the western part, very large and very bright, after the hour of vespers, while the sun was still shining and setting. It was not very far elevated from our hemisphere, as other stars are, but rather seemed quite near. And it came to pass that, as the sun set and night approached, the said star, while I and many other brothers were watching it, did not appear to move from one place. At length, as night came on, we watching and greatly marveling, the said star, very large, was broken up into many and various rays; and, casting its rays toward Paris and toward the east, it wholly disappeared and was entirely extinguished. Whether this was a comet or something else, or formed from certain exhalations and then dissolved into vapors, I leave to the judgment of astronomers. Yet it is possible that it was a sign foretelling the wondrous pestilence to come, which very soon afterward, as I shall say, followed in Paris and throughout all France², as elsewhere. Accordingly, in the same year, in Paris and in the kingdom of France, and no less, it is said, in various parts of the world, and in the following year, there was such a mortality of men and women, and more of the young than the old, that they could scarcely be buried. Nor did they lie sick for more than two or three days, but suddenly, and as if healthy, they died; so that one who was well today was carried to the grave dead on the next day. For they suddenly developed swellings under the armpits or in the groin, and when these appeared it was an infallible sign of death; and this illness or pestilence was called by physicians an epidemic. So great, indeed, was the number of people who died then, namely in the years 1348 and 1349, that nothing like it had ever been heard, seen, or read of in earlier times. And the said death and illness spread by imagination, or by association and contagion; for whoever, being healthy, visited a sick person scarcely or rarely escaped the danger of death. Thus, in many towns, small and large, fearful priests withdrew, leaving the ministration to some more daring religious; and, in short, in many places, out of twenty people not even two remained alive³. Indeed, so great was the mortality in the Hôtel-Dieu of Paris that for a long time more than five hundred⁴ dead each day were carried in carts to the cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris for burial. And these holy sisters of the Hôtel-Dieu, not fearing death, most sweetly and humbly tended the sick, setting aside all concern for honour; of whom a great number, often renewed through death⁵, now rest in peace with Christ, as is piously believed.

Note 1. One should no doubt read 'super Parisires' i.e.

Note 2. The influence of the stars in the famous plague of 1348 has been amply explained in a short work in Latin verse, composed by Simon de Covino, a contemporary astronomer, and recently published by M. Littré (Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, vol. II, p. 208 and following).

Note 3. All the details given above are found again in the little work of Simon de Covino. He, however, generally estimates the number of the dead at more than half the population:

Hence the number of the buried was greater

than the number of the living.

There is still a great distance between this vague proportion, however large one may allow the first term, and that of eighteen twentieths, given by our Latin chronicler.

Note 4. According to the Great Chronicles, 800 people were dying each day in Paris. It is evident that, out of this number, the Hôtel-Dieu alone could not have supplied 500 corpses. The word quingenti (‘five hundred’), repeated in all the manuscripts, must be a copyist’s error for quinquaginta (‘fifty’). In manuscripts 435 and 999, where the most important events are marked by a marginal note in French, one reads in the margin of this passage: 'Fifty bodies per day at the Hôtel-Dieu of Paris.'

Note 5. We adopt this correction of d’Achery in place of the word 'revocatus', which is given by the manuscripts.