The Castle—Builders of the Reign of Stephen
[1135-1154]
from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
WHEN the traitors perceived that he was a mild man, and
a soft, and a good, and that he did not enforce
justice, they did all wonder. They had done homage to
him, and sworn oaths, but they no faith kept; all
became forsworn, and broke their allegiance, for every
rich man built his castles, and defended them against
him, and they filled the land full of castles. They
greatly oppressed the wretched peoples by making them
work at these castles, and when the castles were
finished, they filled them with devils and evil men.
Then they took those whom they suspected to have any
goods, by night and by day, seizing both men and women,
and they put them in prison for their gold and silver,
and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never
were any martyrs tormented as these were. They hung
some up by their feet, and smoked them with foul smoke;
some by their thumbs, or by the head, and they hung
burning things on their feet. They put a knotted string
about their heads, and twisted it till it went into the
brain. They put them into dungeons wherein were adders
and snakes and toads, and thus wore them out. Some they
put into a crucet-house, that is, into a chest that was
short and narrow, and not deep, and they put sharp
stones in it, and crushed the man therein so that they
broke all his limbs. There were hateful and grim things
called Sachenteges in many of the castles, and which
two or three men had enough to do to carry. The
Sachentege was made thus: it was fastened to a beam,
having a sharp iron to go round a man's throat and
neck, so that he might no ways sit, nor lie, nor sleep,
but that he must bear all the iron. Many thousands they
exhausted with hunger. I cannot and I may not tell of
all the wounds, and all the tortures that they
inflicted upon the wretched men of this land; and this
state of things lasted the nineteen years that Stephen
was king, and ever grew worse and worse. They were
continually levying an exaction from the towns, which
they called Tenserie
and when the miserable
inhabitants had no more to give, then plundered they,
and burnt all the towns, so that well thou mightest
walk a whole day's journey nor ever shouldest thou find
a man seated in a town, or its lands tilled.
Then was corn dear, and flesh, and cheese, and butter,
for there was none in the land—wretched men starved
with hunger—some lived on alms who had been ere-while
rich: some fled the country—never was there more
misery, and never acted heathens worse than these. At
length they spared neither church nor churchyard, but
they took all that was valuable therein, and then
burned the church and all together. Neither did they
spare the lands of bishops, nor of abbats, nor of
priests; but they robbed the monks and the clergy, and
every man plundered his neighbor as much as he could.
If two or three men came riding to a town, all the
township fled before them, and thought that they were
robbers. The bishops and clergy were ever cursing them,
but this to them was nothing, for they were all
accursed, and forsworn, and reprobate. The earth bare
no corn, you might as well have tilled the sea, for the
land was all ruined by such deeds, and it was said
openly that Christ and his saints slept. These things,
and more than we can say, did we suffer during nineteen
years.
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