Orderic Vitalis

I'm going to start with that story so that those who have previously heard the episode can listen to this new story without having to sit through the entire episode, although you might enjoy listening to it again as we approach Halloween.

The new ghost story comes from the ecclesiastical history of the 12th century Anglo-Norman monk, Oderich Vitalis.

Orderic assures us of its veracity, as it was related to him by the priest who actually experienced it.

More about that later, but first, the story.

Their haunches were thus punctured with the burning nails, and suffering horrible torments from the wounds and the scorching heat, the women pitiably cried out, "'Woe, woe!' and made open confession of the sins for which they were punished, undergoing in this matter fire and stench and unutterable tortures for the obscene allurements and filthy delights to which they had abandoned themselves when living among men." In this company, the priest recognized several noble ladies and beheld the palfreys and mules with the women's litters of others who were still alive.

The priest stood fixed to the spot at the site, his thoughts deeply engaged in the reflections it suggested.

Presently, however, he saw pass before him a numerous company of clergy and monks with their rulers and judges, the bishops and abbots carrying croziers in their hands.

The clergy and bishops wore black copes, and the abbots and monks cowls of the same hue.

That's right, Christmas was ruined.

A violent wind, according to Orderic Vitalis, quote, unquote, as nothing like any man could remember, hit the region, devastating structures and inexplicably lasting for days.

It's only fitting that after a year like that, toward the end of a decade like that, Christmas of all things would be ruined.

But sadly, the years between 1110 and 1118, sadly that was only a prequel to the real tragedy that was about to hit Henry and England.

And I'm left here wondering how in the world someone could conceal a freaking crossbow.

I mean, what am I missing there? But I guess it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, Orderic Vitalis gives us the unnecessarily vivid description of Juliana jumping from one of the towers into the moat below with her bare buttocks showing, and then riding 60 miles away to join her husband at Pacey, which was also not a very warm welcoming, I'm sure.

Henry subsequently gave Bertoul to Ralph de Gaulle, whose daughter would soon marry into Henry's family, marrying his illegitimate son, Richard of Lincoln, who has a fair bit of fame himself.

But he gave Thomas something arguably more valuable, his sons, William and Richard, whom he loved as he loved himself, along with a large part of the nobility of the realm.

That's the point at which the story, as the monk Orderic Vitalis tells it, starts to go wrong since the crew were thrilled and asked the prince for something to drink.

William Adolin ordered them three massive casks of wine and they went on toasting each other until they were drunk as skunks.

The passenger list kept growing because Henry had ordered barons and their sons aboard and because nearly every young noble in the court wanted to be seen with the prince.

The crew was 50 rowers plus a company of armed marines, and the marines, drunk, shoved their way onto the rowers' benches and stopped showing respect to anyone.

Interestingly, some people looked at this impending disaster and decided that they weren't traveling on the white ship.

Two monks from the Abbey of Tehran left, and so did William de Rumaire, Edward of Salisbury, and several others who didn't like the look of it.

The most consequential departure was the king's nephew, Stephen of Blois, who walked off with two men at arms and boarded the king's own ship instead.

I have one more source from us for us tonight.

It's from a guy named Orderic Vitalis, and he was late 11th century.

So, you know, time of the First Crusade.

But he was in England.

Sure.

Okay.

But as I said, this is Orderic Vitalis, and he was an Anglo-Norman Benedictine monk, and he was a chronicler.

And so he wrote an insanely long ecclesiastical history.

King Louis? Well, he was furious with Henry.

Orderic Vitalis writes that Normans all over the duchy had a different reaction, though.

He writes, quote, The people of God, freed from the bandits' yoke, rejoiced and thanked God, their liberator, and wished a long and prosperous life to King Henry.

End quote.

We can't forget Orderic Vitalis, bit of a Henry fanboy.

He wrote his work in 1135, the year that Henry passed away.

So, gives you an idea where he's coming from there.

She writes in that, his feats of magic were at least potentially real historical events in themselves, and thus they provided evidence of what magical power could do.

And the one thing more than anything else that people are obsessed by, and this is something that Geoffrey was obsessed by too, is the sense of Merlin as having been an authentic prophet, a man who had genuinely seen into the future he had had glimpses of what was to come and the explosive implications of this were recognized right from the moment that jeffrey's history was published so very shortly after it appeared there was an anglo-norman monk called orderic vitalis And he's pouring over it.

And he comes to this great compilation of Merlin's prophecies, which is contained within Geoffrey's history.

And he is blown away by the implications of what he's reading.

How about the story of Walcolyn and his encounter with Heliquin's host from the eleventh century in Lusau in Normandy.

Walcolyn is a local priest, and he tells this story to Orderic, who puts it in his ecclesiastical history.

So we're just one, one source away.

Walcolyn is coming home one night on a road.

The intention was not merely to end the rebellion, but to prevent the region from being able to support another one.

Contemporary chroniclers recorded the result in terms that leave no ambiguity.

The land was left empty.

People starved in large numbers.

The defeated army was pursued and killed as it fled.

The estimates of the dead range from between 9,000 and 28,000 men, making it the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil by any reasonable measure.

The snow, chroniclers recorded, ran red for a considerable distance around the field.

Edward IV, Yorkist, became king in 1461 AD.

There was famine, looting, burning, slaughtering, all to try and root out all opposition to the Norman regime.

A contemporary quote by Orderic Vitalis tells us that he ordered that crops and herds, tools and food be burned to ashes.

More than 100,000 people died of starvation.

Now, remembering, Scott, that the population was 2 million, thereabouts, in relation-

The thing about the Harrying of the North is medieval chroniclers, when they say 100,000 people fought at Hastings, you just say, "Well, that's just, he just means a large number.

There's no way the armies were that big." In the case of the Harrying of the North, Orderic Vitalis is writing in the 1120s, very well-informed, but, you know, not great with numbers.

He says it's thought that more than 100,000 Christian souls were carried off, and you, everyone always went, "Well, he just means a lot, a lot of dead people."

But the Domesday Book shows that in fact it was a real mess, yeah.