READINGS for HS 4476 MEDIEVAL HERETICS AND INQUISITORS

An incident from
Gesta Abbatum Trudonensium, XII, xi-xiv
(MGH.Ss. 10:309-11)
There is a class of merchants, whose business was making cloth from linen and wool; these
men are commonly reputed to be shameless and proud beyond other merchants. A certain poor rustic
from the city of Kornelmünster thought up this diabolical trick to humble their shamelessness and
pride and get personal revenge on them. Having gotten the confidence of the magistrates and help
from frivolous men who delight in jokes and novelties, he constructed a ship in the nearby woods,
and having attached wheels to it, made it movable on land. He also got the authorities to allow it to
be dragged by ropes over the shoulders of the weavers from Kornelmünster to Aachen. Supported
as if by water by a great crowd of people of both sexes, the weavers nonetheless dragged it to
Maastricht where it was fitted out with a mast and sail; it was then brought to Tongres and then to
Saint-Trond. Abbot Rudolf hearing that the ship, so unpropitiously assembled, was approaching our
city without aid of mast or oar, with a display of such paganism, was preaching in a prophetic spirit
to the people that they should avoid involvement with it because they would be ensnared through this
in the deceit of the evil spirit, and that next an uprising would occur because of it, slaughter, arson,
and rapine would follow, and finally much human blood would be shed. Our citizens refused to
listen to this address which he gave every day that this idol of the evil spirits remained at Saint-
Tongres. Instead, filled with excitement and enthusiasm they installed this fatal "Trojan Horse" in
the middle of the city square. The weavers of the city received the invitation to come would without
delay to the sacrilegious vigils before this idol. Alas. Who has ever seen such a--if one might so
express it in Latin--"brutification" of rational beings? Such paganism among those reborn in Christ?
The invitation directed the weavers to load the ship night and day with all sorts of provisions, and
to continue their dedicated vigils by day and night. It was amazing that it did not also order them to
offer sacrifices before the ship to Neptune under whose protection ships are accustomed to be placed.
But Neptune reserved such to Mars, who wished them to be of human flesh. That occurred later in
many ways.
The weavers in the meantime, by a hidden and heartfelt groan, called down the punishment
of God the Just Judge on these men, that he drive away this humiliation so that they might live in
accord with the proper way of life of ancient Christians and apostolic men, laboring with their hands,
and thus working day and night to feed and clothe themselves and provide the same for their
children. Indeed they questioned and asked among themselves pitifully, why this humiliation and
degrading situation had came upon them more than on any other profession, since there were other
professions among Christians much more contemptible than their's, and said that what alone was
ignoble and to be shunned was sullying the soul with the uncleanness of sin, and that it is better to
be a poor rustic weaver than to be a sophisticated noble judge who is an oppressor of orphans and
a despoiler of widows. And although they pitifully asked this and, as I said, similar things, there
gathered before that miserable dwelling--whether of Bacchus, Venus, Neptune or Mars, I do not
know, or, perhaps better, of all the evil spirits--a gathering of various musicians singing filthy songs
unworthy of the Christian religion. It was also ordered by the magistrates that when anyone other