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The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Life of Louis the Fat is in Early Medieval Books.
The more this young prince rose day by day, the more his father, King Philip, lowered himself day by day. Since, to the detriment of the rights of his lawful wife, he had joined himself to the Countess of Anjou, he no longer did anything worthy of royal majesty. Carried away by his disordered passion for this woman whom he had abducted, he knew no other concern than to give himself up to lust. He provided for none of the needs of the State, and, abandoning himself more than he should to pleasures, he did not even spare the health of his tall and slender body. The one thing that alone sustained affairs was that the love and fear inspired by his son, destined to succeed him, preserved all the vigor of the State. Philip then, being scarcely sixty years of age, and laying aside the marks of his royalty, ended his last day in the presence of Lord Louis, at the castle of Melun on the river Seine.
Plus ce jeune prince s'élevait ainsi de jour en jour, plus son père le roi Philippe se rabaissait aussi de jour en jour. Depuis qu'au détriment des droits de sa femme légitime il s'était uni à la comtesse d'Angers il ne faisait plus rien qui fût digne de la majesté royale entraîné par sa passion désordonnée pour cette femme qu'il avait enlevée, il ne connaissait d'autre soin que de se livrer à la volupté ne pourvoyait à aucun des besoins de l'État, et, s'abandonnant aux plaisirs plus qu'il ne fallait, ne ménageait pas même la santé de son corps svelte et élevé. Ce qui seul soutenait les choses, c'est que l'amour et la crainte qu'inspirait le fils appelé à lui succéder, conservaient a l'Etat toute sa vigueur. Philippe donc n'étant qu'à peine sexagénaire, et dépouillant les marques de sa royauté, termina son dernier jour en présence du seigneur Louis, au château de Melun sur la rivière de Seine.
Meanwhile there occurred a singular and utterly unheard-of misfortune for the kingdom of France. For the son of King Louis, a blooming and gracious boy, Philip, the hope of the good and the terror of the wicked, one day while riding through a suburb of the city of Paris, his horse, struck by a devilish pig that crossed its path, fell heavily and crushed its rider, that most noble boy, who, thrown upon the pavement, was shattered beneath the weight of the animal. At this calamity the city and all who heard of it were stricken with consternation, for that very day he had summoned the army for an expedition, and they cried aloud, wept, and lamented. They gathered up the tender boy, nearly dead, and carried him to a nearby house; but when night came, alas, he breathed out his spirit. How great and how wondrous the grief and mourning that fell upon his father, his mother, and the nobles of the realm, even Homer himself would not have sufficed to express it. He was buried according to royal custom in the church of blessed Denis, in the royal sepulchre, to the left of the altar of the Holy Trinity, in the presence of many bishops and nobles of the realm. His wise father, after grievous lamentations and bitter complaints of a life left bereft, at last, by the counsel of religious men, allowed himself to be consoled.
Interea contigit singulare et ulterius inauditum Francie regni infortunium. Regis enim Ludovici filius, floridus et amenus puer, Philippus, bonorum spes, timorque malorum, cum quadam die per civitatis Parisiensis suburbium equitaret, obvio porco diabolico offensus equus gravissime cecidit, sessoremque suum nobilissimum puerum silice consternatum, mole ponderis sui conculcatum, contrivit. Quo dolore civitas et quicumque audierunt consternati, ea siquidem die exercitum ad expeditionem asciverat, vociferabantur, flebant et ejulabant. Tenerrimum recolligentes puerum pene extinctum, proximam domum reportant; nocte vero instante, pro dolor, spiritum exlavit. Quantus autem et quam mirabils dolor et luctus patri et matri et regni optimates afecerit, nec ipse Omerus elicere sufficeret. Eo autem in ecclesia beati Dionysii, in sepultura regum et sinistra altaris sancte Trinitatis parte, multorum conventu episcoporum et regni optimatum more regio humato, pater sapiens, post lugubres querimonias, post miserabiles vite superstitis imprecatones, religiosorum virorum consilio consolari admisit.
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