Prologue
The end of the world did not occur in the Year of Our Lord 1420, although much had indicated that it would.
The chiliasts’ dark prophecies that predicted the End quite precisely—on the Monday after Saint Scholastica’s Day in the month of February of the year 1420—did not come true. Monday came and went, Tuesday, too, then Wednesday: still nothing. The Days of Punishment and Vengeance preceding the coming of the Kingdom of the Lord never arrived. Although a thousand years had passed, Satan was not loosed from his prison, nor did he go out to deceive the nations in the four quarters of the Earth. No sinners or foes of God perished from sword, fire, hunger, hailstones, fangs of beasts, stings of scorpions or venom of snakes. The faithful waited in vain on the peaks of Tábor, Beránek, Oreb, Sion and the Mount of Olives, and in the quinque civitates, the five chosen cities, for the second coming of Christ, as foretold in the Prophecy of Isaiah. The end of the world did not come to pass. The world neither perished nor went up in flames. Not all of it, at least.
But things certainly weren’t dull.
My, but this pottage is truly delicious. Thick, spicy and creamy. I haven’t eaten soup like this for ages. Thank you, noble gentlemen, for the repast, and thank you, young miss innkeeper. What would I say to beer, you ask? Yes. By all means. Comedamus tandem, et bibamus, cras enim moriemur.
Where was I? Ah, yes—time passed, and the end of the world still did not occur, and events transpired according to their rightful order. Wars were waged, plagues proliferated, mors nigra raged, hunger abounded. Neighbour robbed and killed neighbour and lusted after his wife, and men behaved like wolves towards one another. The Jews were treated to a little pogrom from time to time and the heretics to a bit of burning at the stake. Other notable events included skeletons cavorting around burial grounds, Death roaming the Earth with his scythe, an incubus forcing its way between the trembling thighs of sleeping maids, and a striga alighting on the back of a lone rider in the wilds. Clearly, the Devil was involving himself in Earthly affairs, wandering around like a roaring lion wondering who to devour next.
Plenty of esteemed people died during that time. Plenty were also born, of course, but dates of birth aren’t written down in chronicles and no one ever remembers them, with the possible exception of mothers, and in cases when a babe is born with two heads or two cocks. But deaths? Such things are carved in stone.
Wherefore in 1421, on the Monday following Laetare Sunday, Jan apellatus Kropidło, Piast duke and episcopus wloclaviensis, died in Opole, having attained a well-deserved three score years. Before his death, he had made a donation of six hundred grzywna to the city of Opole. It is said that part of the sum, representing the dying man’s last will, went to Red-headed Kundzia’s, a celebrated Opole brothel. The bishop had availed himself of the services of that establishment, located at the rear of the Franciscan monastery, right up until his death—though towards the end he was more voyeur than active participant.
In the summer of 1422—I do not recall the exact date—Henry V, King of England and victor at Agincourt, died in Vincennes. Charles VI, King of France, having been quite mad for five years, outlived him by a mere two months. The madman’s son, Charles the Dauphin, laid claim to the crown, but the English refused to recognise him. The Dauphin’s mother, Queen Isabelle, had, after all, much earlier proclaimed him a bastard, conceived some distance from the marital bed and with a man of sound mind. And since bastards don’t ascend the throne, an Englishman, little Harry, the son of Henry V, became the rightful ruler of France aged only nine months. Harry’s uncle, John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, became Regent of France. He, together with the Burgundian faction, held northern France—including Paris—while the south was controlled by the Dauphin Charles and the Armagnac faction. And dogs howled among the corpses on battlefields between the two demesnes.
At Pentecost in 1423, Pedro de Luna, the Avignon antipope, an anathematized schismatic, entitling himself Benedict XIII—contrary to the resolutions of two ecumenical councils—died in Pensicola Castle, not far from Valencia.
Other men passed during this time. The Habsburg, Ernest the Iron, Duke of Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Istria and Trieste. Jan of Racibórz—a duke of both Piast and Přemyslid blood—also dead. Wacław, dux Lubiniensis, died young; Duke Henryk, Lord of Ziębice with his brother Jan, died. Henryk dictus Rumpoldus, Duke of Głogów, died in exile. Mikołaj Trąba, Archbishop of Gniezno, an upright and judicious wise man, died. Michael Küchmeister, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, died in Malbork. Jakub Pęczak known as “Fish,” a miller from near Bytom, also died. I admit he was a mite less famous and celebrated than the above-mentioned men, but he had the advantage over them that I knew him personally and used to drink with him, which I never did with the others.
Meanwhile, important cultural developments were also taking place. Bernardino of Sienna, John Cantius and John Capistrano preached, Jean Gerson and Paweł Włodkowic taught, Christine de Pisan and Thomas Hemerken à Kempis wrote eruditely. Laurentius of Březová was writing his exquisite chronicle. Andrei Rublev painted icons, Tommaso Masaccio painted, Robert Campin painted. Jan van Eyck, Duke John of Bavaria’s artist, painted the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb altarpiece for Saint Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent. It is a most gorgeous polyptych, now adorning Jodocus Vijd’s chapel. In Florence, the master Pippo Brunelleschi finished building the marvellous dome over the four naves of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. And we in Silesia were not to be outdone—here, Piotr of Frankenstein completed a most impressive church dedicated to Saint James in the town of Nysa. It’s not far from here in Milicz, so you should take the chance to see it if you haven’t yet been.
In that year of 1422, at Shrovetide, King Władysław II of Poland, born Jogaila of Lithuania, held his nuptials with great pomp in the city of Lida, wedding Sophia of Halshany, a blushing young maid of seventeen—more than half a century younger than he. It was said that the maid was more famous for her looks than her morals, which would cause many a problem later. For Jogaila, forgetting his duty to satisfy a young wife, set off to fight the Prussian lords—I mean the Teutonic Knights—in early summer. Thus the new Grand Master of the Order, Paul von Rusdorf, Küchmeister’s successor, met the full force of the Polish army soon after taking office—and felt it keenly. You may hear nothing of his prowess in Sophia’s bedchamber, but Jogaila was still spry enough to give the Teutonic Knights a sound thrashing.
At that time, a host of important events also took place in the Kingdom of Bohemia. There was great unrest there, with much bloodletting and unceasing war. About which I can in no way speak… Please forgive an old man, m’lords, but to fear is human, and I’ve felt the rod too often for rash words. After all, gentlemen, I see on your tunics the Polish Nałęcze and Habdanki arms, and on yours, noble Czechs, the cockerels of the lords of Dobrá Voda and the arrows of the knights of Strakonice… And you, grim sir, are a Zettritz, judging by the bison’s head on your escutcheon. Though I’m unable even to place your slanting chequerboard and gryphons, m’lord. Neither can it be ruled out that you, a friar of the Order of Saint Francis, won’t inform to the Holy Office, which one can be certain about in your regard, friars of Saint Dominic. Given such diverse and international company, you may see for yourselves why I can’t breathe a word about Czech matters, not knowing who among you supports Albrecht, and who the Polish king and heir. Who among you supports Meinhard of Hradec and Oldřich of Rožmberk, and who supports Hynce Ptáček of Pirkštejn and Jan Kolda of Žampach. Who here supports Count Spytko of Melsztyn, and who is a partisan of Bishop Oleśnicki. I have no desire for a flogging, but I know I’ll get one, because I often have. Why so, you ask? Why thus: if I say that during these years the valiant Czech Hussites trounced the Germans, crushing three successive papist crusades, before I know it, I’ll get it in the neck from one side. But if I say instead that the heretics clobbered the crusaders at the battles of Vítkov Hill, Vyšehrad, Žatec and Německý Brod with the help of the Devil, the others will seize and flog me. Wherefore I prefer to keep my counsel, and if I’m to say anything, to do so with the impartiality of an envoy—reporting, as they say, sine ira et studio, concisely, to the point and adding nothing.