The Medieval Murderers - The Deadliest Sin

Laurence, the innkeeper of the Angel, gazed around with satisfaction. To a man and woman, the Walsingham pilgrims were wearing the well-fed and contented looks he liked to see on the faces of his guests. They had attended the local church, St Mary’s. They had exhausted the (not very many) possibilities provided by the little town of Mundham. They had returned to the Angel to eat and drink, and to enjoy a further session of storytelling. Every single one of them, even the hatchet-faced Prior. They were his for another night, especially while the rain continued to pour down drearily outside and the draughts rattled at the shutters. Again the fire in the main hall of the Angel was lit.

Despite the dark, sometimes violent, nature of the stories that they’d listened to on the previous evening, their expressions suggested they were ready for more. More darkness and more sin. Human beings were strange creatures, he reflected. Even when threatened by a pestilence that might wipe them from the face of the earth, they occupied the little time remaining not in prayer but in listening to tales of evil, sin and death.

And, of course, who had suggested this diversion but Laurence himself?

Now it was his turn. He was conscious of the ring of faces looking expectantly at him. He took a slow, appreciative sip from his bowl of wine and cleared his throat.

‘Anger is my theme now,’ he said, ‘and it is right that anger should follow sloth, for sometimes the only way to get a lazy person, a slothful individual, off his fat arse and going about his duty is to grow angry with him – or her. If I find a stable boy asleep when he should be taking charge of a traveller’s horse, or if my wife notices that the girl has not replaced the stale rushes on the floor here with fresh ones, then we may grow angry with the offender, for all our mild tempers. I tell you I’d rather be on the receiving end of my own anger than my wife’s. You should see her when she’s worked up! Yet who is to say that my wife and I are wrong to feel such anger, and to give voice to it?’

A few of the listeners nodded. Perhaps they were remembering occasions when they had chastised their servants or husbands or wives. The landlord of the Angel pressed on.

‘What we feel in such cases is surely a righteous anger. And, if I may say it without impiety, this is the faintest shadow of what God Himself feels as He surveys the bogs and fens of human wickedness. Indeed, we must believe that behind the pestilence itself lies God’s justified and righteous wrath.

‘But I am going to tell you a story of an anger that is quite different from this. There may have been some justification to it in the beginning, but it was bred in the shadows and fed daily with thoughts of vengeance until it grew to a full-sized monster that devoured all around it before turning on its creator. The story I am about to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, is true and it took place not so very far from this little town and not so very many years ago either. It was during that time of shortages and suffering when the father of our Edward III was on the throne. When it seemed as though Noah’s flood had come again, and without a rainbow for deliverance. Looking round I can see that scarcely any of you are old enough to remember those days…’

In saying this, the landlord was merely flattering his audience. Several murmured at the unhappy memories. Yes, they did recall those days, thirty years ago and more, when the sun never shone and the rain never stopped. With crops failing, bellies went unfilled, and no dog or cat was safe from the quick hands and hungry teeth of the poor. There had even been tales of parents driven mad by the pangs of hunger who killed and devoured their own children. Such terrible things had never happened in the teller’s own village, mind you, but they were reported on good authority by a cousin of a cousin or heard from the mouth of a travelling pedlar.

‘We must pray to Almighty God,’ said the landlord, ‘that he delivers us from our present troubles as he delivered us from our woes these many years past.’ He waited for the heartfelt ‘Amens’ to die down, before resuming his tale of…

Anger

Like any storyteller, I have to name names and places, too, and because the people are real and, in some cases, still alive, I must sometimes rein in my tongue. Yet believe what I say. In a village called Wenham a few miles distant from here, there once lived a family called the Carters. The land they held as tenants adjoined fields that were farmed by another family, the Raths. The heads of these families were William Carter and Alfred Rath. These families were the two most important ones in the village, leaving aside the people who lived at the manor. And they were absent most of the time attending to their other properties. The Carters and the Raths had once been friends, not good friends, perhaps, but good enough for the working day. Even if it was only self-interest, they helped each other when times were bad and they were glad together in moments of prosperity. Then something happened that turned all this goodwill into sourness.

No one is quite sure what started it. By the time I was aware of the bad feeling, it had already begun. Perhaps some cows belonging to William blundered across Alfred’s cornfield and caused a few pennies’ worth of damage, or maybe some of Alfred’s sheep trespassed on William’s pasture. I’ve also heard that it began with a dispute over a wagon that Alfred Rath had lent to William Carter when they were on better terms. When the wagon was returned in a damaged state, the borrower refused to admit his responsibility but claimed he’d received it in that dilapidated condition.

These cases went to the manor court where both men were fined. Yet honour was far from satisfied, because one man’s fine was larger than the other’s, so of course the one who’d got off more lightly went round proclaiming victory while his neighbour complained about unfair treatment.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, in such cases it must go one of two ways. Either the disputation and bad feeling gradually die down until things have returned, perhaps not to the old easy and friendly relations, but at least to mutual tolerance. Or things go from bad to worse, with every word or action seen in the most unfriendly light. A reported remark or a casual gesture causes fists to clench and curses to be uttered. Plain accidents or misfortunes, like the sickness of livestock or a chance fire in a barn, are blamed on the old friends even if the evidence runs right against it. So it was with the Carters and the Raths. They lived and worked alongside each other but one family might as well have been on the moon for all they wanted to have anything to do with the other. Then something happened that forced both families together… a crime that couldn’t help but drag in the two sides…

But first, I’d better say a little about the people in this tale. I can remember them clearly, you see, although I was a boy. William Carter was a lanky fellow, who kept himself to himself. He was a touchy man, a choleric one. Everyone knew him for a miser and hoarder. Nothing unusual in that, maybe, but William was the kind of person who’d keep his nail parings, not to prevent a witch getting hold of them, but in case there was a sudden market in nail parings. William Carter’s wife, Alice, was almost as tall as he and she had a beaky nose and close-set eyes, which made her look like a handsome bird. It pains me to say this about her, God rest her soul, but she was something of a snob. Her uncle was a priest, you see, and it was whispered that she was actually his daughter rather than his niece. If her husband was silent and watchful, she was a great talker and a gossip.