The Confessor

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Manuscripts > Digitised Manuscripts > French > XIV Century > 322-511

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La Roche-Aiguille Manuscript BNF Ms-412 to 416

Date: 7-10[?] December 1316

Author:  Robert of Lyon

Fol. N/A

Parchment, 5x pieces 250 x 340 mm.

Description:

Five pages, bound roughly together in the top left.  Presented in order.

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[1]

I fear that my love is in mortal danger, and that my paranoia is justified.  I must make haste before it is too late, and so I cannot offer a full explanation on this page.  Instead, I herewith attach four entries from my notebook, in which I chronicled a most unholy series of deaths which occurred over the past few days.  I trust they will explain all.  I do so at the risk of divulging personal information, but I have concluded that it matters not, for the evil which I believe I have discovered ought not to go unseen.  Know that I do so for love, for I do not believe it is a sin. I pray for those who may come across these pages in future, and hope you shall do the same for me. 

Robert of Lyon, Anno Domini MCCCXVI

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[2]

The feast day of St Ambrose.  With the first light of this inauspicious day - grey, chill and melancholy - I sighted the body of a man in the town square.  Initially, under the bleary, leaden weight of half sleep, I was unsure what I had seen when I first opened my shutters; merely a vague form.  Not fully comprehending, and only slightly perplexed, I set out to investigate.  Others followed soon after.  Muted and numb, shrunk under layers of clothes, a handful of figures emerged from doors, having peered through their own shutters and seen the first stirrings of commotion.  

Yet once within a certain distance, even the most cursory inspection revealed this to be something quite out of the ordinary. 

The man was quite dead; that much was shockingly certain as he lay there, stiff and lightly dusted with frost.  Yet most strangely of all, his clothes had been removed and a number of coals had been placed across his body, cooled now but which had evidently been hellishly hot when they were put there, judging by the unholy burns which cratered around each one.  Further still, a white cloth had been placed across his head bearing strange writing made in charcoal.  ‘The first trumpet sounds for avarice’.  

In the half-reality of extreme shock, I realised that I had in fact known this poor man, albeit not closely.  It was Enguerrand the merchant, who often had writing business for me in my capacity as a notary - drafting and reading documents, and so forth - as his own written skills were quite rudimentary.  I struggle to imagine who might wish him such harm.  Perhaps he could be accused of being greedy and covetous, but he was not an evil man.  In any case, when last I saw him he had told me that he was planning to confess and donate to the church.  

Soon, more people trickled to the scene, and it wasn’t long before stunned silence transitioned to disconcerted muttering.  Even after the guards had arrived, spoken to me and loaded the corpse onto a cart, the crowd continued to swell until the whole square was in some turmoil.  As my senses recollected, I felt my humours bubble and fought the urge to be sick. 

As I limply vacated the square, I saw the gnarled figure of Friar John, a zealous rabble-rouser and an aggressively pious man, believed now to be around seventy. His head was bare, speckled like an egg apart from two rough white thatches on either side and a pair of thickets overhanging his eyes, which sunk deep into his lined, leathery face.  One eye was keen and blue, the other a blank orb, grey and milky.  He scurried around the crowd, gesticulating and shouting himself hoarse arguing that this must be the work of a vengeful angel. ‘See how the devil sits atop the merchant’s strongbox!’. Here was a most choleric, volcanic man if ever there was one.  I always find he carries an aura of hysteria, yet he regrettably makes a veritable impression on people, particularly following an event such as today’s.  With his wild eyes and impassioned speaking, in some peoples’ minds his sermonising imprints like wax and sets like marble. 

The mass in the parish church today was sombre.  The congregation was dead silent, heads bowed and huddled around pillars and walls decorated with biblical scenes, as though seeking solidarity.  I tried to catch the eye of dear Aimery.  I am always able to count on his steadfast friendship, yet today he seemed particularly aloof.  In a similarly fearful mood, the priest was as white as a sheet, his voice wavering as he fumbled his way through the Latin readings.  In truth, even at the best of times I believe him to be incompetent when it comes to tending his flock.  He is young, has not taken the required literacy examination, nor has he even been consecrated.  Since the papacy has moved to Avignon, clerical positions have been up for sale as a way of filling the Pope’s coffers.  Thus appointments are made for those who can pay, and little else matters in terms of competency or indeed suitability.  The real spiritual figure in the community has always been Friar John, irrespective of how much he frightens people.  As I exited the church he stood across the dirt road, eyeing everybody with the penetrating malice of an omniscient deity.  By his side was Raoul, a newcomer to the town and his most fervent disciple, hanging on his every word.  I confess that I found the sight of the pair quite unnerving. 

I write as the light ebbs outside.  The Friar was convinced that divine retribution was at work, punishment against the lamentable state of Christianity as he perceived it.  However, I am suspicious that there is a more worldly explanation.  I don’t suppose I shall sleep much tonight. 

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[3]

The first day after the feast of St Ambrose.  Last night I fell into a fitful sleep thinking of the seemingly omniscient Friar, and awoke a while after dawn under the thrall of the same man.  Indeed, it was his voice which carried news of the second death through my window, as he wound his way through the town, shouting. As usual, he was accompanied by Raoul. 

Through his lyrical fervour I deduced that this second poor soul had been another man, found in the small stream running in the moat outside the postern gate, with a massive rock atop his torso, and dead rotting fish placed around him.  On the rock was written in ash, ‘The second trumpet sounds for adultery’.  I learned later in the day that he had last been seen merely the previous afternoon, entering the church.

Some of the things Friar John said made quite an impression on me: ‘See what happens when the antichrist sits in Avignon!  The time is near!  See how the sinners are struck down!’.  He was frenzied, arguing that the deaths corresponded to the apocalypse foretold in the Book of Revelation, which I have not read although I have heard tell of it.  As the seventh seal is broken, seven angels issue forth, each consecutively sounding a trumpet.  The first trumpet causes a hail of fire which burns all in its path, whilst the second causes a mountain to fall into the sea, killing many sea creatures.  The fate of those poor souls certainly alluded to such prophecies, and I noticed John had attracted a number of followers who seemed to agree.

I left the window dazed.  My mind was already flooded with the terror of the day before, and yet I was also bothered by something else, which even now I cannot quite place.  I found myself setting out across town to see Aimery.  I found him in as lamentable a state as yesterday, his kind features chased away and replaced by a mask of anxiety.

‘Did you hear the Friar?’  Was all he whispered at first.  I entered, and we spent some time in fearful discussion.  He was convinced that the apocalypse really was coming.  A few years ago the northern seas had frozen over, and last year there had been rains of hitherto unseen proportions, like a biblical flood, so that famine scourged Christendom.  And the horseman of war had seemingly been unleashed, as the King of France attacked the Pope physically at the turn of the century.  He was cowed by all of these portents, which had fired from the tongue of the Friar and left a mark.  I, too, am unnerved, yet it is not the root of my concern.  After all, similar predictions have been made historically and none came to fruition. I am still paranoid that the real cause lies in our midst.

I left to attend to my remaining work, involving a property deed brought by a wealthy woman named Constance, which I drafted according to template and read out to her.  As I handed the document over, she seemed to frown as she took it, as though it would soon be worthless.  By then I was far away; indeed, she was half talking to herself when she stated that she was on her way to confess to the priest, for she believed that judgement day was near and that she had committed a mortal sin.  ‘I fear burning in hell if my soul is not absolved’, she said.  ‘Did you know that in hell the impenitent hang by their tongues from burning trees?’.  If I was not in such a vacant state, I might have been shocked by her candour.  

This day has been strenuous.  Once again I snuff out my candle, fearful of what tomorrow may bring. 

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[4]

The second day after the feast of St Ambrose.  The state of my mind is frayed, and I lack the fortitude to write or even recall in detail all the routines of the day save for a series of momentous blows which fell on me like a smith’s hammer.  

The first thing to permeate the haze is the image of my neighbour mournfully declaring that Constance was dead.  She was found laying in her bathing tub, filled with water which had been dyed black, pale and limply reclining with a stem of the herb wormwood placed in her mouth. And as usual, the text: ‘The third trumpet sounds for heresy’. This transpired to be another macabre allegory to the Book of Revelation, where the third angel’s trumpet causes a star called Wormwood to fall to earth and turn the fresh waters bitter.  In the adjoining square I saw John and Raoul again, announcing as such, that here was proof of Christianity’s decay.

Yet as I lay in stupor, an even more pertinent event occurred, and one which I now ruminate upon with severe anxiety.  Aimery had come to the door.  He was at once melancholic and determined, bearing the kind of disposition found in those resigned, reluctantly yet confidently, to an unpleasant task.

‘I must confess to the priest about what we have done.’  I could only croak back a faint protest.  ‘I fear hell, Robert.  The day is near, that much is evident from what is happening.  All I need to do is confess and pay an indulgence, and we may be saved.’ 

Even as I write, my hand shakes, for I have never consigned what we did to parchment.  I am so fearful that anybody, anything should see it that I ensured that the only record existed in our memories.  But now, in my fearful state of mind, it seems the only thing to do.  I suppose by now we won’t be the only ones who know. 

It only happened once, but I know the Church considers sodomy the gravest of all sins.  Perhaps I always knew that the friendship I had with Aimery was different to that which I shared with others, but I could not think of any other way to describe it.  Love?  No, such a term - as I have seen and heard it in the world around me - describes a feeling towards one’s biological counterpart.  And yet it is a feeling which I seem to understand even if I lack it according to this definition. 

Every fibre of me strains at the thought of Aimery confessing, but I saw that he had made his decision.  I let him go, unable to articulate why it unnerved me so terribly.

It is only now - late in the evening and some time after Aimery left - that I feel nagging paranoia that something terrible happens at confession.  I remembered what Constance had said which I had almost dismissed; that she was going to confess that evening.  With mounting anxiety I also recalled that the second man to die had last been seen exiting the church, and that poor Enguerrand had told me a few days prior to his death that he too ought to confess.  But even if incriminating things were divulged at confession, how would anybody know given that it was wholly confidential?  Maybe their deaths were, after all, a divine visitation.  

I am being too suspicious.  Aimery has no enemies.  Yet, it has been a long time.  Perhaps I could check his house.  Yes, it is resolved; I quit my notebook for now.

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[5] 

I know not the the hour.  I am frantic with worry, for a search from which I have just returned - breathless and sputtered with mud - yielded no sign of Aimery, although it did reveal the truth, and I am now in possession of a grave revelation.  With the Lord as my witness, I shall continue my search, but first I feel it my duty to record what I have learned for posterity, lest such evil go unnoticed for eternity!    

After finding Aimery absent from his house, my suspicions flared like angry sores.  Some unfathomable instinct told me to go and find the priest.  Although the hour was late, I bolted to the parochial house adjacent to the church and banged furiously on the door.  Making an effort to sound like a freed demon, I succeeded in rousing the priest, whereby I immediately asked what had happened to Aimery, at which point he quailed and his mouth hung agape. 

At this stage I am quite convinced that the hand of the divine guided my actions, for I sensed something was amiss and forced my way inward, pushing him through the doorway.  Without such force I do not believe I would have discovered the truth, so unspeakable it is that it had to be forced out of the rascal under duress.  Guided by some instinct which I didn’t quite understand, I seized him by the neck.

Squirming like a stabbed rat, he choked something about Raoul.  I learned that after Aimery had confessed, the priest had handed him over to the aforementioned rogue, who had taken control of the monetary indulgences by threatening the priest with blackmail, and claiming that he was an angel sent by God.  He confirmed that this had happened with the other confessors, and that, worse still, he was bullied by Raoul into revealing what had been confessed!  When I asked why, the priest stammered that Raoul needed to know the sin so he could charge the according amount as a penalty.  

Yet the bleakest revelation was to come.  Since Raoul was nowhere without the Friar, I sensed the wretched hand of the old man in this dark scheme.  I pushed the priest still more; by this stage he was in such an agitated state that I thought he might have forced all of the air out of his body.  He only said that on the day of Enguerrand’s confession - when Raoul had explained to him what he must do - he later overheard Friar John talking to Raoul about ‘starting the movement here’.  Still, the priest was adamant that he thought the deaths were supernatural, that Raoul only meant to take the money, and he had allowed him to do so because he was frightened.  

As I left, numb but guided by the same indescribable passion, I believed I understood the full truth.  My paranoia is vindicated; the foul nature of the murders, everything the Friar had preached; all had sudden, sickening relevance.  I consign my deduction to posterity:

The Friar is starting a movement, a rebellion against Christianity as it stands, and he is doing so through a campaign of fear, money-hoarding and worse, murder!  Through his acolyte Raoul, he gathers ‘sinners’ and their secrets, takes their money and then has them killed; I suspect Raoul does the odious work.  Perhaps John believes he is a harbinger of the apocalypse sent to cleanse the world of sin.  In any case, his following burgeons with every death, and every claim he makes that the murdered have been smote by an angel.  I believe in doing so he aims to imply that God is dissatisfied with Christendom, whilst placing himself under the guise of righteousness, perhaps to move even against the pope himself.  Indeed, people already believe he has the gift of prophecy and his movement grows steadily.  

I can bring myself to write but little more.  If my suspicions are correct - as I am convinced that they are - then I must go and find Aimery before it is too late.  I do not know how or even where to look, but I do realise now that love is after all the only term which describes my compulsion to approach this maw of danger unflinching.  

If he lives, then I will return.  If he dies then I will leave, or I will die too.  Know then that what I have written is true.  May the Lord be with me.  

Robert of Lyon

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