De impugnacione castri Witow.
The Siege of Witow and Henry Tupadel's Stand
A coalition of Prussians, Sudovians, and Lithuanians besieges the castle of Witow for eight days, but the defenders, rallied by the crossbowman Henry Tupadel, repel the assault after Tupadel kills a Lithuanian captain and wounds a siege-engine master, causing the attackers to withdraw in terror.
At this time a strong army of Prussians, Sudovians, and Lithuanians entered the land of Sambia, and with the Lithuanians arranged, they besieged the castle of Witow with one siege engine aimed at one side and others with another aimed at the other side, attacking it daily for eight days. Finally, one day while everyone was closing in for battle, archers with their missiles, siege engines with stones, and others with wood and straw to set the castle ablaze — and the rest harassing the besieged in various ways — Henry Tupadel, who later became a brother of the Teutonic Order, a man active in arms and thoroughly trained in the art of the crossbowmen, rallied the besieged people to defend themselves, and alongside them repeatedly put out the fire that had been set to burn the castle.1 In this fiercest battle many of the unbelievers were killed and mortally wounded. But the aforementioned Henry, with a crossbow, struck and killed a certain noble and powerful Lithuanian captain; and from the other side he shot a certain master who had climbed up to the top of the siege engine to repair it, and with a bolt he pinned his hand to the engine. When the unbelievers saw this, they were terrified and withdrew from the siege.23
Read the original Latin
Hoc tempore Pruthenorum Sudowitarum et Lethowinorum exercitus validus intravit terram Sambiensem, et ordinatis Lethowinis cum una machina ad unam partem et aliis cum altera ad aliam, castrum Wilow obsederunt per octo dies quotidie impugnantes. Tandem uno die dum omnes ad pugnam accederent, sagittarii cum telis, machine cum lapidibus, alii cum lignis et straminibus ad combustionem castri, et reliqui diversis modis obsessos inquietarent, Henricus Tupadel, qui postea factuse fuit frater ordinis domus Theutonice, vir strenuus in armis et arte balistariorum plenius edoctus, populum obsessum animavit ad defensionem et cum eis ignem sepius appositum ad comburendum castrum extinxit. In hac durissima pugna plures infideles fuerunt occisi et letaliter vulnerati; sed Henricus predictus quendam virum nobilem etd potentem capitaneum Lethowinorum, cum balista sagittanse telo tetigit et occidit, et ex alia parte quendam magistrum, qui ad reparacionem machine ascendit summitatemf ejus, sagittavit, et cum telo affixit manum ejus ad machinamg, quo viso infideles territi ab obsessione recesserunt.
Notes
- 1 ↩The manuscript reads 'factuse' (likely a scribal error for 'factus'); translated as intended: 'became.'
- 2 ↩The manuscript reads 'etd' (scribal abbreviation for 'et'); rendered as 'and.'
- 3 ↩The manuscript reads 'sagittanse' (unusual or possibly scribal form); translated as 'crossbow' in context with 'balista.'
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