De edificacione molendini et destructione ejusdem.
A Mill Built and Lost
Strengthened by noble converts, the brothers build and garrison a mill-fortress, which the Prussians later capture and destroy.
At this time, several noble and powerful men from Warmia, seeing that God was fighting for the brothers, were pierced with compunction, and with their entire household and family they transferred themselves to the brothers at Balga. Strengthened by their arrival, the brothers built a mill outside the bridge over the marsh, next to what is now the public road, above a certain river, and fortifying it in the manner of a castle, they left there two brothers and many men-at-arms for its guard.123 The Prussians later besieged that castle with a strong army and took it by storm, and after killing the brothers and men-at-arms, they reduced it to ashes.45
Read the original Latin
Hoc tempore plures nobiles et potentes viri de Warmia, videntes deum pro fratribus pugnare, compuncti sunt, et cum omni domo et familia sua se ad fratres de Balga transtulerunt, de quorum adventu fratres confortati, edificaverunt molendinum extra pontem paludis juxta stratam nunc publicain super quodam flumine, et finnantes illud ad modum castri, reliquerunt ibia duos fratres et multos armigeros pro custodia ipsius. Quod castrum postea Pruthenib cum valido exercitu obsidentes expugnaverunt, et occisis fratribus et armigeris in cinerem redegerunt.
Notes
- 1 ↩'publicain' is likely a scribal corruption of 'publicam' (accusative feminine adjective modifying 'stratam,' 'road'), rendered here as 'the public road.' The reading is uncertain.
- 2 ↩'finnantes' is a rare or uncertain form, tentatively glossed as 'fortifying' (possibly from a verb meaning to furnish with defensive ends or fins).
- 3 ↩'ibia' is an unusual variant of 'ibi' ('there').
- 4 ↩'Pruthenib' is an ablative plural form of 'Prutheni' (Prussians), here governed by 'cum' as a prepositional phrase ('with the Prussians').
- 5 ↩'occisis fratribus et armigeris' is an ablative absolute, rendered as 'after killing the brothers and men-at-arms.'
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