De edificacione castri Junigede et destructione castri Mederabe.
A Castle Built and a Castle Burned
The Lithuanians build a castle at Junigede, and when the Teutonic brothers fail to stop them, they turn and destroy the castle of Mederabe in a fierce conflagration.
That same year, at the feast of Easter, the Lithuanians built a castle in that same territory of Junigede, calling it by the same name. When the aforementioned Brother Bertoldus learned of this, he approached with a thousand men from Sambia and tried to stop the building, but he couldn't prevail because of the great number of unbelievers who resisted. And so the brothers wouldn't have labored entirely in vain, they redirected their march toward the castle of Mederabe, from which the Christians had suffered many hardships. They stormed it, and after capturing and killing everyone, they burned it to the ground completely in a conflagration of fire.
The Conversion of Brother Gerardus
A Teutonic brother named Gerardus, once a skilled carpenter of siege instruments from Brandenburg, is terrified by a death-bed vision, converts, and enters the Teutonic Order to live and die a holy life.
Concerning the wonderful conversion of a certain man. At this time there was at the castle of Mergenburgk a brother named Gerardus, who, when he was still a layman, came from the family of an illustrious prince, the margrave of Brandenburg, and was highly skilled in the craft of carpentry as far as making military instruments was concerned. He had made many such instruments, by which both castles and cities had been destroyed. It happened one night, while he was still lying in bed awake — the doors being shut — that four men came carrying four burning candles, accusing him of many crimes. They said that unless he amended his life within a set time, he would without doubt be a son of death. And as an evident sign of this, they placed on him a white garment, just as is customarily placed on the bodies of the dead at funerals.✦ Terrified in a wondrous way by this vision, he came to the land of Prussia, bringing that garment with him. After making his profession in the order of the Teutonic House, he began a holy life and brought it to a happy completion.
Read the original Latin
Eodem anno in festo pasce Lethowini edificaverunt in eodem territorio Ju nigede castrum, vocantes ipsum eodem nomine. Quod fraterBertoldus predictus intelligens, cum mille viris de Sambia accedens, dictam edificacionem voluit impedire, sed non valuit pre multitudine infidelium resistente, et ne omnino in vanum laborassent, fratres diverlerunt iter suum versus castrum Mederabam, de quo cristifideles multa incommoda passi fuerunt, et expugnantes illud po tenter, captis et occisis omnibus, ignis incendio funditus cremaverunt. *245 G38) De mirabili conversione cujusdam. Hoc tempore in Castro Mergenburgk fuit frater Gerardus, qui, cum adhuc esset secularis, erat de familia illustris principis marchionis de Brandenburgk et valde peritus in arte carpentariorum, quantum ad instrumenta bellica fa cienda. Qui cumc talia instrumenta, quibus et castra et civitates destructe fue runt, multa fecisset, accidit quadam nocte, dum adhuc in lecto jacens vigilaret, quod clausis Jannis venerunt quatuor viri portantes quatuor candelas ardentes, accusantes eum in multis criminibus, et dicebant, quod nisi infrad certum terminum vitam suam emendaret, sine dubio filius esset mortis, et in signum evidens hujus facti posuerunt super eum vestem albam, sicut solet poni super funera mortuorum. De quo ille miro modo perterritus, venit ad terram Prussie, ducens secum vestem illam, et facta professione in ordine domus Theutonice, vitam sanctam inchoans feliciter consummavit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩John.8.44;2Sam.12.5 — You are of your father the devil, and you desire to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. 2Sam.12.5 — Then David's anger burned fiercely against the man, and he said to Nathan, 'As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.'
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