De victoria fratrum contra regem Lethowinorum.
The King's Raid and Blasphemy
King Vithenus raids Warmia with sacrilege and spoil, then taunts captured Christians by asking where their God is, while they groan in silent endurance.
In the same year, on the eve of Palm Sunday, Vithenus, king of the Lethowians, expecting everything to go his way just as it had before—since he had previously invaded Prussia with several thousand picked men—now raided the bishopric of Warmia so thoroughly that nothing outside the camps and fortifications was left unburned, uncaptured, or undestroyed. In this and the previous war he heaped great shame on churches, sacred garments and vessels, ministers, and the sacraments of the church, and besides other plunder—which was excessively abundant—he carried off more than twelve hundred captured Christian men. And behold, that blasphemer of the name of Jesus Christ, while he was making his way into the wilderness toward the land of Barthense, into the field called Woyploc, boasted with unbridled mind, as if powerful in the strength of his own army, never considering the power of God, and said to the captured Christians who stood there bound: 'Where is your God?' 'Why doesn't he help you, just as our gods have helped us now and at another time?' The Christians groaned and kept silent.
The Rout of the Lethowinians
Brother Henry of Ploczke arrives with reinforcements, but the Lethowinians initially kill sixty Christians and then panic at the sight of the Teutonic banner, throwing down their weapons and fleeing.
The following day— — On the fifth of the Ides of April, Brother Henry of Ploczke, the great commander, and a hundred and fifty brothers arrived with a large force and found the king and his army entrenched on all sides by barricades. At the first engagement the Lethowinians killed sixty Christian men; but when the brothers saw them with their banner and a great multitude of armed men following, panic struck them and their hearts so weakened that they no longer had any strength to resist, and so in the blink of an eye, throwing down their weapons, they all turned their backs.
Heaven's Victory and the Women's Courage
The Teutonic brothers pursue and destroy the fleeing army, while the captured Christian women rise up and kill their Lithuanian guards upon seeing divine victory.
From that point on, the brothers went after them and hit them so hard that the king barely got away with a handful of men. The rest were cut down by the sword; some drowned, and others, worn out by hunger in the wilderness or overcome by grief, hanged themselves. The Christian women who had been captured there, when they saw that the victory had come from heaven, forgot the weakness of their sex and rushed suddenly at the Lithuanians who were guarding them, killing them however they could.
A Convent of Thanksgiving
In memory of the glorious victory, the brothers found and richly endow a convent of nuns in the city of Thorn to the praise of Christ.
In memory of this glorious victory and to the praise and glory of Jesus Christ, the brothers founded a convent of nuns in the city of Thorn, endowing it with magnificent gifts.
Read the original Latin
Eodem anno in vigilia palmarum Vithenus rexLethowie putans, quod omnia sibi deberent ad voluma succedere sicut prius, cum im milibus virorum preelectorum intravit terram Prussie, et Episcopatum Warmiensem depopulavit adeo, quod nihil extra castra et municiones remansit, quod non esset exustum, captum, aut occisum. In hoc et priori bello ecclesiis, vestibus sacris et vasis, ministris et ecclesie sacramentis verecundiam magnam fecit et preter aliud spolium, quod fuit multum nimis, ultra mille et ducentos captos Cristianos homi nes secum duxit. Et ecce rex iste blasphemus nominis Jesub Cristi, dum veniret in solitudinem ad terram Barthensem in campum dictum Woyploc, mente effrenatus gloriabatur, quasi potens in potencia exercitus sui, nunquam recogitans potestatem dei, et ait ad Cristianos captos, qui ligati astiterunt ibi: ubi est deus vester? quare non adjuvat vos, sicut dii nostri auxiliati sunt nobis nunc et altera vice? Cristiani ingemiscentes tacuerunt. Sequenti die i. e. vm idus Aprilis frater Henricus de Ploczke magnus commendator et cl fratres cum multo populo advenerunt et invenerunt regem et suum exercitum undique indaginibus vallatum, et in primo congressu Lethowini lx viros Cristianos interfecerunt; sed dum viderent fratres cum suo vexillo et multitudinem copiosam armatorum sequentem, irruit super eos pavor et adeo emarcuit coreorum, quod non habebant ultra virtutem resistendi; unde quasi in ictu oculi rejectis armis omnes terga verterunt.
Extunc fratres cum suis insequentes, percusserunt eos plaga magna, sic quod rex cum paucis vix evasit, alii gladio trucidati sunt, qui dam submersi, ceterid in solitudine consumpti inedia vel pre dolore se suspendentes perieruntL Mulieres eciam cristiane, que capte ibi fuerant, dum vidissent sibi de celo victoriama venisse, immemores fragilitatis sexus sui irruentes repente in Lethowinos, qui eas custqdiebant modo, quo poterant, occiderunt. In memoriam hujus gloriose victorie et ad laudem et gloriam Jesu Cristi fratres claustrum sanctimonialium in civitate Thorun fundantes donis magnificis dotaverunt.
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