De morte marscalci et xxix fratrum et multorum de populo Sambiensi.
The Setting of the Expedition
The narrative establishes the precise dates and liturgical calendar markers for the campaign that follows.
In the year of our Lord 1320, on the sixth day before the Kalends of August. On the Kalends of August. From. On the third day after the feast of the blessed.
The Ambush in Medenickam
Brother Henry the Marshal and his companions are killed when Prussian forces ambush the Teutonic raiding party in the territory of Medenickam.
In the month of July, after the feast of the Apostle James, Brother Henry the Marshal, with forty brothers and knights from Sambia and from Memel, came to the territory of Medenickam. While the advance scouts were crossing through it first, following the customary practices of war — plundering and burning as they went — the people of that territory, already armed and ready, hostilely attacked those who were positioned under the banner, engaging them in battle. With many falling and being killed on both sides, they finally killed Brother Henry the Marshal himself, along with twenty-nine brothers and many of the common people.
Survivors and Sacrifice
The surviving wanderers return in starvation, while Brother Gerard Rude is offered as a burning sacrifice to the Prussian gods.
Others, wandering in the wilderness for several days and nights, worn down by hunger, made their way back. They also offered Brother Gerard, called Rude, the Sambian advocate — dressed in armor and placed upon a warhorse — as a burning sacrifice to their gods, as a victim.
Read the original Latin
Anno domini mcccxx vi. Kalendas Augusti i. e. tercia die post festum beati. juii Jacobi apostoli, frater Henricus marscalcus cum xl fratribus et equitibus de Sambia et de Memela venit ad territorium Medenickam, et dum primi precursores secundum consuetos mores belli ipsum transirent per rapinam et incendium devastando, gentes hujus territorii, jam parate in armis, eos, qui sub vexillo erant constituti, hostiliter invaserunt in bello, et cadentibus ex utraque partea pluribus interfectis, tandem ipsum fratrem Henricum marscalcum cum xxix fratribus et multis de populo occiderunt. Alii in solitudine errantes per plures dies et noctes consumpti inedia sunt reversi. Fratrem etiam Gerardum dictum Rude advocatum Sambiensem indutum armis et depositum super dextrarium cremantes diis suis pro victima obtulerunt.
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