Vita Caroli
A Treacherous Ambush Laid
After returning from Prussia, the treacherous king of Cracow and Duke Bolco plot to capture King John and Charles, who unknowingly take different routes home.
So when they had returned, the aforementioned lords each made his way back to his own land. But the king of Cracow and Duke Bolco treacherously hammered out a wicked plan: how they might capture King John and Charles on their return from Prussia and, after heaping many insults on them, squeeze them down to the last penny.1 But they themselves, unaware of such ambushes — King John with his men withdrew through the march of Brandenburg and across Lusatia toward the county of Luxembourg, while Charles, however, could not avoid having to return by way of the king of Cracow's territory toward Wroclaw.
Charles Ensnared at Calis
Charles is quietly detained at Calis through a ruse arranged by the king of Cracow, but he feigns ignorance and secretly sends word to Wroclaw.
So he came to the city of Calis, where he was ensnared by traps laid at the arrangement of the king of Cracow — not as though he ought to be seized like a public enemy, but so that he might not leave the city secretly under guard.2 As soon as Charles understood this, he pretended not to notice any such watchfulness, and said that he wished to stay in that same place for several days to rest.3 So he sent a foot-messenger to the captain of Wroclaw, informing him of the whole affair point by point in order.
A Swift and Shrewd Escape
A rescue party from Wroclaw arrives, Charles escapes by a ruse on horseback, and the frustrated king of Cracow briefly seizes then releases Charles's household.
He arrived at once with three hundred armed men within a mile of the city of Calis and sent a powerful eunuch ahead to Charles before the city gate. Charles, having been sufficiently forewarned — just as he had learned through the messenger he had sent to Breslau — attempted to deal with him shrewdly. So he mounted a horse that had been brought up and, at a swift pace, rode out more quickly toward his men, who had come from Breslau to rescue him. While, therefore, the king of Cracow had understood that Charles had thus escaped his snares, he ordered his entire household — which had remained behind in Calis after him — to be held captive. But afterwards, since he could not keep Charles as he had intended, he released the household and allowed them to go.4
Vengeance Upon the Traitor's Land
The king of Cracow commits outrages at Stynavia, prompting King John and Charles to retaliate by devastating the lands of the duke of Świdnica, who had contrived the original ambush.
After these events, King Casimir besieged and stormed the city of Stynavia, which lay within the territory belonging to Wrocław. There he committed many outrages — deflowering virgins and defiling the wives of citizens. When this was reported to John, the king of Bohemia, who at the time was lingering on the banks of the Rhine, he came immediately into Bohemia. Having assembled an army, he besieged the city of Świdnica, and after ravaging its suburbs and destroying a large part of its territory, he stormed and conquered the city of Landeshut. And because the duke of Świdnica himself had treacherously and wickedly contrived those ambushes and sinister schemes by which Charles had been deceitfully detained at Chełmno, as narrated above, King John and Charles spent ten weeks encamped in the land of the said duke, laying it waste as hostile plunder in vengeance for the crime that had been committed, and then returned into Bohemia.5
Read the original Latin
Reversi sunt itaque domini prenominati et quisque eorum ad terram suam direxit gressus suos. Rex autem Cracovie et Bolco dux malignum fraudulenter conflaverunt consilium, qualiter Johannem regem et Karolum in eorum reditu de Prussia possent capere et post multas contumelias usque ad extremum denarium depactare. Ipsi autem talium insidiarum ignari, rex Johannes cum suis per marchiam Brandenburgensem et Lusaciam transeundo versus comitatum Lucemburgensem se recepit, Karolus vero vitare non potuit, quin oporteret eum per regis Cracovie terram versus Vratislaviam necessario remeare. Venit itaque in civitatem Calis, ubi procurante rege Cracovie irretitus fuit insidiis, non ut tanquam hostis publicus capi deberet, sed ne civitatem exiret clanculo custodiri. Quod statim dum Karolus intelligeret, finxit se huiusmodi non sentire custodiam, sed dixit: se ibidem velle pausacionis gracia per dies aliquot permanere. Misit itaque ad capitaneum Vratislaviensem nuncium pedestrem, insinuando sibi totius facti ordinem seriatim.
Qui statim cum trecentis armatis prope civitatem Calis ad unum milliare pervenit, valentemque spadonem Karolo ante portam civitatis transmisit. Quem Karolus satis sagaciter, sicut per nuncium, quem in Vratislaviam transmiserat, edoctus fuit, tentavit, adductum itaque caballum ascendit et celeri cursu ad suos, qui de Vratislavia ad eripiendum eum venerant, citius perrexit. Dum igitur rex Cracovie intellexisset, quod Karolus suos sic evasisset laqueos, totam eius familiam, que post eum in Calis remanserat, captivari mandavit, quam postea, ex quo Karolum, sicut decreverat, retinere non potuit, absolutam abire permisit.
Post hec rex dictus Cazimirus civitatem Stynaviam ad territorium Vratislaviense spectantem obsedit et expugnavit. Ubi multa enormia deflorando virgines et civium uxores deturpando commisit. Quod cum Johanni, regi Boemie, qui tunc super alveum Rheni moram traxit, insinuatum fuisset, statim in Boemiam venit, et congregato exercitu civitatem Swidnitz obsedit et suburbio eius depopulato et territorio eius in magna parte destructo civitatem Landeshute expugnavit et devicit. Et quia ipse dux Swidnicensis illas insidias et machinaciones iniquas, quibus Karolus in Calis, sicut superius narratum, extitit detentus, dolose et nequiter procuravit, rex Johannes et Karolus decem septimanas in terra dicti ducis iacentes, ea hostili prede in vindictam perpetrati criminis exposita in Boemiam redierunt.
Notes
- 1 ↩depactare is a rare verb; the sense 'to extort' or 'squeeze by payment' is the most plausible reading given the context of financial coercion after capture.
- 2 ↩The ablative absolute procurante rege Cracovie is rendered as 'at the arrangement of the king of Cracow' to preserve the causal force: the king arranged the ambush.
- 3 ↩pausacio is a rare word; rendered as 'rest' following the gloss and context of a brief stay.
- 4 ↩captivari is a rare medieval Latin form, here rendered as 'held captive' in the sense of detention rather than formal imprisonment
- 5 ↩The phrase 'ea hostili prede … exposita' is rendered as 'laying it waste as hostile plunder' to capture the ablative absolute's sense of the land being exposed to hostile plundering.
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