The Midnight Man (33 page)

‘And also a very wealthy man?'

‘Yes, Master Chaucer, he is,' the summoner replied.

‘And who are you really – Cutwolf?'

The summoner laughed and shook his head.

‘And you?' Chaucer turned to the Wife of Bath. ‘You must be Marisa.'

‘I am. My father returned to Bath and died of a broken heart. I took my dear departed sister's name, Alice. I, too, am a wealthy woman.'

‘Because of me,' the summoner intervened. ‘I am Bolingbrok, Master Chaucer. My life, my energy is dedicated to hunting down and executing every single blood-drinking member of the Midnight Man's coven. The physician and the Wife of Bath spend generously on achieving this both at home and abroad. Many years have passed but the hunt continues.'

‘So your story is not finished?'

‘No, Master Chaucer,' the physician replied. ‘Sometimes, very rarely, the visions return. But this does not matter; our pursuit of justice does.'

‘And Cutwolf?'

‘Oh, Master Chaucer,' a mocking voice answered from the darkness of the deep window embrasure behind him. ‘Do not turn master poet but, believe me, Cutwolf is very much alive and never far away!'

The Midnight Man
is, of course, a work of fiction, though one seamed with major themes of fourteenth-century society. Caesarius Von Heiserbach, the Cistercian, is one of my main sources for the visions, hauntings and exorcism. Other chroniclers such as Walter Map, Gerald of Wales and William of Malmesbury are also a thriving source for all kinds of hair-raising stories, be it hauntings or the work of Satan and his legions. We must remember that the medieval mind viewed the veil between the visible and invisible as very thin – sometimes non-existent. We have our own theories of physics; they certainly had theirs. According to them, Satan and his legions did ride the black winds and demons lurked in corners, jibbering and waiting. The dead spoke to the living and interfered in their affairs.

The Church's attitude to formal exorcism was very much as it is today. Hauntings, ghosts and possession were taken with more than a pinch of salt. It was only ready to officially move when it had the evidence. It adopted a similar attitude to witchcraft and the black arts, certainly frowning on men and women leaping naked about in forest glades and worshipping some idol. However, both Church and State would only act officially against witchcraft when it was linked to treason, murder or heresy. The great witch craze, especially in England, occurred only after the Reformation. Indeed, more women were burnt or hanged for witchcraft in Essex between 1603 and 1663 than in the entire kingdom during the medieval period. Accusations of witchcraft during the Middle Ages were usually introduced in the destruction of a political opponent – for example, the Gloucesters in the fifteenth century, Saint Joan of Arc a few decades later and, of course, Henry VIII levelled the same allegation against Anne Boleyn.

Glastonbury and the legends of Arthur dominated the Middle Ages. Glastonbury Abbey was, and undoubtedly still is, a spiritual and mystical place. Of course, the good monks there were not, as they say in Ireland, backwards in coming forwards. They portrayed their abbey as Arthur and Guinevere's last resting place, their tomb allegedly discovered in 1191. Successive English kings visited Glastonbury to celebrate this shrine so sacred to their monarchy. Certain artefacts mentioned in the story, such as the Merlin Stone, are fictitious, but Eleanor's Dagger and the Cross of Neath are genuine items.

The underworld of medieval London was both colourful and violent. Professional beggars and thieves flourished. There was no safety net and if you fell, the fall could be long and hard. Certain areas of London, such as Whitefriars and Southwark, were the nesting places of these undesirables. The problem was worsened by the presence of sanctuaries in London such as Westminster and St Paul's, where outlaws could shelter with impunity, protected by the Church, and be safe from arrest. However, the real danger of medieval London was, as it is today, organized professional gangs, who often had powerful patrons amongst the so-called respectable leading citizens of the City. These gangs or rifflers could prove very dangerous. For example, in 1326 the gangs actually took over London. They even killed the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, Walter Stapleton, the Bishop of Exeter, outside St Paul's, along with two of his squires. Many people think the Tower of London was built to protect the city. It wasn't! The Tower's main purpose was to overawe the city, which was why the constable was always a King's man, both body and soul.

Puddlicot's robbery did take place in the spring of 1303. A failed businessman, Puddlicot brought together all the undesirables in London. Outlaws, sanctuary men, defrocked priests, whores and thieves, as well those judged more worthy, such as aldermen and the sinister sheriff of the time, Hugh Pourte. The goldsmiths, the medieval bankers, handled stolen items, though of course they later protested that they were innocent and did not know the origin of the precious items which flooded the London markets. Puddlicot certainly suborned the leading monks, Alexander of Pershore and the sacristan in charge of security, Adam Warfield. Both these abbey luminaries enjoyed an unsavoury reputation with certain ladies of the town. They successfully managed to blackmail their abbot, Wenlock, over the latter's illegitimate daughter. Wenlock seemed to act like a man in a dream, claiming he had no knowledge of what was happening in his own abbey. Puddlicot did sow fast-growing hempen seed in the monks' cemetery, and used members of this gang to cordon it off. He hired the master mason, John St Albans, who forced open the crypt window. The robbers broke in on the eve of St Mark and helped themselves. The list of magnificent items stolen is given by Henry Cole in his ‘Records published by the Records Commission' in 1836. A similar list of documents can be found in F. Palgrave's,
Kalendars and Inventories of the Exchequer
. Puddlicot's confession can still be read in the original (National Archives Kew: King's Remembrancer E/101/332/8). This document conveys Puddlicot's cool impudence and his clear assertion that he did it all his way, as well as the fact that he organized an earlier robbery of the abbot's silver to finance his great undertaking!

Puddlicot did have a leman, Joanne Picard, and took sanctuary in St Michael's, from which he was dragged and dispatched to the Tower. The clerk, John Drokensford, later Bishop of Bath and Wells, was Puddlicot's nemesis: a mailed Oxford clerk, utterly loyal to the King. Drokensford allowed nothing to get in his way; at one time he even carted off a hundred monks from Westminster and lodged them in the Tower.

The principal robber twisted and turned but eventually he was brought to judgement and sentenced to death. He was hanged in Tothill Lane just outside Westminster Abbey, after being taken to the gallows in a wheelbarrow. The route stretched the entire length of the north bank of the Thames, and the spectacle was both public and noisy. A contemporary chronicler, The
Annales Londinienses
describes it as follows: ‘In that year, Puddlicot the clerk was led in a hand-cart from the Tower of London to Westminster, and there judged on the account of his violation of the King's treasury.' Others may have joined him there, including John Rippinghale, a defrocked priest whose confession also exists. For hundreds of years no one knew what Rippinghale was saying – it was a farrago of nonsense. In the end, I concluded that Rippinghale was simply buying time, leading Drokensford on a wild goose chase. Of course, no one escaped the gallows. There were further humiliations in store, probably for Puddlicot and his henchmen. Beneath the hinges on an ancient door leading to the chapter house at Westminster is what antiquarians have described as ‘human skin'. There is every possibility that once he'd been hanged, Puddlicot's body was not only gibbeted but skinned; this was then dried, cured and hung on that door in the south cloister as a warning to the monks. The existence of this skin was first noticed by the antiquarian G. G. Scott in his book,
Gleanings from Westminster Abbey
, published in 1861. On page forty, Scott asserts: ‘On the inner side of the door, I found hanging from beneath the hinges some pieces of white leather. They reminded me of the story of the skins of Danes. One theory was that marauding Danes in the eighth and ninth century had been captured and skinned. However, it is highly unlikely that the monks would have allowed this. Another theory was that the skins were hides used as draught excluders.' Scott continues: ‘A friend to whom I'd shown them sent them to Mr Quekett of the College of Surgeons who, I regret to say, pronounced them to be human. It is clear that the entire door was covered with them, both within and without.' If this is true, Edward I may have had the corpses of all the robbers skinned and nailed to the door as a warning to the monks, a logical step of Puddlicot being hanged on the abbey's gallows in Tothill Lane.

I have been privileged to visit the crypt beneath the chapter house at Westminster Abbey. I have been down the ancient steps; you can still see where the wooden stairs were once used. In the crypt below I have examined the great pillar, bricks of which can still be taken away. I have seen the sixth crypt window without its sill, a reminder of John of St Albans' crafty skill in obtaining access to the King's treasure. The crypt is a brooding, gloomy place. I read in a modern account of the abbey how at night the security guards report all sorts of phenomena; having visited the abbey and researched Puddlicot's story, I can well believe it!