Challenges Entered: Mistress Alys's Research Challenge
Project: A letter regarding the St Marcellus Flood on January 15, 1362
Unto all good gentles, greetings!
I have been thinking about the ways that medieval people might have survived catastrophic events since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. What kind of disaster relief was available? Who could access this relief, if any? And what expectations did survivors have, as far as how to rebuild their lives and move beyond the traumatic event?
When I started to think seriously about a persona for SCA events, I found myself drawn to people and places that had experienced a major environmental disaster. Even though death tolls were high, they were not 100%, so i found myself wondering - what happened to those individuals who managed by some miracle or stroke of luck to survive?
I chose to look more closely at the German North Sea coast, and particularly the area called North Frisia - now it comprises the northern border of Germany in the province of Schleswig-Holstein, but during the medieval period it belonged to Denmark. The city of Rungholt, on the island of Hallig Sudfall, was a prosperous port city for generations - until the St Marcellus Flood on January 15, 1362, swept the entire city away, killing some 7,000 people in North Frisian island communities. But what if, through the grace of God, I and my children had miraculously survived? Where would we go? What would we do? The devastation was so complete, the event was called the Great Drowning of Men. How does someone come out of that?
The answers to this are indeed available! It only requires time and effort and fluency in German - which, well, by the time this project is done, maybe I will have such a thing. I definitely appreciate the support of the Laurels Challenge mentors Alys Mackintoich and Elena Hylton, who inspired me to begin to collect resources for future use and also allowed me access to a scientific journal that locates the city of Rungholt on a specific island in the Frisian archipelago of the German North Sea coast - new information for me!
Here are some resources yet to explore and yet to translate --
Schleswig-Holstein im Frühen Mittelalter. Landschaft, Archäologie, Geschichte. By Dirk Meier Boyens Verlag 2011 ISBN: 978-3-8042-1341-8
Dike Building, Storm Surges and Land Losses at the North-Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany By Dirk Meier www.kuestenarchaeologie.de (For anyone reading German this is a treasure throve of articles and papers about the early medieval life-world in the Wadden Sea.)
Thank you for the opportunity to begin to express myself in this manner. I had so much fun writing the letter as Aleydis - a judgy, pious, hopelessly bourgeois middle aged lady with children who is also a refugee from the Great Drowning of Men. I hope to continue building this persona and someday enjoy inhabiting her at events in the future!
Unto her dear little sister Botilde, of the fair city of Bremen, do I, Aleydis de Rungholt, send the fondest greetings and warmest wishes!
Botilde, I must tell you! By the grace of God, truly by a miracle of the Almighty himself, I am still alive, and the boy and the girl also. Jannik my husband has not been seen many months, for reasons I shall tell you now. You people in Bremen, so far from the seaside of our youth, may not have known of God’s wrath upon the Sodom of North Frisia, our home of Rungholt.
The morning of St. Marcellus’s day, the fifteenth day of January of this past year of our Lord 1362, was clear and cold, and all the good citizens rose with the sun and went about their business - their business of blasphemy and sin! Not we, of course, as your loving family attended to their morning prayers with gratitude and piety, then went we all to our work - some to catch cod and some to the salt pots. Our cousin Torsten (such a tosspot as can be known to mankind) cut the marsh grass, what remains of it after years of harvesting it for the salt, and Merrit - you remember Merrit, Olaf One-Eye’s daughter who we all know lifted her skirt for any fellow - Merrit lit the fire under the pots to boil the salt out of the grass, as she did every day when she was not fornicating like Jezebel herself. Torsten and Merrit were to be married, as happens when heedless girls kick up their heels and men carry on like animals.
But you remember Merrit’s brother Hansi, who you yourself were so fond of as a pretty young girl! We all thought you would marry him and enjoy his family’s wealth and favor - but my dear sister it is well you ran away with the traveling rag man because heed well this tale i tell you, and know what misery has befallen us in Rungholt, as righteous consequences for our excesses, frivolities and blatant irreverence.
Merrit’s brother, who turned from Christ so young, and led a life entirely of foolishness and imprudence, gathered his companions for an evening of drunken revelry the very night before this peaceful morning, and hatched the most wicked of plans - and dressed our neighbor Folkmar’s pig like a man! And brought it to Aurgeir’s public house, and tucked it in bed, and bade Aurgeir to call Father Paul to deliver the final sacrament! Have you ever heard of such a thing!
And so Father Paul hastened to Aurgeir’s public house and began to perform the last rites but refused, so shocked was he at Hansi’s naked blasphemy - and then! Then, Botilde, this should surprise you not at all, but that reprobate Hansi and his hoodlum friends began to quarrel among themselves over whether to kill Father Paul and stuff him in the well! Have you ever heard such a thing! Father Paul escaped in the fracas but the mob discovered him hiding behind the public house and beat him unmercifully. They desecrated the sacrament box with ale and forced Father Paul to drink with them til the sweet mercy of sleep finally ceased their sinful revelry.
Father Paul woke up and ran all the way to St. Canute’s on Sylt Island, and prayed with passion to the Lord to punish the young men who so humiliated him. And lo! By eventide the wind picked up and howled like we had never heard, and rain pelted us with a force, and the sea water came up, and came up, and came up and washed away our home, and the salt works, and Aurgeir’s public house and Hansi and all his hoodlum friends and Torsten and Merrit and her child unborn, and our dear loving parents and most of our friends and relations.
My dear Botilde, so sorry am I to deliver unto you this sorrowful news. It is said that seven thousand poor sinners of Rungholt drowned in what they call the Great Drowning of Men, and nothing remains of our busy, prosperous, neat and orderly town. Yet do not despair, sister! The boy and the girl, my children the joy of my life, sought shelter in of all things Uncle Einar’s dory, which was blown up into the only tree on the island! I climbed up the tree, praying to Lord Jesus every minute, and reached my hand down to Sigfrith and he in turn reached his arm down to little Eline - and by God’s grace and mercy we safely weathered the storm in the boat in the tree, only to be blown OUT of the tree and into the water! Sigfrith and Eline were so brave and resolute in their determination to remain here on earth and not succumb to Death. When we finally came to dry land, we were at the town of Husum. The three of us resolved to turn our hearts to Jesus and eschew all sin and human error, and sought shelter in a church, I don’t know which. Perhaps the Almighty in his mercy has allowed the memories of those days to pass away.
It is my hope, dear sister, that perhaps in the Year of Our Lord 1363 we may be blessed with the opportunity to embrace again and bask in the sisterly affection of our younger days and perhaps a brief respite from our current lack of permanent shelter and sustenance. In the event that some money can be found from some source we might make the journey from Husum to Bremen and start anew, if you would be so kind to allow it. Until that time may God bless you and - my sweet little sister - remember you must renounce Satan and all he inflicts upon this poor mortal race of men, lest you too be swept up in a Great Drowning yourself!
Please keep me in your thoughts, as I know a good Christian woman as yourself is looked upon with favor by the Almighty.
Love,
Aleydis deRungholt, your loving sister.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Severin,_Keitum
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618216305961
https://www.medieval.eu/medieval-flooding/
https://www.medievalists.net/2015/02/great-wind-1362/
https://www.frisiacoasttrail.com
Guðrún Sveinsdóttir (Rosie of Mtn Freehold) wrote on June 7th, 2021
Wow, this was so fun to read! All the details, both persona and historical, make for a really engaging letter...and it was fascinating to learn about the historical event that inspired this piece. Thank you for sharing!
Jan Janowicz Bogdanski wrote on June 1st, 2021
Applying research into a first person account is just a thing of beauty! I love everything about this.
Isabel del Okes wrote on May 27th, 2021
This is such an interesting way to look at history. Your letter is both harrowing and feels so real with the snarky little comments sprinkled throughout. Thank you for sharing your research and your letter.