War of the Roses

Eudes Rigaud was a thirteenth century spiritual reformer and his visitations throughout Normandy were written by himself and his aides between 1248 and 1269. Of the Franciscan order, Eudes rose to become archbishop of Rouen in 1248 and his register provides valuable anecdotal evidence for the misdemeanours in ecclesiastical life and its problems. 

On the 19th of January, 1248, he visited the deanery of Foucarmont.

There he found a priest "defamed of a certain woman...who is said to be with child by him", who treated his own father "in a most disgraceful manner" and finally is accused of fighting a knight "with drawn sword, and making a great clamor".

This priest was not the only sinner Eudes was to find there. There was another priest who despite being chastised by the archdeacon, continued to associate with a particular woman and even take her to the market (!); another who sold grain at an inflated price due to a poor harvest; a drunk leper; and even a priest who frequented the taverns and played "dice and quoits".

But these are fairly run of the mill for Eudes visits, however what caught my eye was the final priest's sins: 

"Item, the priest of Mesnil-David is disobedient and has his children at home and a concubine elsewhere; item two women fell upon each other in his house; they fought with each other and because one was fond of roses the other cut down the rose bushes"

Definitely the stuff of soap opera!

Baille des Roses: Mid-fifteenth century wall tapestry, Belgium

Notes

Davies, A., 'The Holy Bureaucrat: Eudes Rigaud and Religious Reform in Thirteenth-Century Normandy',  (London: Cornell University Press), p. 6

O'Sullivan, J., ed., The Register of Eudes of Rouen (London: Columbia University Press, 1964)

pp. XXIX, 24