Here begins the confession and Plea of Mercy of the traitor, heretic and murderer Vincent Aelfredson of Ravensmont, some 40 years in age, as witnessed by the Prelate Helman Vittleson on the 1st of May, 1253, and assured of veracity through methods torturous:
I confess I am a traitor.
For this crime, my body was broken upon the rack. A soil-born son of Ravensmont, I thought I had never sworn an oath of fealty to any lordly or earthly power, and not one above the vow taken before God upon my accession to the Mendicant Fraternity. Thus I have disputed any charge of treason for never having taken any vow of fidelity to any king or queen. The Prelate informs me, however, that my duty to both Church and the land it serves binds me with fealty to Her Majesty as it does to God. For as long as men have walked these forests, plains and mountains, the Prelate tells me, a descendant of the Divine Child has sat upon the throne of Ravensmont, an uninterrupted line of kings (and queens) stretching back a thousand years. So key a pillar to the order of things, how then could I so lowly a being believe myself free of what has come before? What arrogance had driven me to think that anyone can declare themselves outside that heavenly architecture which holds the substance of all things in place that the shining face of God might illuminate the virtue of their partition (Lattimalians 5:12: “Your gods understand things only as separate spirits; my God understands things as one whole”)? I can be no greater than the lot God has granted me, and so must recognize myself a subject of the Queen. In this light, the Prelate informs me, the many words of my preaching have injured only my rightful sovereign. I have named her a tyrant, oppressor, bandit, whore and worse. I have besmirched her rule as a reign of darkness, of licentious decadence, as unseemly in the eyes of God, as the prelude to the end of time. I have struck at agents of the crown doing their duty at her royal prerogative, and in my preaching encouraged others to rebellious sentiments. I confess these deeds, and their wrongness. For these reasons, I am a traitor.
I confess I am a heretic.
For this crime, my tongue was cut out. Though of humble birth, as an inducted member of the Mendicant Fraternity I had thought my religious education a stringent one, informed by the Missives of the Divine Child and motivated solely by the good feeling of all peoples. And yet the Prelate informs me that as brother of the lower orders my authority does not permit me judgement of the words of the Divine Child, nor does it permit me the authority to voice such judgements before my layfellows so ignorant of the order of things. As a Mendicant, the Prelate informs me my holy duty is to wander the roads of the land as a canter of the Word of God, a most precious role in enlightening even the furthest reaches of the world where the shadows of unbelief are at their longest. While the infinite mercy of God is found most in the suffering of those in need (Circadians 1:4: “You will find me among the poor, the hungry, and the widows”), so too are those furthest from the great works of the Divine Child most in need of the balm that is recitation of the Missives lest they stray from its salvation. This, the Prelate informs me, is a central paradox of faith. Thus to stray from the words of the Missives is a most grievous dereliction of duty, and a more grievous sin to put the salvation of those closest to God in jeopardy. I have also claimed the power revelations through dreams, that sleepless connection to the divine known only to those holiest of our saintly ancestors. In the course of my novitiate, I had cause to read the works of the Venerable Joachim, whose own predictions of the coming ages have been taken up with such vigour by those with eyes to see the direction of the changes wrought by Providence. If that Holy Design could be revealed in the dreams of one so humble, could my own nightly wanderings not do the same? But, the Prelate informs me, dreams reveal as much delusion and sin as they do virtue and truth; who am I to so readily discern one from the other? To preach as I have, then, of the equality of all fellows before God, of the virtue of a Church built on a foundation of humility, and of property held in common to serve the needs of fellowship, of women taking the rituals of sacrament all to spite that saviour of worldly order, the Queen constitutes not only treason but blasphemy. That I have claimed these preachings, said knowingly of their alien nature to the teachings of those wiser than I, are truths derived from Missives I have no power to interpret and dreams I have no power to decipher is proof only of an indulgence in heretical pride. These treasonous utterances place me, others and faith itself beyond that sacred whole of Godly wisdom, the Prelate informs me, and are most surely a crime. For these reasons, I am a heretic.
I confess I am a murderer.
For this crime, my hands and fingers were broken with hammers and my eyes were removed. I am not so deluded to think myself beyond the laws of humanity, and can kill in the sight of God to no consequence. But I have disputed the charge of murder on the grounds of self-defence, for what else could the influence of those who so thoroughly corrupt the holy body of the people with sin be called but aggression? How can any just person stand before the perfidy of those usurers, flesh-peddlers and warmongers who prey on the fallibility of their fellows for base profit and say nothing? Here, the Prelate says, I was misguided; while the threat of unbelief is always present, for one to take action to purify the body politic outside the bounds of ecclesiastical authority is akin to one who takes vengeance outside the Queen’s law, an act so informed by treason and heresy as to not even bear refuting with reference to the Missives. And yet I have murdered, or was responsible for riotous acts in which others died; men and women and children of the village of Dorsten, who, on the 5th of March, were torn apart by a mob inflamed by that unholy anger I called forth to serve the arrogance of my denunciations. I confess I myself took part in the violence, and on this occasion, I murdered two men known to me: one Friederich Feldham, a collector of taxes, and one Helmut von Graff, a royal man-at-arms under whose protection Friederich Feldham conducted his duties. Of Friederich Feldham I confess to have struck about the head with the leg of a chair, having no care or mercy for the life of a royal agent; of his widow and child I beg forgiveness, and to Her Majesty I supplicate myself humbly for the temerity of the act. Of Helmut von Graff, I confess to have slain with his own weapon, taken from his hand as he tended to his charge and thrust villainously into his back. To his parents, I beg only forgiveness, and to Her Majesty I humble myself for the affront to her person. Three more persons I confess to murdering, their names unknown to me; with my own hands I killed two women and a boy no older than twelve, and desecrated their bodies beyond recognition so as to prove the extent of their wrongdoing. I pray only that God show me a mercy in the accounting of my life that I did not show in theirs. I confess this madness and more. For these reasons, I am a murderer.
To these crimes and others, I confess. For the many insults paid to the realm I know my life is forfeit, and I prostrate myself before the regal judgement of Her Majesty and throw myself upon the infinite mercy of God, from whom flows all things good and just. I beg mercy also for the souls of my conspirators whom I had willfully led astray: Mark Aspenson the tailor, Henry Helmanson the butcher, and Gertrude Fordsdaughter a woman of no particular standing, that they might submit themselves to the law of the land and the judgement of God equal to their own sinful deeds and thoughts free of judgement due justly to me. I sign this confession in blood as a sign for all fellow villains to recant their sinful ways.
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Let all righteous Goodfellows know the last testament of the martyr Vincent Aelfredson. In a land in which such a witness to the Word of God is considered treason, blasphemy and murder, it is just only to rebel. For what force on Earth is greater than the strength of a single instrument of the divine will? None, lest all the princely and clerical powers believe themselves greater than the Will of God. Scripture itself tells us this is impossible, and the greatest of blasphemies, for none may be higher than the Highest. Let all those men of fine cloth who give no quarter in tending the lands they rule in trust for God who show no kindness, that holiest of virtues, to the poor, the hungry, or widows who sneer at the Missive, according to which they are no greater than any person, beg pardon of God for the insults paid the virtuous people of Ravensmont or forfeit their lives. If there will be no justice in this world from those entrusted to keep it, let there be no peace for those same. This is our covenant as the Fellowship of God.¹
¹Ink and woodblock reproductions of the confession of the semi-mythical 13th century mystic Vincent Aelfredson were common in the Insurrectionary Period of the Early Republic of Virtue, often appended by similar (though never identical) rabble-rousing sentiments articulating both secular and spiritual complaints against the landholding gentry of the time. The original copy of this particular example (one of the best preserved, printed on paper with ink mixed from lamp-black and eggs) was recovered from the State Library during the decline of the Late Republic, and was probably produced some time in the 15th century (lending credence to the pastiche school of thought on Aelfredson, given most copies of his confession date to around this time and no original copy has thus far been found). While the precise historicity of Aelfredson (never mind his confession) remains understandably hotly debated, the author (or authors, as the ‘Fellowship of God’ suggests) of the appendix is likely to remain anonymous given the secretive conditions under which these documents were likely produced and circulated. The prosaic and scriptural flourishes hint at an educated background, like that of a more affluent sharecropper with access to a press or perhaps a fellow rogue member of Aelfredson’s Mendicant order. Another hint lies in precisely how these documents were consumed; lacking a modern system of education, literacy rates among the urban and rural poor at the time were likely low and yet both archival and archeological records have found evidence that the language of the confession permeated the Early Republic. This suggests either agents of a widespread propaganda campaign (the common view laid out by Forley et al.) or perhaps yet another gap in contemporary literature about Republican social life. Any such speculation, however, must ultimately remains conjecture. Curiously, these questions do suggest a link to the contemporary Republican movement among the underclass of Ravensmont today, who remain as surprisingly literate as they are political.
