“ On top of all this, Henry [Hugh III] duke of Burgundy, prompted by a spirit of worthless arrogance of perhaps led on by the most unbecoming malicious envy, composed the words of a song to be sung in public. Such shameful words should never have been made public if its composers had retained any sense of propriety, for they were revealed not so much as men but men beyond raping women [editor’s note: ‘unclear passage; this makes best sense but assumes the Latin is corrupt.’].
Those who applied their efforts to such shocking and silly activities certainly made themselves conspicuous and revaled the hidden inentions of their hearts, for streams must be like their spring, cloudy or clear. This invidious composition was sung all through the army. The king was extremely annoyed about it, and thought that he should punish them by paying them back in their own coin. So he also sang something about them, and it was little trouble to compose because there was plenty of material at hand. So what if he responded to so many fictions and taunts with some truths? The reputation of King Richard’s exceptional exploits remained undoubted; but since his rivals despaired of equalling his valour, they attacked it freely with all the hatred they could.
Those who applied their efforts to such shocking and silly activities certainly made themselves conspicuous and revaled the hidden inentions of their hearts, for streams must be like their spring, cloudy or clear. This invidious composition was sung all through the army. The king was extremely annoyed about it, and thought that he should punish them by paying them back in their own coin. So he also sang something about them, and it was little trouble to compose because there was plenty of material at hand. So what if he responded to so many fictions and taunts with some truths? The reputation of King Richard’s exceptional exploits remained undoubted; but since his rivals despaired of equalling his valour, they attacked it freely with all the hatred they could.
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The Itinerarium Peregrinorum on the relationship between the French and English contingents of crusaders towards the end of the Third Crusade.
Richard I seems to have taken this in pretty good humour and given as good as he got, but man, there is pretty much no word to describe how the author of the Itinerarium felt about it but “butthurt”.
Linky -
