Aleric Donnal’s notebook
Aleric Donnal’s notebook
Today I borrowed a facsimile of a fifteenth-century bestiary from the archives in Exeter, the original being held at the University of Oxford.
I wish to compare the illustrations with misericords in Exeter Cathedral and a number of local churches in an attempt to find a common pattern.
But that is by the by. I find myself distracted by my forays into Fontescue Hall’s muniment room and Brother Anselm’s long-forgotten chronicle.
The story of Anselm’s sinner becomes more fascinating and I can honestly say that it has become a great distraction from my main research.
I have returned from Brittany to find that my brother’s neighbour’s wife, Isabella Garnet, is dead, strangled by her husband, it is said.
Simon Garnet, Isabella’s husband, is reputed to be a bitterly jealous man and his servants discovered him standing over his wife’s strangled body. I pray for her poor soul.
My brother himself raised the hue and cry against Garnet, and as justice of the peace he will preside over his committal to the assizes.
Garnet denies all. He says he discovered his poor wife’s body and that another was responsible for her death. I know he speaks the truth. And yet I cannot tell what I know, for it was confided to me under the sacred seal of the confession. I pray daily for a remedy to my dilemma.