The Northern Crusade in Prussia and Lithuania

Since then, much has been discovered about the ill-fated last journey of Anthony de Lucy to Prussia. In 1367 having inherited the estates from his father who died two years before, he decided to join a number of knights who were going to Prussia to join the Teutonic Knights in the long-running Northern Crusade against the heathen Slavs. In the fourteenth century this was not uncommon, although it may seem strange to us that Anthony would leave his wife and young daughter on such a dangerous mission at this time.

Christian knights went on the Northern Crusade for a variety of different reasons. There was spiritual preferment whereby that it was taught that a crusader dying in battle did not have to wait in purgatory before heaven. There was family and individual prestige to be gained and it was relatively easy to go for a few months for the winter or summer fighting season when there was a lull in the war with France. The Crusade had become so organised and popular that something like a “package tour” could be arranged.

Anthony de Lucy had estates in Lincolnshire around Holbeach, and it was from that area that a sizeable group of knights made plans to leave in the autumn of 1367. Among them was Roger Felbrigg, John de Multon and Anthony de Lucy. In his paper John Todd states that both the last two borrowed money from Elizabeth Perrers and it was assumed that they travelled together. A recent letter has been uncovered which confirms that assumption. It was written by John de Multon to his wife and is dated 23rd November 1367. He writes; “Dear wife know that Anthony de Lucy and I and all our company make our way towards the parts of Spruz (Prussia) the day of the making of these letters…..” It is sad that this letter appeared after John Todd’s untimely death as it confirms his theory.

So that company crossed the channel and made the several weeks journey to what is now Lithuania to join the numbers of knights from other places and countries assembled at Marienburg Castle, which was the headquarters of the Teutonic Knights. It was probably too late for any action that year, which stopped in very cold weather and never went over Christmas, so the English party would have been able to enjoy Marienburg; which was the equivalent of a five star resort. The Teutonic Knights had a reputation for honouring foreign knights with fine banquets and entertainments until the summer “reyse” or fighting season started in August when the ground was dry. And so they waited.

There is some evidence that the English party was used to attack a fort that had been built at Kaunas and it is reported that “three of our men were killed from the walls”. The injuries of Anthony de Lucy, a fractured jaw and punctured lung fit, with this. The three killed seem to be Anthony, John de Multon and Roger Felbrigg with the most probable date being 16th September 1368.

It would be expected that foreign knights who died in Prussia would be buried in the church in Konigsburg. On a memorial brass commemorating Roger Felbrigg in his home church it states that “he died in Prussia and there his corpse is buried”. It is probable that John de Multon would have been buried there as well, although there is no information about it.

It appears that two extraordinary things happened with Anthony. Firstly it seems he was wrapped in his shroud and transported back to St Bees as a complete body; there is no record of anybody else being treated in the same way from Prussia. Secondly, and perhaps even more strangely, the decomposition of the body seems to have stopped after a short time with the formation of a material called adipocere acting as a natural preservative.

Adipocere in dead bodies forms under a variety of different environments, favourable factors are anaerobic conditions and the presence of a lot of body fat, but it is normally a slow process taking weeks or months, usually to preserve a small part of a body. In this extraordinary case the adipocere seems to have formed rapidly and almost throughout the body. In the post-mortem it was possible to see the structure of the heart, to look at the state of the liver and kidney and to use a syringe to suck liquid blood out of the lungs. It was even possible to have a guess at what had been eaten for breakfast, namely porage and grapes. If the body was Anthony de Lucy, then what could be seen on the operating table was over 600 years old. The only part of him that had totally decayed was his brain.