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The Mad Monk of Gidleigh Free FREE THE MAD MONK OF GIDLEIGH PDF Michael Jecks | 480 pages | 02 Jun 2003 | Headline Publishing Group | 9780755301690 | English | London, United Kingdom The Mad Monk of Gidleigh, a Knights Templar murder mystery by Michael Jecks The amazing fact of this tale is that its true and is documented in the Register of Bishop Grandisson of Exeter. During this period it was often the practice for nomadic monks to install themselves in such chapels in order to say daily masses and generally maintain the building. It seems that Middlecote headed for the coast as there are reports of several houses being burgled in the coastal area The Mad Monk of Gidleigh the river Teign, householders claimed that money and food had been taken. A few weeks later the The Mad Monk of Gidleigh was apprehended somewhere on Haldon Hill which is a few miles south west of Exeter. He obviously knew his law because as a monk Middlecote claimed benefit of clergy which at the time meant he had opted to be tried by canon law and not secular law. Usually this meant a much more lenient sentence being handed down by the ecclesiastical court and so it seems was the case here. A trail was The Mad Monk of Gidleigh for the 1st of June and that was the last documented record of Robert de Middlecote. It may well be that the trial took place and Middlecote managed to convince the court that his accusers were committing perjury or even the monk managed to escape custody and flee for his life. There is a possibility that his case was hushed-up and he was sent to another area, perhaps his guilty burden was so heavy that he committed suicide, nobody knows. What is known is whatever the outcome it displeased the folk of Gidleigh because the tiny chapel was desecrated and left abandoned in the same year. Apart from what happened to Middlecote the other burning question is why did he commit such an awful crime? Had he broken his vows of chastity and the unborn child was his? Did the monk consider the woman had conceived the child out of wedlock and administer some kind of divine justice for her sins. Or, was he mad and in a moment of insanity attack the girl? On the left we look upon a small picturesque glen through which falls the gurgling Chapple Brook, while on the right, bushes, brambles, and tall bracken grow in such density it is almost impossible to find a way through. Yet behind this jungle effectually hidden from our view—on the other side of the brook—is an interesting ruin which was doubtless once used for religious purposes. In design the ruin is oblong, the ends occupying positions almost due East and West. Its South and North walls which rise to the height of about 8 feet, are nearly three feet in thickness, and consist of massive granite stones, which, with the exception of the corners, are simply undressed boulders. At the South-East corner the stones are squared and are similar to those used in the tower of Gidleigh Church. In the South wall and near the East end, the stones have fallen down, leaving a wide space, but the window nearly opposite to this in the North The Mad Monk of Gidleigh is fairly intact. This window is square, four feet from the ground, the measurement being 4 feet high by 3 feet 8 inches wide. The small window in the East wall is interesting. Its height is about 3 feet, the base is one foot 10 inches wide, narrowing toward the head The Mad Monk of Gidleigh one foot 6 inches. The flat stone which forms the head of the window is supported by two upright stones which form the sides of the window. Though very primitive in design and rude in execution this window lends quite an ecclesiastical effect to the building. The outside measurement of the South wall from East to West was found to be 26 feet 6 inches, while the width of the structure was 14 feet. Curiously enough the North wall measured from East to West only 21 feet. Another peculiar feature of the ruin which bore witness to the fact that for generations it had remained undisturbed was that the interior is occupied by 6 oak trees, five of which are fully grown and attain the height of The Mad Monk of Gidleigh 35 and 40 feet. Measured two feet from the ground they vary in girth from 4 feet 7 inches to 2 feet 7 inches. As silent sentinels these oak trees have guarded and protected The Mad Monk of Gidleigh sacred place during the long period it has remained neglected and forsaken by its lawful The Mad Monk of Gidleigh. It has been suggested that the chapel was desecrated sometime between andadditionally the oak trees inside the building are now long gone. The ruin The Mad Monk of Gidleigh be found at Ordnance Survey grid reference SX The above is the Dartmoor version of affairs and as far as Middlecote was concerned once he left the area — good riddance to ee. But there is another part to the story once he had moved to the Exeter area, according to local tradition the monk found himself another chapel from whence he could perform his ministerial duties. Lidwell chapel was located in a very remote spot just north-west of Teignmouth near the farm of Lidwell. Supposedly, by day, Middlecote appeared as a very devout man of God and served those attending the chapel with compassion and caring. By night however he would go in search of weary travellers and offer them food and shelter at his chapel. He would then prepare them a meal that was laced with a soporific drug and once unconscious he would then butcher his victims with a knife and after robbing them of any valuables dump their bodies down the well. For several years he murdered and robbed unwary travellers until the day he chose a sailor as his next victim. As he was about to attack the man with his knife the sailor managed to see the approaching onslaught and fended him off. After a violent struggle Middlecote ended up being tossed down the well and whilst trapped down their the sailor summonsed help from the nearby farm and the monk was hauled out and handed over to the authorities. It has been suggested that there are some historical documents that record how Middlecote was hanged The Mad Monk of Gidleigh the Exeter gallows inanother version of his demise was that he died down the well. If this story is correct then it would fill in the missing blanks which appear in the Dartmoor version, namely that he died one way or another in Croxford, C, A, A Walkabout Guide to Gidleigh. Chagford: Gidleigh Parochial Church Council. Rawson, J. Exeter: J. Although this report, written by an officer attending the military camp on Whitchurch The Mad Monk of Gidleigh in …. I happend upon this place with my then husband around I remember walking down quite a steep The Mad Monk of Gidleigh. I was also a lot fitter in my youth so the walk back up was fine. I remember it The Mad Monk of Gidleigh a very musky smell and very overgrown. I would like to revisit to see how much more nature has claimed it. I plan to take my youngest boy there to The Mad Monk of Gidleigh. As my now husband has no interest of anything out of the ordinary. Visited the Chapel a few months ago; very overgrown and boggy exterior. It looked inadvisable to get too close in its current state let alone struggle through the brambles etc. Your e-mail address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Previous Limpety. Next Ordulph the Mighty. Peter Brooks March 2, at pm. Sarah parker August 9, at am. Peter Parnell October 12, at pm. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your e-mail address will not be published. The Mad Monk of Gidleigh (Knights Templar) (Used Book) | Re-Turn the Page The mad monk of gidleigh, p. Or might it be someone even closer to home? By the time their search is over, life for Baldwin and Simon, and their families, will never be quiet the same again. Good shooting! Keen to help new writers, for some years he organised the Debut Dagger competition, and is now organising the Aspara Writing festival for new writers at Evesham. Michael is an international speaker on writing and for business. He lives with his wife, children and dogs in northern Dartmoor. Michael can be contacted through his website: www. He can be followed on twitter MichaelJecks or on Facebook. His photos of Devon and locations for his books can be found at: Flickr. From them came the plot, and I am hugely grateful. There is another person The Mad Monk of Gidleigh must be thanked. In the week that my copy-editor asked where we could find a vocabulary of medieval curses and insults, along came an email with thirty-odd. Max, thanks! Having said all that, of course, I have to point out that all errors are their fault and not mine. To prove his eligibility, he had to recite, usually, the pater noster in Latin or a similar sequence that only a cleric would be expected to know. At the age of The Mad Monk of Gidleigh they had to swear to keep the peace and to restrain anyone who did not.
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