After Easter, the king [Henry] pronounced judgment at Rouen on the captive culprits, causing the eyes of Godfrey de Tourville and Odard du Pin to be put out for the treason of which they had been guilty. He also deprived of sight Luke de la Barre, for having ridiculed him in his songs, and engaged in rash enterprises against him.
[King Henry said,] “Luke, indeed never did me homage, but he was in arms against me at Pontaudemer; after which, when peace was concluded, I excused all forfeitures, and suffered them to go free, with their horses, arms and baggage. But Luke immediately rejoined my enemies, and, in conjunction with them, stirred up fresh hostilities against me, adding to his former offences such as were still worse. Besides, the merry glee-man made scurrilous sonnets on me, and sang them aloud to bring me into contempt, thus making me the laughing-stock of my malicious enemies. Now God has delivered him into my hands for chastisement.”
. . . The unhappy Luke, when he found himself sentenced to lose his eyes, preferred death to life in perpetual darkness, and made all the resistance he could to the executioners when they attempted to mutilate him. At last, after struggling with them, he dashed his head against the stone walls, and, like one demented, fracturing his skull, thus miserably expired, lamented by many who admired his worth and playful wit.
Source: Ordericus Vitalis. The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy. Bk. XII, Ch. XXXXIX, pp. 75-76.
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