EU bureaucracy blighted medieval Britain

Archaeologists excavating the grounds of Nelson Mandela Anti-Natal Infirmary near Wigan have made an amazing discovery that could rewrite the history of Europe in the Middle Ages. Documents show that a local cess mountain was in breach of an ancient European Directive, dated 1473, and called Ye Shite Mountain: Disposal Thereof. D12776. "It sounds preposterous, but it's true," says Professor Brian Truss, head of Archaeology at the University of Rutland and Ely, speaking to The Rockall Times by candlelight.

Contractors digging down 12 metres to lay carbon fibre piles for the new underground gynaecological unit found the perfectly-preserved documents. Bound in hessian and stapled using a type of early sheep gut, the fascinating book has a thirty-page legal preamble followed by statistical data outlining the town's problems in disposing of the cess, which was collecting at the startling rate of forty cubic tons per week. "They must have had an extraordinarily rich diet in Wigan in 1473," Professor Truss adds. "However, by August the town's burghers realised there was a problem and that sanctions were looming. The punishment back then would have been unthinkable, especially as town councillors in nearby Preston had had their legs boiled in tar for not culling the number of pig farmers in north Lancashire."

The solution, according to scribbled notes in the ancient document, was to bring in the services of Muggeridge and Sons, a Cheshire firm of quacks and charlatans whose "marvellouf ailmentf and remedief" had cured everything from minge fever in Lincoln to an outbreak of murderous cysts in Harrogate, Northumberland. Their solution to the Wigan cess mountain was to strengthen the fibre content of Wiganers' diets. "In effect inducing constipation," explains Professor Truss. "They reduced the size of the mountain by bunging up the local population."

But the plan backfired. In a bizarre twist to the tale an Appendix to the document reports on the outcome of Muggeridge and Sons' tactics. Amongst a list of "deathf and fatale conditionef" for 1474 — recorded by the town's coroner Basil de Pondde — the following was noted:

• 2 bit with infane baker'f wife
• 9 night terrorf
• 14 hysteria [sic]
• 8 plague
• 14 boilef and lumpef
• 67501 diarrhoeae
• 8 boredome

"It seems to be that the additive in the town's food supply had the opposite effect to that intended and caused a serious case of the runs," explains Professor Truss, who has lapped up the details and intends to publish a paper later in the year. Confirmation of the disasterous events came to light following the discovery of a second volume forty-eight hours later. Ye Diarrhoea Lake: Disposal Thereof. D12856 speaks for itself. Local resident and Conservative MP for Siddenham and Praxley, Donald Tonnage told The Rockall Times: "Isn't it amazing that six hundred years ago people were still being told what to do by European directives. If this isn't a case for pulling out of the European Union and killing all foreigners I don't know what is."

Previously

• The Rockall Times' at-a-glance guide to the new Europe
• Colombia to join EU
• EU to determine exact dimensions of fun