START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHRONICLE OF JOCELIN OF BRAKELOND: A PICTURE OF MONASTIC LIFE IN THE DAYS OF ABBOT SAMSON*** E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Chris Pinfield, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 37780-h.htm or 37780-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37780/37780-h/37780-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37780/37780-h.zip) Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal sings is in bold face (=bold=). Characters following a carat are superscrpted (example: MCCC.LXXVII^o). Small capitals are rendered in upper case. [Illustration: frontispiece] THE CHRONICLE OF JOCELIN OF BRAKELOND: A PICTURE OF MONASTIC LIFE IN THE DAYS OF ABBOT SAMSON. Newly Edited by SIR ERNEST CLARKE M.A. F.S.A. [Illustration: _Seal of Abbot Samson. (Slightly enlarged. The length of the original is 3-1/2 inches._)] THE CHRONICLE OF JOCELIN OF BRAKELOND: A PICTURE OF MONASTIC LIFE IN THE DAYS OF ABBOT SAMSON Newly Edited by SIR ERNEST CLARKE Alexander Moring The De La More Press 298 Regent Street London W 1903 "A VERITABLE MONK OF BURY ST. EDMUND'S: WORTH LISTENING TO, IF BY CHANCE MADE VISIBLE AND AUDIBLE. HERE HE IS; AND IN HIS HAND A MAGICAL SPECULUM, MUCH GONE TO RUST, INDEED, YET IN FRAGMENTS STILL CLEAR; WHEREIN THE MARVELLOUS IMAGE OF HIS EXISTENCE DOES STILL SHADOW ITSELF, THOUGH FITFULLY, AND AS WITH AN INTERMITTENT LIGHT." _Carlyle: Past and Present._ Chapter 1. LIST OF CONTENTS SEAL OF ABBOT SAMSON. _Frontispiece_ _EDITOR'S PREFACE._ Page Samson and his arch-eulogist--The Chronicle--Previous Editions of the Chronicle--The Chronicler--The Central Figure of the Chronicle--Samson in Subordinate Offices--Samson as Abbot--Relations with Church and State--Samson as an Author--Samson's Masterfulness--Samson as an Administrator--Epilogue xv.-xliii. CHAPTER I. _BURY ABBEY UNDER ABBOT HUGH._ The last years of Abbot Hugh--The monastery under a load of debt, and in the hands of Jew money-lenders--Inquiry by the Royal almoner--Caustic comment by Samson, master of the novices--Exemption obtained by Hugh from visitation by the Legate--Jocelin's reflection thereon--The Convent debt--Entertainment of strangers--Samson in various offices, but disliked by the Abbot--Accident to Hugh at Canterbury--His death--His house despoiled by his servants 1-11 CHAPTER II. _THE MONKS DISCUSS THE VACANCY._ Wardens of the Abbey appointed by the King--Culpable Weakness of the Prior--William the sacrist--Activity of Samson as subsacrist--Jealousy of him--The Wardens stop further building operations--Much discussion by the monks as to the qualifications needed in the new Abbot--Samson silently notes all that is said--Jocelin's indiscretion in blurting out his private opinion 12-23 CHAPTER III. _THE CHOICE OF A NEW ABBOT._ Henry II. orders the Prior and twelve delegates from the Abbey to attend him to make choice of a new Abbot--Selection of the twelve--Six electors appointed to choose three names to be given under seal to the delegates--The journey to the Court--Gossip and telling of dreams amongst the monks left behind--The delegates before the King at Bishop's Waltham--The sealed paper opened--Samson eventually selected--Approval of the King, and his comment on Samson's demeanour 24-35 CHAPTER IV. _SAMSON'S INSTALLATION._ Reception of the news at the Monastery--Samson blessed by the Bishop of Winchester--He journeys to Bury, and is welcomed by the Convent on Palm Sunday--His address in the chapter-house--Answer of Wimer the Sheriff--Jocelin made Abbot's Chaplain--New Seal struck with mitre graven thereon--Samson sets his household in order--General Court summoned--Demand of aid from his knights 36-42 CHAPTER V. _THE NEW ABBOT'S REFORMS._ Prepares an estate book--Buildings and repairs--Enclosure of parks--Hunting and dogs--Land improvements--Management of manors--General survey--Makes a kalendar--New regulations made in Chapter--Amount of the convent debts and their discharge--Dismissal of William the sacrist--Samson visits all the Abbey manors--His anxieties about the debts--His skill and energy in managing the estates--Appointed judge in ecclesiastical courts--Jocelin's excuse for Samson's fondness for betaking himself to his manors--The Abbot's complaint at the burden of his charge--His dream as a child--His control of temper--Order for production of convent seals--Thirty-three given up, all retained by the Abbot, except the prior's--Entertainment of guests 43-59 CHAPTER VI. _SAMSON'S PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS._ His personal appearance--His temperance and diligence--Abhors liars, drunkards and talkative folk--His eloquence--Preaches to the people in the Norfolk dialect--Management of his household--Strict regulation of expenses--Appoints none but fit persons to office--His treatment of his relatives--Gratitude for past kindnesses--Provides free lodgings for poor scholars--Expulsion of Jews from Bury--Purchase of the Manor of Mildenhall--Giving up of King Henry II.'s cup and its restoration--Samson's generosity--The Woolpit living--Samson recounts his visit to Rome in his early days, and his adventures 60-75 CHAPTER VII. _THE ABBOT AS PEER OF PARLIAMENT._ Dispute with Archbishop of Canterbury as to jurisdiction over manor of Eleigh--Quarrel with the Bishop of Ely, the Chancellor--Samson wishes to take the cross: the King refuses permission--Goes to siege of Windsor in martial array--Visits Richard I. in Germany--Excommunication by him of a company of roystering young knights--Embassies to Rome--The claim of the Earl of Clare to carry the Standard of St. Edmund in battle--Adam of Cockfield's inheritance--Herbert the dean and his windmill--Jocelin's New Year's gift--The Abbot's struggle with his rebellious knights 76-100 CHAPTER VIII. _THE CASE OF HENRY OF ESSEX._ Excesses of Henry of Essex--His cowardice in Wales--The wager of battle on the island near Reading--Henry's vision--His recovery and repentance 101-105 CHAPTER IX. _TROUBLES WITHOUT._ The Bishop of Ely outwitted as to timber asked for by him--Dispute as to town bailiffs--Murmurings of the monks--Toll-right dispute with London merchants--Dues of the burgesses--Samson grants a charter to the town 106-117 CHAPTER X. _TROUBLES WITHIN._ Inefficient cellarers--New arrangements criticised--The Archbishop of Canterbury claims authority to visit the Abbey as legate--Samson's successful appeal to the Pope 118-127 CHAPTER XI. _SAMSON'S CONTESTS WITH KNIGHTS, MONKS AND TOWNSMEN._ King Richard's levies--The abbot's difficulties in making his knights comply--Goes to Normandy and arranges matters with the King--Samson's generosity to the abbey--He takes the cellarer's department into his own hands--Consequent discontent--Hamo Blund's will, and Samson's comments thereon--Riots in the churchyard--Rioters reduced to submission 128-141 CHAPTER XII. _THE CARES OF OFFICE._ Restoration of the Coventry monks--Samson's hospitality at Oxford--His endowment of the Bury schools--Abbey improvements--The Abbot withstands King Richard over the wardship of Nesta of Cockfield--The King appeased by a present of horses and dogs 142-149 CHAPTER XIII. _THE CUSTOMS OF THE TOWNSHIP._ Old oppressive customs changed or abrogated by Samson--The Cellarer's difficulties in collecting _rep silver_--The hard case of Ketel--The Cellarer's dues--Lakenheath eels--Samson's reforms and his critics 150-161 CHAPTER XIV. _THE SHRINE OF ST. EDMUND._ Fire around the shrine--The shrine unhurt--Vain attempts to hush up the scandal--Samson dreams of St. Edmund despoiled--The saint's body uncovered--Samson and certain of the monks view the sacred relic 162-177 CHAPTER XV. _THE MONASTERY IN REVOLT._ Death of King Richard--King John visits the Abbey--Samson supports Ralph the porter against the monks--He withdraws from the convent--Disturbances in his absence--The monks submit--Reconciliation--Marshalling of the Knights--Further troubles about the manors and cellary 178-189 CHAPTER XVI. _ELECTION OF A NEW PRIOR._ Death of Robert the Prior--Herbert the chaplain and Hermer the sub-prior candidates for the post--Through the Abbot's influence Herbert is elected--Jocelin moralizes--The gibes of the unlearned 190-199 CHAPTER XVII. _THE ABBOT'S FOIBLES._ Samson's faults--The dam at Babwell--Trouble with the Ely monks--The Abbot summoned over sea to the King--Sets his house in order--His unfulfilled promises--The story breaks off 200-211 APPENDICES. I. SAMSON AS AN AUTHOR 215-221 II. NOTES TO TEXT OF CHRONICLE 222-256 III. TABLE OF CHIEF DATES IN THE HISTORY OF THE ABBEY OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY, A.D. 870 TO 1903 257-278 _GENERAL INDEX_ 279-285 PREFACE =Samson and his Arch-Eulogist.=--Abbot Samson of St. Edmundsbury and his biographer, Jocelin of Brakelond, undoubtedly owe such immortality as they possess to their introduction to the world at large by Thomas Carlyle. Learned historians and commentators of the past had made use of the dry facts of the Chronicle for their disquisitions and treatises; but none had recognized the human interest of Jocelin's narrative until the Sage of Chelsea seized upon it as evidence of that theory of Hero Worship on which he loved to insist. The whole of the seventeen chapters of Book II. of "Past and Present," published in 1843, are devoted to a study of Abbot Samson, and the lessons which Carlyle thought "our own poor century" could learn from him. From that day to this, Samson has been more or less a household word; and, as John Richard Green says in his "Stray Studies" (1876), "In the wandering gossipy pages of Jocelin of Brakelond the life of the twelfth century, so far as it could penetrate abbey walls, still glows distinct for us round the figure of the shrewd, practical, kindly, imperious abbot who looks out, a little travestied perhaps, from the pages of Mr. Carlyle." =The Chronicle.=--Mr. Green further says:--"By a rare accident the figure of the silent, industrious Norfolk monk, who at the close of Henry the Second's reign suddenly found himself ruler of the wealthiest, if not the greatest, of English abbeys, starts out distinct from the dim canvas of the annals of his house. Annals indeed in any strict sense St. Edmund's has none; no national chronicle was ever penned in its scriptorium such as that which flings lustre round its rival, St. Albans; nor is even a record of its purely monastic life preserved such as that which gives a local and ecclesiastical interest to its rival of Glastonbury. One book alone the abbey has given us, but that one book is worth a thousand chronicles." The original manuscript of the Chronicle occupies 43 folios (121-163) of a thick quarto volume on vellum once in the library of Bury Abbey, afterwards in the hands of the family of Bacon of Redgrave, then belonging to Bishop Stillingfleet of Worcester, and now preserved in the British Museum amongst the Harleian Manuscripts. The contents of this _Liber Albus_ (Harl. MS. 1005) are very varied; and a complete list of the 144 items in it which relate to the Abbey will be found on pp. 122-4 of the 1821 Edition of the _Monasticon_. (Another copy of the Chronicle was in the Cottonian MS. Vitellius DXV., burnt in the fire of 1731.) Three facsimiles of portions of the MS. are given in the Camden Society's Edition of the Latin text (to be presently referred to), and the writing is there ascribed to the end of the 13th or beginning of the 14th century. =Previous Editions of the Chronicle.=--In the year 1840, John Gage Rokewode, F.R.S. (1786-1842), Director of the Society of Antiquaries, brought out for the Camden Society a thin quarto book in the familiar green cover, which he entitled "Chronica Jocelini de Brakelonda de rebus gestis Samsonis Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi." It was this book that attracted the attention of Carlyle, with the results already stated. Rokewode was a scion of the distinguished family of Gage of Hengrave, near Bury, and took the additional name of Rokewode on inheriting in 1838 the estates of the Rookwood family. He was a very learned genealogist, and the author of a History of Hengrave and of the Hundred of Thingoe. His observations on Suffolk families and topography are therefore to be relied upon, though subsequent investigation has corrected some of his notes on historical matters. Rokewode's text was in the original Latin; but to meet the popular demand for the Chronicle caused by Carlyle's published appreciation of it in "Past and Present" (1843), a translation into English was made by Thomas Edlyne Tomlins (1804-1872), and was published in 1844 by Whitaker & Co. in the "Popular Library of Modern Authors," under the title of "Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century." Mr. T. E. Tomlins was a nephew of the better known Sir Thomas Edlyne Tomlins (1762-1841), assistant counsel to the Treasury, who wrote "The Law of Wills" and other well-known text-books. The younger Thomas was an attorney, and also wrote on legal subjects. Tomlins' translation of Jocelin was issued in the somewhat forbidding form of a tall paper-covered book of 64 pages of double columns of small type, without any break from start to finish: the few notes at the end being mostly on legal points, and none of them of great merit. It does not appear that Mr. Tomlins had any special knowledge of his subject; and, as a consequence, his translation contained a quantity of errors, both of omission and commission. His book has been used as the ground-work for the present edition, but the alterations made in the text have been so numerous and important as to be practically equivalent to a new translation altogether. The three Appendices (pages 215-278) are wholly new. The task of rendering the Latin text into satisfactory and accurate English has been made easier by the publication in 1890-6 of Mr. Thomas Arnold's three volumes of "Memorials of St. Edmund's Abbey" (No. 96 of the Rolls Series). "Tom" Arnold (1823-1900) was the second son of Arnold of Rugby and the younger brother of Matthew Arnold; and he undertook a quantity of work for the Rolls Series, not all of which he was able to carry through with the completeness that he desired. Especially with regard to the Annals of St. Edmundsbury there was a quantity of material that he could not deal with in the leisure at his command. But so far as concerns the Chronicle of Jocelin (which occupies 228 pages of his Volume I.), his edition of the original Latin text was carefully revised and annotated. =The Chronicler.=--Of Jocelin of Brakelond very little is certainly known beyond what he himself tells us in the Chronicle. There are two streets in Bury St. Edmunds known as the Long and Short Brackland or Braklond, and probably Jocelin took his name from his place of birth. In the text of the Chronicle, however, and in other 13th century documents in which his name is recorded, he appears simply as Jocelin. He tells us he took the habit in 1173, "the year when the Flemings were taken captive without the town" (page 1); and that he then came under the care of Samson, at that time master of the novices, who told him some of his own experiences by way of warning against interference with the constituted authorities (6). At the time of Samson's election as Abbot, in 1182, Jocelin was prior's chaplain, but within four months he was made abbot's chaplain, "noting many things and committing them to memory" (39): for which all students of English history are eternally grateful to him. In his capacity as Samson's chaplain, Jocelin was "constantly with him by day and night for six years, and had the opportunity of becoming fully conversant with the worthiness of his life and the wisdom of his rule" (56). Jocelin evidently starts at first with an admiration for Samson's vigorous and independent régime (see especially pages 52-3); but later on his faith in his master seems to have been a little shaken, and Samson's action in practically "jockeying" his favourite Herbert into the office of prior takes Jocelin's breath away. The eventful meeting of the chapter over, he sits down stupefied in the porch of the guest chamber (he being then hospitarius), and reflects on the situation (198). He cannot approve, moreover, Samson's action with regard to John Ruffus and Adam the Infirmarer, where he more than hints at the Abbot's acceptance of a bribe (200). The banking up by Samson of the fishpond at Babwell, thus flooding the pastures and gardens of others, he describes as "another stain of evil doing" (201): the Abbot's passionate retort that "his fish pond was not to be spoilt on account of our meadows," obviously offending Jocelin's sense of the proprieties. He demurs, moreover, to the willingness of certain of the monks to strip even the shrine of St. Edmund himself to obtain an exemption of the Abbey from episcopal visitation, pointing out that there might come a time when the convent might need the control of a bishop, archbishop, or legate, over a tyrannous or spendthrift abbot (7). It is perhaps for these reasons that we find Jocelin, at a date after Samson's death, on the side of the party of caution and moderation in the disputes over the election of a new abbot. The author, whoever he was, of the interpolated narrative in the Chronicle relating to Henry of Essex (101 _et seq._) refers to "Master Jocelin our almoner, a man of exalted piety, powerful in word and in deed"; and there can hardly be any doubt that this was our Jocelin. In the highly complicated story (printed in Mr. Arnold's second volume) of the preliminaries to the final approval by King John of Samson's successor, Abbot Hugh II., Jocelin the almoner took the side of Robert of Gravelee, the sacrist, who advocated the adoption of the plan followed when the previous vacancy occurred, of submitting to the king names from whom he could make a selection (as indeed John had asked might be done by letter dated 25 July, 1213), instead of asking him, as they did, to confirm an election already made. Jocelin, in a speech delivered in the chapter-house, seems indeed to have been the first to start the view that the convent had made a mistake, and that it ought to put itself right with the king. He again insisted on this at a second debate in December, 1213, and took a prominent part in the subsequent discussions, his name being recorded in the division list of June, 1214, when 30 voted on his side, and 32 for adherence to the claims of the Abbey. The three delegates, the Abbot of Wardon, the Prior of Dunstable, and the Dean of Salisbury, who had been appointed by the Pope on May 18, 1214, to inquire into the Bury election, held the last but one of their numerous sittings on February 12, 1215, at which Jocelin was present. At last the delegates announced on March 10 their judgment confirming the election, which, with considerable trouble, they persuaded the sacrist and his party to accept, and to exchange with the new abbot the kiss of peace. When, on April 24, 1215, the abbot elect, unsuccessful in obtaining John's favour, and refusing to bribe the king, though advised to do so by the courtiers, appointed certain officials to the custody of Abbey manors, he took the advice, amongst other high officers, of Jocelin the almoner; and this is the last we hear of our Chronicler. Jocelin himself mentions (23) that he had written a book on the many signs and wonders in connection with the martyrdom by the Jews of the boy Robert, who was buried in the Abbey Church; but this work is not known to be extant. The inaccurate Bale also ascribes to him the authorship of the tract _Super Electione Hugonis_ (also in the Liber Albus), from which the above facts as to Jocelin's later life have been gleaned. But there is no authority for this; and, as Mr. Arnold points out (i. lix.), the style of that work is different from the Chronicle. Whatever criticisms one might be tempted to pass on Carlyle's appreciation of Samson, there need be no dissentient voice to his summing up of Jocelin's character:-- An ingenious and ingenuous, a cheery-hearted, innocent, yet withal shrewd, noticing, quick-witted man; and from under his monk's cowl has looked out on the narrow section of the world in a really human manner.... The man is of patient, peaceable, loving, clear-smiling nature; open for this or that.... Also he has a pleasant wit, and loves a timely joke, though in mild, subdued manner. A learned, grown man, yet with the heart as of a good child. =The Central Figure of the Chronicle.=--Whatever his other merits, Jocelin's strong point was certainly not chronological sequence. With the assistance of the Table of Dates printed on pages 261-267, the reader will, it is hoped, get some useful sort of idea of the busy life of Abbot Samson, both within and without the walls of the monastery, whilst it was under his vigorous rule; and as to his personal characteristics, virtues and foibles, they are writ large in almost every chapter of the Chronicle. He was obviously of humble origin, and his dialect was that of his native county of Norfolk (62). He seems to have lost his father early, for we read of his conferring, soon after he became Abbot, a benefice upon the son of a man of lowly station who had been kind to him in his youth and looked after his interests (66). As a child of nine, he had been taken by his mother to a pilgrimage to St. Edmund, after a dream which presaged his future service under that saint (56). When he was a poor clerk, William, the schoolmaster of Diss, had given him free admission to his school: a favour which he requited by giving Walter, son of William, the living of Chevington (67). Similarly, he helped those of his kinsmen who had recognized him when he was a poor clerk, provided they were worthy; but with those who had then held aloof from him he wished to have no dealings (66). At some early date Samson went to Paris to study, a friend who then supported him there by the proceeds of the sale of holy water receiving afterwards a benefice from him (66). Just as he did not forget the friends who had helped him in his early struggles so he remembered past kindnesses shown to him when he was a poor monk and out of favour with the authorities. When Hugh, his predecessor, clapped him into irons, Hugh's cupbearer Elias brought him some wine to quench his prison thirst (67); and when he needed a night's lodging on his return from Durham on the business of the Abbey, a resident at Risby gave him the shelter which a neighbour refused (68). Neither favour was forgotten when Elias and William of Risby came before him as landlord. By 1160 Samson was back from abroad as master of the schools at Bury, though he did not become a professed monk till 1166. Meanwhile he had been sent on an errand to Rome, with reference to the church at Woolpit, in which his native wit showed itself (73, 74). He seems to have been successful in his mission, getting from Pope Alexander III. a reversion for the monastery of the Woolpit living; but, perhaps because he returned too late to prevent Geoffrey Ridel being appointed by the king (74), Abbot Hugh banished him, on his return, to Castle Acre. Here he remained in exile a long time (74), and he was sent there again after he had become a cloister monk, and had spoken up "for the good of our Church" in opposition to the Abbot (6). =Samson in Subordinate Offices.=--Much as Hugh disliked Samson, he seems to have been a little afraid of him; and, to reconcile matters, he made Samson subsacrist. "Often accused," says Jocelin, "he was transferred from one office to another, being successively guest master, pittance master, third prior, and again subsacrist" (9). But he could not be induced to fawn on and flatter the Abbot, as other officials did; and Hugh declared that "he had never seen a man whom he could not bend to his will, except Samson the subsacrist" (10). When at length Hugh's trying dispensation came to an end, through his horse accident at Canterbury in 1180, Samson was, as subsacrist, busy with new building operations for the Church (14). His superior officer, the bibulous William Wiardel, the sacrist, was jealous of him, and persuaded the wardens of the Abbey to stop any further expense for works during the vacancy (15). But Samson knew some things to William's financial and moral discredit, on which he was later able to base the sacrist's dismissal from office (46-7). The gossip amongst the monks as to which of the brethren should fill Hugh's place is admirably told by Jocelin (Chap. ii.). Whilst the rest were babbling at blood-letting season, Samson the subsacrist sat smiling but saying nothing (21). The receipt of Henry II.'s order or permission to make choice of a new Abbot put the monastery in a flutter; and the selection of the deputation to wait upon the King, and their interview with their liege lord, is most naïvely described in chapter iii. The secret ballot at Bury for three names was a surprise to the higher officials (31), and they did what they could to diminish Samson's chances. But after some fencing the Bishop of Winchester asked the deputation point blank whom they wanted, and the answer was--Samson: "no one gainsaying this" (34). =Samson as Abbot.=--And so the once oppressed and obscure monk returned to Bury the absolute ruler of the foundation, with the king's remark in his ears when he noted, with apparent admiration at Bishop's Waltham, how Samson comported himself in the royal presence: "By the eyes of God, this Abbot elect thinks himself worthy to govern an abbey!" (35). So indeed he did, setting to work at once after his ceremonial installation (37) to institute reforms of all sorts. As Carlyle says, and his words must suffice in this place:-- How Abbot Samson, giving his new subjects seriatim the kiss of fatherhood in the St. Edmundsbury chapter-house, proceeded with cautious energy to set about reforming their disjointed, distracted way of life; how he managed with his Fifty rough Milites (Feudal Knights), with his lazy farmers, remiss refractory monks, with Pope's Legates, Viscounts, Bishops, Kings; how on all sides he laid about him like a man, and putting consequence on premiss, and everywhere the saddle on the right horse, struggled incessantly to educe organic method out of lazily fermenting wreck,--the careful reader will discern, not without true interest, in these pages of Jocelin Boswell. To tell the story of all this would be to paraphrase the Chronicle; and the reader is therefore referred to the List of Contents for instances of the Abbot's capacity and resourcefulness in dealing with the complicated interests under his control. But there is one aspect of his busy life to which allusion may perhaps here be made, as showing the influence and importance of the Abbot of St. Edmundsbury outside the monastery walls. =Relations with Church and State.=--Samson's abbacy extended over the pontificates of five Popes and the reigns of three Kings, by all of whom his strength of character and wisdom of counsel seem to have been appreciated. Pope Lucius III., who had succeeded, in 1181, Alexander III., to whom Samson had twenty years before paid a visit on behalf of the Abbey (72), appointed the new abbot a judge in the ecclesiastical courts within seven months of his election (51). Urban III. granted Samson in 1187-8, the privilege of giving the episcopal benediction (84) and other concessions. Celestine III. placed him in 1197 on the commission for restoring the expelled monks at Coventry (142); and Innocent III. granted on December 1, 1198, without hesitation, on Samson's application, an exemption of Bury Abbey from episcopal visitation even by a legate unless he were a legate _a latere_ (124). King Henry II., who had apparently formed a favourable opinion of Samson from his demeanour on his election (35), practically decided in his favour on February 11, 1187, in his dispute with Archbishop Hubert concerning his abbatial jurisdiction over Monk's Eleigh, where a case of homicide had occurred (78). In the same year, the king at Clarendon favourably considered Samson's petition with reference to the immunity of Bury Abbey from certain taxes (96). Having taken the Cross on January 21, 1188, Henry II. came to Bury within a month to pay a pilgrimage to St. Edmund, when Samson endeavoured, without success, to obtain the king's permission to do likewise (81). In the next year Henry died at Chinon (July 6, 1189), and Samson had to deal with a new sovereign: at whose coronation on September 3, 1189, he was present. One of Richard's earliest acts was the sale of offices, crown rights, crown property, and royal favours to fill his military chest; saying indeed that he would sell London if he could find a purchaser. Amongst the bargains of this sort was the sale to Samson of the manor of Mildenhall for 1,000 marks, after the astute abbot had offered him half that amount (70). The queen-mother was entitled by custom of the realm to 100 marks as a perquisite in connection with this transaction, and took in lieu thereof a gold cup which had been given to the abbey by Henry II. This same cup came back to Bury in exchange for 100 marks (71), when the 70,000 marks required to ransom King Richard was being raised in England (147). When the news of Richard's capture reached England, Samson rose in his place in the King's Council to express his readiness to seek the king in Germany, either in disguise or any other way: "by reason whereof," says Jocelin, "he obtained great approbation" (81). Later on he did go to Germany, "and visited the king with many gifts" (82). Towards the end of Richard's reign, in 1198, Samson tried to avoid sending four of his knights to Normandy, in obedience to the King's orders, and went to see him, with the result that Richard accepted four mercenaries, and afterwards a hundred pounds to discharge the obligation (128-30). He brought back with him on this occasion for the adornment of the abbey church a golden cross and a valuable copy of the Gospels (130); and Jocelin records that so often as he returned from beyond sea on his numerous visits abroad, he brought back with him some offering for the church (131), besides making gifts to it on other occasions. In 1198 a serious quarrel took place between Richard and Samson over the wardship of Nesta of Cockfield, the daughter of a family whose tenure of lands from the Abbey is recorded with wearisome iteration in the Chronicle. Samson would not give way, despite the threats of the King, which he "very wisely passed over without notice," and in the end Richard yielded with a good grace, asking the abbot if he would send him some of his dogs. The abbot of course complied, and added some horses and other valuable gifts, in exchange for which Richard sent him a ring given to him by the new Pope, Innocent III. (147-9). Just as Samson had "obtained the favour and grace of King Richard by gifts and money, so that he had good reason to believe that he could succeed in all his undertakings, the King died, and the abbot lost all his labour and outlay" (178). It became therefore necessary to propitiate Richard's successor. King John made an early pilgrimage to St. Edmund, but left in bad odour with the monastery, which had spent much money on his entertainment, but had only received in return thirteenpence offered by the king at the shrine of the Saint on the day of his departure, besides a silken cloth borrowed for the occasion from the sacrist and never paid for (178). John must, however, have thought highly of the abbot to summon him over sea in 1203 to confer with him as to the Pope's letter concerning the dispensation of Crusaders from their vows (207). =Samson as an Author.=--Once when Jocelin asked why he had been sighing so heavily and was so wakeful at nights, Samson confided to him how greatly he felt the burden of his charge; and on another occasion said that if he had known what it involved, he would, rather than be abbot and lord, have preferred to be keeper of the books, "for this office he had ever desired above all others" (55). Jocelin hints a polite incredulity; but there are evidences that Samson was fond of books, and was indeed an author. There is a small volume, Titus A viii. in the Cottonian collection, which includes in its contents a work in two books, entitled _De Miraculis Sancti Ædmundi_. From a number of marginal notes, of even date with the fourteenth century text, and which ascribe to Samson, amongst other writers, the authorship of various passages in the great legendary life of St. Edmund in the Bodleian Library (MS. 240), Mr. Arnold arrived at the conclusion that "the writer of the work was unquestionably Abbot Samson." For the evidence the reader is referred to Appendix I. (pages 215-21); but it would appear that the work was written before the date when he became abbot, and perhaps before he had been appointed to any one of the numerous offices in the monastery to which he was from time to time transferred by the capricious Hugh (9). Whenever any new event was recorded in his patron saint's honour, Samson caused it to be recorded: hence at his desire the episode of Henry of Essex, whom St. Edmund had "confounded in the very hour of battle" (102), was reduced to writing at Reading, and interpolated by some other monk in Jocelin's chronicle. =Samson's Masterfulness.=--Samson, like his prototype of Scripture, was a "strong man," and as such he came into constant conflict with those who sought to try conclusions with him, usually to their own regret. From instances innumerable, the following may be selected as typical. At his very first general court of his knights, Thomas of Hastings tried to press the claim of his nephew Henry--a minor--to the hereditary stewardship of the Abbey; but Samson said he would consider the matter when Henry could perform the duties (41). Richard, Earl of Clare, demanded his guerdon of five shillings for the office of Standard-bearer of St. Edmund. Samson retorted that the payment of the money would not inconvenience the Abbey; but there were two other claimants for the post, and Richard must settle first with them. The Earl said he would confer with Roger Bigot his kinsman, "and so the matter was put off even to this day" (86). Geoffrey Ridel, the Bishop of Ely, sent a blundering messenger to the abbot to ask for timber from woods at Elmswell, meaning Elmsett. Samson assented to the request for Elmswell, and meanwhile sent his foresters to Elmsett and cut down a great quantity of oaks, branding them as the property of the Abbey. The bishop overwhelmed his stupid servant with reproaches, and sent him back to explain. But it was too late, "and the bishop, if he wanted timber, had to get it elsewhere" (107). Herbert the dean erected a windmill upon the Haberdon, and tried to brazen it out with Samson. But the abbot bade him begone, and told him that before he had come to his house, he should hear what had befallen his mill. Whereupon the trembling dean had the mill pulled down himself, so that when the servants of the sacrist came to the spot, they found their work already done for them (90). In the domestic quarrel with his monks over the case of Ralph, the gate porter, who had been punished by Robert the prior with the assent of all the monastery, Samson upset the proceedings on his return from London, and, after a violent struggle, got his own way (179-83). There is a pleasing affectation of impartiality in the case of another Herbert, the junior candidate for the office of Prior, on the much-worried Robert's death in 1200. The monks were conscious that Samson "would seek the advice of each with great show of formality," but that the affair would end as he had all along intended (193). On the day of election the Precentor was egged on by one of the elder brethren in an audible aside to nominate Herbert. Samson behaved as if this was a new light to him, but offered no objection to receive Herbert if the convent willed. And so, after a protestation of his unworthiness, Herbert was elected (196); and Jocelin tried, after these bare-faced proceedings, to recover his equanimity in the porch of the guest-chamber (197). =Samson as an Administrator.=--Samson seems to have been something of a financial genius; he certainly freed the monastery from debt, and brought its internal affairs and its landed estates from chaos into order. He was undoubtedly more of an administrator than an ecclesiastic. He obviously enjoyed his ceremonial duties as Commissioner for the King or for the Pope. He went to the siege of Windsor in 1193 in martial array, though Jocelin is constrained to admit that he was "more remarkable there for counsel than for piety" (82). He appeared to be in his highest spirits when he went to Coventry in January, 1198, to help to restore the monks there who had been ejected by their somewhat truculent Bishop, Hugh de Nonant. Samson gave magnificent entertainments at Oxford, where the Commission sat, and "never in his life did he seem so joyful as at that time" (143). He was fond, too, of country life, spending much time at his manors of Melford and elsewhere, "enclosing many parks, which he replenished with beasts of chase, and keeping a huntsman with dogs," though Jocelin is careful to add that he "never saw him take part in the sport" (43). With some of these dogs Samson appeased Richard's wrath when he flouted the king as to a disputed wardship (149). One of the complaints against him by those who chafed under his rule was that he was fond of betaking himself to his manors, and Jocelin's excuse for him is that "the abbot is more in spirits and in good humour elsewhere than at home" (53). Jocelin took him to task over this, but had a text from Ecclesiasticus hurled at his head, which induced him to "hold his peace henceforth" (54). With broader outlook than his obedientiaries, Samson recognized the necessity of granting greater freedom to the inhabitants of the town of Bury, and, despite the grumbling of his monks, he gave the burgesses a Charter in 1194 (116). The resentment against him in the monastery ran so high in 1199 that he professed to be afraid of his life (182). Though matters were then patched up, the old feeling of indignation against his concessions to the townsfolk endured, and an occasion for manifesting it arose when, early in 1203, Samson was summoned by King John to advise him on a brief sent by the Pope as to the dispensation of certain Crusaders from their vows. To the undisguised astonishment of Jocelin, Samson sought the advice of the monastery, "a thing he heretofore had seldom done" (207); but he was boldly asked what he proposed to do to get back the lost privileges of the Abbey (210). He was then "weakened by infirmity of body, humbled, and (as was not his wont) timid" (207); and it must be remembered that he was by this time not far short of seventy years of age. He spoke the monks fair, promised redress, and "that upon his return he would co-operate with us in everything, and make just order and disposition, and render to each what was justly his" (211). Jocelin hints by a quotation from Ovid that there was some apprehension that this promise would remain unfulfilled: and then in Carlyle's words-- Jocelin's Boswellian narrative, suddenly shorn through by the scissors of Destiny, ends. Impenetrable Time-curtains rush down. Monks, Abbot, Hero-Worship, Government, Obedience, Coeur de Lion, and St. Edmund's Shrine, vanish like Mirza's vision; and there is nothing left but a mutilated black ruin amid green botanic expanses. =Epilogue.=--As to what happened to Samson after he returned from the visit to his sovereign, we have no information whatever from any known source. Perhaps when he had reached the allotted span of life, he came to feel that the time had arrived to take things more easily, and to be less inelastic in his governance of the Abbey. The last nine years of his chequered life are an absolute blank so far as the available records are concerned, if we except his execution of certain formal documents included in the Suffolk Feet of Fines. But when at last, at the ripe age of 77, he died on the 30th December, 1211, at twilight (_inter lupum et canem_), on the night of the feast of St. Thomas the Martyr, a tenderer feeling towards him obviously existed amongst his monks. The compiler of the _Annales Sancti Edmundi_ (who from the last phrase but one would seem to have been a contemporary) thus records his decease:-- On the sixth day of Christmas, at St. Edmund's, died Samson, of pious memory, the venerable abbot of this place. Who, after he had for thirty years prosperously ruled the Abbey committed to him, and had freed it from a load of debt,--had enriched it with privileges, liberties, possessions, and spacious buildings, and had restored the worship of the church, both internally and externally, in the most ample manner, bidding his last farewell to his sons, by whom the blessed man deserved to be blessed for evermore, while they all were standing by, and gazing with awe at a death which was a cause for admiration, not for regret (_non miserabilem sed mirabilem_), in the fourth year of the interdict rested in peace (Arnold, ii. 19, 20). "In the fourth year of the Interdict": there is a significance in these words not perhaps immediately apparent. During the last few years of Samson's life, public worship in his beloved abbey was stopped; the altars were stripped, and the church doors closed, in view of the interdict hurled at the recalcitrant John by the Pope in March, 1208. More trying than this to the feelings of the age was the requirement that the dead should be buried in silence and in unconsecrated ground. So Samson was laid by his sorrowing monks in the bosom of mother earth "in pratello," where he remained until after the Interdict was removed in July, 1214. The writer of the _Electio Hugonis_ records, in barbarous Latin (Arnold, ii. 85), that on August 9 of that year the sacrist raised the question as to the proper interment of Samson "of venerable memory." The prior (Herbert), the cantor and Master Thomas of Walsingham, with other high officials, thought Samson ought, for greater honour, to be buried in the Abbey church. The sacrist--William of Gravelee, of whose uncompromising character we have had a glimpse before--was alone in resisting this, saying that so long as he had any power in the matter, neither Samson nor any one else should be buried in the church. As the sacrist was the responsible official this objection could apparently not be got over, and so on August 12, 1214, the remains of Samson were exhumed, and reburied in the chapter-house, which in the days of his life had resounded to that eloquence of which Jocelin speaks (62). What happened to the chapter house after the suppression of the Abbey in 1539 is not known; but it seems probable that when the lead of its roof was stripped off, it was left to crumble to decay by itself, for some recent excavations in the winter of 1902-3 brought to light quantities of beautifully worked stone, granite and marble columns, and fragments of stained glass. On New Year's Day of this year five stone coffins, each with a skeleton within, and a sixth skeleton (uncoffined) were found under the floor of the chapter-house in the exact positions in which a MS. of circa 1425, now preserved at Douai, records the burial places of Samson, two of his predecessors, and three of his successors as Abbots; and there can be no reasonable doubt therefore that those who, like myself, were privileged to be associated with these excavations, have gazed upon the mortal remains of one of the grandest and most picturesque figures of Angevin times. * * * * * I am indebted to many friends for hints and suggestions in the preparation of the Notes in Appendix II., especially to Lord Francis Hervey, Dr. Montague R. James, and Mr. Francis Ford, all three of whom have intimate personal knowledge of Bury St. Edmunds and its history. In addition, Dr. James has been good enough to critically compare the English text of the Chronicle with the Latin original, and has made many valuable improvements, for which my especial thanks are due to him. Mr. R. W. Chambers, M.A., Librarian of University College, has also given me much assistance in the revision of the text in the compilation of the Index. 13A, HANOVER SQUARE, W. _May_, 1903. And to procede ferthere in this mater, Yf ye list aduertise in your mynde, An exaumplaire and a meror cler, In this story ye shal now seen and fynde. So as I kan, in soth I will nat spare But heer in ordre reherse by wrytyng, Folwyng myn auctours in euery maner thyng, As in substance vpon the lettre in deede, To do plesance to them that shal it reede. JOHN LYDGATE. (_Harleian MS._ 2278: _lines_ 417-20, 426-30.) CHAPTER I BURY ABBEY UNDER ABBOT HUGH That which I have heard and seen have I taken in hand to write, which in our days has come to pass in the Church of St. Edmund, from the year when the Flemings were taken captive without the town, at which time I took upon me the religious habit, being the same year wherein prior Hugh was deposed, and Robert made prior in his stead: and I have mingled in my narration some evil deeds by way of warning, and some good by way of profit. Now, at that time, Hugh the abbot was old, and his eyes were somewhat dim. A pious and kind man was he, a good and religious monk, yet not wise or far-sighted in worldly affairs; one who relied too much on his officers, and put faith in them, rather taking counsel of others than abiding by his own judgment. To be sure, the Rule and the religious life, and all pertaining thereto were healthy enough in the cloister, but outdoor affairs were badly managed; inasmuch as every one serving under a simple and already aged lord did what he would, not what he should. The townships of the abbot and all the hundreds were set to farm, the forests were destroyed, the manor houses threatened to fall, everything daily got worse and worse. One resource only the abbot had, and that was to take up moneys on interest, so that thereby he might be able in some measure to keep up the dignity of his house. There befel not a term of Easter or St. Michael, for eight years before his decease, but that one or two hundred pounds at least increased in principal debt; the securities were always renewed, and the interest which accrued was converted into principal. This laxity descended from the head to the members, from the superior to the subjects. Hence it came to pass that every official of the house had a seal of his own, and bound himself in debt at his own pleasure, to Jews as well as to Christians. Oftentimes silken copes and golden cruetts, and other ornaments of the church, were pledged without the knowledge of the convent. I myself saw a security passed to William Fitz Isabel for one thousand and forty pounds, but I never could learn the consideration or the cause. I also saw another security passed to Isaac, the son of Rabbi Joce, for four hundred pounds, but I know not wherefore. I also saw a third security passed to Benedict, the Jew of Norwich, for eight hundred and eighty pounds; and this was the origin of that debt. Our parlour was destroyed, and it was given in charge to William the sacrist, will he, nill he, that he should restore it. He privily borrowed from Benedict the Jew forty marks at interest, and gave him a security sealed with a certain seal, which used to hang at the shrine of St. Edmund, wherewith the gilds and letters of fraternity were wont to be sealed: a seal which later on, but alas! too late, was broken by order of the convent. Now, when this debt had increased to one hundred pounds, the Jew came bearing a letter from our lord the King, touching the debt of the sacrist; and then it was that all that had been secret from the abbot and convent was laid bare. The abbot waxed exceedingly wroth, and wished to depose the sacrist, alleging that he possessed a privilege of our lord the pope, giving him power of deposing William, his sacrist, whensoever it pleased him. Howbeit, some one went to the abbot, and excusing the sacrist, so wheedled the abbot that he permitted a security to be passed to Benedict the Jew for four hundred pounds, payable at the end of four years, namely, for one hundred pounds, which had then already accrued for interest, and also for another hundred pounds, which the same Jew had advanced to the sacrist for the use of the abbot. And the sacrist in full chapter undertook for the whole of that debt to be paid, and a deed was drawn
{'title': 'The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond: A Picture of Monastic Life in the Days of', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}