Practical--Devotional
Here indeed, perhaps, by rule of antagonisms, may be the place to
mention that, after King Richard's return, there was a liberty of
tourneying given to the fighting men of England: that a
Tournament was proclaimed in the Abbot's domain, 'between
Thetford and St. Edmundsbury,'--perhaps in the Euston region, on
Fakenham Heights, midway between these two localities: that it
was publicly prohibited by our Lord Abbot; and nevertheless was
held in spite of him,--and by the parties, as would seem,
considered 'a gentle and free passage of arms.'
Nay, next year, there came to the same spot four-and-twenty young
men, sons of Nobles, for another passage of arms; who, having
completed the same, all rode into St. Edmundsbury to lodge for
the night. Here is modesty! Our Lord Abbot, being instructed of
it, ordered the Gates to be closed; the whole party shut in.
The morrow was the Vigil of the Apostles Peter and Paul; no
outgate on the morrow. Giving their promise not to depart
without permission, those four-and-twenty young bloods dieted all
that day (_manducaverunt_) with the Lord Abbot, waiting for trial
on the morrow. 'But after dinner,'--mark it, posterity!--'the
Lord Abbot retiring into his _Thalamus,_ they all started up, and
began caroling and singing (_carolare et cantare_); sending
into the Town for wine; drinking, and afterwards howling
(_ululantes_);--totally depriving the Abbot and Convent of their
afternoon's nap; doing all this in derision of the Lord Abbot,
and spending in such fashion the whole day till evening, nor
would they desist at the Lord Abbot's order! Night coming on,
they broke the bolts of the Town-Gates, and went off by
violence!' Was the like ever heard of? The roysterous young
dogs; caroling, howling, breaking the Lord Abbot's sleep,--after
that sinful chivalry cock-fight of theirs! They too are a
feature of distant centuries, as of near ones. St. Edmund on the
edge of your horizon, or whatever else there, young scamps, in
the dandy state, whether cased in iron or in whalebone, begin
to caper and carol on the green Earth! Our Lord Abbot
excommunicated most of them; and they gradually came in
for repentance.
Excommunication is a great recipe with our Lord Abbot; the
prevailing purifier in those ages. Thus when the Townsfolk and
Monks-menials quarreled once at the Christmas Mysteries in St.
Edmund's Churchyard, and 'from words it came to cuffs, and from
cuffs to cuttings and the effusion of blood,'--our Lord Abbot
excommunicates sixty of the rioters, with bell, book and candle
(_accensis candelis_), at one stroke. Whereupon they all come
suppliant, indeed nearly naked, 'nothing on but their breeches,
_omnino nudi praeter femoralia,_ and prostrate themselves at the
Church-door.' Figure that!
In fact, by excommunication or persuasion, by impetuosity of
driving or adroitness in leading, this Abbot, it is now becoming
plain everywhere, is a man that generally remains master at last.
He tempers his medicine to the malady, now hot, now cool;
prudent though fiery, an eminently practical man. Nay sometimes
in his adroit practice there are swift turns almost of a
surprising nature! Once, for example, it chanced that Geoffrey
Riddell Bishop of Ely, a Prelate rather troublesome to our Abbot,
made a request of him for timber from his woods towards certain
edifices going on at Glemsford. The Abbot, a great builder
himself, disliked the request; could not however give it a
negative. While he lay, therefore, at his Manorhouse of Melford
not long after, there comes to him one of the Lord Bishop's men
or monks, with a message from his Lordship, "That he now begged
permission to cut down the requisite trees in Elmswell Wood," so
said the monk: Elm_swell,_ where there are no trees but scrubs
and shrubs, instead of Elm_set,_ our true _nemus,_ and high-
towering oak-wood, here on Melford Manor! Elmswell? The Lord
Abbot, in surprise, inquires privily of Richard his Forester;
Richard answers that my Lord of Ely has already had his
_carpentarii_ in Elmset, and marked out for his own use all the
best trees in the compass of it. Abbot Samson thereupon answers
the monk: "Elmswell? Yes surely, be it as my Lord Bishop
wishes." The successful monk, on the morrow morning, hastens
home to Ely; but, on the morrow morning, 'directly after mass,'
Abbot Samson too was busy! The successful monk, arriving at Ely,
is rated for a goose and an owl; is ordered back to say that
Elmset was the place meant. Alas, on arriving at Elmset, he
finds the Bishop's trees, they 'and a hundred more,' all felled
and piled, and the stamp of St. Edmund's Monastery burnt into
them,--for roofing of the great tower we are building there!
Your importunate Bishop must seek wood for Glemsford edifices in
some other _nemus_ than this. A practical Abbot!
We said withal there was a terrible flash of anger in him:
witness his address to old Herbert the Dean, who in a too thrifty
manner has erected a wind-mill for himself on his glebe-lands at
Haberdon. On the morrow, after mass, our Lord Abbot orders the
Cellerarius to send off his carpenters to demolish the said
structure _brevi manu,_ and lay up the wood in safe keeping. Old
Dean Herbert, hearing what was toward, comes tottering along
hither, to plead humbly for himself and his mill. The Abbot
answers: "I am obliged to thee as if thou hadst cut off both my
feet! By God's face, _per os Dei,_ I will not eat bread till
that fabric be torn in pieces. Thou art an old man, and shouldst
have known that neither the King nor his Justiciary dare change
aught within the Liberties, without consent of Abbot and Convent:
and thou hast presumed on such a thing? I tell thee, it will not
be without damage to my mills; for the Townsfolk will go to thy
mill, and grind their corn (_bladum suum_) at their own good
pleasure; nor can I hinder them, since they are free men. I
will allow no new mills on such principle. Away, away; before
thou gettest home again, thou wilt see what thy mill has grown
to!"--The very reverend, the old Dean totters home again, in all
haste; tears the mill in pieces by his own _carpentarii_, to
save at least the timber; and Abbot Samson's workmen, coming up,
find the ground already clear of it.
Easy to bully down poor old rural Deans, and blow their windmills
away: but who is the man that dare abide King Richard's anger;
cross the Lion in his path, and take him by the whiskers! Abbot
Samson too; he is that man, with justice on his side. The case
was this. Adam de Cokefield, one of the chief feudatories of St.
Edmund, and a principal man in the Eastern Counties, died,
leaving large possessions, and for heiress a daughter of three
months; who by clear law, as all men know, became thus Abbot
Samson's ward; whom accordingly he proceeded to dispose of to
such person as seemed fittest. But now King Richard has another
person in view, to whom the little ward and her great possessions
were a suitable thing. He, by letter, requests that Abbot Samson
will have the goodness to give her to this person. Abbot Samson,
with deep humility, replies that she is already given. New
letters from Richard, of severer tenor; answered with new deep
humilities, with gifts and entreaties, with no promise of
obedience. King Richard's ire is kindled; messengers arrive at
St. Edmundsbury, with emphatic message to obey or tremble! Abbot
Samson, wisely silent as to the King's threats, makes answer:
"The King can send if he will, and seize the ward: force and
power he has to do his pleasure, and abolish the whole Abbey. I
never can be bent to wish this that he seeks, nor shall it by me
be ever done. For there is danger lest such things be made a
precedent of, to the prejudice of my successors. _Videat
Altissimus,_ Let the Most High look on it. Whatsoever thing
shall befall I will patiently endure."
Such was Abbot Samson's deliberate decision. Why not? Coeur-de-
Lion is very dreadful, but not the dreadfulest. _Videat
Altissimus._ I reverence Coeur-de-Lion to the marrow of my bones,
and will in all right things be _homo suus;_ but it is not,
properly speaking, with terror, with any fear at all. On the
whole, have I not looked on the face of 'Satan with outspread
wings;' steadily into Hellfire these seven-and-forty years;--and
was not melted into terror even at that, such the Lord's goodness
to me? Coeur-de-Lion!
Richard swore tornado oaths, worse than our armies in Flanders,
To be revenged on that proud Priest. But in the end he
discovered that the Priest was right; and forgave him, and even
loved him. 'King Richard wrote, soon after, to Abbot Samson,
That he wanted one or two of the St. Edmundsbury dogs, which he
heard were good. Abbot Samson sent him dogs of the best;
Richard replied by the present of a ring, which Pope Innocent the
Third had given him. Thou brave Richard, thou brave Samson!
Richard too, I suppose, 'loved a man,' and knew one when he
saw him.
No one will accuse our Lord Abbot of wanting worldly wisdom, due
interest in worldly things. A skillful man; full of cunning
insight, lively interests; always discerning the road to his
object, be it circuit, be it short-cut, and victoriously
traveling forward thereon. Nay rather it might seem, from
Jocelin's Narrative, as if he had his eye all but exclusively
directed on terrestrial matters, and was much too secular for a
devout man. But this too, if we examine it, was right. For it
is in the world that a man, devout or other, has his life to
lead, his work waiting to be done. The basis of Abbot Samson's,
we shall discover, was truly religion, after all. Returning from
his dusty pilgrimage, with such welcome as we saw, 'he sat down
at the foot of St. Edmund's Shrine.' Not a talking theory that;
no, a silent practice: Thou St. Edmund with what lies in thee,
thou now must help me, or none will!
This also is a significant fact: the zealous interest our Abbot
took in the Crusades. To all noble Christian hearts of that era,
what earthly enterprise so noble? 'When Henry II., having taken
the cross, came to St. Edmund's, to pay his devotions before
setting out, the Abbot secretly made for himself a cross of linen
cloth: and, holding this in one hand and a threaded needle in
the other, asked leave of the King to assume it!' The King could
not spare Samson out of England;--the King himself indeed never
went. But the Abbot's eye was set on the Holy Sepulchre, as on
the spot of this Earth where the true cause of Heaven was
deciding itself. 'At the retaking of Jerusalem by the Pagans,
Abbot Samson put on a cilice and hair-shirt, and wore under-
garments of hair-cloth ever after; he abstained also from flesh
and fleshmeats (_carne et carneis_) thenceforth to the end of his
life.' Like a dark cloud eclipsing the hopes of Christendom,
those tidings cast their shadow over St. Edmundsbury too: Shall
Samson Abbas take pleasure while Christ's Tomb is in the hands of
the Infidel? Samson, in pain of body, shall daily be reminded of
it, admonished to grieve for it.
The great antique heart: how like a child's in its simplicity,
like a man's in its earnest solemnity and depth! Heaven lies
over him wheresoever he goes or stands on the Earth; making all
the Earth a mystic Temple to him, the Earth's business all a kind
of worship. Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the common
sunlight; angels yet hover doing God's messages among men: that
rainbow was set in the clouds by the hand of God! Wonder,
miracle encompass the man; he lives in an element of miracle;
Heaven's splendour over his head, Hell's darkness under his feet.
A great Law of Duty, high as these two Infinitudes, dwarfing all
else, annihilating all else,--making royal Richard as small as
peasant Samson, smaller if need be!--The 'imaginative faculties?'
'Rude poetic ages?' The 'primeval poetic element?' O for God's
sake, good reader, talk no more of all that! It was not a
Dilettantism this of Abbot Samson. It was a Reality, and it is
one. The garment only of it is dead; the essence of it lives
through all Time and all Eternity!
And truly, as we said above, is not this comparative silence of
Abbot Samson as to his religion, precisely the healthiest sign of
him and of it? 'The Unconscious is the alone Complete.' Abbot
Samson all along a busy working man, as all men are bound to be,
his religion, his worship was like his daily bread to him;--which
he did not take the trouble to talk much about; which he merely
ate at stated intervals, and lived and did his work upon! This
is Abbot Samson's Catholicism of the Twelfth Century;--something
like the _Ism_ of all true men in all true centuries, I fancy!
Alas, compared with any of the _Isms_ current in these poor days,
what a thing! Compared with the respectablest, morbid,
struggling Methodism, never so earnest; with the respectablest,
ghastly, dead or galvanised Dilettantism, never so spasmodic!
Methodism with its eye forever turned on its own navel; asking
itself with torturing anxiety of Hope and Fear, "Am I right, am I
wrong? Shall I be saved, shall I not be damned?"--what is this,
at bottom, but a new phasis of _Egoism,_ stretched out into the
Infinite; not always the heavenlier for its infinitude!
Brother, so soon as possible, endeavour to rise above all that.
"Thou art wrong; thou art like to be damned:" consider that as
the fact, reconcile thyself even to that, if thou be a man;--then
first is the devouring Universe subdued under thee, and from the
black murk of midnight and noise of greedy Acheron; dawn as of
an everlasting morning, how far above all Hope and all Fear,
springs for thee, enlightening thy steep path, awakening in thy
heart celestial Memnon's music!
But of our Dilettantisms, and galvanised Dilettantisms; of
Puseyism--O Heavens, what shall we say of Puseyism, in comparison
to Twelfth-Century Catholicism? Little or nothing; for indeed
it is a matter to strike one dumb.
The Builder of this Universe was wise,
He plann'd all souls, all systems, planets, particles:
The Plan He shap'd His Worlds and Aeons by
Was--Heavens!--Was thy small Nine-and-thirty Articles?
That certain human souls, living on this practical Earth, should
think to save themselves and a ruined world by noisy theoretic
demonstrations and laudations of _the_ Church, instead of some
unnoisy, unconscious, but _practical,_ total, heart-and-soul
demonstration of _a_ Church: this, in the circle of revolving
ages, this also was a thing we were to see. A kind of
penultimate thing, precursor of very strange consummations; last
thing but one? If there is no atmosphere, what will it serve a
man to demonstrate the excellence of lungs? How much profitabler
when you can, like Abbot Samson, breathe; and go along your way!