CHAPTER XVII

THE ABBOT'S FOIBLES

The wise man hath said, "No one is in every respect perfect"; nor was

the abbot Samson. For this reason let me say this, that according to

my judgment the abbot was not to be commended when he caused a deed

to be made and ordered the same to be delivered to a certain servant

of his, for him to have the sergeanty of John Ruffus, after the

decease of the same John. Ten marks, as it was said, "did blind the

eyes of the wise." Wherefore, upon Master Dennis, the monk, saying

that such an act was unheard of, the abbot replied: "I shall not

cease from doing as I like a whit the more for you than I would for

that youngster." The abbot also did the like thing in respect of the

sergeanty of Adam the infirmarer, upon payment of one hundred

shillings. Of such an act it may be said, "A little leaven leaveneth

the whole lump."

There is, also, another stain of evil doing, which I trust in the

Lord he will wash away with tears, in order that a single excess may

not disfigure the sum total of so many good deeds. He built up the

bank of the fish-pond at Babwell so high, for the service of a new

mill, that by the keeping back of the water there is not a man, rich

or poor, who has land near the water, from the gate of the town to

Eastgate, but has lost his garden and his orchards. The pasture of

the cellarer, upon the other side of the bank, is spoilt. The arable

land, also, of the neighbouring folk has been much deteriorated. The

meadow of the cellarer is ruined, the orchard of the infirmarer has

been flooded by the great flow of water, and all the neighbouring

folk are complaining thereof. Once, indeed, the cellarer argued with

him in full chapter, upon this excessive damage; but he, quickly

moved to anger, made answer, that his fish-pond was not to be spoilt

on account of our meadows.

The Dean of London writes thus in his chronicles: "King Henry the

Second, having conferred with the archbishop and bishops concerning

the vacant abbacies, so far observed the rule of the canons in

appointing abbots, that it was the custom to appoint them upon votes

solicited from other houses; thinking, perhaps, that if pastors were

set up in every place from their own body," a previously contracted

familiarity would afford impunity to vice, and old acquaintanceship

would give indulgence to wickedness, and thereby too great remissness

would obtain in cloisters. Another has said: "It does not seem fit

that a pastor should be elected from his own house, but rather from

some other house; because, if he is taken from elsewhere he will

always believe, according to the greatness of the monastery which he

has undertaken to rule, that many are good men and true, whose advice

he will seek if he is a good man, and whose honesty he will fear if

he is a bad one. But a servant of the house, better knowing the

ignorance, inability and incompetence of every one, will the more

carelessly serve therein, mixing square with round."

The monks of Ramsey followed this line of reasoning; for in those

days, when they were able to choose one of their own body, on two

occasions they chose an abbot from other houses.

In the year of grace one thousand two hundred and one there came to

us the abbot of Flay, and through his preaching caused the open

buying and selling which took place in the market on Sundays to be

done away with, and it was ordained that the market should be held on

the Monday. The like the abbot brought to pass in many cities and

boroughs of England.

In the same year the monks of Ely set up a market at Lakenheath,

having the permission, as well as the charter, of the King. Now, we

in the first place, dealing peaceably with our friends and

neighbours, sent our messengers to the chapter of Ely, and, first of

all, to the lord Bishop of Ely, letters of request that he should

forbear his intentions; adding that we could, in a friendly way, for

the sake of peace and preserving our mutual regard, pay the fifteen

marks that were given as a fine for obtaining the King's charter. Why

make a long story of it? They would not give way, and then upon all

sides arose threatening speeches, and "spears threatening spears."

We therefore procured a writ of inquest to ascertain whether that

market was established to our prejudice, and to the damage of the

market of the town of St. Edmund. The oath was made, and it was

testified that this had been done to our damage. Of all which, when

the King was informed, he caused it to be inquired, by his registrar,

what sort of charter he had granted to the monks of Ely; and it was

made to appear that he had given to them the aforesaid market, under

such conditions that it should not be to the injury of the

neighbouring markets. The King, therefore, forty marks being offered,

granted us his charter that from thenceforward there should be no

market within the liberty of St. Edmund, unless by the assent of the

abbot. And he wrote to Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, his justiciary, that the

market of Lakenheath should be abolished. The justiciary wrote the

same to the sheriff of Suffolk.

The sheriff, being well aware that he could not enter upon the

liberties of St. Edmund, or exercise any authority there, gave it in

charge to the abbot, by his writ, that this should be performed

according to the form of the royal command. The steward of the

hundred, therefore, coming thither upon the market day, with the

witnessing of freemen, in the King's name openly prohibited that

market, showing the letters of the King and the sheriff; but being

treated with great abuse and violence, he departed, without having

accomplished his object.

The abbot, on the other hand, deferring this matter for awhile, being

at London, and consulting the learned thereupon, commanded his

bailiffs, that taking with them the men of St. Edmund with horse and

arms, they should abolish the market, and that they should bring

along with them in custody the buyers and sellers therein, if they

should find any. So at dead of night, there went forth nearly six

hundred men well armed, proceeding towards Lakenheath. But when the

scouts gave intelligence of their arrival, all who were in the market

ran hither and thither, and not one of them could be found.

Now, the prior of Ely on that same night had come thither, with his

bailiffs, expecting the arrival of our men, in order that, to the

best of his ability, he might defend the buyers and sellers; but he

would not stir out of his inn. When our bailiffs had required from

him gage and pledge to stand trial in the court of St. Edmund for the

wrong committed by him, and he had refused, upon consultation, they

overturned the butchers' shambles and the tables of the stalls in the

market, and carried them away with them. Moreover, they led away with

them all the cattle, "all sheep and oxen; yea, and the beasts of the

field," and set off towards Icklingham. The bailiffs of the prior

following them made suit for their cattle, by replevin within fifteen

days: and their suit was allowed. Within the fifteen days there came

a writ, whereby the abbot was summoned to come before the court of

exchequer to answer for such act, and that the cattle taken should in

the meantime be delivered up without charge. For the Bishop of Ely,

who was an eloquent and well-spoken man, in his own person had made

complaint thereof to the justiciary and the nobles of England, saying

that a most unheard-of piece of arrogance had been committed in the

land of St. Etheldreda in time of peace; wherefore many were highly

indignant with the abbot.

In the meanwhile another cause of disagreement arose between the

bishop and the abbot. A certain young man of Glemsford had been

summoned to the court of St. Edmund, for a breach of the King's

peace, and had been sought for a long while. At length the steward of

the bishop brought forth that young man in the county court, claiming

the jurisdiction of the court of St. Etheldreda, and exhibiting the

charters and privileges of his lord; but our bailiffs, claiming the

jurisdiction of the plaint and the seisin of such liberty, could not

be heard. The county court, indeed, put that plaint in respite until

the justices in eyre should arrive, wherefore St. Edmund was ousted

of his jurisdiction. The abbot, on hearing this, proposed to go over

to the King; but because he was sick, he decided to defer the matter

till the Purification.

And, behold! on St. Agnes day there came the King's messenger,

bearing the writ of our lord the Pope, wherein it was contained, that

the bishop of Ely and the abbot of St. Edmund should make inquisition

concerning Geoffrey Fitz-Peter and William de Stutville, and certain

other lords of England who had taken the cross, for whom the King

required discharge, alleging their personal infirmity, and the

necessity for their advice in the government of his kingdom. The same

messenger also brought letters from our lord the King, commanding

that he, upon the sight thereof, should come to him to confer upon

the message of our lord the Pope. The abbot was troubled in his mind,

and said, "I am straitened on every side; I must either offend God or

the King: by the very God, whatsoever may be the consequence to me, I

will not wittingly lie."

Therefore, returning home with all speed, somewhat weakened by

infirmity of body and humbled, and (as was not his wont) timid, by

the intervention of the prior, he sought advice of us (a thing he

heretofore had seldom done), as to what course he was to pursue in

respect of the liberties of the church which were in jeopardy, and

whence the money was to come if he took his journey, and to whom the

keeping of the abbey was to be committed, and what should be done for

his poor servants who had a long time served him. And the answer was,

that he might go, and that he was at liberty to take up at interest

sufficient money, to be payable out of our sacristy and from our

pittances, and from our other rents at his pleasure; and that he

should give the abbey in charge to the prior, and some other clerk

whom he had enriched, and who could, in the interval, live upon his

own means, that thereby a saving might take place in the expenses of

the abbot, and that he might give to each of his servants money

proportioned to his length of service.

He, hearing such counsel, was pleased therewith, and so it was done.

The abbot, therefore, coming into chapter the day before he took his

departure, caused to be brought with him all his books, and these he

presented to the church and convent, and commended our counsel which

we had signified to him through the prior.

In the meantime we heard certain persons murmuring, saying that the

abbot is careful and solicitous for the liberties of his own barony,

but he keeps silence respecting the liberties of the convent which we

have lost in his time; namely, concerning the lost court and

liberties of the cellarer, and the liberty of the sacrist, as regards

the appointment of the bailiffs of the town by the convent.

Therefore, the Lord raised up the spirit of three brethren of but

indifferent knowledge, who, having got many others to join them,

conferred with the prior thereupon, in order that he should speak

with the abbot respecting these matters. On our behalf the prior was

to ask him, at his departure, to provide for the security of his

church in respect of those liberties. On hearing this, the abbot

answered that no more was to be said upon the subject, swearing that

so long as he lived he would be the master; but towards evening he

talked more mildly thereupon with the prior.

On the morrow, indeed, sitting in chapter, as he was about to depart

and ask licence so to do, he said he had satisfied all his servants,

and had made his will just as if he was now to die; and beginning to

speak concerning those liberties, he justified himself, saying that

he had changed the ancient customs in order that there should not be

a default in the administration of the King's justice, and threw the

blame upon the sacrist, and said that if Durand, the town bailiff,

who was now sick, should die, the sacrist might hold the bailiwick in

his own hand, and present a bailiff to the chapter for approval, as

the custom had been of old, so nevertheless that this be done with

the assent of the abbot; but the gifts and offerings to be made

yearly by the bailiff he would in no wise remit.

Now, when we asked him what was to be done in respect of the

cellarer's court which was lost, and especially of the halfpence

which the cellarer was accustomed to receive for renewing pledges, he

became angry, and asked us in his turn by what authority we demanded

the exercise of regal jurisdiction, and those things which appertain

to regalities.

To this it was replied that we had possessed it from the foundation

of the church, and even three years after he had come to the abbacy,

and this liberty of renewing pledges we possessed in every one of our

manors. We stated that we ought not to lose our right in

consideration of a hundred shillings, which he received privately

from the town bailiff every year; and we boldly required of him to

give us such seisin thereof as we had had even in his time.

The abbot, being as it were at a loss for an answer, and willing

enough to leave us all in peace and to depart quietly, ordered that

those halfpence and the other matters which the cellarer demanded

should be sequestrated until his return; and he promised 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. On his

saying this, all was quiet again; but the calm was not very great,

for

"In promises any man may wealthy be."

FINIS.

APPENDICES:

PAGE

I _SAMSON AS AN AUTHOR_ 215

II _NOTES TO THE TEXT OF THE CHRONICLE_ 222

III _TABLE OF CHIEF DATES IN THE HISTORY

OF THE ABBEY OF ST. EDMUNDSBURY_

(A.D. 870 _to_ 1903) 257

APPENDIX I

SAMSON AS AN AUTHOR.

Samson having been generally looked upon as a man of action rather

than as a man of letters, it seems desirable to consider at greater

length than is possible in the general Introduction, his claims to be

regarded as a literary character.

In the Bodleian Library at Oxford is a huge codex of 898 pages (MS.

240) in a script of the 14th century. This once belonged to Bury

Abbey, as at the beginning is the note "Liber monachorum Sancti

Edmundi, in quo continetur secunda pars Historia auree, quam scribi

fecit dominus Rogerus de Huntedoun sumptibus graciarum suarum anno

domini MCCC.LXXVII^o." Over the title is written on the margin

"Thomas Prise possidet," and in another hand "Io. Anglicus erat

author."

There is considerable difficulty in assigning the exact authorship of

this work: but that it was compiled at Bury is certain, and it was no

doubt added to as new materials turned up or were deemed worthy of

admission, especially such as were connected with St. Edmundsbury. Dr.

Carl Horstman has published in the preface to Vol. I. of his _Nova

Legenda Anglie_ (Oxf. Univ. Press, 1901) a summary of the contents of

this book which throws much new light on its _provenance_. It is, as

he says, "the depository of documents of Bury Abbey, and not the work

of one individual; but the joint work, the common concern of the

monastery, for a whole generation."

The MS. contains only the second part of the Historia aurea, and with

an abbreviated text; and this is followed by a collection of

miscellanies, lives of saints, poetry and documents of all sorts. Dr.

Horstman prints in his second volume the lives of several saints,

scattered through the last half of the codex.

The only one of these lives that need concern us is that of St.

Edmund, which is very long and detailed, and occupies 116 printed

pages. This is followed almost immediately by a chapter De modo

meditandi vel contemplandi (including St. Edmund's prayer, "Gratias

tibi ago"), and later by a compilation on monastic discipline for the

novices of Bury Abbey.

This Life of St. Edmund is by far the most complete extant. It is

described as "Vita et passio cum miraculis sancti Edmundi regis et

martiris, excerpta de cronicis et diuersis historiis seu legendis, de

eodem breuiter et sub compendio compilata." It is doubtless the

"Prolixa vita" from which was compiled the "abbreviata vita" included

in Abbot Curteys' Register (now at the British Museum), and printed in

Archdeacon Battely's book of 1745 (pp. 25, 149). In the margins are

given the authorities from which it is compiled, and amongst these

are, in addition to the chronicles of Blythburgh, Ely, Hoveden, Hulme,

Huntingdon, Malmesbury, Marianus, Norwich, Sarum, Waringford, and

Westminster, the writers specially identified with Bury Abbey:--Abbo

of Fleury, Herman the Archdeacon, Galfridus de Fontibus, Osbert of

Clare, Jocelin of Brakelond (from whom are taken the incidents

described in chapters viii. and xiv. of this book), and--Samson.

There are in all eighteen sections of the Life for which Samson is

quoted as the authority. On eight occasions the word "Sampson" appears

in the margin; "Sampson abbas," eight times; "Sampson abbas sancti

Edmundi," once; "Ex libro de miraculis eius Sampson," once (the first

occasion when the name appears); and "Ex libro primo miraculorum

Sampson abb." once (the seventh occasion).

Before considering Samson's share in the collection of materials

relative to the history of St. Edmund, a few words must be said about

the earlier writers on the subject.

The first contributor to the tangle of legends and miracles connected

with St. Edmund and his shrine was ABBO, of Fleury, a great monastery

on the Loire above Orleans, founded in the 7th century. A native of

Orleans, Abbo was sent early to the monastic school at Fleury, where

he mastered five of the seven arts, viz., grammar, arithmetic,

dialectic, astronomy and music. (Migne's _Patrologia_, vol. 139.) A

deputation coming to Fleury from the monks of Ramsey Abbey, asking

that a man of learning might be sent to them, Abbo was selected for

the office, and he remained two years in England, when he was

recalled. He died from a spear-thrust in November, 1004. Whilst in

England (circa 985) he heard from Archbishop Dunstan the story of St.

Edmund's death, as related to Dunstan when a youth by an old man who

said he was armour-bearer to St. Edmund on the day of his death (20th

November, 870). At the entreaty of the monks of Ramsey, Abbo put this

story into writing, prefacing it with a dedicatory epistle to Dunstan

in which he says that the work is sent to the Archbishop because every

part of it, except the last miracle, is related on his authority.

Abbo being "composition master" to the student monks at Ramsey, he

wrote, as Mr. Arnold says (I. xiv.), "with that freedom with which men

whose information is scanty, and their imagination strong, are not

sorry to enjoy." Lord Francis Hervey, in a masterly analysis of the

facts and fictions of St. Edmund's life in his Notes to Robert Reyce's

_Breviary of Suffolk_ (1902), thus sums the matter with great truth:

"Abbo's treatise, with its declamatory flourishes and classical tags,

is for historical purposes all but worthless."

The copies extant of Abbo's _Passio_ are numerous. (For List, see

Hardy's Catalogue, vol. i, p. 526.) At least four of them (two in the

Cottonian collection, one at the Bodleian, and one at Lambeth)

belonged to Bury Abbey, the earliest being Tiberius B. ii., which has

on fol. 1_a_ the words "Liber feretrariorum S. Edmundi in quo

continentur uita passio et miracula S. Edmundi." It is a beautiful MS.

of the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century; "and

the gold enrichment is sometimes splendid" (Arnold I. lxv.), though

the illumination is unfinished. The other Cottonian MS. (Titus A.

viii.) is of the thirteenth century, and has on fol. 65 the words

"Liber monachorum S. Edmundi." (Both these books will be referred to

later.)

The next writer on the subject was HERMAN THE ARCHDEACON, who, at

the end of the eleventh century, wrote a treatise _De Miraculis Sancti

Eadmundi_.

Herman was Archdeacon to Bishop Arfast of Thetford, at the time when

the latter first endeavoured to establish his see at Bury; but later

he must have become a monk of St. Edmund, and he manifests in his

narrative enthusiastic devotion to the monastery. In the prologue he

explains that he compiled his work at the request of Abbot Baldwin

"felicis memoriae" (died 1097), partly from oral tradition, partly from

an old and almost undecipherable manuscript "exarata calamo cujusdam

difficillimo, et, ut ita dicam, adamantino." Mr. Arnold has printed

the text of Herman on pp. 26-92 of his vol. I. from the Cottonian

volume Tiberius B. ii. above referred to, which is composed of Abbo's

_Passio_ and Herman's _Miracula_.

A third writer was GALFRIDUS DE FONTIBUS, who wrote in the days of

Abbot Ording (1146-1156) a short tract, _De Infantia Sancti Eadmundi_,

of which only one MS. is known (in the Cambridge University Library).

Further additions to the legends and miracles were made by OSBERT of

CLARE, prior of Westminster, who flourished between 1108 and 1140,

but whose writings are not now separately extant, though extracts from

them appear in the manuscripts of other authors.

It would seem that working upon all these records, and doubtless

others which have not descended to us, Samson, at the period of his

life when he was still a subordinate officer of Bury Abbey, set about

compiling a treatise of his own. His prologue indicates that he was

moved to narrate the glorious miracles of the glorious king and martyr

St. Edmund by the orders of his superiors and the exhortations of his

fellow monks. His work seems, however, to have been mainly that of a

compiler and editor, though the prologue, described by Mr. Arnold (I.,

liii.) as "written in a massive and manly style," was doubtless of his

own composition. The work appears after Abbo's _Passio_ in the

Cottonian MS. Titus A. viii., and consists of two books, Liber I.

containing sixteen chapters, and Liber II. twenty-one chapters. All

but four of the chapters in the first book refer to narratives that

had been told before by Herman, and Samson "has merely re-written

them, adding no new facts, but greatly improving the style." The

second book contains another prologue, followed by a prefatory letter;

and a hand of the fourteenth or early fifteenth century has written in

the Cottonian MS. "Osberti de Clara prioris Westmonasterii" in the

margin of the prologue, and "Incipit epistola Osberti prioris

Westmonasterii missa con. S. Edmundi de miraculis ejusdem" in the

margin at the beginning of the letter.

Mr. Arnold speaks of the "inflated diction and fantastical mystical

interpretations" of this (second) prologue and prefatory letter, and

says that "Samson seems simply to have annexed them while making up

his own work." As, however, some of the narratives in this second book

are ascribed to Samson himself in the Bodleian MS. 240, whilst others

in the same book are ascribed to Osbert, it is manifest that some

confusion had arisen in the interval as to the respective shares of

responsibility for the narratives. But this need not prevent us from

accepting Samson as at least the compiler and editor of the work _De

Miraculis Sancti Edmundi_ referred to on page xxxiv. of the

Introduction, and printed in full on pp. 107-208 of Mr. Arnold's first

volume.

If it be the case, as Mr. Arnold thinks (and there seems no reason

against the ascription) that the Prologue of Book I. was Samson's own

composition, it will doubtless be of interest that it should be

reproduced here as a specimen of his literary style; and a translation

of it is therefore subjoined, which follows the structure of the

original as closely as possible:--

"When we see the deeds of many earthly men extolled in brilliant

writings, which those skilled in letters have handed down to the

memory of posterity, it is to be wondered that we do not blush that

the great works of God, which, through His servants, have been brought

into being almost in this our very age, should through our sloth be

blotted out, and through our silence be condemned. And although those

secular historians, in the pride of their eloquence, have said very

much about small affairs, and have gained the favour and tickled the

ears of their audience by the sweetness of their speech, yet Christian

simplicity and Catholic plainness, innocent of the leaven of

superstition, are rightly preferred to them all. Indeed, the greatest

faith is to be placed in the account of those who do not wish, and do

not know how, to colour what they have heard, or, by the grace of

their words, to twist matters into one tortuous path after another.

"In saying this we do not impudently speak to the discredit (be that

far from us) of Churchmen who, by the divine inspiration, endowed with

wonderful eloquence, have with their words, sweeter than honey and the

honeycomb, adorned the deeds of our honoured ancestors, as it were a

golden tablet ornamented with most brilliant pearls. But verily those

are to be confuted who are carried headlong by a damnable presumption

to that with which erudition has nought to do, and to which the grace

of the Holy Spirit imparts nought.

"But we (whom the apostle warns lest we should despise the riches of

the goodness of God, and whom he exhorts not to receive His grace in

vain) with a truthful, albeit an unpolished style, at the command of

superior authority and by the exhortation of brotherly love, have

undertaken to tell of the glorious miracles of the glorious king and

martyr Edmund: since, indeed, it appears impious that we should allow

the lantern, which God lighted and placed upon a candlestick, to be

obscured through our sloth, or should hide it negligently under the

bushel of oblivion. For to this purpose is it placed upon a

candlestick, that it may give light to all who are in the house."

In which matter the victorious champion of God, Edmund, illuminating

the borders, not only of Britain, but also of foreign lands with the

glory of his miracles, gives frequent token of his merit towards God.

"On behalf of whose merits, Omnipotent God, we pray

That Thou in Thy clemency wouldst purge our inmost heart,

And wouldst infuse the gift which the fostering spirit bestows,

Opening the tongues of speechless babes and making them eloquent,

That we may be able worthily to tell the praises of the martyr,

His famous acts, his virtues and his triumphs."

APPENDIX II

NOTES TO THE TEXT OF THE CHRONICLE.

[_The full titles of the works of reference quoted in the pages of

this Appendix as "Arnold," "Battely," "James," "Rokewode," will be

found on pages 276 and 277 of Appendix III_].

CHAPTER I.

1, 4. _The year when the Flemings were taken captive._ On the 17th

October, 1173, Richard de Lucy, the chief justiciary of King Henry

II., defeated at Fornham St. Genevieve, near Bury St. Edmunds, the

rebel Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, who had landed from

Flanders at Walton in Suffolk on the 29th September, 1173, at the head

of a force of Flemings. The chroniclers speak of large numbers of the

foreign mercenaries as being killed at the battle of Fornham. The Earl

and Countess of Leicester were captured, and imprisoned at Falaise

till 1174. For an interesting description of the battle, with many

references to the chronicles, see Miss Kate Norgate's _England under

the Angevin Kings_, II. 150-1.

1, 10. _Hugh the Abbot._ Hugh, Prior of Westminster, succeeded Ording

as 9th Abbot of St. Edmundsbury in 1157. Gervase records his being

blessed by Archbishop Theobald at Colchester, and his vowing to him

canonical obedience. But a bull obtained at great cost from Pope

Alexander III. in 1172 (see p. 7) made the abbey immediately subject

to Rome. Some details of the occurrences during his abbacy are given

in Battely, pp. 78-82.

1, 11. Genesis xxvii. 1.

2, 21. _Debt ... to Jews._ Whilst the Jews were legally simply

chattels of the king, they were at this time "practically masters of

the worldly interests of a large number of his Christian subjects, and

of a large portion of the wealth of his realm" (Norgate's _Angevin

Kings_, II. 487). There are many instances besides that of St.

Edmundsbury of ecclesiastical property and furniture being pledged to

the Jews, _e.g._ the sacred vessels and jewels of Lincoln Minster were

in pledge to Aaron, a rich Jew of that city, for seven years or more

before Geoffrey, bishop-elect, redeemed them in 1173.

3, 6. _Benedict the Jew._ In 1171 "Benedict the Jew, son of Deodate,

was fined xx^li for taking certain sacred vestments in pawn." (Pipe

Rolls, Norf. and Suff. 17 Hen. II.) Other fines on Jews are recorded

by Rokewode (pp. 106-7).

3, 9. _William the sacrist._ From the _Gesta Sacristarum_ (Arnold II.

291) we learn of this officer, who was once Samson's superior,

afterwards a rival candidate for the abbacy, and finally Samson's

subordinate, "Huic [Schuch] successit Willelmus cognomento Wiardel;

qui non sine causa a domino Samsone abbate amotus fuit ab

administratione." His evil deeds recorded by Jocelin appear therefore

to have been remembered.

6, 1. _Richard the Archbishop._ Richard was a Norman by birth and of

humble parentage; and was prior of Dover when the question of filling

up the primacy was discussed 2-1/2 years after Becket's murder on 29th

December, 1170. There was a disputed election, but Robert, by the

Court influence, won the day over Odo, Prior of Canterbury; and

eventually his election was confirmed by Pope Alexander III. on 2nd

April, 1174. Immediately after his enthronisation (5th October, 1174)

Richard held a legatine visitation of his province; and as he rode

with a great train, his visits were specially grievous to the

religious houses that had to receive him.

6, 19. _Sent to Acre._ Castleacre, Westacre, and Southacre, in

Norfolk, are all described in Domesday book as "Acra." There were two

Priories, one at Castleacre, the other at Westacre; but the former was

the more famous of the two. As it was a Cluniac institution, and as

the Cluniacs were a kind of stricter Benedictines, it seems most

probable that it was to Castleacre that Samson was sent as a

punishment. Apparently this was his second banishment there; for he

speaks here to Jocelin (then a novice, and who joined the monastery in

1173) as though of recent events. (As to his first imprisonment after

his return from Rome about 1161, see page 74 and note on p. 237.) The

Priory of Castleacre was founded about 1084 by William de Warrenne,

created by the Conqueror Earl of Surrey, and the progenitor of that

famous sixth Earl who fought Baliol and Wallace in Scotland, and who,

when called upon by the King's Commissioners to produce the title by

which he held his possessions, drew his sword and laid it on the

table. Some remarkably beautiful ruins of the Priory, particularly of

its west front and the Prior's Lodge, have happily escaped the ravages

of the village builders, who for centuries used the ruins as a stone

quarry.

6, 24. Exodus v. 21.

7, 4. _authority as legate._ Mr. Rokewode goes at length (pp. 107-8)

into the documents relative to the claim of the monks of St. Edmund to

exemption under Royal authority from ordinary episcopal jurisdiction.

The Bull of 1172 which they obtained from Pope Alexander III. exempted

them from the jurisdiction of any other ecclesiastical authority than

the Pontiff or his _legatus a latere_. Shortly afterwards the

Monastery was exempted from the personal interference of Archbishop

Richard as legate _a latere_.

8, 5. _Jurnet the Jew._ Rokewode quotes (pp. 108-9) from the Pipe

Rolls of Henry II. the following: In 23 Henry II., Jurnet the Jew of

Norwich was amerced in MM marcs; and he stood amerced, in the 31st

year of the same king, in MMMMMDXXV marcs and a half, for which debt

the whole body of Jews were chargeable: and they were to have Jurnet's

effects and chattels to enable them to pay it. He gave King Richard

MDCCC marcs that he might reside in England with the King's good

will.

10, 23. _morrow of St. Brice._ November 15, 1180. Hugh was buried in

the Chapter House nearest the door, sixth and last of the six abbots

buried there, as recorded in a MS. at Douai circa 1425. The other five

were:--Ording (1146-1156), Samson (1182-1211), Richard of Insula

(1229-1234), Henry of Rushbrook (1234-1248), Edmund of Walpole

(1248-1257). The lidless coffins of these five, with skeletons within,

were discovered January 1, 1903. The coffin of Hugh had disappeared,

but bones which may have been his were found buried at the spot.

CHAPTER II.

12, 3. _Ranulf de Glanville._ The famous author of the oldest of our

legal classics, the "Treatise on the Laws and Customs of England," was

of Suffolk stock, and was born at Stratford St. Andrew, Saxmundham. He

succeeded Richard Lucy as chief justiciary of England, and

thenceforward he was the king's right-hand man (Richard of Devizes

called him the "King's eye"). At the moment of Abbot Hugh's death

Henry II. was in France (he kept that Christmas at Le Mans), so the

monks appreciated the importance of letting Glanville as justiciary

know at once the fact of the vacancy. Glanville took the cross, and

died at the siege of Acre in 1180.

12, 11. _wardship of the Abbey._ The accounts rendered by the wardens

during the abbatial vacancy have been fortunately preserved in the

returns which Wimer, the Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, made to the

Exchequer for the 27 and 28 Henry II. Mr. Rokewode gives the actual

text of them (pp. 110-1). The rental of the Abbot from Michaelmas,

1180, to Michaelmas, 1181, was L326 12_s._ 4_d._: out of which L56

13_s._ 4_d._ was paid for corrodies, including L21 for Abbot Hugh's

expenses for the six weeks before his death, and L35 for the

Archbishop of Trontheim.

14, 2. Deuteronomy xvi. 19.

14, 9. _paintings._ For an interesting discussion as to these

paintings, and the subjects of them, see _James_, pp. 130 _et seq._

14, 11. _building the great tower._ Samson's work as subsacrist in

connection with this tower is thus described by James, page 119:

"Samson finished one storey in the great tower at the west end. This

was a western tower occupying a position similar to that of the

western tower at Ely, immediately over the central western door." It

was _not_ this tower (as stated by Rokewode, page 111) that fell down

on 23 Sept., 1210, but the central tower (see James, pp. 121-203).

16, 7. Judges xvi. 19.

16, 11. Judges xvi. 29.

16, 18. Matthew xxv. 21.

17, 7. Quot homines tot sententiae. Terence, _Phormio_, Act. 2, Sc. 3,

14.

17, 12. _Abbot Ording._ In the dedication to Abbot Ording of the

_Liber de Infantia Sancti Eadmundi_ by Galfridus de Fontibus, Ording

is said (Arnold, i. 93) to have been "watchful in attendance on the

King from his boyhood." Apparently this King was Stephen (born about

1097), as Henry II., his successor, was not born until 1133. At that

time Ording would have been on duty at Bury: for he was already Prior

in 1136, when Anselm, then Abbot, was nominated for the Bishopric of

London. Ording was appointed in 1138 Abbot in Anselm's place; but as

the latter failed to get his nomination to the See of London confirmed

by the Pope, he came back to Bury. Ording therefore, "sive volens sive

nolens" had to return to his duties as Prior; but when Anselm died in

1148, Ording was re-elected Abbot, and held office till he died in

1156. As to his place of burial, see note to p. 152, l. 5, on p. 247.

17, 23. Matthew xvi. 19.

18, 9. _Barrators of Norfolk._ Barrator==an incitor to lawsuits (from

O. Fr. _bareter_, to deceive, cheat). The men of Norfolk were noted

for their litigious propensities (cf. Tusser's rhyming autobiography:

"Norfolk wiles, so full of guiles"). Fuller in his _Worthies_ says:

"Whereas _pedibus ambulando_ is accounted but a vexatious suit in

other countries, here (where men are said to study law as following

the plough-tail) some would persuade us that they will enter an action

for their neighbour's horse but looking over their hedge." An Act was

passed in 1455 (33 Hen. VI. cap. 7) to check the litigiousness of "the

City of Norwich, and the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk."

18, 17. Acts xxvi. 24, 25.

20, 13. 1 Corinthians xiii. 11.

21, 4. Romans xvi. 5.

21, 6. _Blood-letting season_ (tempore minutionis). At stated times of

the year there was a general blood-letting among the monks; and in the

same _Liber Albus_ in which Jocelin's chronicle appears is a set of

Regulations _De Minutis Sanguine_ (fol. 193). Amongst the servants in

the infirmary of Bury Monastery was _Minutor, cum garcione_ (_id._

fol. 44). The effects of the minutio were supposed to last three days,

during which the monk did not go to matins.

21, 17. Nihil est ab omni parte beatum. Horace, _Od._ i. 16.

22, 8. John xix. 22.

22, 9. Et semel emissum volat irrevocable verbum. Horace i. _Ep._ 18.

71.

22, 23. Medio tutissimus ibis. Ovid, _Metamorphoses_ ii. 137.

23, 1. Matthew xix. 12.

23, 3. _Archbishop of Norway._ In 1180 Eystein (Augustinus) Archbishop

of Trontheim, refusing to crown Sverrir, a successful rebel, who had

defeated Magnus, King of Norway, was driven into exile and came to

England. (William de Newburgh, iii. 16.) Rokewode (p. 113) shows from

the accounts of the Wardens of the Abbey during the vacancy, that the

corrodies allowed to the Archbishop amounted in all to L94 10s.

23, 11. _Holy child Robert._ Nothing is known of the circumstances of

this boy's death at the hands of the Jews, on 10th June, 1181, or of

Jocelin's account of it (line 16), beyond the reference made by Bale

in his list of Jocelin's writings to _Vita Roberti Martyris_.

23, 13. Acts v. 12.

CHAPTER III

25, 12. Jeremiah xxiii. 40.

25, 21. Cf. 1 Corinthians xii. 3.

26, 23. _Verba Mea._ The 5th Psalm in the Vulgate begins with these

words.

31, 9. _Waltham._ The interview with Henry II. took place at Bishop's

Waltham, in Hampshire, on the 21st February, 1182.

31, 15. _Geoffrey the Chancellor._ Geoffrey was a natural son of Henry

II.--it is generally stated as by Fair Rosamond, though this is now

discredited by the facts adduced in the _Dict. Nat. Biog._ He was

successively Bishop of Lincoln (1173), Chancellor (1182), Archbishop

of York (1191), and after a violent quarrel with King John, fled the

country in 1207, dying in Normandy in 1212.

32, 5. Matthew xix. 30; Mark x. 31.

34, 23. _By the very eyes of God_: "per veros oculos Dei!" This was a

favourite oath of Henry II. In a contemporary metrical life of St.

Thomas of Canterbury, the King is more than once made to exclaim "Par

les oilz Dieu" (Rokewode, p. 115). William II. used to swear by "the

holy Face of Lucca"; John by "the teeth of God" (Ramsay, _Angevin

Empire_ (1903), p. 414).

35, 7. _Miserere mei Deus._ Psalm li.

CHAPTER IV

37, 24. _Threshold of the gate._ Samson alighted at what is now known

as the "Norman Tower."

38, 4. _Martyri adhuc._ Rokewode gives on page 115 the text (with the

musical notes) of this response, the words of which are: "Martyri

adhuc palpitanti, sed Christum confitenti, jussit Inguar caput

auferri: sicque Edmundus martyrium consummavit, et ad Deum exultans

vadit." In a MS. (Digby 109) now at the Bodleian Library (which

contains also a copy of Abbo's _Passio_) this response comes after the

5th lesson of the office of St. Edmund.

39, 23. John vi. 6.

39, 24. _New seal._ A representation of this seal is given as the

Frontispiece. It is taken from an instrument in the Archives of

Canterbury Cathedral, dated 6 November, 1200, being an award in a

dispute between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Canons of

Lambeth, referred by Pope Innocent III. to Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln

(for whom Roger, Dean of Lincoln, was substituted), Eustace, Bishop of

Ely, and Abbot Samson.

The seal represents Abbot Samson, vested in amice, alb, tunic,

dalmatic, chasuble, rationale, and mitre. He holds a crozier in his

right hand and a closed book in his left. The mitre is unusually large

for the date. The inscription is broken, but in full reads thus:

"Sigillum Samsonis Dei Gratia Abbatis Sancti Eadmundi." The

counterseal (much smaller) displays the lamb bearing a cross, with the

words round the circumference, "Secretum Samsonis Abbatis."

41, 9. _Thomas of Hastings._ Apparently the object of Thomas in

introducing thus early his nephew, Henry of Hastings, to the notice of

Samson, was to secure a recognition by the new Abbot of the claims of

his family to the hereditary stewardship of the Liberty of St. Edmund.

By Charter of William I., Lidgate in Suffolk, and Blunham in

Bedfordshire (where the church is dedicated to St. Edmund), were given

to one Ralph to hold in fee of the Abbot of St. Edmund by the service

of Dapifer or Steward. Later, between 1115 and 1119, Abbot Albold

granted the lands, with the office held by Ralph, to Maurice of

Windsor and his heirs, and this grant was confirmed by King Stephen.

Maurice was succeeded by Ralph of Hastings, his nephew, and Ralph by

William of Hastings, his nephew; and Henry, on whose behalf the claim

of the stewardship was made to Samson, was William's son and heir. The

Abbot admitted that his right was indisputable (the original Charters

of William I., Abbot Albold, Stephen, and Henry II. [two] are quoted

by Rokewode, pp. 118-120). But Samson's point seems to have been that

Henry was too young to give personal service as Steward, and therefore

"the business was deferred." Rokewode observes (p. 117): "Henry

continued a minor in 1188, his office being then filled by Robert of

Flamville, who held it at the time of his being one of the Wardens of

the Abbey during the vacancy" (see p. 12). In Reece's _Breviary of

Suffolk_ (1902) John of Hastings is given as Lord of the Manor of

Lidgate in 1315.

CHAPTER V

43, 11. _Enclosed many parks._ At the Abbot's manor at Melford was an

old deer park of very ancient foundation. It was called Elmsett or

Aelmsethe, or the Great Park, and consisted chiefly of open wood. It

was in olden times termed "Magnus Boscus Domini," and in the surveys

of Edward I. and Henry VI. it is reckoned both as park and wood, the

wood part being in the latter survey 217a. 2r. 34p. The whole was

impaled round and stored with deer. (Parker's _Melford_, pp. 310-11).

43, 12. _beasts of chase._ The "Beasts of the Chase" in Angevin days

were the buck, doe and fox: the "Beasts of the Forest" were the hart,

hind and hare: and the "Beasts and Fowls of the Warren" were the hare,

rabbit ("coney"), pheasant and partridge. The fox was coupled with the

wolf in Canute's Forest Law, No. 27, as "neither forest beasts nor

game." When the fox was made a Beast of the Chase cannot be

ascertained with any precision. The same Law No. 27, protected "hares,

rabbits and roedeer"; the last are not mentioned in later times. In

addition to the animals above named, the otter was hunted--_vide_

Patent Rolls of Henry III. of 1221. The badger, polecat or wild cat

(_catus_) and marten are specified as beasts which receivers of royal

licences might hunt "with their own hounds" in the twelfth and

thirteenth centuries. There appears to be no such charter or licence

granting leave to hunt "the King's great game" (deer): on the

contrary, deer are often specially reserved.

43, 12. _Keeping a huntsman with dogs._ The St. Edmund breed of dogs

seems to have been celebrated, as Richard I., when there was a

difference between him and Samson as to the wardship of Nesta of

Cockfield, wrote to the Abbot in a friendly way, and asked him for

some of his dogs (page 148). The hunting dog of old times was probably

a light sort of mastiff. Sometimes a breed was more celebrated for

speed or for strength or for courage, as in the case of the hounds

bred by the abbots of Bury. In the course of time the slighter

varieties developed into the greyhound, and the thicker into the

mastiff of modern times. Canute's Forest Law 31 forbade possession of

"the dog which the English call greihounds" to the lower classes.

Henry II.'s Assize of the Forest, given at Woodstock 1184, forbids

(Clause 2) any one entering a royal forest with bow, arrows, dogs or

greyhounds, save with special warrant. Clause 14 requires the lawing

of mastiffs.

The Wardrobe Account of Edward I. for 1299-1300, records payment for

maintenance of twelve "_fox dogs_." These were used to kill foxes in

coverts previously netted round, so were not, probably, "running

hounds." On April 11, 1279, Edward I. wrote to Charles of Salerno

promising to send the harriers asked for by the latter: which seems to

indicate that the English harrier had a high reputation at that

period.

43, 16. _take part in the sport._ Strutt, in his _Sports and

Pastimes_, observes:--"By the game laws of Canute, the dignified

clergy were permitted to hunt in the forests belonging to the Crown;

and their prerogatives were not abrogated by the Normans. Henry II.,

displeased at the power and ambition of the ecclesiastics, endeavoured

to render these grants of none effect by putting in force (1157) the

canon law, which strictly forbade the clergy to spend their time in

hunting and hawking." Henry III.'s First Charter of 1217 gave leave to

an archbishop, bishop, earl or baron to take two deer while passing

through a forest "by view of the forester"; or in the absence of that

official the sportsman was to blow a horn on killing.

44, 14. _The Eight Hundreds._ These eight hundreds of Thingoe,

Thedwastre, Blackbourn, Bradbourn, Bradmere, Lackford, Risbridge and

Babergh, with the half hundred of Cosford (see line 18) constituted

the Liberty of St. Edmund, as to which see note on page 238.

44, 15. _Robert of Cockfield._ See note to pp. 86, l. 18, on page 241,

and cf. pages 254-6.

44, 24. _Hidages, foddercorn, hen-rents._ Hidage was a tax upon every

hide of land; foddercorn an ancient feudal right that the lord should

be provided with fodder for his horses; hen-rents were a common

reservation upon inferior tenures.

45, 11. _Kalendar._ A transcript of this kalendar, which, as stated in

the text (p. 45, l. 2) was completed by 1186, is now in the possession

of Prince Frederick Dhuleep Singh. In the _History of the Hundred of

Thingoe_ (1838) an extract from it relating to that Hundred is given

on pp. xii.-xvii.

46, 1. _Hugh the subsacrist._ Jocelin says that Samson appointed Hugh

subsacrist to William Wiardel, and shortly after (p. 47) made Samson

the precentor sacrist. But this arrangement was probably short-lived,

for the _Gesta Sacristarum_ (Arnold, ii. 290) says Hugh succeeded

William as sacrist, and gives a lengthy list of the works he carried

out in the church. In 1198, when the body of St. Edmund was examined,

Hugh was present, and is described as sacrist (see p. 172).

50, 16. Omnia Caesar erat. Lucan, _Pharsalia_, iii. 108.

52, 5. Summa petit livor. Ovid, _Remedia Amoris_, 369.

52, 8. 1 John iv. 1.

52, 18. James ii. 13.

54, 9. _School of Melun_ (Meludinensium). John of Salisbury calls a

scholar of Melun "Meludensis." Peter Abelard opened there, early in

the twelfth century, a celebrated school for teaching Dialectic.

54, 23. Ecclesiasticus vii. 24.

57, 14. Strangulat inclusus dolor atque exaestuat intus. Ovid,

_Tristia_, v. i. 63.

CHAPTER VI

62, 7. _Pulpit._ This pulpit, from which Samson preached in his native

dialect of Norfolk, was one of the works of Hugo the sacrist (Arnold,

ii. 291).

65, 3. _Norfolk Barrator._ See note to p. 18, line 9 (pages 226-7).

66, 21. _Sale of holy water._ Ducange cites the acts of a synod of

Exeter in 1287, that from ancient times the profits arising from the

distribution of holy water had been set apart to maintain poor clerks

in schools.

68, 23. _Schools._ Samson is usually credited with having founded a

town school in connection with the monastery. This may very likely

have been the case, but I have found no direct evidence of it. It

seems from this passage that at any rate he provided free lodgings for

poor scholars, and from p. 144 that he endowed the mastership of the

schools with half the tithes of Wetherden. There is a street at Bury

St. Edmunds, just outside the precincts of the monastery, known as

School Hall Street.

69, 3. _Manor of Mildenhall._ Edward the Confessor gave Mildenhall to

St. Edmund's, but when Domesday Book was compiled it was in the hands

of the Crown, being then worth L70. Amongst the Crown lands sold by

Richard I. immediately after his accession was this manor, purchased,

according to Jocelin, for 1,100 marks, of which 1,000 marks apparently

went to the King, and 100 marks to Queen Eleanor (see p. 71, l. 3).

See also note to p. 72, l. 4, on page 235.

69, 5. _Expulsion of the Jews._ Arnold (i. 249) expresses the opinion

that, "under the circumstances, this must have been the most humane

course in the interests of the Jews themselves. All large English

towns at this time were imperfectly policed, and the temper of the

populace savage and uncertain. A riot having once been set on foot,

the only hope of safety for the Jews was in taking refuge in some

royal castle. There was no castle at Bury; to the Abbot alone could

the survivors [from the massacre in 1190] look for protection; and

Samson knew that he had not sufficient force at his command to ensure

it to them."

69, 6. _New hospital at Babwell._ The ruins of this hospital,

dedicated to the Saviour, still exist in Northgate, beyond the railway

arch. It was originally founded for a warden, twelve chaplains, six

clerks, twelve poor gentlemen, and twelve poor women, and was the

subject of numerous Charters, which will be found fully described in

Chapter II. of the late Sir Wm. Parker's _History of Long Melford_

(1873). In the Feet of Fines for Suffolk, 1 John (1199), there are

references to two deeds entered into by "Walter, Master of the

Hospital of the Blessed Saviour outside the northern gate of St.

Edmund's." The Master of the Hospital had his manor at Melford and

held his courts: which manor remains to the present day, as the _Manor

of the Monks in Melford_. It was at St. Saviour's Hospital that

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, put up when he was arrested, in

February, 1447, by Henry VI., who was in the town for the Parliament

which met in the refectory of Bury Abbey.

70, 9. _Great roll of Winchester._ Domesday Book: the returns forming

the basis of which were transmitted to a board sitting at Winchester,

by whom they were arranged in order and placed upon record (Lingard,

i. 249).

70, 19. _Custom of the realm._ This custom is described by Blackstone

(_Commentaries_ [1844 ed.] i. 229) as an ancient perquisite called

queen-gold or aurum reginae, due, in the proportion of 10 per cent.,

from every person making a voluntary offering to the King.

71, 1. _Ransom of King Richard._ Richard wrote to his mother from

Haguenau on the 19th April, 1193, a letter notifying the 70,000 marks

demanded for his ransom by the German Emperor Henry VI. To meet this,

the monasteries of England handed over all their gold and silver to

royal commissioners, and amongst the treasure delivered up by St.

Edmund's was the golden chalice given to the Abbey by Henry II. Queen

Eleanor's release of it is printed in the _Monasticon_ (1821 ed.),

iii. 154 (see also p. 146 of the _Chronicle_).

71, 19. _Icklingham._ This appears to be the transaction referred to

in a Charter of 1200, granted by Samson (confirmed by King John 15th

March, 1200):--"We further give and grant to the said Hospital of St.

Saviour, for the maintenance of the poor folk, L12 in money from our

town of Icklingham, to be annually received through our sacrist." The

signatures to this Charter (given in Parker's _Melford_, p. 9) are

interesting. They include "Herbert, the prior," "Hermer, the

sub-prior" (see chapter xvi. of this book), and "Jocelin, the almoner"

(our Chronicler).

72, 4. _confirmed by the King's Charter._ Richard I. signed at Chateau

Galliard on 18th July, 1198, two charters (1) confirming to Abbot

Samson the manor and advowson of Mildenhall; (2) placing the manor,

except Icklingham, at the disposal of the sacrist on certain

conditions. At the accession of King John, Samson gave the King L200

for a confirmation of the first Charter, and especially of Mildenhall

(cf. Rokewode, pp. 124-5).

72, 15. _Walter of Coutances._ The Church at Woolpit was the first

piece of preferment of this famous Archbishop. Walter apparently

succeeded, at Woolpit, Geoffrey Ridel, made Bishop of Ely in 1173 (see

note on page 237). Rokewode says (p. 126): "Henry II. obtained from

Hugh, Abbot of St. Edmund's, in free alms, the Church of Woolpit for

his clerk, Walter de Coutances, and in consideration thereof, by

charter dated at Winchester, granted that after the decease of Walter

or his resignation, the Church should be appropriated to the use of

the sick monks" (_Reg. Nigr._ fol. 104 v.). Walter obtained several

other appointments, but seems from the text to have retained the

Church at Woolpit till 1183, when he was consecrated Bishop of

Lincoln. Next year (1184) he was elected Archbishop of Rouen. He took

a prominent part in the troubles of the reigns of Richard I. and John,

and died at Rouen on 16th November, 1207.

72, 22. _Pope Alexander and Octavian._ Alexander III., elected Pope on

7 September, 1159, was obliged to leave Italy in 1162, on account of

the power of the Anti-Pope Octavian, and did not return until the

decease of the latter in 1164. Samson's journey to Rome was,

therefore, between 1159 and 1162, before he became a professed monk.

73, 3. _Pretended to be Scotch._ Mr. Arnold gives as the reason for

this that "the Scottish kingdom at this time naturally sided with

Octavian, England being in favour of Alexander" (I. xliii.). It has

been suggested that "simulavi me esse Scottum" in the text means that

Samson pretended to be an _Irishman_, the name Scotus having

originally signified Irish, only acquiring its present meaning with

the immigration of the Scots from the North of Ireland into Argyll,

and their growth into a powerful nation. Bromton, speaking of Ireland,

says:--"Dicta est eciam aliquando Scotia a Scotis eam inhabitantibus,

priusquam ad aliam Scotiam Britannicam devenerunt; unde in

Martirologio legitur: Tali die apud Scotiam natalis Sanctae Brigidae:

quod est, apud Hiberniam" (see Twysden, _Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores

X_, London 1652: vol. I., col. 1072, l. 11). When therefore this

passage was written (the fourteenth century) it is clear that the

usage of Scot as meaning Irishman was not understood, and was regarded

as needing explanation. Samson's contemporary, Ralph de Diceto,

following the account of Henry of Huntingdon, twice explains that the

Scots came from Ireland (ed. Stubbs 1876, I. 10; II. 34). This

explanation again implies that by the middle and end of the twelfth

century the word had come to mean exclusively "Scotsman." The same

opinion is expressed by Burton: "It is not safe to count that the word

Scot must mean a native of present Scotland, when the period dealt

with is earlier than the middle of the twelfth century" (_History of

Scotland_, 1873, I. 207). In that part of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

which was compiled during the reign of King Alfred, Scot regularly

means Irishman. In A.D. 903 the death is noted of Virgil, abbot of

the Scots, i.e. Irish: but this appears to be the last instance of the

use of the word in the Chronicle in that sense. Between the years 924

and 1138 the word Scot occurs fourteen and Scotland twenty-six times

in the Chronicle, always with the modern significance.

73, 6. _Gaveloc._ Javelin, a word of Celtic origin, but not

specifically Scotch. Matthew Paris speaks of it in 1256 as a Frisian

weapon: "Frisiones cum jaculis quae vulgariter gavelocos appellant."

(Chr. Maj. ed. Luard. v. 550.) In the Romance of Percival by Chrestien

de Troyes, is the couplet, "Et il, qui bien lancier savoit, De

gaverlos que il avoit." (Ed. Potvin, Tome I. lines 1309-10. Mons,

1866).

73, 10. _Ride, Ride Rome, turn Cantwereberi_, This is written in

English by Jocelin; and its meaning seems to be "I am riding towards

Rome, turning from Canterbury." Arnold (I. xliii.) says, "If he had

meant to say 'returning to Canterbury,' he would at once have been

taken for an English adherent of Alexander."

74, 12. _Geoffrey Ridel._ This presentation appears to have been made

(c. 1161) by Henry II., perhaps during Samson's journey abroad. In

1163 Geoffrey became Archdeacon of Canterbury in succession to Thomas

a Becket, appointed Archbishop, and for the next eight years was in

violent opposition to his primate, who called him "our arch-devil,"

and excommunicated him. On May 1, 1173, Geoffrey was chosen Bishop of

Ely, and died at Winchester, 27 July, 1189. As Geoffrey from the

chronicles seems to have been of a masterful and contumacious spirit,

it must have given Abbot Samson peculiar satisfaction to have got the

better of him over the timber referred to on page 106.

74, 19. _Acre._ This was Samson's first imprisonment at Castleacre

(circ. 1161, before he became a monk). His second imprisonment

probably took place about 1173, as on page 6 he speaks of it to

Jocelin, then a novice, as something quite recent. As to Castleacre,

see note on pages 223-4.

CHAPTER VII.

77, 23. _Charters of the King._ This dispute with the monks of

Canterbury, heard before King Henry II. on the 11th February, 1187,

raised the whole question of the Liberty of St. Edmund, a matter

respecting which the Bury monastery was extremely tenacious. A

marginal note in the original MS. of the Chronicle, against the

puzzled phrase of the King (see page 78, lines 1-3), says: "Our

Charter speaks of the time of King Edward, and of the time of his

mother, Queen Emma, who had eight and a half hundreds as a marriage

portion before the time of King Edward, besides Mildenhall." According

to the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, the Confessor, after his coronation in

1043, seized the possessions of his mother, "because she was formerly

very hard on the King her son, and did less for him than he wished

before he was King, and also since." The Franchise having thus come

into the Confessor's hands, was granted to the Abbots and Monks of

Bury shortly after his accession. Under a Charter of King Edmund

granted about 945, and Charters of Canute and Hardicanute, the

jurisdiction of Bury Abbey had been restricted to the town, and the

circuit indicated by the four crosses placed at the distance of a mile

from the extremities of the town: but by the Confessor's Charter, it

was enlarged to a district extending over about two-fifths of the

whole county of Suffolk. (For names of the 8-1/2 hundreds included in

the Liberty see note on page 232, 14.)

Edward the Confessor paid a visit to the shrine of St. Edmund in 1044,

and when he had come within a mile of it, dismounted from his horse

and accomplished the rest of the journey on foot. Herman the

archdeacon, who wrote about half a century later, is the first to

relate this fact, and also the grant by the King to the abbey of the

8-1/2 hundreds: "Qua tunc suffragatorem reditibus imperialibus

honorat, centurias quas Anglice hundrez vocant, octo et semis sibi

circum-circa se donat, regiamque mansionem nomine Mildenhall his

adauget" (Arnold, I. 48). The original grant of Edward the Confessor

gave the abbey jura regalia in wide loose general terms. Later,

Charters became gradually more explicit as to the extent of

jurisdiction (civil and criminal) conferred. Later still, the Royal

justices in eyre supervened. The institution of the circuits and

assizes had to be fitted into the exempt jurisdiction: so the Liberty

had its own assizes, etc., but outside the interior special and

inviolable circuit of the bannaleuca or limits of St. Edmundsbury

itself.

Lord Francis Hervey, who has made a special study of the subject,

gives hope on page 250 of his notes to the _Breviary of Suffolk_

(1902), of his undertaking "a detailed examination of the history and

incidents of the great Liberty of St. Edmund, which remained in the

hands of its monastic rulers till the day when Abbot Reeve surrendered

his Abbey to Henry VIII., November 4, 1539."

78, 15. Matthew xix. 12.

78, 16. _the matter was put off._ This dispute between Bury and

Canterbury was not, as a matter of fact, ultimately composed till over

200 years later. Amongst Dr. Yates' manuscript materials for the never

completed Part II. of his _History of Bury_ is a memorandum (now

amongst the Egerton MSS. in the British Museum) in the following

words:--

"The Letters Patent of King Henry 4th the 25th Nov. 1408 confirm and

ratify an Indenture of three parts between the Archbishop of

Canterbury, the Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, and the Abbot of

Bury St. Edmund's, by which it is determined that the parishes of

Hadleygh et Illeygh being within the eight hundreds and an half called

the Liberty or Franchise of St. Edmund should be subject to the

Abbot's Seneschallus, or High Steward of the Franchise, and that the

return of the writs of the Seneschal's Great Court with the rolls

fines and other rights and privileges should be regarded in those

parishes in the same manner as in the other parts of the Liberty. An

exemption on the part of the Archbishop having been claimed, this

indenture terminated a dispute that had been above 160 years [cf.

Arnold, III. 188] in agitation. During this dispute it was agreed that

the Sheriff of Suffolk should act till its termination as Seneschal of

these Parishes. A patent was addressed to the Sheriff of Suffolk dated

27th November in the same year, commanding him no longer to intromit

within the Franchise of St. Edmund, but to preserve inviolate the

Liberties and immunities of the Abbot and Monastery.--_Registrum

Rubrum in Collect, Burien._: 317 _to_ 328 _inclusive._"

78, 16. Et adhuc sub judice lis est. Horace, _Arte Poet._, 78.

79, 6. _Bishop of Ely._ This was William of Longchamp (d. 1197), once

described by Henry II. as a "son of two traitors." He fled the kingdom

in 1191 on his fall from power, came to England in 1192, but was not

permitted to proceed further than Canterbury, and crossed the seas

again. In 1193 he returned, bearing letters from the Emperor, and met

the Regency at St. Albans. It was on this occasion that he passed

through St. Edmundsbury, as recorded on page 80. In Normandy, at the

instigation of the Archbishop of Rouen, he had been everywhere

received as an excommunicated person (cf. Rokewode, page 127).

79, 10. _Archbishopric vacant._ Archbishop Baldwin died at Acre, in

November, 1190; his successor Reginald, Bishop of Bath, was elected in

December, 1191, and died after a few days. Hubert Walter, with whom

Samson afterwards came into conflict, was elected Archbishop in May,

1192 (see note on page 245).

80, 12. _Archbishop of York._ This was Geoffrey, the half-brother of

Richard I., to whom he had sworn that he would not return to England

without the King's leave. Having returned, he was, on his landing at

Dover in September, 1191, arrested by Longchamp's orders, and thrown

into prison.

80, 24. _King Henry had taken the Cross._ At the interview of Henry

II. with Philip of France, between Trie and Gisors, the two Kings took

the cross upon the Feast of St Agnes, 21 January, 1188.

82, 8. _War throughout England._ After John's return from France in

1193, the country was in a state of general warfare; and Windsor was

besieged by the Regency with the King's other castles.

82, 16. _His own standard._ See note to p. 85, l. 25, below.

83, 1. _Licence for holding tournaments._ This was little more than a

device for raising money. In 1194 Richard ordered tournaments to be

held, in order to practise the knights in warfare. No one could joust

at a tournament without a licence; and the price of the licence varied

with the rank of the holder.

85, 12. _Withgar._ This great thane, who is styled in the Cartulary of

Abbot John of Northwold "the famous Earl," had the custody for Queen

Emma, mother of Edward the Confessor, of the franchise of the eight

hundreds and a half which subsequently constituted the Liberty of St.

Edmund (see notes on pages 232 and 238). Mr. Rokewode says (p. 129):

"The honour of Clare was composed chiefly of the great possessions in

Suffolk and Essex of Alfric, son of Withgar or Wisgar (_Liber

Domesday_)."

85, 25. _Standard of St. Edmund._ In the famous Harleian MS. 2278, the

original book containing the metrical life of St. Edmund by John

Lydgate, presented to Henry VI. by Bury Abbey after his visit to the

monastery in 1433, there is a pictorial representation of this

Standard. It depicts Adam and Eve on either side of the Tree of

Knowledge, and the devil with a human face and a serpent's body curled

round the tree. Above the tree is a lamb and a cross, with crescents

in the background. The counterseal of Abbot Samson also has the lamb

and cross (see page 229).

86, 6. _Earl Roger Bigot._ This Earl was son of Hugh, the rebellious

baron. It appears from the text that the Standard of St. Edmund was

carried by him into the fight at the battle of Fornham, in October,

1173 (see p. 1).

86, 18. _Robert of Cockfield._ References to members of this family of

Cockfield, or Cokefield, appear often in the _Chronicle_. The dispute

as to rights which arose on Robert's death is told again in greater

detail at the end of the _Chronicle_, by William of Diss (see pp.

254-6), and the dispute as to the wardship of the daughter of Adam,

son of Robert, on pages 187-8. Nothing here arises except Samson's

denial of Adam's right of hereditary tenure, in which he was

successful.

87, 16. _Eight and a half hundreds._ See notes to p. 44, l. 14, and p.

77, l. 23, on the Liberty of St. Edmund (pp. 232, 238).

88, 16. _Haberdon._ This is a field (still called by the same name) in

the south-east corner of the town, with remains of earthworks. It was

held in monastic times of the sacrist by the singular tenure, that the

tenant should find a white bull as often as a gentlewoman should visit

the shrine of St. Edmund "to make the oblation of the said white

bull," with a view to secure a favourable answer to her prayers for

offspring. On these occasions the bull was led from his pasture on the

Haberdon through the principal streets of the town in procession to

the Church of St. Edmund.

CHAPTER VIII.

101-105. The whole of this Chapter is obviously an interpolation in

the Chronicle by some monk other than Jocelin himself. The story of

Henry of Essex is included in the long and elaborate "vita et passio

cum miraculis Sancti Edmundi" prepared in the fourteenth century in

the monastery at Bury, and now preserved in the Bodleian Library (MS.

240); and at the end of this transcript the compiler adds, "Cuius

narracionem Jocelinus audiens, in scriptis redegit" (_Nova Legenda

Anglie_, ed. Horstman, 1901, II. 637). It is apparent from the opening

phrase of the text (p. 105) that Jocelin, who most probably went to

Reading in the train of the Abbot, commenced to set down the story at

the bidding of Samson, but left its completion to some other monk of

inferior degree. Perhaps this was William of Diss, who added at the

end of the Chronicle (see pages 254-6) a declaration as to the lands

of Robert of Cockfield.

101, 10. _precept of Seneca._ Mr. Arnold says: "Many things resembling

this sentiment occur in the 109th Epistle of Seneca; but probably the

passage is somewhere else in his works."

103, 18. _thrown down the standard._ Henry of Essex's act of cowardice

took place in 1157, during an expedition into Flintshire, when the

Welsh made a sudden attack. His dropping the standard brought King

Henry II. and the Royal army into great peril (Gervase, i. 165, Rolls

ed.).

104, 1. _Roger Earl of Clare._ There seems to be an attempt at

punning, at this point, by the monk who wrote the original story in

Latin: "Rogerus comes Clarensis, clarus genere et militari clarior

exercitis, cum suis Clarensibus maturius occurrisset."

104, 9. _trial of battle._ This fight between Henry of Essex and

Robert de Montfort took place in 1163 (Ralph de Diceto, _Ymag. Hist_.

i. 310, Rolls ed.), on an eyot in the Thames, and is still

traditionally remembered at Reading.

CHAPTER IX

106, 6. _stay at Melford._ The manor of Melford was given to the

monastery in the time of Leofstan (second Abbot) by Earl Alfric, the

son of Withgar (Parker's _History of Long Melford_, p. 1). At Long

Melford, 13 miles south of Bury, was a country house belonging to the

Abbots of Bury; and at the present Melford Hall there are said to be

still some relics of this occupancy. After Samson died, in 1211, there

was a dispute that lasted a considerable time as to the validity of

the election of Hugo, his successor; and the Papal Legate, Nicholas,

Bishop of Tusculum, who tried vainly to compose it, stayed for some

time at Melford (Arnold, ii. 46). Abbot Simon of Luton died at his

manor of Melford in April, 1279.

108, 8, 13. _forty pounds a year from the town._ Battely prints

(_App._ xvii. 149) a letter from Pope Eugenius III. (no date)

addressed to Helyas, the sacrist (Ording's nephew), confirming

Ording's instructions as to the rents of the town being applied to the

service of the Altar.

112, 8. _Charter from King Henry the Second._ "All the men of London

shall be quit and free, and all their goods throughout England, and

the ports of the sea, of and from all toll and passage and lestage and

all other customs" (Charter Henry I.). "All the citizens of London

shall be quit from toll and lastage throughout all England and the

ports of the sea" (Charter of Henry II.--confirmed by Charter of

Richard I., 23 April, 1194, and by Charter of John, 17 June, 1199).

(Birch's _Historical Charters of the City of London_, 1887, pp. 3, 5.)

112, 15. _theam_ (Lat. themus, team). The right of compelling a person

in whose hands stolen property was found to say from whom he received

it (Glossary in Stubbs's _Select Charters_).

113, 10. Judges xvi. 9.

116, 15. _A charter was made._ The text of this Charter of 1194,

granted by Samson to the Burgesses, will be found in Battely (_App._

xxii. 155-6) and in the _Monasticon_, iii. 153. It confirms to the

town all the customs and liberties which it had in the times of Henry

II. and his predecessors; and it declares that with regard to watch

and ward and the custody of the gates, the ancient custom is that the

town shall furnish eight watchmen night by night, all the year round,

two for each ward, and a larger number at Christmas and on St.

Edmund's Day [20 November]; also that the town should find four

gatekeepers for the four gates, the fifth or eastern gate being in the

custody of the Abbot. Nothing is said in the Charter about the

appointment of the portreeves; but the right of burgesses to sue and

be sued in their own borough-court (portmanne-mot), instead of going

outside the borough to the hundred-mot or the shire-mot, is insisted

upon. "What is evidently assumed is that the portreeve is the Abbot's

servant, and administers justice in the Abbot's name" (Arnold, II.

xxxix.).

CHAPTER X

119, 10. Lamentations iv. i.

121, 12. _Abbot Robert._ This was Robert II. (fourth Abbot), a monk of

Westminster, elected by the convent in 1102, but not confirmed by

Henry I. until 1107. He died shortly afterwards, on the 16th

September, 1107, and, after an interregnum of seven years, Albold,

Prior of St. Nicasius, at Meaux, succeeded him in the abbacy. Robert

was buried in the Infirmary Chapel (Douai MS.). For his character and

labours, see MS. quoted in Arnold, i. 356.

121, 20. _Hubert Walter._ Hubert's father, Harvey Walter, was

descended from Hubert, the first Norman settler, who received at the

Conquest grants of land in Norfolk and Suffolk. Hubert is said to have

been born at West Dereham, in Norfolk (Tanner, _Not. Monast. Norfolk_,

xxi.), where lived, as will be seen from the text (p. 121, l. 25), his

mother Matilda de Valognes (whose sister Bertha married Ranulf de

Glanville). He was brought up in Glanville's household, and was so

much in his confidence that he was afterwards said to have "shared

with him in the government of England." In 1186 he became Dean of

York, and in 1189 Bishop of Salisbury. In 1190 he went to the Holy

Land, returning in 1193, in which year he was elected Archbishop of

Canterbury and appointed justiciary. Richard's departure over sea in

1194 left him virtual ruler of England for the next few years. He died

in 1205; and in March, 1890, a tomb opened in Canterbury Cathedral was

found to contain his remains.

124, 6. _The Pope wrote._ This letter of Innocent III. was dated 1st

December, 1198, and was addressed (not to the Archbishop but) to the

Abbot and convent of St. Edmund (_Migne's Patrologia_, vol. ccxiv.,

No. 457 of the Regesta).

CHAPTER XI

134, 13. Tendens ad sidera palmas. Virgil, _Aen._ i. 93.

135, 18. _Anniversary obit of the Abbot Robert._ According to the

_Liber Albus_, fol. 35, the anniversary of Abbot Robert was "xvi Kal.

Octobris" (16th September). The anniversaries of Ording and Hugh,

mentioned in line 20, were 31st January and the 16th November.

139, 20. _Chapel of St. Denis._ This chapel was at the west end of the

church, probably north of the great western tower, with a chapel

dedicated to St. Faith above it. Abbot Baldwin, who commenced the

erection of the basilica, was a monk of St. Denis; hence, no doubt,

the dedication of a chapel to that saint.

CHAPTER XII

142, 5. _Church of Coventry._ Hugh de Nonant (d. 1198), Bishop of

Lichfield and Coventry, had a violent dislike to all monks, and,

whenever he could, put secular canons in their place. He had turned

out the monks at Coventry, and Pope Celestine III. appointed in 1197 a

Commission, on which Samson sat, for restoring these expelled monks.

The monks were re-inducted by Archbishop Hubert Walter on 18th

January, 1198.

144, 1. _Church of Wetherden._ This deed is recorded in the Feet of

Fines for Suffolk, 9 Richard I., No. 49.

144, 9. _master of the schools._ A perpetual pension of three marcs,

payable from the tithes of Wetherden to "the master of the school at

St. Edmund," was granted in 1198 by John, Bishop of Norwich, at the

request of Samson (_Curtey's Register_, Brit. Mus. fol. 119).

145, 24. _Chapel of St. Andrew._ According to the _Gesta Sacristarum_

(Arnold, ii. 291) the Chapel of St. Andrew was for the most part built

and finished by the sacrist Hugo under Samson, and seems to have been

then connected with the infirmary (iii. 87). Later on it was removed

into the cemetery of the monks (iii. 187).

145, 25. _Chapels of St. Katherine and St. Faith._ Two chapels at the

west end; St. Katherine to the south, over the chapel of St. John, St.

Faith to the north, over the chapel of St. Denis.

147, 19. Tractant fabrilia fabri. Horace, _Ep._ ii. i. 116.

147, 20. _Adam of Cockfield._ This was the claimant whose case is

reported on pp. 86-8, and again (by William of Diss) on pp. 254-6. An

elaborate pedigree of the Cockfield family is given by Rokewode on pp.

140-8 of his book. His daughter's name was Nesta, and, as stated at p.

187, l. 24, she became, on her father's death in 1198, the ward and

wife of Thomas de Burgh, brother of Hubert the chamberlain, who was

afterwards justiciary and Earl of Kent. Nesta married three times, and

died about 1248.

149, 3. Munera (crede mihi) capiunt hominesque deosque; Placatur donis

Jupiter ipse datis. Ovid, _Arte Amandi_, iii. 653.

CHAPTER XIII

151, 13. _Portman-moot._ Borough court. Written in English in the

original Chronicle ("portmane-mot.")

151, 18. _Sorpeni._ Payment for grass for a cow.

152, 5. _Ording who lies there._ Ording (d. 1156) was one of six

abbots who were buried in the Chapter House, and whose names are

recorded in the MS., circa 1425, discovered by Dr. Montagu James at

Douai (_James_, p. 180). The original chapter house of the monastery

was built by Godefridus, the sacrist, about 1107. There was a fire

which destroyed all the convent buildings, and Helyas, the sacrist,

Ording's nephew, "reformavit ad plenum" the chapter house. His uncle

was the first Abbot buried there. Ording's place of sepulture was

nearest to the east end or dais. Hugo and Samson, Ording's successors,

were also buried in Helyas's chapter house: Samson being, according to

the Douai MS. "sepultus in capitulo sedus ad pedes Ric. Abb. sub

lapidibus marmoreis ut suprascriptum est de Abb. Ordingo." About 1220

Richard of Newport, then sacrist, "vetus capitulum destruxit, et novum

a fundamentis construxit." (Arnold, II. 293.) Afterwards Richard of

Insula (1229-34), Henry of Rushbrook (1234-46), and Edmund of Walpole

(1248-56) were also buried in the chapter house. Its dimensions,

according to William of Worcester's measurements in 1479, were 60

paces by 20. In the course of some recent excavations (1902-3) the

coffins of five of the above Abbots, and much worked stone and marble,

have been found on the site of this chapter house.

152, 19. _tenant of the cellarer, by name Ketel_. As Ketel dwelt

"without the gate," he was, being "of the cellarer's fee," subject to

the "judicial duel" which William I. had introduced; whereas the

argument of his fellow-burgesses seems to have been that if he had

dwelt within the borough he would have been tried and acquitted or

condemned by the "oaths of his neighbours"--the compurgators out of

whom our jury system grew. The monks recognized that the time had come

when the franchise of the town should be extended to the rural

possessions of the Abbey, and all brought under a common jurisdiction.

153, 6. _within the jurisdiction._ "Infra bannamleucam," defined by

Ducange as a certain territory by the boundaries of which the

jurisdiction and immunities of any place, whether a town or monastery,

were limited. _Bannum_ is here used in the sense of jurisdiction; and

the amount of territory so enfranchised was usually reckoned as a

league either way, hence banna leuca or banlieue. The exempt

jurisdiction of Bury Abbey was limited to the circuit of a mile within

four crosses.

153, 6. _Villeins of Hardwick._ The Latin word is _lancettos_, serfs

holding by base services. In one of the cartularies of St. Edmund, the

"Lancetti de Hardwick" were to cleanse the latrines of the monastery.

154, 23. _Beodricsworth._ This is the ancient name of Bury St.

Edmunds. Mr. Arnold says (I. iv.) the name of Beodric "seems to mean

'a table chieftain,' _comp._ beod. geneat, a table companion. But

there is some countenance in the MSS. for Beadricsworth, which would

come from beadu-rica, one mighty in war." Seynt Edmunds Biri is first

substituted for Beodricsworth in Charters from Edward the Confessor to

the Monastery (cf. page 260 and Battely, _App._ ix. 134).

155, 14. _Aver-peni._ The money paid by the tenant in commutation of

the service (avera) of performing any work for his lord by horse or

ox, or by carriage with either.

155, 20. _Eels from Southrey._ Aelgiva, Queen of Canute, gave to the

Monastery yearly four thousand eels, with her gifts which pertained

thereto at Lakenheath. The manor of Southrey, in Norfolk, with three

fisheries, was appropriated to the cellarer (Rokewode, p. 151).

157, 2. _haggovele._ Probably head-tax or hearth-tax.

159, 2. Romans xii. 10.

159, 9. Summa petit livor. Ovid, _Rem. Amoris_, 369.

CHAPTER XIV

163, 8. Habakkuk iii. 2.

164, 11. _Chest with the shirt of St. Edmund._ Archdeacon Herman, in

his treatise _De Miraculis Sancto Eadmundi_ (Arnold, i. 26 _et seq._),

describes how Leofstan (2nd Abbot) decided to open the coffin

containing St. Edmund's body and examine the remains. The body was

found covered with a vestment stained with blood and pierced with

arrows. This was taken off and the body wrapped in a linen sheet. In

the continuation of Herman's work, ascribed to Samson himself, there

is an account of another Herman, a monk of Bury, and a popular

preacher, who displayed irreverently certain relics of St. Edmund. He

took the shirt out of its casket, and unfolded it for the people to

kiss. Tolinus the sacrist commented severely on the occurrence, and on

the third day at sunset Herman died. The "feretrum cum camisia S.

Edmundi" was amongst the relics carried in procession round the Church

on Christmas Day, Palm Sunday, Easter Day, and probably other high

festivals (Rituale, Harl. MS. 297, cent, xiv., quoted by _James_, p.

183).

165, 1. _Cup of St. Edmund._ To drinking from this cup various

miracles are ascribed: a rich lady cured after long suffering from

fever; a Dunwich man with dropsy; a girl afflicted with a great

swelling, who drinks from the cup thrice in the name of the Trinity; a

Cluniac monk of St. Saviour's, Southwark, named Gervasius, whose story

is told in great detail in Samson's _De Miraculis_ (Arnold, i. 202-3).

It is said that an indulgence _toties quoties_ was granted to pilgrims

who drank from this cup "in the worshippe of God and Saint Edmund,"

hence its name of "Pardon Bowl"; but I have not found the original

authority for this.

165, 19. Luke xii. 2.

166, 9. Psalm lxiii. 11.

170, 4. Isaiah i. 2.

171, 18. _verse inscribed._ In the _Cronica Burienis_ (Arnold, iii. 8)

this verse is given in a slightly different form--"Martyris ecce zoma

Michaelis servet agalma," the writer adding, "Agalma, id est, sacra

receptacula divinitatis." "Zoma" is probably the Greek word "soma,"

body. But it has also been translated "garment," and Carlyle's version

of the inscription (_Past and Present_, ch. xvi.) is, "This is the

Martyr's garment, which Michael's Image guards." Lord Francis Hervey,

in his edition (1902) of Recce's _Breviary of Suffolk_, says, "Having

regard to the fondness of the mediaeval versifiers for rhyme, I feel

tempted to suggest that the word may have been 'salma,' a word of

unknown origin, which in Italian means corpse.... The verse in

question was most probably not home made, and was not clearly

intelligible to the monks themselves."

171, 21. _iron rings._ This phrase is somewhat obscure: "annuli ferrei

sicut solebat fieri in cista Norensi." Ducange gives "Norrensis" as an

occasional equivalent for Northmannus, hence Mr. Arnold suggests for

cista Norensis "a Norwegian chest" (i. 311).

175, 10. _Ailwin the monk._ Ailwin, also written Egelwin, was keeper

of the shrine of St. Edmund before the foundation of the Abbey. In

view of the invasion of England by the Danish chief Turchil, Ailwin

fled, in 1010, from Beodricsworth to London with the body of St.

Edmund, returning 1014. In 1050 Ailwin, then a very aged man, was

invited by Abbot Leofstan to come from Hulme to Bury to identify the

body of the Saint.

176, 18. _Keeper of St. Botolph._ There was a chapel (probably on the

south side of the presbytery) dedicated to St. Botolph, in which was

the shrine with the relics of that Saint.

177, 3. Felix, quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum. Erasmus, _Adagia_.

CHAPTER XV

178, 6. _King John ... came down to St. Edmund._ John paid several

visits to Bury Abbey during Samson's abbacy: once in 1199, immediately

after his coronation, when he made the miserable offering described by

Jocelin on p. 178; a second time in 1201, when returning from

Northumberland; a third time in 1203, when, according to Rokewode (p.

154), "he made a pilgrimage to St. Edmund's, at the feast of St.

Thomas the Apostle, and gave the convent ten marcs annually, payable

from the exchequer, for the repairs of the shrine of St. Edmund, in

consideration of the monks giving back to the King, for his life, a

sapphire and ruby, which he had offered to the Saint, and which were

to revert to the convent." In connection with the disputed question of

the nomination of Samson's successor (which lasted for over two

years), John came to Bury on November 4, 1114, and meeting the monks

in the chapter house, made them a speech as to his own rights in the

matter, which is recorded in Arnold, II. xv. and 95-6.

180, 7. Isaiah i. 2.

182, 3. Matthew xii. 25.

183, 9. In te vindicassem nisi iratus fuissem. Cic. _Tusc._ iv. 36.

183, 14. Mark iv. 39.

187, 20. _seisin of the damsel._ There was another claimant for the

wardship of Nesta of Cockfield, not here mentioned, viz., King Richard

I., who (see pp. 148-9) was defied by Samson, but was appeased by a

present of some horses, dogs, and other valuable gifts. "Here you may

see what misery followeth the tenure by Knight's service: if the

tenant dieth, leaving his heir within age, how the poor child may be

tossed and tumbled, chopped and changed, bought and sold like a jade

in Smithfield, and what is more, married to whom it pleaseth his

guardian, whereof ensue many evils" (Rastell: _Terms of the Lawes of

this Realm_, ed. 1579, fol. 98).

189, 6. Decipi quadam specie recti. Horace, _De Arte Poetica_, 25.

189, 8. Isaiah xlii. 8.

189, 9. _Abbot of Cluny._ This was Hugh, Abbot of Reading from 1180 to

1199, when he was appointed Abbot of Cluny. Much information about him

may be found in Dr. J. B. Hurry's admirable _History of Reading

Abbey_, 1901, whence the following note as to precedence is taken:

"Sir Henry Englefield (_Archaeologia_, vol. vi. p. 61) states that the

Abbot of Reading took precedence after the Abbots of Glastonbury and

St. Albans. But it is probable that no such definite order was

observed.... In the Articles of Faith under Convocation, 28 Henry

VIII., the following is the order of signatures--St. Albans,

Westminster, St. Edmunds Bury, Glastonbury, Reading."

CHAPTER XVI.

190, 6. Numbers xi. 26.

191, 1. _When the Prior died._ Mr. Rokewode assigns Robert's death to

1200, perhaps because the narrative of the election of his successor

follows in the Chronicle the account of the visit to the monastery of

Hugh, Abbot of Cluny.

192, 9. Proverbs xix. 11.

193, 19. Deut. xvii. 8.

196, 19. _[Herbert] the new prior._ This election seems to have taken

place in 1200. After Samson's death in 1211, Herbert had a great deal

of anxiety arising out of King John's refusal to accept the choice of

Hugh II. (then Prior of Westminster and afterwards Bishop of Ely) as

Abbot; and the narrative of the _Electio Hugonis_ takes up 102 pages

of Mr. Arnold's vol. ii. Herbert died in September, 1220, and was

succeeded as Prior by Richard of Insula (afterwards 12th Abbot).

197, 20. Acts xxvi. 24.

197, 23. Nihil omne parte beatum. Hor. _Odes_, i. 16.

198, 7. Exitus acta probabit. Ovid, _Heroides_, ii. 85.

198, 11. Psalm lxiv. 3.

199, 5. Fallitur augurio spes bona saepe suo. Ovid, _Heroides_, xvii.

234.

CHAPTER XVII.

200, 8. Deut. xvi. 19.

200, 16. Galatians v. 9.

201, 20. _Dean of London._ This quotation from the _Ymagines

Historiarum_ of Ralph de Diceto, Dean of St. Paul's, who died about

1202, is interesting, as showing that apparently a manuscript copy of

that work was in the possession of Bury Abbey shortly after its

compilation. Diceto has often been identified with Diss in Norfolk:

and there are evidences that William of Diss had a good deal to do

with Jocelin's Chronicle (cf. pages 242, 254). Bishop Stubbs thinks

that Diceto is "an artificial name, adopted by its bearer as the Latin

name of a place with which he was associated," and this he suggests

may be one of three places in Maine.

202, 16. Mutans quadrata rotundis. Hor. _Ep._ i. 1, 100.

203, 16. Pila minantia pilis. _Lucan_, 1, 7.

204, 13. _By his writ._ The same difficulty as to jurisdiction that

arose in the case of Monk's Eleigh with Christ Church, Canterbury (see

chapter vii. and notes to p. 77, l. 23, and p. 78, l. 16) occurred

with the Bishop of Ely; and it lasted an equally long time. In the

_Excerpta Cantabrigiensia_ (Arnold, III. 188) is a long account of a

"Contentio inter monasterium S. Edmundi et episcopum Eliensum" (Univ.

Lib. Ff. 2, 29) respecting the return to writs affecting places within

the Liberty of St. Edmund. The Bishop claimed that when a writ came

down to the Sheriff of Suffolk referring to a place which, though

within the liberty of St. Edmund, belonged to the see of Ely, it was

the duty of the sheriff to send that writ for execution, not to the

abbot, but to the bishop; and the abbot claimed that the ancient

jurisdiction of St. Edmund would thus be infringed. Since the liberty

of St. Edmund comprised eight and a half hundreds in the county of

Suffolk, within which hundreds the see of Ely possessed many manors,

it is obvious that if the charge and execution of writs affecting

these manors were withheld from the abbot and given to the bishop, the

jurisdiction of St. Edmund would be to that extent impaired and

restricted. The Contentio begins with a reference to the King's

decision just given (1408) in favour of Bury against the Canterbury

monks (see note on page 239), and goes on to describe the efforts made

by Abbot Cratfield to stop the encroachments of Bishop Fordham of Ely,

with whom he proposes a meeting, from which the bishop excuses

himself. The controversy dragged on, with many adjournments and

delays, all of which the (Bury) writer lays to the charge of the other

side: nor was it concluded at the date (1426 or 1427) when the tract

was written (Arnold, III. xviii.-xix.).

205, 20. Psalm viii. 8.

207, 7. _Geoffrey Fitz-Peter and William de Stutville._ These were

important officials, whom John could ill spare. Geoffrey Fitz-Peter,

Earl of Essex (died 1213) was justiciar, having been appointed by

Richard I. to this high office in 1198, on the resignation of

Archbishop Hubert Walter. He was confirmed in his appointment by John,

who disliked him, but used him for his own ends. William de Stutville

had been appointed sheriff of the county of York in 1201, and died in

1203.

209, 20. _made his will just as if he was now to die._ The Royal

summons to Court was dated 1203, as the brief of Innocent III. is

printed in Migne's _Patrologia_, vol. 214, and is dated 21 January,

1203. Samson lived nearly nine years afterwards; but as to the facts

of his latest years we know practically nothing. As to his death and

burial, see Preface, pages xl.-xlii.

211, 9. Pollicitis dives quilibet esse potest. Ovid., _De Arte

Amandi_, 1. 444.

211. At the foot of fol. 163 of the _Liber Albus_, from which

Jocelin's Chronicle is taken, is a memorandum by William of Diss,

which, as it has been printed both by Rokewode and Arnold, is

translated below, though it is not by Jocelin. It is merely an

expansion of the story told by Jocelin himself on pp. 86-8. Adam of

Cockfield wanted to claim his father's lands by hereditary right; but

William of Diss gives the evidence against this claim. The succession

was: Lenmere, Adam the first (married Adeliza), Robert (died 1191),

Adam the claimant (died 1198), who married Rohesia, and had a daughter

Nesta, over whose wardship there was the dispute recorded on page 187.

"Robert of Cockfield acknowledged to my lord abbot Samson, in the

presence of many persons--Master W. of Banham, brother W. of Diss,

chaplains, William of Breiton, and many others--that he had no

hereditary right in the vills of Groton and Semere. For in the days of

King Stephen, when the peace was disturbed, the monks of St. Edmund,

with the consent of the abbot, granted the aforesaid two vills to Adam

of Cockfield, his father, to be held all the days of his life: Semere

for the annual payment of one hundred shillings, and Groton by the

payment of an annual rent, because Adam could defend the aforesaid

towns against the holders of the neighbouring castles, W. of Milden

and W. of Ambli, in that he had a castle of his own near to the

aforesaid manors, namely, the castle of Lelesey.

"After the death of the aforesaid Adam, they granted the said manors

to Robert of Cockfield, son of Adam, at a double rate for Semere, that

is an annual rent of ten pounds, so long as the lords abbots and the

convent wish. But he never had a charter for it, not even to the end

of his life. He had good charters for all the tenements which he held

of St. Edmund by hereditary right, which charters I, William, known as

William of Diss, at that time chaplain, read, in the hearing of many,

in the presence of the aforesaid abbot: that is for the lands of

Lelesey, which Ulfric of Lelesey held of St. Edmund in the same

township; the charter of the abbot and convent concerning the socages

of Rougham, which Mistress Rohesia of Cockfield, once wife of Adam the

younger, brought as her dowry; for the lands also which Lenmere, his

ancestor, held in the town of Cockfield by hereditary right, and which

in the time of King Stephen, with the consent of Anselm, abbot of St.

Edmund, were changed into half a knight's fee, although at first they

had been socages of St. Edmund.

"He had also charters of the abbot and convent of St. Edmund, for the

lands which are in the town of St. Edmund; for the land, that is to

say, of Hemfrid Criketot, where the houses of Mistress Adeliza were

once situated. They have also a hereditary charter for a great

messuage, under a payment of twelve pence, where the hall of Adam the

first, of Cockfield, was of old situate, with a wooden tower seven

times twenty feet in height. It was confirmed to them as hereditary

right by the charter of the abbot and convent, in which charter are

specified the length and breadth of that place and messuage, to be

held by a payment of two shillings. They also hold a hereditary

charter for the lands which Robert of Cockfield, son of Odo of

Cockfield, now holds in Barton. But they have no charter for the

township of Cockfield, that is, for the portion which pertains to the

food of the monks of St. Edmund.

"Then there was one brief of King Henry I., in which he commands Abbot

Anselm to allow Adam of Cockfield the first to hold in peace the farm

of Cockfield, and others, as long as he pays rents in full; and that

brief was sealed only of one part, representing the royal

form--against the form of all royal briefs.

"But Robert of Cockfield claimed, in the presence of the lord abbot

and the aforesaid, that he believed Cockfield to be his hereditary

right on account of his long tenure: because his grandfather, Lenmere,

held that manor for a long time before his death, and Adam the first,

his son, for the term of his life, and he, Robert, all his

life--well-nigh sixty years; but they never had a charter of the abbot

or the convent of St. Edmund for the aforesaid land."

APPENDIX III

TABLE OF CHIEF DATES IN THE HISTORY OF THE ABBEY OF

ST. EDMUNDSBURY, from A.D. 870 to 1903.

[_Editor's Note._--I had originally contemplated printing only the

dates included in Section II. of this Table, but at the suggestion of

the general Editor of the series, I have extended it backwards and

forwards so as to give a rapid _apercu_ of the history of Bury Abbey

from its earliest beginnings up to the present date. The Table may

have a use other than for readers of _Jocelin's Chronicle_, as it

brings to a focus a mass of chronological information now scattered

over a great variety of books.

For unfortunately there does not exist at present any adequate history

of Bury Abbey, one of the most ancient, flourishing and important of

the Benedictine institutions in England. There are adequate

materials--at any rate for some of the periods of its existence--in

the copious manuscripts relating to Bury (many of them formerly

belonging to the monastery) now on the shelves of our public libraries

and in private hands; and it seems a pity that no one has the courage

to undertake a task which, though formidable, has been successfully

accomplished in the case of other foundations of less fame.

The names of some of the principal works that may usefully be

consulted by students of the history of the Abbey will be found on pp.

276 and 277 at the end of the Table.--E. C.].

SECTION I

_BEFORE THE DAYS OF ABBOT SAMSON_

870 Nov. 20. Martyrdom of St. Edmund. His head is cut off by the

Danes and hidden in a wood "in silvam cui vocabulam est

Haglesdun" (_Abbo_, writing 100 years after). [Domesday book

(1086) records the existence in Wilford Hundred of a place

called Halgestou.] The head being found, is miraculously

rejoined to the body, which is buried "in villula Suthtuna

[Sutton] dicta, de prope loco martyrizationis" (_Herman_,

writing 200 years after).

903 (or later). Relics of St. Edmund removed from the place of

burial to Beodricsworth--afterwards called Bury St. Edmunds.

The early authorities differ as to this date. Herman says

the translation took place in the reign of Athelstan

(925-941): the compiler of the Bodl. MS. 240 says A.D. 900

or 906 (_Nov. Leg. Angl._ II. 590); the Curteys Register

(Part I. f. 211) says A.D. 903.

937 (_circa_). According to Abbo, Dunstan, then a youth, hears the

story of St. Edmund's death from an old man who said he was

the King's standard bearer.

945 Bishop Theodred (II) of Elmham opens St. Edmund's coffin,

finds the body "whole and incorrupt," and places it in a new

wooden "loculus" (Abbo).

945 Charter of King Edmund II (son of Edmund the Elder) granting

lands round Beodricsworth to the clerks (_monasterii

familia_) who were then guarding St. Edmund's shrine. (Text

in Arnold II. 340-1.) _p._ 238.

985 (_circa_). Dunstan, the Archbishop, tells the story of St.

Edmund's martyrdom to others, and Abbo recounts it in his

_Passio Sancti Eadmundi_. (Text in Arnold I. 3-25.)

_p._ 217.

1010 Egelwin, or Ailwin, takes the body of the Saint from

Beodricsworth to London. _p._ 175.

1013 Return of Egelwin, with body of St. Edmund, to Beodricsworth.

1014 February. Death of King Sweyn (according to the chroniclers,

at the hands of St. Edmund).

1020 At the instance of Aelfwin, Bishop of Elmham, the clerks in

charge of St. Edmund's shrine are removed, and twenty monks,

headed by Uvius, prior of Hulme, installed at Beodricsworth.

1020 Uvius consecrated 1st abbot of Bury by the Bishop of London.