THE CANVASSING.
Now, however, come great news to St. Edmundsbury: That there is to be
an Abbot elected; that our interlunar obscuration is to cease; St.
Edmund's Convent no more to be a doleful widow, but joyous and once
again a bride! Often in our widowed state had we prayed to the Lord
and St. Edmund, singing weekly a matter of 'one-and-twenty penitential
Psalms, on our knees in the Choir,' that a fit Pastor might be
vouchsafed us. And, says Jocelin, had some known what Abbot we were to
get, they had not been so devout, I believe!--Bozzy Jocelin opens to
mankind the floodgates of authentic Convent gossip; we listen, as in a
Dionysius' Ear, to the inanest hubbub, like the voices at Virgil's
Horn-Gate of Dreams. Even gossip, seven centuries off, has
significance. List, list, how like men are to one another in all
centuries:
'_Dixit quidam de quodam_, A certain person said of a certain person,
"He, that _Frater_, is a good monk, _probabilis persona_; knows much
of the order and customs of the church; and, though not so perfect a
philosopher as some others, would make a very good Abbot. Old Abbot
Ording, still famed among us, knew little of letters. Besides,
as we read in Fables, it is better to choose a log for king, than
a serpent never so wise, that will venomously hiss and bite his
subjects."--"Impossible!" answered the other: "How can such a man make
a sermon in the Chapter, or to the people on festival-days, when he
is without letters? How can he have the skill to bind and to loose, he
who does not understand the Scriptures? How--?"'
And then 'another said of another, _alius de alio_, "That _Frater_ is
a _homo literatus_, eloquent, sagacious; vigorous in discipline; loves
the Convent much, has suffered much for its sake." To which a third
party answers, "From all your great clerks, good Lord deliver us! From
Norfolk barrators and surly persons, That it would please thee to
preserve us, We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord!" Then another
_quidam_ said of another _quodam_, "That _Frater_ is a good manager
(_husebondus_);" but was swiftly answered, "God forbid that a man who
can neither read nor chant, nor celebrate the divine offices, an
unjust person withal, and grinder of the faces of the poor, should
ever be Abbot!"' One man, it appears, is nice in his victuals. Another
is indeed wise, but apt to slight inferiors; hardly at the pains to
answer, if they argue with him too foolishly. And so each _aliquis_
concerning his _aliquo_,--through whole pages of electioneering
babble. 'For,' says Jocelin, 'So many men, as many minds.' Our Monks
'at time of blood-letting, _tempore minutionis_,' holding their
sanhedrim of babble, would talk in this manner: Brother Samson, I
remarked, never said anything; sat silent, sometimes smiling; but he
took good note of what others said, and would bring it up, on
occasion, twenty years after. As for me Jocelin, I was of opinion that
'some skill in Dialectics, to distinguish true from false,' would be
good in an Abbot. I spake, as a rash Novice in those days, some
conscientious words of a certain benefactor of mine; 'and behold, one
of those sons of Belial' ran and reported them to him, so that he
never after looked at me with the same face again! Poor Bozzy!--
Such is the buzz and frothy simmering ferment of the general mind and
no-mind; struggling to 'make itself up,' as the phrase is, or
ascertain what _it_ does really want: no easy matter, in most cases.
St. Edmundsbury, in that Candlemas season of the year 1182, is a
busily fermenting place. The very clothmakers sit meditative at their
looms; asking, Who shall be Abbot? The _sochemanni_ speak of it,
driving their ox-teams afield; the old women with their spindles: and
none yet knows what the days will bring forth.
* * * * *
The Prior, however, as our interim chief, must proceed to work; get
ready 'Twelve Monks,' and set off with them to his Majesty at Waltham,
there shall the election be made. An election, whether managed
directly by ballot-box on public hustings, or indirectly by force of
public opinion, or were it even by open alehouses, landlords'
coercion, popular club-law, or whatever electoral methods, is always
an interesting phenomenon. A mountain tumbling in great travail,
throwing up dustclouds and absurd noises, is visibly there; uncertain
yet what mouse or monster it will give birth to.
Besides, it is a most important social act; nay, at bottom, the one
important social act. Given the men a People choose, the People
itself, in its exact worth and worthlessness, is given. A heroic
people chooses heroes, and is happy; a valet or flunky people chooses
sham-heroes, what are called quacks, thinking them heroes, and is not
happy. The grand summary of a man's spiritual condition, what brings
out all his herohood and insight, or all his flunkyhood and horn-eyed
dimness, is this question put to him, What man dost thou honour? Which
is thy ideal of a man; or nearest that? So too of a People: for a
People too, every People, _speaks_ its choice,--were it only by
silently obeying, and not revolting,--in the course of a century or
so. Nor are electoral methods, Reform Bills and suchlike, unimportant.
A People's electoral methods are, in the long-run, the express image
of its electoral _talent_; tending and gravitating perpetually,
irresistibly, to a conformity with that: and are, at all stages, very
significant of the People. Judicious readers, of these times, are not
disinclined to see how Monks elect their Abbot in the Twelfth Century:
how the St. Edmundsbury mountain manages its midwifery; and what mouse
or man the outcome is.