THE ABBOT'S WAYS.
Abbot Samson showed no extraordinary favour to the Monks who had been
his familiars of old; did not promote them to offices,--_nisi essent
idonei_, unless they chanced to be fit men! Whence great discontent
among certain of these, who had contributed to make him Abbot:
reproaches, open and secret, of his being 'ungrateful, hard-tempered,
unsocial, a Norfolk _barrator_ and _paltenerius_.'
Indeed, except it were for _idonei_, 'fit men,' in all kinds, it was
hard to say for whom Abbot Samson had much favour. He loved his
kindred well, and tenderly enough acknowledged the poor part of them;
with the rich part, who in old days had never acknowledged him, he
totally refused to have any business. But even the former he did not
promote into offices; finding none of them _idonei_. 'Some whom he
thought suitable he put into situations in his own household, or made
keepers of his country places: if they behaved ill, he dismissed them
without hope of return.' In his promotions, nay almost in his
benefits, you would have said there was a certain impartiality. 'The
official person who had, by Abbot Hugo's order, put the fetters on him
at his return from Italy, was now supported with food and clothes to
the end of his days at Abbot Samson's expense.'
Yet he did not forget benefits; far the reverse, when an opportunity
occurred of paying them at his own cost. How pay them at the public
cost;--how, above all, by _setting fire_ to the public, as we said;
clapping 'conflagrations' on the public, which the services of
blockheads, _non-idonei_, intrinsically are! He was right willing to
remember friends, when it could be done. Take these instances: 'A
certain chaplain who had maintained him at the Schools of Paris by the
sale of holy water, _quaestu aquae benedictae_;--to this good chaplain he
did give a vicarage, adequate to the comfortable sustenance of him.'
'The Son of Elias too, that is, of old Abbot Hugo's Cupbearer, coming
to do homage for his Father's land, our Lord Abbot said to him in full
Court: "I have, for these seven years, put off taking thy homage for
the land which Abbot Hugo gave thy Father, because that gift was to
the damage of Elmswell, and a questionable one: but now I must profess
myself overcome; mindful of the kindness thy Father did me when I was
in bonds; because he sent me a cup of the very wine his master had
been drinking, and bade me be comforted in God."'
'To Magister Walter, son of Magister William de Dice, who wanted the
vicarage of Chevington, he answered: "Thy Father was Master of the
Schools; and when I was an indigent _clericus_, he granted me freely
and in charity an entrance to his School, and opportunity of learning;
wherefore I now, for the sake of God, grant to thee what thou
askest."' Or lastly, take this good instance,--and a glimpse, along
with it, into long-obsolete times: 'Two _Milites_ of Risby, Willelm
and Norman, being adjudged in Court to come under his mercy, _in
misericordia ejus_,' for a certain very considerable fine of twenty
shillings, 'he thus addressed them publicly on the spot: "When I was a
Cloister-monk, I was once sent to Durham on business of our Church;
and coming home again, the dark night caught me at Risby, and I had
to beg a lodging there. I went to Dominus Norman's, and he gave me a
flat refusal. Going then to Dominus Willelm's, and begging
hospitality, I was by him honourably received. The twenty shillings
therefore of _mercy_, I, without mercy, will exact from Dominus
Norman; to Dominus Willelm, on the other hand, I, with thanks, will
wholly remit the said sum."' Men know not always to whom they refuse
lodgings; men have lodged Angels unawares!--
* * * * *
It is clear Abbot Samson had a talent; he had learned to judge better
than Lawyers, to manage better than bred Bailiffs:--a talent shining
out indisputable, on whatever side you took him. 'An eloquent man he
was,' says Jocelin, 'both in French and Latin; but intent more on the
substance and method of what was to be said, than on the ornamental
way of saying it. He could read English Manuscripts very elegantly,
_elegantissime_: he was wont to preach to the people in the English
tongue, though according to the dialect of Norfolk, where he had been
brought up; wherefore indeed he had caused a Pulpit to be erected in
our Church both for ornament of the same, and for the use of his
audiences.' There preached he, according to the dialect of Norfolk: a
man worth going to hear.
That he was a just clear-hearted man, this, as the basis of all true
talent, is presupposed. How can a man, without clear vision in his
heart first of all, have any clear vision in the head? It is
impossible! Abbot Samson was one of the justest of judges; insisted on
understanding the case to the bottom, and then swiftly decided without
feud or favour. For which reason, indeed, the Dominus Rex, searching
for such men, as for hidden treasure and healing to his distressed
realm, had made him one of the new Itinerant Judges,--such as continue
to this day. "My curse on that Abbot's court," a suitor was heard
imprecating, "_Maledicta sit curia istius Abbatis_, where neither gold
nor silver can help me to confound my enemy!" And old friendships and
all connexions forgotten, when you go to seek an office from him! "A
kinless loon," as the Scotch said of Cromwell's new judges,--intent on
mere indifferent fair-play!
Eloquence in three languages is good; but it is not the best. To us,
as already hinted, the Lord Abbot's eloquence is less admirable than
his _in_eloquence, his great invaluable 'talent of silence'! '"_Deus,
Deus_," said the Lord Abbot to me once, when he heard the Convent were
murmuring at some act of his, "I have much need to remember that Dream
they had of me, that I was to rage among them like a wolf. Above all
earthly things I dread their driving me to do it. How much do I hold
in, and wink at; raging and shuddering in my own secret mind, and not
outwardly at all!" He would boast to me at other times: "This and that
I have seen, this and that I have heard; yet patiently stood it." He
had this way, too, which I have never seen in any other man, that he
affectionately loved many persons to whom he never or hardly ever
showed a countenance of love. Once on my venturing to expostulate with
him on the subject, he reminded me of Solomon: "Many sons I have; it
is not fit that I should smile on them." He would suffer faults,
damage from his servants, and know what he suffered, and not speak of
it; but I think the reason was, he waited a good time for speaking of
it, and in a wise way amending it. He intimated, openly in chapter to
us all, that he would have no eavesdropping: "Let none," said he,
"come to me secretly accusing another, unless he will publicly stand
to the same; if he come otherwise, I will openly proclaim the name of
him. I wish, too, that every Monk of you have free access to me, to
speak of your needs or grievances when you will."
The kinds of people Abbot Samson liked worst were these three:
'_Mendaces_, _ebriosi_, _verbosi_, Liars, drunkards and wordy or windy
persons;'--not good kinds, any of them! He also much condemned
'persons given to murmur at their meat or drink, especially Monks of
that disposition.' We remark, from the very first, his strict anxious
order to his servants to provide handsomely for hospitality, to guard
'above all things that there be no shabbiness in the matter of meat
and drink; no look of mean parsimony, _in novitate mea_, at the
beginning of my Abbotship;' and to the last he maintains a due
opulence of table and equipment for others; but he is himself in the
highest degree indifferent to all such things.
'Sweet milk, honey and other naturally sweet kinds of food, were what
he preferred to eat: but he had this virtue,' says Jocelin, 'he never
changed the dish (_ferculum_) you set before him, be what it might.
Once when I, still a novice, happened to be waiting table in the
refectory, it came into my head' (rogue that I was!) 'to try if this
were true; and I thought I would place before him a _ferculum_ that
would have displeased any other person, the very platter being black
and broken. But he, seeing it, was as one that saw it not: and now
some little delay taking place, my heart smote me that I had done
this; and so, snatching up the platter (_discus_), I changed both it
and its contents for a better, and put down that instead; which
emendation he was angry at, and rebuked me for,'--the stoical monastic
man! 'For the first seven years he had commonly four sorts of dishes
on his table; afterwards only three, except it might be presents, or
venison from his own parks, or fishes from his ponds. And if, at any
time, he had guests living in his house at the request of some great
person, or of some friend, or had public messengers, or had harpers
(_citharoedos_), or any one of that sort, he took the first
opportunity of shifting to another of his Manor-houses, and so got rid
of such superfluous individuals,'[13]--very prudently, I think.
As to his parks, of these, in the general repair of buildings, general
improvement and adornment of the St. Edmund Domains, 'he had laid out
several, and stocked them with animals, retaining a proper huntsman
with hounds: and, if any guest of great quality were there, our Lord
Abbot with his Monks would sit in some opening of the woods, and see
the dogs run; but he himself never meddled with hunting, that I
saw.'[14]
* * * * *
'In an opening of the woods;'--for the country was still dark with
wood in those days; and Scotland itself still rustled shaggy and
leafy, like a damp black American Forest, with cleared spots and
spaces here and there. Dryasdust advances several absurd hypotheses as
to the insensible but almost total disappearance of these woods; the
thick wreck of which now lies as _peat_, sometimes with huge
heart-of-oak timber-logs imbedded in it, on many a height and hollow.
The simplest reason doubtless is, that by increase of husbandry, there
was increase of cattle; increase of hunger for green spring food; and
so, more and more, the new seedlings got yearly eaten out in April;
and the old trees, having only a certain length of life in them, died
gradually, no man heeding it, and disappeared into _peat_.
A sorrowful waste of noble wood and umbrage! Yes,--but a very common
one; the course of most things in this world. Monachism itself, so
rich and fruitful once, is now all rotted into _peat_; lies sleek and
buried,--and a most feeble bog-grass of Dilettantism all the crop we
reap from it! That also was frightful waste; perhaps among the saddest
our England ever saw. Why will men destroy noble Forests, even when in
part a nuisance, in such reckless manner; turning loose four-footed
cattle and Henry-the-Eighths into them! The fifth part of our English
soil, Dryasdust computes, lay consecrated to 'spiritual uses,' better
or worse; solemnly set apart to foster spiritual growth and culture of
the soul, by the methods then known: and now--it too, like the
four-fifths, fosters what? Gentle shepherd, tell me what!
FOOTNOTES:
[13] _Jocelini Chronica_, p. 31.
[14] Ibid. p. 21.