The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond Part 11

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 a.s.sent 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 n.o.bles 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 G.o.d or the King: by the very G.o.d, 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 a.s.sent 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 t.i.tle is written on the margin "Thomas Prise possidet," and in another hand "Io. Anglicus erat author."

There is considerable difficulty in a.s.signing 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 doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments 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 pa.s.sio c.u.m 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, Maria.n.u.s, 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 cla.s.sical tags, is for historical purposes all but worthless."

The copies extant of Abbo's _Pa.s.sio_ 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 pa.s.sio 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. (t.i.tus 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 ma.n.u.script "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 _Pa.s.sio_ 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 ma.n.u.scripts 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 ma.s.sive and manly style," was doubtless of his own composition. The work appears after Abbo's _Pa.s.sio_ in the Cottonian MS. t.i.tus 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 x.x.xiv. 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 G.o.d, 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 superst.i.tion, 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.