The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond Part 16

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 vindica.s.sem 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 c.o.c.kfield, 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 Glas...o...b..ry 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, Glas...o...b..ry, Reading."

CHAPTER XVI.

190, 6. Numbers xi. 26.

191, 1. _When the Prior died._ Mr. Rokewode a.s.signs 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 ma.n.u.script 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 a.s.sociated," 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 Ess.e.x (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 c.o.c.kfield 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 c.o.c.kfield 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 c.o.c.kfield, 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 c.o.c.kfield, 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 c.o.c.kfield, once wife of Adam the younger, brought as her dowry; for the lands also which Lenmere, his ancestor, held in the town of c.o.c.kfield 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 c.o.c.kfield, 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 c.o.c.kfield, son of Odo of c.o.c.kfield, now holds in Barton. But they have no charter for the township of c.o.c.kfield, 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 c.o.c.kfield the first to hold in peace the farm of c.o.c.kfield, 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 c.o.c.kfield claimed, in the presence of the lord abbot and the aforesaid, that he believed c.o.c.kfield 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 ma.s.s 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 inst.i.tutions in England. There are adequate materials--at any rate for some of the periods of its existence--in the copious ma.n.u.scripts 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.