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 flunkey
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 flunkeyhood 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 such like, 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.