The Abbot's Ways
Abbot Samson shewed 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 ineloquence, 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 shewed 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,'--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.'
'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!