St. Edmund
Abbot Samson built many useful, many pious edifices; human
dwellings, churches, church-steeples, barns;--all fallen now and
vanished, but useful while they stood. He built and endowed 'the
Hospital of Babwell;' built 'fit houses for the St. Edmundsbury
Schools: Many are the roofs once 'thatched with reeds' which he
'caused to be covered with tiles;' or if they were churches,
probably 'with lead.' For all ruinous incomplete things,
buildings or other, were an eye-sorrow to the man. We saw his
'great tower of St. Edmund's;' or at least the roof-timbers of
it, lying cut and stamped in Elmset Wood. To change combustible
decaying reed-thatch into tile or lead, and material, still more,
moral wreck into rain-tight order, what a comfort to Samson!
One of the things he could not in any wise but rebuild was the
great Altar, aloft on which stood the Shrine itself; the great
Altar, which had been damaged by fire, by the careless rubbish
and careless candle of two somnolent Monks, one night,--the
Shrine escaping almost as if by miracle! Abbot Samson read his
Monks a severe lecture: "A Dream one of us had, that he saw St.
Edmund naked and in lamentable plight. Know ye the
interpretation of that Dream? St. Edmund proclaims himself
naked, because ye defraud the naked Poor of your old clothes, and
give with reluctance what ye are bound to give them of meat and
drink: the idleness moreover and negligence of the Sacristan and
his people is too evident from the late misfortune by fire. Well
might our Holy Martyr seem to be cast out from his Shrine, and
say with groans that he was stript of his garments, and wasted
with hunger and thirst!"
This is Abbot Samson's interpretation of the Dream;--
diametrically the reverse of that given by the Monks themselves,
who scruple not to say privily, "It is we that are the naked and
famished limbs of the Martyr; we whom the Abbot curtails of all
our privileges, setting his own official to control our very
Cellarer!" Abbot Samson adds, that this judgment by fire has
fallen upon them for murmuring about their meat and drink.
Clearly enough, meanwhile, the Altar, whatever the burning of it
mean or foreshadow, must needs be reedified. Abbot Samson
reedifies it, all of polished marble; with the highest stretch
of art and sumptuosity, reembellishes the Shrine for which it is
to serve as pediment. Nay farther, as had ever been among his
prayers, he enjoys, he sinner, a glimpse of the glorious Martyr's
very Body in the process; having solemnly opened the Loculus,
Chest or sacred Coffin, for that purpose. It is the culminating
moment of Abbot Samson's life. Bozzy Jocelin himself rises into
a kind of Psalmist solemnity on this occasion; the laziest monk
'weeps' warm tears, as _Te Deum_ is sung.
Very strange;--how far vanished from us in these unworshiping
ages of ours! The Patriot Hampden, best beatified man we have,
had lain in like manner some two centuries in his narrow home,
when certain dignitaries of us, 'and twelve grave-diggers with
pulleys,' raised him also up, under cloud of night; cut off his
arm with penknifes, pulled the scalp off his head,--and otherwise
worshiped our Hero Saint in the most amazing manner! Let the
modern eye look earnestly on that old midnight hour in St.
Edmundsbury Church, shining yet on us, ruddy-bright, through the
depths of seven hundred years; and consider mournfully what our
Hero-worship once was, and what it now is! We translate with all
the fidelity we can:
'The Festival of St. Edmund now approaching, the marble blocks
are polished, and all things are in readiness for lifting of the
Shrine to its new place. A fast of three days was held by all
the people, the cause and meaning thereof being publicly set
forth to them. The Abbot announces to the Convent that all must
prepare themselves for transferring of the Shrine, and appoints
time and way for the work. Coming therefore that night to
matins, we found the great Shrine (_feretrum magnum_) raised upon
the Altar, but empty; covered all over with white doeskin
leather, fixed to the wood with silver nails; but one panel of
the Shrine was left down below, and resting thereon, beside its
old column of the Church, the Loculus with the Sacred Body yet
lay where it was wont. Praises being sung, we all proceeded to
commence our disciplines (_ad disciplinas suscipiendas_). These
finished, the Abbot and certain with him are clothed in their
albs; and, approaching reverently, set about uncovering the
Loculus. There was an outer cloth of linen, enwrapping the
Loculus and all; this we found tied on the upper side with
strings of its own: within this was a cloth of silk, and then
another linen cloth, and then a third; and so at last the
Loculus was uncovered, and seen resting on a little tray of wood,
that the bottom of it might not be injured by the stone. Over
the breast of the Martyr, there lay, fixed to the surface of the
Loculus, a Golden Angel about the length of a human foot;
holding in one hand a golden sword, and in the other a banner:
under this there was a hole in the lid of the Loculus, on which
the ancient servants of the Martyr had been wont to lay their
hands for touching the Sacred Body. And over the figure of the
Angel was this verse inscribed:
_Martiris ecce zoma servat Michaelis agalma_ *
At the head and foot of the Loculus were iron rings whereby it
could be lifted.
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* This is the Martyr's Garment, which Michael's Image guards.
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'Lifting the Loculus and Body, therefore, they carried it to the
Altar; and I put-to my sinful hand to help in carrying, though
the Abbot had commanded that none should approach except called.
And the Loculus was placed in the Shrine; and the panel it had
stood on was put in its place, and the Shrine for the present
closed. We all thought that the Abbot would shew the Loculus to
the people; and bring out the Sacred Body again, at a certain
period of the Festival. But in this we were woefully mistaken,
as the sequel shews.
'For in the fourth holiday of the Festival, while the Convent
were all singing _Completorium,_ our Lord Abbot spoke privily
with the Sacristan and Walter the Medicus; and order was taken
that twelve of the Brethren should be appointed against midnight,
who were strong for carrying the panel-planks of the Shrine, and
skillful in unfixing them, and putting them together again. The
Abbot then said that it was among his prayers to look once upon
the Body of his Patron; and that he wished the Sacristan and
Walter the Medicus to be with him. The Twelve appointed Brethren
were these: The Abbot's two Chaplains, the two Keepers of the
Shrine, the two Masters of the Vestry; and six more, namely, the
Sacristan Hugo, Walter the Medicus, Augustin, William of Dice,
Robert, and Richard. I, alas, was not of the number.
'The Convent therefore being all asleep, these Twelve, clothed in
their albs, with the Abbot, assembled at the Altar; and opening
a panel of the Shrine, they took out the Loculus; laid it on a
table, near where the Shrine used to be; and made ready for
unfastening the lid, which was joined and fixed to the Loculus
with sixteen very long nails. Which when, with difficulty, they
had done, all except the two forenamed associates are ordered to
draw back. The Abbot and they two were alone privileged to look
in. The Loculus was so filled with the Sacred Body that you
could scarcely put a needle between the head and the wood, or
between the feet and the wood: the head lay united to the body,
a little raised with a small pillow. But the Abbot, looking
close, found now a silk cloth veiling the whole Body, and then a
linen cloth of wondrous whiteness; and upon the head was spread
a small linen cloth, and then another small and most fine silk
cloth, as if it were the veil of a nun. These coverings being
lifted off, they found now the Sacred Body all wrapt in linen;
and so at length the lineaments of the same appeared. But here
the Abbot stopped; saying he durst not proceed farther, or look
at the sacred flesh naked. Taking the head between his hands, he
thus spake groaning: "Glorious Martyr, holy Edmund, blessed be
the hour when thou wert born. Glorious Martyr, turn it not to my
perdition that I have so dared to touch thee, I miserable and
sinful; thou knowest my devout love, and the intention of my
mind." And proceeding, he touched the eyes; and the nose, which
was very massive and prominent (_valde grossum et valde
eminentem_); and then he touched the breast and arms; and
raising the left arm he touched the fingers, and placed his own
fingers between the sacred fingers. And proceeding he found the
feet standing stiff up, like the feet of a man dead yesterday;
and he touched the toes, and counted them (_tangendo numeravit_).
'And now it was agreed that the other Brethren should be called
forward to see the miracles; and accordingly those ten now
advanced, and along with them six others who had stolen in
without the Abbot's assent, namely, Walter of St. Alban's, Hugh
the Infirmirarius, Gilbert brother of the Prior, Richard of
Henham, Jocellus our Cellarer, and Turstan the Little; and all
these saw the Sacred Body, but Turstan alone of them put forth
his hand, and touched the Saint's knees and feet. And that there
might be abundance of witnesses, one of our Brethren, John of
Dice, sitting on the roof of the Church, with the servants of the
Vestry, and looking through, clearly saw all these things.
What a scene; shining luminous effulgent, as the lamps of St.
Edmund do, through the dark Night; John of Dice, with vestrymen,
clambering on the roof to look through; the Convent all asleep,
and the Earth all asleep,--and since then, Seven Centuries of
Time mostly gone to sleep! Yes, there, sure enough, is the
martyred Body of Edmund landlord of the Eastern Counties, who,
nobly doing what he liked with his own, was slain three hundred
years ago: and a noble awe surrounds the memory of him, symbol
and promoter of many other right noble things.
But have not we now advanced to strange new stages of Hero-
worship, now in the little Church of Hampden, with our penknives
out, and twelve grave-diggers with pulleys? The manner of men's
Hero-worship, verily it is the innermost fact of their existence,
and determines all the rest,--at public hustings, in private
drawing-rooms, in church, in market, and wherever else. Have
true reverence, and what indeed is inseparable therefrom,
reverence the right man, all is well; have sham-reverence, and
what also follows, greet with it the wrong man, then all is ill,
and there is nothing well. Alas, if Hero-worship become
Dilettantism, and all except Mammonism be a vain grimace, how
much, in this most earnest Earth, has gone and is evermore going
to fatal destruction, and lies wasting in quiet lazy ruin, no man
regarding it! Till at length no heavenly _Ism_ any longer coming
down upon us, _Isms_ from the other quarter have to mount up.
For the Earth, I say, is an earnest place; Life is no grimace,
but a most serious fact. And so, under universal Dilettantism
much having been stript bare, not the souls of men only, but
their very bodies and bread-cupboards having been stript bare,
and life now no longer possible,--all is reduced to desperation,
to the iron law of Necessity and very Fact again; and to temper
Dilettantism, and astonish it, and burn it up with infernal fire,
arises Chartism, _Bare-backism,_ Sansculottism so-called! May
the gods, and what of unworshiped heroes still remain among us,
avert the omen.--
But however this may be, St. Edmund's Loculus, we find, has the
veils of silk and linen reverently replaced, the lid fastened
down again with its sixteen ancient nails; is wrapt in a new
costly covering of silk, the gift of Hubert Archbishop of
Canterbury: and through the sky-window John of Dice sees it
lifted to its place in the Shrine, the panels of this latter duly
refixed, fit parchment documents being introduced withal;--and
now John and his vestrymen can slide down from the roof, for all
is over, and the Convent wholly awakens to matins. 'When we
assembled to sing matins,' says Jocelin, 'and understood what had
been done, grief took hold of all that had not seen these things,
each saying to himself, "Alas, I was deceived." Matins over, the
Abbot called the Convent to the great Altar; and briefly
recounting the matter, alleged that it had not been in his power,
nor was it permissible or fit, to invite us all to the sight of
such things. At hearing of which, we all wept, and with tears
sang _Te Deum laudamus;_ and hastened to toll the bells in
the Choir.
Stupid blockheads, to reverence their St. Edmund's dead Body in
this manner? Yes, brother;--and yet, on the whole, who knows how
to reverence the Body of a Man? It is the most reverend
phenomenon under this Sun. For the Highest God dwells visible in
that mystic unfathomable Visibility, which calls itself "I" on
the Earth. 'Bending before men,' says Novalis, 'is a reverence
done to this Revelation in the Flesh. We touch Heaven when we
lay our hand on a human Body.' And the Body of one Dead;--a
temple where the Hero-soul once was and now is not: Oh, all
mystery, all pity, all mute awe and wonder; Supernaturalism
brought home to the very dullest; Eternity laid open, and the
nether Darkness and the upper Light-Kingdoms;--do conjoin there,
or exist nowhere! Sauerteig used to say to me, in his peculiar
way: "A Chancery Lawsuit; justice, nay justice in mere money,
denied a man, for all his pleading, till twenty, till forty years
of his Life are gone seeking it: and a Cockney Funeral, Death
reverenced by hatchments, horsehair, brass-lacker, and
unconcerned bipeds carrying long poles and bags of black
silk:--are not these two reverences, this reverence for Death
and that reverence for Life, a notable pair of reverences among
you English?"
Abbot Samson, at this culminating point of his existence, may,
and indeed must, be left to vanish with his Life-scenery from the
eyes of modern men. He had to run into France, to settle with
King Richard for the military service there of his St.
Edmundsbury Knights; and with great labour got it done. He had
to decide on the dilapidated Coventry Monks; and with great
labour, and much pleading and journeying, got them reinstated;
dined with them all, and with the 'Masters of the Schools of
Oxneford,'--the veritable Oxford _Caput_ sitting there at dinner,
in a dim but undeniable manner, in the City of Peeping Tom! He
had, not without labour, to controvert the intrusive Bishop of
Ely, the intrusive Abbot of Cluny. Magnanimous Samson, his life
is but a labour and a journey; a bustling and a justling, till
the still Night come. He is sent for again, over sea, to advise
King Richard touching certain Peers of England, who had taken the
Cross, but never followed it to Palestine; whom the Pope is
inquiring after. The magnanimous Abbot makes preparation for
departure; departs, and--And Jocelin's Boswellean Narrative,
suddenly shorn through by the scissors of Destiny, ends. There
are no words more; but a black line, and leaves of blank paper.
Irremediable: the miraculous hand that held all this theatric-
machinery suddenly quits hold; impenetrable Time-Curtains rush
down; in the mind's eye all is again dark, void; with loud
dinning in the mind's ear, our real-phantasmagory of St.
Edmundsbury plunges into the bosom of the Twelfth Century again,
and all is over. Monks, Abbot, Hero-worship, Government,
Obedience, Coeur-de-Lion and St. Edmund's Shrine, vanish like
Mirza's Vision; and there is nothing left but a mutilated black
Ruin amid green botanic expanses, and oxen, sheep and dilettanti
pasturing in their places.