538 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



death the humbled king was likely to be very gracious to archbishops. 

 Probably the Archbishop of Norway, also, after paying his devotions 

 at Canterbury, met Henry on his arrival. The strong resemblance 

 between Becket's troubles and Eystein's present situation must have 

 affected Henry. At that time the abbot's house at St. Edmunds was 

 vacant, Abbot Hugh having died on November 15th of the preceding 

 year. The king had taken over the government of the abbey, which 

 was in a bad state financially, until the new abbot should be ap- 

 pointed. 34 We may suppose the king thought the abbot's house a 

 good place to lodge the nation's guest. At any rate, on August 9th, 

 twelve days after Henry landed, Eystein took up his residence in the 

 vacant mansion, receiving ten shillings a day by Henry's order. 



The house itself, we may gather from Jocelin, was ill-furnished. 

 Before the last abbot was dead, " everything was snatched away by his 

 servants, so that nothing at all remained in the abbot's house except 

 the stools and the tables, which could not be carried away. There was 

 hardly left for the abbot his coverlet, two quilts, old and torn, which 

 some, who had taken away the good ones, had placed in their 

 stead." 35 



A very pretty story might be written about the Norse archbishop's 

 stay at Edmundsbury. For Jocelin mentions Eystein in the same 

 breath in which he chats about the gossip of the monks during the 

 vacancy. 



Carlyle's imagination 36 would reconstruct Eystein's life at Old Bury, 

 how he talked with the prior over a bottle of wine about the latter's 

 prospects for election to the abbacy; how he nodded in passing to 

 " Bozzy " Jocelin or Samson the sub-sacrist ; how he spent long hours 

 in the abbey library, and weeks at his own desk writing his Miracles 

 of St. Olaf, of which a copy was for centuries preserved at Fountains. 37 



Certainly Carlyle is correct in saying, " At Waltham, ' on the second 

 Sunday of Quadragesima,' which Dryasdust declares to mean the 22d 

 day '.'/' February, year 1182, thirteen St. Edmundsbury Monks are, at 

 last, seen processioning towards the Winchester Manor-house ; and in 

 some high Presence-chamber and Hall of State, get access to Henry II, 

 in all his glory." 38 Just two weeks earlier (December 14) the corrodies 



34 Jocelin, chaps, i and ii (cf. trans, by E. Clarke, London, 1903, pp. 262, 

 263). 



36 Clarke's trans., pp. 10-11. 



86 Cf. Past and Present. 



87 See Metcalfe, Passio Olaui. 



' Past and Present, Book ii, »hap. viii; cf. Jocelin, trans. Clarke, pp. 31, 

 263. 



