A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



sider. The deputation came before the king at 

 Waltham, one of the Hampshire manors of the 

 Bishop of Winchester, on 21 February, 11 82, 

 when they were told to nominate three members 

 of their convent. Retiring, they broke the seal 

 of the writing and found, to their surprise, the 

 names of Samson the sub-sacrist, Roger the 

 cellarer, and Hugh the third prior, entered in 

 that order, those of higher standing being ignored. 

 Their oath forbade them to alter the names, but 

 they changed the order, according to convent 

 precedency, and placed Samson last. Jocelyn 

 enters into full detail as to what subsequently 

 happened before the king, and the nomination of 

 others, but eventually the deputation agreed upon 

 Samson as their first choice, the king concurred, 

 and the Bishop of Winchester gave Samson the 

 episcopal benediction at Merewell on 28 Feb- 

 ruary. 1 



On Palm Sunday, 21 March, Samson was 

 solemnly received by the convent, and homage 

 was done to him on the fourth day of Easter by 

 barons, knights, and freemen. For the thirty 

 years of his rule, Abbot Samson proved himself 

 to be a superior of unflinching integrity and of 

 exceptional business capacities. Jocelyn's narra- 

 tive comes to an end nine years before Samson's 

 death ; up to that date the information as to his 

 rule is exceptionally full. The following is a 

 very brief abstract of the more important events 

 of his reign. Samson was appointed a judge in 

 the ecclesiastical courts by Pope Lucius III in 

 1 1 82, and obtained the privilege of giving 

 the episcopal benediction, in 1 187, from Pope 

 Urban III; in 1 1 84 he was appointed by the 

 holy see one of three arbitrators in a dispute 

 between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 

 monks of Christ Church, in 1200 between the 

 archbishop and the canons of Lambeth, and in 

 1 20 1 one of the three commissioners sent by 

 the pope to Worcester to inquire into the mi- 

 racles of St. Wulfstan ; in 1203 he was ap- 

 pointed by the pope on a commission concerning 

 the dispensation of Crusaders from their vows, 

 and was summoned over sea to advise the king 

 on this question. He restored the church of 

 Woolpit to the monastery (11 83), founded 

 St. Saviour's Hospital (1 184-5), effected the 

 entire discharge of the abbey's debts (1194), 

 took the cellarer's department into his own 

 hands (1196), and transferred the shrine of 

 St. Edmund to the high altar, viewing the body 



1 Jocelyn, Chron. cap. 3. Jocelyn's delightful 

 chronicle, which reveals the inner monastic life of the 

 twelfth century in so intimate a manner, occupies 43 

 folios of the Liber Albus(Harl. MS. 1005, fol. 121—63). 

 It was edited by Mr. Rokewode for the Camden 

 Society in 1840. Carlyle made it famous in Past and 

 Present (1843), giving it unqualified praise. Sir 

 Ernest Clarke edited the chronicle anew in 1903, 

 with many good notes and a table of dates of events 

 pertaining to abbey affairs ; this admirable edition 

 has been of much service in preparing this sketch. 



(1190). In 1 181 Henry II was at Bury, and 

 Samson was refused permission to accompany 

 him to the Crusades. He took active part in 

 the collection of money for the ransom of 

 Richard I, in 1 1 93, when a gold chalice given 

 to the abbey by Henry II was ceded for that 

 purpose, and visited the king in his German 

 prison, taking with him many gifts. The king, 

 on his return to England in March, 1194, 

 after an absence of four and a quarter years, 

 proceeded at once to make a thanksgiving visit 

 to St. Edmunds. The death of Richard was a 

 great loss to Samson and the abbey. John, 

 immediately after his coronation in May, 1 199, 

 visited Bury, but caused great disappointment by 

 his excessive meanness. 



We indeed, says Jocelyn, believed that he was 

 come to make offering of some great matter ; but all 

 he offered was one silken cloth, which his servants 

 had borrowed from our sacrist, and to this day have 

 not paid for. He availed himself of the hospitality 

 of St. Edmund, which was attended with enormous 

 expense, and upon his departure bestowed nothing at 

 all, either of honour or profit upon the saint, save 

 13*/. sterling, which he offered at his mass, on the 

 day of his departure. 



King John again visited Bury on 21 December, 

 1203, when he made no personal offering, but 

 granted the abbey 10 marks annually from the 

 exchequer, persuading the convent to return him 

 for life certain valuable jewels which his mother, 

 Queen Eleanor, had given to St. Edmund. 2 



Abbot Samson died, at the ripe age of seventy- 

 seven, at twilight ('inter lupum et canem') on 

 30 December, 121 1. It was the fourth year of 

 the Interdict, and even an abbot could only be 

 buried in silence and in unconsecrated ground, 

 and the sorrowing monks had to cover over his 

 remains in a little meadow hard by. The 

 Interdict was removed in July, 1 2 14, and the 

 remains of Samson were exhumed and reinterred 

 in the chapter-house on 12 August of that year. 3 



The tyrannical John gave a deaf ear to the 

 requests of the monks for a free election, and 

 finding it to his advantage to keep the office 

 vacant, strenuously insisted on royal prerogative. 

 In July, 12 13, he gave a half consent to an 

 election, and the monks chose Hugh Northwold ; 

 but the king refused confirmation. In Novem- 

 ber, 1214, the king even lectured the monks in 

 their own chapter-house as to his rights in the 

 matter. The convent appealed to Rome, and 

 the papal commissioners finally gave judgement 

 in Hugh's favour in March, 1215 ; the king's 

 reluctant approval to this appointment was 

 wrung from him in Staines meadow on 9 June 

 of the same year. 4 



Meanwhile the abbey had played a most 

 important part in the national resistance to the 



2 Rokewode, Chron. of Jocelyn, 154. 

 •Arnold, Mem. ii, 19, 20, 62, 85. 

 4 Ibid, ii, pp. xv, 95—6. 



60 



