RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



St Albans was recognized as first among the 

 English abbeys at the Council of Tours in 1 163.'" 



In his relations with his monks Robert 

 managed to combine a kindly ease in ordinary 

 intercourse with a somewhat severe dignity in 

 chapter.** He is said never to have refused alms 

 to the poor. He left the abbey 600 marks in 

 debt,** and this is hardly surprising, considering 

 the expenditure necessitated by suits and 

 processes,*^ a considerable amount of building ** 

 and the work on the shrine destroyed by his 

 predecessors.** 



The assent of the king to the election of 

 another abbot was withheld for more than 

 four months.** Then out of three monks 

 selected by the convent he chose Simon, the 

 prior, who received the benediction from the 

 Bishop of London 20 May 11 67.*' Simon loved 

 learning and was anxious to encourage it in the 

 cloister. The increase of the library was there- 

 fore his particular care.** He not only repaired 

 and reformed the scriptorium,*' but kept two 

 or three picked writers at work in his own 

 room,'" and had an aumbry or cupboard made 

 in which books could be kept.'* 



It is related that he was an intimate friend 

 and admirer of Archbishop Thomas, and earned 

 his grateful thanks by interceding on his behalf 

 with the young king at great personal risk.'^ 

 The archbishop's murder seems to have turned 

 the abbot's thoughts to their own martyr, for 

 his work on the magnificent outer shrine of 

 St. Alban is said to date from that time.'^ 

 Prudence perhaps would have suggested its 



*" But the Abbot of Bury St. Edmunds usurped 

 Robert's place {Gesta Abbat. i, 177-8). 



*i Ibid. 180. 



*2Ibid. 183. 



*' The abbot gave the king £^\oo to have his case 

 over Northaw Wood submitted to the justiciar (ibid. 

 1 64), and offered him the same sum during his con- 

 test with the Bishop of Lincoln (ibid. 146). 



** The chapter-house, royal parlour with the 

 chapel of St. Nicholas, part of the cloister, a lavatory, 

 stable, &c. (ibid. 179). 



*5 Ibid. 



«* Ibid. 183. 



6' Ibid. 184. 



*8 Ibid. 



*' Ibid. 192. One of the books he had made, a 

 copy of the Homilies of St. Gregory the Pope with 

 illuminated initials, is now in the library of Stonyhurst 

 College {Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ii, App. ii, 144) ; 

 another, a beautifully written ' Polycraticon,' is in the 

 British Museum (Matt. Paris, H'ut. Angl. [Rolls Ser.], 

 Introd. p. xi). 



^^ Simon is believed by some to have created the 

 office of historiographer at St. Albans (Hardy, 

 Descriptive Cat. of Materials for Hist, of Britain [Rolls 

 Ser.], iii, p. xxxiv). 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 184. 



'2 Ibid. 1 84-6. 



" Ibid. 189. 



postponement until finances had recovered from 

 the strain of Abbot Robert's expenses. The 

 convent incurred obhgations which it had great 

 difficulty in discharging. Aaron the Jew, 

 indeed, told the monks to their faces that St. 

 Alban owed his shrine to him.'* Yet whatever 

 they suffered in their endeavours to honour the 

 saint must have appeared rewarded by the 

 discovery in 1 178 of the relics of St. Amphibalus, 

 the instructor of St. Alban in the Christian 

 faith.'* An inhabitant of the town, a devout 

 worshipper of St. Alban, was led one night by 

 the saint himself to Redbourn and shown 

 where St. Amphibalus and his companions lay 

 buried. The abbot was told, and excavations 

 were made at the place indicated, with the 

 result that the holy remains were found. As 

 the relics were on their way to the monastery, 

 they were met by a procession of monks bearing 

 the shrine of St. Alban, who testified by miracles 

 his joy at the encounter. 



When Simon died the choice of the whole 

 convent, with one exception, fell upon a Cam- 

 bridgeshire monk called Warin.'* The dis- 

 sentient " objected on the ground that Warin 

 was almost blind, and that the burgher stock 

 of which he came cared only for money, and 

 prophesied that he would oppress the brothers.'* 

 The objector's judgement was perhaps better 

 than his motives. The abbot helped a horde 

 of relatives at the monastery's expense." He 

 was very self-willed, and his brother, whom he 

 soon made prior, very suspicious.*" The result 

 was that the older monks were slighted in favour 

 of the younger, and opposition of any kind was 

 treated as rebelhon and punished by banishment 

 to the more distant cells. ^^ The example given 

 of the abbot's obstinacy is his foundation of the 

 hospital of St. Mary de Pre without regard to 

 remonstrances. *2 It is easy to see the con- 

 vent's objection to impoverishing their own 

 house to endow another. On the other hand, 

 to the abbot, who believed he was acting in their 

 best interests, they may well have appeared 

 factious. Apart from the obedience due to the 

 vision commanding honour to be paid to the 

 place where the relics of St. Amphibalus and 

 St. Alban had met, expediency urged the 

 commemoration of the miracles which had there 

 attested the genuineness of the remains inclosed 



'^ Gesta Abbat. i, 193-4. 



'* Ibid. 192-3 ; Chron. Maj. ii, 301-8. 



'* Gesta Abbat. i, 194-5. He was noted before he 

 became a monk for his good life and learning. He 

 and his brother Matthew both studied medicine at 

 Salerno. 



'' William Martel, the sacrist. 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 194-5. 



" Ibid. 216. 



scibid. 196, 215. 



« Ibid. 215-16. 



s^Ibid. 215. 



377 



48 



