He abhorred liars, drunkards and talkative folk; for virtue ever is consistent with itself and rejects contraries. He also much condemned persons given to murmur at their meat or drink, and particularly monks who were dissatisfied therewith, himself adhering to the uniform course he had practised when a monk. He had likewise this virtue in himself, that he never changed the mess set before him.
Once when I, then a novice, happened to be serving in the refectory, I wished to prove if this were true, and I thought I would place before him a mess which would have displeased any other than him, in a very black and broken dish. But when he looked at it, he was as one that saw it not. Some delay took place, and I felt sorry that I had so done; and snatching away the dish, I changed the mess and the dish for a better, and brought it to him; but this substitution he took in ill part, and was angry with me for it.
An eloquent man was he, both in French and Latin, but intent more on the substance and method of what was to be said than on the style of words. He could read English books most admirably, and was wont to preach to the people in English, but in the dialect of Norfolk, where he was born and bred; and so he caused a pulpit to be set up in the church for the ease of the hearers, and for the ornament of the church. The abbot also seemed to prefer an active life to one of contemplation, and rather commended good officials than good monks. He very seldom approved of any one on account of his literary acquirements, unless he also possessed sufficient knowledge of secular matters; and whenever he chanced to hear that any prelate had resigned his pastoral care and become an anchorite, he did not praise him for it. He never applauded men of too compliant a disposition, saying, "He who endeavours to please all, ought to please none."
In the first year of his being abbot, he appeared to hate all flatterers, and especially among the monks; but in process of time it seemed that he heard them more readily, and was more familiar with them. It once happened that a certain brother of ours, skilled in this art, had bent the knee before him, and under the pretence of giving advice, had poured the oil of flattery into his ears. I, standing apart, smiled. The brother having departed, I was called and asked why I had smiled. I answered, "The world is full of flatterers." And the abbot replied, "My son, it is long that I have known flatterers; I cannot, therefore, avoid hearing them. There are many things to be passed over and taken no notice of, if the peace of the convent is to be preserved. I will hear what they have to say, but they shall not deceive me if I can help it, as they did my predecessor, who trusted so unadvisedly to their counsel that for a long time before his death he had nothing for himself or his household to eat, unless it were obtained on trust from creditors; nor was there anything to be distributed among the poor on the day of his burial, unless it were the fifty shillings which were received from Richard the farmer, of Palgrave, which very fifty shillings the same Richard on another occasion had to pay to the King's bailiffs, who demanded the entire farm-rent for the King's use." With this saying I was comforted. His study, indeed, was to have a well-regulated house, and enough wherewith to keep his household, so managing that the usual allowance for a week, which his predecessor could not make last for five days, sufficed him for eight, nine or even ten days, if so be that he was at his manors without any extraordinary arrival of guests. Every week, indeed, he audited the expenses of the house, not by deputy, but in his own person, which his predecessor had never been wont to do.
For the first seven years he had only four courses in his house, afterwards only three, except presents and game from his parks, or fish from his ponds. And if at any time he retained any one in his house at the request of a great man, or of a particular friend, or messengers, or minstrels, or any person of that description, by taking the opportunity of going beyond sea or travelling afar off, he prudently disencumbered himself of such hangers-on.
The monks with whom the abbot had been the most intimate, and whom he liked best before he became abbot, he seldom promoted to offices merely for old acquaintance' sake, unless they were fit persons. Wherefore certain of our brethren who had been favourable to his election as abbot, said that he cared less for those who had liked him before he became abbot than was proper, and particularly that those were most favoured by him who both openly and in secret had spoken evil of him, nay, had even publicly called him, in the hearing of many, a passionate unsociable man, a proud fellow, and Norfolk barrator. But on the other hand, as after he had received the abbacy he exhibited no indiscreet partiality for his old friends, so he refrained from showing anything like hatred or dislike to many others according to their deserts, returning frequently good for evil, and doing good to them that persecuted him.
He had this way also, which I have never observed in any other man, that he had an affectionate regard for many to whom he seldom or never showed a countenance of love; according to the common proverb which says, "Where love is, there is the regard of love." And another thing I wondered at in him was, that he knowingly suffered loss in his temporal matters from his own servants, and confessed that he winked at them; but this I believe to have been the reason, that he might watch a convenient opportunity when the matter could be advisedly remedied, or that by passing over these matters without notice, he might avoid a greater loss.
He loved his kinsmen indifferently, but not less tenderly than others, for he had not, or assumed not to have, any relative within the third degree. I have heard him state that he had relations who were noble and gentle, whom he never would in any wise recognize as relations; for, as he said, they would be more a burden than an honour to him, if they should happen to find out their relationship. But he always acknowledged those as kinsmen who had treated him as such when he was a poor monk. Some of these relations (that is, those whom he found useful and suitable) he appointed to various offices in his own house, others he made keepers of manors. But those whom he found unworthy, he irrevocably dismissed from his presence.
A certain man of lowly station, who had managed his patrimony faithfully, and had served him devotedly in his youth, he looked upon as his dearest kinsman, and gave to his son, who was a clerk, the first church that fell vacant after he came to the charge of the abbey, and also advanced all the other sons of this man.
He invited to him a certain chaplain who had maintained him in the schools of Paris by the sale of holy water, and bestowed upon him an ecclesiastical benefice sufficient for his maintenance by way of vicarage. He granted to a certain servant of his predecessor food and clothing all the days of his life, he being the very man who put the fetters upon him at his lord's command when he was cast into prison. To the son of Elias, the cupbearer of Hugh the abbot, when he came to do homage for his father's land, he said, in full court, "I have for these seven years deferred taking your homage for the land which the abbot Hugh gave your father, because that gift was to the damage of the manor of Elmswell. Now I am overcome when I call to my mind what your father did for me when I was in fetters, for he sent to me a portion of the very wine whereof his lord had been drinking, and bade me be strong in God." To Master Walter, the son of Master William of Diss, suing at his grace for the vicarage of the church of Chevington, he replied, "Your father was master of the schools, and at the time when I was a poor clerk he granted me freely and in charity an entrance to his school, and the means of learning; now I, for the sake of God, do grant you what you ask."