The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond: A Picture of Monastic Life in the Days of Abbot Samson

by active 1173-1215 de Brakelond Jocelin

There once came a certain clerk to the abbot, bearing letters of request for procuring a benefice. And the abbot, drawing forth from his desk seven apostolic writings, with the leaden seals hanging to them, made answer: "Look at these apostolic writings, whereby divers popes require that certain benefices should be given to divers clerks. When I shall have quieted those who have come before you, I will give you your rent; for he who first cometh to the mill ought first to have his grist."

There was a general court summoned for the hundred of Risbridge, to hear the plaint and trial of the Earl of Clare, at Witham. He, indeed, accompanied by many barons and knights, including the Earl Alberic and many others, stated that his bailiffs had given him to understand that they were accustomed to receive yearly for his use five shillings from the hundred and the bailiffs of the hundred, and that this was now unjustly detained; and he alleged that the land of Alfric, the son of Withgar, who had in ancient time been lord of that hundred, had been granted to his predecessors at the conquest of England. But the abbot, taking thought for his own interest, without stirring from his place, answered, "It is a strange thing, my lord earl; your case fails you. King Edward the Confessor gave, and by his charter confirmed, to St. Edmund, this entire hundred; and of those five shillings there is no mention made therein. You must tell us for what service, or for what reason, you demand those five shillings." And the earl, after advising with his attendants, replied that it was his office to carry the standard of St. Edmund in battle, and for that cause the five shillings were due to him. The abbot answered, "Of a truth it seems a mean thing that such a man as the Earl of Clare, should receive such a petty gift for such a service. To the Abbot of St. Edmund, it is but a slight grievance to give five shillings. The Earl Roger Bigot holds himself as seised, and asserts that he is seised, of the office of bearing the standard of St. Edmund; indeed, he actually did bear it when the earl of Leicester was taken and the Flemings destroyed. Thomas of Mendham also claims this as his right. When, therefore, you shall have proved against these your right, I will with great pleasure pay you the five shillings you now seek to recover of me." The earl upon this said that he would talk the matter over with the Earl Roger, his kinsman, and so the matter was put off even to this day.

On the death of Robert of Cockfield, there came Adam, his son, and with him many of his relations, the Earl Roger Bigot, and many other great men, and made suit to the abbot for the tenements of the aforesaid Adam, and especially for the half hundred of Cosford, to be held by the annual payment of one hundred shillings, just as if it had been his hereditary right; indeed, they all said that his father and his grandfather had held it for fourscore years past and more.

When the abbot got an opportunity of speaking, putting his two fingers up to his two eyes, he said, "May I be deprived of these eyes on that day, nay, in that hour, wherein I grant to any one a hundred to be held in hereditary right, unless indeed the King, who is able to take away from me the abbey and my life with it, should force me to do so."

Explaining to them the reason of that saying, he averred, "If any one were to hold a hundred as an inheritance, and he should make forfeit to the King in any wise, so that he ought to lose his inheritance, forthwith will the Sheriff of Suffolk and the King's bailiffs have seisin of the hundred, and exercise their own power within our liberties; and if they should have the ward of the hundred, the liberty of the eight hundreds and a half will be endangered."

And then addressing himself to Adam, he said, "If you, who claim an inheritance in this hundred, should take to wife any free woman who should hold but one acre of land of the King in chief; the King, after your death, would possess himself of all that your tenement, together with the wardship of your son, if he be under age; and thus the King's bailiffs would enter upon the hundred of St. Edmund, to the prejudice of the abbot. Besides all this, your father acknowledged to me that he claimed nothing by right of inheritance in the hundred; but because his service was satisfactory to me, I permitted him to hold it all the days of his life, according as he deserved of me."

Upon the abbot saying thus much, money was offered; but he could not be persuaded by words or money. At last it was settled between them thus: Adam disclaimed the right which he had by word of mouth claimed in the hundred, and the abbot confirmed to him all his other lands; but touching our town of Cockfield, no mention was made of that, nor indeed is it believed that he had a charter thereof; Semer and Groton he was to hold for the term of his life.

Herbert the dean erected a windmill upon Haberdon. When the abbot heard of this, his anger was so kindled that he would scarcely eat or utter a single word. On the morrow, after hearing mass, he commanded the sacrist, that without delay he should send his carpenters thither and overturn it altogether, and carefully put by the wooden materials in safe keeping.

The dean, hearing this, came to him saying that he was able in law to do this upon his own frank fee, and that the benefit of the wind ought not to be denied to any one. He further said that he only wanted to grind his own corn there, and nobody else's, lest it should be imagined that he did this to the damage of the neighbouring mills. The abbot, his anger not yet appeased, answered, "I give you as many thanks as if you had cut off both my feet; by the mouth of God I will not eat bread until that building be plucked down. You are an old man, and you should have known that it is not lawful even for the King or his justiciary to alter or appoint a single thing within the banlieue, without the permission of the abbot and convent; and why have you presumed to do such a thing? Nor is this without prejudice to my mills, as you assert, because the burgesses will run to you and grind their corn at their pleasure, nor can I by law turn them away, because they are freemen. Nor would I endure that the mill of our cellarer, lately set up, should stand, except that it was erected before I was abbot. Begone," he said, "begone; before you have come to your house, you shall hear what has befallen your mill."

But the dean being afraid before the face of the abbot, by the counsel of his son, Master Stephen, forestalled the servants of the sacrist, and without delay caused that very mill which had been erected by his own servants to be overthrown. So that when the servants of the sacrist came thither, they found nothing to be pulled down.