Whilst, therefore, many were saying and believing that the King was exasperated against the abbot, lo! the King wrote in a friendly way to the abbot, and requested that he would give him some of his dogs. The abbot, not unmindful of that saying of the wise man—
Gifts, believe me, influence both men and gods, By the offer of gifts Jove himself is appeased—
sent the dogs as the King requested, and moreover, added some horses and other valuable gifts. The King graciously accepted them, and in public most highly commended the honesty and fidelity of the abbot.
He also sent to the abbot by his messengers, as a token of intimacy and affection, a ring of great price, which our lord the Pope, Innocent the Third, of his great grace had given him, being indeed the very first gift that had been offered after his consecration. Also, by his writ, the King rendered him many thanks for the presents the abbot had sent him.
CHAPTER XIII
the customs of the township
MANY persons marvelled at the changes in the customs that took place by the order or permission of the lord abbot Samson. From the time when the town of St. Edmund received the name and liberty of a borough, the men of every house used to give to the cellarer one penny in the beginning of August, to reap our corn, which annual payment was called rep-silver. Before the town became free, all of them used to reap as serfs; the dwellings of knights and chaplains, and of the servants of the court lodge being alone exempt from this payment. In process of time, the cellarer spared certain of the most wealthy of the town, demanding nothing from them. The other burgesses, seeing this, used openly to say that no one who had a dwelling house of his own was liable to pay this penny, but only those who rented houses from others.
Afterwards, they all in common sought this exemption, conferring thereon with the lord abbot, and offering an annual rent as a composition of this demand. The abbot, indeed, considering the undignified way in which the cellarer used to go through the town to collect rep-silver, and the manner in which he used to take distresses in the houses of the poor, sometimes taking trivets, sometimes doors, and sometimes other utensils, and how the old women came out with their distaffs, threatening and abusing the cellarer and his men, ordered that twenty shillings should be given every year to the cellarer at the next portman-moot, at the hand of the bailiff before August, by the burgesses, who were to pay the rent to discharge this. And it was done accordingly, and confirmed by our charter, there being given to them another quittance from a certain customary payment, which is called sorpeni, in consideration of four shillings, payable at the same term. For the cellarer was accustomed to receive one penny by the year for every cow belonging to the men of the town for their dung and pasture (unless perchance they happened to be the cows of the chaplains or of the servants at the court lodge). These cows he used to impound, and had great trouble in the matter.
Afterwards, indeed, when the abbot made mention of this in the chapter, the convent was very angry, and took it in ill part, so much so that Benedict the sub-prior in the chapter, answering for all, said, "That man, abbot Ording, who lies there, would not have done such a thing for five hundred marks of silver." The abbot, although he himself felt angry, put off the matter for a time.
There arose also a great contention between Roger the cellarer and Hugh the sacrist concerning the appurtenances of their offices, so that the sacrist would not lend to the cellarer the prison of the town for the purpose of detaining therein the thieves who were taken in the cellarer's jurisdiction. The cellarer was thereby oftentimes harassed, and because the thieves escaped he was reprimanded for default of justice.