CHAPTER I.
[1], 4. The year when the Flemings were taken captive. On the 17th October, 1173, Richard de Lucy, the chief justiciary of King Henry II., defeated at Fornham St. Genevieve, near Bury St. Edmunds, the rebel Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, who had landed from Flanders at Walton in Suffolk on the 29th September, 1173, at the head of a force of Flemings. The chroniclers speak of large numbers of the foreign mercenaries as being killed at the battle of Fornham. The Earl and Countess of Leicester were captured, and imprisoned at Falaise till 1174. For an interesting description of the battle, with many references to the chronicles, see Miss Kate Norgate's England under the Angevin Kings, II. 150-1.
[1], 10. Hugh the Abbot. Hugh, Prior of Westminster, succeeded Ording as 9th Abbot of St. Edmundsbury in 1157. Gervase records his being blessed by Archbishop Theobald at Colchester, and his vowing to him canonical obedience. But a bull obtained at great cost from Pope Alexander III. in 1172 (see p. 7) made the abbey immediately subject to Rome. Some details of the occurrences during his abbacy are given in Battely, pp. 78-82.
[1], 11. Genesis xxvii. 1.
[2], 21. Debt ... to Jews. Whilst the Jews were legally simply chattels of the king, they were at this time "practically masters of the worldly interests of a large number of his Christian subjects, and of a large portion of the wealth of his realm" (Norgate's Angevin Kings, II. 487). There are many instances besides that of St. Edmundsbury of ecclesiastical property and furniture being pledged to the Jews, e.g. the sacred vessels and jewels of Lincoln Minster were in pledge to Aaron, a rich Jew of that city, for seven years or more before Geoffrey, bishop-elect, redeemed them in 1173.
[3], 6. Benedict the Jew. In 1171 "Benedict the Jew, son of Deodate, was fined xxli for taking certain sacred vestments in pawn." (Pipe Rolls, Norf. and Suff. 17 Hen. II.) Other fines on Jews are recorded by Rokewode (pp. 106-7).
[3], 9. William the sacrist. From the Gesta Sacristarum (Arnold II. 291) we learn of this officer, who was once Samson's superior, afterwards a rival candidate for the abbacy, and finally Samson's subordinate, "Huic [Schuch] successit Willelmus cognomento Wiardel; qui non sine causa a domino Samsone abbate amotus fuit ab administratione." His evil deeds recorded by Jocelin appear therefore to have been remembered.
[6], 1. Richard the Archbishop. Richard was a Norman by birth and of humble parentage; and was prior of Dover when the question of filling up the primacy was discussed 2½ years after Becket's murder on 29th December, 1170. There was a disputed election, but Robert, by the Court influence, won the day over Odo, Prior of Canterbury; and eventually his election was confirmed by Pope Alexander III. on 2nd April, 1174. Immediately after his enthronisation (5th October, 1174) Richard held a legatine visitation of his province; and as he rode with a great train, his visits were specially grievous to the religious houses that had to receive him.
[6], 19. Sent to Acre. Castleacre, Westacre, and Southacre, in Norfolk, are all described in Domesday book as "Acra." There were two Priories, one at Castleacre, the other at Westacre; but the former was the more famous of the two. As it was a Cluniac institution, and as the Cluniacs were a kind of stricter Benedictines, it seems most probable that it was to Castleacre that Samson was sent as a punishment. Apparently this was his second banishment there; for he speaks here to Jocelin (then a novice, and who joined the monastery in 1173) as though of recent events. (As to his first imprisonment after his return from Rome about 1161, see page 74 and note on p. 237.) The Priory of Castleacre was founded about 1084 by William de Warrenne, created by the Conqueror Earl of Surrey, and the progenitor of that famous sixth Earl who fought Baliol and Wallace in Scotland, and who, when called upon by the King's Commissioners to produce the title by which he held his possessions, drew his sword and laid it on the table. Some remarkably beautiful ruins of the Priory, particularly of its west front and the Prior's Lodge, have happily escaped the ravages of the village builders, who for centuries used the ruins as a stone quarry.
[6], 24. Exodus v. 21.