An ingenious and ingenuous, a cheery-hearted, innocent, yet withal shrewd, noticing, quick-witted man; and from under his monk's cowl has looked out on the narrow section of the world in a really human manner.... The man is of patient, peaceable, loving, clear-smiling nature; open for this or that.... Also he has a pleasant wit, and loves a timely joke, though in mild, subdued manner. A learned, grown man, yet with the heart as of a good child.
The Central Figure of the Chronicle.—Whatever his other merits, Jocelin's strong point was certainly not chronological sequence. With the assistance of the Table of Dates printed on pages 261-267, the reader will, it is hoped, get some useful sort of idea of the busy life of Abbot Samson, both within and without the walls of the monastery, whilst it was under his vigorous rule; and as to his personal characteristics, virtues and foibles, they are writ large in almost every chapter of the Chronicle.
He was obviously of humble origin, and his dialect was that of his native county of Norfolk (62). He seems to have lost his father early, for we read of his conferring, soon after he became Abbot, a benefice upon the son of a man of lowly station who had been kind to him in his youth and looked after his interests (66). As a child of nine, he had been taken by his mother to a pilgrimage to St. Edmund, after a dream which presaged his future service under that saint (56). When he was a poor clerk, William, the schoolmaster of Diss, had given him free admission to his school: a favour which he requited by giving Walter, son of William, the living of Chevington (67). Similarly, he helped those of his kinsmen who had recognized him when he was a poor clerk, provided they were worthy; but with those who had then held aloof from him he wished to have no dealings (66).
At some early date Samson went to Paris to study, a friend who then supported him there by the proceeds of the sale of holy water receiving afterwards a benefice from him (66). Just as he did not forget the friends who had helped him in his early struggles so he remembered past kindnesses shown to him when he was a poor monk and out of favour with the authorities. When Hugh, his predecessor, clapped him into irons, Hugh's cupbearer Elias brought him some wine to quench his prison thirst (67); and when he needed a night's lodging on his return from Durham on the business of the Abbey, a resident at Risby gave him the shelter which a neighbour refused (68). Neither favour was forgotten when Elias and William of Risby came before him as landlord.
By 1160 Samson was back from abroad as master of the schools at Bury, though he did not become a professed monk till 1166. Meanwhile he had been sent on an errand to Rome, with reference to the church at Woolpit, in which his native wit showed itself (73, 74). He seems to have been successful in his mission, getting from Pope Alexander III. a reversion for the monastery of the Woolpit living; but, perhaps because he returned too late to prevent Geoffrey Ridel being appointed by the king (74), Abbot Hugh banished him, on his return, to Castle Acre. Here he remained in exile a long time (74), and he was sent there again after he had become a cloister monk, and had spoken up "for the good of our Church" in opposition to the Abbot (6).
Samson in Subordinate Offices.—Much as Hugh disliked Samson, he seems to have been a little afraid of him; and, to reconcile matters, he made Samson subsacrist. "Often accused," says Jocelin, "he was transferred from one office to another, being successively guest master, pittance master, third prior, and again subsacrist" (9). But he could not be induced to fawn on and flatter the Abbot, as other officials did; and Hugh declared that "he had never seen a man whom he could not bend to his will, except Samson the subsacrist" (10).
When at length Hugh's trying dispensation came to an end, through his horse accident at Canterbury in 1180, Samson was, as subsacrist, busy with new building operations for the Church (14). His superior officer, the bibulous William Wiardel, the sacrist, was jealous of him, and persuaded the wardens of the Abbey to stop any further expense for works during the vacancy (15). But Samson knew some things to William's financial and moral discredit, on which he was later able to base the sacrist's dismissal from office (46-7).
The gossip amongst the monks as to which of the brethren should fill Hugh's place is admirably told by Jocelin (Chap. ii.). Whilst the rest were babbling at blood-letting season, Samson the subsacrist sat smiling but saying nothing (21). The receipt of Henry II.'s order or permission to make choice of a new Abbot put the monastery in a flutter; and the selection of the deputation to wait upon the King, and their interview with their liege lord, is most naïvely described in chapter iii. The secret ballot at Bury for three names was a surprise to the higher officials (31), and they did what they could to diminish Samson's chances. But after some fencing the Bishop of Winchester asked the deputation point blank whom they wanted, and the answer was—Samson: "no one gainsaying this" (34).
Samson as Abbot.—And so the once oppressed and obscure monk returned to Bury the absolute ruler of the foundation, with the king's remark in his ears when he noted, with apparent admiration at Bishop's Waltham, how Samson comported himself in the royal presence: "By the eyes of God, this Abbot elect thinks himself worthy to govern an abbey!" (35). So indeed he did, setting to work at once after his ceremonial installation (37) to institute reforms of all sorts. As Carlyle says, and his words must suffice in this place:—
How Abbot Samson, giving his new subjects seriatim the kiss of fatherhood in the St. Edmundsbury chapter-house, proceeded with cautious energy to set about reforming their disjointed, distracted way of life; how he managed with his Fifty rough Milites (Feudal Knights), with his lazy farmers, remiss refractory monks, with Pope's Legates, Viscounts, Bishops, Kings; how on all sides he laid about him like a man, and putting consequence on premiss, and everywhere the saddle on the right horse, struggled incessantly to educe organic method out of lazily fermenting wreck,—the careful reader will discern, not without true interest, in these pages of Jocelin Boswell.