“And I,” said the chamberlain, “how am I to find, for both monks and novices, gowns and garters, half socks and whole socks, and bed and bedding, and linsey-woolsey for sheets and shirts, and knives, and razors, and combs, in order that the convent go clean and cleanly shaved? Aye, tell me how I am to change the straw of the beds, provide baths for the refreshment of the bodies of the monks, to find shoes for the horses and spurs for the monks when they are sent travelling, to keep and entertain two bathers and four tailors, when Abbat Thurstan hath taken mine all or hath forced me to give it to laymen and strangers and Norwich Jews? Let our universal poverty say whether this hath been a misgoverned house! Brothers, judge for yourselves whether Thurstan, who hath brought down all this ruin upon us, ought to be allowed to rule over us!”
The crafty prior said in a quieter tone of voice, “For my part, I will not now dwell upon these temporal evils, albeit they are hard for men in the flesh to bear; but I would bid the convent take heed lest one and all they incur the sentence of excommunication by the pope himself. It is now quite clear that Pope Gregory wills that William the Norman shall be King of England, and that the English church, with all English houses of religion, shall submit to him, and take their instructions from Archbishop Lanfranc.”
When the meeting in the hall broke up, the chamberlain said to the prior, “We shall yet have the pleasure of burning Girolamo as a necromancer!”
“An he be not the Jew that cannot die,” quoth the prior.
When the Salernitan reached the Camp that evening he said to the Lord of Brunn, “Certes the monks of Ely will no longer say I am a wizard; but there be traitors among them, and much do I fear that their rebellious stomachs will make traitors of them all!”
“Against that must we provide,” quoth the Lord Hereward; “to-morrow we must go get them corn and wine from the Normans. Our stratagem is well laid, but we must die rather than fail. So good night, Girolamo, and to our tents and sheepskins.”
CHAPTER XXII.
HEREWARD BRINGS CORN AND WINE TO ELY.
There was no cloister-monk of Ely that better knew the legends of the house than Elfric, for his father, Goodman Hugh, who had dwelt by saint Ovin’s cross, and his father’s father who had dwelt in the same place, had been great fenners and fowlers and gossips, and had hawked with the best of the abbats and monks, and had stored their memories with the history of the abbey and the saints of Ely, and had amused and sanctified the long winter-nights, when the fire of wood mixed with peat burned brightly on their hearth, by relating to little Elfric all the legends that they knew. Now there was one of these which had made a profound impression upon Elfric’s mind, which, by nature, loved adventure and ingenious stratagem. It was a short tale, and simple withal, and easy to tell.
Saint Withburga, the fourth in order of the four great female saints that were and are the ornaments and shining lights of the great house, did not live and die as her sister Saint Etheldreda had done, at Ely, and as Lady Abbess. In her infancy she was sent to nurse at a village called Holkham, belonging to the king her father, Anna, king of the East Angles. In this place she lived many years, whence the village of Holkham was sometimes called Withburgstowe, and a church was built there in memory of her. On the death of the king her father, which befel in the year of grace six hundred and fifty-four, Withburga removed from Holkham to Dereham, another village in the country of East Anglia; and here, affecting a retired and religious life, she founded a monastery of nuns, over which she presided for many years. Peaceful and holy was her life, and blessed was her end. When she died, they buried her there, in the churchyard at Dereham.[[221]] And lo! after many more years had passed, and the other tenants of this churchyard and even those that had been buried long after had mouldered into dust, the grave of Withburga being opened, her body was found entire and without the slightest sign of corruption! Aye, there she lay in her shroud and coffin, with her hands crossed upon her breast, and with her little crucifix of silver lying upon her breast, even as she had lain on the bier on the day of her death so many, many years before. The saintly incorruptible body was forthwith removed into the church, where it was preserved with great care and devotion by the good people of Dereham, and it continued there, not without manifold miracles, until the time of that pious monarch King Edgar,[[222]] who restored the monastery at Ely, which the Danes had burned, and gave the house that precious charter which hath been named before as not being given privately and in a corner, but in the most public manner and under the canopy of Heaven. Now, in restoring the abbey of Ely to its pristine splendour, and in augmenting the number of the brotherhood, it behoved the king to increase the lands and domains of the house; and, conformably, the pious Edgar (may all his sins be forgiven for the good he did the church!) conferred on the abbey of Ely the village of Dereham, with all its demesnes and appendages, and with the church wherein the body of the virgin Saint Withburga was preserved and venerated by the people of Dereham[[223]] and by all the good Saxon people round about. Now the Lord Abbat on that day, having the grant of Dereham and all that appertained to it, could not feel otherwise than very desirous of getting possession of the body of the saint in order to translate it to Ely and there place it by the side of the body and shrine of the blessed Etheldreda. The saintly virgin sisters had been separated in their lives and ought to be united in death; Ely Abbey could offer a more noble shrine than the small dependent church at Dereham; it was proper too, and likewise was it profitable, that the pilgrims and devotees to their four female saints of East Anglia should always come to Ely instead of going sundry times a-year to Dereham, as had been the custom, and that all the four shrines should be under one roof, and the contents of the shrine-boxes poured into one common treasury. All this had been laid before the king, and the pious Edgar, who never meant that others should keep what he had bestowed upon his beloved house of Ely, had given his royal licence for the translation of the body of Saint Withburga to the abbey. But the Lord Abbat, being a prudent and cautelous man, and taking counsel of his brother the bishop of Winchester and of other wise and peace loving men, came to this wise conclusion:—That, inasmuch as it was not likely that the people of Dereham and that vicinage would part with so valuable a treasure without resistance, if the intended translation should be made publicly known to them, it would be expedient and commendable, and accordant with the peaceable character of monks, to steal away the body privately, and to admit none but a few of the most active and prudent of the cloister-monks of Ely into the secret beforehand. Accordingly no notice was given to the hinds and in-dwellers at Dereham, nor was there any mention made of the great matter outside of the Aula Magna of Ely Abbey; and on the day appointed the Lord Abbat and some of the most active and prudent of the monks, attended by the sturdiest loaf-eaters of the abbey all well armed, and after hearing mass in the abbey church, set out on their journey to steal the body of the saint; and on their arrival at Dereham they were received with great respect by the inhabitants, who thought that they had come simply to take possession of the place in virtue of the king’s charter and donation, and who suspected no further design. The Lord Abbat, as lord and proprietor and chief, temporal as well as spiritual, held a court for the administration of justice in the manner usual with bishops and abbats, and according to the wise and good laws of our Saxon kings. And after this public court of justice, wherein such as had stolen their neighbours’ goods were condemned to make bot, the bountiful Lord Abbat bade the good people of Dereham to a feast. And while the good folk of Dereham were eating and drinking, and making merry, and were thinking of nought but the good meat and abundant drink before them, the sturdy loaf-eaters from Ely, unwatched and unnoticed, and working in great stillness, were making those preparations for the translation which they had been ordered to make. And, at the time pre-concerted and fixed, my Lord Abbat and his active and prudent monks took occasion to withdraw from the carousing company in the hall, and immediately repaired to the church under colour of performing their regular devotions. But they left the service of Nones unsaid for that day, taking no heed of the canonical hours, but getting all things ready for the happy and peaceful translation. After a time the abbat and his prudent monks returned to the company and caused more drink to be brought into the hall, still farther to celebrate the happy day of his lordship’s taking possession. The whole day having been spent in feasting and drinking, and dark night coming on apace, the company retired by degrees, every man to his own house or hut, his home or present resting place: and thereupon the monks went again to the church, opened the tomb (of which the fastenings had been forced), opened the coffin, and devoutly inspected the body of Saint Withburga, and having inspected and revered it they closed up the coffin again, and got everything in readiness for carrying it off. About the middle of the night, or between the third and fourth watch when the matutina or lauds are begun to be sung, the coffin in which the body of the saint was inclosed, was put upon the shoulders of the active and prudent monks, who forthwith conveyed it with great haste and without any noise-making to a wheeled car which had been provided for that purpose. The coffin was put into the car, the servants of the abbat were placed as guards round about the car to defend it, the Lord Abbat and the monks followed the car in processional order, other well-armed loaf-eaters followed the abbat and the monks; and in this order they set forward for Brandon. The journey was long and anxious, but when they came to the village of Brandon and to the bank of the river which leads towards the house of Ely, they found ready and waiting for them the boats which the abbat had commanded, and immediately embarking with their precious treasure they hoisted sail and made ply their oars at the same time. In the meanwhile the men of Dereham, having recovered from the deep sleep and the confusion of ideas which are brought on by much strong drink, had discovered that the monks of Ely had stolen the body of Saint Withburga. Hullulu! never was such noise heard in so small a place before. Every man, woman, and child in Dereham was roused, and ran shrieking to the empty tomb in the church, and at the sound of the horn, all the people from all the hamlets and homesteads near unto the pleasant hill of Dereham came trooping in with bills and staves, not knowing what had happened, but fancying that the fiery Dane was come again. But when they saw or were told about the empty tomb, the people all shouted “Who hath done this deed? Who hath stolen the body of our saint?” Now no one could gainsay that the Abbat of Ely with his monks had done it. A serf who had gone early a-field to cut grass while the dew was on it, had met the car and the procession on the road between Dereham and Brandon; and what was of more significance, the presbyter or mass-priest of the church of Dereham, coming to the communion-table found upon it a piece of parchment whereon was written these words: “I, Abbat of Ely and Lord of Dereham, by and with the consent and approval of Edgar the King, have translated the body of Saint Withburga, to be hereafter kept in Ely Abbey with increased pomp, worship, and reverence; and this, oh presbyter of Dereham, is my receipt for the blessed body aforesaid.” Then, I wis, were heard words of much irreverence from the ignorant and rustical people of the place! Some of them stopped not in calling the right excellent abbat a thief, a midnight robber, a perturbator of the peace of saints, a violator of the tombs of the saints! Nor did they spare King Edgar more than the abbat, saying that although he might by his kingly power and without wrong grant to the house at Ely their lands and services, and even their church, he had no right to give away the body of their saint, and order it to be removed out of their church, wherein it had reposed for thrice one hundred years; and they all presently agreed to pursue the abbat and the monks, and endeavour to recover the prey. And so, arming themselves with whatsoever weapons they could most readily meet with, they all poured out of Dereham, and took the shortest way to Brandon.[[224]] They were brisk men these folk of the uplands, well exercised in the game of bowls, and in pitching the bar, and in running and leaping, and in wrestling on the church-green; they were light-footed men these men of Dereham; but although they ran their best it was all too late when they got to Brandon, for the monks had got a long way down the river with the saint’s body. Nevertheless the Dereham folk continued the chase; they divided themselves into two bands or parties, and while one party ran down one bank of the river, the other ran down on the opposite side. They even came abreast of the Lord Abbat’s boats, and got near enough to see the pall which covered the coffin that contained the body of their saint; but the river being here broad and deep, and they being unprovided with boats (the prudent abbat had taken care for that), they could not get at the coffin or at the monks; and so, after spending some time on the banks shaking their bill-hooks and staves, and uttering threats and reproaches till they were tired, they gave up the pursuit as hopeless, and began to return home with sad and very angry hearts. The Lord Abbat and the monks of Ely continued their voyage without molestation.[[225]] They landed safely on the same day, about a mile from Ely Abbey, at the place called Tidbrithseie, but which men do now call Turbutsey.[[226]] Here they were received with great joy and triumph by all sorts of people, who came down to the waterside, with the monks and mass-priests, to meet them, for all the in-dwellers of Ely town, and all the people that dwelt near it, were as glad to get the body of the saint as the people of Dereham were grieved to lose it. And at eventide, or about compline or second vespers, on this self-same day, the body and coffin of the saint, being put upon another car, was conveyed by land from Turbutsey to Ely, and into the abbey, with solemn procession and the singing of praises to God, and was then, with all due reverence and a Te Deum Laudamus in the choir, deposited in the abbey-church next to Saint Etheldreda, and near unto Saint Sexburga and Saint Ermenilda. Now this happy translation of Saint Withburga’s body took place on the eighth of the month of July, in the year of our Lord nine hundred and seventy-four. And is not the day of this translation ever observed as a high festival by the monks of Ely? Much did the Lord Abbat congratulate himself on his success; and well he might, for translations of the like kind, as well before his time and since, have often been attended with fighting and bloodshed, nay, with great battles between party and party, and the death of many baptized men! But through the good policy and great wisdom of this our Lord Abbat there was not a man that had either given or received so much as a blow from a staff or cudgel. Head-aches there had been at Dereham on first waking in the morning, but these had proceeded only from the over-free use of the abbat’s strong drinks, and were cured by the fresh morning air and the good exercise the men got in running after their saint. Decus et decor, divitiæ et miracula omnia—credit, grace, and ornament, riches and many miracles, did the saint bring to the house of Ely! And mark the goodness and bounty of the saint in making heavenly bot to the good folk of Dereham! There, in the churchyard, and out of the grave wherein Withburga had been first buried, sprang up a curing miraculous well to cure disorders of the spirit as well as of the flesh. And have its waters ever ceased to flow, and is it not called Saint Withburga’s well?[[227]] albeit the vulgar do name it, now-a-days, the well of Saint Winifred.