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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, by Charles L. Marson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+
+Title: Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln
+       A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England
+
+
+Author: Charles L. Marson
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2008  [eBook #26065]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN***
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+
+E-text prepared by Louise Pryor and the Project Gutenberg Online
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+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original
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+      typographical errors have been corrected, and they and
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+
+
+
+HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN
+
+London : Edward Arnold : 1901
+
+
+HUGH
+BISHOP OF LINCOLN
+
+A SHORT STORY OF ONE OF THE MAKERS OF MEDIÆVAL ENGLAND
+
+by
+
+CHARLES L. MARSON
+Curate of Hambridge
+Author of "The Psalms at Work," Etc.
+
+
+                  Tua me, genitor, tua tristis imago
+      Sæpius occurens, hæc limina tendere adegit.
+      Stant sale Tyrrheno classes. Da jungere dextram
+      Da, genitor; teque amplexu ne subtrahe nostro.
+
+      ÆN. VI. 695.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London
+Edward Arnold
+37, Bedford Street, Strand
+1901
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+
+      INTRODUCTION                         vii
+
+   I. THE BOY HUGH                           1
+
+  II. BROTHER HUGH                          12
+
+ III. PRIOR HUGH                            26
+
+  IV. THE BISHOP ELECT AND CONSECRATE       42
+
+   V. THE BISHOP AT WORK                    60
+
+  VI. IN TROUBLES                           78
+
+ VII. AND DISPUTES                          94
+
+VIII. THE BUILDER                          111
+
+  IX. UNDER KING JOHN                      128
+
+   X. HOMEWARD BOUND                       143
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+In a short biography the reader must expect short statements, rather
+than detailed arguments, and in a popular tale he will not look for
+embattled lists of authorities. But if he can be stirred up to search
+further into the matter for himself, he will find a list of authorities
+ancient and modern come not unacceptable to begin upon.
+
+The author has incurred so many debts of kindness in this work from many
+friends, and from many who were before not even acquaintances, that he
+must flatly declare himself bankrupt to his creditors, and rejoice if
+they will but grant him even a second-class certificate. Among the major
+creditors he must acknowledge his great obligations to the hospitable
+Chancellor of Lincoln and Mrs. Crowfoot, to the Rev. A. Curtois, Mr.
+Haig, and some others, all of whom were willing and even anxious that
+the story of their saint should be told abroad, even by the halting
+tongues of far-away messengers. The same kind readiness appeared at
+Witham: and indeed everybody, who knew already about St. Hugh, has
+seemed anxious that the knowledge of him should be spread abroad. It
+has snowed books, pamphlets, articles, views, maps, and guesses; and if
+much has remained unsaid or been said with incautious brusqueness,
+rather than with balanced oppressiveness, the reader who carps will
+always be welcome to such material as the author has by him, for
+elucidating the truth. If he has been misled by a blind guide, that
+guide must plead that he has consulted good oculists and worthy
+spectacle-makers, and has had every good intention of steering clear of
+the ditch.
+
+Though what a man is counts for more than what he does, yet the services
+of St. Hugh to England may be briefly summed up. They were (1)
+Spiritual. He made for personal holiness, uncorruptness of public and
+private life. He raised the sense of the dignity of spiritual work,
+which was being rapidly subordinated to civic work and rule. He made
+people understand that moral obligations were very binding upon all men.
+(2) Political. He made for peace at home and abroad: at home by
+restraining the excesses of forestars and tyrants; abroad by opposing
+the constant war policy against France. (3) Constitutional. He first
+encountered and checked the overgrown power of the Crown, and laid down
+limits and principles which resulted in the Church policy of John's
+reign and the triumph of Magna Carta. (4) Architectural. He fully
+developed--even if he did not, as some assert, invent--the Early English
+style. (5) Ecclesiastical. He counterbalanced St. Thomas of Canterbury,
+and diverted much of that martyr's influence from an irreconcileable
+Church policy to a more reasonable, if less exalted, notion of liberty.
+(6) He was a patron of letters, and encouraged learning by supporting
+schools, libraries, historians, poets, and commentators.
+
+Ancient authorities for his Life are:--(1) The Magna Vita, by Chaplain
+Adam (Rolls); (2) Metrical Life, Ed. Dimock, Lincoln, 1860; (3) Giraldus
+Cambrensis, VII. (Rolls); (4) Hoveden's Chronicle (Rolls); (5)
+Benedicti, Gesta R. Henry II. (Rolls); (6) for trifles, Matthew Paris,
+I. and II. (Rolls), John de Oxenden (ditto), Ralph de Diceto (ditto),
+Flores Histor. (ditto), Annales Monastici (ditto); (7) also for
+collateral information, Capgrave Illustrious Henries (Rolls), William of
+Newburgh, Richard of Devizes, Gervase's Archbishops of Canterbury, and
+Robert de Monte, Walter de Mapes' De Nugis (Camden Soc). Of modern
+authorities, (1) Canon Perry's Life (Murray, 1879) and his article in
+the Dictionary of National Biography come first; (2) Vie de St. Hughues
+(Montreuil, 1890); (3) Fr. Thurston's translation and adaptation of this
+last (Burns and Oates, 1898); (4) St. Hugh's Day at Lincoln, A.D. 1900,
+Ed. Precentor Bramley (pub. by Clifford Thomas, Lincoln, N.D.); (5)
+Guides to the Cathedral, by Precentor Venables, and also by Mr.
+Kendrick; (6) Archæological matter, Archæological Institute (1848),
+Somerset Archæolog. XXXIV., Somerset Notes and Queries, vol. IV., 1895,
+Lincoln Topographical Soc., 1841-2; (7) Collateral information--_cf._
+Miss Norgate's "England under Angevin Kings" (Macmillan), Robert
+Grosseteste, F. E. Stevenson (ditto), Stubbs' "Opera Omnia" of course,
+Diocesan History of Lincoln, Grande Chartreuse (Burns and Oates), "Court
+Life under Plantagenets" (Hall), "Highways in Normandy" (Dearmer);(8)
+of short studies, Mr. Froude's and an article in the _Church Quarterly_,
+XXXIII., and Mrs. Charles' "Martyrs and Saints" (S.P.C.K.) are the
+chief.
+
+Of this last book it is perhaps worth saying that if any man will take
+the trouble to compare it with John Brady's _Clavis Calendaria_, of
+which the third edition came out in 1815, he will see how much the tone
+of the public has improved, both in courtesy towards and in knowledge of
+the great and good men of the Christian faith.
+
+St. Hugh's Post-Reformation history is worth noting for the humour of
+it. He is allowed in the Primer Calendar by unauthorised Marshall, 1535;
+out in Crumwell and Hilsey's, 1539; out by the authorised Primer of King
+and Clergy, 1545; still out in the Prayer-books of 1549 and 1552; in
+again in the authorised Primer of 1553; out of the Prayer-book of 1559;
+in the Latin one of 1560; still in both the Orarium and the New Calendar
+of the next year, though out of the Primer 1559; in the Preces Privatas
+1564, with a scornful _admonitio_ to say that "the names of saints, as
+they call them, are left, not because we count them divine, or even
+reckon some of them good, or, even if they were greatly good, pay them
+divine honour and worship; but because they are the mark and index of
+certain matters dependent upon fixed times, to be ignorant of which is
+most inconvenient to our people"--to wit, fairs and so on. Since which
+time St. Hugh has not been cast out of the Calendar, but is in for ever.
+
+In the text is no mention of the poor swineherd, God rest him! His stone
+original lives in Lincoln cloisters, and a reproduction stands on the
+north pinnacle of the west front (whereas Hugh is on the south
+pinnacle), put there because he hoarded a peck of silver pennies to help
+build the House of God. He lives on in stone and in the memories of the
+people, a little flouted in literature, but, if moral evidence counts,
+unscathedly genuine: honourable in himself, to the saint who inspired
+him, and to the men who hailed him as the bishop's mate--no mean builder
+in the house not made with hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE BOY HUGH
+
+
+St. Hugh is exactly the kind of saint for English folk to study with
+advantage. Some of us listen with difficulty to tales of heroic virgins,
+who pluck out their eyes and dish them up, or to the report of antique
+bishops whose claim to honour rests less upon the nobility of their
+characters than upon the medicinal effect of their post-mortem humours;
+but no one can fail to be struck with this brave, clean, smiling face,
+which looks out upon us from a not impossible past, radiant with sense
+and wit, with holiness and sanity combined, whom we can all reverence as
+at once a saint of God and also one of the fine masculine Makers of
+England. We cherish a good deal of romance about the age in which St.
+Hugh lived. It is the age of fair Rosamond, of Crusades, of lion-hearted
+King Richard, and of Robin Hood. It is more soberly an age of builders,
+of reformers, of scholars, and of poets. If troubadours did not exactly
+"touch guitars," at least songsters tackled verse-making and helped to
+refine the table manners of barons and retainers by singing at dinner
+time. The voice of law too was not silent amid arms. Our constitutional
+government, already begotten, was being born and swaddled. The races
+were being blended. Though England was still but a northern province of
+a kingdom, whose metropolis was Rouen, yet that kingdom was becoming
+rather top-heavy, and inclined to shift its centre of gravity
+northwards. So from any point of view the time is interesting. It is
+essentially an age of monks and of monasteries; perhaps one should say
+the end of the age of monastic influence. Pope Eugenius III., the great
+Suger and St. Bernard, all died when Hugh was a young man. The great
+enthusiasm for founding monasteries was just beginning to ebb. Yet a
+hundred and fifteen English houses were founded in Stephen's reign, and
+a hundred and thirteen in the reign of Henry II., and the power of the
+monastic bodies was still almost paramount in the church. It was to the
+monasteries that men still looked for learning and peace, and the
+monasteries were the natural harbours of refuge for valiant men of
+action, who grew sick of the life of everlasting turmoil in a brutal and
+anarchic world. Indeed, the very tumults and disorders of the state gave
+the monasteries their hold over the best of the men of action. As the
+civil life grew more quiet and ordered, the enthusiasm for the cloister
+waned, and with it the standard of zeal perceptibly fell to a lower
+level, not without grand protest and immense effort of holy men to keep
+the divine fire from sinking.
+
+Hugh of Avalon was born in Avalon Castle in 1140, a year in which the
+great tempest of Stephen's misrule was raging. In France, Louis VII. has
+already succeeded his father, Louis VI.; the Moors are in Spain, and
+Arnold of Brescia is the centre of controversy. Avalon Castle lies near
+Pontcharra, which is a small town on the Bredo, which flows into the
+Isere and thence into the Rhone. It is not to be confused with Avallon
+of Yonne. The Alpine valleys about Pontcharra are lovely with flowers
+and waters, and have in them the "foot-prints of lost Paradise."
+Burgundy here owed some loyalty to the empire rather than to France, and
+its dukes tried to keep up a semi-independent kingdom by a balanced
+submission to their more powerful neighbours. The very name Hugh was an
+old ducal name, and there is little doubt that William de Avalon, Hugh's
+father, claimed kin with the princes of his land. He was a "flower of
+knighthood" in battles not now known. He was also by heredity of a pious
+mind. Hugh's mother, Anna, a lovely and wealthy lady, of what stock does
+not appear, was herself of saintly make. She "worshipped Christ in His
+limbs," by constantly washing the feet of lepers, filling these wretched
+outcasts with hope, reading to them and supplying their wants. She seems
+to have been a woman of intellectual parts, for though she died before
+Hugh was ten, he had already learned under her, if not from her, to use
+language as the sacrament of understanding and understanding as the
+symbol of truth. He had some grip of grammar and logic, and though he
+did not brood over "Ovid's leasings or Juvenal's rascalities," rather
+choosing to ponder upon the two Testaments, yet we may gather that his
+Latin classics were not neglected. The spiritual life of Grenoble had
+been nourished by a noble bishop, also Hugh, who had seen the vision of
+seven stars resting upon a certain plot of ground, which induced him to
+grant the same to St. Bruno, the founder of the Grande Chartreuse. Here
+he served himself as a simple monk, laying aside his bishop's robes, not
+a score of miles from Avalon. This Hugh was a religious and free
+thinking man, who, though he found evil a great metaphysical stumbling
+block to faith, yet walked painfully by the latter. He died in 1132 or
+thereabouts, and his life was most probably the occasion of our Hugh's
+name, and of much else about him.
+
+The De Avalons had two other boys both older than Hugh: William, who
+inherited the lands, and Peter, who was settled by his brother Hugh at
+Histon, in Cambridge, but he does not seem to have made England his
+home. Hugh had also at least one cousin, William, on his mother's side,
+who attended upon him at Lincoln, and who (unless there were two of the
+same name) developed from a knight into an holy Canon after his great
+relative's decease. These relatives were always ready to lend a hand and
+a sword if required in the good bishop's quarrels. The last particularly
+distinguished himself in a brawl in Lincolnshire Holland, when an armed
+and censured ruffian threatened the bishop with death. The good
+Burgundian blood rose, and William twisted the sword from the villain's
+hand, and with difficulty was prevented from driving it into his body.
+
+When the Lady Anna died, her husband, tired of war, power, and
+governance, distributed his property among his children. Under his
+armour he had long worn the monk's heart, and now he was able to take
+the monk's dress, and to "labour for peace after life, as he had
+already won it in life." So he took Hugh and Hugh's money with him, and
+went off to the little priory of Villarbenoit (of seven canon power),
+which bordered upon his own lands, and which he and his forbears had
+cherished. This little priory was a daughter of Grenoble (St. Hugh of
+Grenoble being, as we infer, a spiritual splendour to the De Avalons),
+and, not least in attraction, there was a canon therein, far-famed for
+heavenly wisdom and for scholarship besides, who kept a school and
+taught sound theology and classics, under whom sharp young Hugh might
+climb to heights both of ecclesiastical and also of heavenly preferment.
+Great was the delight of the canons at their powerful postulant and his
+son, and great the pains taken over the latter's education. The
+schoolmaster laid stress upon authors such as Prudentius, Sedulius, and
+Fulgentius. By these means the boy not only learnt Latin, but he also
+tackled questions of Predestination and Grace, glosses upon St. Paul,
+hymns and methods of frustrating the Arian. Above all, he was exercised
+in the Divine Library, as they called the Bible, taught by St. Jerome.
+Hugh was of course the favourite of the master, who whipt him with
+difficulty, and kept him from the rough sports of his fellow scholars,
+the future soldiers, and "reared him for Christ." The boy had a masterly
+memory and a good grip of his work, whether it were as scholar, server,
+or comrade. The Prior assigned to him the special task of waiting upon
+his old father. That modest, kind-hearted gentleman was getting infirm,
+and the young fellow was delighted to be told off to lead him, carry
+him, dress and undress him, tie his shoes, towel him, make his bed, cook
+for him and feed him, until the time of the old knight's departure
+arrived.
+
+The dates of St. Hugh's life and ministrations must be taken with a
+grain of salt. The authorities differ considerably, and it is impossible
+to clap a date to some of the saint's way-marks without first slapping
+in the face some venerable chronicler, or some thought-worn modern
+historian. If we say with the Great Life that Hugh was ordained Levite
+in his nineteenth year, we upset Giraldus Cambrensis and the metrical
+biographer, who put it in his fifteenth; and Matthew Paris and the
+Legend, who write him down as over sixteen. Mr. Dimock would have us
+count from his entry into the canonry, and so counts him as twenty-four;
+Canon Perry and Father Thurston say "nineteenth year," or "nineteen."
+The Canons Regular of Villarbenoit seem to have been rather liberal in
+their interpretation of church regulations, but it is hardly likely that
+the bishop of Grenoble would so far stretch a point as to ordain a lad
+much below the canonical age, even if he were of a great house and great
+piety. Anyhow it is hardly worth while for the general reader to waste
+time over these ticklish points. It is enough to say that Hugh was
+ordained young, that he looked pink and white over his white stole and
+broidered tunic, and that he soon preached vigorously, warmly, and
+movingly to the crowd and to his old acquaintances. Sinners heard a very
+straightforward message, and holy persons were edified by the clever way
+in which he handled difficult topics, and in him they "blessed the true
+Joseph, who had placed his own cup in the mouth of his younger brother's
+sack." Indeed, he must have been a captivating and interesting young
+man, and since he was so strikingly like Henry II. of England that
+folks' tongues wagged freely about it, we may picture him as a young man
+of moderate height, rather large in the brow, with red brown hair,
+bright grey eyes, large chest, and generally of an athletic build and
+carriage. He had a face which easily flushed and told both of anger and
+a lively sense of humour.
+
+He was the delight of his house, and of the people about, who welcomed
+him with enthusiasm when he came back after nearly forty years' absence.
+But most of all he was the apple of the eye to his old scholarly father
+prior, who loved him as his own soul. It is not wonderful that when one
+of the scanty brotherhood was called upon to take charge of a small
+country living, the "cell of St. Maximin," the zealous deacon was chosen
+to administer the same. The tiny benefice could hardly support one, with
+small household, but Hugh insisted upon having an old priest to share
+the benefice. A little parcel of glebe and a few vines, tended by honest
+rustics, were his. They were able by pious frugality to nourish the poor
+and grace the rich. The parishioners grew in holiness. The congregation
+swelled from many sources, and the sermons (of life and word) were
+translated into sound faith and good conversation. This experience of
+parish work must have been of the greatest value to the future bishop,
+for the tragedy and comedy of life is just as visible in the smallest
+village as it is in the largest empire. The cloister-bred lad must have
+learnt on this small organ to play that good part which he afterwards
+was called upon to play upon a larger instrument. One instance is
+recorded of his discipline. A case of open adultery came under his
+notice. He sent for the man and gave him what he considered to be a
+suitable admonition. The offender replied with threats and abuse. Hugh,
+gospel in hand, pursued him first with two and then with three
+witnesses, offering pardon upon reform and penance. No amendment was
+promised. Both guilt and scandal continued. Then Hugh waited for a
+festival, and before a full congregation rebuked him publicly, declared
+the greatness of his sin, handed him over to Satan for the death of his
+flesh with fearful denunciations, except he speedily came to his senses.
+The man was thunderstruck, and brought to his knees at a blow. With
+groans and tears he confessed, did penance (probably at the point of the
+deacon's stick), was absolved and received back to the fold; so
+irresistible was this young administrator who knew St. Augustine's
+advice that "in reproof, if one loves one's neighbour enough, one can
+even say anything to him."
+
+But Hugh was ill at ease in his charge, and his heart burned towards the
+mountains, where the Grande Chartreuse had revived the austerities of
+ancient monasticism. It seemed so grand to be out of and above the
+world, in solitary congregation, with hair shirt, hard diet, empty flesh
+pot, and full library, in the deep silence and keen air of the
+mountains. Here hands that had gripped the sword and the sceptre were
+turned to the spade and lifted only in prayer. There were not only the
+allurements of hardship, but also his parents' faith and his own early
+lessons tugging at his heart strings. He found means to go with his
+prior into the awful enclosure, and the austere passion seized him. He
+told his heart's desire to an old ex-baron, who probably felt some alarm
+that a young gentleman who had campaigned so slightly in the plains of
+active life should aspire to dwell upon these stern hills of
+contemplation. "My dear boy, how dare you think of such a thing?" he
+answered, and then, looking at the refined young face before him, warned
+the deacon against the life. The men were harder than stones, pitiless
+to themselves and to others. The place dreary, the rule most burdensome.
+The rough robe would rake the skin and flesh from young bones. The harsh
+discipline would crush the very frame of tender youth.
+
+The other monks were less forbidding. They warmly encouraged the
+aspiration, and the pair returned to their home, Hugh struggling to hide
+the new fire from his aged friend. But the old man saw through the
+artless cloakings and was in despair. He used every entreaty to save
+Hugh for the good work he was doing, and to keep his darling at his
+side. Hugh's affectionate heart and ready obedience gave way, and he
+took a solemn oath not to desert his canonry, and so went back to his
+parishing.
+
+But then came, as it naturally would come to so charming and vigorous a
+lad, the strong return of that Dame Nature who had been so long forked
+forth by his cloistral life. A lady took a liking to this heavenly
+curate. Other biographers hint at this pathetic little romance, and
+cover up the story with tales of a wilderness of women; but the
+metrical biographer is less discreetly vague, and breaks into a tirade
+against that race of serpents, plunderers, robbers, net weavers, and
+spiders--the fair sex. Still, he cannot refrain from giving us a graphic
+picture of the presumptuous she-rascal who fell in love with Hugh, and
+although most of his copyists excise his thirty-nine graphic lines of
+Zuleika's portrait, the amused reader is glad to find that all were not
+of so edifying a mind. Her lovely hair that vied with gold was partly
+veiled and partly strayed around her ivory neck. Her little ear, a
+curved shell, bore up the golden mesh. Under the smooth clear white
+brow she had curved black eyebrows without a criss-cross hair in them,
+and these disclosed and heightened the clear white of the skin. And her
+nose, too--not flat nor arched, not long nor snub, but beyond the
+fineness of geometry, with light, soft breath, and the sweet scent of
+incense. Such shining eyes too: like emeralds starring her face with
+light! And the face, blended lilies and roses in a third lovely hue that
+one could not withdraw one's eyes from beholding. The gentle pout of her
+red lips seemed to challenge kisses. Shining as glass, white as a bell
+flower, she had a breast and head joined by a noble poised throat, which
+baited the very hook of love. Upon her lily finger she wore a red and
+golden ring. Even her frock was a miracle of millinery. This lovely
+creature, complete to a nail, much disturbed the mind of Hugh, and
+played her pretty tricks upon her unexercised pastor: now demure, now
+smiling, now darting soft glances, now reining in her eyes. But he, good
+man, was rock or diamond. At last the fair creature actually stroked
+his arm, and then Hugh was startled into a panic. His experience and
+training had not been such as to fit him to deal with situations of this
+sort. He fled. He cut out the skin of the arm where her rosy fingers had
+rested. He found it impossible to escape from the sight of many fair
+maids of Burgundy. Zuleika was fascinating enough, but his original Adam
+within (whom he called Dalilah) was worse. He forsook his post, broke
+his vow, and bolted to the Grande Chartreuse.
+
+One modern biographer, who is shocked at his perjury to the prior, would
+no doubt have absolved him if he had married the lass against his
+canonic vows. Another thinks him most edifyingly liberal in his
+interpretation of duty. Is there any need to forestall Doomsday in these
+matters? The poor fellow was in both a fix and a fright. Alas! that
+duties should ever clash! His own view is given with his own
+decisiveness. "No! I never had a scruple at all about it. I have always
+felt great delight of mind when I recall the deed which started me upon
+so great an undertaking." The brothers of the Charterhouse gladly took
+him in, the year being about 1160, and his age about twenty, let us say;
+hardly an age anyhow which would fit him for dealing with pert minxes
+and escaping the witcheries of the beauty which still makes beautiful
+old hexameters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BROTHER HUGH
+
+
+"Ye might write th' doin's iv all th' convents iv th' wurruld on the
+back of a postage stamp, an' have room to spare," says Mr. Dooley; and
+we rather expect some hiatus in our history here. Goodbye to beef,
+butter, and good red wheat; white corn, sad vegetables, cold water,
+sackcloth take their place, with fasts on bread and water, and festivals
+mitigated by fish. Goodbye to pillows and bolsters and linen shirts.
+Welcome horse-hair vests, sacking sheets, and the "bitter bite of the
+flea,"--sad entertainment for gentlemen! Instead of wise and merry talk,
+wherein he excelled, solitary confinement in a wooden cell (the brethren
+now foist off a stone one upon credulous tourists) with willing slavery
+to stern Prior Basil. The long days of prayer and meditation, the nights
+short with psalmody, every spare five minutes filled with reading,
+copying, gardening and the recitation of offices. All these the novice
+took with gusto, safe hidden from the flash of emerald eyes and the
+witchery of hypergeometrical noses. But temptation is not to be kept out
+by the diet of Adam and of Esau, by locked doors, spades, and inkpots.
+The key had hardly turned upon the poor refugee when he found he had
+locked in his enemies with him. His austerities redoubled, but as he
+says he "only beat the air" until He who watches over Israel without
+slumber or sleep laid His hand upon him and fed him with a hidden manna,
+so fine and so plentiful that the pleasures of life seemed paltry after
+the first taste of it. After this experience our Hugh used to be
+conscious always of a Voice and a Hand, giving him cheer and strength,
+although the strong appetites of his large nature troubled him to the
+last. Here Hugh devoured books, too, until the time floated by him all
+too fleetly.
+
+His great affectionate heart poured itself out upon wild birds and
+squirrels which came in from the beech and pine woods, and learned to
+feed from his platter and his fingers. It is difficult to read with
+patience that his prior, fearing lest he should enjoy these innocent
+loves too much, and they would "hinder his devotion," banished these
+pretty dears from the dreary cell. But in charity let us suppose that
+the prior more than supplied their place, for Hugh was told off to tend
+a weak old monk, to sing him the offices, and to nurse the invalid. This
+godly old man, at once his schoolmaster and his patient, sounded him
+whether he wished to be ordained priest. When he learned that, as far as
+lay in Hugh he desired nothing more, he was greatly shocked, and reduced
+his nurse-pupil to tears by scolding him for presumption; but he
+presently raised him from his knees and prophesied that he would soon be
+a priest and some day a bishop. Hugh was soon after this ordained
+priest, and was distinguished for the great fervour of his behaviour in
+celebrating the Mass "as if he handled a visible Lord Saviour"--a
+touching devoutness which never left him, and which contrasted
+strikingly with the perfunctory, careless or bored ways of other
+priests. He injured his health by over-abstinence, one effect of which
+was to cause him to grow fat, Nature thus revenging herself by
+fortifying his frame against such ill-treatment.
+
+In the talk time after Nones, the brothers had much to hear about the
+storms which raged outside their walls. It is rather hard for us
+nowadays to see things through Charterhouse spectacles. There is
+our lord the Pope, Alexander III., slow and yet persistent, wrestling
+hard with the terrible Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who is often
+marching away to seiges of Milan, reducing strong rogues and
+deeply wronging the church (whose forged documents are all purely
+genuine). Then what a hubbub there is in the church! Monstrous
+anti-popes, one of whom, Victor, dies, and a satanic bishop Henry of
+Liége consecrates another, Pascal, and the dismal schism continues. Then
+our lord Alexander returns to Rome, and the Emperor slaughters the
+Romans and beseiges their city and enthrones Pascal. There
+are big imperial plans afoot, unions of East and West, which end in
+talk: but Sennacherib Frederick is defeated by a divine and opportune
+pestilence. Then Pascal dies, and the schism flickers, the Emperor
+crawls to kiss the foot of St. Peter, and finally, in 1179, Alexander
+reigns again in Rome for a space. Meantime, Louis VII., a pious
+Crusader, and dutiful son of the Regulars, plays a long, and mostly a
+losing, game of buffets with Henry of Anjou, lord of Normandy, Maine,
+Touraine, Poitou, Aquitaine and Gascony, and leader of much else
+besides, King also of England, and conqueror of Ireland--a terrible man,
+who had dared to aspire to hang priestly murderers. He has forced some
+awful Constitutions of Clarendon upon a groaning church, or a church
+which ought to groan and does not much, but rather talks of the laws and
+usage of England being with the king. But the noble Thomas has withstood
+him, and is banished and beggared and his kith and kin with him. The
+holy man is harboured by our good Cistercian brothers of Pontigny, where
+he makes hay and reaps and see visions. He is hounded thence. These
+things ignite wars, and thereout come conferences. Thomas will not
+compromise, and even Louis fretfully docks his alimony and sends him
+dish in hand to beg; but he, great soul, is instant in excommunication,
+whereafter come renewed brawls, fresh (depraved) articles. Even the
+king's son is crowned by Roger of York, "an execration, not a
+consecration." At last (woeful day!) Thomas goes home still cursing, and
+gets his sacred head split open, and thus wins the day, and has immense
+glory and sympathy, which tames the fierce anti-anarchist king. He, too,
+kneels to our lord Alexander, and swears to go crusading in three years'
+time, meanwhile paying Templars to do it for him. All this comes out in
+driblets after Nones, and brings us to 1171 A.D., brother Hugh being
+aged about one and thirty. When the old monk died Hugh was given another
+old man to wait upon--Peter, the Archbishop of Tarentaise, who came
+there often for retreat and study. This renowned old man had been a
+friend of St. Bernard, and was a great stickler and miracle worker for
+Alexander III., and he was a delegate to make peace between Henry and
+Louis, when he died in 1174. Hugh found his quotations, compiled any
+_catena_ he wished to make, retrieved saintly instances, washed his
+feet, walked with him, and sat with him on a seat between two large fir
+trees, which seat "miraculously grew no higher, as the trees grew." In
+this manner Hugh knew and was known of the outside world, for Archbishop
+Peter was a man of large following and acquaintance.
+
+And now Hugh is made, wincingly, the procurator or bursar of the Grande
+Chartreuse, after he has spent eight years there, and is plunged in a
+sea of worldly business. The prior makes good use of his tact, business
+capacity, and honourable nature. He had thought and read to some
+purpose, for he ruled the lay brothers with diligence, and instructed
+the monks with great care, stirring up the sluggish and bitting the
+heady into restfulness. He did his worldly work vigorously, and turned
+it swiftly to spiritual gain. He had strong wine of doctrine for the
+chapter-house, milk for the auditorium. The secular people, if they were
+rich, he taught not to trust in riches; if they were poor, he refreshed
+them with such rations as the Order allowed. If he had nothing else, he
+always had a kind and cheery word to give. Among the travellers must
+have been many noble postmen, who carried letters in their hands and
+messages in their heads from Henry to Humbert of Maurienne, who held the
+keys of all the Alpine roads to Italy and Germany and whose infant
+daughter was betrothed to the boy John Lackland with dowries disputable,
+whereat Henry junior rebels, and makes uncommon mischief. The
+procurator was keen and accurate in his work. He never mislaid the
+books, forgot, fumbled, or made a "loiter," _morantia_, as they called
+it, when the office halted or was unpunctual. The lay brethren did not
+have to cough at any trips in his reading, which was their quaint way of
+rebuking mistakes.
+
+Henry II. was reconciled in 1172 and his crusade was to begin in 1175;
+but during these years his dominions were in constant flame. Scotland
+and France harried him. His sons leagued against him. His nobles rose.
+He fought hard battles, did humble penances at St. Thomas' tomb, and
+came out victorious, over his political and ecclesiastical opponents
+too, and began again the ordering of his unruly realms. What a rough and
+tumble world the Chronicles reveal as we turn them over! There is a
+crusade in Asia Minor in 1176. Manuel Commenus relates his success and
+failure. There are heretics in Toulouse who are Puritans, half Quaker
+and half Arian, condemned by a Council of Lombers, 1176. Next year Henry
+seems to have begun his penance, which was commuted from a crusade into
+three religious foundations, and rather shabbily he did it. Some people
+try to put Newstead in Selwood in the list, but this was founded in
+1174; and Le Liget has been mentioned, a Charterhouse in Touraine
+founded in 1178. The most probable explanation is this. Henry tried to
+do the penance (a) by buying out the Secular Canons of Waltham at a
+price determined by Archbishop Richard. He replaced these by Canons
+Regular under Walter de Cant. He then endowed them handsomely and had
+papal authority for this. (b) He found this so expensive that he tried
+to do the other two more cheaply. A scandal had arisen in Amesbury. He
+expelled the incontinent nuns, and brought over from Font Evroult a
+colony of more devout ladies in their room. The chroniclers show that
+this evasion was severely commented upon, and we may conclude that Le
+Liget was a tardy substitute--a cheap strip of forest land granted to an
+order which was celebrated for its dislike of covetousness, and whose
+rules required manual labour and a desert (and so valueless) land. Le
+Liget, be it noticed, is founded after the peace of Venice has given
+more power to the Papal elbow. The Lateran Council is also a little
+threatening towards King Henry in March, 1179, particularly on the
+question of the ferocity of mercenaries. Young Philip Augustus is also
+evidently succeeding his waning father, and generally speaking it is
+better to be conciliatory and to admit that the Amesbury plan was
+perhaps insufficient. At any rate, it is well to found another house:
+Carthusians of course, for they are holy, popular, and inexpensive.
+Henry, who was generous enough for lepers, hospitals, and active
+workers, did not usually care very much for contemplative orders, though
+his mother, the Empress Matilda, affected the Cistercians and founded
+the De Voto Monastery near Calais, and he inherited something from her.
+These considerations may have first prompted and then fortified Henry's
+very slow and reluctant steps in the work of founding Witham, in
+substance and not in shadow. It is also quite possible that he had not
+entirely given up the notion of going on a crusade after all.
+
+The first attempt was little more than a sketch. 5,497 acres were
+marked off for the new house, in a wet corner of Selwood forest. But the
+land was not transferred from William FitzJohn and the villeins were not
+evicted or otherwise disposed of. The place was worse than a desert, for
+it contained possessors not dispossessed. The poor monks, few and
+unprepared, who came over at their own expense, probably expecting a
+roof and a welcome, found their mud flat was inhabited by indignant
+Somersetæ, whose ways, manners, language, and food were unknown to them.
+The welcome still customarily given in these parts to strangers was
+warmer than usual. The foreign English, even if their lands were not
+pegged out for Charterhouses, were persuaded that the brethren were
+landsharks of the most omnivorous type. The poor prior quailed,
+despaired, and hastily bolted, leaving an old and an angry monkish
+comrade to face the situation with a small company of lay brothers.
+Another prior arrived, and to the vexation of the king shuffled off his
+maltreated coil in a very short time. After spending Christmas (1179-80)
+in Nottingham, the king crossed into Normandy with young Henry before
+Easter, meaning to avenge the wrongs Philip Augustus did to his
+relatives. Here most probably it was that a noble of the region of
+Maurienne (come no doubt upon business of the impending war), chatted
+with him about the Charterhouse. He paid a warm tribute to Hugh in words
+of this kind, "My lord king, there is only one sure way of getting free
+from these straits. There is in the Charterhouse a certain monk, of high
+birth but far higher moral vigour. His name is Hugh of Avalon. He
+carries on him all the grace of the virtues; but besides, every one who
+knows him takes to him and likes him, so that all who see him find their
+hearts fairly caught. Those who are privileged to hear him talk are
+delighted to find his speech divinely or angelically inspired. If the
+new plantation of this most holy order in your lands should deserve to
+have this man to dress and rule it, you will see it go joyfully forward
+straight away towards fruiting in every grace. Moreover, as I am
+certain, the whole English Church will be very greatly beautified by the
+radiance of his most pure religion and most religious purity. But his
+people will not easily let him go from their house, and he will never go
+to live elsewhere unless it be under compulsion and against his will, so
+your legation must be strong and strenuous: you must struggle to compass
+the matter even with urgent prayers until you get this man and him only.
+Then for the future your mind will be released from the anxieties of
+this care, and this lofty religion will make a noble growth to your
+excellency's renown. You will discover in this one man, with the whole
+circle of the other virtues, whatever mortal yet has shown of
+longsuffering, sweetness, magnanimity, and meekness. No one will dislike
+him for a neighbour or house-mate; no one will avoid him as a foreigner.
+No one will hold him other than a fellow politically, socially, and by
+blood, for he regards the whole race of men as part and parcel of
+himself, and he takes all men and comforts them in the arms and lap of
+his unique charity." The king was delighted with this sketch, and sent
+off post haste Reginald, Bishop of Bath (in whose diocese Witham lay),
+and an influential embassage to secure the treasure, if it could be
+done.
+
+But the man who was being sought had just about then been finding the
+burden of this flesh so extremely heavy that he was more inclined to run
+riot in the things that do not belong to our peace than to settle
+comfortably upon a saint's pedestal or to take up a new and disagreeably
+dull work. The fatal temptations of forty, being usually unexpected, are
+apt to upset the innocent more surely than are the storms of youth; and
+poor Hugh was now so badly tried that the long life of discipline must
+have seemed fruitless. He just escaped, as he told his too-little
+reticent biographer, from one nearly fatal bout by crying out, "By Thy
+passion, cross, and life-giving death, deliver me." But neither frequent
+confession, nor floggings, nor orisons, seemed to bring the clean and
+quiet heart. He was much comforted by a vision of his old prior Basil,
+who had some days before migrated to God. This dear old friend and
+father stood by him radiant in face and robe, and said with a gentle
+voice, "Dearest son, how is it with thee? Why this face down on the
+ground? Rise, and please tell thy friend the exact matter." Hugh
+answered, "Good father, and my most kind nurser, the law of sin and
+death in my members troubles me even to the death, and except I have thy
+wonted help, thy lad will even die." "Yes, I will help thee." The
+visitor took a razor in his hand and cut out an internal inflamed
+tumour, flung it far away, blessed his patient, and disappeared, leaving
+no trace of his surgery in heart or flesh. Hugh told this story in his
+last illness to Adam, his chaplain, and added that though after this the
+flesh troubled him, its assaults were easy to scorn and to repress,
+though always obliging him to walk humbly.
+
+The king's messengers took with them the Bishop of Grenoble and unfolded
+their errand. The Charterhouse was horrified, and the prior most of all.
+He delayed a reply. The first prior refused the request. The votes
+varied. Bovo, a monk who afterwards succeeded to Witham, declared
+strongly that it was a divine call, that the holiness of the order might
+be advertised to the ends of the earth. Hugh was too large a light to
+keep under their bushel. He seems better fitted to be a bishop than a
+monk, he said. Hugh was then bidden to speak. He told them that with all
+the holy advice and examples about him he had never managed to keep his
+own soul for one day, so how could any wise person think him fit to rule
+other folk? Could he set up a new house, if he could not even keep the
+rules of the old one? This is childishness and waste of time. "Let us
+for the future leave such matters alone, and since the business is hard
+and urgent do you only occupy yourselves to see that this king's
+undertaking be frittered no longer away half done, to the peril of souls
+and the dishonour of the holy order, and so from among you or from your
+other houses choose a man fit for this work and send him with these men.
+Since these are wise, do you too answer them wisely. Grant their desire,
+not their request. Give them a man not such as they seek under a
+mistake, but such as they devoutly and discreetly demand. It is not
+right that men should be heard unadvisedly who mistake the man of their
+request and who do not really want to be mistaken in the man's
+qualifications. So, in a word, do not grant their request, but cheer
+them by bettering it." The prior and Hugh were of one decision. The
+former declared point blank that he would not say go, and finally he
+turned to the Carthusian Bishop of Grenoble, "our bishop, father, and
+brother in one," and bade him decide. The bishop accepted the
+responsibility, reminded them of the grief which arose when St. Benedict
+sent forth St. Maur to Western Gaul, and exhorted Hugh that the Son of
+God had left the deepest recess of His Deity to be manifest for the
+salvation of many. "You too must pilgrimage for a little time from your
+dearest, breaking for a while the silence of the quiet you have loved."
+After much interruption from Hugh, the sentence was given. They all
+kissed him and sent him away forthwith. The king received him with much
+graciousness and ordered him to be carried honourably to Witham, and the
+wretched remnant in the mud flat received him as an angel of God. Well
+they might do so, for they seemed to have passed a melancholy winter in
+twig huts, now called "weeps," in a little paled enclosure, not only
+without the requisites of their order, but with barely bread to their
+teeth. There was no monastery, not even a plan of one. William FitzJohn
+and his clayey serfs scowled upon the shivering interlopers, uncertain
+what injustice might be done to them and to their fathers' homes, in
+sacrifices to the ghost of St. Thomas.
+
+Witham is a sort of glorified soup-plate, still bearing traces of its
+old Selwood Forest origin, for the woodlands ring round it. The infant
+river Avon creeps through its clayey bottom, and there are remains of
+the old dams which pent it into fish-ponds. Of the convent nothing
+remains except a few stumps in a field called "Buildings," unless the
+stout foundations of a room, S.E. of the church, called the
+reading-room, mark the guest house, as tradition asserts. Much of the
+superstructure of this cannot go back beyond the early sixteenth
+century, but the solid walls, the small size (two cottage area), allow
+of the fancy that here was the site of many colloquies between our Hugh
+and Henry Fitz-Empress.{1}
+
+The church itself is one of the two erected by St. Hugh, partly with his
+own hands. It is the lay brothers' church (called since pre-Franciscan
+days, the Friary). The conventual church has left no wrack behind. The
+style is entirely Burgundian, a single nave, with Romanesque windows,
+ending in an apse. The "tortoise" roof, of vaulted stone, is as lovely
+as it is severe. In 1760 the Tudor oaken bell-turret survived. The
+horrid story of how a jerry-built tower was added and the old
+post-Hugonian font built into it, how a new font was after long
+interval added, does not concern us. The tower was happily removed, the
+old font found and remounted (as if the text ran, "One faith, two
+baptisms"), and a stone nozzle built to uphold three bells. The
+buttresses are copied from St. Hugh's Lincoln work.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{1} The present Vicar is anxious to turn this place, which has been
+alternately cottages, a lock-up, and a reading-room, into a lecture hall
+and parish room; but the inhabitants, unworthy of their historical
+glories, seem rather disposed to let the old building tumble into road
+metal, to their great shame and reproach.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIOR HUGH
+
+
+It did not require much talent to see that the first requisite of the
+foundation was a little money, and consequently we find ten white pounds
+paid from the Exchequer to the Charterhouse brethren, and a note in the
+Great Life to say that the king was pleased with Hugh's modesty, and
+granted him what he asked for. Next there was a meeting of all who had a
+stake of any kind in the place, who would be obliged to be removed lest
+their noise and movement should break the deep calm of the community. It
+was put to each to choose whether he would like a place in any royal
+manor, with cottage and land equal to those they gave up, or else to be
+entirely free from serfdom, and to go where they chose. It is noteworthy
+that some chose one alternative, some the other, not finding villeinage
+intolerable. Next came the question of compensation for houses, crops,
+and improvements, that the transfer might be made without injustice but
+with joy on both sides. Here Henry boggled a little. "In truth, my
+lord," said the prior, "unless every one of them is paid to the last
+doight for every single thing the place cannot be given to us." So the
+king was forced to do a little traffic, which he considered to be a dead
+loss, and acquired some very old cottages with rotten rafters and
+cracked walls at a handsome price. The salesmen liked this new business;
+it filled their pockets, and they blessed the new influence. This good
+merchant had traded so as to gain both justice and mercy, but he tackled
+the king once more, with twinkling eye. "Well, my lord king, you see I
+am new and poor, yet I have enriched you in your own land with a number
+of houses." The king smiled. "I did not covet riches of this nature.
+They have made me almost a beggar, and I cannot tell of what good such
+goods may be." Hugh wanted this very answer. "Of course, of course," he
+rejoined, "I see you do not reck much of your purchase. It would befit
+your greatness if these dwellings were handed over to me, for I have
+nowhere to lay my head." The king opened his eyes and stared at his
+petitioner. "Thou wouldst be a fine landlord. Dost thou think we cannot
+build thee a new house? What on earth shouldest thou do with these?" "It
+does not befit royal generosity to ask questions about trifles. This is
+my first petition to thee, and why, when it is so small, should I be
+kept waiting about it?" The king merrily answered, "Hear the fellow!
+Almost using violence too, in a strange land. What would he do if he
+used force, when he gets so much out of us by words? Lest we should be
+served worse by him, he must have it so." The cat was soon out of the
+bag. Each house was presented back to the man who had sold it, either to
+sell or to remove as he chose, lest in any way Jerusalem should be
+built with blood.
+
+Then the building began, but no more; for the ten white pounds did not
+go far, and the workmen angrily and abusively asked for wages. A
+deputation went off to Henry, who was collecting troops and dismissing
+them, ordering, codifying, defending, enlarging and strengthening his
+heterogeneous empire. Now he was on one side of the sea, now on the
+other. He promised succour, and the brethren brought back--promises. The
+work stopped, and the Prior endured in grim silence. Another embassage
+is sent, and again the lean wallets return still flabby. Then the
+brethren began to turn their anger against the Prior. He was slothful
+and neglectful for not approaching the king in person (although the man
+was abroad and busy). Brother Gerard, a white-haired gentleman, "very
+successful in speaking to the great and to princes," fell upon his
+superior for glozing with a hard-hearted king and not telling him
+instantly to complete the buildings under pain of a Carthusian stampede.
+Not only was the Order wronged, but themselves were made fools of, who
+had stuck so long there without being able even to finish their mere
+dolls' houses. Brother Gerard himself would be delighted to din
+something into the King's ears in the presence of his prior. To this all
+the brethren said "Aye." Hugh gratefully accepted their counsel, and
+added, "All the same, Brother Gerard, you will have to see to it that
+you are as modest as you are free in your discourse. It may well be,
+that in order to be able to know us well, that sagaciously clever and
+inscrutable minded prince pretends not to hear us, just to prove our
+mettle. Doubtless he knows that it belongs to that perfection which we
+profess to fulfil, that lesson of our Lord which tells us, 'In your
+patience ye shall possess your souls,' and that too of most blessed
+Paul, 'In all things let us shew forth ourselves as the ministers of
+God, in much patience.' But much patience is assured in this, if much
+longsuffering bears with much gentleness much that opposes and thwarts.
+For patience without longsuffering will not be much, but short; and
+without gentleness will merely not exist." So said, Hugh Gerard and old
+Ainard (a man of immense age and curious story) set out to the king.
+They were all received like angels, with honour, polite speeches,
+excuses, instant promises, but neither cash nor certain credit. Then
+Gerard fumed and forgot the advice of his superior, and broke out into a
+furious declaration that he was off and quit of England, and would go
+back to his Alpine rocks, and not conflict with a man who thought it
+lost labour to be saved. "Let him keep the riches he loves so well. He
+will soon lose them, and leave them to some ungrateful heir or other.
+Christ ought not to share in them; no, nor any good Christian." These,
+and harsher words, too, were Gerard's coaxes. Poor Hugh used often, in
+after life, to remember them with horror. He got red and confused. He
+told his brother to speak gentlier, to eschew such terms, or even to
+hold his tongue: but Gerard (of holy life, grey head, and gentle blood)
+scolded on without bridle. Henry listened in a brown study. Neither by
+look, nor word, did he appear hit. He let the monk rate, kept silence
+and self control, and when the man had talked himself out, and an
+awkward silence reigned, he glanced at Hugh's confused and downcast
+face. "Well, good man," he said, "and what are you thinking about within
+yourself? You are not preparing to go off too, and leave our kingdom to
+us, are you?" The answer came humbly and gently, but with perfect
+manliness. "I do not despair of you so far, my lord. I am rather sorry
+for all your hindrances and business, which block the salutary studies
+of your soul. You are busy, and when God helps, we shall get on well
+with these health-giving projects." Henry felt the spell at once; flung
+his arms round Hugh, and said with an oath, "By my soul's salvation,
+while I live and breathe, thou shalt never depart from my kingdom. With
+thee I will share my life's plans, and the needful studies of my soul."
+The money was found at once, and a royal hint given. The demon blood of
+the Angevins, which frightened most men, and kept Henry in loneliness,
+had no terrors for Hugh; and Henry could hardly express the pleasure he
+felt in a rare friendship which began here. He loved and honoured no
+other man so much, for he had found a man who sympathised with him
+without slavishness, and whose good opinion was worth having. This close
+friendship, combined with physical likeness, made it generally believed
+that Hugh was Henry's own son. Hugh did not always agree with the king,
+and if he felt strongly that any course was bad for king and kingdom
+would say so roundly in direct words of reproof, but withal so
+reasonably and sweetly that he made "the rhinoceros harrow the valleys"
+after him, as his biographer quaintly puts it, glancing at Job. The
+counsel was not limited to celestial themes. Hugh checked his temper,
+softened his sentences, and got him to do good turns to churches and
+religious places. He unloosed the king's rather tight fist, and made him
+a good almsgiver. One offence Hugh was instant in rebuking--the habit of
+keeping bishoprics and abbacies vacant. He used also to point out that
+unworthy bishops were the grand cause of mischiefs in God's people,
+which mischiefs they cherished, caused to wax and grow great. Those who
+dared to promote or favour such were laying up great punishments against
+the Doomsday. "What is the need, most wise prince, of bringing dreadful
+death on so many souls just to get the empty favour of some person, and
+the loss of so many folk redeemed by Christ's death? You invoke God's
+anger, and you heap up tortures for yourself hereafter." Hugh was for
+free canonical election, with no more royal interference than was
+required to prevent jobbery and quicken responsibility.
+
+The two friends visited each other often, and the troubles of Henry's
+last years were softened for him by his ghostly friend. It is quite
+possible that Hugh's hand may be traced in the resignation of Geoffrey
+Plantagenet, the king's dear illegitimate son, who was (while a mere
+deacon) bishop-elect of Lincoln from 1173 to 1181. From the age of
+twenty to twenty-eight he enjoyed the revenues of that great see without
+consecration. The Pope objected to his birth and his youth. Both
+obstacles could have been surmounted, but Geoffrey resigns his claims in
+the Epiphany of the latter year, and gets a chancellorship with five
+hundred marks in England and the same in Normandy. His case is a bold
+instance of "that divorce of salary from duty" which even in those times
+was thoroughly understood.
+
+There is a story, one might almost say the usual story, of the storm at
+sea. The king with a fleet is between Normandy and England, when a
+midnight storm of super-Virgilian boisterousness burst upon them. After
+the manner of Erasmus' shipwreck, every one prays, groans, and invokes
+both he and she saints. The king himself audibly says, "Oh, if only my
+Charterhouse Hugh were awake and instant at his secret prayers, or if
+even he were engaged with the brethren in the solemn watch of the divine
+offices, God would not so long forget me." Then, with a deep groan, he
+prayed, "God, whom the William Prior serves in truth, by his
+intervention and merits, take kindly pity upon us, who for our sins are
+justly set in so sore a strait." Needless to say the storm ceased at
+once, and Henry felt that he was indeed upon the right tack, both
+nautically and spiritually. Whatever view we take of this tale (storms
+being frequent, and fervent prayers of the righteous availing much), the
+historic peep into King Henry's mind is worth our notice. The simplicity
+and self-abasement of his ejaculation shew a more religious mind than
+some would allow to him.
+
+Anyhow, the prior was hard at work. He soon transformed the "weeps" into
+stone. He built the two houses, the friary for the lay brethren and the
+monastery for the monks. He prayed, read, meditated and preached. His
+body slept, but his heart woke, and he repeated "Amens" innumerable in
+his holy dreams. On feast days, when the brethren dined together, he
+ate with them, and then he had the meal sauced with reading. If he ate
+alone, he had a book by his trencher of dry bread rarely garnished with
+relishes. A water pot served him for both flagon and tureen. He allowed
+himself one little human enjoyment. A small bird called a burnet made
+friends with him and lived in his cell, ate from his fingers and his
+trencher, and only left him at the breeding season, after which it
+brought its fledged family back with it. This little friend lived for
+three years with the prior, and to his great grief came no more in the
+fourth. The learned have exhausted their arts to discover what a burnet
+can be, and have given up the chase. Some would have him to be a
+barnacle goose, others a dab-chick or coot--none of which can fairly be
+classed as _aviculæ_ small birds. Burnet is brown or red brown, and
+rather bright at that. We have it in Chaucer's "Romaunt of the Rose"
+[4756]:
+
+    "For also welle wole love be sette
+    Under ragges as rich rochette,
+    And else as wel be amourettes
+    In mournyng blak, as bright burnettes."
+
+Consequently if the reader likes to guess (in default of knowledge) he
+might do worse than think of the Robin Redbreast as a likely candidate.
+He is called in Celtic Broindeag, is a small, friendly, crumb-eating,
+and burnet bird, and behaves much as these ancient legends describe. The
+name burnet still survives in Somerset.
+
+Not only the burnet bird felt the fascination of the prior, but monks
+drew towards Witham and men of letters also. Men of the world would
+come to be taught the vanity of their wisdom; clergy whose dry times
+afflicted them found a rich meal of Witham doctrine well worth the spare
+diet of the place. The prior by no means courted his public, and the
+Order itself was not opened at every knuckle tap. Even those who were
+admitted did not always find quite what they wanted. We read of one man,
+a Prior of Bath, who left the Charterhouse because he "thought it better
+to save many souls than one," and returned to what we should call parish
+work. Alexander of Lewes, a regular Canon, well versed in the
+_quadrivium_ (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), found the
+solitude intolerable to his objective wits. He was not convinced of the
+higher spirituality of co-operative hermitages. He found it too heavy to
+believe that there was no Christendom outside the Charterhouse plot, and
+no way of salvation except for a handful of mannikins. Alexander, with
+stinging and satiric terms, left in a huff, followed by acrimonious
+epithets from his late brethren. He became a monk at Reading, and filled
+a larger part upon a more spacious stage, and yet would have most gladly
+returned; but the strait cell was shut to him relentlessly and for ever.
+Andrew, erst sacristan of Muchelney, was another who left the Order for
+his first love, but his dislike of the life was less cogently put. It
+was not exactly that the prior could not brook opposition: but he hated
+a man who did not know his own mind, and nothing would induce him to
+allow an inmate who eddied about.
+
+The Charterhouse now had ecclesiastical independence. The bishop's power
+ended outside its pale. Bruton Convent could tithe the land no more,
+nor feed their swine or cattle there, nor cut fuel, instead of which
+the rectory of South Petherton, and its four daughter chapelries, was
+handed over to this bereaved convent. This was in April, 1181. This
+transaction was some gain to the game-loving king, for the Withamites
+ate neither pork nor beef, and so the stags had freer space and more
+fodder.
+
+But nevertheless the monks' poverty was almost ludicrous. Hugh wanted
+even a complete and accurate copy of the scriptures, which he used to
+say were the solitary's delight and riches in peace, his darts and arms
+in war, his food in famine and his medicine in sickness. Henry asked why
+his scribes did not make copies. The answer was that there was no
+parchment. "How much money do you want?" asked the king. "One silver
+mark," was the ungrasping request. Henry laughed and ordered ten marks
+to be counted out and promised a complete "divine library" besides. The
+Winchester monks had just completed a lovely copy (still in existence).
+King Henry heard from a student of this fine work and promptly sent for
+the prior. With fair words and fine promises he asked for the Bible. The
+embarrassed monk could not well say no, and the book was soon in Hugh's
+hands. This Prior Robert shortly after visited Witham and politely hoped
+the copy was satisfactory. If not, a better one could be made, for great
+pains had been taken by St. Swithun's brethren to make this one
+agreeably to their own use and custom. Hugh was astonished. "And so the
+king has beguiled your Church thus of your needful labour? Believe me,
+my very dear brother, the Library shall be restored to you instantly.
+And I beg most earnestly through you that your whole fraternity will
+deign to grant pardon to our humility because we have ignorantly been
+the occasion of this loss of their codex." The prior was in a fright, as
+well he might be, at the shadow of the king's wrath. He assured Hugh
+that his monks were all delighted at the incident. "To make their
+delight continue, we must all keep quiet about the honest restoration of
+your precious work. If you do not agree to take it back secretly, I
+shall restore it to him who sent it hither; but if you only carry it off
+with you, we shall give him no inkling of the matter." So the Winchester
+monks got back their Bible, and Witham got the said Prior Robert as one
+of its pupils instead, fairly captured by the electric personality of
+the Carthusian.
+
+Though Hugh's influence was very great, we must not quite suppose that
+the king became an ideal character even under his direction. There is an
+interregnum not only in Lincoln but in Exeter Diocese between Bishop
+Bartholomew and John the Chaunter, 1184-1186; one in Worcester between
+the translation of Baldwin and William de Northale, 1184-1186; and a bad
+one in York after the death of Roger, 1181, before King Richard
+appointed his half-brother Geoffrey aforementioned, who was not
+consecrated until August, 1191. But Hugh's chief work at Witham was in
+his building, his spiritual and intellectual influence upon the men he
+came to know, in the direction of personal and social holiness: and,
+above all, he was mastering the ways and works of England so
+sympathetically that he was able to take a place afterwards as no longer
+a Burgundian but a thorough son of the nation and the church. One
+instance may be given of his teaching and its wholesome outlook. He
+lived in an age of miracles, when these things were demanded with an
+insatiable appetite and supplied in a competitive plenty which seems
+equally inexhaustible, almost as bewildering to our age as our deep
+thirst for bad sermons and quack medicines will be to generations which
+have outgrown our superstitions. St. Hugh had drunk so deeply and
+utterly and with all his mind of the gravity and the humility which was
+traditional from the holy authors of the Carthusian Order, that "there
+was nothing he seemed to wonder at or to wish to copy less than the
+marvels of miracles. Still, when these were read or known in connection
+with holy men, he would speak of them gently and very highly respect
+them. He would speak of them, I say, as commending of those who showed
+them forth, and giving proof to those who marvelled at such things, for
+to him the great miracle of the saints was their sanctity, and this by
+itself was enough for guidance. The heartfelt sense of his Creator,
+which never failed him, and the overwhelming and fathomless number of
+His mighty works, were for him the one and all-pervading miracle." If we
+remember that Adam, his biographer, wrote these words not for us, but
+for his miracle-mongering contemporaries, they will seem very strong
+indeed. He goes on to say that all the same, whether Hugh knew it or
+not, God worked many miracles through him, as none of his intimates
+could doubt, and we could rather have wished that he had left the
+saint's opinion intact, for it breathes a lofty atmosphere of bright
+piety, and is above the controversies of our lower plane.
+
+The time was now coming when Witham had to lose its prior. Geoffrey
+(son, not of fair Rosamond, but of Hickenay) had resigned in January,
+1182. After sixteen months' hiatus, Walter de Coutances, a courtier, was
+elected, ordained, and consecrated, and enthroned December, 1183; but in
+fifteen months he was translated to the then central See of Rouen and
+the wretched diocese had another fifteen months without a bishop, during
+which time (April 15, 1185, on holy Monday) an earthquake cracked the
+cathedral from top to bottom.{2}
+
+In May, 1186, an eight-day council was held at Eynsham, and the king
+attended each sitting from his palace at Woodstock. Among other business
+done was the election, not very free election, to certain bishoprics and
+abbeys. Among the people who served or sauntered about the Court were
+the canons of Lincoln, great men of affairs, learned, and so wealthy
+that their incomes overtopped any bishop's rent-roll, and indeed they
+affected rather to despise bishoprics--until one offered. The See of
+Lincoln had been vacant (with one short exception) for nearly eighteen
+years. It contained ten of the shires of England--Lincoln, Leicester,
+Rutland, Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge, Bedford, Buckingham,
+Oxford, and Hertford. The canons chose three men, all courtiers, all
+rich, and all well beneficed, viz., their dean, Richard Fitz Neal, a
+bishop's bastard, who had bought himself into the treasurership; Godfrey
+de Lucy, one of their number, an extravagant son of Richard the chief
+justice; and thirdly another of themselves, Herbert le Poor, Archdeacon
+of Canterbury, a young man of better stuff. But the king declared that
+this time he would choose not by favour, blood, counsel, prayer, or
+price; but considering the dreadful abuses of the neglected diocese he
+wished for a really good bishop, and since the canons could not agree he
+pressed home to them the Prior of Witham, the best man and the
+best-loved one. With shouts of laughter the canons heard the jest and
+mentioned his worship, his habit, and his talk, as detestable; but the
+king's eye soon changed their note, and after a little foolishness they
+all voted for the royal favourite. The king approves, the nobles and
+bishops applaud, my lord of Canterbury confirms, and all seems settled.
+The canons rode off to Witham to explain the honours they have
+condescended to bestow upon its prior. He heard their tale, read their
+letters. Then he astonished their complacency by telling them that he
+could understand the king's mind in the matter and that of Archbishop
+Baldwin, himself a Cistercian; but that they, the canons, had not acted
+freely. They ought to choose a ruler whose yoke and ways they could
+abide, and, moreover, they ought not to hold their election in the Court
+or the pontifical council, but in their own chapter. "And so, to tell
+you my small opinion, you must know that I hold all election made in
+this way to be absolutely vain and void." He then bade them go home and
+ask for God's blessing, and choose solely by the blessing and help of
+the Holy Ghost, looking not to king's, bishop's, nor any man's approval.
+"That is the only answer to return from my littleness. So go, and God's
+good angel be with you." They begged him to reconsider it, to see the
+king or the archbishop; but the prior was inflexible, and they left the
+Guest House in wonder not unmixed with delight. The king's man was not
+the pet boor they had taken him for, but single-eyed, a gentleman, a
+clever fellow, and a good churchman. The very men who had cried out that
+they had been tricked now elected him soon and with one consent; and off
+they post again to Witham.
+
+This time he read the letters first, and then heard their tale and
+expressed his wonder that men so wise and mannerly should take such
+pains to court an ignoramus and recluse, to undertake such unwonted and
+uncongenial cares, but they must be well aware that he was a monk and
+under authority. He had to deal not with the primate and chief of the
+English Church in this matter, but with his superior overseas, and so
+they must either give up the plan altogether or undertake a toilsome
+journey to the Charterhouse; for none but his own prior could load his
+shoulders with such a burden. In vain they argued. A strong embassy had
+to be sent, and sent it was without delay, and the Chartreuse Chapter
+made no bones about it, but charged brother Hugh to transfer his
+obedience to Canterbury; and thus the burden of this splendid unhappy
+See was forced upon the shoulders which were most able to bear the
+weight of it.
+
+One would be glad to know what Henry thought of it all, and whether he
+liked the tutoring his courtiers got and were about to get. The humour,
+shrewdness, tact, and piety combined must have appealed to his
+many-sided mind and now saddened heart. He had lost his heir and was
+tossed upon stormy seas, so perhaps he had small leisure to spare for
+the next act of the drama.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{2} The king crossed to Normandy the very next day, and it is possible
+that this was the date of the sea scene mentioned above.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE BISHOP ELECT AND CONSECRATE
+
+
+Hugh knew well enough what the Chartreuse Chapter would say if the
+English meant to have him, and so he began his preparations at once.
+Other men fussed about fine copes, chasubles, and mitres, and dogged the
+clerical tailors, or pottered about in goldsmiths' shops to get a grand
+equipment of goblets. To him the approaching dignity was like a black
+cloud to a sailor, or a forest of charging lances to the soldier under
+arms. He fell hard to prayer and repentance, to meditation upon the
+spiritual needs of his new duties, lest he should have holy oil on his
+head and a dry and dirty conscience. He gave no time to the _menu_ of
+the banquet, to the delicacies, the authorities, and the
+lacquey-smoothed amenities of the new life. He was racked with misery at
+the bare imagination of the fruitless trouble of palace business
+exchanged for the fruitful quiet of his cell. He feared that psalms
+would give way to tussles, holy reading to cackle, inward meditation to
+ugly shadows, inward purity to outer nothingness. His words to the
+brethren took a higher and a humbler tone, which surprised them, for
+even they were used to see bishoprics looked upon as plums, and sought
+with every device of dodgery. Yet here was a man who could keep his soul
+unhurt and cure the hurts of others, yet whose cry was, "In my house is
+neither bread nor clothing; make me not a ruler of the people." St.
+Augustine's fierce words upon the Good Shepherd and the hireling were in
+his mind. "The soul's lawful husband is God. Whoso seeks aught but God
+from God is no chaste bride of God. See, brothers, if the wife loves her
+husband because he is rich she is not chaste. She loves, not her
+husband, but her husband's gold. For if she loves her husband she loves
+him bare, she loves him beggared." So Hugh prepared his soul as for a
+bridal with the coming bridegroom.
+
+When the inevitable command came, more than three months after his first
+election, he meekly set out for his duties at "the mount of the Lord,
+not Lebanon,{3} but Lincoln." He was white in dress, white in face, but
+radiant white within. He sat a horse without trappings, but with a roll
+of fleece and clothes, his day and night gear. Around him pricked his
+clergy upon their gold-buttoned saddles. They tried various devices to
+get his bundle away to carry it upon their own cruppers, but neither
+jest nor earnest could unstrap that homely pack. The truth was that he
+would not allow himself to change his old simple habits one jot, lest he
+should develop the carnal mind. So they drew across Salisbury Plain and
+on to Marlborough. Here was the Court and a great throng, and this
+public disgrace of the pack was too much for the Lincoln exquisites.
+They cut the straps of the objectionable bundle and impounded it. From
+Marlborough the cavalcade rode into London, and Hugh was consecrated on
+Sunday, September 21 (Feast of St. Matthew, the converted capitalist),
+1186. King Henry was in fine feather, and, forgetting his rather near
+habits, produced some fine gold plate, a large service of silver, a
+substantial set of pots and pans, and a good sum of ready money to meet
+the expenses of the festive occasion. Without some such help a penniless
+Carthusian could hardly have climbed up that Lebanon at all, unless by
+the sore scandal of a suit to the Lincoln Jewry. This handsome present
+was made at Marlborough. William de Northalle was consecrated Bishop of
+Worcester on the same day, of whom nothing else transpires than that he
+died not long after, and is supposed to have been an old and toothless
+bishop promoted for his ready fees. The place of consecration was
+Westminster Abbey, in its præ-Edwardian state, and so no longer extant.
+
+Hugh would undoubtedly sleep in the house in which he afterwards died.
+This lay at the back of Staple Inn, where the new bursar, whom the king
+had given him, bestowed the royal pots and crocks. Consecration like
+necessity brings strange bedfellows, and plain, cheap-habited Hugh, by
+gaudily trimmed William in his jewelled mitre, must have raised a few
+smiles that Sunday morning.
+
+Hugh's delays had ended with his prior's order, and he saw nothing now
+to stay his journey northwards. With him rode Gilbert de Glanville,
+Bishop of Rochester, a _malleus monachorum_, a great hammerer of monks,
+and perhaps told off for the duty of enthroning the new bishop to
+silence those who had a distaste for all monkery. Herbert le Poor, late
+rival candidate for the See, also pranced alongside with all the
+importance of a great functionary, whose archidiaconal duty it was to
+enthrone all bishops of the Province of Canterbury. For this duty he
+used to have the bishop's horse and trappings and much besides; but
+alas! the new man slept at St. Catherine's Priory on Michaelmas Eve and
+walked upon his bare toes to the cracked cathedral next morning. When he
+was fairly and ceremonially seated the archdeacon held out his practised
+palm for the customary fee (archdeacons are still fee-extracting
+creatures). He was astonished to hear the radical retort, "What I gave
+for my mitre" (it was a very cheap one) "that and no more will I give
+for my throne." Both Herbert and with him Simon Magus fell backward
+breathless at this blow.{4} But Hugh had a short way of demolishing his
+enemies, and the archdeacon appears hereafter as his stout follower
+knocked, no doubt, into a friend. All who were present at this ceremony
+had their penances remitted for thirteen days. Two other incidents are
+recorded of this time. One is that the bursar asked how many small
+fallow deer from the bishop's park should be killed for the inauguration
+feast. "Let three hundred be taken, and if you find more wanted do not
+stickle to add to this number." In this answer the reader must not see
+the witless, bad arithmetic of a vegetarian unskilled in catering, but a
+fine determination, first to feed all the poor folk of his metropolis
+with the monopolies of princes; and secondly, to sever himself wholly
+and dramatically from the accursed oppression of the game and forest
+laws. When Hugh told the story at Court it served as a merry jest, often
+broken, no doubt, against game (but not soul) preserving prelates, but,
+as the sequel shows, there was method in it. The other incident is that
+in the convent after Matins, on the morning of his enthronement, he
+slept and heard a voice which comforted his doubtful heart, too fearful
+lest this step should not be for the people's health or his own. "Thou
+hast entered for the waxing of thy people, for the waxing of salvation
+to be taken with thy Christ."
+
+The new bishop lived at his manor at Stowe (of which part of the moat
+and a farmhouse are now to be seen by the curious), a place parked and
+ponded deliciously. Almost as soon as he was installed a new swan came
+upon the waters, huge and flat-beaked, with yellow fleshings to his
+mandibles. This large wild bird dwarfed the tame swans into geese by
+comparison, and no doubt tame swans and geese were small things in those
+days compared to our selected fatlings. This bird drove off and killed
+the other swans, all but one female, with whom he companied but did not
+breed. The servants easily caught him and brought him to the bishop's
+room as a wonder. The beast-loving man, instead of sending him to the
+spit, offered him some bread, which he ate, and immediately struck up an
+enthusiastic friendship with his master, caring nothing for any throngs
+about him. After a time he would nestle his long neck far up into the
+bishop's wide sleeve, toying with him and asking him for things with
+pretty little clatterings. The bird seemed to know some days before he
+was due that he was coming, for it flapped about the lake and made
+cries. It would leave the water and stalk through the house walking wide
+in the legs. It would neither notice nor brook any other man, but rather
+seemed jealous, and would hiss and flap away the rest of the company. If
+the bishop slept or watched, the swan would keep dogs and other animals
+at bay. With true spiritual instinct it would peck hard at the calves of
+chaplains. If the bishop was abed no one was allowed near him without a
+most distressing scene, and there was no cajoling this zealous watchman.
+When the bishop went away the bird would retire to the middle of its
+pool, and merely condescend to take rations from the steward; but if its
+friend returned it would have none of servants. Even two years' interval
+made no difference to the faithful swan. It prophetically proclaimed his
+unexpected arrival. When the carts and forerunners arrived (with the
+household stuffs) the swan would push boldly in among the crowd and cry
+aloud with delight when at last it caught the sound of its master's
+voice, and it would go with him through the cloister to his room,
+upstairs and all, and could not be got out without force. Hugh fed it
+with fingers of bread he sliced with his own hand. This went on for
+nearly all Hugh's episcopate. But in his last Easter the swan seemed ill
+and sullen, and kept to his pond. After some chase they caught him in
+the sedge, and brought him in, the picture of unhappiness, with drooping
+head and trailing wing, before the bishop. The poor bird was to lose its
+friend six months after, and seemed to resent the cruel severance of
+coming death, though it was itself to live for many a day after its
+master had gone home to his rest. There, floating conspicuous on the
+lake, it reminded orphaned hearts of their innocent, kind, and pure
+friend who had lived patiently and fearlessly, and taken death with a
+song--the new song of the Redeemed.
+
+The first act of the new bishop was naturally to enlist captains for the
+severe campaign, and he ran his keen eye over England and beyond it for
+wise, learned, and godly men who could help a stranger. He wrote a
+touchingly humble letter to Archbishop Baldwin to help him to find
+worthy right-hand men, "for you are bred among them, you have long been
+a leader, and you know them 'inside and under the skin,' as the saying
+goes." Baldwin, an Exeter labourer by birth, by turns a schoolmaster,
+archdeacon, Cistercian abbot, Bishop of Worcester, and primate--a
+silent, dark, strong man, gentle, studious, and unworldly--was delighted
+at the request. He sent off Robert of Bedford, an ardent reformer and
+brilliant scholar, and Roger Roldeston, another distinguished scholar,
+who afterwards was Dean of Lincoln. These, like Aaron and Hur, upheld
+the lawgiver's hands, and they, with others of a like kidney, soon
+changed the face of affairs. Robert died early, but Roger was made
+Archdeacon of Leicester, confessor, and at the end executor to the
+bishop. After gathering captains the next thing was an eight-fold lash
+for abuses--decrees (1) against bribes; (2) against vicars who would not
+sing Mass save for extra pay; (3) against swaggering archdeacons who
+suspended churches, and persons beyond their beat. These gentlemen, in
+the absence of a bishop, seem to have grown into popes at the least. (4)
+Mass not to be laid as a penance upon any non-priestly person. This was
+a nimble way by which confessors fined penitents to their own profit.
+(5) Annual and other customary masses to be said without temporal gain.
+(6) Priestly administration only to be undertaken by those who are
+proved to be duly ordained by the archbishop or one of his suffragans:
+forged orders being plentiful. (7) Incumbents to be tonsured, and clergy
+to wear "the crown" instead of love-locks. (8) Clergy not to sue clergy
+in ecclesiastical cases before civil justices, Erastian knaves being
+active, even then.
+
+Next year brought a much more fighting foe, Godfrey the chief forestar.
+There was a Forest Assize only three years back, and a great outbreak of
+game preserving, dog licensing, bow confiscating, fines, imprisonment
+and slaughter, new rights for old tyrants, boys of twelve and clergy to
+be sworn to the hunting peace, mangling of mastiffs, banishment of
+tanners and parchmenters from woodlands--and if this was within the law,
+what could not be done without the law by these far away and favoured
+gamekeepers? The country groaned. Robbers and wolves could easily
+demolish those whom the foresters did not choose to protect, and the
+forest men went through the land like a scourge. Some flagrant injustice
+to one of Hugh's men brought down an excommunication upon Godfrey, who
+sent off to the king in fury and astonishment; and Henry was in a fine
+fit of anger at the news, for the Conqueror long ago had forbidden
+unauthorised anathemas against his men. Certain courtiers, thinking to
+put Hugh in the way of obliging the king, suggested that a vacant
+prebend at Lincoln should be given to one of themselves. The king sent a
+letter to that effect, which he did with some curiosity, suggesting this
+tit for tat. The messengers jingled through Oxford from Woodstock and
+found the bishop at Dorchester touring round his weedy diocese, who
+addressed the expectant prebendary and his friends with these words:
+"Benefices are not for courtiers but for ecclesiastics. Their holders
+should not minister to the palace, revenue, or treasury, but as
+Scripture teachers to the altar. The lord king has wherewith to reward
+those who serve him in his business, wherewith to recompense soldiers'
+work in temporals with temporals. It is good for him to allow the
+soldiers of the highest King to enjoy what is set aside for their future
+necessities and not to agree to deprive them of their due stipends."
+With these words he unhesitatingly sent the courtiers empty and packing.
+The fat was in the fire, and the angry courtiers took care that the
+chimney should draw. A man galloped off to say "Come to the king at
+once," and when the bishop was nearing Rosamond's bower, the king and
+his nobles rode off to the park, and sat down in a ring. The bishop
+followed at once. No one replied to his salute, or took the least notice
+of him. He laid hands upon a great officer next the king and moved him
+and sat down, in the circle of black looks. Then the king called for a
+needle. He had hurt one of his left fingers, and he sewed a stall upon
+it. The bishop was practised in silence, and was not put out by it. At
+last he said gently, "You are very like your relatives in Falaise."
+Henry threw himself back and laughed in a healthy roar. The courtiers
+who understood the sarcasm were aghast at its audacity. They could not
+but smile, but waited for the king, who, when he had had his laugh out,
+explained the allusion to the Conqueror's leather dressing and gloving
+lineage. "All the same, my good man, you must say why you chose, without
+our leave, to put our chief forester under the ban, why moreover you so
+flouted our little request that you neither came in person to explain
+your repulse nor sent a polite message by our messengers." Hugh answered
+simply that he knew the king had taken great trouble about his election,
+so it was his business to keep the king from spiritual dangers, to
+coerce the oppressor and to dismiss the covetous nonsuited. It would be
+useless and stupid to come to court for either matter, for the king's
+discretion was prompt to notice proper action and quick to approve the
+right. Hugh was irresistible. The king embraced him, asked for his
+prayers, gave the forester to his mercy. Godfrey and his accomplices
+were all publicly flogged and absolved, and the enemy, as usual, became
+his faithful friend and supporter. The courtiers ceased to act like
+kites and never troubled him again. On the contrary, some of them helped
+him so heartily that, if they had not been tied by the court, he would
+have loved to have beneficed them in the diocese. But non-residence was
+one of the scandals of the age and Hugh was inflexible in this matter.
+Salary and service at the altar were never to be parted. Even the Rector
+of the University of Paris, who once said how much he would like to be
+associated with Lincoln by accepting a canonry, heard that this would
+also be a great pleasure to the bishop, "if only you are willing to
+reside there, and if, too, your morals will keep pace with your
+learning." The gentleman was stricter in scholarship than in life, but
+no one had ever taken the liberty to tell him of it, and he is said to
+have taken the hint. Herein Hugh was quite consistent. He would not take
+any amount of _quadrivium_ as a substitute for honest living, and next
+after honest living he valued a peaceable, meek, conformist spirit,
+which was not always agape for division and the sowing of discords. He
+took some pains to compose quarrels elsewhere, as for instance, between
+Archbishop Baldwin and the monks of Canterbury. The archbishop wished to
+found a house of secular canons at Hackington in honour of SS. Stephen
+and Thomas of Canterbury. The monks were furious; the quarrel grew. Hugh
+thought and advised, when asked, that the question of division
+outweighed the use of the new church, and that it would be better to
+stop at the onset than to have to give up the finished work. But,
+objected Baldwin, holy Thomas himself wanted to build this church. "Let
+it suffice that you are like the martyr in proposing the same. Hear my
+simplicity and go no further." He preached union with constant fervour,
+and used to say that the knowledge that his spiritual sons were all at
+his back made him fear neither king nor any mortal, "neither do I lose
+the inward freedom from care, which is the earnest of, and the practice
+for, the eternal calm. Nor do my masters (so he called his canons) break
+and destroy a quiet that knows no dissent, for they think me gentle and
+mild. I am really tarter and more stinging than pepper, so that even
+when I am presiding over them at the chapter, the smallest thing fires
+me with anger. But they, as they ought, know their man of their choice
+and bear with him. They turn necessity into virtue and give place to me.
+I am deeply grateful to them. They have never opposed a single word of
+mine since I first came to live among them. When they all go out and the
+chapter is over, not one of them, I think, but knows I love him, nor do
+I believe I am unloved by a single one of them." This fact and temper of
+mind it was which made it possible to work the large diocese, for, of
+course, the bishop did not act in any public matter without his clergy.
+But personally his work was much helped by his self-denial and
+simplicity of his life. He never touched flesh but often used fish. He
+would drink a little wine, not only for health, but for company's sake.
+He was a merry and jest-loving table companion, though he never was
+undignified or unseemly. He would allow tumblers and musicians to
+perform at banquets, but he then appeared detached and abstracted rather
+than interested; but he was most attentive when meals were accompanied
+by readings about martyrs' passions, or saints' lives, and he had the
+scriptures (except the four gospels, which were treated apart) read at
+dinner and at the nightly office. He found the work of a bishop obliged
+him to treat that baggage animal, the body, better than of yore. His
+earlier austerities were avenged by constant pains in the bowels and
+stomach troubles, but in dedications of churches, ordinations, and other
+offices he would out-tire and knock up every one else, as he went from
+work to work. He rose before dawn and often times did not break his fast
+till after midday. In hot summer weather, he would oblige his ministers
+(deacon, sub-deacon, acolytes, &c.) to take a little bread and wine lest
+they should faint at the solemn Mass. When they hesitated, he upbraided
+them with want of faith and of sense, because they could not obey orders
+or see the force of them. When he journeyed and crowds came to be
+confirmed themselves or to present their little ones, he would get off
+his horse at a suitable spot and perform that rite. Neither tiredness,
+weakness, haste, rough ground, nor rain would induce him to confirm from
+the saddle. A young bishop afterwards, with no possible excuse, would
+order the frightened children up among restive horses. They came weeping
+and whipped by insolent attendants at no small risk--but his lordship
+cared nothing for their woe and danger. Not so dear Father Hugh. He took
+the babes gently and in due order, and if he caught any lay assistants
+troubling them would reproach them terribly, sometimes even thrashing
+the rascals with his own heavy hand. Then he would bless the audience,
+pray for the sick, and go on with his journey.
+
+He was passionately fond of children, not only because they were
+innocent, but because they were young: and he loved to romp with
+them--anticipating by nearly seven centuries the simple discovery of
+their charm, and he would coax half words of wondrous wit from their
+little stammering lips. They made close friends with him at once, just
+as did the mesenges or blue tits who used to come from woods and
+orchards of Thornholm, in Lindsey, and perch upon him, to get or to ask
+for food.{5}
+
+There is a story of a six months' old infant which jumped in its
+mother's arms to see him, waved its armlets, wagged its head, and made
+mysterious wrigglings (hitherto unobserved by bachelor monks) to greet
+him. It dragged his hand with its plump palm to its mouth as if to kiss
+it, although truth compels biographer Adam to acknowledge the kiss was
+but a suck. "These things are marvellous and to be deeply astonished
+at," he says. Hugh gave the boy apples or other small apposites (let us
+hope it was not apples, or the consequences of such gross ignorance
+would be equally marvellous), but the child was too interested in the
+bishop to notice the gifts. The bishop would tell how while he was still
+Prior he once went abroad to the Carthusian Chapter and stopped with
+brother William at Avalon. There his nephew, a child who could not even
+speak, was laid down upon his bed and (above the force of nature)
+chuckled at him--actually chuckled. Adam expected these two to grow up
+into prodigies and heard good of the latter, but the former he lost
+sight of--a little low-born boy in Newark Castle. Hugh used to put his
+baby friends to school when they grew older. Benedict of Caen was one of
+these, and he slipped off Roger de Roldeston's horse into a rushing
+stream, but was miraculously not drowned: and Robert of Noyon was
+another whom he picked up at Lambeth in the archbishop's train and put
+to school with the nuns at Elstow.
+
+These tender passages are to be contrasted with quite other sides to
+the man. Once an old rustic arrived late for a roadside confirmation.
+The bishop was in the saddle and trotting off to another place near,
+when the old fellow bawled after him that he, too, wished to be
+bishopped. Hugh more than once bade him hurry with the rest to the next
+place, but the man sat plump on the ground and said it was the bishop's
+fault and not his if he missed that Grace. The prelate looked back, and
+at last pulled up, turned his horse, rode back, and was off saddle
+again, and had the rite administered swiftly; but having laid holy hands
+upon him, he laid also a disciplinary one, for he boxed the old fellow's
+ears pretty smartly, which spanking some would have us to believe was a
+technical act of ritual, a sort of _accolade_ in fact. The same has been
+suggested about the flogging of forester Godfrey; for the mere resonance
+of these blows it seems, is too much for the tender nerves of our
+generation. Another bumpkin with his son once ran after the bishop's
+horse. The holy man descended, opened his chrism box, and donned his
+stole, but the boy had been confirmed already. The father wanted to
+change the boy's name; it would bring him luck. The bishop, horrified at
+such paganism, asked the boy's name. When he heard that it was John he
+was furious. "John, a Hebrew name for God's Grace. How dare you ask for
+a better one? Do you want him called 'hoe' or 'fork'? For your foolish
+request, take a year's penance, Wednesday's Lenten diet and Friday's
+bread and water."{6}
+
+He was hardly abreast of his very legal time in reverence for the
+feudal system. One of his tenants died and his bailiffs seized the best
+thing he had, to wit, an ox, as heriot due to the lord. The poor widow
+in tears begged and prayed for her ox back again, as the beast was
+breadwinner for her young children. The seneschal of the place chimed
+in, "But, my lord, if you remit these and similar legal dues, you will
+be absolutely unable to hold the land at all." The bishop heard him and
+leapt from his horse to the ground, which was very muddy. He dug both
+hands into the dirt. "Now I have got the land," he said, "and yet I do
+remit the poor little woman her ox," and then he flung the mud away, and
+lifting his eyes added, "I do not want the land down here; I want
+heaven. This woman had only two to work for her. Death has taken the
+better one and are we to take the other? Perish such avarice! Why, in
+the throes of such wretchedness, she ought to have comfort much rather
+than further trouble." Another time he remitted £5 due from a knight's
+son, at his father's death, saying it was unjust and mischievous that he
+should lose his money because he had lost his father too. "He shall not
+have double misfortune at any rate at our hands." Even in the twelfth
+century piety and business sometimes clashed.
+
+Hugh had not been enthroned a year, when Christendom was aghast and
+alarmed at the news from the East. Saladin with eighty thousand men had
+met the armies of the Cross at Tiberias (or Hittin), had slaughtered
+them around the Holy Rood itself, in the Saviour's own country, had
+beheaded all the knights of the Temple and the Hospital who would not
+betray the faith. Jerusalem had fallen, and Mahomet was lord of the holy
+fields. "The rejoicing in hell was as great as the grief when Christ
+harrowed it," men said. The news came in terrible bursts; not a country
+but lost its great ones. Hugh Beauchamp is killed, Roger Mowbray taken.
+The Pope, Urban III., has died of grief. The Crusade has begun to be
+preached. Gregory VIII. has offered great indulgences to true penitents
+and believers who will up and at the Saracens. He bade men fear lest
+Christians lose what land they have left. Fasting three days a week has
+been ordered. Prince Richard has the cross (and is one, to his father).
+Berter of Orleans sings a Jeremiad. Gilbert Foliot (foe to St. Thomas)
+is dead. Peace has been made between France of the red cross and England
+of the white, and Flanders of the green. King Henry has ordered a tax of
+a tenth, under pain of cursing, to be collected before the clergy in the
+parishes from all stay-at-homes. Our Hugh is not among the bishops
+present at this Le Mans proclamation. The kingdom is overrun, in
+patches, with tithe collectors. Awful letters come from Christian
+remnants, but still there is no crusade; France and England are at war.
+The new Pope is dead. Now old Frederick Barbarossa is really off to
+Armenia. Prayers and psalms for Jerusalem fill the air. The Emperor is
+drowned. Archbishop Baldwin and Hugh of Durham, notwithstanding,
+quarrel with their monks. Scotland is always in a tangle. Great King
+Henry, with evil sons and failing health, makes a sad peace in a fearful
+storm, learns that son John too has betrayed him, curses his day and his
+sons, and refuses to withdraw his curse, dies at Chinon before the
+altar, houselled and anhealed, on the 6th of July, 1189. But when dead
+he is plundered of every rag and forsaken.
+
+That last Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity, Hugh had been abroad with
+the poor king, and had been the only bishop who insisted upon keeping
+his festivals with full sung Mass and not a hasty, low Mass.
+
+Hugh de Nonant, the new bishop of Coventry, one Confessor's Day had
+begun saying the introit, when his Lincoln namesake lifted up his voice
+and began the long melic intonation. "No, no, we must haste. The king
+has told us to come quickly," said the former. The answer was, "Nay, for
+the sake of the King of kings, who is most powerfully to be served, and
+whose service must bate nothing for worldly cares, we must not haste but
+feast on this feast," and so he came later, but missed nothing. Before
+the king died Hugh had gone back to his diocese again, and heard the
+sorrowful news there.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{3} The white.
+
+{4} He was acting by a Canon of 1138, passed at Westminster.
+
+{5} Thornholm is near Appleby, and is a wooded part of the county even
+to this day.
+
+{6} From this and from various incidental remarks it may be concluded
+that Hugh knew Hebrew, which is not remarkable, because the learned just
+then had taken vigorously to that tongue and had to be restrained from
+taking lessons too ardently in the Ghetto. Some of his incidental
+remarks certainly did not come from St. Jerome, the great cistern of
+mediæval Hebrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE BISHOP AT WORK
+
+
+Henry was dead before his friend was three years a bishop, and with him
+died Hugh's hopes of better men on the bench, for Richard's bishops were
+treasurers, justiciars and everything but fathers of their dioceses.
+Tall, blue-eyed, golden-haired Richard the Viking, had a simple view of
+his father's Empire. It was a fine basis for military operations.{7} He
+loosed some of the people's burdens to make them pay more groats. He
+unlocked the gaols. He made concessions to France and Scotland. He
+frowned upon the Jews, a frown which only meant that he was going to
+squeeze them, but which his people interpreted into a permission to
+wreak their hatred, malice, and revenge upon the favoured usurers.
+
+The massacre of Jews which began in London and finally culminated in the
+fearful scenes of York, spread to other parts and broke out in place
+after place. In Lent (1190) the enlisting for the crusade was going on
+in Stamford. The recruits, "indignant that the enemies of the Cross of
+Christ who lived there should possess so much, while they themselves
+had so little for the expenses of so great a journey," rushed upon the
+Jews. The men of Stamford tried to stop the riot, but were overcome, and
+if it had not been for the Castle the Jews would have been killed to a
+man. Two of the plunderers fell out over the booty. One, John by name,
+was killed, martyred it was supposed. The old women had dreams about
+him. Miracles began. A shrine was set up and robber John began to
+develop into Saint John. Then down came the bishop, scattered the
+watchers and worshippers, hacked down the shrine and forbade any more
+such adoration of Jew-baiting thieves, with a thundering anathema. The
+Lincoln people next began the same game, but they did not reckon with
+the new warden, Gerard de Camville, who had bought the revenues and
+provided a harbour there for the Israelites. We may believe that the
+bishop also was not behind hand in quelling such bloody ruffianism, for
+the Jews were afterwards very conspicuous in their grief at his death,
+evidently owing him something.
+
+King Richard, athirst for adventure, sold all that he could, taxed all
+that he could, and then set off for the crusade, carrying with him
+Baldwin the gentle archbishop, who was to die in despair at the gross
+habits and loose morals of the crusading hosts. He left behind him
+brother John, whom he had tried to bribe into fidelity, and a little
+lame, black foreigner, Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, who had been adviser,
+schemer, general brain box and jackal to the Lionheart, and who now
+swept through England with a thousand knights, trying cleverly and
+faithfully to rule the restive English and to keep them in some order
+and loyalty, in his ill-bred, active way. But the whole position was
+impossible and more impossible, first, because of John the always
+treasonable; and secondly, because of Walter, late Bishop of Lincoln and
+now of Rouen (the Pilate or Pilot?) whom Richard sent to guard the
+guardian. Geoffrey, half brother to the king, next came upon the scenes
+as a new complication. He had been made Archbishop of York and overlord
+of Durham. Black William's sister Richenda seized this archbishop and
+imprisoned him: and then Hugh joined the anti-Longchamp party, sided
+actively with John and with Gerard de Camville, who was beseiged in
+Lincoln. Hugh excommunicated Richenda. His influence turned the scale
+against Longchamp.
+
+It would require a treatise in itself to unfold all the tangled story of
+the first half of Richard's reign till the king returned to England
+after war, prison, and heavy ransom, in March 1194. Practically, at this
+date the Bishop of Lincoln disappears as much as possible from political
+life; or at least tried to do so. He was building the cathedral and
+doing his duty as bishop, befriending the needy and the outcast, and
+showing himself the enemy of wrong-doers. Now we hear of him clipping
+the love locks of his young sacristan Martin, who straightway became a
+monk; now following in the steps of great St. Martin by some passionate
+acts of pity, and now retiring mostly in harvest time (when all hands
+are busy and all hearts are out of reach) to his beloved Witham for a
+month's retreat.
+
+Of course all devout people in the Middle Ages had an especial care for
+lepers because of that most fortunate mistranslation in Isaiah liii. 4.
+which we render "we did esteem Him stricken," but which the Vulgate
+renders _putavimus eum quasi leprosum_: we did esteem Him as it were a
+leper. Hence service to lepers was especially part of service to Christ.
+At Maiden Bradley, in Somerset, was a colony of leprous sisters; and at
+Witham Church a leper window looked towards their house. At Lincoln{8}
+was the Hospital of the Holy Innocents called La Malandrie. It was
+founded by St. Remigius, the Norman cathedral builder, with thirteen
+marks revenue and further endowed by Henry I. and Henry II. The
+condition of all these leper outcasts was more than miserable. The
+disease was divided into the breeding, full and shipwreck periods. When
+the first was detected the patient was led to church, clothed in black,
+Mass and Matins for the dead were said over him, earth was thrown upon
+his foot, and then he was taken to a hovel on waste land where he was to
+be buried at the last. Here he found a parti-coloured robe, a coat, two
+shirts, a rattle, knife, staff, copper girdle, bed, table, and lamp, a
+chair, chest, pail, cask and funnel, and this was his portion for ever.
+He was not before 1179 allowed even a leprous priest to say Mass for
+him. The disease rotted away his flesh till he died, limbless or
+faceless in fearful shipwreck, and unhouselled. These wretches this
+bishop took under his peculiar care. He would wash them with his own
+hands, as his mother did before him, kiss them, serve them with meat,
+drink, and money. He would have thirteen together in his room, if he
+could find that number. He maintained many, both men and women. He would
+go to the Malandry, stop in a cell there, accompanied by a few of his
+devoutest and closest friends, and cosset the lepers motheringly,
+telling them they were desolate and afflicted only to be rewarded for
+ever, persuading them to a holy life with his pitying words, reproving
+them for their evil deeds (and many lepers were horribly immoral); but
+before ever he talked to them he kissed the men, embracing longer and
+more lovingly those who were worst smitten. The swelled, black,
+gathered, deformed faces, eyeless or lipless, were a horror to behold,
+but to Hugh they seemed lovely, in the body of their humiliation. Such
+he said were happy, were Paradise flowers, great crown gems of the King
+Eternal. He would use these as a text and speak of Christ's compassion
+to the wretched, Christ who now took ulcerous Lazarus by angels to
+Abraham's bosom and now became weak with our weakness. "Oh, how happy
+they were who were close about that so sweet man as his friends!
+Whatever his foot trod upon, or any part of him had touched, or his
+hands had handled, it would be sweet indeed to me, to devour with
+kisses, to put to my eyes, to bury in my very heart if I could. What of
+this superfluous humour, if one may use the word of what flowed from the
+tree of life? What am I to feel of that humour which used to be poured
+from a vase of such blessing because He bare our infirmity? Why, of
+course, if I only could, I should diligently gather Him, yes, and drain
+Him with my lips, drink Him in with my jaws, and hide just Him in my
+inward parts. Those are the really wretched, who fear aught else than to
+offend One so sweet. Those are the pitiful who esteem aught else sweet,
+or seek aught else than sweetly to cleave to this sweet One and sweetly
+obey Him. I do not know what he can feel to be bitter, who with the
+inner palate of the heart has learnt by continuous meditation to feed on
+the sweetness of this Sweet." Thus inspired, he looked upon the weaker
+limbs of Christ, honouring those whom others passed by.
+
+Not only was he bountiful to lepers, but what with the alms asked of him
+and given by a hand that often outran the tongue of need, he gave away a
+third of all he had in this way alone. Once at Newark he met a leper and
+kissed him. There a most learned Canon from Paris, William de Montibus,
+a great master and author, an early Cruden, and the Chancellor of the
+Diocese, said to him, "Martin's kiss cleansed the leper." The bishop
+answered humbly, "Martin kissed the leper and cured his body, but the
+leper's kiss has cured my soul."
+
+Of Hugh's courage several instances are cited (but impossible now to
+date). He went several times unarmed against threatening bands of men
+who flourished naked swords. In Lincoln Church, in Holland as
+aforementioned, and in Northampton, he faced angry clerks and laymen,
+knights and men at arms, and burgesses with equal vigour, and
+excommunicated them. It is not unlikely that the first was in defence of
+the Jews, and the third when he stopped the worship of a thief at the
+last place. The second may have been when he placed himself among the
+enemies of Longchamp.
+
+He was believed, and he believed himself, to be able to cause death to
+those whom he excommunicated. This was so firmly acknowledged that it
+saved him in many a severe pinch, and shielded him from indifference,
+beggary, and defeat. Many instances are given us, in which misfortune
+and death followed upon his censures. If any one likes to plead _post
+hoc, non ergo propter hoc_, judgment may go by default; but at any rate
+the stories show the life of the time most vividly, and the battle for
+righteousness which a good bishop had to wage.
+
+There lived at Cokewald an oldish knight, Thomas de Saleby, whose wife
+Agnes was barren. William, his brother, also a knight, but of
+Hardredeshill, was the heir to the estate. Dame Agnes detested William
+and schemed to disappoint him. She gave out that she was with child.
+William disbelieved, consulted friends, but could find no remedy. About
+Easter, 1194, the lady affected to be confined. A baby, Grace by name,
+was smuggled into the room, and sent back to its mother to be suckled.
+Outwitted, William went off in distress to the bishop, who sent for Sir
+Thomas, in private, charged him, and tried to make him confess. But he,
+"fearing the scoldings of his too tongue-banging wife more than God's
+justice, and being, moreover, spell-bound by her viperine hissings,"
+affected utter innocence. The bishop plied him vigorously, urging public
+opinion and his own old weak state. At last he promised that he would go
+home and talk with Agnes, and report the next day, and if he found these
+things so, would obey orders. "Do so," said the bishop, "but know that
+if you bate your promise, the sentence of excommunication will strike
+solemnly and fearfully all the doers and abetters of this wrong." But
+Agnes' tongue outdid the bishop's, and Thomas sulked indoors. The bishop
+preached about this in public, on the Easter Monday, and said it was a
+sin unto death. He then knotted the cord of anathema round the daring
+conspirators. Satan was soon up and at Thomas. He wrenched away the soul
+of the unhappy knight, who had gone to bed to escape the worry, and
+there died a sad example to wife-ruled husbands. Agnes, however, defied
+them all and braved out her story; and here is the crux: the infant was
+legally legitimate because Thomas had acknowledged it to be such. King
+Richard allowed little Grace, aged four, to be betrothed to Adam, a
+brother of Hugh de Neville, his chief forestar. Hugh, who was always at
+war with child marriages, issued a special _caveat_ in this case. But
+when he was away in Normandy they found a priest (a fool or bribed) to
+tie the knot. The priest was suspended and the rest excommunicated. In
+the next act the chambermaid confessed; and lastly Agnes' nerve gave
+way, and she did the same. But Adam still claimed the lands, won a suit
+in London, although William bid five hundred marks against him, and died
+drunk at an inn, with his baby bride. Hugh's comment was that "the name
+forestar is right and aptly given, for they will stand far from the
+kingdom of God." But the little heiress was again hunted into marriage,
+this time by a valet of John's, Norman of the chamber, who bought her
+for two hundred marks. He died, and the little girl was sold for three
+hundred marks to Brien de Insula, a man known to history. Grace at the
+last died childless, though she seems to have been a pious wife; and
+Saleby came back at the last to William's long defrauded line.
+
+Yet another forestar also under ban found some men in his forest cutting
+brush-wood, handled them insolently and was cut to pieces and stuck
+together again with twigs and left at the cross roads.
+
+Again a deacon, Richard de Waure, quarrelled with a knight, Reginald de
+Argentun, and maliciously accused him of treason. The bishop forbade the
+suit, but the deacon danced off to my lord of Canterbury, Hubert the
+Justiciar, who was the real King of England and one of the ablest men
+the country had to serve her. He felt it right that the suit should
+continue. Hugh declared that he had acted as Justiciar, not as
+Metropolitan, and suspended Richard, who again went off to Hubert and
+got the sentence relaxed, and boasted that he was free from Lincoln
+jurisdiction. Hugh simply added excommunication to the contumacious
+deacon. Again the archbishop loosed, and Hugh bound. "If a hundred times
+you get absolved by the lord archbishop, know that we re-excommunicate
+you a hundred times or more, as long as we see you so all too hardened
+in your mad presumption. It is evident what you care for our sentence.
+But it is utterly fixed and settled." Then the deacon hesitated, but
+before he could make up his mind his man cracked open his head with an
+axe.
+
+Then again there was a girl at Oxford, who, backed by a Herodias mother,
+left her husband for another love. The husband appealed to the bishop,
+who told her to go back. She kept repeating that she would sooner die.
+Hugh tried coaxing. He took her husband's hand and said, "Be my daughter
+and do what I bid you. Take your husband in the kiss of peace with God's
+benison. Otherwise I will not spare you, be sure, nor your baneful
+advisers." He told the husband to give her the kiss of peace. But when
+he advanced to do so the hussey spat in his face near the altar (of
+Carfax) and before many reverend fathers. With a fearful voice the
+bishop said, "You have eschewed the blessing and chosen the curse. Lo!
+the curse shall catch you." He gave her a few days' respite and then
+pronounced the curse. "She was suffocated by the enemy of mankind, and
+suddenly changed lawless and vanishing pleasures for unending and just
+tortures," says the unhesitating scribe.
+
+Once a Yorkshire clerk was turned out of his benefice by a knight (who
+was in our sense also a squire) simply that the gentleman might clap in
+his brother. The poor parson appealed to Courts Christian and Courts
+Civil, but found his enemy was much too favoured for him to effect
+anything. He tried Rome, but, poor Lackpenny, got what he might have
+expected from that distant tribunal. In his distress he turned to the
+chivalrous Bishop of Lincoln. Now, Hugh had no business at all to meddle
+with Archbishop Geoffrey Plantagenet's diocese, but it was a case of
+"Who said oppression?" He banned the obtruding priest by name and all
+his accomplices. Some died, some went mad or blind. Thus William got his
+own again, for, as all who knew expected, Hugh's anathema meant
+repentance or death.
+
+These anecdotes explain much that follows, and not a little the great
+strain that there was between Archbishop Hubert Walter and the Bishop of
+Lincoln. Perhaps this strain was bound to be felt, because the policy of
+the former was to employ churchmen largely in political and secular
+affairs, the policy of the other to exclude them as much as possible. In
+the abstract we can hardly think that it is well that priests should
+rule the State or bishops manipulate the national finances. But to lay
+down that rule at the close of the twelfth century was to cut the spine
+between the brains of the State and its members. Hugh, perhaps, allowed
+too little for the present distress; Hubert for the distant goal. Anyhow
+they collided.
+
+Hubert, in his capacity of financial viceroy, the moment Richard had
+come back from captivity, been re-crowned, and gone off again, sent off
+the visiting justices to look after various pleas of the Crown, among
+which was a question of defaults. These gentlemen began their milking
+process in September, 1194. It was discovered that an old tribute of an
+expensive mantel had been paid in times past by Lincoln See to the King.
+This pall was a matter of 100 marks (say £2,000 of our money). In the
+long vacancy and under Bishop Walter there had been no payment, and the
+royal claim was for a good many years back, there being apparently some
+limitations. Arrears of 1,000 marks were demanded, or a lump sum of
+3,000 to have done with the tribute. Hugh thought it an unworthy and
+intolerable thing that our Lady's Church and he, as its warder, should
+be under tribute at all, and he was prepared to do anything to end the
+"slavery." However little we can share this notion, at least it was a
+generous one. The demand came after the Saladin taxes, the drain for the
+Crusade, for the king's ransom, and during the building of the
+cathedral. It came to a man who gave a third of his money in alms and
+who lived from hand to mouth, often borrowing on his revenues before he
+got them. He proposed to meet this new huge call by retiring to Witham
+and devoting the whole emoluments of the See to redeeming this
+fictitious mantel. But the clergy, who knew by experience both order and
+chaos, rose in arms, and monastic advisers added their dissuading
+voices. Well might the clergy support their bishop. They had in times
+past paid for the king's mantel with episcopal trimmings, and other
+prelates had not scorned a little cabbage over this rich tailoring.
+Richard cynically expected that Hugh would do the same, but his clergy
+knew him better. They offered to find the money. But Hugh, though he
+allowed them to do so, would not allow one fruitful vein to be worked.
+He absolutely forbade penance fines, lest, for money's sake, the
+innocent should be oppressed and the guilty be given less pains than
+were needed. Some folk told the bishop that rascals had more feeling in
+their purses than in their banned souls or banged bodies. He replied
+that this was because their spiritual fathers laid on too lightly upon
+the sinners. "But," they pleaded, "Thomas the Martyr, of most blessed
+memory, fined sinners." Hugh answered, "Believe me, it was not on that
+head that he was a saint. Quite other virtue merits marked him a saint;
+by quite another story he won the meed of martyr palm."
+
+Hubert must have felt it more of a financial than a moral victory when
+the 3,000 marks clinked in the treasurer's box.
+
+The next battle between these two doughty men (or shall we say systems
+of thought?) was fought about Eynsham Abbey. Old Abbot Geoffrey died,
+and at his election the Abbey had been under the See of Lincoln; but
+since then King Henry had claimed the gift of abbacies, a claim his son
+was not likely to bate. A suit with the Crown, Hugh's friends argued,
+was hopeless or not worth the trouble; but this argument seemed
+sacrilegious to the intrepid bishop. What? Allow God and the Queen of
+Heaven to be robbed? Who ever agreed to let Lincoln be so pilled? He is
+but a useless and craven ruler who does not enlarge instead of lessen
+the dignities and liberties of the Holy Church. He went stoutly to the
+contest, crossed and recrossed the sea, and at last persuaded a sort of
+grand jury of twenty-four clerks and laymen that he was the patron. In a
+year's time he won his case and saw Robert of Dore, a good abbot, well
+in his chair. Hugh spent a week with his almost bereft family, gave the
+new man a fine chased silver and ivory crook and a great glorious
+goblet, and amplified the place with a generous hand.
+
+This was a legal triumph for the bishop, but surely it was a moral
+triumph for the _Curia Regis_ to do ample justice to a strong opponent
+of the Crown? Of course, nobody wanted another St. Thomas episode again,
+least of all enacted against a man who carried the Church of England
+with him, as St. Thomas, living, never did; but Hugh had small favour
+with the king at this time. By these successive battles the Bishop of
+Lincoln had come to be looked upon as the leader of the Church and the
+champion of her liberties. To us those "liberties" seem a strange claim,
+beyond our faith and our ken, too. It seems obvious to us that men,
+whether clerks or laymen, who eat, drink, wear, build, and possess on
+the temporal plane, should requite those who safeguard them in these
+things with tribute, honour, and obedience; and freedom from State
+control in things temporal seems like freedom to eat buns without paying
+the baker. Free bilking, free burgling, and so on, sound no less
+contradictory. But the best minds of England seven centuries ago dreamed
+of another citizenship and a higher, of which the Church was the city--a
+city not future only and invisible, but manifest in their midst, which
+they loved with passion and were jealous over, too exclusively perhaps,
+but in the event not unwisely. It is less difficult for us to see that
+any cause which would set the unselfish and lofty-minded men of that
+time against the preponderating power of the Crown made for the welfare
+and peace of the country in the future. The anarchy of Stephen's reign,
+Henry's mastery, and Richard's might, with Hubert Walter's genius,
+resulted in a dangerous accumulation of power that did actually prove
+almost disastrous to the State. Consequently Bishop Hugh's greatest
+contest with the Crown demands the sympathy both of men who still dream
+of the spiritual city in (but unsoiled by) hands of mortals, and also of
+those who value constitutional liberties in modern politics. The war
+with France kept Richard active abroad. The flow of money from England
+was too thin to enable him to strike the final blow he wished to strike.
+Hubert Walter's power was so hampered he could do little beyond
+scutages, but in December, 1197, he called together a Council at Oxford.
+He told this universal assembly of the barons of all England that the
+king was in straits. He was outclassed and outmanned and like to be even
+dispossessed by a most powerful and determined enemy. He asked their
+deliberations as to help for the king in his difficulties. Oxford was
+the king's birthplace and was also in Lincoln diocese.{9} The Court
+party, who advocated abject submission to the king's becks, at once
+proposed that the barons of England, among whom were the bishops, should
+furnish three hundred knights to the king, which knights should serve
+for a year without furlough. The Bishop of Lincoln's consent was asked,
+and he made no reply at first, but turned it over in his mind. The
+archbishop, of course, spoke for the motion. Richard FitzNigel, Bishop
+of London, a man of finance, purchase, and political sagacity, one of
+the historians of the time, assured them that he and his would try every
+fetch to relieve the royal need. This brought up Hugh in an instant.
+"You, wise and noble gentlemen here before me, know that I am a stranger
+in this country of yours and was raised to a bishop's office from a
+simple hermit life. So when the Church of my Lady Mary the Holy Mother
+of God was handed over to my inexperience to rule I applied myself to
+explore its customs, dignities, dues, and burdens. For near thirteen
+years, up till now, I have not trod out of the straight tracks of my
+forerunners. I know the Lincoln Church is bound to furnish military
+service for the King, but only in this country. Beyond the bounds of
+England none such is due from her. Hence I think it would be wiser for
+me to foot it back to my native soil and till the wilderness in my
+wonted way, rather than bear a bishopric here, lose the ancient
+immunities of the Church entrusted to me, and subject her to
+unprecedented vexations." This answer the archbishop took very ill. His
+voice choked, his lips quivered. He took up the tale, however, without
+comment, and asked Herbert le Poor, Bishop of Salisbury, the very man
+who, as Archdeacon of Canterbury, had been snubbed for simony at Hugh's
+installation, and who might be expected to render a public nothing now
+for his then empty hand. But he had learnt something since that day, and
+he replied curtly that he could give no other answer than that of my
+lord of Lincoln, unless it were to the enormous prejudice of his Church.
+Then the archbishop blazed into fury. He loosed many a bitter shaft
+against Bishop Hugh. He broke up the assembly and told the king who it
+was had made the whole matter to miscarry. Two and even three postmen
+were sent off to lash the Lion into frenzy, and Richard ordered all that
+the bishop had to be confiscated as soon as possible. Herbert, the
+seconder, had the same sentence, and was soon Poor in estate as well as
+name, and only got peace and possession back after injuries, losses,
+vexings, and many insults. But no man laid a finger even upon the most
+trumpery temporal of the Bishop of Lincoln. His anathema meant death.
+For nine months Richard hounded his minions on, but they dared not bite.
+Instead they beseeched the bishop's pity for their unhappy position, and
+he resolved to seek the king and talk him over. He had no friend at
+Court to prepare his way. Fine old William Earl Marshall and the Earl of
+Albemarle tried to stop him or to make some way for him; but he did not
+allow them to sacrifice themselves, but sent word to the king that he
+was coming. Two things had happened since that December. Innocent III.
+had become Pope--the Augustus of the papal empire, and he was already
+acting most vigorously and unhesitatingly. Secondly, Hubert Walter had
+resigned, because the Pope took Lincoln views of bishops being judges,
+councillors, treasurers, and the like. These things made Hugh's chances
+more favourable. Richard's wrath, too, was a straw fire, and it had time
+to cool, and cooled quicklier because it had shocked his English
+subjects. Moreover, though highly abominable as he considered the
+Bishop's checkmate, he had got the cash after all by breaking the great
+seal and having a new one made, which necessitated a new sealing of all
+old parchments, and royal wax is dear to this day. It would, therefore,
+not be amiss to smooth those English who were smarting at the broken
+seal and broken faith. Hugh's chances, then, were not quite desperate,
+although he had been able to stop the mouth of the Lion for nine whole
+months by his intrepidity, fame, and the help of heaven. The rest of
+the story, which is given minutely, gives one a little window into the
+times hard to equal for its clearness.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{7} Plato's Aristocrat has a son, who is a great timocrat.
+
+{8} "South-east of the Great Bar Gate between that and the little Bar
+Gate in the north-west angle of the Great South Common."
+
+{9} Perhaps for both reasons chosen as the trysting-place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN TROUBLES--
+
+
+The king had before this time noticed a spot of immense military
+importance on the Seine between Rouen and Paris, the rock of Andelys.
+Indeed he had once tossed three Frenchmen from the rock. It was, or
+might be, the key to Normandy on the French side, and he feared lest
+Philip should seize upon it and use it against him. Consequently he
+pounced upon it, and began to fortify it at lavish expense. Archbishop
+Walter of Rouen, and late of Lincoln, in whose ecclesiastical patrimony
+it lay, was furious, and obtained an Interdict, and Philip was chafed
+too.{10} The former was appeased by the gift of Dieppe, and the latter
+left to digest his spleen as best he might. The work was just about
+finished in May when a shower of red rain fell, to the horror of all
+except the dauntless king, who "would have cursed an angel" who had told
+him to desist from this his great delight. Here it was that the king lay
+waiting for the truce with France to expire.
+
+The bishop arrived at the Rock castle in the morning of St. Augustine's
+day (Aug. 28th). The king was in the chapel hearing Mass, and thither
+the bishop followed him, and straightway saluted him. Now the king was
+in the royal daïs, near the outer door. Two bishops were standing just
+below him. (We must think of something like a small upstair college
+chapel for the theatre of this tale.) These two were old Hugh Pudsey,
+Bishop of Durham, and young Eustace, Bishop of Ely: the former a
+generous, loose-handed, loose-living old gentleman, the latter
+Longchamp's successor, a great scholar and revenue officer. Hugh looked
+past the shoulders of these two and saluted again. The king glared at
+him for a few seconds and then turned his face. The unabashed bishop put
+his face nearer: "Give me the kiss, lord king." The king turned his face
+further away, and drew his head back. Then the bishop clutched the
+king's clothes at the chest, vigorously shook them, and said again, "You
+owe me the kiss, for I have come a long way to you." The king, seemingly
+not astonished in the least, said, "You have not deserved my kiss." The
+strong hand shook him still harder, and across the cape which he still
+held taut, the bold suppliant answered confidently, "Oh yes, I have
+deserved it. Kiss me." The king, taken aback by this audacious
+importunity, smiled and kissed him. Two archbishops (Walter of Rouen
+most likely being one) and five other bishops were between the royal
+seat and the altar. They moved to make room for their uncourtly brother.
+But he passed through their ranks and went right up to the horn of the
+altar, fixed his looks firmly on the ground, and gave his whole
+attention to the celebration of the Divine mysteries. The king could
+hardly take his eyes off the bishop all through the service. So they
+continued until the threefold invocation of the Lamb of God that taketh
+away the sins of the world. Then the celebrant, the king's chaplain,
+gave the kiss of peace to a certain foreign archbishop, whose business
+it was, by court custom, to bring it to the king. Richard came from his
+place right up to the altar steps to meet him, received "the sign of the
+peace which we get from the sacrifice of the Heavenly Lamb," and then
+with humble reverence yielded the same to the Bishop of Lincoln by the
+kiss of his mouth. This respectful service, which the other archbishop
+was making ready to receive, as the custom was, and to pass on himself,
+was thus given direct to the holy man. The king stept quickly up to him,
+when Hugh was expecting nothing of the sort, but was wrapt in
+prayer.{11}
+
+When the Mass was over, Hugh went to the king and spoke a few strong
+words of remonstrance against his unjustifiable anger, and explained his
+own innocence. The king could answer nothing to the purpose, but said
+that the Archbishop had often written suspicious suggestions against
+him. The bishop soon showed that these were groundless, and added,
+"God's honour apart, and the salvation of your soul and mine, I have
+never opposed your interests even in the least degree." The king
+immediately asked him to come next day to the recently constructed
+castle of Château Gaillard, and ordered the bishop to be given a big
+Seine pike, knowing that he would not eat meat. But before they left the
+chapel Hugh gripped him by the hand and led him from his high seat to a
+place near the altar. There he set him down and sat beside him. "You are
+our parishioner, lord king" (he was born in Oxford), "and we must answer
+at the tremendous judgment of the Lord of all for your soul, which He
+redeemed with His own blood. So I wish you to tell me how stands it with
+your soul in its inner state? so that I may be able to give it some
+effectual counsel and help, as the Divine breathing shall direct. A
+whole year has gone by since I last spoke with you."
+
+The king answered that his conscience was clear, nearly in everything,
+except that he was troubled by hatred against the enemies whom he was
+apt to find doing him wrong, and wickedly attacking him. The reply was,
+"If in all things you please the grace of the Ruler of all, He will
+easily appease your enemies or give them into your hand. But you must
+beware with all your might, that you are not living against the laws of
+your Maker in any way (and God forbid you should) or even doing any
+wrong to your neighbours. The Scripture says that 'When a man's ways
+please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.' On
+the other hand it says of others, 'The world shall fight with him,
+against the unwise,' and again the holy man saith of the Lord, 'Who hath
+hardened himself against Him and hath prospered?'
+
+"Now there is a public report of you, and I grieve to say it, that you
+neither keep faithful to the marriage bed of your own wife, nor do you
+guard untouched the privileges of churches, especially in providing and
+choosing their rulers. Yes, it is said, and a huge piece of villainy it
+is, that moved by money or favour, you are used to promote some to the
+rule of souls. If this is true, then without any doubt, peace cannot be
+granted to you by God." When he had given this careful and timely
+admonition and instruction, the king excused himself on some points, on
+others asked earnestly for the bishop's intercession, and was sent off
+with a blessing. The bishop then went in gladness to his pike. Richard's
+opinion was that "if all the other bishops were like him, no king or
+prince would dare to rear his neck against them." Such salutary
+treatment now-a-days is the sole perquisite of the very poor. The higher
+up men get on the social scale, the less they need such honest dealing,
+it now appears.
+
+But Hugh was not quite out of the toils. The king's counsellors
+suggested that he should carry back letters to the barons demanding aid
+and succour, letters which it was known would be well weighted by the
+authority of the postman, and would ensure their bearer continuance of
+the royal favour. The king's servants informed the bishop of this move,
+and his clerkly friends pointed out the great advantage to himself of
+this service. He answered: "That be far from me. It jumps neither with
+my intention nor my office. It is not my part to become the carrier of
+letters royal. It is not my part to co-operate in the least degree in
+exactions of this sort. Do not you know that this mighty man begs as it
+were with a drawn sword? Particularly this power (of the Crown), under
+guise of asking, really forces. Our English first attract with their
+gentle greetings, and then they force men with harshest compulsion to
+pay not what is voluntary but just what they choose to exact. They often
+compel unwilling folk to do what they know was once done spontaneously,
+either by this generation or the last. I have no cause to be mixed up in
+such dealings. These may please an earthly king at one's neighbour's
+expense, but afterwards they move the indignation of Almighty God." He
+asked the counsellors to arrange that this burden should not be laid
+upon him with its consequent refusal, conflict, and disfavour. Richard
+heard the tale and sent a message, "God bless you, but get away home,
+and do not come here to-morrow as we said, but pray for us to the Lord
+without ceasing," which message was most grateful to the bishop, and he
+soon set his face north. His exultant chaplains felt sure that all would
+turn out well, for on the steps of the chapel, when their hearts were
+all pit-a-pat, they had heard the chorus prose of St. Austin being
+chaunted, "Hail, noble prelate of Christ, most lovely flower," a lucky
+omen! And again when they reached chapel doors they heard the bishops
+and clerks within in unison continue the introit, "O blessed, O holy
+Augustine, help thou this company."
+
+A month later Richard won a smart little victory near Gisors, where King
+Philip drank moat water, and nearly got knocked on the head. The king
+announced this in a letter, and asked for more prayers, and Adam, the
+biographer, felt that the heavenly triumph of his friend was complete.
+He would have been less elate if he had known that all the bishops got a
+similar letter, even wicked old Hugh de Pudsey.
+
+Lincoln by this time was the home of learned and reliable men. The
+canons, prebends, and placemen had been chosen with great care. Hugh had
+cast his net far and wide and enclosed some very edible fishes. We know
+of not a few. William of Leicester, Montanus, has already been
+mentioned. Giraldus Cambrensis (a most learned, amusing, and malicious
+writer, on the lines of Anthony A. Wood, or even of Horace Walpole) was
+another. Walter de Map a third.{12} It was part of Hugh's high sense of
+duty which made him fight with all his weight for a worthy though a
+broad-minded use of patronage. He often upbraided the archbishop with
+his careless use of this power, who was immersed in worldly business and
+too given to bestow benefices for political or useful services. He said
+himself that the most grievous worldly misfortune he ever suffered was
+to find men whom he trusted and advanced turn out to be immoral
+sluggards. Yet another of his promotions was that of William de Blois,
+who afterwards succeeded him. In fact, like every great bishop of the
+time, he gathered his _eruditi_, his scholars, around him, and these
+were not looked upon as mere dreamers and impracticable bookworms. Lore
+and action went hand in hand. The men of affairs and the men of
+learning, in this age, were interchangeable persons. Consequently when
+Richard's attention was directed to Lincoln and its bishop, when he
+noticed that it was a centre for sound and steady clerks whose wallets
+were by no means unstuffed, and when he reflected that he had failed to
+lay hands upon the bishop's money, he resolved to have something at any
+rate from this fine magazine. He wrote to the archbishop to order, by
+letter, twelve eminent clerks, who had prudence, counsel, and eloquence,
+to serve at their own expense in the Roman Court, in Germany, Spain, and
+elsewhere. The post from Canterbury duly arrived with twelve sealed
+"pair of letters," to be directed to eminent men, and with a special
+letter to order the bishop to hasten and obey. The bearer found the
+bishop at his Buckden House, and dinner was just on the board. There was
+much buzz and hum among those present when the tale was told, but Hugh
+made no reply. He simply sat down to table. The clergy, a pavid flock,
+chattered their fears between the mouthfuls. They hoped rather
+hopelessly, that the answer would be all sugary and smiling; at any rate
+that their master would try a little ogling of the archbishop, who
+could, if he would, make things ever so much better. While they were
+exchanging their views upon expediency and the great propriety of saving
+one's skin, the stout-hearted bishop rose from table. He had consulted
+none of these scared advisers, so that he might not throw the
+responsibility upon their shivering backs. He turned to the messenger
+and said, "These are novelties, and hitherto unheard of, both the
+things which my lord has ordered on the king's authority and on his own.
+Still he may know that I never was, nor will be, a letter carrier of his
+epistles; and I never have, nor will now, oblige our clergy to undertake
+royal service. I have often stopped even clerks of other parts,
+beneficed in our bishopric, from daring to make themselves beholden to
+secular patronage in public offices, such as forest diversion, and other
+like administrations. Some, who were less obedient on this point, we
+have even chastened by long sequestration of their livings. On what
+reasonable count, then, ought we to pluck men from the very vitals of
+our Church, and send them by order on the royal service? Let it be
+enough for our lord the king that (certainly a danger to their soul's
+salvation) the archbishops, neglecting the duty of their calling, are
+already utterly given over to the performance of his business. If that
+is not enough for him, then this bishop will come with his people. He
+will come, I say, and hear his orders from the king's own lips. He will
+come ready to carry out what is right next after those same orders.
+
+"But as for you, take the bundle of twelve letters which you say you
+have brought to us, and be off with them and make just what use you
+please of them. But every single word which I speak to you, be sure to
+repeat to our lord the archbishop: and do not fail to end with the
+message that if the arrangement holds that our clergy are to go to the
+king, I myself likewise will go with them. I have not gone before
+without them; and they will not go without me now. This is the right
+relation between a good shepherd and good sheep: he must not scatter
+them by foolishly letting them out of his ken. They must not get into
+trouble by rash escape from him."
+
+The letter carrier, a court cleric, was finely indignant. He was a man
+careful-chosen, haughty by nature, but still more haughty as royal
+envoy. He was bridling up for a volley of threats when the bishop cut
+him short, and ordered him off at the double. He slunk away abashed. A
+deputation, of weight, from Lincoln next waited upon the archbishop to
+expostulate with him for playing chuck taw with the immunity of the
+church, and franking with his authority such messages. He smiled
+graciously, after the manner of his kind, and hid his spleen. He meant
+no harm, of course: if harm there were, he was glad to be disobeyed, and
+he would make all quiet and right. Of course in reality he took care to
+twist the Lion's tail with both hands, and the next thing was a public
+edict, that all the goods of the bishop were to be taken care of by the
+king's collectors. The good man heard and remarked, "Did I not tell you
+truly of these men: their voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the
+hands of Esau?" It was easier to order than to execute. The anathema
+counted for much, but the public conscience no doubt for more. The
+officers balked and remonstrated. Richard insisted, but his tools bent
+in his hand. "Those English are scared at shadows," he said; "let us
+send Mercadier. He will know how to play with the Burgundian fellow."
+This amiable man was the captain of the Routiers, whose playful habits
+may be guessed from the fact that he is the gentleman who afterwards
+skinned Bertrand de Gourdon for shooting the king. One of the king's
+friends answered, "Mercadier is necessary, my lord the king, to your
+war. We should lose our pains and also his services if the Lincoln
+bishop's anathema should take effect." The king agreed that the risk was
+too heavy, so he ordered Stephen de Turnham to take charge of the
+bishop's goods, as he loved his life and limbs. This man had been
+seneschal of Anjou under the king's father, and was well affected to the
+bishop; but he was between the devil and the deep sea. With some
+heaviness and nervousness Stephen moved upon Sleaford. Between
+Peterborough and Market Deeping, whom should he fall in with but the
+bishop and his party! The uneasy disseizers fetched a compass, halted,
+and got hold of some of the clergy. They were as humble as Ahaziah's
+third captain before Elijah. They were obliged to do it, but, poor
+lambs, they would not hurt so much as a swan's feather. And would the
+bishop, by all that was invokeable, kindly defer his anathema? or else
+the king would be royally angry, and they would get more than they
+deserved. The bishop answered the clergy, "It is not their parts to keep
+our things whole. Let them go. Let them finger and break in upon the
+goods, as they think fit. They are not ours but our Lady's, the holy
+Mother of God." He then brought out the end of his linen stole from his
+cloak (which stole he always wore, ready for confirmation and
+excommunication) shook it and added, "This little bit of stuff will
+bring back to the last halfpenny whatever they reeve away." He then
+passed on to Buckden (near Huntingdon), where he issued orders to all
+the archdeacons and rural deans, that so soon as the officers should
+arrive they should clang bells, light candles and solemnly ban all who
+should violently and unrighteously touch the property of their Church.
+The flutter in the clerical dovecot was immense, but the bishop simply
+said good-night to his excited chaplains and was soon in the sweetest
+slumber. Except that he said Amen in his sleep a few more times than
+usual, and more earnestly, they saw no trace of neural tremours about
+his sedate carriage. He seems to have been well aware of the gravity of
+the struggle, for he had already announced at Lincoln that he would have
+to go abroad. He had gathered his children at the Mass, where he added
+the priestly blessing from the law of Moses,{13} had commended himself
+to their prayers, given them the kiss of peace and commended them to
+God, and was already on the way to the archbishop. He stayed a few days
+at Buckden. Thence he slowly made his way to London. On the road a rural
+dean consulted him upon the case of a girl with second sight and a
+terrific tongue. This damsel would prophetically discover things stolen
+or lost, and she had a large following. If any discreet and learned man
+tackled her she would talk him down, and put him to rout. She was
+brought to meet Hugh by the roadside, amid a crowd of confirmation
+candidates. He addressed her, chiding not so much the damsel as the
+demon within her, "Come now, unhappy girl, what can you divine for us?
+Tell me please, if you can, what this hand holds in it?" He held out his
+right hand closed over his stole end. She made no reply, but fell at
+his feet in a sort of faint. After a pause he bade them lift her up and
+asked through the dean (for he was ignorant of the country woman's talk)
+how she had learnt to divine? "I cannot divine. I implore the mercy of
+this holy bishop," she replied, and knelt at his feet. He laid his hands
+upon her head, prayed, blessed her, and sent her to the Prior of
+Huntingdon, the penitentiary priest of the district, to hear her
+confession. She not only gave up witchcraft, but ceased to be
+brazen-faced and a shrew: so that people bruited this matter as a
+miracle, and a handsome one it was. The bishop probably saved her from
+the vengeance of this rural dean, for witch-burning was not unknown even
+then, as Walter de Map witnesses. This was not the first essay of our
+bishop in witch-laying. When he was still Prior of Witham, Bartholomew,
+Bishop of Exeter, a learned and pious man, and one of St. Thomas'
+opposers, consulted him upon a sad case. Bishop Bartholomew was
+interested in spiritualism (which shews the same face in every century,
+and never adds much to its phenomena), as Matthew Paris recounts. A poor
+girl was the prey of a most violent and cruel Incubus, whom no fasts or
+austerities could divorce from her. Hugh suggested united prayer on her
+behalf, which was made, but not answered. A rival Incubus, however, came
+upon the scenes, of a softer mood, and wooed with mild speeches. He
+promised to deliver her, and pointed out the perforated St. John's wort
+as a herb odious to devils. This the artful woman put in her bosom and
+her house, and kept both suitors at bay.{14} The bishop was much struck
+with this story, as well he might be, and used often to tell it. A monk
+told him another similar tale from Essex; but enough of such fables.
+
+When he left Huntingdon the bishop went on to St. Albans, seemingly in a
+leisurely way, and as he drew near to this place, he met a crowd of
+provost's men dragging a condemned thief to the gallows. The poor
+creature's arms were braced behind his back. The word went round quickly
+that it was Hugh of Lincoln, and there was the usual rush to beg for his
+blessing, police craft and piety being wedded in those officers. The
+captive by some acrobatics managed to rush too, and came against the
+horse's neck, was knocked down, and in the dust cried for mercy. The
+bishop drew rein and asked who the man was and what he wanted. His
+attendants, who knew the language, answered him, "It is not your part,
+my lord, to ask more about the fellow. Indeed, you must let him just
+pass." They feared lest the bishop, already in deep water, should fall
+into still deeper by some chivalrous audacity. But he would know the
+tale and why the man cried him mercy: and when he knew it, he cried,
+"Lackaday! God be blessed!" and turning to the hangmen, he said, "Come
+back, my sons, with us to St. Albans. Hand the man over to us, and tell
+your masters and the judges that we have taken him from you. We will see
+that you take no harm." They did not dare to resist, but gave up their
+victim. He was quickly untied and given to the almoner. When they
+reached the abbey the clergy and attendant came to the bishop and begged
+him most earnestly to allow the civil magistrates to do their office.
+"Up till now, my lord, neither the king nor any other man who lay in
+wait for you, could bring a just or a just-seeming charge against you.
+But if when the legal judges have passed sentence and handed the case to
+the executive, you quash that sentence by your pontifical authority,
+your ill-wishers will call it a blow against the king's crown, and you
+will fall into the condemnation of flat treason." "I am assured of your
+kindness," he answered; "but let these judges come in to us and you
+shall hear what we have to say to each other." The judges were already
+tapping at the doors, for a word with the audacious bishop. "Gentlemen,
+you are wise enough to know that your holy Mother the Church has
+everywhere this prerogative: all who are falling into any danger of
+condemnation and fly to her, may get freedom, and be kept unhurt." This
+they well knew and believed to be quite right. "If you know this, you
+ought to know that where the bishop is, united to the faithful in
+Christ, there too is the church. He who is used by his ministry to
+dedicate the material stones of the church to the Lord; who also has the
+work of sanctifying the living stones, the real stuff of the church, by
+each of the Sacraments, to rear from them the Lord's temple, he by right
+must enjoy the privileges of ecclesiastical dignity, wherever he be, and
+succour all who are in danger, according to his legal order."
+
+The judges gratefully agreed, remembered that this was so expressed in
+ancient English law, but now obsolete, thanks to bishops' sloth or
+princes' tyranny. They summed up by this politeness, "My lord, we are
+your sons and parishioners. You are our father and pastor. So it will
+not be ours to run counter to your privilege or to dispute it: nor
+yours, by your leave, to bring us into any hazard. If you decide upon
+the man's release, we offer no opposition; but by your leave we trust
+you to see that we incur no danger from the king." "Well and rightly
+spoken," said he, "and on these terms I take him from your hands. For
+this infraction, I will make answer where I must." So the man escaped
+the gallows, and was set free again when they reached London.
+
+Two remarks are worth making here. First, that the right of sanctuary,
+both for accused and of guilty persons, were guaranteed by the old Laws
+Ecclesiastical of King Edward the Confessor, as collected by William the
+First in the fourth year of his reign, which laws were romantically dear
+to the English people. The stretch came in where the Church was
+interpreted to mean the bishop and faithful. Secondly, Saint Nicholas
+similarly rescued two men from the scaffold, but not at a moment so
+inopportune for himself. If the rescue had law behind it, and it might
+be so defended, it was a very awkward moment to choose to champion a
+hangdog. But this was the age of chivalry, and without such innate
+chivalry Hugh would never have cast the spell he did over King Richard's
+England.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{10} "I will take it, though it were built of iron," he said; to which
+Richard replied, "And I will defend it, though it were of butter."
+
+{11} There is no osculatory to be found in the records. This is a
+slightly later invention, and no one seems to kneel in this picture.
+
+{12} Whom some wish to acquit of writing that jovial drinking song,
+
+    "I intend to end my days,
+      In a tavern drinking."
+
+{13} "The Lord bless thee and keep thee," &c. Numbers, vi., 24.
+
+{14} If the reader disbelieves this story, let him read Bede upon Luke
+viii., 30, says the narrator.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+--AND DISPUTES
+
+
+When Hugh, under this new cloud, did at last reach London the archbishop
+had no counsel to give, except that he should shear his clergy rather
+tight and send their golden fleeces to appease the king. "Do not you
+know that the king thirsts for money as a dropsical man does for water,
+my lord bishop?" To this the answer was, "Yes. He is a dropsical man,
+but I will not be water for him to swallow." It was plain that the
+archbishop was no friend in need, and back they went towards Lincoln. At
+Cheshunt he found a poor, mad sailor triced up in a doorway by hands and
+feet. Hugh ran to him, made the holy sign, and then with outstretched
+right hand began the Gospel, low and quick, "In the beginning was the
+Word." The rabid patient cowered, like a frightened hound; but when the
+words "full of grace and truth" were reached, he put out his tongue
+derisively. Hugh, not to be beaten, consecrated holy water, sprinkled
+him, and bade folk put some in his mouth. Then he went on his way; and
+the mad man, no longer mad, sanely went on pilgrimage, men said, and
+made a fine end at the last. His own bishop, who had met him, had
+clapped spurs to his horse and bolted. It may be suspected that this
+bolting bishop was the newly elect of London, who was William de Santa
+Maria, an ex-Canon of Lincoln, Richard's secretary, Giraldus' opponent,
+better known than loved in his late Chapter.
+
+Matters being settled at Lincoln, he set out again for London and paused
+to ask the Barons of the Exchequer most kindly to see to the indemnities
+of his church while he was away. They rose to greet him and readily gave
+their promises. They prayed him to take a seat among them even for a
+moment. So pleased were they to have the archfoe of clerical secularism
+in this trap, that they called it a triumph indeed, to see the day when
+he sat on the Treasury bench. He jumped up, a little ashamed, kissed
+them all, and said, "Now I, too, can triumph over you if after taking
+the kiss you allow in anything less than friendly to my church." They
+laughingly said, "How wonderfully wise this man is! Why, he has easily
+laid it upon us, that whatever the king orders, we cannot without great
+disgrace trouble him at all." He blessed them all and was soon in
+Normandy. But Richard was following hot-foot the two half-brother
+Ademars, lords of Limoges and Angoulême, who had been playing into the
+hands of the French enemy. There was nothing to do but wait patiently,
+which he did at St. Nicholas' Monastery, Angers, from February to the
+beginning of March, 1199. Pope Innocent III.'s legates were also there,
+and they passed three weeks together. He conferred ordinations near
+here in the Abbey of Grandmont; refusing to ordain one of Walter Map's
+young friends, who afterwards became a leper. The king, it was reported,
+was full of huge threats and savage designs against his despisers, and
+if the clergy trembled before, they now shook like aspen leaves. The
+story of Hugh's predicament had got wind. The Hereford Canons wanted to
+choose the witty Walter Map to be bishop. He was already Archdeacon of
+Oxford, Canon of Lincoln, and Prebend of Hereford, but alas! he was also
+a friend of the disfavoured bishop. This fact is worth some emphasis, as
+it illustrates the large-mindedness of the saint. Walter was not only a
+vigorous pluralist, much stained by non-residence, but he was a
+whipster, whose lash was constantly flicking the monks, then in their
+decline. If any one considers his description of the Cistercians; of the
+desert life wherein they love their neighbour by expelling him; of their
+oppression whereby they glory not in Christ's Cross but in crucifying
+others; of their narrowness who call themselves Hebrews and all others
+Egyptians; of their sheep's clothing and inward ravening; of their
+reversals of Gospel maxims and their novelties; he will see that the
+lash for Cistercians must have fallen a good deal also upon Carthusian
+shoulders. Then Master Walter was towards being a favourer of Abelard
+and of his disciple Arnald of Brescia, whose ascetic mind was shocked at
+the fatal opulence of cardinals. Altogether Walter was a man who feared
+God, no doubt, but hardly showed it in the large jests which he made,
+which to our ears often sound rather too large. But Hugh recognised in
+the satirist a power for righteousness, and certainly loved and favoured
+him. Consequently the Hereford Canons with those of Angers and of the
+Lincoln Chapter laid their heads together to compose the strife between
+king and bishop: and the readiest way was of course for the latter to
+compound with a round sum and get off home.
+
+The wars made the whole country dangerous for travelling, and it was
+neither safe to stay at home nor to move afield. But Job was not more
+persistent against his three friends than Hugh against the three
+unanimous Chapters, and his main argument was that the peace of the
+church must never be bought with money or this would endow its
+disturbers. His wisdom was well evidenced by events in the next reign.
+With this advice he urged them to sleep over the matter and discuss it
+next day. But the struggle to avoid compromising principles in order not
+only to serve the hour, but to save the love and, perhaps, the lives of
+friends was a very severe strain to him. When they had gone out he was
+dismally cast down and acknowledged that he had rarely compressed so
+much grief into so little space. Then he sat in silence, thought, and
+prayer that the tangle might be so unknotted, that God not be offended
+nor his own friends and sons slighted and alienated. Upon this he slept
+and dreamed sweet dreams of lovely sights and heard the roll of the
+Psalm of Divine Battle chaunted by heavenly voices, "O God, wonderful
+art Thou in Thy holy places, even the God of Israel; He will give
+strength and power unto His people; blessed be God."{15} He woke up
+refreshed, and at his weekly Saturday Confession deeply blamed himself
+for some hesitation he had felt, when baleful advice was given him.
+
+A little after this the Abbess of Fontevrault came to see him. The
+King's mother Eleanor, her guest, had been sent for in a hurry. The king
+had been hurt. A serf of Achard of Châlus had ploughed up a golden
+relic, an emperor with his family seated round a golden table. Ademar of
+Limoges had seized it. Richard demanded the whole and was after it sword
+in hand. The holders were in Castle Châlus, short of weapons but not of
+valour, and held out gallantly armed with frying-pans and whatnot. The
+place was undermined. Richard, without his hauberk, was directing the
+crash, when a man pulled an arrow from the mortar; aimed it and hit him
+on the neck and side. He went to his tent, and plucked at it, broke it
+off; was operated upon; would not keep quiet. The wound turned angry and
+then black, and the Lion lay dying. He made his will, a generous and
+charitable one, confessed his sins, was houselled and anhealed, and died
+on Passion Tuesday, April 6th. His brain and bowels were buried at
+Charroux, his heart at Rouen, and his body at his father's feet, in
+penitence, in the nunnery of Fontevrault. Hugh was on his way to the
+Cathedral at Angers to take duty the next day, Palm Sunday, when Gilbert
+de Lacy, a clerk, rode up to him and told him of the king's death and of
+the funeral next day in Fontevrault. Hugh groaned deeply and announced
+at Angers that he should set out at once for that place. Every one
+begged and prayed that he would do no such thing. The mere rumour of the
+king's death had as usual let loose all the forces of disorder. Robbery,
+violence, and general anarchy were up. His own servants had been held up
+and robbed of forty silver marks, and the interregnum was more dreadful
+than any tyranny. What is the use of such charitable designs if you
+merely get left in the wilds by robbers, bare of carriage and clothes?
+they asked. His answer was worthy of a man who lived in holy fear and no
+other. "_We_ are all well aware what things can happen--fearful to the
+fearful--on this journey. But I think it a thing much more fearful that
+I should be coward enough to fail my late lord and king, by being away
+at such a crisis, by witholding my faith and grace from him in death,
+which I always showed him warmly in his life. What of the trouble he
+gave us, by giving in too much to the evil advice of those who flattered
+him? Certainly when I was with him, he never treated me but most
+honourably, never dismissed me unheard, when I made him some remarks
+face to face upon my business. If he wronged me when I was away, I have
+put it down to the spite of my detractors, not to his wickedness or
+malice. I will, therefore, pay him back to my power the honours he so
+often bestowed upon me. It will not be my fault if I do not help warmly
+at his obsequies. Say robbers do meet me on the road, say they do take
+the horses and carry off the robes, my feet will travel all the fleeter,
+because they are lightened from the vestment baggage. If they really
+tie my feet and rob me of the power of moving, then and then only will
+be a real excuse for being absent in the body, for it will be caused not
+by vice but by outside obstacles." He left his friends in the city and
+almost all his stuff, took one minor clerk, one monk, and a tiny train
+and set out. On the way he heard that the poor Queen Berengaria was at
+Castle Beaufort, so he left the doubtful highway for a dangerous forest
+track to visit her. He soothed her almost crazy grief, bid her bear
+grief bravely and face better days cautiously, said Mass for her,
+blessed her and her train, and went back at once. He got to Saumur the
+same day, where he was greeted with a sort of ovation by the townsfolk
+and was entertained by Gilbert de Lacy, who was studying there. Next
+day, Palm Sunday, he sped on to Fontevrault and met the bearers just at
+the doors. He paid all the royal honours he could to his late Master and
+was entertained at the Monastery. For three days he ceased not to say
+Mass and the Psalms for the kings lying there, as for all the faithful
+who lay quiet in Christ, prayed for their pardon and the bliss of
+everlasting light. A beautiful picture this of the brave old bishop in
+the Norman Abbey Church, where two kings, his friend and his forgiven
+foe, lay "shrouded among the shrouded women" in that Holy Week of long
+ago!
+
+This compassion was not only a matter of honour, but of faith. It was
+one of the principles of his life and conduct that hereby was set forth
+the love of God, and applied to the needs of man. He used often to say
+that countless other things manifested the boundless love of God to
+men, but of those we know, these surpass the greatness of all the rest,
+which He ceases not to bestow before man's rise and after his setting.
+"To touch lightly a few of these in the case of men who rise and set:
+God the Son of God gave for each man before he was born the ransom of
+His own death. God the Father sent His own same Son into the world to
+die for the man: God the Holy Ghost poured Himself out an earnest for
+him. So together the whole Trinity, one God, together set up the
+Sacraments by which he is born, cleansed, defended, and strengthened,
+gave the props of His own law to rule and teach him, and generously made
+provision for his good by other mysterious means. When man's fitful life
+is past and its course cut off by death, when his once dearest look on
+him now with aversion, when parents and children cast him forth with
+anxious haste from the halls once his, God's most gracious kindness
+scorns not what all others despise. Then straightway He ordains not only
+angelic spirits to the ward of the soul at its return to its Maker, but
+He sends for the burial service those who are first and foremost of His
+earthly servants, to wit the priests and others in the sacred orders.
+And this is His command to them: 'Behold,' He says, 'My priests and
+caretakers of My palaces in the world, behold My handiwork. I have
+always loved it. I spared not My only Son for it but made Him share in
+its mortality and its death. Behold, I say, that is now become a burden
+to its former lovers and friends. They crowd to cast it out and drive it
+forth. Away, then, speed and help My refugee: take up the Image of My
+Son, crucified for it: take instruments for incense and wax. Ring out
+the signals of My Church for a solemn assembly; raise high your hymnal
+voices, open the doors of My house and its inner shrines: place near to
+the altar, which holds the Body of My Son, what is left of that brother
+or sister; finally, cover him a bier with costly palls, for at last he
+triumphs: crowd it with lamps and candles, circle round him, overthrown
+as he is, with helping crowds of servants. Do more. Repeat the votive
+offering of My Son. Make the richest feast, and thus the panting spirit,
+restless and weary with the jars of the wonted mortality it has just
+laid by, may breathe to strength: and the flesh, empty for the while of
+its old tenant, and now to be nursed in the lap of the Mother Earth, may
+be bedewed with a most gracious holiness, so that at the last day when
+it is sweetly reunited to its well-known companion, it may gladly flower
+anew and put on with joy the everlasting freshness." This was no sudden
+seizure and passing emotion at the romance of funerals. He issued a
+general order in his diocese forbidding parish priests to bury the
+bodies of grown persons, if he were by to do it. If it were a case of
+good life, the more need to honour; if of an evil life, such would all
+the more yearn for greater succour. So he went to all, and if they were
+poor he ordered his almoner to find the lights and other requirements.
+Any funeral would bring him straight from his horse to pray at the bier.
+If he had no proper book wherein he might read without halting (and his
+eyes waxed dim at the last) he would stand near the officiant, chaunt
+the psalms with him, say the amens, and be clerk, almost a laic. If he
+had the right book, he would be priest, say the prayers, use the holy
+water, swing the censer, cast on the mould, then give shrift and benison
+and go on his way. If the place were a large city and many bodies came
+for burial he did just the same until all were finished. Potentates
+expecting to eat bread with him were often vexed and complained at these
+delays; but, host or guest, he had more appetite for holy than for
+social functions. King Richard at Rouen, like his father before him,
+with all the Court and the Royal Family, when they invited Hugh to
+table, had to keep fasting while Hugh performed these higher duties
+without clipping or diminishing the office. When the king's servants
+chafed, and would have spurred him on, he would say, "No need to wait
+for us. Let him eat in the Lord's name;" and to his friends, "It is
+better for the king to eat without us, than for our humility to pass the
+Eternal King's order unfulfilled." Near Argentan, in Normandy, he once
+found a new grave by the roadside and learnt that a beggar-boy lay
+there. The priest had let him lie there, because there was no fee and no
+one would carry him to the church-yard. Hugh was deeply grieved, said
+the office himself, and rattled that priest pretty smartly to his bishop
+for denying Christian burial to the penniless and needy.
+
+Once while the cathedral works were being carried on, a mason engaged on
+the fabric asked him for pontifical shrift for a brother who had just
+died. It was winter, and the feast of St. Stephen. Hugh promptly gave
+the absolution, and then asked if the body were yet buried. When he
+learnt that it was only being watched in a somewhat distant church, he
+ordered three horses instantly, one for himself, one for his outrider,
+and one for his chaplain; but as only two were to be had he sent the
+chaplain on ahead, himself followed with a monk and a couple of servers,
+and devoutly buried not only the mason's brother, but five other bodies.
+Another time, when the Archdeacon of Bedford gave a large and solemn
+feast to the dignified clergy--who, by the way, seldom shine in these
+narratives--the bishop so wearied them by his funereal delays that they
+explained their impatience to him not without some tartness of reproof.
+His only reply was, "Why do you not recall the voice of the Lord, who
+said with His holy lips, My meat is to do the will of My Father in
+heaven?" Another time, again, one hot spring when there was a general
+meeting of magnates, he heard that one of the prelates was dead.{16} The
+man was an outrageous guzzler and toper, but Hugh prayed earnestly for
+him, and then asked where he was to be buried. The now unromantic spot
+of Bermondsey was to be the burying ground, and the funeral was on the
+very day and hour of the Westminster gathering, in which matters deeply
+interesting to Lincoln were to be handled. No one of the bishops or
+abbots would stir out for their detected dead fellow, but "to desert him
+in his last need" was impossible to his saintlier brother. He must be
+off to bury the man, council or no council. The body had been clad in an
+alb and chasuble. Its face was bare and black, and the gross frame was
+bursting from its clothes. Every one else had a gum, an essence or
+incense; but Hugh, who was peculiarly sensitive to malodours, showed
+nothing but tenderness for the corrupt mortality, and seemed to cherish
+it as a mother a babe. The "sweet smelling sacrifice" shielded him in
+his work of mercy, they said.
+
+William of Newburgh, a writer much given to ghost stories, tells a
+Buckingham tale of a certain dead man who would walk. He fell violently
+upon his wife first, and then upon his brothers, and the neighbours had
+to watch to fend him off. At last he took to walking even in the day,
+"terrible to all, but visible only to a few." The clergy were called;
+the archdeacon took the chair. It was a clear case of Vampire. The man
+must be dug up, cut to bits, and burnt. But the bishop was very
+particular about the dead, and when they asked his leave he was
+indignant at the proposal. He wrote instead a letter with his own hand,
+which absolved the unquiet spirit. This was laid upon the dead man's
+breast, and thenceforward he rested in peace, as did his alarmed
+neighbours. Whatever we think of the tale, the tender reverent spirit of
+the bishop is still a wonder. Although greatly given to an enthusiasm
+for the saints, a puzzling enthusiasm for their teeth, nails, plaisters,
+and bandages, Hugh was looked upon as an enemy to superstition, and was
+an eager suppressor of the worship of wells and springs, which still
+show how hard the Pagan religion dies. He found and demolished this
+"culture" at Wycombe and Bercamstead.{17}
+
+The great theological question of Hugh's time was certainly the
+Eucharistic one. Eucharistic doctrine grew, as the power of the Church
+grew; as the one took a bolder tone so did the other. The word
+Transubstantiation (an ambiguous term to the disputants who do not
+define substance) had been invented by Peter of Blois, but not yet
+enjoined upon the Church by the Lateran Council of 1215. The language of
+the earlier fathers, of St. Bernard, did not suffice. Peter Lombard's
+tentative terms had given way to less reserved speech. Thomas Aquinas,
+not yet born, was to unite the rival factions which forked now into
+Berengarius, who objected to the very terms Body of Christ, &c., always
+used for the Sacrament; and now into some crude cannibal theories, which
+found support in ugly miracles of clotted chalices and bleeding fingers
+in patens. Abelard had tried to hush the controversy by a little
+judicious scepticism, but the air was full of debate. If learned men
+ignored the disputes the unlearned would not. Fanatical monks on the one
+side and fanatical Albigenses on the other, decried or over-cried the
+greatest mysteries of the faith, and brawled over the hidden manna.
+Hugh's old Witham monk Ainard had once preached a crusade against the
+blasphemers of the Sacraments, and is mentioned with honour for this
+very thing by Hugh's intimate and biographer. The saint's conspicuous
+devotion at the Mass, the care with which he celebrated and received, of
+themselves would point to a peculiarly strong belief in the Invisible
+Presence. Christians are, and have always been, lineally bound to
+believe in the supreme necessity of the Lord's Marriage Supper to the
+soul's health and obedience. They are bound to use the old language,
+"This is My Body." In earlier days, when Church thinkers were all
+Platonists, or at least Realists, the verity of the Sacrament was the
+Idea behind it. The concrete veils of that Idea were hallowed only by
+their use, association, and impact. But when after the crusades
+Aristotle was no longer the Bishop of Arians, but now the supreme
+philosopher, the language hitherto natural to piety had either to be
+changed or infused by violence with new senses, or both. The latter half
+of the twelfth century saw this unhappy deadlock between history and
+reason, and made strenuous efforts to compose the strife. So far as we
+may judge, upon a difficult question, where little must be written and
+much would be required to express an exact opinion, Hugh seems to have
+held that by mystic sanctification the host is turned into Christ's
+Body; that this conversion is not a sudden but a gradual one, until the
+Son offers Himself anew, and hence the Sacrifice may be said to be
+repeated. The story which illustrates this position best is that of the
+young clerk who came to him at Buckden. The bishop had just been
+dedicating a large and beautiful chalice and upbraiding the
+heavily-endowed dignitaries for doing nothing at all for the poorly
+served churches from which they drew their stipends. Then he said Mass,
+and the clerk saw Christ in his hands, first as a little child at the
+Oblation, when "the custom is to raise the host aloft and bless it"; and
+again when it is "raised to be broken and consumed in three pieces," "as
+the Son of the Highest offering Himself to the Father for man's
+salvation." The clerk tells him of the double vision--the voucher of a
+message sent by his late crusading father, who warned him to tell the
+archbishop, through the Bishop of Lincoln, that the evil state of the
+church must be amended. The message and the messenger seem to answer
+exactly to the monk of Evesham, whose Dantesque revelations{18} are here
+almost quoted. The wrath of God was incurred by the unchaste living
+priests, who so behaved that the Sacraments were polluted, and by the
+manner in which archdeacons and others trafficked in bribes. Hugh heard
+the story at the altar, wept, dried the eyes of both, kissed the young
+man and brought him into the meal afterwards, and urged him to become a
+monk. This he did, and became the Monk of Evesham aforesaid. There is no
+necessary advance in Eucharistic doctrine in this story, for a similar
+vision was given to King Edward the Confessor, and Hugh was so reticent
+about such things that his chaplain Adam never dared to ask him,
+although he dreamed that he asked him and was snubbed for his pains.
+"Although then, when you say, and more often, the Lord deigned to reveal
+this and other things to me, what do you want in the matter?" In his
+last journey to Jouay,{19} an old, feeble and withered priest, who would
+not dine with him as the parish priest was wont, came to ask him to see
+a wonder and to beg for his prayers. His story was that he, being in
+mortal sin, blind and weak in faith and practices, was saying Mass, and
+doubting whether so dirty a sinner could really handle so white and
+stainless a glory. When the fraction took place, blood dripped from the
+host and it grew into flesh. He dropped the new thing into the chalice,
+covered it up, dismissed the people, and got papal absolution, and now
+would fain show the wonder. The lesser men were agape for the sight, but
+Hugh answered, "In the Lord's name let them keep the signs of their
+infidelity to themselves. What are they to us? Are we to be astonished
+at the partial shows of the Divine gift, who daily behold this heavenly
+sacrifice whole and entire with most faithful gaze of mind? Let him, who
+beholds not with the inner sight of faith the whole, go and behold the
+man's little scraps with his carnal vision." He then blessed the priest
+and dismissed him, and rebuked his followers for curiosity, and gave
+them a clear Eucharistic lesson not repeated for us, upon what faith
+lays down in the matter. From his speech then and elsewhere the good
+Adam gathered that Hugh often saw what others only believed to be there,
+the "bared face of the inner Man."
+
+These stories seem to dissociate Hugh from the grosser forms of
+Eucharistic teaching, and open the way for an explanation of his
+behaviour at Féchamp, which is otherwise almost inexplicable. We may
+take it that he held a belief in a living Presence, which teeth could
+not bruise nor change decay. The language he uses is not consistent with
+later English teaching which shrinks from talking about a repeated
+sacrifice. It is also inconsistent with later Roman devotion, because he
+seems to dislike the notion of a conditioned or corporal Presence, and
+anyhow to shrink from the definite statements to which the Roman Church
+has since committed herself. He certainly did not fix the Coming of the
+Bridegroom at the Consecration Prayer, _a fortiori_ to any one
+particular word of it.
+
+Far less conjectural is the splendid stand which he made for chastity
+of life, at a time when the standard in such matters was lax both in the
+world and also in the church. It came as a surprise to his
+contemporaries that he should disapprove of the romantic ties between
+King Henry and fair Rosamond. That lady was buried at Godstowe by her
+royal lover, who draped her tomb, near the high altar, with silk, lamps,
+and lighted candles, making her the new founder, and for her sake
+raising the house from poverty and meanness to wealth and nobleness of
+building. While Hugh was earnestly praying at the altar (in 1191) he
+espied this splendid sepulchre. He asked whose it was, and when he
+learned said sternly, "Take her hence, for she was a whore. The love
+between the king and her was unlawful and adulterous. Bury her with the
+other dead outside the church, lest the Christian religion grow
+contemptible. Thus other women by her example may be warned and keep
+themselves from lawless and adulterous beds." So far from being harsh,
+this decision to allow of no royal exceptions to the ten commandments
+was probably the kindest, strongest, and most wide-reaching protest that
+could be made against an unhappy and probably growing evil. This is of a
+piece with many other passages in his life, but hardly worth dwelling
+upon because the lawless loves, which in that day were too lightly
+regarded, in this day have usurped the sole title of immorality to
+themselves, as if there were not six other deadly sins besides. The best
+justification of the sentence is just this surprise with which it was
+received.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{15} lxviii. 35. A psalm full of associations of battles long ago: sung
+against Julian the Apostate, used by Charlemagne, Anthony, Dunstan, and
+many more.
+
+{16} Simon of Pershore, if in 1198: and Robert of Caen, if in 1196, but
+less likely.
+
+{17} The Wycombe Well is probably the Round Basin, near the Roman Villa,
+but the other I am unable to hear news of.
+
+{18} Published by Arber. See chap. xxxvi.
+
+{19} Joi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HUGH THE BUILDER
+
+
+The strong personality of the man, his boldness and sagacity combined,
+come out in his building as clearly as in his conduct; but since the
+learned are very litigious upon the questions of his architecture, the
+reader must have indulgence in his heart and a salt cellar in his hand,
+when he approaches this subject.
+
+First of all we must remember that in his age it was part of the
+education of a gentleman to know something about building. Hugh's
+grandfather must have built the old keep of Avalon Castle, which still
+stands above the modern château, and a family whose arms are, on a field
+or the eagle of the empire sable, were builders, both of necessity and
+of choice. When every baron, or at least every baron's father, had built
+himself a castle, planned and executed under his own eye; when King
+Richard in person could plan and superintend the building of his great
+Castle Saucy, the Château Gaillard, it is not wonderful that Hugh also
+should be ready and willing to do much in stone and mortar. Then, again,
+he must have had some architectural training at the Grande Chartreuse.
+The first buildings of wood were overthrown in 1126 by an avalanche, and
+Guigo, the fifth prior, had refounded the whole buildings after that
+date. The upper church, since then a chapter house, was built in
+Romanesque style, with round arches, two rose windows, and three
+sanctuary windows with wide splays. In 1150 Humbert, Count of Savoy,
+founded a beautiful chapel and a guest house for visitors; and even
+later than this there is a good deal of building going on at the lower
+house, farm buildings, guest house, and possibly even a church during
+the very time that Hugh was monk and procurator. Even if he took no
+personal part in any of these last works, he must have known and heard
+much of the art from men, who had done or were doing it. But it would
+not be rash to conclude that he had an apprenticeship in building before
+he set foot on English soil, and as well by education as by inheritance
+knew something of this work.
+
+Next we must bear in mind that every stone would, if possible, have a
+mystic signification. For some reason or other this notion makes the
+modern man impatient; but this impatience does not alter the facts, but
+only obscures their explanation. Everybody knows that the three eastern
+lights mean, as they did to St. Barbara, the blessed Trinity; but few
+people recognize that all numbers, whether in beams, pillars, sides,
+arches, or decoration had a well recognised symbolism, which had come
+down, hall-marked by St. Augustine and St. Bernard, to the building and
+worshipping generations of those and much later days.
+
+What was done at Witham we cannot now fully tell, for everything has
+perished of the upper house. The monks' church would be of stone, and
+probably was very like the present Friary Church. The cells certainly
+would be of wood in the second stage, for they were of "weeps," as we
+have seen, in the first. This part of the Charterhouse we have concluded
+stood in a field now called "Buildings," but now so-called without
+visible reason.
+
+Round the present Friary Church there were the houses of the original
+inhabitants, a little removed from their foreign intruders; not quite a
+mile away, as at Hinton, where the two houses are thus divided, but yet
+something near three quarters of that distance.
+
+When the inhabitants were removed to Knap in North Curry and elsewhere,
+they took their old rafters with them or sold these. Their walls seem to
+have been of mud and wattle, or of some unsaleable stuff, and these, no
+doubt, served for a time for the lay brethren, after a little trimming
+and thatching. But their church had to be looked to before it could
+serve for the worship of the _conversi_. The old inhabitants (near two
+hundred, Mr. Buckle thinks, rather generously), were still there up to
+Hugh's time, and if their church was like their houses the wooden roof
+was much decayed and the walls none of the best. Hugh resolved upon a
+stone vault of the Burgundian type, followed at the Grande Chartreuse,
+and he therefore had to thicken the walls by an extra case. The building
+was next divided into three parts, with doors from the north and west,
+so that men might seek refuge in the Holy Trinity from the dark of the
+world and its setting suns. The stone roof is supported upon small
+semi-octagonal vaulting shafts, ending in truncated corbels. This
+fondness for the number eight, which reappears markedly at Lincoln, has
+to do with St. Augustine's explanations that eight (the number next to
+seven, the number of creation and rest) signifies the consummation of
+all things and Doomsday. Four is the number of the outer world, with its
+seasons and quarters; three of the soul of man, the reflection of God;
+and eight, therefore, which comes after the union of these, is judgment
+and eternal life. Hugh was, no doubt, his own architect (if such a word
+is not an anachronism here), but he employed Somerset builders, who left
+the mark of English custom upon this otherwise peculiar and continental
+looking building. The leper window has been noticed above. The only
+other building at Witham which pretends to bear traces of Hugh's hand is
+the guest house, and this, as we have seen, may be at bottom the very
+house where Hugh hob-a-nobbed with King Henry.
+
+The same style, the same severity, the same sacramental feeling no doubt
+marked the Conventual Church, and it is sad to think what great and
+pathetic memories perished with its destruction. If only the pigstyes
+and barns built out of these old stones could have been the richer for
+what was lost in the transit, they would have been the richest of their
+kind. For Hugh turned to this his first great work in the house of
+Martha with a peculiar relish, which was that of a lover more than of a
+man who had merely heaped up stones against the wind. If Lincoln was
+his Leah, Witham was his dear Rachael. Hither he was translated, like
+Enoch or Elijah, from a vexing world for a time every year. The two
+parts of the Charterhouse were the embodiments of "justice and
+innocence." Here was "the vine of the Lord of Hosts." His cell was kept
+for him, and while all the world was hotly harvesting he was laying up
+here his spiritual stores. Here his face seemed to burn with the horned
+light of Moses, when he appeared in public. His words were like fire and
+wine and honey, but poised with discretion. Yet he never became a
+fanatical monk, nor like Baldwin, whom the Pope addressed as "most
+fervent monk, clever abbot, lukewarm bishop, and slack archbishop." He
+warned his monastic brethren here that the great question at doom is
+not, Were you monk or hermit? but Did you show yourself truly Christian?
+The name is useless, or positively baleful, unless a man has the
+threefold mark--_caritas in corde; veritas in ore; castitas in
+corpore_--of love in the heart, truth on the lips, pureness in the body.
+Here he told them that chaste wedlock was as pure as continence and
+virginity, and would be blessed as high. He lived as he taught always,
+but here he seemed beyond himself. His buildings at Witham, enumerated
+in the Great Life, and not even planned before his time, are the major
+and minor churches, the cells for monks, the cloisters, the brothers'
+little houses, and the guest chambers. The lay kitchen was a poor
+building of brushwood and thatch, six or seven paces from the guest
+house, the blaze of which, when it caught fire, could be seen from the
+glass windows of the west end of the lay church. The wooden cells of
+the brothers lay round this in a ring. The guest house roof was of
+shingles. This kitchen fire took place at the last visit of the bishop
+while he was at the "night lauds." He gave over the office when it broke
+out, signed the cross several times, and prayed before the altar, while
+the young men fought the flame. He had already often ordered a stone
+kitchen to be built in its place, and so no real harm was done, for the
+fire did not spread. The only question which arises is whether the
+present guest house is far enough west to square with this story. No
+mention is made of the fish ponds, but they are likely enough to have
+been prepared in his time, for the rule, which never allowed meat, did
+allow fish on festivals. Hugh had no notion of starving other people,
+but used to make them "eat well and drink well to serve God well." He
+condemned an asceticism run mad, and called it vanity and superstition
+for people to eschew flesh when they had no such commandment, and
+substitute for it foreign vegetables, condiments for fat, and expensive
+fishes. He liked dry bread himself, and the drier the tastier, but he
+did all he could to spare others. Consequently, we may credit him with
+the fish ponds.
+
+His work at Lincoln was on a much larger scale and happily much of it is
+still there, a goodly material for wonder, praise and squabbling. It was
+imposed upon him, for he found the Norman building more or less in
+ruins. This building consisted of a long nave, with a west front, now
+standing; and a choir, which ended something east of the present
+faldstool in a bow. At the east end of the nave was a tower, and to the
+north and south of this tower were two short transepts, or porches. The
+tower was either not very high or else was shortened, and perhaps
+recapped to make it safe after the earthquake, for the comparatively
+small damage which it did when it fell upon the choir proves that it
+could not have been very massive. It fell in Grossetestes' time and its
+details with it.
+
+The first requisite for building is money: and money, as we have seen,
+was very hard to obtain in England just at this juncture. Three means by
+which Hugh raised it are known to us. The austere ideals of the
+Carthusian bishop, his plain vestments, his cheap ring, his simple
+clothes set free a good deal of the money of the see for this purpose.
+Then he issued a pastoral summons to the multitude of her sons to appear
+at least once a year at the mother church of Lincoln with proper
+offerings according to their power; especially rural deans, parsons, and
+priests through the diocese were to gather together at Pentecost and
+give alms for the remission of their sins and in token of obedience and
+recollection of their Lincoln mother. This, combined with a notice of
+detention of prebend for all non-resident and non-represented canons,
+must have brought the faithful up in goodly numbers to their
+ecclesiastical centre. If they were once there, the cracked and
+shored-up building and the bishop's zeal and personal influence might be
+entrusted to loose their purse strings, especially as he led the way,
+both by donation and personal work, for he carried the hod and did not
+disdain to bring mortar and stones up the ladder like any mason's
+'prentice. Then, thirdly, he established or used a Guild of St. Mary, a
+confraternity which paid for, and probably worked at, the glorious task.
+Its local habitation was possibly that now called John of Gaunt's
+stables,{20} but anyhow it stood good for a thousand marks a year. A
+mark is thirteen and fourpence; and six hundred and sixty six pounds
+odd, in days when an ox cost three shillings and a sheep fourpence was a
+handsome sum. It could not have been far short of £10,000 of our money.
+
+It is evident from records and architecture alike that the building had
+to be begun from the very roots and foundations. In examining it we had
+better begin with the chroniclers. The Great Life is curiously silent
+about this work, and if we had no other records we should almost
+consider that the work was done under, rather than by, the bishop. He
+went to Lincoln "about to build on this mountain, like a magnificent and
+peaceful Solomon, a most glorious temple," says his laconic friend Adam.
+"Also fifteen days before he died Geoffrey de Noiers (or Nowers) the
+constructor or builder of the noble fabric, came to see him. The
+erection of this fabric was begun from the foundations, in the renewal
+of the Lincoln church, by the magnificent love of Hugh to the beauty of
+God's house." The dying bishop thus spoke to him: "In that we have had
+word that the lord king with the bishops and leading men of this whole
+kingdom are shortly about to meet for a general assembly, hasten and
+finish all that is needful for the beauty and adornment about the altar
+of my lord and patron saint, John Baptist, for we wish this to be
+dedicated by our brother, the Bishop of Rochester, when he arrives there
+with the other bishops. Yea, and we ourselves, at the time of the
+aforesaid assembly, shall be present there too. We used to desire
+greatly to consecrate that by our ministry; but since God has disposed
+otherwise, we wish that it be consecrated before we come thither on a
+future occasion." This is all that Adam has to tell us. Giraldus
+Cambrensis says, "Item, he restored the chevet of his own church with
+Parian stones and marble columns in wonderful workmanship, and reared
+the whole anew from the foundation with most costly work. Similarly,
+too, he began to construct the remarkable bishop's houses, and, by God's
+help, proposed, in certain hope, to finish them far larger and nobler
+than the former ones." Then again he says, "Item, he took pains to erect
+in choiceness, the Lincoln church of the blessed Virgin, which was built
+remarkably by a holy man, the first bishop of the same place, to wit the
+blessed Remigius, according to the style of that time. To make the
+fabric conformed to the far finer workmanship and very much daintier and
+cleverer polish of modern novelty, he erected it of Parian stones and
+marble columns, grouped alternately and harmoniously, and which set off
+one another with varying pictures of white and black, but yet with
+natural colour change. The work, now to be seen, is unique." The Legenda
+says that Hugh carried stones and cement in a box for the fabric of the
+mother Church, which he reared nobly from the foundations. Other
+chroniclers say just the same, and one adds that he "began a remarkable
+episcopal hall" as well. But far the most important account we have is
+that of the metrical life--written between 1220 and 1235. This gives us
+some of the keys to the intense symbolism of all the designs. Since a
+proper translation would require verse, it may be baldly Englished in
+pedagogic _patois_, as follows: "The prudent religion and the religious
+prudence of the pontiff makes a bridge (_pons_) to Paradise, toiling to
+build Sion in guilelessness, not in bloods. And with wondrous art, he
+built the work of the cathedral church; in building which, he gives not
+only his wealth and the labour of his people, but the help of his own
+sweat; and often he carries in a pannier the carved stones and the
+sticky lime. The weakness of a cripple, propped on two sticks, obtains
+the use of that pannier, believing an omen to be in it: and in turn
+disdains the help of the two sticks. The diet, which is wont to bow the
+straight, makes straight the bowed. O remarkable shepherd of the flock,
+and assuredly no hireling! as the novel construction of the Church
+explains. For Mother Sion lay cast down, and straitened, wandering,
+ignorant, sick, old, bitter, poor, homely and base: Hugh raises her when
+cast down, enlarges her straitened, guides her wandering, teaches her
+ignorant, heals her sick, renews her old, sweetens her bitter, fills her
+when empty, adorns her homely, honours her when base. The old mass falls
+to the foundation and the new rises; and the state of it as it rises,
+sets forth the fitting form of the cross. The difficult toil unites
+three whole parts; for the most solid mass of the foundation rises from
+the centre,{21} the wall carries the roof into the air. [So the
+foundation is buried in the lap of earth, but the wall and roof shew
+themselves, and with proud daring the wall flies to the clouds, the roof
+to the stars.] With the value of the material the design of the art well
+agrees, for the stone roof talks as it were with winged birds, spreading
+its wide wings, and like to a flying thing strikes the clouds, stayed
+upon the solid columns. And a sticky liquid glues together the white
+stones, all which the workman's hand cuts out to a nicety. And the wall,
+built out of a hoard of these, as it were disdaining this thing,
+counterfeits to unify the adjacent parts; it seems not to exist by art
+but rather by nature; not a thing united, but one. Another costly
+material of black stones props the work, not like this content with one
+colour, not open with so many pores, but shining much with glory and
+settled with firm position; and it deigns to be tamed by no iron, save
+when it is tamed by cunning, when the surface is opened by frequent
+blows of the grit, and its hard substance eaten in with strong acid.
+That stone, beheld, can balance minds in doubt whether it be jasper or
+marble; but if jasper, dull jasper; if marble, noble marble. Of it are
+the columns, which so surround the pillars that they seem there to
+represent a kind of dance. Their outer surface more polished than new
+horn, with reflected visions, fronts the clear stars. So many figures
+has nature painted there that if art, after long endeavour, toils to
+simulate a like picture, scarce may she imitate nature. Likewise has the
+beauteous joining placed a thousand columns there in graceful order;
+which stable, precious, shining, with their stability carry on the whole
+work of the church, with their preciousness enrich it, with their shine
+make it clear. Their state indeed is lofty and high, their polish true
+and splendid, their order handsome and geometric, their beauty fit and
+useful, their use gracious and remarkable, their stability unhurt and
+sharp. A splendid double pomp of windows displays riddles to the eyes,
+inscribing the citizens of the Heavenly City and the arms whereby they
+tame the Stygian tyrant.{22} And two are greater, like two lights; of
+these the rounded blaze, looking upon the quarters of north and south,
+with its double light, lords it over all windows. They can be compared
+to the common stars, but these two are one like the sun, the other like
+the moon. So do these two candles lighten the head of the Church. With
+living and various colours they mimic the rainbow, not mimic indeed, but
+rather excel, for the sun when it is reflected in the clouds makes a
+rainbow: these two shine without sun, glitter without cloud.
+
+These things, described but puerilely, have the weight of an allegory.
+Without it seems but as a shell, but within lies the kernel. Without it
+is as wax, but within is combed honey; and fire lightens more pleasantly
+in the shade. For foundation, wall roof, white carved stone, marble
+smooth, conspicuous and black, the double order of windows, and the twin
+windows, which, as it were, look upon the regions of north and south,
+are great indeed, in themselves, but figure greater things.
+
+The foundation is the body, the wall man, the roof the spirit, the
+division of the Church threefold. The body possesses the earth, man the
+clouds, the spirit the stars. The white and carved stone means the
+chaste and wise; the whiteness is modesty, the carving dogma. By the
+effigy of marble, smooth, shining, dark, the bride is figured,
+guileless, well conducted, working. The smoothness very rightly means
+guilelessness, the splendour good conduct, the blackness work. The noble
+cohort of the clergy lightening the world with light divine is expressed
+by the clear windows. The corresponding order can everywhere be
+observed. The Canonic is set forth by the higher order; the Vicarious by
+the lower; and because the canonic handles the business of the world,
+and the busy vicarious fulfils, by its obligations, divine matters, the
+top line of windows shines bright with a ring of flowers around it,
+which signifies the varying beauty of the world, the lower contains the
+names of the holy fathers. The twin windows, which afford the rounded
+blaze, are the two eyes of the Church, and rightly in these respects
+seem to be, the greater the bishop, and the lesser the dean. The North
+is Satan, and the South the Holy Ghost, which the two eyes look upon.
+For the bishop looks upon the South to invite, but the dean upon the
+North to avoid it. The one sees to be saved, the other not to be lost.
+The brow of the church beholds with these eyes the candles of Heaven and
+the darkness of Lethe. Thus the senseless stones enwrap the mysteries of
+the living stones, the work made with hands sets forth the spiritual
+work; and the double aspect of the Church is clear, adorned with double
+equipage. A golden majesty paints the entry of the choir: and properly
+in his proper image Christ crucified is shewn, and there to a nicety
+the progress of His life is suggested. Not only the cross or image, but
+the ample surface of the six columns and two woods, flash with tested
+gold. The capitols{23} cleave to the Church, such as the Roman summit
+never possessed, the wonderful work of which scarce the monied wealth of
+Croesus could begin. In truth their entrances are like squares. Within
+a rounded space lies open, putting to the proof, both in material and
+art, Solomon's temple. If of these the perfection really stays, the
+first Hugh's work will be perfected under a second Hugh. Thus then
+Lincoln boasts of so great a sire, who blessed her with so many titles
+on all sides."
+
+The church itself is the best comment upon this somewhat obscure
+account, and it may be briefly divided into Pre-Hugonian, Hugonian, and
+Post-Hugonian parts. The first, the Norman centre of the west façade,
+does not concern us, except that its lovely face often looked down upon
+the great bishop in his dark or tawny cloak trimmed with white lambs'
+wool, which hid his hair shirt. Except for this Norman work and the
+Norman font, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the whole is
+by or for Hugh, for his shrine, his influence, and his example,
+completed what his work, and his plans, never dreamed about. Yet these
+last are responsible for much. He built a cruciform church, beginning
+with the entrance to the choir, with the aisles on either side. The
+chapels of St. Edward Martyr and St. James{24} form the base or step of
+the cross. The east transept, with all chapels adjoining, the
+choristers' vestry, antevestry, dean's or medicine chapel, with its
+lovely door and the cupboards in the now floorless room above it, the
+vaulted passage and chamber adjoining, are all his. So are, possibly,
+the matchless iron screens between the two choirs (topped with modern
+trumpery). South-east of the Medicine Chapel is one of St. Hugh's great
+mystic columns, and there are a pair of them. Where the Angel Choir now
+lifts its most graceful form and just behind the high altar, rose the
+semi-hexagonal east end, the opened honeycomb, where most fitly was
+placed the altar of St. John Baptist. It was somewhere in the walls of
+this forehead that the original bishop's eye and dean's eye were once
+fixed, possibly in the rounded eye sockets which once stood where Bishop
+Wordsworth and Dean Butler are now buried.{25}
+
+When we look closely at this work, we are astonished at the bold
+freedom, and yet the tentative and amateur character of it. The builders
+felt their way as they went along, and well they might, for it was not
+only a new church but a new and finer style altogether. They built a
+wall. It was not strong enough, so they buttressed it over the
+mouldings. The almost wayward double arcade inside was there apparently,
+before the imposed vaulting shafts were thought about. The stones were
+fully shaped and carved on the floor, and then put in their positions.
+Hardly anything is like the next thing. Sometimes the pointed arch is
+outside, as in "St. James'" Chapel, sometimes inside as in "St.
+Edward's." Look up at the strange vaulting above the choir, about the
+irregularity of which so much feigned weeping has taken place. It
+represents, maybe, the Spirit blowing where it listeth and not given by
+measure. So, too, mystic banded shafts are octagonal for blessedness,
+and they blossom in hidden crockets for the inner flowers of the Spirit,
+and there are honeycombs and dark columns banded together in joyful
+unity, all copied from nowhere, but designed by this holy stone poet to
+the glory of God. The pierced tympanum has a quatrefoil for the four
+cardinal virtues, or a trefoil for faith, hope, and charity. Compared
+with the lovely Angel Choir which flowered seventy years later, under
+our great King Edward, it may look all unpractised, austere; but Hugh
+built with sweet care, and sense, and honesty, never rioting in the
+disordered emotion of lovely form which owed no obedience to the spirit,
+and which expressed with great elaboration--almost nothing. He may have
+valued the work of the intellect too exclusively, but surely it cannot
+be valued too highly? The work is done as well where it does not as
+where it does show.
+
+The bishop's hall, which he began, could not have been much more than
+sketched and founded. It was carried on by one of his successors, Hugh
+de Wells (1209-1235), though one would like to believe that it was in
+this great hall that he entertained women, godly matrons, and widows,
+who sat by his side at dinner, to the wonder of monkish brethren. He
+would lay his clean hands upon their heads and bless them, sometimes
+even gently embrace them, and bid them follow the steps of holy women
+of old. Indeed he had quite got over the morbid terror he once felt for
+these guardians of the Divine humanity, for he used often to say to
+them, "Almighty God has deserved indeed to be loved by the feminine sex.
+He was not squeamish of being born of a woman. Yea, and he has granted
+hereby a magnificent and right worthy privilege to all women folk. For
+when it is not allowed to man to be or to be named the Father of God,
+yet this has been bestowed upon the woman to be the parent of God." The
+traces of his work at the other manor houses are wiped out by time.
+There is nothing at Stow; Buckden was built later; and the other
+footprints of this building saint are lost upon the sands of time.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{20} This building itself is of an earlier date.
+
+{21} Of the earth.
+
+{22} _I.e._, Saints and Lances.
+
+{23} Side chapels.
+
+{24} Or of SS. Dennys and Guthlac it may be.
+
+{25} It is a pity in that case that the bishop lies under the old
+"dean's eye," and _vice versâ_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+UNDER KING JOHN
+
+
+When King Richard died, John, with a handful of followers, gave his
+host, Arthur of Brittany, the slip, and hurried off to Chinon, in
+Touraine. Hence he sent a humble message that the Bishop of Lincoln
+would deign to visit him. The reason was obvious. His fate hung in the
+balance, and the best loved and most venerated of English bishops would,
+if he would but recognise him, turn that scale against Arthur of
+Brittany. On the Wednesday in Holy Week, April 19th, 1199, Hugh left
+Fontevrault, and the anxious prince rode to meet him and to pay him
+every court. John would fain have kept him by his side, but the bishop
+excused himself, and the two travelled back to Fontevrault together, and
+finally parted at Samur. They visited the royal tombs at the former
+place, but the prudent nuns would not allow the dubious prince inside
+their walls "because the abbess was not at home." John affected to be
+charmed at their scruples, and sent them a pious message, promising the
+bishop that he would shew them great favours. The answer was, "You know
+that I greatly dislike every lie. I shall therefore take care not to
+tell them your lip promises, unless I have proof that you certainly mean
+to fulfil them." John at once swore that he would fulfil all as soon as
+might be, and the bishop in his presence told the holy women, commended
+the prince to them, gave the blessing and carried off the royal humbug.
+He then had a long tale of John's good resolutions: he would be pious to
+God, kind to his subjects, and just to all; he would take Hugh for his
+father and guide, and wait upon him. He then shewed him a stone, cased
+in gold, which he wore round his neck, and told him that its fortunate
+owner would lack nothing of his ancestral possessions. "Put not your
+faith in a senseless stone," he was told, "but only in the living and
+true heavenly stone, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lay him most surely as your
+heart's foundation and your hope's anchor. He truly is so firm and
+living a stone that He crushes all who oppose Him. He suffers not those
+who rest on him to fall, but ever raises them to higher things and
+enlarges them to ampler deservings." They reached then the church porch,
+where was a lively sculpture of Doomsday, and on the judge's left a
+company of kings and nobles led to eternal fire. The bishop said, "Let
+your mind set ceaselessly before you the screams and endless agonies of
+these. Let these ceaseless tortures be ever in front of your heart's
+eyes. Let the careful remembrance of these evils teach you how great is
+the self loss which is laid upon those who rule other men for a little
+time, and, ruling themselves ill, are subjects to demon spirits in
+endless agony. These things, while one can avoid them, one is wise to
+fear ever, lest when one cannot avoid them, one should afterwards
+happen ceaselessly to endure them." He then pointed out that this Day of
+the Lord was put in the porch, so that those who entered to ask for
+their needs should not forget "the highest and greatest need of all,
+pardon for sins," which they might ask and have and be free from pains
+and glad with eternal joys. John seized the bishop's hand and shewed the
+kings on the right. "Nay, lord bishop, you should rather shew us these,"
+he said "whose example and society we pray to follow and attain." For a
+few days he seemed exceedingly submissive in deed and speech. The
+beggars who wished him well he thanked with bows. The ragged old women
+who saluted him he replied to most gently. But after three days he
+changed his tune and dashed the hopes which had begun to spring. Easter
+Sunday came, and the bishop was at Mass and John's chamberlain slipped
+twelve gold pieces into his hand, the usual royal offering. He was
+standing (they always stand at Mass) surrounded by a throng of barons
+before the bishop and gloated upon the gold, tossed it in his hand and
+delayed so long to offer it, that everybody stared. At last the bishop,
+angry at such behaviour, then and there said, "Why gaze like that?" John
+replied, "Truly I am having a look at those gold coins of yours and
+thinking that if I had held them a few days ago, I should not offer them
+to you but pop them in my own purse. Still, all the same, take them."
+The angry bishop blushed for the king, drew back his arm, would not
+touch such money nor suffer his hand to be kissed; shook his head at him
+in fury. "Put down there what you hold," he said, "and go." The king
+cast his money into the silver basin and slunk away. John's insult was
+all the greater because out of Lincoln none of the bishop's people was
+ever allowed to nibble one crumb of the alms. That day the bishop had
+preached upon the conduct and future prospects of princes. John neither
+liked the duration nor the direction of the sermon, and sent thrice to
+the preacher to stop his talk and get on with the Mass so that he might
+go to his victuals. But not a bit of it. The preacher talked louder and
+longer until all applauded and some wept, and he told them how worthily
+they ought to partake of the true Sacramental Bread, who came from
+heaven and gives life to the world. John shared neither in the word nor
+the Sacrament. Neither then nor on Ascension Day, when he was made king,
+did he communicate. Indeed it was said he had never done so since he was
+grown up.
+
+Next Sunday the court was at Rouen and Archbishop Walter was investing
+John with the sacred emblems of the Duchy of Normandy during the High
+Mass. A banner on a lance was handed to the new duke. John advanced,
+amid cheers, and the foolish cackle of laughter of his former boon
+companions. He looked over his shoulder to grin back at the fools, his
+friends, and from his feeble grasp the old banner fell upon the
+pavement! But Hugh had left him for England before this evil omen. When
+the bishop reached Flêche on Easter Monday, he went to church to vest
+for Mass. His servants rushed in to say that the guards had seized his
+horses and carts, and robbers had taken some of his pack horses. The
+company, including Gilbert de Glanville of Rochester, his friend,
+begged him not to say Mass, but merely to read the gospel and hurry out
+of the trap. Neither chagrined at his loss, nor moved by their terrors,
+he went deaf and silent to the altar. He was not content either with a
+plain celebration. He must need have sandals, tunic, and all the rest of
+the robes, and add a pontifical blessing to the solemn celebration. As
+he was unrobing the magistrates came in a fine state of repentance, with
+restitution, safe conducts, and humble words. He jested with them and
+past on to St. Peter's, at Le Mans. Here another alarm met them.
+Arthur's troopers rushed the place in the night meaning to catch John.
+News of more robberies and violence came, but thanks to the Abbot he got
+safely on and Dame Constance of Brittany sent him many apologies and
+assurances. He reached Sées safely but insisted upon going aside for a
+little pious colloquy with a learned and devout Abbot of Persigne,
+although the country was in a very dangerous condition for travelling.
+He found the good man away; so he said Mass and went on, and at last got
+home to tell them at Lincoln that all was peace. His progress was a
+triumph of delighted crowds, for the hearts of his people had been with
+him in all the struggle thus safely ended, and the sea of people
+shouted, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," as their
+father rode towards his cathedral town. The commons evidently felt that
+the liberties of the church were the outworks of the liberties of the
+land.
+
+But the god of victory is a maimed god, and the battles of the world
+irked Hugh's contemplative soul. He wished to lay by his heavy burden of
+bishopric and to go back to his quiet cell, the white wool tunic, the
+silence, and the careful cleaning of trenchers. The office of a bishop
+in his day left little time for spiritual tillage either at home or
+abroad. Not only the bishops had to confirm, ordain to all orders,
+consecrate, anoint, impose penance, and excommunicate, but they had to
+decide land questions concerning lands in frank almoin, all probate and
+nullity of marriage cases, and to do all the legal work of a king's
+baron besides. The judicial duties lay heavily upon him. He used to say
+that a bishop's case was harder than a lord warden's or a mayor's, for
+he had to be always on the bench; they only sometimes. They might look
+after their family affairs, but he could hardly ever handle the cure of
+souls. For the second or third time he sent messengers to ask Papal
+leave to resign, but Innocent, knowing that "no one can safely be to the
+fore who would not sooner be behind," rejected the petition with
+indignation; and Pharaoh-like increased his tasks the more by making him
+legate in nearly every important case of appeal. People who had nothing
+to rely upon except the justice of their cause against powerful
+opponents, clamoured for the Lincoln judgments, which then neither fear
+nor hope could trim, and which were as skilful as they were upright, so
+that men, learned in the law, ascribed it to the easy explanation of
+miracles that a comparative layman should steer his course so finely.
+
+In the various disputes between monks and bishops, which were a standing
+dish in most dioceses, he took an unbiassed line. In the long fight
+waged by Archbishop Baldwin first and then by Hubert Walter with the
+monks of Canterbury, which began in 1186, and was not over until Hugh
+was dead, he rather favoured the side of the monastery. Yet we find him
+speaking _multa aspera_, many stinging things to their spokesman, and
+recommending, as the monk said, prostration before the archbishop. His
+words to the archbishop have been already quoted. With Carlyle's Abbot
+Sampson and the Bishop of Ely he was appointed by Innocent to hush the
+long brawl. The Pope, tired and angry, wrote (September, 1199) to the
+commissioners to compel the archbishop, even with ecclesiastical
+censures. They reply rather sharply to his holiness that he is hasty and
+obscure; and so the matter dragged on. Then in 1195 the inevitable
+Geoffrey Plantagenet, the bastard, Archbishop of York, before mentioned,
+has a lively dispute with his canons. Hugh is ordered by the Pope to
+suspend him, but would rather be suspended (by the neck) himself.
+Geoffrey certainly was a little extreme, even for those days--a Broad
+Churchman indeed. He despises the Sacraments, said the canons, he hunts,
+hawks, fights, does not ordain, dedicate, or hold synods, but chases the
+canons with armed men and robs them; but Hugh, though he cannot defend
+the man, seems to know better of him, and at any rate will not be a mere
+marionette of Rome. Geoffrey, indeed, came out nobly in the struggles
+with king John in later story, as a defender of the people. Then there
+is the dispute between the Bishop of Coventry, another striking bishop,
+who brought stout fellows against the saucy monks. He had bought their
+monastery for three hundred marks of the king, and when they would not
+budge, he chased them away with beating and maiming, sacked their
+house, burnt their charters, and so on. Hugh was against this too
+vigorous gentleman, who was clearly indefensible; but it was by no means
+because he was blindly prejudiced in favour of monks, for he seems to
+have supported the Bishop of Rochester against his monks. These disputes
+of astonishing detail, are very important in the history of the church,
+as by their means the Papal Empire grew to a great height of power; and
+however little the bishops' methods commend themselves, the monasteries,
+which became rebel castles in every diocese, were very subversive of
+discipline, and their warfare equally worldly.
+
+In cases less ecclesiastical, we have a glimpse of Hugh defending two
+young orphans against Jordan of the Tower, the most mighty of Londoners.
+This powerful robber of the weak came to the court with an army of
+retainers, king's men and London citizens, to overawe all opposition.
+The "father of orphans" made a little speech on the occasion which has
+come down to us. "In truth, Jordan, although you may have been dear to
+us, yet against God we can yield nothing to you. But it is evident that
+against your so many and great abetters it is useless not only for these
+little ones to strive, but even for ourselves and our fellow judges. So
+what we shall do, we wish you to know. Yet I speak for my own self. I
+shall free my soul. I shall therefore write to my lord the Pope that you
+alone in these countries traverse his jurisdiction; you alone strive to
+nullify his authority." The vociferous and well-backed Jordan took the
+hint. He dismounted from his high horse, and the orphans got their own
+again. But these and like duties were a heavy cross to Hugh. He hoped
+to be excused of God because he obeyed orders, rather than rewarded
+because he did well. Like Cowley, he looked upon business as "the
+frivolous pretence of human lusts to shake off innocence." He would not
+even look at his own household accounts, but delegated such work to
+trustworthy folk, while these behaved well. If they misbehaved he
+quickly detected it and sent them packing.
+
+We have now reached the year A.D. 1200. King John has been crowned for a
+year. Hugh was not present at this ceremony, and the king, anxious still
+for his support, sends for him to be present at the great peace he was
+concluding with France. By this treaty the Dauphin was to marry Blanche
+of Castile and become Earl of Evreux, a dangerous earldom, and Philip
+was to drop the cause of young Arthur and give up debateable Vexin. Hugh
+also was tempted over seas by the hope of visiting his old haunts, which
+he felt must be done now or never, for health and eyesight were failing
+him, and he needed this refreshment for his vexed soul. It was in the
+Château Gaillard again that he met the king, left him in the sweet
+spring time at the end of May, for a pilgrim tour to shrines and haunts
+of holy men living and dead--a pilgrimage made possible by the new
+peace.
+
+Here it must be confessed that modern sympathy is apt to falter, for
+though we can understand the zeal of American tourists for chips of
+palaces and the communal moral code peculiar to archæologists, coin
+collectors, and umbrella snatchers, we cannot understand the enthusiasm
+which the manliest, holiest, and robustest minds then displayed for
+relics, for stray split straws and strained twigs from the fledged
+bird's nests whence holy souls had fled to other skies. To us these
+things mean but little; but to Hugh they meant very much. The facts must
+be given, and the reader can decide whether they are beauty spots or
+warts upon the strong, patient, brave face upon which they appear.
+
+His first objective, when he left the Andelys, was Meulan, and there he
+"approached St. Nicasius." This saint, a very fine fellow, had been
+Bishop of Rheims, eight hundred years before. When the Vandals invaded
+the land he had advanced to meet them with a procession of singers and
+got an ugly sword cut, which lopt off a piece of his head. He went on
+still singing till he dropped dead. This brave fellow's skull Hugh took
+in his hands, worshipped the saint, gave gold; and then tried hard to
+tweak out one of his teeth: but such dentistry was unavailing. He then
+put his fingers into the nostrils which had so often drawn in the sweet
+odour of Christ and got with ease a lovely little bone, which had parted
+the eyes, kissed it and felt a richer hope of being directed into the
+way of peace and salvation; for so great a bishop would certainly fix
+his spiritual eyes upon him after this.
+
+Next he went to St. Denis, where he prayed long at the tombs of the
+saints. The scholars of Paris, of all breeds, turned out in crowds to
+see a man, who, after St. Nicholas, had done so much good to clerks.
+Kisses, colloquies and invitations rained upon him, but he chose to
+lodge in the house of his relative Reimund. This man he had made Canon
+of Lincoln, and he afterwards refused to buy off King John and became
+an exile for conscience and the patron of exiles, and thus was in life
+and character a true son of St. Hugh. Among the visitors here were the
+Dauphin Lewis and Arthur of Brittany. The latter turned up his nose when
+told to live in love and peace with Uncle John; but Lewis carried off
+the bishop to cheer his weeping political bride Blanche, lately bartered
+into the match. The good bishop walked to the palace, and Blanche bore a
+merry face and a merry heart after he had talked with her.
+
+The next place was Troyes, and here a wretch came with a doleful story.
+He had been bailiff to the Earl of Leicester, had torn a rogue from
+sanctuary at Brackley; had been excommunicated by Hugh, with all his
+mates. They had submitted and been made to dig up the putrid body and
+carry it a mile, clad only in their drawers, be whipped at every church
+door they passed, bury the body with their own hands, and then come to
+Lincoln for more flogging: and all this in the winter. This sentence
+frightened the bailiff, who bolted; but ill-luck dogged him. He lost his
+place, his money, and at last came to beg for shrift and punishment.
+Hugh gave him a seven years' penance and he went on his way rejoicing.
+
+The next great place was Vienne on the Rhone. Here were the ashes of St.
+Anthony of the Desert, wrapped in the tunic of Paul, the first hermit.
+The Carthusian Bruno had caught the enthusiasm for solitude from these
+ambulatory ashes, which had travelled from Alexandria to Constantinople
+and so to Vienne in 1070. Of course they were working miracles, chiefly
+upon those afflicted by St. Anthony's fire. The medical details are
+given at some length, and the cures described in the Great Life. For
+the general reader it is enough to say that Hugh said Mass near the
+precious but plain chest, and that he gave a good sum for the
+convalescent home where the poor sufferers were housed. Whether change
+of air, a hearty diet, and strong faith be enough to arrest this (now
+rare) disease is a scientific question rather than a theological one;
+but if, as we are told, St. Anthony sent thunder bolts upon castles and
+keeps where his pilgrims were maltreated, his spirit was somewhat of
+that Boanerges type which is flatly snubbed in the Gospel. From Vienne
+Hugh went to his own Grenoble among those mountains which have, as
+Ruskin says, "the high crest or wall of cliff on the top of their
+slopes, rising from the plain first in mounds of meadow-land and bosses
+of rock and studded softness of forest; the brown cottages peeping
+through grove above grove, until just where the deep shade of the pines
+becomes blue or purple in the haze of height, a red wall of upper
+precipice rises from the pasture land and frets the sky with glowing
+serration."{26} A splendid procession came out to welcome him, and the
+city was hung with festoons of flowers and gay silken banners. He was
+led with chaunting to the cathedral of St. John Baptist, his particular
+saint, and that of his Order, upon the very feast of the great herald.
+There he sang the High Mass with intense devoutness, and after the
+gospel preached to the people, "giving them tears to drink," but in
+moderation, for he begged all their prayers for his littleness and
+unworthiness, whereas they knew quite well what a good and great fellow
+he was. Then he christened his own nephew, the heir of Avalon, whose
+uncle Peter was present, and the Bishop of Grenoble was godfather. The
+hitherto unbaptised boy was actually seven years old. Perhaps he had
+waited for Uncle Hugh to christen him, and when he had that honour he
+was not named Peter, as they proposed, but John, in honour of the place
+and day. Adam records that he taught the little fellow his alphabet and
+to spell from letters placed above the altar of St. John Baptist at
+Bellay.
+
+Then he left for the Grande Chartreuse, having to foot it most of the
+way up the mountains, sweating not a little, for he was of some
+diameter, but he out-walked his companions. He took care to drop in
+while the brothers were having their midday _siesta_, and he was careful
+not to be of the least trouble. Indeed, for three weeks he put off the
+bishop, as he did at Witham, and his insignia all but the ring, and
+became a humble monk once more. The clergy and the laity hurried to see
+him from the district, and the poor jostled to behold their father; and
+each one had dear and gracious words, and many found his hand second his
+generous tongue. Some days he spent at the lower house. Here, too, he
+compounded an old and bitter feud between the bishop and the Count of
+Geneva whereby the one was exiled and the other excommunicate.
+
+Near the end of his stay he made a public present to the House, a silver
+casket of relics, which he used to carry in his hand in procession at
+dedications. These were only a part of his collection, for he had a ring
+of gold and jewels, four fingers broad, with hollow spaces for relics.
+At his ardent desire and special entreaty the monks of Fleury once gave
+him a tooth from the jaws of St. Benedict, the first founder and, as it
+were, grandfather of his and other Orders. This came with a good strip
+of shroud to boot, and the goldsmith appeared, tools and all, warned by
+a dream, from Banbury to Dorchester to enshrine the precious ivory. The
+shred of shroud was liberally divided up among abbots and religious men,
+but the tooth, after copious kissing, was sealed up in the ring. At
+Féchamp once (that home of relics!) they kept a bone of St. Mary
+Magdalen, as was rashly asserted, sewed up in silks and linen. He begged
+to see it, but none dared show it: but he was not to be denied. Whipping
+up a penknife from his notary, he had off the covers pretty quickly, and
+gazed at and kissed it reverently. Then he tried to break off a bit with
+his fingers, but not a process would come away. He then tried to nibble
+a snippet, but in vain. Finally, he put the holy bone to his strong back
+teeth and gave a hearty scrunch. Two tit-bits came off, and he handed
+them to the trembling Adam, saying, "Excellent man, keep these for us."
+The abbots and monks were first struck dumb, then quaked, and then
+boiled with indignation and wrath. "Oh! oh! Abominable!" they yelled.
+"We thought the bishop wanted to worship these sacred and holy things,
+and lo! he has, with doggish ritual, put them to his teeth for
+mutilation." While they were raging he quieted them with words which may
+give us the key to such otherwise indecent behaviour. Suppose they had
+been having a great Sacramental dispute, and some, as is likely, had
+maintained against the bishop that the grinding of the Host by the
+teeth of any communicant meant the grinding of Christ's very body, then
+it becomes evident that Hugh put this their belief to rather a rough
+proof, or reproof. Anyhow, he posed them with this answer, "Since a
+short time back we handled together the most saintly body of the Saint
+of Saints with fingers granted unworthy; if we handled It with our teeth
+or lips, and passed It on to our inwards, why do we not also in faith so
+treat the members of his saints for our defence, their worship, and the
+deepening of our memory of them, and acquire, so far as opportunity
+allows, what we are to keep with due honour?"
+
+At Peterborough they had the arm of St. Oswald, which had kept fresh for
+over five centuries. A supple nerve which protruded Hugh had sliced off
+and put in this wonderful ring. This, though he had offered it to the
+high altar at Lincoln, he would have left to the Charterhouse; but Adam
+reminded him of the fact, so instead thereof he ordered a golden box
+full of the relics he gave them to be sent after his death.
+
+With mutual blessings he took his last leave of the Grande Chartreuse,
+and left it in the body, though his heart and mind could never be
+dislodged from its desert place. This place was his father and his
+mother, but Lincoln, he did not forget, was his wife.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{26} "Modern Painters," iv. 253.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+HOMEWARD BOUND
+
+
+After a brief visit to the Priory of St. Domninus Hugh made for
+Villarbenoit, his old school and college in one; but first he went to
+Avalon Castle, where his stout backers and brothers, William and Peter,
+ruled over their broad lands, who always had heartened and encouraged
+him in his battles for the liberties of the Church. Here "nobles,
+middle-class men, and the lowest people" received him with delight, and
+he spent two days at this his birthplace, and so on to Villarbenoit, and
+a fine dance his coming made for them all. He gave the Church a noble
+Bible worth ten silver marks, and passed to the cell of St. Maximin.
+Here aged hobblers and white-haired seniors, bowed mothers and women
+advanced in years, walled round him in happy throng. The bright-eyed
+lady of his unrest, possibly, was among these last, and they all bore
+witness to his early holiness, and prophesied his future niche in the
+calendar. After one more night at Avalon he set out for England.
+
+At Bellay the incautious canons allowed him to undo a sacred little
+bundle which held three fingers of St. John Baptist, which they trusted
+him to kiss, although for many years no one had even looked upon such
+awful articulations. After confession, absolution, and prayer the bones
+were bared, and he touched "the joints which had touched God's holy
+head," kissed them, and signed the prostrate worshippers with them with
+the holy sign. Then he cut off a good piece of the ancient red cloth
+which had covered them and handed it to Adam. Thence he visited three
+more Charterhouses. In one of these, Arvières, he met a man of his own
+age, Arthault by name, who had resigned his bishopric and was ending his
+days as a holy monk. In full chapter the bishop and the ex-bishop met.
+Arthault, knowing Hugh had been at the peace-making between France and
+England, asked him to tell them the terms of the peace; but the latter
+smiled and said, "My lord father, to hear and carry tales is allowable
+to bishops, but not to monks. Tales must not come to cells or cloister.
+We must not leave towns and carry tales to solitude." So he turned the
+talk to spiritual themes. Perhaps he saw that it is easier to resign a
+bishopric than to forsake the world altogether.
+
+The next important place was Clugny, where they read him a chapter from
+St. Gregory's "Pastoral Care," and extorted the compliment from him that
+their well-ordained house would have made him a Clugniac if he had not
+been a Carthusian. Thence he went to Citeaux and said Mass for the
+Assumption (August 15th), and passed on to Clairvaux. Here he met John,
+the ex-Archbishop of Lyons, who was meditating away the last days of his
+life. Hugh asked him what scriptures most helped his thoughts, and the
+reply must have struck an answering chord in the questioner, "To
+meditate entirely upon the Psalms has now usurped my whole inward being.
+Inexhaustible refreshment always comes new from these. Such is fresh
+daily, and always delicious to the taste of the inner man." Hugh's
+devotion to the Psalms is evidenced by many passages in his life, and
+not least by the fact that he divided the whole Psalter among the
+members of the Chapter so that it should be recited throughout every
+day. His own share included three Psalms, i., ii., and iii., and if the
+reader tries to look at these through the saint's eyes he will see much
+in them that he has not hitherto suspected to be there.
+
+He stopped a couple of days at Rheims, and was astonished at the good
+store of books the library owned. He "blamed the slothful carelessness
+of modern times, which not only failed to imitate the literary activity
+of the Fathers in making and writing books, but neither read nor
+reverently treated the sacred manuscripts the care of the Fathers had
+provided." His own conduct in this respect, both at Witham and Lincoln,
+was far otherwise. He took pains about the library at each place. His
+gifts to Lincoln were--(1) Two great volumes of sermons by the Catholic
+doctors for the whole year. (2) A little book of the Father's Life with
+a red covering. (3) A Psalter with a large gloss.{27} (4) A Homeliary in
+stag's leather, beginning "_Erunt signa_." And (5) A Martyrology with
+the text of the four Gospels. At Rheims, too, he also saw and worshipped
+the vessel of holy oil, which was used for anointing the kings of
+France. Then he made his way to the northern coast to St. Omer's Camp.
+He would not put to sea at once lest he should fail of his Mass on Our
+Lady's birthday. He had been unwell for some days with quartan fever,
+and tried bleeding, but it did him no good. He could not eat, but was
+obliged to go and lie down upon his small bed. He broke into violent
+sweats, and for three days hardly tasted food. On the 7th of September
+he would travel ten miles to Clercmaretz Abbey to keep the feast. He
+slept in the infirmary, where two monks waited on him, but could get him
+to eat nothing. He said there his last Mass but one, and still fasting
+went back to St. Omers. He felt a good deal better after this, and went
+on to Wissant, where he made the usual invocations to Our Lady and St.
+Ann, and had a safe, swift passage, and immediately upon landing said
+his last Mass, probably at St. Margaret's Church, in Dover. He never
+missed a chance of saying Mass if he could, though it was not said daily
+in his time. But he would not allow his chaplain to celebrate if he had
+been lately bled, reproved him for the practice, and when he did it
+again very sharply rebuked him.
+
+From Dover he went to Canterbury, and prayed long and earnestly, first
+at the Saviour altar and then at the tombs of the holy dead,{28} and
+especially at the mausoleum of St. Thomas. The monastic flock (still
+_sub judice_) led him forth with deep respect. The news spread that he
+was ill, and the royal justiciaries and barons visited him and expressed
+their sympathy and affection in crowds, which must have considerably
+heightened his temperature. He explained to them with placid face that
+the scourge of the Lord was sweet to His servants, and what he said he
+enacted. "But He, the head Father of the Family, who had put forth His
+hand to cut him down, withdrew not the sickle from reaping the stalk,
+which he had now seen white to the harvest." One of the signs of this
+was the growing dimness of his eyes, much tried by the dust and heat of
+travel. But he would not have them doctored. "These eyes will be good
+enough for us as long as we are obliged to use them," he said. He
+crawled painfully on to London, part of the way on horseback and part by
+water, and in a high fever took to his bed in his own house, praying to
+be allowed to reach his anxious family at Lincoln. "I shall never be
+able to keep away from spiritual presence with our dearest Sons in
+Christ, whether I be present or absent in the body. But concerning
+health or my bodily presence, yea, and concerning my whole self, may the
+will be done of the holy Father which is in Heaven." He had ceased to
+wish to live, he told his chaplain, for he saw the lamentable things
+about to come upon the Church of England. "So it is better for us to die
+than to live and see the evil things for this people and the saints
+which are ahead. For doubtless upon the family of King Henry the
+scripture must needs be fulfilled which says there shall not be 'deep
+rooting from bastard slips' and the 'seed of an unrighteous bed shall be
+rooted out.' So the modern King of the French will avenge his holy
+father Lewis upon the offspring of wickedness, to wit, of her who
+rejected a stainless bed with him and impudently was joined with his
+rival, the king of the English. For this, that French Philip will
+destroy the stock royal of the English, like as an ox is wont to lick up
+the grass to its roots. Already three of her sons have been cut off by
+the French, two kings that is, and one prince. The fourth, the survivor,
+will have short peace at their hands." The next day, St. Matthew's, was
+his episcopal birthday, and he kept it up by having, for the first time
+in his life, the anointing of the sick. He first made a most searching
+confession to his chaplain, and then to the Dean of Lincoln, the
+Precentor, and the Archdeacon of Northampton.{29} He hesitated not to
+confess sins often before confessed to many, and made so straight, keen,
+and full a story of what he had left undone and what he had done that
+they never heard the like; and he often repeated, "The evildoing is
+mine, truly, solely, and wholely. The good, if there is any, is not so.
+It is mixed with evil; it is everywhere gross with it. So it is neither
+truly nor purely good." The Sacrament was brought him at nine o'clock
+the next day, and he flung himself from his bed, clad in his hair shirt
+and cowl, with naked feet, knelt, worshipped, and prayed long before it,
+recalling the infinite benefits of the Saviour to the children of men,
+commending his sinfulness to Christ's mercy, asking for help to the end
+and imploring with tears never to be left. Then he was houselled and
+anointed. He said, "Now let our doctors and our diseases meet, as far as
+may be. In our heart there will be less trouble about them both. I have
+committed myself to Him, received Him, shall hold Him, stick to Him, to
+whom it is good to stick, Whom to hold is blessed. If a man receives
+Him and commits himself to Him he is strong and safe." He was then told
+to make his will, and said it was a tiresome new custom, for all he had
+was not his, but belonged to the church he ruled; but lest the civil
+officer should take all, he made his will. "If any temporal goods should
+remain after my death in the bishopric, now here all which I seem to
+possess I hand over to the Lord Jesus Christ, to be bestowed upon the
+poor." The executors were the dean and the two archdeacons. After this
+simple but not surprising will he called for his stole and anathematized
+all who should knavishly keep back, or violently carry off, any of his
+goods, or otherwise frustrate his executors.
+
+He grew worse. He confessed daily the lightest thought or word of
+impatience against his nurses. He was much in prayer, and he had the
+offices said at the right times however ill he was. He sang with the
+psalm-singers while he could. If they read or sang carelessly or
+hurriedly, he chastened them with a terrible voice and insisted upon
+clear pronunciation and perfect time. He made every one stand and sit by
+turns, so that while one set were resting the other were reverencing the
+divine and angelic presences. He had always been punctilious about the
+times of prayer and used always to withdraw from the bench to say his
+offices when they were due.
+
+King John came in one day, but the bishop, who could sit up for his
+food, neither rose nor sat to greet him. The king said that he and his
+friends would do all they could for him. Then he sent out the courtiers
+and sat long and talked much and blandly; but Hugh answered very
+little, but shortly asked him to see to his and other bishops' wills and
+commended Lincoln to his protection; but he despaired of John and would
+not waste his beautiful words upon him. After the king, the archbishop
+came several times, and promised also to do what he could for him. The
+last time he came he hinted that Hugh must not forget to ask pardon from
+any he had unjustly hurt or provoked by word or deed. No answer from the
+bed! Then he became a little more explicit and said that he, Hugh's
+spiritual father and primate, had often been most bitterly provoked, and
+that really his forgiveness was most indispensible. The reply he got was
+more bracing than grateful. Archbishops rarely hear such naked verities.
+"It is quite true, and I see it well when I ponder all the hidden things
+of our conscience, that I have often provoked you to angers. But I do
+not find a single reason for repenting of it; but I know this, that I
+must grieve that I did not do it oftener and harder. But if my life
+should have to be passed longer with you I most firmly determine, under
+the eyes of all-seeing God, to do it much oftener than before. I can
+remember how, to comply with you, I have often and often been coward
+enough to keep back things which I ought to have spoken out to you, and
+which you would not well have brooked to hear, and so by my own fault I
+have avoided offence to you rather than to the Father which is in
+Heaven. On this count, therefore, it is that I have not only
+transgressed against God heavily and unbishoply, but against your
+fatherhood or primacy. And I humbly ask pardon for this." Exit the
+archbishop!
+
+Now his faithful Boswell gives elaborate details of Hugh's long dying,
+not knowing that his work would speak to a generation which measures a
+man's favour with God by the oily slipperiness with which he shuffles
+off his clay coil. It was a case of hard dying, redoubled paroxysms,
+fierce fever, and bloody flux, and dreadful details. He would wear his
+sackcloth, and rarely change it, though it caked into knots which chafed
+him fiercely. But, though the rule allowed, he would not go soft to his
+end, however much his friends might entreat him to put off the rasping
+hair. "No, no, God forbid that I should. This raiment does not scrape,
+but soothe; does not hurt, but help," he answered sternly. He gave exact
+details of how he was to be laid on ashes on the bare earth at the last
+with no extra sackcloth. No bishops or abbots being at hand to commend
+him at the end, the monks of Westminster were to send seven or eight of
+their number and the Dean of St. Paul's a good number of singing clerks.
+His body was to be washed with the greatest care, to fit it for being
+taken to the holy chapel of the Baptist at Lincoln, and laid out by
+three named persons and no others. When it reached Lincoln it was to be
+arrayed in the plain vestments of his consecration, which he had kept
+for this. One little light gold ring, with a cheap water sapphire in it,
+he selected from all that had been given him. He had worn it for
+functions, and would bear it in death, and have nothing about him else
+to tempt folk to sacrilege. The hearers understood, foolishly, from this
+that he knew his body would be translated after its first sepulture, and
+for this reason he had it cased in lead and solid stone that no one
+should seize or even see his ornaments when he was moved. "You will
+place me," he said, "before the altar of my aforesaid patron, the Lord's
+forerunner, where there seems fitting room near some wall, in such wise
+that the tomb shall not inconveniently block the floor, as we see in
+many churches, and cause incomers to trip or fall." Then he had his
+beard and nails trimmed for death. Some of his ejaculations in his
+agonies are preserved. "O kind God, grant us rest. O good Lord and true
+God, give us rest at last." When they tried to cheer him by saying that
+the paroxysm was over he said, "How really blessed are those to whom
+even the last judgment day will bring unshaken rest." They told him his
+judgment day would be the day when he laid by the burden of the flesh.
+But he would not have it. "The day when I die will not be a judgment
+day, but a day of grace and mercy," he said. He astonished his
+physicians by the robust way in which he would move, and his manly voice
+bated nothing of its old power, though he spoke a little submissively.
+The last lection he heard was the story of Lazarus and Martha, and when
+they reached the words, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had
+not died," he bade them stop there. The funeral took up the tale where
+the reader left off, "I am the Resurrection and the Life."
+
+They reminded him that he had not confessed any miscarriages of justice
+of which he had been guilty through private love or hate. He answered
+boldly, "I never remember that I knowingly wrested the truth in a
+judicial sentence either from hate or love, no, nor from hope or fear
+of any person or thing whatsoever. If I have gone awry in judgments it
+was a fault either of my own ignorance or assuredly of my assistants."
+
+The leeches hoped much from meat, and, though the Order forbade it, his
+obedience was transferred to Canterbury. His friends posted off and got
+not only a permit, but a straight order enjoining this diet upon him. He
+said that neither for taste nor for medicine could he be prevailed upon
+to eat flesh. "But to avoid offending so many reverend men, and, too,
+lest, even in the state of death, we should fail to follow in the
+footsteps of Him who became obedient even unto death, let flesh be given
+to us. Now at the last we will freely eat it, sauced with brotherly
+love." When he was asked what he would like he said that he had read
+that the sick fathers had been given pig's trotters. But he made small
+headway with these unseasonable viands or with the poor "little birds"
+they next gave him. On the 16th of November, at sunset, the monks and
+clerks arrived. Hugh had strength to lay his hand upon Adam's head and
+bless him and the rest. They said to him, "Pray the Lord to provide a
+profitable pastor for your church," but their voices were dim in his
+ears, and only when they had asked it thrice he said, "God grant it!"
+The third election brought in great Grosseteste.
+
+The company then withdrew for compline, and as they ended the xci.
+Psalm, "I will deliver him and bring him to honour," he was laid upon
+the oratory floor on the ashes, for he had given the sign; and while
+they chaunted _Nunc Dimittis_ with a quiet face he breathed out his
+gallant soul, passing, as he had hoped, at Martinmas-tide "from God's
+camp to His palace, from His hope to His sight," in the time of that
+saint whom he greatly admired and closely resembled.
+
+They washed his white, brave body, sang over it, watched it all night in
+St. Mary's Church, ringed it with candles, sang solemn Masses over it,
+embalmed it with odours, and buried the bowels near the altar in a
+leaden vessel. All London flocked, priests with crosses and candles,
+people weeping silently and aloud, every man triumphant if he could even
+touch the bier. Then they carried him in the wind and the rain, with
+lads on horseback holding torches (which never all went out at once),
+back to his own children. They started on Saturday{30} for Hertford, and
+by twilight next day they had reached Biggleswade on the Ivell, where he
+had a house, wherein the company slept. The mourning crowds actually
+blocked the way to the church. The bier was left in the church that
+Sunday night.
+
+By Monday they got to Buckden, and on the Tuesday they had got as far as
+Stamford, but the crowds were so great here that hardly could they fight
+their way through till the very dead of the night. The body, of course,
+was taken into the church; and a pious cobbler prayed to die, and lo!
+die he did, having only just time for confession, shrift, and his will;
+and way was made for him in death, though he could not get near the bier
+in life. The story recalled to Adam's mind a saying of his late master
+when people mourned too immoderately for the dead--"What are you about?
+What are you about? By Saint Nut" (that was his innocent oath), "by
+Saint Nut, it would indeed be a great misfortune for us if we were never
+allowed to die." He would praise the miraculous raising of the dead, but
+he thought that sometimes a miraculous granting of death is still more
+to be admired. At Stamford they bought horn lanterns instead of wax
+torches, for these last guttered so in the weather that the riders got
+wax all over their hands and clothes. Then they made for Ancaster, and
+on Thursday they came to Lincoln. Here were assembled all the great men
+of the realm, who came out to meet the bier. The kings of England and
+Scotland, the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and barons were all there.
+No man so great but he thought himself happy to help carry that bier up
+the hill. Shoulders were relieved by countless hands, these by other
+hands. The greatest men struggled for this honour. The rains had filled
+the streets with mud above the ankles, sometimes up to men's knees. All
+the bells of the town tolled and every church sang hymns and spiritual
+songs. Those who could not touch the bier tossed coins upon the hearse
+which held the body. Even the Jews came out and wept and did what
+service they could.
+
+The body was taken to a bye place off the cathedral{31} and dressed as
+he had ordered--with ring, gloves, staff, and the plain robes. They
+wiped the balsam from his face, and found it first white, but then the
+cheeks grew pink. The cathedral was blocked with crowds, each man
+bearing a candle. They came in streams to kiss his hands and feet and to
+offer gold and silver, and more than forty marks were given that day.
+John of Leicester laid a distich at his feet, much admired then, but
+"bald as his crown" to our ears:
+
+    "Staff to the bishops, to the monks a measure true,
+    Counsel for schools, kings' hammer--such behold was Hugh!"
+
+The next day at the funeral his cheap vestments were torn in pieces by
+the relic-hunting, which it must be confessed he had done nothing to
+check; and he was buried near the wall not far from the altar of St.
+John Baptist, and, as seemed more suitable for the crowds who came
+there, on the northern side of the building itself.{32}
+
+This tremendous funeral long lived in men's memory, and there is a far
+prettier verse about it than the old distich of John--
+
+    "A' the bells o' merrie Lincoln
+    Without men's hands were rung,
+    And a' the books o' merrie Lincoln
+    Were read without man's tongue;
+    And ne'er was such a burial
+    Sin' Adam's days begun."
+
+Passing by the shower of gold rings, necklaces, and bezants which were
+given at his shrine, it is certain that the coals of enthusiasm were
+blown by the report of miracles, never for very long together kept at
+bay by mediæval writers. While wishing to avoid the _affirmatio falsi_
+and to give no heed to lying fables, we must not risk being guilty of a
+_suppressio veri_. The miracles at the tomb come in such convenient
+numbers that their weight, though it possibly made the guardians of the
+shrine, yet breaks the tottering faith of the candid reader. But some
+are more robust, and for them there is a lively total which makes
+Giraldus's lament for the fewness of miracles in his day seem rather
+ungrateful. "Four quinsies"--well, strong emotion will do much for
+quinsies. "One slow oozing"--the disease being doubtful, we need not
+dispute the remedy. "Three paralytics"--in the name of Lourdes, let them
+pass. "Three withered, two dumb, two hunchbacks, one boy dead"--here we
+falter. "One jaundice case" sounds likelier; "one barren woman" need not
+detain us. "Four dropsies, four blind, and nine lunatics"--and now we
+know the worst of it. It would have been a great deal easier to accept
+the whole in a venture (or forlorn hope) of faith if Hugh had witnessed
+and some one else performed these miracles, for he had a scrupulously
+veracious mind. He was so afraid of even the shadow of a lie that he
+used to attemper what he said with words of caution whenever he repeated
+what he had done or heard: "that is only as far as I recollect." He
+would not clap his seal to any letter which contained any questionable
+statement. "We remember to have cited you elsewhere," a common legal
+phrase, would damn a document if he did not remember, literally and
+personally, to have done so. His influence, too, can be discerned in the
+candid Adam, whose honest tale often furnishes us with an antidote to
+his impossible surmises. But veracity, unfortunately, is not highly
+infectious, and it is a little difficult not to believe that the high
+and serene virtues of the great man gone were promptly exploited for the
+small men left. One miracle there seems no reason to doubt. John, in an
+almost maudlin fit of emotional repentance, made peace at the funeral
+with his Cistercian enemies and founded them a home at Beaulieu in the
+New Forest. Indeed, these were the true miracles which recommended Hugh
+to the English people, so that they regarded him as a saint indeed, and
+clamoured for him to be called one formally--the miracles wrought upon
+character, the callous made charitable, liars truthful, and the lechers
+chaste; the miracles of justice, of weak right made strong against proud
+might, and poor honesty made proof against rich rascality; the miracle
+of England made the sweeter and the handsomer for this humble and
+heavenly stranger.
+
+The later history need not detain us long. His body was moved, says
+Thomas Wykes in the _Annales Monastici_, in the year 1219. Perhaps--and
+this is a mere guess--the place where his body lay was injured at the
+time of the battle and capture of Lincoln two years before; and for
+better protection the coffin was simply placed unopened in that curious
+position two-thirds into the wall of the apse foundation, where it was
+found in our day. In 1220 he was canonized by Pope Honorius III., who
+was then at Viterbo organising a crusade, after a report vouching for
+the miracles drawn up by the great Archbishop Stephen Langton and John
+of Fountains, a just and learned man, afterwards Treasurer of England.
+
+Sixty years later, that is to say, in 1280, John Peckham, the pious
+friar archbishop, Oliver Sutton, the cloister-building Bishop of
+Lincoln, and others, among them King Edward I. and his good wife
+Eleanor, opened the tomb and lifted out the body into a shrine adorned
+with gold and jewels and placed it upon a marble pedestal in the Angel
+Choir, either where the modern tomb of Queen Eleanor now stands or just
+opposite. The head came away and sweated wonder-working oils, and was
+casketted and placed at the end of the present Burghersh tombs, as a
+shrine of which the broken pedestal and the knee-worn pavement are still
+to be seen. The body was placed in a shrine cased with plates of gold
+and silver, crusted with gems, and at the last protected by a grille of
+curious wrought iron. A tooth, closed in beryl with silver and gilt,
+appears as a separate item in the Reformation riflings. The history of
+both shrines and of the bones they held is a tale by itself, like most
+true tales ending in mystery. Perhaps, as King Henry VIII. had not much
+veneration for holy bones, but, like our enlightened age, much preferred
+gold, silver, and jewels, his destroying angels may have left the relics
+of Hugh's forsaken mortality to the lovely cathedral, where his memory,
+after seven centuries, is still pathetically and tenderly dear.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{27} Which alone still survives.
+
+{28} Dunstan, Alphege, Lanfranc, Anselm, and others presumably.
+
+{29} Roger de Roldeston, William de Blois, and Richard of Kent.
+
+{30} November 18, 1200.
+
+{31} Possibly on the site where St. Hugh's chapel now stands in
+desolation.
+
+{32} _A boreali ipsius ædis regione_, not of the cathedral, but of the
+new honeycomb apse, please.
+
+
+
+
+  The Gresham Press
+  UNWIN BROTHERS,
+  WOKING AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected; they and other
+possible errors are listed below.
+
+Inconsistent hyphenation: nowadays (now-a-days), brushwood (brush-wood),
+footprints (foot-prints)
+
+Chapter I
+
+   "Under the smoothe" corrected to "Under the smooth".
+
+Chapter II
+
+   "seiges of Milan" not changed.
+
+   "beseiges their city" not changed.
+
+   "lord of Normany" corrected to "lord of Normandy".
+
+   "Manuel Commenus" probable error for "Manuel Comnenus". Not
+   changed.
+
+   "post-Hugonian" possible error for "Post-Hugonian". Not changed.
+
+Chapter III
+
+   "was thorougly understood" corrected to "was thoroughly
+   understood".
+
+   "between Normany and England" corrected to
+   "between Normandy and England".
+
+   "audibly says, 'Oh," corrected to "audibly says, "Oh,".
+
+   "They ought to chose" corrected to "They ought to choose".
+
+Chapter IV
+
+   "præ-Edwardian" not changed.
+
+Chapter V
+
+   "beseiged in Lincoln" not changed.
+
+   "to smoothe those English" corrected to "to smooth those
+   English".
+
+Chapter VI
+
+   "neural tremours" not changed.
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+   Opening double quotation marks (signifying continued quotation)
+   are missing from the paragraphs starting "These things, described
+   but puerilely" and "The foundation is the body", and have not
+   been added.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN***
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+<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, by Charles L. Marson</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln</p>
+<p>       A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England</p>
+<p>Author: Charles L. Marson</p>
+<p>Release Date: July 15, 2008  [eBook #26065]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>E-text prepared by Louise Pryor<br />
+    and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="transnote">
+<h4>Transcriber's note</h4>
+<p> Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original are unusual;
+    they have not been changed. A few obvious typographical errors have
+    been corrected, and they and other possible errors are indicated with
+    a <a class="correction" title="like this" href="#tnotes">mouse-hover</a>
+    and listed at the
+    <a href="#tnotes">end of this etext</a>.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center biggap">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="i">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i"></a>
+HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="ii">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii"></a>
+<img class="gap" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="350" height="793" alt="" title="Hugh of Lincoln" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD : 1901</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="iii">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii"></a>
+HUGH<br />
+<span class="little">BISHOP OF LINCOLN</span>
+</h1>
+
+<h2 class="vspacey"><i>A SHORT STORY</i><br />
+<span class="littler">OF ONE OF</span><br />
+<i>THE MAKERS OF MEDI&AElig;VAL ENGLAND</i>
+</h2>
+
+<h2><span class="littler">BY</span><br />
+CHARLES L. MARSON<br />
+<span class="littler">CURATE OF HAMBRIDGE<br />
+AUTHOR OF &ldquo;THE PSALMS AT WORK,&rdquo; ETC.</span>
+</h2>
+
+<div class="narrow gap">
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i6">Tua me, genitor, tua tristis imago<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">S&aelig;pius occurens, h&aelig;c limina tendere adegit.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Stant sale Tyrrheno classes. Da jungere dextram<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Da, genitor; teque amplexu ne subtrahe nostro.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<p class="toright smcap">&AElig;n. VI. 695.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center gap">
+LONDON<br />
+EDWARD ARNOLD<br />
+37, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND<br />
+1901
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagebreak" title="iv">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv"></a>
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="v">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v"></a>
+<a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<div class="center">
+<table summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr><td class="little">CHAPTER</td><td>&nbsp;</td><td class="little toright">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">&nbsp;</td><td>INTRODUCTION</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">I.</td><td>THE BOY HUGH</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">II.</td><td>BROTHER HUGH</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">III.</td><td>PRIOR HUGH</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">IV.</td><td>THE BISHOP ELECT AND CONSECRATE</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">V.</td><td>THE BISHOP AT WORK</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">VI.</td><td>IN TROUBLES</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">VII.</td><td>AND DISPUTES</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">VIII.</td><td>THE BUILDER</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">IX.</td><td>UNDER KING JOHN</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="toright">X.</td><td>HOMEWARD BOUND</td><td class="toright"><a href="#Page_143">143</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="vi">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi"></a>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="vii">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii"></a>
+<a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION"></a>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+
+<p>In a short biography the reader must expect short statements, rather
+than detailed arguments, and in a popular tale he will not look for
+embattled lists of authorities. But if he can be stirred up to search
+further into the matter for himself, he will find a list of authorities
+ancient and modern come not unacceptable to begin upon.</p>
+
+<p>The author has incurred so many debts of kindness in this work from many
+friends, and from many who were before not even acquaintances, that he
+must flatly declare himself bankrupt to his creditors, and rejoice if
+they will but grant him even a second-class certificate. Among the major
+creditors he must acknowledge his great obligations to the hospitable
+Chancellor of Lincoln and Mrs. Crowfoot, to the Rev. A. Curtois, Mr.
+Haig, and some others, all of whom were willing and even anxious that
+the story of their saint should be told abroad, even by the halting
+tongues of far-away messengers. The same kind readiness appeared at
+Witham: and indeed everybody, who knew already about St. Hugh, has
+seemed anxious that the knowledge of him should be
+<span class="pagebreak" title="viii">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii"></a>
+spread abroad. It
+has snowed books, pamphlets, articles, views, maps, and guesses; and if
+much has remained unsaid or been said with incautious brusqueness,
+rather than with balanced oppressiveness, the reader who carps will
+always be welcome to such material as the author has by him, for
+elucidating the truth. If he has been misled by a blind guide, that
+guide must plead that he has consulted good oculists and worthy
+spectacle-makers, and has had every good intention of steering clear of
+the ditch.</p>
+
+<p>Though what a man is counts for more than what he does, yet the services
+of St. Hugh to England may be briefly summed up. They were (1)
+Spiritual. He made for personal holiness, uncorruptness of public and
+private life. He raised the sense of the dignity of spiritual work,
+which was being rapidly subordinated to civic work and rule. He made
+people understand that moral obligations were very binding upon all men.
+(2) Political. He made for peace at home and abroad: at home by
+restraining the excesses of forestars and tyrants; abroad by opposing
+the constant war policy against France. (3) Constitutional. He first
+encountered and checked the overgrown power of the Crown, and laid down
+limits and principles which resulted in the Church policy of John&rsquo;s
+reign and the triumph of Magna Carta. (4) Architectural. He fully
+developed&mdash;even if he did not, as some assert, invent&mdash;the Early English
+style. (5) Ecclesiastical. He counterbalanced St. Thomas of Canterbury,
+and diverted much of that martyr&rsquo;s influence from an irreconcileable
+Church policy to a more reasonable, if less exalted, notion of liberty.
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="ix">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix"></a>
+(6) He was a patron of letters, and encouraged learning by supporting
+schools, libraries, historians, poets, and commentators.</p>
+
+<p>Ancient authorities for his Life are:&mdash;(1) The Magna Vita, by Chaplain
+Adam (Rolls); (2) Metrical Life, Ed. Dimock, Lincoln, 1860; (3) Giraldus
+Cambrensis, VII. (Rolls); (4) Hoveden&rsquo;s Chronicle (Rolls); (5)
+Benedicti, Gesta R. Henry II. (Rolls); (6) for trifles, Matthew Paris,
+I. and II. (Rolls), John de Oxenden (ditto), Ralph de Diceto (ditto),
+Flores Histor. (ditto), Annales Monastici (ditto); (7) also for
+collateral information, Capgrave Illustrious Henries (Rolls), William of
+Newburgh, Richard of Devizes, Gervase&rsquo;s Archbishops of Canterbury, and
+Robert de Monte, Walter de Mapes&rsquo; De Nugis (Camden Soc). Of modern
+authorities, (1) Canon Perry&rsquo;s Life (Murray, 1879) and his article in
+the Dictionary of National Biography come first; (2) Vie de St. Hughues
+(Montreuil, 1890); (3) Fr. Thurston&rsquo;s translation and adaptation of this
+last (Burns and Oates, 1898); (4) St. Hugh&rsquo;s Day at Lincoln, <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span> 1900,
+Ed. Precentor Bramley (pub. by Clifford Thomas, Lincoln, N.D.); (5)
+Guides to the Cathedral, by Precentor Venables, and also by Mr.
+Kendrick; (6) Arch&aelig;ological matter, Arch&aelig;ological Institute (1848),
+Somerset Arch&aelig;olog. XXXIV., Somerset Notes and Queries, vol. IV., 1895,
+Lincoln Topographical Soc., 1841-2; (7) Collateral information&mdash;<i>cf.</i>
+Miss Norgate&rsquo;s &ldquo;England under Angevin Kings&rdquo; (Macmillan), Robert
+Grosseteste, F. E. Stevenson (ditto), Stubbs&rsquo; &ldquo;Opera Omnia&rdquo; of course,
+Diocesan History of Lincoln, Grande Chartreuse (Burns and Oates), &ldquo;Court
+Life under Plantagenets&rdquo; (Hall),
+<span class="pagebreak" title="x">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x"></a>
+ &ldquo;Highways in Normandy&rdquo; (Dearmer);(8)
+of short studies, Mr. Froude&rsquo;s and an article in the <i>Church Quarterly</i>,
+XXXIII., and Mrs. Charles&rsquo; &ldquo;Martyrs and Saints&rdquo; (S.P.C.K.) are the
+chief.</p>
+
+<p>Of this last book it is perhaps worth saying that if any man will take
+the trouble to compare it with John Brady&rsquo;s <i>Clavis Calendaria</i>, of
+which the third edition came out in 1815, he will see how much the tone
+of the public has improved, both in courtesy towards and in knowledge of
+the great and good men of the Christian faith.</p>
+
+<p>St. Hugh&rsquo;s Post-Reformation history is worth noting for the humour of
+it. He is allowed in the Primer Calendar by unauthorised Marshall, 1535;
+out in Crumwell and Hilsey&rsquo;s, 1539; out by the authorised Primer of King
+and Clergy, 1545; still out in the Prayer-books of 1549 and 1552; in
+again in the authorised Primer of 1553; out of the Prayer-book of 1559;
+in the Latin one of 1560; still in both the Orarium and the New Calendar
+of the next year, though out of the Primer 1559; in the Preces Privatas
+1564, with a scornful <i>admonitio</i> to say that &ldquo;the names of saints, as
+they call them, are left, not because we count them divine, or even
+reckon some of them good, or, even if they were greatly good, pay them
+divine honour and worship; but because they are the mark and index of
+certain matters dependent upon fixed times, to be ignorant of which is
+most inconvenient to our people&rdquo;&mdash;to wit, fairs and so on. Since which
+time St. Hugh has not been cast out of the Calendar, but is in for ever.</p>
+
+<p>In the text is no mention of the poor swineherd, God rest him! His stone
+original lives in Lincoln
+<span class="pagebreak" title="xi">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi"></a>
+cloisters, and a reproduction stands on the
+north pinnacle of the west front (whereas Hugh is on the south
+pinnacle), put there because he hoarded a peck of silver pennies to help
+build the House of God. He lives on in stone and in the memories of the
+people, a little flouted in literature, but, if moral evidence counts,
+unscathedly genuine: honourable in himself, to the saint who inspired
+him, and to the men who hailed him as the bishop&rsquo;s mate&mdash;no mean builder
+in the house not made with hands.
+<span class="pagebreak" title="xii">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii"></a></p>
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<a name="corr1" id="corr1"></a>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="1">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn1" title="page is erroneously numbered '2' in the original">CHAPTER I</a><br />
+<span class="little">THE BOY HUGH</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>St. Hugh is exactly the kind of saint for English folk to study with
+advantage. Some of us listen with difficulty to tales of heroic virgins,
+who pluck out their eyes and dish them up, or to the report of antique
+bishops whose claim to honour rests less upon the nobility of their
+characters than upon the medicinal effect of their post-mortem humours;
+but no one can fail to be struck with this brave, clean, smiling face,
+which looks out upon us from a not impossible past, radiant with sense
+and wit, with holiness and sanity combined, whom we can all reverence as
+at once a saint of God and also one of the fine masculine Makers of
+England. We cherish a good deal of romance about the age in which St.
+Hugh lived. It is the age of fair Rosamond, of Crusades, of lion-hearted
+King Richard, and of Robin Hood. It is more soberly an age of builders,
+of reformers, of scholars, and of poets. If troubadours did not exactly
+&ldquo;touch guitars,&rdquo; at least songsters tackled verse-making and helped to
+refine the table manners of barons and retainers by singing at dinner
+time. The voice of law too
+<span class="pagebreak" title="2">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></a>
+was not silent amid arms. Our constitutional
+government, already begotten, was being born and swaddled. The races
+were being blended. Though England was still but a northern province of
+a kingdom, whose metropolis was Rouen, yet that kingdom was becoming
+rather top-heavy, and inclined to shift its centre of gravity
+northwards. So from any point of view the time is interesting. It is
+essentially an age of monks and of monasteries; perhaps one should say
+the end of the age of monastic influence. Pope Eugenius III., the great
+Suger and St. Bernard, all died when Hugh was a young man. The great
+enthusiasm for founding monasteries was just beginning to ebb. Yet a
+hundred and fifteen English houses were founded in Stephen&rsquo;s reign, and
+a hundred and thirteen in the reign of Henry II., and the power of the
+monastic bodies was still almost paramount in the church. It was to the
+monasteries that men still looked for learning and peace, and the
+monasteries were the natural harbours of refuge for valiant men of
+action, who grew sick of the life of everlasting turmoil in a brutal and
+anarchic world. Indeed, the very tumults and disorders of the state gave
+the monasteries their hold over the best of the men of action. As the
+civil life grew more quiet and ordered, the enthusiasm for the cloister
+waned, and with it the standard of zeal perceptibly fell to a lower
+level, not without grand protest and immense effort of holy men to keep
+the divine fire from sinking.</p>
+
+<p>Hugh of Avalon was born in Avalon Castle in 1140, a year in which the
+great tempest of Stephen&rsquo;s misrule was raging. In France, Louis VII. has
+already succeeded his father, Louis VI.; the Moors
+<span class="pagebreak" title="3">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></a>
+are in Spain, and
+Arnold of Brescia is the centre of controversy. Avalon Castle lies near
+Pontcharra, which is a small town on the Bredo, which flows into the
+Isere and thence into the Rhone. It is not to be confused with Avallon
+of Yonne. The Alpine valleys about Pontcharra are lovely with flowers
+and waters, and have in them the &ldquo;<a name="corr3" id="corr3"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn3" title="inconsistent hyphenation (elsewhere 'footprints')">foot-prints</a> of lost Paradise.&rdquo;
+Burgundy here owed some loyalty to the empire rather than to France, and
+its dukes tried to keep up a semi-independent kingdom by a balanced
+submission to their more powerful neighbours. The very name Hugh was an
+old ducal name, and there is little doubt that William de Avalon, Hugh&rsquo;s
+father, claimed kin with the princes of his land. He was a &ldquo;flower of
+knighthood&rdquo; in battles not now known. He was also by heredity of a pious
+mind. Hugh&rsquo;s mother, Anna, a lovely and wealthy lady, of what stock does
+not appear, was herself of saintly make. She &ldquo;worshipped Christ in His
+limbs,&rdquo; by constantly washing the feet of lepers, filling these wretched
+outcasts with hope, reading to them and supplying their wants. She seems
+to have been a woman of intellectual parts, for though she died before
+Hugh was ten, he had already learned under her, if not from her, to use
+language as the sacrament of understanding and understanding as the
+symbol of truth. He had some grip of grammar and logic, and though he
+did not brood over &ldquo;Ovid&rsquo;s leasings or Juvenal&rsquo;s rascalities,&rdquo; rather
+choosing to ponder upon the two Testaments, yet we may gather that his
+Latin classics were not neglected. The spiritual life of Grenoble had
+been nourished by a noble bishop, also Hugh, who had seen the
+<span class="pagebreak" title="4">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></a>
+vision of
+seven stars resting upon a certain plot of ground, which induced him to
+grant the same to St. Bruno, the founder of the Grande Chartreuse. Here
+he served himself as a simple monk, laying aside his bishop&rsquo;s robes, not
+a score of miles from Avalon. This Hugh was a religious and free
+thinking man, who, though he found evil a great metaphysical stumbling
+block to faith, yet walked painfully by the latter. He died in 1132 or
+thereabouts, and his life was most probably the occasion of our Hugh&rsquo;s
+name, and of much else about him.</p>
+
+<p>The De Avalons had two other boys both older than Hugh: William, who
+inherited the lands, and Peter, who was settled by his brother Hugh at
+Histon, in Cambridge, but he does not seem to have made England his
+home. Hugh had also at least one cousin, William, on his mother&rsquo;s side,
+who attended upon him at Lincoln, and who (unless there were two of the
+same name) developed from a knight into an holy Canon after his great
+relative&rsquo;s decease. These relatives were always ready to lend a hand and
+a sword if required in the good bishop&rsquo;s quarrels. The last particularly
+distinguished himself in a brawl in Lincolnshire Holland, when an armed
+and censured ruffian threatened the bishop with death. The good
+Burgundian blood rose, and William twisted the sword from the villain&rsquo;s
+hand, and with difficulty was prevented from driving it into his body.</p>
+
+<p>When the Lady Anna died, her husband, tired of war, power, and
+governance, distributed his property among his children. Under his
+armour he had long worn the monk&rsquo;s heart, and now he was able to take
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="5">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"></a>
+the monk&rsquo;s dress, and to &ldquo;labour for peace after life, as he had
+already won it in life.&rdquo; So he took Hugh and Hugh&rsquo;s money with him, and
+went off to the little priory of Villarbenoit (of seven canon power),
+which bordered upon his own lands, and which he and his forbears had
+cherished. This little priory was a daughter of Grenoble (St. Hugh of
+Grenoble being, as we infer, a spiritual splendour to the De Avalons),
+and, not least in attraction, there was a canon therein, far-famed for
+heavenly wisdom and for scholarship besides, who kept a school and
+taught sound theology and classics, under whom sharp young Hugh might
+climb to heights both of ecclesiastical and also of heavenly preferment.
+Great was the delight of the canons at their powerful postulant and his
+son, and great the pains taken over the latter&rsquo;s education. The
+schoolmaster laid stress upon authors such as Prudentius, Sedulius, and
+Fulgentius. By these means the boy not only learnt Latin, but he also
+tackled questions of Predestination and Grace, glosses upon St. Paul,
+hymns and methods of frustrating the Arian. Above all, he was exercised
+in the Divine Library, as they called the Bible, taught by St. Jerome.
+Hugh was of course the favourite of the master, who whipt him with
+difficulty, and kept him from the rough sports of his fellow scholars,
+the future soldiers, and &ldquo;reared him for Christ.&rdquo; The boy had a masterly
+memory and a good grip of his work, whether it were as scholar, server,
+or comrade. The Prior assigned to him the special task of waiting upon
+his old father. That modest, kind-hearted gentleman was getting infirm,
+and the young fellow was delighted to be
+<span class="pagebreak" title="6">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"></a>
+told off to lead him, carry
+him, dress and undress him, tie his shoes, towel him, make his bed, cook
+for him and feed him, until the time of the old knight&rsquo;s departure
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>The dates of St. Hugh&rsquo;s life and ministrations must be taken with a
+grain of salt. The authorities differ considerably, and it is impossible
+to clap a date to some of the saint&rsquo;s way-marks without first slapping
+in the face some venerable chronicler, or some thought-worn modern
+historian. If we say with the Great Life that Hugh was ordained Levite
+in his nineteenth year, we upset Giraldus Cambrensis and the metrical
+biographer, who put it in his fifteenth; and Matthew Paris and the
+Legend, who write him down as over sixteen. Mr. Dimock would have us
+count from his entry into the canonry, and so counts him as twenty-four;
+Canon Perry and Father Thurston say &ldquo;nineteenth year,&rdquo; or &ldquo;nineteen.&rdquo;
+The Canons Regular of Villarbenoit seem to have been rather liberal in
+their interpretation of church regulations, but it is hardly likely that
+the bishop of Grenoble would so far stretch a point as to ordain a lad
+much below the canonical age, even if he were of a great house and great
+piety. Anyhow it is hardly worth while for the general reader to waste
+time over these ticklish points. It is enough to say that Hugh was
+ordained young, that he looked pink and white over his white stole and
+broidered tunic, and that he soon preached vigorously, warmly, and
+movingly to the crowd and to his old acquaintances. Sinners heard a very
+straightforward message, and holy persons were edified by the clever way
+in which he handled difficult topics, and in him they
+<span class="pagebreak" title="7">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"></a>
+ &ldquo;blessed the true
+Joseph, who had placed his own cup in the mouth of his younger brother&rsquo;s
+sack.&rdquo; Indeed, he must have been a captivating and interesting young
+man, and since he was so strikingly like Henry II. of England that
+folks&rsquo; tongues wagged freely about it, we may picture him as a young man
+of moderate height, rather large in the brow, with red brown hair,
+bright grey eyes, large chest, and generally of an athletic build and
+carriage. He had a face which easily flushed and told both of anger and
+a lively sense of humour.</p>
+
+<p>He was the delight of his house, and of the people about, who welcomed
+him with enthusiasm when he came back after nearly forty years&rsquo; absence.
+But most of all he was the apple of the eye to his old scholarly father
+prior, who loved him as his own soul. It is not wonderful that when one
+of the scanty brotherhood was called upon to take charge of a small
+country living, the &ldquo;cell of St. Maximin,&rdquo; the zealous deacon was chosen
+to administer the same. The tiny benefice could hardly support one, with
+small household, but Hugh insisted upon having an old priest to share
+the benefice. A little parcel of glebe and a few vines, tended by honest
+rustics, were his. They were able by pious frugality to nourish the poor
+and grace the rich. The parishioners grew in holiness. The congregation
+swelled from many sources, and the sermons (of life and word) were
+translated into sound faith and good conversation. This experience of
+parish work must have been of the greatest value to the future bishop,
+for the tragedy and comedy of life is just as visible in the smallest
+village as it is in the largest empire. The cloister-bred
+<span class="pagebreak" title="8">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a>
+lad must have
+learnt on this small organ to play that good part which he afterwards
+was called upon to play upon a larger instrument. One instance is
+recorded of his discipline. A case of open adultery came under his
+notice. He sent for the man and gave him what he considered to be a
+suitable admonition. The offender replied with threats and abuse. Hugh,
+gospel in hand, pursued him first with two and then with three
+witnesses, offering pardon upon reform and penance. No amendment was
+promised. Both guilt and scandal continued. Then Hugh waited for a
+festival, and before a full congregation rebuked him publicly, declared
+the greatness of his sin, handed him over to Satan for the death of his
+flesh with fearful denunciations, except he speedily came to his senses.
+The man was thunderstruck, and brought to his knees at a blow. With
+groans and tears he confessed, did penance (probably at the point of the
+deacon&rsquo;s stick), was absolved and received back to the fold; so
+irresistible was this young administrator who knew St. Augustine&rsquo;s
+advice that &ldquo;in reproof, if one loves one&rsquo;s neighbour enough, one can
+even say anything to him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Hugh was ill at ease in his charge, and his heart burned towards the
+mountains, where the Grande Chartreuse had revived the austerities of
+ancient monasticism. It seemed so grand to be out of and above the
+world, in solitary congregation, with hair shirt, hard diet, empty flesh
+pot, and full library, in the deep silence and keen air of the
+mountains. Here hands that had gripped the sword and the sceptre were
+turned to the spade and lifted only in prayer. There were not only the
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="9">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"></a>
+allurements of hardship, but also his parents&rsquo; faith and his own early
+lessons tugging at his heart strings. He found means to go with his
+prior into the awful enclosure, and the austere passion seized him. He
+told his heart&rsquo;s desire to an old ex-baron, who probably felt some alarm
+that a young gentleman who had campaigned so slightly in the plains of
+active life should aspire to dwell upon these stern hills of
+contemplation. &ldquo;My dear boy, how dare you think of such a thing?&rdquo; he
+answered, and then, looking at the refined young face before him, warned
+the deacon against the life. The men were harder than stones, pitiless
+to themselves and to others. The place dreary, the rule most burdensome.
+The rough robe would rake the skin and flesh from young bones. The harsh
+discipline would crush the very frame of tender youth.</p>
+
+<p>The other monks were less forbidding. They warmly encouraged the
+aspiration, and the pair returned to their home, Hugh struggling to hide
+the new fire from his aged friend. But the old man saw through the
+artless cloakings and was in despair. He used every entreaty to save
+Hugh for the good work he was doing, and to keep his darling at his
+side. Hugh&rsquo;s affectionate heart and ready obedience gave way, and he
+took a solemn oath not to desert his canonry, and so went back to his
+parishing.</p>
+
+<p>But then came, as it naturally would come to so charming and vigorous a
+lad, the strong return of that Dame Nature who had been so long forked
+forth by his cloistral life. A lady took a liking to this heavenly
+curate. Other biographers hint at this pathetic little romance, and
+cover up the story with tales of a
+<span class="pagebreak" title="10">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"></a>
+wilderness of women; but the
+metrical biographer is less discreetly vague, and breaks into a tirade
+against that race of serpents, plunderers, robbers, net weavers, and
+spiders&mdash;the fair sex. Still, he cannot refrain from giving us a graphic
+picture of the presumptuous she-rascal who fell in love with Hugh, and
+although most of his copyists excise his thirty-nine graphic lines of
+Zuleika&rsquo;s portrait, the amused reader is glad to find that all were not
+of so edifying a mind. Her lovely hair that vied with gold was partly
+veiled and partly strayed around her ivory neck. Her little ear, a
+curved shell, bore up the golden mesh. Under the
+<a name="corr10" id="corr10"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn10" title="corrected from 'smoothe'">smooth</a>
+clear white brow she had curved black eyebrows without a criss-cross
+hair in them, and these disclosed and heightened the clear white of the
+skin. And her nose, too&mdash;not flat nor arched, not long nor snub, but
+beyond the fineness of geometry, with light, soft breath, and the sweet
+scent of incense. Such shining eyes too: like emeralds starring her face
+with light! And the face, blended lilies and roses in a third lovely hue
+that one could not withdraw one&rsquo;s eyes from beholding. The gentle pout
+of her red lips seemed to challenge kisses. Shining as glass, white as a
+bell flower, she had a breast and head joined by a noble poised throat,
+which baited the very hook of love. Upon her lily finger she wore a red
+and golden ring. Even her frock was a miracle of millinery. This lovely
+creature, complete to a nail, much disturbed the mind of Hugh, and
+played her pretty tricks upon her unexercised pastor: now demure, now
+smiling, now darting soft glances, now reining in her eyes. But he, good
+man, was rock or diamond. At last the fair
+<span class="pagebreak" title="11">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"></a>
+creature actually stroked
+his arm, and then Hugh was startled into a panic. His experience and
+training had not been such as to fit him to deal with situations of this
+sort. He fled. He cut out the skin of the arm where her rosy fingers had
+rested. He found it impossible to escape from the sight of many fair
+maids of Burgundy. Zuleika was fascinating enough, but his original Adam
+within (whom he called Dalilah) was worse. He forsook his post, broke
+his vow, and bolted to the Grande Chartreuse.</p>
+
+<p>One modern biographer, who is shocked at his perjury to the prior, would
+no doubt have absolved him if he had married the lass against his
+canonic vows. Another thinks him most edifyingly liberal in his
+interpretation of duty. Is there any need to forestall Doomsday in these
+matters? The poor fellow was in both a fix and a fright. Alas! that
+duties should ever clash! His own view is given with his own
+decisiveness. &ldquo;No! I never had a scruple at all about it. I have always
+felt great delight of mind when I recall the deed which started me upon
+so great an undertaking.&rdquo; The brothers of the Charterhouse gladly took
+him in, the year being about 1160, and his age about twenty, let us say;
+hardly an age anyhow which would fit him for dealing with pert minxes
+and escaping the witcheries of the beauty which still makes beautiful
+old hexameters.</p>
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="12">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br />
+<span class="little">BROTHER HUGH</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>&ldquo;Ye might write th&rsquo; doin&rsquo;s iv all th&rsquo; convents iv th&rsquo; wurruld on the
+back of a postage stamp, an&rsquo; have room to spare,&rdquo; says Mr. Dooley; and
+we rather expect some hiatus in our history here. Goodbye to beef,
+butter, and good red wheat; white corn, sad vegetables, cold water,
+sackcloth take their place, with fasts on bread and water, and festivals
+mitigated by fish. Goodbye to pillows and bolsters and linen shirts.
+Welcome horse-hair vests, sacking sheets, and the &ldquo;bitter bite of the
+flea,&rdquo;&mdash;sad entertainment for gentlemen! Instead of wise and merry talk,
+wherein he excelled, solitary confinement in a wooden cell (the brethren
+now foist off a stone one upon credulous tourists) with willing slavery
+to stern Prior Basil. The long days of prayer and meditation, the nights
+short with psalmody, every spare five minutes filled with reading,
+copying, gardening and the recitation of offices. All these the novice
+took with gusto, safe hidden from the flash of emerald eyes and the
+witchery of hypergeometrical noses. But temptation is not to be kept out
+by the diet of Adam and of Esau, by locked doors, spades, and
+<span class="pagebreak" title="13">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a>
+inkpots.
+The key had hardly turned upon the poor refugee when he found he had
+locked in his enemies with him. His austerities redoubled, but as he
+says he &ldquo;only beat the air&rdquo; until He who watches over Israel without
+slumber or sleep laid His hand upon him and fed him with a hidden manna,
+so fine and so plentiful that the pleasures of life seemed paltry after
+the first taste of it. After this experience our Hugh used to be
+conscious always of a Voice and a Hand, giving him cheer and strength,
+although the strong appetites of his large nature troubled him to the
+last. Here Hugh devoured books, too, until the time floated by him all
+too fleetly.</p>
+
+<p>His great affectionate heart poured itself out upon wild birds and
+squirrels which came in from the beech and pine woods, and learned to
+feed from his platter and his fingers. It is difficult to read with
+patience that his prior, fearing lest he should enjoy these innocent
+loves too much, and they would &ldquo;hinder his devotion,&rdquo; banished these
+pretty dears from the dreary cell. But in charity let us suppose that
+the prior more than supplied their place, for Hugh was told off to tend
+a weak old monk, to sing him the offices, and to nurse the invalid. This
+godly old man, at once his schoolmaster and his patient, sounded him
+whether he wished to be ordained priest. When he learned that, as far as
+lay in Hugh he desired nothing more, he was greatly shocked, and reduced
+his nurse-pupil to tears by scolding him for presumption; but he
+presently raised him from his knees and prophesied that he would soon be
+a priest and some day a bishop. Hugh was soon after this ordained
+priest, and was distinguished for the great
+<span class="pagebreak" title="14">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"></a>
+fervour of his behaviour in
+celebrating the Mass &ldquo;as if he handled a visible Lord Saviour&rdquo;&mdash;a
+touching devoutness which never left him, and which contrasted
+strikingly with the perfunctory, careless or bored ways of other
+priests. He injured his health by over-abstinence, one effect of which
+was to cause him to grow fat, Nature thus revenging herself by
+fortifying his frame against such ill-treatment.</p>
+
+<p>In the talk time after Nones, the brothers had much to hear about the
+storms which raged outside their walls. It is rather hard for us
+<a name="corr14a" id="corr14a"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn14a" title="inconsistent hyphenation (elsewhere 'now-a-days')">nowadays</a> to see things through Charterhouse spectacles. There is
+our lord the Pope, Alexander III., slow and yet persistent, wrestling
+hard with the terrible Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who is often
+marching away to <a name="corr14b" id="corr14b"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn14b" title="unchanged from original">seiges</a> of Milan, reducing strong rogues and
+deeply wronging the church (whose forged documents are all purely
+genuine). Then what a hubbub there is in the church! Monstrous
+anti-popes, one of whom, Victor, dies, and a satanic bishop Henry of
+Li&eacute;ge consecrates another, Pascal, and the dismal schism continues. Then
+our lord Alexander returns to Rome, and the Emperor slaughters the
+Romans and <a name="corr14c" id="corr14c"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn14c" title="unchanged from original">beseiges</a> their city and enthrones Pascal. There
+are big imperial plans afoot, unions of East and West, which end in
+talk: but Sennacherib Frederick is defeated by a divine and opportune
+pestilence. Then Pascal dies, and the schism flickers, the Emperor
+crawls to kiss the foot of St. Peter, and finally, in 1179, Alexander
+reigns again in Rome for a space. Meantime, Louis VII., a pious
+Crusader, and dutiful son of the Regulars, plays a long, and mostly a
+losing, game of buffets with Henry of Anjou, lord of
+<span class="pagebreak" title="15">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"></a>
+<a name="corr15" id="corr15"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn15" title="changed from 'Normany'">Normandy</a>, Maine, Touraine, Poitou, Aquitaine and Gascony, and leader of
+much else besides, King also of England, and conqueror of Ireland&mdash;a
+terrible man, who had dared to aspire to hang priestly murderers. He has
+forced some awful Constitutions of Clarendon upon a groaning church, or
+a church which ought to groan and does not much, but rather talks of the
+laws and usage of England being with the king. But the noble Thomas has
+withstood him, and is banished and beggared and his kith and kin with
+him. The holy man is harboured by our good Cistercian brothers of
+Pontigny, where he makes hay and reaps and see visions. He is hounded
+thence. These things ignite wars, and thereout come conferences. Thomas
+will not compromise, and even Louis fretfully docks his alimony and
+sends him dish in hand to beg; but he, great soul, is instant in
+excommunication, whereafter come renewed brawls, fresh (depraved)
+articles. Even the king&rsquo;s son is crowned by Roger of York, &ldquo;an
+execration, not a consecration.&rdquo; At last (woeful day!) Thomas goes home
+still cursing, and gets his sacred head split open, and thus wins the
+day, and has immense glory and sympathy, which tames the fierce
+anti-anarchist king. He, too, kneels to our lord Alexander, and swears
+to go crusading in three years&rsquo; time, meanwhile paying Templars to do it
+for him. All this comes out in driblets after Nones, and brings us to
+1171 <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span>, brother Hugh being aged about one and thirty. When the old
+monk died Hugh was given another old man to wait upon&mdash;Peter, the
+Archbishop of Tarentaise, who came there often for retreat and study.
+This renowned old man had been a friend
+<span class="pagebreak" title="16">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"></a>
+of St. Bernard, and was a great
+stickler and miracle worker for Alexander III., and he was a delegate to
+make peace between Henry and Louis, when he died in 1174. Hugh found his
+quotations, compiled any <i>catena</i> he wished to make, retrieved saintly
+instances, washed his feet, walked with him, and sat with him on a seat
+between two large fir trees, which seat &ldquo;miraculously grew no higher, as
+the trees grew.&rdquo; In this manner Hugh knew and was known of the outside
+world, for Archbishop Peter was a man of large following and
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>And now Hugh is made, wincingly, the procurator or bursar of the Grande
+Chartreuse, after he has spent eight years there, and is plunged in a
+sea of worldly business. The prior makes good use of his tact, business
+capacity, and honourable nature. He had thought and read to some
+purpose, for he ruled the lay brothers with diligence, and instructed
+the monks with great care, stirring up the sluggish and bitting the
+heady into restfulness. He did his worldly work vigorously, and turned
+it swiftly to spiritual gain. He had strong wine of doctrine for the
+chapter-house, milk for the auditorium. The secular people, if they were
+rich, he taught not to trust in riches; if they were poor, he refreshed
+them with such rations as the Order allowed. If he had nothing else, he
+always had a kind and cheery word to give. Among the travellers must
+have been many noble postmen, who carried letters in their hands and
+messages in their heads from Henry to Humbert of Maurienne, who held the
+keys of all the Alpine roads to Italy and Germany and whose infant
+daughter was betrothed to the boy John Lackland with dowries disputable,
+whereat
+<span class="pagebreak" title="17">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"></a>
+Henry junior rebels, and makes uncommon mischief. The
+procurator was keen and accurate in his work. He never mislaid the
+books, forgot, fumbled, or made a &ldquo;loiter,&rdquo; <i>morantia</i>, as they called
+it, when the office halted or was unpunctual. The lay brethren did not
+have to cough at any trips in his reading, which was their quaint way of
+rebuking mistakes.</p>
+
+<p>Henry II. was reconciled in 1172 and his crusade was to begin in 1175;
+but during these years his dominions were in constant flame. Scotland
+and France harried him. His sons leagued against him. His nobles rose.
+He fought hard battles, did humble penances at St. Thomas&rsquo; tomb, and
+came out victorious, over his political and ecclesiastical opponents
+too, and began again the ordering of his unruly realms. What a rough and
+tumble world the Chronicles reveal as we turn them over! There is a
+crusade in Asia Minor in 1176. Manuel <a name="corr17" id="corr17"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn17" title="probable error for 'Comnenus'">Commenus</a> relates his
+success and failure. There are heretics in Toulouse who are Puritans,
+half Quaker and half Arian, condemned by a Council of Lombers, 1176.
+Next year Henry seems to have begun his penance, which was commuted from
+a crusade into three religious foundations, and rather shabbily he did
+it. Some people try to put Newstead in Selwood in the list, but this was
+founded in 1174; and Le Liget has been mentioned, a Charterhouse in
+Touraine founded in 1178. The most probable explanation is this. Henry
+tried to do the penance (&alpha;) by buying out the Secular Canons of
+Waltham at a price determined by Archbishop Richard. He replaced these
+by Canons Regular under Walter de Cant. He then endowed them handsomely
+and had papal authority
+<span class="pagebreak" title="18">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"></a>
+for this. (&beta;) He found this so
+expensive that he tried to do the other two more cheaply. A scandal had
+arisen in Amesbury. He expelled the incontinent nuns, and brought over
+from Font Evroult a colony of more devout ladies in their room. The
+chroniclers show that this evasion was severely commented upon, and we
+may conclude that Le Liget was a tardy substitute&mdash;a cheap strip of
+forest land granted to an order which was celebrated for its dislike of
+covetousness, and whose rules required manual labour and a desert (and
+so valueless) land. Le Liget, be it noticed, is founded after the peace
+of Venice has given more power to the Papal elbow. The Lateran Council
+is also a little threatening towards King Henry in March, 1179,
+particularly on the question of the ferocity of mercenaries. Young
+Philip Augustus is also evidently succeeding his waning father, and
+generally speaking it is better to be conciliatory and to admit that the
+Amesbury plan was perhaps insufficient. At any rate, it is well to found
+another house: Carthusians of course, for they are holy, popular, and
+inexpensive. Henry, who was generous enough for lepers, hospitals, and
+active workers, did not usually care very much for contemplative orders,
+though his mother, the Empress Matilda, affected the Cistercians and
+founded the De Voto Monastery near Calais, and he inherited something
+from her. These considerations may have first prompted and then
+fortified Henry&rsquo;s very slow and reluctant steps in the work of founding
+Witham, in substance and not in shadow. It is also quite possible that
+he had not entirely given up the notion of going on a crusade after all.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="19">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"></a>
+</p><p>The first attempt was little more than a sketch. 5,497 acres were
+marked off for the new house, in a wet corner of Selwood forest. But the
+land was not transferred from William FitzJohn and the villeins were not
+evicted or otherwise disposed of. The place was worse than a desert, for
+it contained possessors not dispossessed. The poor monks, few and
+unprepared, who came over at their own expense, probably expecting a
+roof and a welcome, found their mud flat was inhabited by indignant
+Somerset&aelig;, whose ways, manners, language, and food were unknown to them.
+The welcome still customarily given in these parts to strangers was
+warmer than usual. The foreign English, even if their lands were not
+pegged out for Charterhouses, were persuaded that the brethren were
+landsharks of the most omnivorous type. The poor prior quailed,
+despaired, and hastily bolted, leaving an old and an angry monkish
+comrade to face the situation with a small company of lay brothers.
+Another prior arrived, and to the vexation of the king shuffled off his
+maltreated coil in a very short time. After spending Christmas (1179-80)
+in Nottingham, the king crossed into Normandy with young Henry before
+Easter, meaning to avenge the wrongs Philip Augustus did to his
+relatives. Here most probably it was that a noble of the region of
+Maurienne (come no doubt upon business of the impending war), chatted
+with him about the Charterhouse. He paid a warm tribute to Hugh in words
+of this kind, &ldquo;My lord king, there is only one sure way of getting free
+from these straits. There is in the Charterhouse a certain monk, of high
+birth but far higher moral
+<span class="pagebreak" title="20">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"></a>
+vigour. His name is Hugh of Avalon. He
+carries on him all the grace of the virtues; but besides, every one who
+knows him takes to him and likes him, so that all who see him find their
+hearts fairly caught. Those who are privileged to hear him talk are
+delighted to find his speech divinely or angelically inspired. If the
+new plantation of this most holy order in your lands should deserve to
+have this man to dress and rule it, you will see it go joyfully forward
+straight away towards fruiting in every grace. Moreover, as I am
+certain, the whole English Church will be very greatly beautified by the
+radiance of his most pure religion and most religious purity. But his
+people will not easily let him go from their house, and he will never go
+to live elsewhere unless it be under compulsion and against his will, so
+your legation must be strong and strenuous: you must struggle to compass
+the matter even with urgent prayers until you get this man and him only.
+Then for the future your mind will be released from the anxieties of
+this care, and this lofty religion will make a noble growth to your
+excellency&rsquo;s renown. You will discover in this one man, with the whole
+circle of the other virtues, whatever mortal yet has shown of
+longsuffering, sweetness, magnanimity, and meekness. No one will dislike
+him for a neighbour or house-mate; no one will avoid him as a foreigner.
+No one will hold him other than a fellow politically, socially, and by
+blood, for he regards the whole race of men as part and parcel of
+himself, and he takes all men and comforts them in the arms and lap of
+his unique charity.&rdquo; The king was delighted with this sketch, and sent
+off post haste Reginald, Bishop
+<span class="pagebreak" title="21">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"></a>
+of Bath (in whose diocese Witham lay),
+and an influential embassage to secure the treasure, if it could be
+done.</p>
+
+<p>But the man who was being sought had just about then been finding the
+burden of this flesh so extremely heavy that he was more inclined to run
+riot in the things that do not belong to our peace than to settle
+comfortably upon a saint&rsquo;s pedestal or to take up a new and disagreeably
+dull work. The fatal temptations of forty, being usually unexpected, are
+apt to upset the innocent more surely than are the storms of youth; and
+poor Hugh was now so badly tried that the long life of discipline must
+have seemed fruitless. He just escaped, as he told his too-little
+reticent biographer, from one nearly fatal bout by crying out, &ldquo;By Thy
+passion, cross, and life-giving death, deliver me.&rdquo; But neither frequent
+confession, nor floggings, nor orisons, seemed to bring the clean and
+quiet heart. He was much comforted by a vision of his old prior Basil,
+who had some days before migrated to God. This dear old friend and
+father stood by him radiant in face and robe, and said with a gentle
+voice, &ldquo;Dearest son, how is it with thee? Why this face down on the
+ground? Rise, and please tell thy friend the exact matter.&rdquo; Hugh
+answered, &ldquo;Good father, and my most kind nurser, the law of sin and
+death in my members troubles me even to the death, and except I have thy
+wonted help, thy lad will even die.&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes, I will help thee.&rdquo; The
+visitor took a razor in his hand and cut out an internal inflamed
+tumour, flung it far away, blessed his patient, and disappeared, leaving
+no trace of his surgery in heart or
+<span class="pagebreak" title="22">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"></a>
+flesh. Hugh told this story in his
+last illness to Adam, his chaplain, and added that though after this the
+flesh troubled him, its assaults were easy to scorn and to repress,
+though always obliging him to walk humbly.</p>
+
+<p>The king&rsquo;s messengers took with them the Bishop of Grenoble and unfolded
+their errand. The Charterhouse was horrified, and the prior most of all.
+He delayed a reply. The first prior refused the request. The votes
+varied. Bovo, a monk who afterwards succeeded to Witham, declared
+strongly that it was a divine call, that the holiness of the order might
+be advertised to the ends of the earth. Hugh was too large a light to
+keep under their bushel. He seems better fitted to be a bishop than a
+monk, he said. Hugh was then bidden to speak. He told them that with all
+the holy advice and examples about him he had never managed to keep his
+own soul for one day, so how could any wise person think him fit to rule
+other folk? Could he set up a new house, if he could not even keep the
+rules of the old one? This is childishness and waste of time. &ldquo;Let us
+for the future leave such matters alone, and since the business is hard
+and urgent do you only occupy yourselves to see that this king&rsquo;s
+undertaking be frittered no longer away half done, to the peril of souls
+and the dishonour of the holy order, and so from among you or from your
+other houses choose a man fit for this work and send him with these men.
+Since these are wise, do you too answer them wisely. Grant their desire,
+not their request. Give them a man not such as they seek under a
+mistake, but such as they devoutly and
+<span class="pagebreak" title="23">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"></a>
+discreetly demand. It is not
+right that men should be heard unadvisedly who mistake the man of their
+request and who do not really want to be mistaken in the man&rsquo;s
+qualifications. So, in a word, do not grant their request, but cheer
+them by bettering it.&rdquo; The prior and Hugh were of one decision. The
+former declared point blank that he would not say go, and finally he
+turned to the Carthusian Bishop of Grenoble, &ldquo;our bishop, father, and
+brother in one,&rdquo; and bade him decide. The bishop accepted the
+responsibility, reminded them of the grief which arose when St. Benedict
+sent forth St. Maur to Western Gaul, and exhorted Hugh that the Son of
+God had left the deepest recess of His Deity to be manifest for the
+salvation of many. &ldquo;You too must pilgrimage for a little time from your
+dearest, breaking for a while the silence of the quiet you have loved.&rdquo;
+After much interruption from Hugh, the sentence was given. They all
+kissed him and sent him away forthwith. The king received him with much
+graciousness and ordered him to be carried honourably to Witham, and the
+wretched remnant in the mud flat received him as an angel of God. Well
+they might do so, for they seemed to have passed a melancholy winter in
+twig huts, now called &ldquo;weeps,&rdquo; in a little paled enclosure, not only
+without the requisites of their order, but with barely bread to their
+teeth. There was no monastery, not even a plan of one. William FitzJohn
+and his clayey serfs scowled upon the shivering interlopers, uncertain
+what injustice might be done to them and to their fathers&rsquo; homes, in
+sacrifices to the ghost of St. Thomas.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="24">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"></a>
+</p><p>Witham is a sort of glorified soup-plate, still bearing traces of its
+old Selwood Forest origin, for the woodlands ring round it. The infant
+river Avon creeps through its clayey bottom, and there are remains of
+the old dams which pent it into fish-ponds. Of the convent nothing
+remains except a few stumps in a field called &ldquo;Buildings,&rdquo; unless the
+stout foundations of a room, S.E. of the church, called the
+reading-room, mark the guest house, as tradition asserts. Much of the
+superstructure of this cannot go back beyond the early sixteenth
+century, but the solid walls, the small size (two cottage area), allow
+of the fancy that here was the site of many colloquies between our Hugh
+and Henry Fitz-Empress.<a name="fnm_1" id="fnm_1"></a><a href="#fn_1" class="fnnum">1</a></p>
+
+<p>The church itself is one of the two erected by St. Hugh, partly with his
+own hands. It is the lay brothers&rsquo; church (called since pre-Franciscan
+days, the Friary). The conventual church has left no wrack behind. The
+style is entirely Burgundian, a single nave, with Romanesque windows,
+ending in an apse. The &ldquo;tortoise&rdquo; roof, of vaulted stone, is as lovely
+as it is severe. In 1760 the Tudor oaken bell-turret survived. The
+horrid story of how a jerry-built tower was added and the old
+<a name="corr24" id="corr24"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn24" title="possible error for 'Post-Hugonian'">post-Hugonian</a> font built into it, how a new font was after long
+interval added, does not concern us. The tower was happily removed, the
+old font found and
+<span class="pagebreak" title="25">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a>
+remounted (as if the text ran, &ldquo;One faith, two
+baptisms&rdquo;), and a stone nozzle built to uphold three bells. The
+buttresses are copied from St. Hugh&rsquo;s Lincoln work.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_1" id="fn_1"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_1">1</a></span> The present Vicar is anxious to turn this place, which has
+been alternately cottages, a lock-up, and a reading-room, into a lecture
+hall and parish room; but the inhabitants, unworthy of their historical
+glories, seem rather disposed to let the old building tumble into road
+metal, to their great shame and reproach.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="26">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br />
+
+<span class="little">PRIOR HUGH</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>It did not require much talent to see that the first requisite of the
+foundation was a little money, and consequently we find ten white pounds
+paid from the Exchequer to the Charterhouse brethren, and a note in the
+Great Life to say that the king was pleased with Hugh&rsquo;s modesty, and
+granted him what he asked for. Next there was a meeting of all who had a
+stake of any kind in the place, who would be obliged to be removed lest
+their noise and movement should break the deep calm of the community. It
+was put to each to choose whether he would like a place in any royal
+manor, with cottage and land equal to those they gave up, or else to be
+entirely free from serfdom, and to go where they chose. It is noteworthy
+that some chose one alternative, some the other, not finding villeinage
+intolerable. Next came the question of compensation for houses, crops,
+and improvements, that the transfer might be made without injustice but
+with joy on both sides. Here Henry boggled a little. &ldquo;In truth, my
+lord,&rdquo; said the prior, &ldquo;unless every one of them is paid to the
+<span class="pagebreak" title="27">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"></a>
+last
+doight for every single thing the place cannot be given to us.&rdquo; So the
+king was forced to do a little traffic, which he considered to be a dead
+loss, and acquired some very old cottages with rotten rafters and
+cracked walls at a handsome price. The salesmen liked this new business;
+it filled their pockets, and they blessed the new influence. This good
+merchant had traded so as to gain both justice and mercy, but he tackled
+the king once more, with twinkling eye. &ldquo;Well, my lord king, you see I
+am new and poor, yet I have enriched you in your own land with a number
+of houses.&rdquo; The king smiled. &ldquo;I did not covet riches of this nature.
+They have made me almost a beggar, and I cannot tell of what good such
+goods may be.&rdquo; Hugh wanted this very answer. &ldquo;Of course, of course,&rdquo; he
+rejoined, &ldquo;I see you do not reck much of your purchase. It would befit
+your greatness if these dwellings were handed over to me, for I have
+nowhere to lay my head.&rdquo; The king opened his eyes and stared at his
+petitioner. &ldquo;Thou wouldst be a fine landlord. Dost thou think we cannot
+build thee a new house? What on earth shouldest thou do with these?&rdquo; &ldquo;It
+does not befit royal generosity to ask questions about trifles. This is
+my first petition to thee, and why, when it is so small, should I be
+kept waiting about it?&rdquo; The king merrily answered, &ldquo;Hear the fellow!
+Almost using violence too, in a strange land. What would he do if he
+used force, when he gets so much out of us by words? Lest we should be
+served worse by him, he must have it so.&rdquo; The cat was soon out of the
+bag. Each house was presented back to the man who had sold it, either to
+sell
+<span class="pagebreak" title="28">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"></a>
+or to remove as he chose, lest in any way Jerusalem should be
+built with blood.</p>
+
+<p>Then the building began, but no more; for the ten white pounds did not
+go far, and the workmen angrily and abusively asked for wages. A
+deputation went off to Henry, who was collecting troops and dismissing
+them, ordering, codifying, defending, enlarging and strengthening his
+heterogeneous empire. Now he was on one side of the sea, now on the
+other. He promised succour, and the brethren brought back&mdash;promises. The
+work stopped, and the Prior endured in grim silence. Another embassage
+is sent, and again the lean wallets return still flabby. Then the
+brethren began to turn their anger against the Prior. He was slothful
+and neglectful for not approaching the king in person (although the man
+was abroad and busy). Brother Gerard, a white-haired gentleman, &ldquo;very
+successful in speaking to the great and to princes,&rdquo; fell upon his
+superior for glozing with a hard-hearted king and not telling him
+instantly to complete the buildings under pain of a Carthusian stampede.
+Not only was the Order wronged, but themselves were made fools of, who
+had stuck so long there without being able even to finish their mere
+dolls&rsquo; houses. Brother Gerard himself would be delighted to din
+something into the King&rsquo;s ears in the presence of his prior. To this all
+the brethren said &ldquo;Aye.&rdquo; Hugh gratefully accepted their counsel, and
+added, &ldquo;All the same, Brother Gerard, you will have to see to it that
+you are as modest as you are free in your discourse. It may well be,
+that in order to be able to know us well, that sagaciously clever and
+inscrutable minded prince
+<span class="pagebreak" title="29">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"></a>
+pretends not to hear us, just to prove our
+mettle. Doubtless he knows that it belongs to that perfection which we
+profess to fulfil, that lesson of our Lord which tells us, &lsquo;In your
+patience ye shall possess your souls,&rsquo; and that too of most blessed
+Paul, &lsquo;In all things let us shew forth ourselves as the ministers of
+God, in much patience.&rsquo; But much patience is assured in this, if much
+longsuffering bears with much gentleness much that opposes and thwarts.
+For patience without longsuffering will not be much, but short; and
+without gentleness will merely not exist.&rdquo; So said, Hugh Gerard and old
+Ainard (a man of immense age and curious story) set out to the king.
+They were all received like angels, with honour, polite speeches,
+excuses, instant promises, but neither cash nor certain credit. Then
+Gerard fumed and forgot the advice of his superior, and broke out into a
+furious declaration that he was off and quit of England, and would go
+back to his Alpine rocks, and not conflict with a man who thought it
+lost labour to be saved. &ldquo;Let him keep the riches he loves so well. He
+will soon lose them, and leave them to some ungrateful heir or other.
+Christ ought not to share in them; no, nor any good Christian.&rdquo; These,
+and harsher words, too, were Gerard&rsquo;s coaxes. Poor Hugh used often, in
+after life, to remember them with horror. He got red and confused. He
+told his brother to speak gentlier, to eschew such terms, or even to
+hold his tongue: but Gerard (of holy life, grey head, and gentle blood)
+scolded on without bridle. Henry listened in a brown study. Neither by
+look, nor word, did he appear hit. He let the monk rate, kept silence
+and self control, and when
+<span class="pagebreak" title="30">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"></a>
+the man had talked himself out, and an
+awkward silence reigned, he glanced at Hugh&rsquo;s confused and downcast
+face. &ldquo;Well, good man,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and what are you thinking about within
+yourself? You are not preparing to go off too, and leave our kingdom to
+us, are you?&rdquo; The answer came humbly and gently, but with perfect
+manliness. &ldquo;I do not despair of you so far, my lord. I am rather sorry
+for all your hindrances and business, which block the salutary studies
+of your soul. You are busy, and when God helps, we shall get on well
+with these health-giving projects.&rdquo; Henry felt the spell at once; flung
+his arms round Hugh, and said with an oath, &ldquo;By my soul&rsquo;s salvation,
+while I live and breathe, thou shalt never depart from my kingdom. With
+thee I will share my life&rsquo;s plans, and the needful studies of my soul.&rdquo;
+The money was found at once, and a royal hint given. The demon blood of
+the Angevins, which frightened most men, and kept Henry in loneliness,
+had no terrors for Hugh; and Henry could hardly express the pleasure he
+felt in a rare friendship which began here. He loved and honoured no
+other man so much, for he had found a man who sympathised with him
+without slavishness, and whose good opinion was worth having. This close
+friendship, combined with physical likeness, made it generally believed
+that Hugh was Henry&rsquo;s own son. Hugh did not always agree with the king,
+and if he felt strongly that any course was bad for king and kingdom
+would say so roundly in direct words of reproof, but withal so
+reasonably and sweetly that he made &ldquo;the rhinoceros harrow the valleys&rdquo;
+after him, as his biographer quaintly puts it,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="31">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"></a>
+glancing at Job. The
+counsel was not limited to celestial themes. Hugh checked his temper,
+softened his sentences, and got him to do good turns to churches and
+religious places. He unloosed the king&rsquo;s rather tight fist, and made him
+a good almsgiver. One offence Hugh was instant in rebuking&mdash;the habit of
+keeping bishoprics and abbacies vacant. He used also to point out that
+unworthy bishops were the grand cause of mischiefs in God&rsquo;s people,
+which mischiefs they cherished, caused to wax and grow great. Those who
+dared to promote or favour such were laying up great punishments against
+the Doomsday. &ldquo;What is the need, most wise prince, of bringing dreadful
+death on so many souls just to get the empty favour of some person, and
+the loss of so many folk redeemed by Christ&rsquo;s death? You invoke God&rsquo;s
+anger, and you heap up tortures for yourself hereafter.&rdquo; Hugh was for
+free canonical election, with no more royal interference than was
+required to prevent jobbery and quicken responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>The two friends visited each other often, and the troubles of Henry&rsquo;s
+last years were softened for him by his ghostly friend. It is quite
+possible that Hugh&rsquo;s hand may be traced in the resignation of Geoffrey
+Plantagenet, the king&rsquo;s dear illegitimate son, who was (while a mere
+deacon) bishop-elect of Lincoln from 1173 to 1181. From the age of
+twenty to twenty-eight he enjoyed the revenues of that great see without
+consecration. The Pope objected to his birth and his youth. Both
+obstacles could have been surmounted, but Geoffrey resigns his claims in
+the Epiphany of the latter year, and gets a chancellorship with five
+hundred marks in England and the same in
+<span class="pagebreak" title="32">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a>
+Normandy. His case is a bold
+instance of &ldquo;that divorce of salary from duty&rdquo; which even in those times
+was
+<a name="corr32a" id="corr32a"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn32a" title="changed from 'thorougly'">thoroughly</a>
+understood.</p>
+
+<p>There is a story, one might almost say the usual story, of the storm at
+sea. The king with a fleet is between
+<a name="corr32b" id="corr32b"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn32b" title="changed from 'Normany'">Normandy</a>
+and England,
+when a midnight storm of super-Virgilian boisterousness burst upon them.
+After the manner of Erasmus&rsquo; shipwreck, every one prays, groans, and
+invokes both he and she saints. The king himself audibly says,
+<a name="corr32c" id="corr32c"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn32c" title="changed from &lsquo;">&ldquo;</a>Oh,
+if only my Charterhouse Hugh were awake and instant at his secret
+prayers, or if even he were engaged with the brethren in the solemn
+watch of the divine offices, God would not so long forget me.&rdquo; Then,
+with a deep groan, he prayed, &ldquo;God, whom the William Prior serves in
+truth, by his intervention and merits, take kindly pity upon us, who for
+our sins are justly set in so sore a strait.&rdquo; Needless to say the storm
+ceased at once, and Henry felt that he was indeed upon the right tack,
+both nautically and spiritually. Whatever view we take of this tale
+(storms being frequent, and fervent prayers of the righteous availing
+much), the historic peep into King Henry&rsquo;s mind is worth our notice. The
+simplicity and self-abasement of his ejaculation shew a more religious
+mind than some would allow to him.</p>
+
+<p>Anyhow, the prior was hard at work. He soon transformed the &ldquo;weeps&rdquo; into
+stone. He built the two houses, the friary for the lay brethren and the
+monastery for the monks. He prayed, read, meditated and preached. His
+body slept, but his heart woke, and he repeated &ldquo;Amens&rdquo; innumerable in
+his holy dreams. On feast days, when the brethren
+<span class="pagebreak" title="33">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"></a>
+dined together, he
+ate with them, and then he had the meal sauced with reading. If he ate
+alone, he had a book by his trencher of dry bread rarely garnished with
+relishes. A water pot served him for both flagon and tureen. He allowed
+himself one little human enjoyment. A small bird called a burnet made
+friends with him and lived in his cell, ate from his fingers and his
+trencher, and only left him at the breeding season, after which it
+brought its fledged family back with it. This little friend lived for
+three years with the prior, and to his great grief came no more in the
+fourth. The learned have exhausted their arts to discover what a burnet
+can be, and have given up the chase. Some would have him to be a
+barnacle goose, others a dab-chick or coot&mdash;none of which can fairly be
+classed as <i>avicul&aelig;</i> small birds. Burnet is brown or red brown, and
+rather bright at that. We have it in Chaucer&rsquo;s &ldquo;Romaunt of the Rose&rdquo;
+[4756]:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;For also welle wole love be sette<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Under ragges as rich rochette,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And else as wel be amourettes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">In mournyng blak, as bright burnettes.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Consequently if the reader likes to guess (in default of knowledge) he
+might do worse than think of the Robin Redbreast as a likely candidate.
+He is called in Celtic Broindeag, is a small, friendly, crumb-eating,
+and burnet bird, and behaves much as these ancient legends describe. The
+name burnet still survives in Somerset.</p>
+
+<p>Not only the burnet bird felt the fascination of the prior, but monks
+drew towards Witham and men of letters also. Men of the world would
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="34">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"></a>
+come to be taught the vanity of their wisdom; clergy whose dry times
+afflicted them found a rich meal of Witham doctrine well worth the spare
+diet of the place. The prior by no means courted his public, and the
+Order itself was not opened at every knuckle tap. Even those who were
+admitted did not always find quite what they wanted. We read of one man,
+a Prior of Bath, who left the Charterhouse because he &ldquo;thought it better
+to save many souls than one,&rdquo; and returned to what we should call parish
+work. Alexander of Lewes, a regular Canon, well versed in the
+<i>quadrivium</i> (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), found the
+solitude intolerable to his objective wits. He was not convinced of the
+higher spirituality of co-operative hermitages. He found it too heavy to
+believe that there was no Christendom outside the Charterhouse plot, and
+no way of salvation except for a handful of mannikins. Alexander, with
+stinging and satiric terms, left in a huff, followed by acrimonious
+epithets from his late brethren. He became a monk at Reading, and filled
+a larger part upon a more spacious stage, and yet would have most gladly
+returned; but the strait cell was shut to him relentlessly and for ever.
+Andrew, erst sacristan of Muchelney, was another who left the Order for
+his first love, but his dislike of the life was less cogently put. It
+was not exactly that the prior could not brook opposition: but he hated
+a man who did not know his own mind, and nothing would induce him to
+allow an inmate who eddied about.</p>
+
+<p>The Charterhouse now had ecclesiastical independence. The bishop&rsquo;s power
+ended outside its pale. Bruton Convent could tithe the land no more,
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="35">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"></a>
+nor feed their swine or cattle there, nor cut fuel, instead of which
+the rectory of South Petherton, and its four daughter chapelries, was
+handed over to this bereaved convent. This was in April, 1181. This
+transaction was some gain to the game-loving king, for the Withamites
+ate neither pork nor beef, and so the stags had freer space and more
+fodder.</p>
+
+<p>But nevertheless the monks&rsquo; poverty was almost ludicrous. Hugh wanted
+even a complete and accurate copy of the scriptures, which he used to
+say were the solitary&rsquo;s delight and riches in peace, his darts and arms
+in war, his food in famine and his medicine in sickness. Henry asked why
+his scribes did not make copies. The answer was that there was no
+parchment. &ldquo;How much money do you want?&rdquo; asked the king. &ldquo;One silver
+mark,&rdquo; was the ungrasping request. Henry laughed and ordered ten marks
+to be counted out and promised a complete &ldquo;divine library&rdquo; besides. The
+Winchester monks had just completed a lovely copy (still in existence).
+King Henry heard from a student of this fine work and promptly sent for
+the prior. With fair words and fine promises he asked for the Bible. The
+embarrassed monk could not well say no, and the book was soon in Hugh&rsquo;s
+hands. This Prior Robert shortly after visited Witham and politely hoped
+the copy was satisfactory. If not, a better one could be made, for great
+pains had been taken by St. Swithun&rsquo;s brethren to make this one
+agreeably to their own use and custom. Hugh was astonished. &ldquo;And so the
+king has beguiled your Church thus of your needful labour? Believe me,
+my very dear brother, the Library shall be restored to you instantly.
+And I
+<span class="pagebreak" title="36">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"></a>
+beg most earnestly through you that your whole fraternity will
+deign to grant pardon to our humility because we have ignorantly been
+the occasion of this loss of their codex.&rdquo; The prior was in a fright, as
+well he might be, at the shadow of the king&rsquo;s wrath. He assured Hugh
+that his monks were all delighted at the incident. &ldquo;To make their
+delight continue, we must all keep quiet about the honest restoration of
+your precious work. If you do not agree to take it back secretly, I
+shall restore it to him who sent it hither; but if you only carry it off
+with you, we shall give him no inkling of the matter.&rdquo; So the Winchester
+monks got back their Bible, and Witham got the said Prior Robert as one
+of its pupils instead, fairly captured by the electric personality of
+the Carthusian.</p>
+
+<p>Though Hugh&rsquo;s influence was very great, we must not quite suppose that
+the king became an ideal character even under his direction. There is an
+interregnum not only in Lincoln but in Exeter Diocese between Bishop
+Bartholomew and John the Chaunter, 1184-1186; one in Worcester between
+the translation of Baldwin and William de Northale, 1184-1186; and a bad
+one in York after the death of Roger, 1181, before King Richard
+appointed his half-brother Geoffrey aforementioned, who was not
+consecrated until August, 1191. But Hugh&rsquo;s chief work at Witham was in
+his building, his spiritual and intellectual influence upon the men he
+came to know, in the direction of personal and social holiness: and,
+above all, he was mastering the ways and works of England so
+sympathetically that he was able to take a place afterwards as no longer
+a Burgundian but a thorough son of the nation and the church.
+<span class="pagebreak" title="37">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"></a>
+One
+instance may be given of his teaching and its wholesome outlook. He
+lived in an age of miracles, when these things were demanded with an
+insatiable appetite and supplied in a competitive plenty which seems
+equally inexhaustible, almost as bewildering to our age as our deep
+thirst for bad sermons and quack medicines will be to generations which
+have outgrown our superstitions. St. Hugh had drunk so deeply and
+utterly and with all his mind of the gravity and the humility which was
+traditional from the holy authors of the Carthusian Order, that &ldquo;there
+was nothing he seemed to wonder at or to wish to copy less than the
+marvels of miracles. Still, when these were read or known in connection
+with holy men, he would speak of them gently and very highly respect
+them. He would speak of them, I say, as commending of those who showed
+them forth, and giving proof to those who marvelled at such things, for
+to him the great miracle of the saints was their sanctity, and this by
+itself was enough for guidance. The heartfelt sense of his Creator,
+which never failed him, and the overwhelming and fathomless number of
+His mighty works, were for him the one and all-pervading miracle.&rdquo; If we
+remember that Adam, his biographer, wrote these words not for us, but
+for his miracle-mongering contemporaries, they will seem very strong
+indeed. He goes on to say that all the same, whether Hugh knew it or
+not, God worked many miracles through him, as none of his intimates
+could doubt, and we could rather have wished that he had left the
+saint&rsquo;s opinion intact, for it breathes a lofty atmosphere of bright
+piety, and is above the controversies of our lower plane.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="38">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a>
+</p><p>The time was now coming when Witham had to lose its prior. Geoffrey
+(son, not of fair Rosamond, but of Hickenay) had resigned in January,
+1182. After sixteen months&rsquo; hiatus, Walter de Coutances, a courtier, was
+elected, ordained, and consecrated, and enthroned December, 1183; but in
+fifteen months he was translated to the then central See of Rouen and
+the wretched diocese had another fifteen months without a bishop, during
+which time (April 15, 1185, on holy Monday) an earthquake cracked the
+cathedral from top to bottom.<a name="fnm_2" id="fnm_2"></a><a href="#fn_2" class="fnnum">2</a></p>
+
+<p>In May, 1186, an eight-day council was held at Eynsham, and the king
+attended each sitting from his palace at Woodstock. Among other business
+done was the election, not very free election, to certain bishoprics and
+abbeys. Among the people who served or sauntered about the Court were
+the canons of Lincoln, great men of affairs, learned, and so wealthy
+that their incomes overtopped any bishop&rsquo;s rent-roll, and indeed they
+affected rather to despise bishoprics&mdash;until one offered. The See of
+Lincoln had been vacant (with one short exception) for nearly eighteen
+years. It contained ten of the shires of England&mdash;Lincoln, Leicester,
+Rutland, Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge, Bedford, Buckingham,
+Oxford, and Hertford. The canons chose three men, all courtiers, all
+rich, and all well beneficed, viz., their dean, Richard Fitz Neal, a
+bishop&rsquo;s bastard, who had bought himself into the treasurership; Godfrey
+de Lucy, one of their number, an
+<span class="pagebreak" title="39">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"></a>
+extravagant son of Richard the chief
+justice; and thirdly another of themselves, Herbert le Poor, Archdeacon
+of Canterbury, a young man of better stuff. But the king declared that
+this time he would choose not by favour, blood, counsel, prayer, or
+price; but considering the dreadful abuses of the neglected diocese he
+wished for a really good bishop, and since the canons could not agree he
+pressed home to them the Prior of Witham, the best man and the
+best-loved one. With shouts of laughter the canons heard the jest and
+mentioned his worship, his habit, and his talk, as detestable; but the
+king&rsquo;s eye soon changed their note, and after a little foolishness they
+all voted for the royal favourite. The king approves, the nobles and
+bishops applaud, my lord of Canterbury confirms, and all seems settled.
+The canons rode off to Witham to explain the honours they have
+condescended to bestow upon its prior. He heard their tale, read their
+letters. Then he astonished their complacency by telling them that he
+could understand the king&rsquo;s mind in the matter and that of Archbishop
+Baldwin, himself a Cistercian; but that they, the canons, had not acted
+freely. They ought to
+<a name="corr39" id="corr39"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn39" title="changed from 'chose'">choose</a> a ruler whose yoke and ways they
+could abide, and, moreover, they ought not to hold their election in the
+Court or the pontifical council, but in their own chapter. &ldquo;And so, to
+tell you my small opinion, you must know that I hold all election made
+in this way to be absolutely vain and void.&rdquo; He then bade them go home
+and ask for God&rsquo;s blessing, and choose solely by the blessing and help
+of the Holy Ghost, looking not to king&rsquo;s, bishop&rsquo;s, nor any man&rsquo;s
+approval. &ldquo;That is the only
+<span class="pagebreak" title="40">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"></a>
+answer to return from my littleness. So go,
+and God&rsquo;s good angel be with you.&rdquo; They begged him to reconsider it, to
+see the king or the archbishop; but the prior was inflexible, and they
+left the Guest House in wonder not unmixed with delight. The king&rsquo;s man
+was not the pet boor they had taken him for, but single-eyed, a
+gentleman, a clever fellow, and a good churchman. The very men who had
+cried out that they had been tricked now elected him soon and with one
+consent; and off they post again to Witham.</p>
+
+<p>This time he read the letters first, and then heard their tale and
+expressed his wonder that men so wise and mannerly should take such
+pains to court an ignoramus and recluse, to undertake such unwonted and
+uncongenial cares, but they must be well aware that he was a monk and
+under authority. He had to deal not with the primate and chief of the
+English Church in this matter, but with his superior overseas, and so
+they must either give up the plan altogether or undertake a toilsome
+journey to the Charterhouse; for none but his own prior could load his
+shoulders with such a burden. In vain they argued. A strong embassy had
+to be sent, and sent it was without delay, and the Chartreuse Chapter
+made no bones about it, but charged brother Hugh to transfer his
+obedience to Canterbury; and thus the burden of this splendid unhappy
+See was forced upon the shoulders which were most able to bear the
+weight of it.</p>
+
+<p>One would be glad to know what Henry thought of it all, and whether he
+liked the tutoring his courtiers got and were about to get. The humour,
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="41">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"></a>
+shrewdness, tact, and piety combined must have appealed to his
+many-sided mind and now saddened heart. He had lost his heir and was
+tossed upon stormy seas, so perhaps he had small leisure to spare for
+the next act of the drama.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_2" id="fn_2"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_2">2</a></span> The king crossed to Normandy the very next day, and it is
+possible that this was the date of the sea scene mentioned above.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="42">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br />
+<span class="little">THE BISHOP ELECT AND CONSECRATE</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>Hugh knew well enough what the Chartreuse Chapter would say if the
+English meant to have him, and so he began his preparations at once.
+Other men fussed about fine copes, chasubles, and mitres, and dogged the
+clerical tailors, or pottered about in goldsmiths&rsquo; shops to get a grand
+equipment of goblets. To him the approaching dignity was like a black
+cloud to a sailor, or a forest of charging lances to the soldier under
+arms. He fell hard to prayer and repentance, to meditation upon the
+spiritual needs of his new duties, lest he should have holy oil on his
+head and a dry and dirty conscience. He gave no time to the <i>menu</i> of
+the banquet, to the delicacies, the authorities, and the
+lacquey-smoothed amenities of the new life. He was racked with misery at
+the bare imagination of the fruitless trouble of palace business
+exchanged for the fruitful quiet of his cell. He feared that psalms
+would give way to tussles, holy reading to cackle, inward meditation to
+ugly shadows, inward purity to outer nothingness. His words to the
+brethren took a higher and a humbler tone, which surprised them,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="43">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"></a>
+for
+even they were used to see bishoprics looked upon as plums, and sought
+with every device of dodgery. Yet here was a man who could keep his soul
+unhurt and cure the hurts of others, yet whose cry was, &ldquo;In my house is
+neither bread nor clothing; make me not a ruler of the people.&rdquo; St.
+Augustine&rsquo;s fierce words upon the Good Shepherd and the hireling were in
+his mind. &ldquo;The soul&rsquo;s lawful husband is God. Whoso seeks aught but God
+from God is no chaste bride of God. See, brothers, if the wife loves her
+husband because he is rich she is not chaste. She loves, not her
+husband, but her husband&rsquo;s gold. For if she loves her husband she loves
+him bare, she loves him beggared.&rdquo; So Hugh prepared his soul as for a
+bridal with the coming bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>When the inevitable command came, more than three months after his first
+election, he meekly set out for his duties at &ldquo;the mount of the Lord,
+not Lebanon,<a name="fnm_3" id="fnm_3"></a><a href="#fn_3" class="fnnum">3</a> but Lincoln.&rdquo; He was white in dress, white in face, but
+radiant white within. He sat a horse without trappings, but with a roll
+of fleece and clothes, his day and night gear. Around him pricked his
+clergy upon their gold-buttoned saddles. They tried various devices to
+get his bundle away to carry it upon their own cruppers, but neither
+jest nor earnest could unstrap that homely pack. The truth was that he
+would not allow himself to change his old simple habits one jot, lest he
+should develop the carnal mind. So they drew across Salisbury Plain and
+on to Marlborough. Here was the Court and a great throng, and this
+public disgrace of the pack was too much for the Lincoln exquisites.
+They cut
+<span class="pagebreak" title="44">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"></a>
+the straps of the objectionable bundle and impounded it. From
+Marlborough the cavalcade rode into London, and Hugh was consecrated on
+Sunday, September 21 (Feast of St. Matthew, the converted capitalist),
+1186. King Henry was in fine feather, and, forgetting his rather near
+habits, produced some fine gold plate, a large service of silver, a
+substantial set of pots and pans, and a good sum of ready money to meet
+the expenses of the festive occasion. Without some such help a penniless
+Carthusian could hardly have climbed up that Lebanon at all, unless by
+the sore scandal of a suit to the Lincoln Jewry. This handsome present
+was made at Marlborough. William de Northalle was consecrated Bishop of
+Worcester on the same day, of whom nothing else transpires than that he
+died not long after, and is supposed to have been an old and toothless
+bishop promoted for his ready fees. The place of consecration was
+Westminster Abbey, in its
+<a name="corr44" id="corr44"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn44" title="unchanged from original">pr&aelig;</a>-Edwardian
+state, and so no longer
+extant.</p>
+
+<p>Hugh would undoubtedly sleep in the house in which he afterwards died.
+This lay at the back of Staple Inn, where the new bursar, whom the king
+had given him, bestowed the royal pots and crocks. Consecration like
+necessity brings strange bedfellows, and plain, cheap-habited Hugh, by
+gaudily trimmed William in his jewelled mitre, must have raised a few
+smiles that Sunday morning.</p>
+
+<p>Hugh&rsquo;s delays had ended with his prior&rsquo;s order, and he saw nothing now
+to stay his journey northwards. With him rode Gilbert de Glanville,
+Bishop of Rochester, a <i>malleus monachorum</i>, a great hammerer of monks,
+and perhaps told off for the duty of
+<span class="pagebreak" title="45">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"></a>
+enthroning the new bishop to
+silence those who had a distaste for all monkery. Herbert le Poor, late
+rival candidate for the See, also pranced alongside with all the
+importance of a great functionary, whose archidiaconal duty it was to
+enthrone all bishops of the Province of Canterbury. For this duty he
+used to have the bishop&rsquo;s horse and trappings and much besides; but
+alas! the new man slept at St. Catherine&rsquo;s Priory on Michaelmas Eve and
+walked upon his bare toes to the cracked cathedral next morning. When he
+was fairly and ceremonially seated the archdeacon held out his practised
+palm for the customary fee (archdeacons are still fee-extracting
+creatures). He was astonished to hear the radical retort, &ldquo;What I gave
+for my mitre&rdquo; (it was a very cheap one) &ldquo;that and no more will I give
+for my throne.&rdquo; Both Herbert and with him Simon Magus fell backward
+breathless at this blow.<a name="fnm_4" id="fnm_4"></a><a href="#fn_4" class="fnnum">4</a> But Hugh had a short way of demolishing his
+enemies, and the archdeacon appears hereafter as his stout follower
+knocked, no doubt, into a friend. All who were present at this ceremony
+had their penances remitted for thirteen days. Two other incidents are
+recorded of this time. One is that the bursar asked how many small
+fallow deer from the bishop&rsquo;s park should be killed for the inauguration
+feast. &ldquo;Let three hundred be taken, and if you find more wanted do not
+stickle to add to this number.&rdquo; In this answer the reader must not see
+the witless, bad arithmetic of a vegetarian unskilled in catering, but a
+fine determination, first to feed all the poor folk of his metropolis
+with the monopolies of princes; and secondly,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="46">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a>
+to sever himself wholly
+and dramatically from the accursed oppression of the game and forest
+laws. When Hugh told the story at Court it served as a merry jest, often
+broken, no doubt, against game (but not soul) preserving prelates, but,
+as the sequel shows, there was method in it. The other incident is that
+in the convent after Matins, on the morning of his enthronement, he
+slept and heard a voice which comforted his doubtful heart, too fearful
+lest this step should not be for the people&rsquo;s health or his own. &ldquo;Thou
+hast entered for the waxing of thy people, for the waxing of salvation
+to be taken with thy Christ.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The new bishop lived at his manor at Stowe (of which part of the moat
+and a farmhouse are now to be seen by the curious), a place parked and
+ponded deliciously. Almost as soon as he was installed a new swan came
+upon the waters, huge and flat-beaked, with yellow fleshings to his
+mandibles. This large wild bird dwarfed the tame swans into geese by
+comparison, and no doubt tame swans and geese were small things in those
+days compared to our selected fatlings. This bird drove off and killed
+the other swans, all but one female, with whom he companied but did not
+breed. The servants easily caught him and brought him to the bishop&rsquo;s
+room as a wonder. The beast-loving man, instead of sending him to the
+spit, offered him some bread, which he ate, and immediately struck up an
+enthusiastic friendship with his master, caring nothing for any throngs
+about him. After a time he would nestle his long neck far up into the
+bishop&rsquo;s wide sleeve, toying with him and asking him for things with
+pretty little
+<span class="pagebreak" title="47">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"></a>
+clatterings. The bird seemed to know some days before he
+was due that he was coming, for it flapped about the lake and made
+cries. It would leave the water and stalk through the house walking wide
+in the legs. It would neither notice nor brook any other man, but rather
+seemed jealous, and would hiss and flap away the rest of the company. If
+the bishop slept or watched, the swan would keep dogs and other animals
+at bay. With true spiritual instinct it would peck hard at the calves of
+chaplains. If the bishop was abed no one was allowed near him without a
+most distressing scene, and there was no cajoling this zealous watchman.
+When the bishop went away the bird would retire to the middle of its
+pool, and merely condescend to take rations from the steward; but if its
+friend returned it would have none of servants. Even two years&rsquo; interval
+made no difference to the faithful swan. It prophetically proclaimed his
+unexpected arrival. When the carts and forerunners arrived (with the
+household stuffs) the swan would push boldly in among the crowd and cry
+aloud with delight when at last it caught the sound of its master&rsquo;s
+voice, and it would go with him through the cloister to his room,
+upstairs and all, and could not be got out without force. Hugh fed it
+with fingers of bread he sliced with his own hand. This went on for
+nearly all Hugh&rsquo;s episcopate. But in his last Easter the swan seemed ill
+and sullen, and kept to his pond. After some chase they caught him in
+the sedge, and brought him in, the picture of unhappiness, with drooping
+head and trailing wing, before the bishop. The poor bird was to lose its
+friend six months after, and seemed to resent the cruel severance
+<span class="pagebreak" title="48">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"></a>
+of
+coming death, though it was itself to live for many a day after its
+master had gone home to his rest. There, floating conspicuous on the
+lake, it reminded orphaned hearts of their innocent, kind, and pure
+friend who had lived patiently and fearlessly, and taken death with a
+song&mdash;the new song of the Redeemed.</p>
+
+<p>The first act of the new bishop was naturally to enlist captains for the
+severe campaign, and he ran his keen eye over England and beyond it for
+wise, learned, and godly men who could help a stranger. He wrote a
+touchingly humble letter to Archbishop Baldwin to help him to find
+worthy right-hand men, &ldquo;for you are bred among them, you have long been
+a leader, and you know them &lsquo;inside and under the skin,&rsquo; as the saying
+goes.&rdquo; Baldwin, an Exeter labourer by birth, by turns a schoolmaster,
+archdeacon, Cistercian abbot, Bishop of Worcester, and primate&mdash;a
+silent, dark, strong man, gentle, studious, and unworldly&mdash;was delighted
+at the request. He sent off Robert of Bedford, an ardent reformer and
+brilliant scholar, and Roger Roldeston, another distinguished scholar,
+who afterwards was Dean of Lincoln. These, like Aaron and Hur, upheld
+the lawgiver&rsquo;s hands, and they, with others of a like kidney, soon
+changed the face of affairs. Robert died early, but Roger was made
+Archdeacon of Leicester, confessor, and at the end executor to the
+bishop. After gathering captains the next thing was an eight-fold lash
+for abuses&mdash;decrees (1) against bribes; (2) against vicars who would not
+sing Mass save for extra pay; (3) against swaggering archdeacons who
+suspended churches, and persons beyond their beat.
+<span class="pagebreak" title="49">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"></a>
+These gentlemen, in
+the absence of a bishop, seem to have grown into popes at the least. (4)
+Mass not to be laid as a penance upon any non-priestly person. This was
+a nimble way by which confessors fined penitents to their own profit.
+(5) Annual and other customary masses to be said without temporal gain.
+(6) Priestly administration only to be undertaken by those who are
+proved to be duly ordained by the archbishop or one of his suffragans:
+forged orders being plentiful. (7) Incumbents to be tonsured, and clergy
+to wear &ldquo;the crown&rdquo; instead of love-locks. (8) Clergy not to sue clergy
+in ecclesiastical cases before civil justices, Erastian knaves being
+active, even then.</p>
+
+<p>Next year brought a much more fighting foe, Godfrey the chief forestar.
+There was a Forest Assize only three years back, and a great outbreak of
+game preserving, dog licensing, bow confiscating, fines, imprisonment
+and slaughter, new rights for old tyrants, boys of twelve and clergy to
+be sworn to the hunting peace, mangling of mastiffs, banishment of
+tanners and parchmenters from woodlands&mdash;and if this was within the law,
+what could not be done without the law by these far away and favoured
+gamekeepers? The country groaned. Robbers and wolves could easily
+demolish those whom the foresters did not choose to protect, and the
+forest men went through the land like a scourge. Some flagrant injustice
+to one of Hugh&rsquo;s men brought down an excommunication upon Godfrey, who
+sent off to the king in fury and astonishment; and Henry was in a fine
+fit of anger at the news, for the Conqueror long ago had forbidden
+unauthorised
+<span class="pagebreak" title="50">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"></a>
+anathemas against his men. Certain courtiers, thinking to
+put Hugh in the way of obliging the king, suggested that a vacant
+prebend at Lincoln should be given to one of themselves. The king sent a
+letter to that effect, which he did with some curiosity, suggesting this
+tit for tat. The messengers jingled through Oxford from Woodstock and
+found the bishop at Dorchester touring round his weedy diocese, who
+addressed the expectant prebendary and his friends with these words:
+&ldquo;Benefices are not for courtiers but for ecclesiastics. Their holders
+should not minister to the palace, revenue, or treasury, but as
+Scripture teachers to the altar. The lord king has wherewith to reward
+those who serve him in his business, wherewith to recompense soldiers&rsquo;
+work in temporals with temporals. It is good for him to allow the
+soldiers of the highest King to enjoy what is set aside for their future
+necessities and not to agree to deprive them of their due stipends.&rdquo;
+With these words he unhesitatingly sent the courtiers empty and packing.
+The fat was in the fire, and the angry courtiers took care that the
+chimney should draw. A man galloped off to say &ldquo;Come to the king at
+once,&rdquo; and when the bishop was nearing Rosamond&rsquo;s bower, the king and
+his nobles rode off to the park, and sat down in a ring. The bishop
+followed at once. No one replied to his salute, or took the least notice
+of him. He laid hands upon a great officer next the king and moved him
+and sat down, in the circle of black looks. Then the king called for a
+needle. He had hurt one of his left fingers, and he sewed a stall upon
+it. The bishop was practised in silence, and was not put out by it.
+<span class="pagebreak" title="51">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"></a>
+At
+last he said gently, &ldquo;You are very like your relatives in Falaise.&rdquo;
+Henry threw himself back and laughed in a healthy roar. The courtiers
+who understood the sarcasm were aghast at its audacity. They could not
+but smile, but waited for the king, who, when he had had his laugh out,
+explained the allusion to the Conqueror&rsquo;s leather dressing and gloving
+lineage. &ldquo;All the same, my good man, you must say why you chose, without
+our leave, to put our chief forester under the ban, why moreover you so
+flouted our little request that you neither came in person to explain
+your repulse nor sent a polite message by our messengers.&rdquo; Hugh answered
+simply that he knew the king had taken great trouble about his election,
+so it was his business to keep the king from spiritual dangers, to
+coerce the oppressor and to dismiss the covetous nonsuited. It would be
+useless and stupid to come to court for either matter, for the king&rsquo;s
+discretion was prompt to notice proper action and quick to approve the
+right. Hugh was irresistible. The king embraced him, asked for his
+prayers, gave the forester to his mercy. Godfrey and his accomplices
+were all publicly flogged and absolved, and the enemy, as usual, became
+his faithful friend and supporter. The courtiers ceased to act like
+kites and never troubled him again. On the contrary, some of them helped
+him so heartily that, if they had not been tied by the court, he would
+have loved to have beneficed them in the diocese. But non-residence was
+one of the scandals of the age and Hugh was inflexible in this matter.
+Salary and service at the altar were never to be parted. Even the Rector
+of the University of Paris, who once said
+<span class="pagebreak" title="52">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"></a>
+how much he would like to be
+associated with Lincoln by accepting a canonry, heard that this would
+also be a great pleasure to the bishop, &ldquo;if only you are willing to
+reside there, and if, too, your morals will keep pace with your
+learning.&rdquo; The gentleman was stricter in scholarship than in life, but
+no one had ever taken the liberty to tell him of it, and he is said to
+have taken the hint. Herein Hugh was quite consistent. He would not take
+any amount of <i>quadrivium</i> as a substitute for honest living, and next
+after honest living he valued a peaceable, meek, conformist spirit,
+which was not always agape for division and the sowing of discords. He
+took some pains to compose quarrels elsewhere, as for instance, between
+Archbishop Baldwin and the monks of Canterbury. The archbishop wished to
+found a house of secular canons at Hackington in honour of SS. Stephen
+and Thomas of Canterbury. The monks were furious; the quarrel grew. Hugh
+thought and advised, when asked, that the question of division
+outweighed the use of the new church, and that it would be better to
+stop at the onset than to have to give up the finished work. But,
+objected Baldwin, holy Thomas himself wanted to build this church. &ldquo;Let
+it suffice that you are like the martyr in proposing the same. Hear my
+simplicity and go no further.&rdquo; He preached union with constant fervour,
+and used to say that the knowledge that his spiritual sons were all at
+his back made him fear neither king nor any mortal, &ldquo;neither do I lose
+the inward freedom from care, which is the earnest of, and the practice
+for, the eternal calm. Nor do my masters (so he called his canons) break
+and destroy a
+<span class="pagebreak" title="53">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a>
+quiet that knows no dissent, for they think me gentle and
+mild. I am really tarter and more stinging than pepper, so that even
+when I am presiding over them at the chapter, the smallest thing fires
+me with anger. But they, as they ought, know their man of their choice
+and bear with him. They turn necessity into virtue and give place to me.
+I am deeply grateful to them. They have never opposed a single word of
+mine since I first came to live among them. When they all go out and the
+chapter is over, not one of them, I think, but knows I love him, nor do
+I believe I am unloved by a single one of them.&rdquo; This fact and temper of
+mind it was which made it possible to work the large diocese, for, of
+course, the bishop did not act in any public matter without his clergy.
+But personally his work was much helped by his self-denial and
+simplicity of his life. He never touched flesh but often used fish. He
+would drink a little wine, not only for health, but for company&rsquo;s sake.
+He was a merry and jest-loving table companion, though he never was
+undignified or unseemly. He would allow tumblers and musicians to
+perform at banquets, but he then appeared detached and abstracted rather
+than interested; but he was most attentive when meals were accompanied
+by readings about martyrs&rsquo; passions, or saints&rsquo; lives, and he had the
+scriptures (except the four gospels, which were treated apart) read at
+dinner and at the nightly office. He found the work of a bishop obliged
+him to treat that baggage animal, the body, better than of yore. His
+earlier austerities were avenged by constant pains in the bowels and
+stomach troubles, but in dedications of churches, ordinations, and other
+offices he would
+<span class="pagebreak" title="54">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"></a>
+out-tire and knock up every one else, as he went from
+work to work. He rose before dawn and often times did not break his fast
+till after midday. In hot summer weather, he would oblige his ministers
+(deacon, sub-deacon, acolytes, &amp;c.) to take a little bread and wine lest
+they should faint at the solemn Mass. When they hesitated, he upbraided
+them with want of faith and of sense, because they could not obey orders
+or see the force of them. When he journeyed and crowds came to be
+confirmed themselves or to present their little ones, he would get off
+his horse at a suitable spot and perform that rite. Neither tiredness,
+weakness, haste, rough ground, nor rain would induce him to confirm from
+the saddle. A young bishop afterwards, with no possible excuse, would
+order the frightened children up among restive horses. They came weeping
+and whipped by insolent attendants at no small risk&mdash;but his lordship
+cared nothing for their woe and danger. Not so dear Father Hugh. He took
+the babes gently and in due order, and if he caught any lay assistants
+troubling them would reproach them terribly, sometimes even thrashing
+the rascals with his own heavy hand. Then he would bless the audience,
+pray for the sick, and go on with his journey.</p>
+
+<p>He was passionately fond of children, not only because they were
+innocent, but because they were young: and he loved to romp with
+them&mdash;anticipating by nearly seven centuries the simple discovery of
+their charm, and he would coax half words of wondrous wit from their
+little stammering lips. They made close friends with him at once, just
+as did the mesenges or blue tits who used to come
+<span class="pagebreak" title="55">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"></a>
+from woods and
+orchards of Thornholm, in Lindsey, and perch upon him, to get or to ask
+for food.<a name="fnm_5" id="fnm_5"></a><a href="#fn_5" class="fnnum">5</a></p>
+
+<p>There is a story of a six months&rsquo; old infant which jumped in its
+mother&rsquo;s arms to see him, waved its armlets, wagged its head, and made
+mysterious wrigglings (hitherto unobserved by bachelor monks) to greet
+him. It dragged his hand with its plump palm to its mouth as if to kiss
+it, although truth compels biographer Adam to acknowledge the kiss was
+but a suck. &ldquo;These things are marvellous and to be deeply astonished
+at,&rdquo; he says. Hugh gave the boy apples or other small apposites (let us
+hope it was not apples, or the consequences of such gross ignorance
+would be equally marvellous), but the child was too interested in the
+bishop to notice the gifts. The bishop would tell how while he was still
+Prior he once went abroad to the Carthusian Chapter and stopped with
+brother William at Avalon. There his nephew, a child who could not even
+speak, was laid down upon his bed and (above the force of nature)
+chuckled at him&mdash;actually chuckled. Adam expected these two to grow up
+into prodigies and heard good of the latter, but the former he lost
+sight of&mdash;a little low-born boy in Newark Castle. Hugh used to put his
+baby friends to school when they grew older. Benedict of Caen was one of
+these, and he slipped off Roger de Roldeston&rsquo;s horse into a rushing
+stream, but was miraculously not drowned: and Robert of Noyon was
+another whom he picked up at Lambeth in the archbishop&rsquo;s train and put
+to school with the nuns at Elstow.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="56">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"></a>
+</p><p>These tender passages are to be contrasted with quite other sides to
+the man. Once an old rustic arrived late for a roadside confirmation.
+The bishop was in the saddle and trotting off to another place near,
+when the old fellow bawled after him that he, too, wished to be
+bishopped. Hugh more than once bade him hurry with the rest to the next
+place, but the man sat plump on the ground and said it was the bishop&rsquo;s
+fault and not his if he missed that Grace. The prelate looked back, and
+at last pulled up, turned his horse, rode back, and was off saddle
+again, and had the rite administered swiftly; but having laid holy hands
+upon him, he laid also a disciplinary one, for he boxed the old fellow&rsquo;s
+ears pretty smartly, which spanking some would have us to believe was a
+technical act of ritual, a sort of <i>accolade</i> in fact. The same has been
+suggested about the flogging of forester Godfrey; for the mere resonance
+of these blows it seems, is too much for the tender nerves of our
+generation. Another bumpkin with his son once ran after the bishop&rsquo;s
+horse. The holy man descended, opened his chrism box, and donned his
+stole, but the boy had been confirmed already. The father wanted to
+change the boy&rsquo;s name; it would bring him luck. The bishop, horrified at
+such paganism, asked the boy&rsquo;s name. When he heard that it was John he
+was furious. &ldquo;John, a Hebrew name for God&rsquo;s Grace. How dare you ask for
+a better one? Do you want him called &lsquo;hoe&rsquo; or &lsquo;fork&rsquo;? For your foolish
+request, take a year&rsquo;s penance, Wednesday&rsquo;s Lenten diet and Friday&rsquo;s
+bread and water.&rdquo;<a name="fnm_6" id="fnm_6"></a><a href="#fn_6" class="fnnum">6</a></p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="57">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"></a>
+</p><p>He was hardly abreast of his very legal time in reverence for the
+feudal system. One of his tenants died and his bailiffs seized the best
+thing he had, to wit, an ox, as heriot due to the lord. The poor widow
+in tears begged and prayed for her ox back again, as the beast was
+breadwinner for her young children. The seneschal of the place chimed
+in, &ldquo;But, my lord, if you remit these and similar legal dues, you will
+be absolutely unable to hold the land at all.&rdquo; The bishop heard him and
+leapt from his horse to the ground, which was very muddy. He dug both
+hands into the dirt. &ldquo;Now I have got the land,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and yet I do
+remit the poor little woman her ox,&rdquo; and then he flung the mud away, and
+lifting his eyes added, &ldquo;I do not want the land down here; I want
+heaven. This woman had only two to work for her. Death has taken the
+better one and are we to take the other? Perish such avarice! Why, in
+the throes of such wretchedness, she ought to have comfort much rather
+than further trouble.&rdquo; Another time he remitted &pound;5 due from a knight&rsquo;s
+son, at his father&rsquo;s death, saying it was unjust and mischievous that he
+should lose his money because he had lost his father too. &ldquo;He shall not
+have double misfortune at any rate at our hands.&rdquo; Even in the twelfth
+century piety and business sometimes clashed.</p>
+
+<p>Hugh had not been enthroned a year, when Christendom was aghast and
+alarmed at the news
+<span class="pagebreak" title="58">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"></a>
+from the East. Saladin with eighty thousand men had
+met the armies of the Cross at Tiberias (or Hittin), had slaughtered
+them around the Holy Rood itself, in the Saviour&rsquo;s own country, had
+beheaded all the knights of the Temple and the Hospital who would not
+betray the faith. Jerusalem had fallen, and Mahomet was lord of the holy
+fields. &ldquo;The rejoicing in hell was as great as the grief when Christ
+harrowed it,&rdquo; men said. The news came in terrible bursts; not a country
+but lost its great ones. Hugh Beauchamp is killed, Roger Mowbray taken.
+The Pope, Urban III., has died of grief. The Crusade has begun to be
+preached. Gregory VIII. has offered great indulgences to true penitents
+and believers who will up and at the Saracens. He bade men fear lest
+Christians lose what land they have left. Fasting three days a week has
+been ordered. Prince Richard has the cross (and is one, to his father).
+Berter of Orleans sings a Jeremiad. Gilbert Foliot (foe to St. Thomas)
+is dead. Peace has been made between France of the red cross and England
+of the white, and Flanders of the green. King Henry has ordered a tax of
+a tenth, under pain of cursing, to be collected before the clergy in the
+parishes from all stay-at-homes. Our Hugh is not among the bishops
+present at this Le Mans proclamation. The kingdom is overrun, in
+patches, with tithe collectors. Awful letters come from Christian
+remnants, but still there is no crusade; France and England are at war.
+The new Pope is dead. Now old Frederick Barbarossa is really off to
+Armenia. Prayers and psalms for Jerusalem fill the air. The Emperor is
+drowned. Archbishop
+<span class="pagebreak" title="59">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"></a>
+Baldwin and Hugh of Durham, notwithstanding,
+quarrel with their monks. Scotland is always in a tangle. Great King
+Henry, with evil sons and failing health, makes a sad peace in a fearful
+storm, learns that son John too has betrayed him, curses his day and his
+sons, and refuses to withdraw his curse, dies at Chinon before the
+altar, houselled and anhealed, on the 6th of July, 1189. But when dead
+he is plundered of every rag and forsaken.</p>
+
+<p>That last Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity, Hugh had been abroad with
+the poor king, and had been the only bishop who insisted upon keeping
+his festivals with full sung Mass and not a hasty, low Mass.</p>
+
+<p>Hugh de Nonant, the new bishop of Coventry, one Confessor&rsquo;s Day had
+begun saying the introit, when his Lincoln namesake lifted up his voice
+and began the long melic intonation. &ldquo;No, no, we must haste. The king
+has told us to come quickly,&rdquo; said the former. The answer was, &ldquo;Nay, for
+the sake of the King of kings, who is most powerfully to be served, and
+whose service must bate nothing for worldly cares, we must not haste but
+feast on this feast,&rdquo; and so he came later, but missed nothing. Before
+the king died Hugh had gone back to his diocese again, and heard the
+sorrowful news there.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_3" id="fn_3"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_3">3</a></span> The white.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_4" id="fn_4"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_4">4</a></span> He was acting by a Canon of 1138, passed at Westminster.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_5" id="fn_5"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_5">5</a></span> Thornholm is near Appleby, and is a wooded part of the
+county even to this day.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_6" id="fn_6"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_6">6</a></span> From this and from various incidental remarks it may be
+concluded that Hugh knew Hebrew, which is not remarkable, because the
+learned just then had taken vigorously to that tongue and had to be
+restrained from taking lessons too ardently in the Ghetto. Some of his
+incidental remarks certainly did not come from St. Jerome, the great
+cistern of medi&aelig;val Hebrew.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="60">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br />
+<span class="little">THE BISHOP AT WORK</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>Henry was dead before his friend was three years a bishop, and with him
+died Hugh&rsquo;s hopes of better men on the bench, for Richard&rsquo;s bishops were
+treasurers, justiciars and everything but fathers of their dioceses.
+Tall, blue-eyed, golden-haired Richard the Viking, had a simple view of
+his father&rsquo;s Empire. It was a fine basis for military operations.<a name="fnm_7" id="fnm_7"></a><a href="#fn_7" class="fnnum">7</a> He
+loosed some of the people&rsquo;s burdens to make them pay more groats. He
+unlocked the gaols. He made concessions to France and Scotland. He
+frowned upon the Jews, a frown which only meant that he was going to
+squeeze them, but which his people interpreted into a permission to
+wreak their hatred, malice, and revenge upon the favoured usurers.</p>
+
+<p>The massacre of Jews which began in London and finally culminated in the
+fearful scenes of York, spread to other parts and broke out in place
+after place. In Lent (1190) the enlisting for the crusade was going on
+in Stamford. The recruits, &ldquo;indignant that the enemies of the Cross of
+Christ who lived there should
+<span class="pagebreak" title="61">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"></a>
+possess so much, while they themselves
+had so little for the expenses of so great a journey,&rdquo; rushed upon the
+Jews. The men of Stamford tried to stop the riot, but were overcome, and
+if it had not been for the Castle the Jews would have been killed to a
+man. Two of the plunderers fell out over the booty. One, John by name,
+was killed, martyred it was supposed. The old women had dreams about
+him. Miracles began. A shrine was set up and robber John began to
+develop into Saint John. Then down came the bishop, scattered the
+watchers and worshippers, hacked down the shrine and forbade any more
+such adoration of Jew-baiting thieves, with a thundering anathema. The
+Lincoln people next began the same game, but they did not reckon with
+the new warden, Gerard de Camville, who had bought the revenues and
+provided a harbour there for the Israelites. We may believe that the
+bishop also was not behind hand in quelling such bloody ruffianism, for
+the Jews were afterwards very conspicuous in their grief at his death,
+evidently owing him something.</p>
+
+<p>King Richard, athirst for adventure, sold all that he could, taxed all
+that he could, and then set off for the crusade, carrying with him
+Baldwin the gentle archbishop, who was to die in despair at the gross
+habits and loose morals of the crusading hosts. He left behind him
+brother John, whom he had tried to bribe into fidelity, and a little
+lame, black foreigner, Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, who had been adviser,
+schemer, general brain box and jackal to the Lionheart, and who now
+swept through England with a thousand knights, trying cleverly and
+faithfully to rule the restive English and to keep them in some
+<span class="pagebreak" title="62">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"></a>
+order
+and loyalty, in his ill-bred, active way. But the whole position was
+impossible and more impossible, first, because of John the always
+treasonable; and secondly, because of Walter, late Bishop of Lincoln and
+now of Rouen (the Pilate or Pilot?) whom Richard sent to guard the
+guardian. Geoffrey, half brother to the king, next came upon the scenes
+as a new complication. He had been made Archbishop of York and overlord
+of Durham. Black William&rsquo;s sister Richenda seized this archbishop and
+imprisoned him: and then Hugh joined the anti-Longchamp party, sided
+actively with John and with Gerard de Camville, who was
+<a name="corr62" id="corr62"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn62" title="unchanged from original">beseiged</a>
+in Lincoln. Hugh excommunicated Richenda. His influence turned
+the scale against Longchamp.</p>
+
+<p>It would require a treatise in itself to unfold all the tangled story of
+the first half of Richard&rsquo;s reign till the king returned to England
+after war, prison, and heavy ransom, in March 1194. Practically, at this
+date the Bishop of Lincoln disappears as much as possible from political
+life; or at least tried to do so. He was building the cathedral and
+doing his duty as bishop, befriending the needy and the outcast, and
+showing himself the enemy of wrong-doers. Now we hear of him clipping
+the love locks of his young sacristan Martin, who straightway became a
+monk; now following in the steps of great St. Martin by some passionate
+acts of pity, and now retiring mostly in harvest time (when all hands
+are busy and all hearts are out of reach) to his beloved Witham for a
+month&rsquo;s retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Of course all devout people in the Middle Ages had an especial care for
+lepers because of that most
+<span class="pagebreak" title="63">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"></a>
+fortunate mistranslation in Isaiah liii. 4.
+which we render &ldquo;we did esteem Him stricken,&rdquo; but which the Vulgate
+renders <i>putavimus eum quasi leprosum</i>: we did esteem Him as it were a
+leper. Hence service to lepers was especially part of service to Christ.
+At Maiden Bradley, in Somerset, was a colony of leprous sisters; and at
+Witham Church a leper window looked towards their house. At Lincoln<a name="fnm_8" id="fnm_8"></a><a href="#fn_8" class="fnnum">8</a>
+was the Hospital of the Holy Innocents called La Malandrie. It was
+founded by St. Remigius, the Norman cathedral builder, with thirteen
+marks revenue and further endowed by Henry I. and Henry II. The
+condition of all these leper outcasts was more than miserable. The
+disease was divided into the breeding, full and shipwreck periods. When
+the first was detected the patient was led to church, clothed in black,
+Mass and Matins for the dead were said over him, earth was thrown upon
+his foot, and then he was taken to a hovel on waste land where he was to
+be buried at the last. Here he found a parti-coloured robe, a coat, two
+shirts, a rattle, knife, staff, copper girdle, bed, table, and lamp, a
+chair, chest, pail, cask and funnel, and this was his portion for ever.
+He was not before 1179 allowed even a leprous priest to say Mass for
+him. The disease rotted away his flesh till he died, limbless or
+faceless in fearful shipwreck, and unhouselled. These wretches this
+bishop took under his peculiar care. He would wash them with his own
+hands, as his mother did before him, kiss them,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="64">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"></a>
+serve them with meat,
+drink, and money. He would have thirteen together in his room, if he
+could find that number. He maintained many, both men and women. He would
+go to the Malandry, stop in a cell there, accompanied by a few of his
+devoutest and closest friends, and cosset the lepers motheringly,
+telling them they were desolate and afflicted only to be rewarded for
+ever, persuading them to a holy life with his pitying words, reproving
+them for their evil deeds (and many lepers were horribly immoral); but
+before ever he talked to them he kissed the men, embracing longer and
+more lovingly those who were worst smitten. The swelled, black,
+gathered, deformed faces, eyeless or lipless, were a horror to behold,
+but to Hugh they seemed lovely, in the body of their humiliation. Such
+he said were happy, were Paradise flowers, great crown gems of the King
+Eternal. He would use these as a text and speak of Christ&rsquo;s compassion
+to the wretched, Christ who now took ulcerous Lazarus by angels to
+Abraham&rsquo;s bosom and now became weak with our weakness. &ldquo;Oh, how happy
+they were who were close about that so sweet man as his friends!
+Whatever his foot trod upon, or any part of him had touched, or his
+hands had handled, it would be sweet indeed to me, to devour with
+kisses, to put to my eyes, to bury in my very heart if I could. What of
+this superfluous humour, if one may use the word of what flowed from the
+tree of life? What am I to feel of that humour which used to be poured
+from a vase of such blessing because He bare our infirmity? Why, of
+course, if I only could, I should diligently gather Him, yes, and drain
+Him with my lips, drink Him in with my jaws, and
+<span class="pagebreak" title="65">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"></a>
+hide just Him in my
+inward parts. Those are the really wretched, who fear aught else than to
+offend One so sweet. Those are the pitiful who esteem aught else sweet,
+or seek aught else than sweetly to cleave to this sweet One and sweetly
+obey Him. I do not know what he can feel to be bitter, who with the
+inner palate of the heart has learnt by continuous meditation to feed on
+the sweetness of this Sweet.&rdquo; Thus inspired, he looked upon the weaker
+limbs of Christ, honouring those whom others passed by.</p>
+
+<p>Not only was he bountiful to lepers, but what with the alms asked of him
+and given by a hand that often outran the tongue of need, he gave away a
+third of all he had in this way alone. Once at Newark he met a leper and
+kissed him. There a most learned Canon from Paris, William de Montibus,
+a great master and author, an early Cruden, and the Chancellor of the
+Diocese, said to him, &ldquo;Martin&rsquo;s kiss cleansed the leper.&rdquo; The bishop
+answered humbly, &ldquo;Martin kissed the leper and cured his body, but the
+leper&rsquo;s kiss has cured my soul.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Of Hugh&rsquo;s courage several instances are cited (but impossible now to
+date). He went several times unarmed against threatening bands of men
+who flourished naked swords. In Lincoln Church, in Holland as
+aforementioned, and in Northampton, he faced angry clerks and laymen,
+knights and men at arms, and burgesses with equal vigour, and
+excommunicated them. It is not unlikely that the first was in defence of
+the Jews, and the third when he stopped the worship of a thief at the
+last place. The second may have been when he placed himself among the
+enemies of Longchamp.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="66">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"></a>
+</p><p>He was believed, and he believed himself, to be able to cause death to
+those whom he excommunicated. This was so firmly acknowledged that it
+saved him in many a severe pinch, and shielded him from indifference,
+beggary, and defeat. Many instances are given us, in which misfortune
+and death followed upon his censures. If any one likes to plead <i>post
+hoc, non ergo propter hoc</i>, judgment may go by default; but at any rate
+the stories show the life of the time most vividly, and the battle for
+righteousness which a good bishop had to wage.</p>
+
+<p>There lived at Cokewald an oldish knight, Thomas de Saleby, whose wife
+Agnes was barren. William, his brother, also a knight, but of
+Hardredeshill, was the heir to the estate. Dame Agnes detested William
+and schemed to disappoint him. She gave out that she was with child.
+William disbelieved, consulted friends, but could find no remedy. About
+Easter, 1194, the lady affected to be confined. A baby, Grace by name,
+was smuggled into the room, and sent back to its mother to be suckled.
+Outwitted, William went off in distress to the bishop, who sent for Sir
+Thomas, in private, charged him, and tried to make him confess. But he,
+&ldquo;fearing the scoldings of his too tongue-banging wife more than God&rsquo;s
+justice, and being, moreover, spell-bound by her viperine hissings,&rdquo;
+affected utter innocence. The bishop plied him vigorously, urging public
+opinion and his own old weak state. At last he promised that he would go
+home and talk with Agnes, and report the next day, and if he found these
+things so, would obey orders. &ldquo;Do so,&rdquo; said the bishop, &ldquo;but know that
+if you bate your promise, the sentence of excommunication
+<span class="pagebreak" title="67">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a>
+will strike
+solemnly and fearfully all the doers and abetters of this wrong.&rdquo; But
+Agnes&rsquo; tongue outdid the bishop&rsquo;s, and Thomas sulked indoors. The bishop
+preached about this in public, on the Easter Monday, and said it was a
+sin unto death. He then knotted the cord of anathema round the daring
+conspirators. Satan was soon up and at Thomas. He wrenched away the soul
+of the unhappy knight, who had gone to bed to escape the worry, and
+there died a sad example to wife-ruled husbands. Agnes, however, defied
+them all and braved out her story; and here is the crux: the infant was
+legally legitimate because Thomas had acknowledged it to be such. King
+Richard allowed little Grace, aged four, to be betrothed to Adam, a
+brother of Hugh de Neville, his chief forestar. Hugh, who was always at
+war with child marriages, issued a special <i>caveat</i> in this case. But
+when he was away in Normandy they found a priest (a fool or bribed) to
+tie the knot. The priest was suspended and the rest excommunicated. In
+the next act the chambermaid confessed; and lastly Agnes&rsquo; nerve gave
+way, and she did the same. But Adam still claimed the lands, won a suit
+in London, although William bid five hundred marks against him, and died
+drunk at an inn, with his baby bride. Hugh&rsquo;s comment was that &ldquo;the name
+forestar is right and aptly given, for they will stand far from the
+kingdom of God.&rdquo; But the little heiress was again hunted into marriage,
+this time by a valet of John&rsquo;s, Norman of the chamber, who bought her
+for two hundred marks. He died, and the little girl was sold for three
+hundred marks to Brien de Insula, a man known to history. Grace at
+<span class="pagebreak" title="68">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"></a>
+the
+last died childless, though she seems to have been a pious wife; and
+Saleby came back at the last to William&rsquo;s long defrauded line.</p>
+
+<p>Yet another forestar also under ban found some men in his forest cutting
+<a name="corr68" id="corr68"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn68" title="inconsistent hyphenation (elsewhere 'brushwood')">brush-wood</a>, handled them insolently and was cut to pieces and stuck
+together again with twigs and left at the cross roads.</p>
+
+<p>Again a deacon, Richard de Waure, quarrelled with a knight, Reginald de
+Argentun, and maliciously accused him of treason. The bishop forbade the
+suit, but the deacon danced off to my lord of Canterbury, Hubert the
+Justiciar, who was the real King of England and one of the ablest men
+the country had to serve her. He felt it right that the suit should
+continue. Hugh declared that he had acted as Justiciar, not as
+Metropolitan, and suspended Richard, who again went off to Hubert and
+got the sentence relaxed, and boasted that he was free from Lincoln
+jurisdiction. Hugh simply added excommunication to the contumacious
+deacon. Again the archbishop loosed, and Hugh bound. &ldquo;If a hundred times
+you get absolved by the lord archbishop, know that we re-excommunicate
+you a hundred times or more, as long as we see you so all too hardened
+in your mad presumption. It is evident what you care for our sentence.
+But it is utterly fixed and settled.&rdquo; Then the deacon hesitated, but
+before he could make up his mind his man cracked open his head with an
+axe.</p>
+
+<p>Then again there was a girl at Oxford, who, backed by a Herodias mother,
+left her husband for another love. The husband appealed to the bishop,
+who told her to go back. She kept repeating that she would
+<span class="pagebreak" title="69">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"></a>
+sooner die.
+Hugh tried coaxing. He took her husband&rsquo;s hand and said, &ldquo;Be my daughter
+and do what I bid you. Take your husband in the kiss of peace with God&rsquo;s
+benison. Otherwise I will not spare you, be sure, nor your baneful
+advisers.&rdquo; He told the husband to give her the kiss of peace. But when
+he advanced to do so the hussey spat in his face near the altar (of
+Carfax) and before many reverend fathers. With a fearful voice the
+bishop said, &ldquo;You have eschewed the blessing and chosen the curse. Lo!
+the curse shall catch you.&rdquo; He gave her a few days&rsquo; respite and then
+pronounced the curse. &ldquo;She was suffocated by the enemy of mankind, and
+suddenly changed lawless and vanishing pleasures for unending and just
+tortures,&rdquo; says the unhesitating scribe.</p>
+
+<p>Once a Yorkshire clerk was turned out of his benefice by a knight (who
+was in our sense also a squire) simply that the gentleman might clap in
+his brother. The poor parson appealed to Courts Christian and Courts
+Civil, but found his enemy was much too favoured for him to effect
+anything. He tried Rome, but, poor Lackpenny, got what he might have
+expected from that distant tribunal. In his distress he turned to the
+chivalrous Bishop of Lincoln. Now, Hugh had no business at all to meddle
+with Archbishop Geoffrey Plantagenet&rsquo;s diocese, but it was a case of
+&ldquo;Who said oppression?&rdquo; He banned the obtruding priest by name and all
+his accomplices. Some died, some went mad or blind. Thus William got his
+own again, for, as all who knew expected, Hugh&rsquo;s anathema meant
+repentance or death.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="70">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"></a>
+</p><p>These anecdotes explain much that follows, and not a little the great
+strain that there was between Archbishop Hubert Walter and the Bishop of
+Lincoln. Perhaps this strain was bound to be felt, because the policy of
+the former was to employ churchmen largely in political and secular
+affairs, the policy of the other to exclude them as much as possible. In
+the abstract we can hardly think that it is well that priests should
+rule the State or bishops manipulate the national finances. But to lay
+down that rule at the close of the twelfth century was to cut the spine
+between the brains of the State and its members. Hugh, perhaps, allowed
+too little for the present distress; Hubert for the distant goal. Anyhow
+they collided.</p>
+
+<p>Hubert, in his capacity of financial viceroy, the moment Richard had
+come back from captivity, been re-crowned, and gone off again, sent off
+the visiting justices to look after various pleas of the Crown, among
+which was a question of defaults. These gentlemen began their milking
+process in September, 1194. It was discovered that an old tribute of an
+expensive mantel had been paid in times past by Lincoln See to the King.
+This pall was a matter of 100 marks (say &pound;2,000 of our money). In the
+long vacancy and under Bishop Walter there had been no payment, and the
+royal claim was for a good many years back, there being apparently some
+limitations. Arrears of 1,000 marks were demanded, or a lump sum of
+3,000 to have done with the tribute. Hugh thought it an unworthy and
+intolerable thing that our Lady&rsquo;s Church and he, as its warder, should
+be under tribute at all,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="71">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"></a>
+and he was prepared to do anything to end the
+&ldquo;slavery.&rdquo; However little we can share this notion, at least it was a
+generous one. The demand came after the Saladin taxes, the drain for the
+Crusade, for the king&rsquo;s ransom, and during the building of the
+cathedral. It came to a man who gave a third of his money in alms and
+who lived from hand to mouth, often borrowing on his revenues before he
+got them. He proposed to meet this new huge call by retiring to Witham
+and devoting the whole emoluments of the See to redeeming this
+fictitious mantel. But the clergy, who knew by experience both order and
+chaos, rose in arms, and monastic advisers added their dissuading
+voices. Well might the clergy support their bishop. They had in times
+past paid for the king&rsquo;s mantel with episcopal trimmings, and other
+prelates had not scorned a little cabbage over this rich tailoring.
+Richard cynically expected that Hugh would do the same, but his clergy
+knew him better. They offered to find the money. But Hugh, though he
+allowed them to do so, would not allow one fruitful vein to be worked.
+He absolutely forbade penance fines, lest, for money&rsquo;s sake, the
+innocent should be oppressed and the guilty be given less pains than
+were needed. Some folk told the bishop that rascals had more feeling in
+their purses than in their banned souls or banged bodies. He replied
+that this was because their spiritual fathers laid on too lightly upon
+the sinners. &ldquo;But,&rdquo; they pleaded, &ldquo;Thomas the Martyr, of most blessed
+memory, fined sinners.&rdquo; Hugh answered, &ldquo;Believe me, it was not on that
+head that he was a saint. Quite other virtue merits marked him a
+<span class="pagebreak" title="72">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"></a>
+saint;
+by quite another story he won the meed of martyr palm.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Hubert must have felt it more of a financial than a moral victory when
+the 3,000 marks clinked in the treasurer&rsquo;s box.</p>
+
+<p>The next battle between these two doughty men (or shall we say systems
+of thought?) was fought about Eynsham Abbey. Old Abbot Geoffrey died,
+and at his election the Abbey had been under the See of Lincoln; but
+since then King Henry had claimed the gift of abbacies, a claim his son
+was not likely to bate. A suit with the Crown, Hugh&rsquo;s friends argued,
+was hopeless or not worth the trouble; but this argument seemed
+sacrilegious to the intrepid bishop. What? Allow God and the Queen of
+Heaven to be robbed? Who ever agreed to let Lincoln be so pilled? He is
+but a useless and craven ruler who does not enlarge instead of lessen
+the dignities and liberties of the Holy Church. He went stoutly to the
+contest, crossed and recrossed the sea, and at last persuaded a sort of
+grand jury of twenty-four clerks and laymen that he was the patron. In a
+year&rsquo;s time he won his case and saw Robert of Dore, a good abbot, well
+in his chair. Hugh spent a week with his almost bereft family, gave the
+new man a fine chased silver and ivory crook and a great glorious
+goblet, and amplified the place with a generous hand.</p>
+
+<p>This was a legal triumph for the bishop, but surely it was a moral
+triumph for the <i>Curia Regis</i> to do ample justice to a strong opponent
+of the Crown? Of course, nobody wanted another St. Thomas episode again,
+least of all enacted against a man
+<span class="pagebreak" title="73">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"></a>
+who carried the Church of England
+with him, as St. Thomas, living, never did; but Hugh had small favour
+with the king at this time. By these successive battles the Bishop of
+Lincoln had come to be looked upon as the leader of the Church and the
+champion of her liberties. To us those &ldquo;liberties&rdquo; seem a strange claim,
+beyond our faith and our ken, too. It seems obvious to us that men,
+whether clerks or laymen, who eat, drink, wear, build, and possess on
+the temporal plane, should requite those who safeguard them in these
+things with tribute, honour, and obedience; and freedom from State
+control in things temporal seems like freedom to eat buns without paying
+the baker. Free bilking, free burgling, and so on, sound no less
+contradictory. But the best minds of England seven centuries ago dreamed
+of another citizenship and a higher, of which the Church was the city&mdash;a
+city not future only and invisible, but manifest in their midst, which
+they loved with passion and were jealous over, too exclusively perhaps,
+but in the event not unwisely. It is less difficult for us to see that
+any cause which would set the unselfish and lofty-minded men of that
+time against the preponderating power of the Crown made for the welfare
+and peace of the country in the future. The anarchy of Stephen&rsquo;s reign,
+Henry&rsquo;s mastery, and Richard&rsquo;s might, with Hubert Walter&rsquo;s genius,
+resulted in a dangerous accumulation of power that did actually prove
+almost disastrous to the State. Consequently Bishop Hugh&rsquo;s greatest
+contest with the Crown demands the sympathy both of men who still dream
+of the spiritual city in (but unsoiled by) hands of mortals, and also of
+those who
+<span class="pagebreak" title="74">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a>
+value constitutional liberties in modern politics. The war
+with France kept Richard active abroad. The flow of money from England
+was too thin to enable him to strike the final blow he wished to strike.
+Hubert Walter&rsquo;s power was so hampered he could do little beyond
+scutages, but in December, 1197, he called together a Council at Oxford.
+He told this universal assembly of the barons of all England that the
+king was in straits. He was outclassed and outmanned and like to be even
+dispossessed by a most powerful and determined enemy. He asked their
+deliberations as to help for the king in his difficulties. Oxford was
+the king&rsquo;s birthplace and was also in Lincoln diocese.<a name="fnm_9" id="fnm_9"></a><a href="#fn_9" class="fnnum">9</a> The Court
+party, who advocated abject submission to the king&rsquo;s becks, at once
+proposed that the barons of England, among whom were the bishops, should
+furnish three hundred knights to the king, which knights should serve
+for a year without furlough. The Bishop of Lincoln&rsquo;s consent was asked,
+and he made no reply at first, but turned it over in his mind. The
+archbishop, of course, spoke for the motion. Richard FitzNigel, Bishop
+of London, a man of finance, purchase, and political sagacity, one of
+the historians of the time, assured them that he and his would try every
+fetch to relieve the royal need. This brought up Hugh in an instant.
+&ldquo;You, wise and noble gentlemen here before me, know that I am a stranger
+in this country of yours and was raised to a bishop&rsquo;s office from a
+simple hermit life. So when the Church of my Lady Mary the Holy Mother
+of God was handed
+<span class="pagebreak" title="75">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"></a>
+over to my inexperience to rule I applied myself to
+explore its customs, dignities, dues, and burdens. For near thirteen
+years, up till now, I have not trod out of the straight tracks of my
+forerunners. I know the Lincoln Church is bound to furnish military
+service for the King, but only in this country. Beyond the bounds of
+England none such is due from her. Hence I think it would be wiser for
+me to foot it back to my native soil and till the wilderness in my
+wonted way, rather than bear a bishopric here, lose the ancient
+immunities of the Church entrusted to me, and subject her to
+unprecedented vexations.&rdquo; This answer the archbishop took very ill. His
+voice choked, his lips quivered. He took up the tale, however, without
+comment, and asked Herbert le Poor, Bishop of Salisbury, the very man
+who, as Archdeacon of Canterbury, had been snubbed for simony at Hugh&rsquo;s
+installation, and who might be expected to render a public nothing now
+for his then empty hand. But he had learnt something since that day, and
+he replied curtly that he could give no other answer than that of my
+lord of Lincoln, unless it were to the enormous prejudice of his Church.
+Then the archbishop blazed into fury. He loosed many a bitter shaft
+against Bishop Hugh. He broke up the assembly and told the king who it
+was had made the whole matter to miscarry. Two and even three postmen
+were sent off to lash the Lion into frenzy, and Richard ordered all that
+the bishop had to be confiscated as soon as possible. Herbert, the
+seconder, had the same sentence, and was soon Poor in estate as well as
+name, and only got peace
+<span class="pagebreak" title="76">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"></a>
+and possession back after injuries, losses,
+vexings, and many insults. But no man laid a finger even upon the most
+trumpery temporal of the Bishop of Lincoln. His anathema meant death.
+For nine months Richard hounded his minions on, but they dared not bite.
+Instead they beseeched the bishop&rsquo;s pity for their unhappy position, and
+he resolved to seek the king and talk him over. He had no friend at
+Court to prepare his way. Fine old William Earl Marshall and the Earl of
+Albemarle tried to stop him or to make some way for him; but he did not
+allow them to sacrifice themselves, but sent word to the king that he
+was coming. Two things had happened since that December. Innocent III.
+had become Pope&mdash;the Augustus of the papal empire, and he was already
+acting most vigorously and unhesitatingly. Secondly, Hubert Walter had
+resigned, because the Pope took Lincoln views of bishops being judges,
+councillors, treasurers, and the like. These things made Hugh&rsquo;s chances
+more favourable. Richard&rsquo;s wrath, too, was a straw fire, and it had time
+to cool, and cooled quicklier because it had shocked his English
+subjects. Moreover, though highly abominable as he considered the
+Bishop&rsquo;s checkmate, he had got the cash after all by breaking the great
+seal and having a new one made, which necessitated a new sealing of all
+old parchments, and royal wax is dear to this day. It would, therefore,
+not be amiss to
+<a name="corr76" id="corr76"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn76" title="corrected from 'smoothe'">smooth</a>
+those English who were smarting at
+the broken seal and broken faith. Hugh&rsquo;s chances, then, were not quite
+desperate, although he had been able to stop the mouth of the Lion for
+nine whole months by his
+<span class="pagebreak" title="77">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"></a>
+intrepidity, fame, and the help of heaven. The
+rest of the story, which is given minutely, gives one a little window
+into the times hard to equal for its clearness.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_7" id="fn_7"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_7">7</a></span> Plato&rsquo;s Aristocrat has a son, who is a great timocrat.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_8" id="fn_8"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_8">8</a></span> &ldquo;South-east of the Great Bar Gate between that and the
+little Bar Gate in the north-west angle of the Great South Common.&rdquo;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_9" id="fn_9"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_9">9</a></span> Perhaps for both reasons chosen as the trysting-place.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="78">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br />
+<span class="little">IN TROUBLES&mdash;</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>The king had before this time noticed a spot of immense military
+importance on the Seine between Rouen and Paris, the rock of Andelys.
+Indeed he had once tossed three Frenchmen from the rock. It was, or
+might be, the key to Normandy on the French side, and he feared lest
+Philip should seize upon it and use it against him. Consequently he
+pounced upon it, and began to fortify it at lavish expense. Archbishop
+Walter of Rouen, and late of Lincoln, in whose ecclesiastical patrimony
+it lay, was furious, and obtained an Interdict, and Philip was chafed
+too.<a name="fnm_10" id="fnm_10"></a><a href="#fn_10" class="fnnum">10</a> The former was appeased by the gift of Dieppe, and the latter
+left to digest his spleen as best he might. The work was just about
+finished in May when a shower of red rain fell, to the horror of all
+except the dauntless king, who &ldquo;would have cursed an angel&rdquo; who had told
+him to desist from this his great delight. Here it was that the king lay
+waiting for the truce with France to expire.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="79">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"></a>
+</p><p>The bishop arrived at the Rock castle in the morning of St. Augustine&rsquo;s
+day (Aug. 28th). The king was in the chapel hearing Mass, and thither
+the bishop followed him, and straightway saluted him. Now the king was
+in the royal da&iuml;s, near the outer door. Two bishops were standing just
+below him. (We must think of something like a small upstair college
+chapel for the theatre of this tale.) These two were old Hugh Pudsey,
+Bishop of Durham, and young Eustace, Bishop of Ely: the former a
+generous, loose-handed, loose-living old gentleman, the latter
+Longchamp&rsquo;s successor, a great scholar and revenue officer. Hugh looked
+past the shoulders of these two and saluted again. The king glared at
+him for a few seconds and then turned his face. The unabashed bishop put
+his face nearer: &ldquo;Give me the kiss, lord king.&rdquo; The king turned his face
+further away, and drew his head back. Then the bishop clutched the
+king&rsquo;s clothes at the chest, vigorously shook them, and said again, &ldquo;You
+owe me the kiss, for I have come a long way to you.&rdquo; The king, seemingly
+not astonished in the least, said, &ldquo;You have not deserved my kiss.&rdquo; The
+strong hand shook him still harder, and across the cape which he still
+held taut, the bold suppliant answered confidently, &ldquo;Oh yes, I have
+deserved it. Kiss me.&rdquo; The king, taken aback by this audacious
+importunity, smiled and kissed him. Two archbishops (Walter of Rouen
+most likely being one) and five other bishops were between the royal
+seat and the altar. They moved to make room for their uncourtly brother.
+But he passed through their ranks and went right up to the horn of the
+altar, fixed his looks firmly on the ground,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="80">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"></a>
+and gave his whole
+attention to the celebration of the Divine mysteries. The king could
+hardly take his eyes off the bishop all through the service. So they
+continued until the threefold invocation of the Lamb of God that taketh
+away the sins of the world. Then the celebrant, the king&rsquo;s chaplain,
+gave the kiss of peace to a certain foreign archbishop, whose business
+it was, by court custom, to bring it to the king. Richard came from his
+place right up to the altar steps to meet him, received &ldquo;the sign of the
+peace which we get from the sacrifice of the Heavenly Lamb,&rdquo; and then
+with humble reverence yielded the same to the Bishop of Lincoln by the
+kiss of his mouth. This respectful service, which the other archbishop
+was making ready to receive, as the custom was, and to pass on himself,
+was thus given direct to the holy man. The king stept quickly up to him,
+when Hugh was expecting nothing of the sort, but was wrapt in
+prayer.<a name="fnm_11" id="fnm_11"></a><a href="#fn_11" class="fnnum">11</a></p>
+
+<p>When the Mass was over, Hugh went to the king and spoke a few strong
+words of remonstrance against his unjustifiable anger, and explained his
+own innocence. The king could answer nothing to the purpose, but said
+that the Archbishop had often written suspicious suggestions against
+him. The bishop soon showed that these were groundless, and added,
+&ldquo;God&rsquo;s honour apart, and the salvation of your soul and mine, I have
+never opposed your interests even in the least degree.&rdquo; The king
+immediately asked him to come next day to the recently constructed
+castle of Ch&acirc;teau Gaillard, and
+<span class="pagebreak" title="81">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"></a>
+ordered the bishop to be given a big
+Seine pike, knowing that he would not eat meat. But before they left the
+chapel Hugh gripped him by the hand and led him from his high seat to a
+place near the altar. There he set him down and sat beside him. &ldquo;You are
+our parishioner, lord king&rdquo; (he was born in Oxford), &ldquo;and we must answer
+at the tremendous judgment of the Lord of all for your soul, which He
+redeemed with His own blood. So I wish you to tell me how stands it with
+your soul in its inner state? so that I may be able to give it some
+effectual counsel and help, as the Divine breathing shall direct. A
+whole year has gone by since I last spoke with you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The king answered that his conscience was clear, nearly in everything,
+except that he was troubled by hatred against the enemies whom he was
+apt to find doing him wrong, and wickedly attacking him. The reply was,
+&ldquo;If in all things you please the grace of the Ruler of all, He will
+easily appease your enemies or give them into your hand. But you must
+beware with all your might, that you are not living against the laws of
+your Maker in any way (and God forbid you should) or even doing any
+wrong to your neighbours. The Scripture says that &lsquo;When a man&rsquo;s ways
+please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.&rsquo; On
+the other hand it says of others, &lsquo;The world shall fight with him,
+against the unwise,&rsquo; and again the holy man saith of the Lord, &lsquo;Who hath
+hardened himself against Him and hath prospered?&rsquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Now there is a public report of you, and I grieve to say it, that you
+neither keep faithful to the
+<span class="pagebreak" title="82">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"></a>
+marriage bed of your own wife, nor do you
+guard untouched the privileges of churches, especially in providing and
+choosing their rulers. Yes, it is said, and a huge piece of villainy it
+is, that moved by money or favour, you are used to promote some to the
+rule of souls. If this is true, then without any doubt, peace cannot be
+granted to you by God.&rdquo; When he had given this careful and timely
+admonition and instruction, the king excused himself on some points, on
+others asked earnestly for the bishop&rsquo;s intercession, and was sent off
+with a blessing. The bishop then went in gladness to his pike. Richard&rsquo;s
+opinion was that &ldquo;if all the other bishops were like him, no king or
+prince would dare to rear his neck against them.&rdquo; Such salutary
+treatment <a name="corr82" id="corr82"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn82" title="inconsistent hyphenation (elsewhere 'nowadays')">now-a-days</a> is the sole perquisite of the very poor. The higher
+up men get on the social scale, the less they need such honest dealing,
+it now appears.</p>
+
+<p>But Hugh was not quite out of the toils. The king&rsquo;s counsellors
+suggested that he should carry back letters to the barons demanding aid
+and succour, letters which it was known would be well weighted by the
+authority of the postman, and would ensure their bearer continuance of
+the royal favour. The king&rsquo;s servants informed the bishop of this move,
+and his clerkly friends pointed out the great advantage to himself of
+this service. He answered: &ldquo;That be far from me. It jumps neither with
+my intention nor my office. It is not my part to become the carrier of
+letters royal. It is not my part to co-operate in the least degree in
+exactions of this sort. Do not you know that this mighty man
+<span class="pagebreak" title="83">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a>
+begs as it
+were with a drawn sword? Particularly this power (of the Crown), under
+guise of asking, really forces. Our English first attract with their
+gentle greetings, and then they force men with harshest compulsion to
+pay not what is voluntary but just what they choose to exact. They often
+compel unwilling folk to do what they know was once done spontaneously,
+either by this generation or the last. I have no cause to be mixed up in
+such dealings. These may please an earthly king at one&rsquo;s neighbour&rsquo;s
+expense, but afterwards they move the indignation of Almighty God.&rdquo; He
+asked the counsellors to arrange that this burden should not be laid
+upon him with its consequent refusal, conflict, and disfavour. Richard
+heard the tale and sent a message, &ldquo;God bless you, but get away home,
+and do not come here to-morrow as we said, but pray for us to the Lord
+without ceasing,&rdquo; which message was most grateful to the bishop, and he
+soon set his face north. His exultant chaplains felt sure that all would
+turn out well, for on the steps of the chapel, when their hearts were
+all pit-a-pat, they had heard the chorus prose of St. Austin being
+chaunted, &ldquo;Hail, noble prelate of Christ, most lovely flower,&rdquo; a lucky
+omen! And again when they reached chapel doors they heard the bishops
+and clerks within in unison continue the introit, &ldquo;O blessed, O holy
+Augustine, help thou this company.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A month later Richard won a smart little victory near Gisors, where King
+Philip drank moat water, and nearly got knocked on the head. The king
+announced this in a letter, and asked for more
+<span class="pagebreak" title="84">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"></a>
+prayers, and Adam, the
+biographer, felt that the heavenly triumph of his friend was complete.
+He would have been less elate if he had known that all the bishops got a
+similar letter, even wicked old Hugh de Pudsey.</p>
+
+<p>Lincoln by this time was the home of learned and reliable men. The
+canons, prebends, and placemen had been chosen with great care. Hugh had
+cast his net far and wide and enclosed some very edible fishes. We know
+of not a few. William of Leicester, Montanus, has already been
+mentioned. Giraldus Cambrensis (a most learned, amusing, and malicious
+writer, on the lines of Anthony A. Wood, or even of Horace Walpole) was
+another. Walter de Map a third.<a name="fnm_12" id="fnm_12"></a><a href="#fn_12" class="fnnum">12</a> It was part of Hugh&rsquo;s high sense of
+duty which made him fight with all his weight for a worthy though a
+broad-minded use of patronage. He often upbraided the archbishop with
+his careless use of this power, who was immersed in worldly business and
+too given to bestow benefices for political or useful services. He said
+himself that the most grievous worldly misfortune he ever suffered was
+to find men whom he trusted and advanced turn out to be immoral
+sluggards. Yet another of his promotions was that of William de Blois,
+who afterwards succeeded him. In fact, like every great bishop of the
+time, he gathered his <i>eruditi</i>, his scholars, around him, and these
+were not looked upon as mere dreamers and impracticable bookworms.
+<span class="pagebreak" title="85">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"></a>
+Lore
+and action went hand in hand. The men of affairs and the men of
+learning, in this age, were interchangeable persons. Consequently when
+Richard&rsquo;s attention was directed to Lincoln and its bishop, when he
+noticed that it was a centre for sound and steady clerks whose wallets
+were by no means unstuffed, and when he reflected that he had failed to
+lay hands upon the bishop&rsquo;s money, he resolved to have something at any
+rate from this fine magazine. He wrote to the archbishop to order, by
+letter, twelve eminent clerks, who had prudence, counsel, and eloquence,
+to serve at their own expense in the Roman Court, in Germany, Spain, and
+elsewhere. The post from Canterbury duly arrived with twelve sealed
+&ldquo;pair of letters,&rdquo; to be directed to eminent men, and with a special
+letter to order the bishop to hasten and obey. The bearer found the
+bishop at his Buckden House, and dinner was just on the board. There was
+much buzz and hum among those present when the tale was told, but Hugh
+made no reply. He simply sat down to table. The clergy, a pavid flock,
+chattered their fears between the mouthfuls. They hoped rather
+hopelessly, that the answer would be all sugary and smiling; at any rate
+that their master would try a little ogling of the archbishop, who
+could, if he would, make things ever so much better. While they were
+exchanging their views upon expediency and the great propriety of saving
+one&rsquo;s skin, the stout-hearted bishop rose from table. He had consulted
+none of these scared advisers, so that he might not throw the
+responsibility upon their shivering backs. He turned to the messenger
+and
+<span class="pagebreak" title="86">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"></a>
+said, &ldquo;These are novelties, and hitherto unheard of, both the
+things which my lord has ordered on the king&rsquo;s authority and on his own.
+Still he may know that I never was, nor will be, a letter carrier of his
+epistles; and I never have, nor will now, oblige our clergy to undertake
+royal service. I have often stopped even clerks of other parts,
+beneficed in our bishopric, from daring to make themselves beholden to
+secular patronage in public offices, such as forest diversion, and other
+like administrations. Some, who were less obedient on this point, we
+have even chastened by long sequestration of their livings. On what
+reasonable count, then, ought we to pluck men from the very vitals of
+our Church, and send them by order on the royal service? Let it be
+enough for our lord the king that (certainly a danger to their soul&rsquo;s
+salvation) the archbishops, neglecting the duty of their calling, are
+already utterly given over to the performance of his business. If that
+is not enough for him, then this bishop will come with his people. He
+will come, I say, and hear his orders from the king&rsquo;s own lips. He will
+come ready to carry out what is right next after those same orders.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But as for you, take the bundle of twelve letters which you say you
+have brought to us, and be off with them and make just what use you
+please of them. But every single word which I speak to you, be sure to
+repeat to our lord the archbishop: and do not fail to end with the
+message that if the arrangement holds that our clergy are to go to the
+king, I myself likewise will go with them. I have not gone before
+without them; and they will not go without me now. This is the right
+relation between
+<span class="pagebreak" title="87">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"></a>
+a good shepherd and good sheep: he must not scatter
+them by foolishly letting them out of his ken. They must not get into
+trouble by rash escape from him.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The letter carrier, a court cleric, was finely indignant. He was a man
+careful-chosen, haughty by nature, but still more haughty as royal
+envoy. He was bridling up for a volley of threats when the bishop cut
+him short, and ordered him off at the double. He slunk away abashed. A
+deputation, of weight, from Lincoln next waited upon the archbishop to
+expostulate with him for playing chuck taw with the immunity of the
+church, and franking with his authority such messages. He smiled
+graciously, after the manner of his kind, and hid his spleen. He meant
+no harm, of course: if harm there were, he was glad to be disobeyed, and
+he would make all quiet and right. Of course in reality he took care to
+twist the Lion&rsquo;s tail with both hands, and the next thing was a public
+edict, that all the goods of the bishop were to be taken care of by the
+king&rsquo;s collectors. The good man heard and remarked, &ldquo;Did I not tell you
+truly of these men: their voice is Jacob&rsquo;s voice, but the hands are the
+hands of Esau?&rdquo; It was easier to order than to execute. The anathema
+counted for much, but the public conscience no doubt for more. The
+officers balked and remonstrated. Richard insisted, but his tools bent
+in his hand. &ldquo;Those English are scared at shadows,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;let us
+send Mercadier. He will know how to play with the Burgundian fellow.&rdquo;
+This amiable man was the captain of the Routiers, whose playful habits
+may be guessed from the fact that he is the
+<span class="pagebreak" title="88">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"></a>
+gentleman who afterwards
+skinned Bertrand de Gourdon for shooting the king. One of the king&rsquo;s
+friends answered, &ldquo;Mercadier is necessary, my lord the king, to your
+war. We should lose our pains and also his services if the Lincoln
+bishop&rsquo;s anathema should take effect.&rdquo; The king agreed that the risk was
+too heavy, so he ordered Stephen de Turnham to take charge of the
+bishop&rsquo;s goods, as he loved his life and limbs. This man had been
+seneschal of Anjou under the king&rsquo;s father, and was well affected to the
+bishop; but he was between the devil and the deep sea. With some
+heaviness and nervousness Stephen moved upon Sleaford. Between
+Peterborough and Market Deeping, whom should he fall in with but the
+bishop and his party! The uneasy disseizers fetched a compass, halted,
+and got hold of some of the clergy. They were as humble as Ahaziah&rsquo;s
+third captain before Elijah. They were obliged to do it, but, poor
+lambs, they would not hurt so much as a swan&rsquo;s feather. And would the
+bishop, by all that was invokeable, kindly defer his anathema? or else
+the king would be royally angry, and they would get more than they
+deserved. The bishop answered the clergy, &ldquo;It is not their parts to keep
+our things whole. Let them go. Let them finger and break in upon the
+goods, as they think fit. They are not ours but our Lady&rsquo;s, the holy
+Mother of God.&rdquo; He then brought out the end of his linen stole from his
+cloak (which stole he always wore, ready for confirmation and
+excommunication) shook it and added, &ldquo;This little bit of stuff will
+bring back to the last halfpenny whatever they reeve away.&rdquo; He then
+passed on to Buckden (near Huntingdon), where he issued orders
+<span class="pagebreak" title="89">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"></a>
+to all
+the archdeacons and rural deans, that so soon as the officers should
+arrive they should clang bells, light candles and solemnly ban all who
+should violently and unrighteously touch the property of their Church.
+The flutter in the clerical dovecot was immense, but the bishop simply
+said good-night to his excited chaplains and was soon in the sweetest
+slumber. Except that he said Amen in his sleep a few more times than
+usual, and more earnestly, they saw no trace of neural
+<a name="corr89" id="corr89"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn89" title="unchanged from original">tremours</a>
+about his sedate carriage. He seems to have been well aware of
+the gravity of the struggle, for he had already announced at Lincoln
+that he would have to go abroad. He had gathered his children at the
+Mass, where he added the priestly blessing from the law of Moses,<a name="fnm_13" id="fnm_13"></a><a href="#fn_13" class="fnnum">13</a>
+had commended himself to their prayers, given them the kiss of peace and
+commended them to God, and was already on the way to the archbishop. He
+stayed a few days at Buckden. Thence he slowly made his way to London.
+On the road a rural dean consulted him upon the case of a girl with
+second sight and a terrific tongue. This damsel would prophetically
+discover things stolen or lost, and she had a large following. If any
+discreet and learned man tackled her she would talk him down, and put
+him to rout. She was brought to meet Hugh by the roadside, amid a crowd
+of confirmation candidates. He addressed her, chiding not so much the
+damsel as the demon within her, &ldquo;Come now, unhappy girl, what can you
+divine for us? Tell me please, if you can, what this hand holds in it?&rdquo;
+He held out his right hand closed over his stole end. She made no
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="90">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"></a>
+reply, but fell at his feet in a sort of faint. After a pause he bade
+them lift her up and asked through the dean (for he was ignorant of the
+country woman&rsquo;s talk) how she had learnt to divine? &ldquo;I cannot divine. I
+implore the mercy of this holy bishop,&rdquo; she replied, and knelt at his
+feet. He laid his hands upon her head, prayed, blessed her, and sent her
+to the Prior of Huntingdon, the penitentiary priest of the district, to
+hear her confession. She not only gave up witchcraft, but ceased to be
+brazen-faced and a shrew: so that people bruited this matter as a
+miracle, and a handsome one it was. The bishop probably saved her from
+the vengeance of this rural dean, for witch-burning was not unknown even
+then, as Walter de Map witnesses. This was not the first essay of our
+bishop in witch-laying. When he was still Prior of Witham, Bartholomew,
+Bishop of Exeter, a learned and pious man, and one of St. Thomas&rsquo;
+opposers, consulted him upon a sad case. Bishop Bartholomew was
+interested in spiritualism (which shews the same face in every century,
+and never adds much to its phenomena), as Matthew Paris recounts. A poor
+girl was the prey of a most violent and cruel Incubus, whom no fasts or
+austerities could divorce from her. Hugh suggested united prayer on her
+behalf, which was made, but not answered. A rival Incubus, however, came
+upon the scenes, of a softer mood, and wooed with mild speeches. He
+promised to deliver her, and pointed out the perforated St. John&rsquo;s wort
+as a herb odious to devils. This the artful woman put in her bosom and
+her house, and kept both suitors at bay.<a name="fnm_14" id="fnm_14"></a><a href="#fn_14" class="fnnum">14</a> The bishop was much struck
+with
+<span class="pagebreak" title="91">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"></a>
+this story, as well he might be, and used often to tell it. A monk
+told him another similar tale from Essex; but enough of such fables.</p>
+
+<p>When he left Huntingdon the bishop went on to St. Albans, seemingly in a
+leisurely way, and as he drew near to this place, he met a crowd of
+provost&rsquo;s men dragging a condemned thief to the gallows. The poor
+creature&rsquo;s arms were braced behind his back. The word went round quickly
+that it was Hugh of Lincoln, and there was the usual rush to beg for his
+blessing, police craft and piety being wedded in those officers. The
+captive by some acrobatics managed to rush too, and came against the
+horse&rsquo;s neck, was knocked down, and in the dust cried for mercy. The
+bishop drew rein and asked who the man was and what he wanted. His
+attendants, who knew the language, answered him, &ldquo;It is not your part,
+my lord, to ask more about the fellow. Indeed, you must let him just
+pass.&rdquo; They feared lest the bishop, already in deep water, should fall
+into still deeper by some chivalrous audacity. But he would know the
+tale and why the man cried him mercy: and when he knew it, he cried,
+&ldquo;Lackaday! God be blessed!&rdquo; and turning to the hangmen, he said, &ldquo;Come
+back, my sons, with us to St. Albans. Hand the man over to us, and tell
+your masters and the judges that we have taken him from you. We will see
+that you take no harm.&rdquo; They did not dare to resist, but gave up their
+victim. He was quickly untied and given to the almoner. When they
+reached the abbey the clergy and attendant came to the bishop and begged
+him most earnestly to allow the civil magistrates to do their office.
+&ldquo;Up till now,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="92">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"></a>
+my lord, neither the king nor any other man who lay in
+wait for you, could bring a just or a just-seeming charge against you.
+But if when the legal judges have passed sentence and handed the case to
+the executive, you quash that sentence by your pontifical authority,
+your ill-wishers will call it a blow against the king&rsquo;s crown, and you
+will fall into the condemnation of flat treason.&rdquo; &ldquo;I am assured of your
+kindness,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;but let these judges come in to us and you
+shall hear what we have to say to each other.&rdquo; The judges were already
+tapping at the doors, for a word with the audacious bishop. &ldquo;Gentlemen,
+you are wise enough to know that your holy Mother the Church has
+everywhere this prerogative: all who are falling into any danger of
+condemnation and fly to her, may get freedom, and be kept unhurt.&rdquo; This
+they well knew and believed to be quite right. &ldquo;If you know this, you
+ought to know that where the bishop is, united to the faithful in
+Christ, there too is the church. He who is used by his ministry to
+dedicate the material stones of the church to the Lord; who also has the
+work of sanctifying the living stones, the real stuff of the church, by
+each of the Sacraments, to rear from them the Lord&rsquo;s temple, he by right
+must enjoy the privileges of ecclesiastical dignity, wherever he be, and
+succour all who are in danger, according to his legal order.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The judges gratefully agreed, remembered that this was so expressed in
+ancient English law, but now obsolete, thanks to bishops&rsquo; sloth or
+princes&rsquo; tyranny. They summed up by this politeness, &ldquo;My lord, we are
+your sons and parishioners. You are our father
+<span class="pagebreak" title="93">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"></a>
+and pastor. So it will
+not be ours to run counter to your privilege or to dispute it: nor
+yours, by your leave, to bring us into any hazard. If you decide upon
+the man&rsquo;s release, we offer no opposition; but by your leave we trust
+you to see that we incur no danger from the king.&rdquo; &ldquo;Well and rightly
+spoken,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and on these terms I take him from your hands. For
+this infraction, I will make answer where I must.&rdquo; So the man escaped
+the gallows, and was set free again when they reached London.</p>
+
+<p>Two remarks are worth making here. First, that the right of sanctuary,
+both for accused and of guilty persons, were guaranteed by the old Laws
+Ecclesiastical of King Edward the Confessor, as collected by William the
+First in the fourth year of his reign, which laws were romantically dear
+to the English people. The stretch came in where the Church was
+interpreted to mean the bishop and faithful. Secondly, Saint Nicholas
+similarly rescued two men from the scaffold, but not at a moment so
+inopportune for himself. If the rescue had law behind it, and it might
+be so defended, it was a very awkward moment to choose to champion a
+hangdog. But this was the age of chivalry, and without such innate
+chivalry Hugh would never have cast the spell he did over King Richard&rsquo;s
+England.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_10" id="fn_10"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_10">10</a></span> &ldquo;I will take it, though it were built of iron,&rdquo; he said;
+to which Richard replied, &ldquo;And I will defend it, though it were of
+butter.&rdquo;</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_11" id="fn_11"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_11">11</a></span> There is no osculatory to be found in the records. This is
+a slightly later invention, and no one seems to kneel in this picture.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_12" id="fn_12"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_12">12</a></span> Whom some wish to acquit of writing that jovial drinking
+song,
+</p>
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;I intend to end my days,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">In a tavern drinking.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_13" id="fn_13"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_13">13</a></span> &ldquo;The Lord bless thee and keep thee,&rdquo; &amp;c. Numbers, vi.,
+24.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_14" id="fn_14"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_14">14</a></span> If the reader disbelieves this story, let him read Bede
+upon Luke viii., 30, says the narrator.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="94">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br />
+<span class="little">&mdash;AND DISPUTES</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>When Hugh, under this new cloud, did at last reach London the archbishop
+had no counsel to give, except that he should shear his clergy rather
+tight and send their golden fleeces to appease the king. &ldquo;Do not you
+know that the king thirsts for money as a dropsical man does for water,
+my lord bishop?&rdquo; To this the answer was, &ldquo;Yes. He is a dropsical man,
+but I will not be water for him to swallow.&rdquo; It was plain that the
+archbishop was no friend in need, and back they went towards Lincoln. At
+Cheshunt he found a poor, mad sailor triced up in a doorway by hands and
+feet. Hugh ran to him, made the holy sign, and then with outstretched
+right hand began the Gospel, low and quick, &ldquo;In the beginning was the
+Word.&rdquo; The rabid patient cowered, like a frightened hound; but when the
+words &ldquo;full of grace and truth&rdquo; were reached, he put out his tongue
+derisively. Hugh, not to be beaten, consecrated holy water, sprinkled
+him, and bade folk put some in his mouth. Then he went on his way; and
+the mad man, no longer mad,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="95">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"></a>
+sanely went on pilgrimage, men said, and
+made a fine end at the last. His own bishop, who had met him, had
+clapped spurs to his horse and bolted. It may be suspected that this
+bolting bishop was the newly elect of London, who was William de Santa
+Maria, an ex-Canon of Lincoln, Richard&rsquo;s secretary, Giraldus&rsquo; opponent,
+better known than loved in his late Chapter.</p>
+
+<p>Matters being settled at Lincoln, he set out again for London and paused
+to ask the Barons of the Exchequer most kindly to see to the indemnities
+of his church while he was away. They rose to greet him and readily gave
+their promises. They prayed him to take a seat among them even for a
+moment. So pleased were they to have the archfoe of clerical secularism
+in this trap, that they called it a triumph indeed, to see the day when
+he sat on the Treasury bench. He jumped up, a little ashamed, kissed
+them all, and said, &ldquo;Now I, too, can triumph over you if after taking
+the kiss you allow in anything less than friendly to my church.&rdquo; They
+laughingly said, &ldquo;How wonderfully wise this man is! Why, he has easily
+laid it upon us, that whatever the king orders, we cannot without great
+disgrace trouble him at all.&rdquo; He blessed them all and was soon in
+Normandy. But Richard was following hot-foot the two half-brother
+Ademars, lords of Limoges and Angoul&ecirc;me, who had been playing into the
+hands of the French enemy. There was nothing to do but wait patiently,
+which he did at St. Nicholas&rsquo; Monastery, Angers, from February to the
+beginning of March, 1199. Pope Innocent III.&rsquo;s legates were also there,
+and they passed three weeks
+<span class="pagebreak" title="96">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"></a>
+together. He conferred ordinations near
+here in the Abbey of Grandmont; refusing to ordain one of Walter Map&rsquo;s
+young friends, who afterwards became a leper. The king, it was reported,
+was full of huge threats and savage designs against his despisers, and
+if the clergy trembled before, they now shook like aspen leaves. The
+story of Hugh&rsquo;s predicament had got wind. The Hereford Canons wanted to
+choose the witty Walter Map to be bishop. He was already Archdeacon of
+Oxford, Canon of Lincoln, and Prebend of Hereford, but alas! he was also
+a friend of the disfavoured bishop. This fact is worth some emphasis, as
+it illustrates the large-mindedness of the saint. Walter was not only a
+vigorous pluralist, much stained by non-residence, but he was a
+whipster, whose lash was constantly flicking the monks, then in their
+decline. If any one considers his description of the Cistercians; of the
+desert life wherein they love their neighbour by expelling him; of their
+oppression whereby they glory not in Christ&rsquo;s Cross but in crucifying
+others; of their narrowness who call themselves Hebrews and all others
+Egyptians; of their sheep&rsquo;s clothing and inward ravening; of their
+reversals of Gospel maxims and their novelties; he will see that the
+lash for Cistercians must have fallen a good deal also upon Carthusian
+shoulders. Then Master Walter was towards being a favourer of Abelard
+and of his disciple Arnald of Brescia, whose ascetic mind was shocked at
+the fatal opulence of cardinals. Altogether Walter was a man who feared
+God, no doubt, but hardly showed it in the large jests which he made,
+which to our ears often
+<span class="pagebreak" title="97">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"></a>
+sound rather too large. But Hugh recognised in
+the satirist a power for righteousness, and certainly loved and favoured
+him. Consequently the Hereford Canons with those of Angers and of the
+Lincoln Chapter laid their heads together to compose the strife between
+king and bishop: and the readiest way was of course for the latter to
+compound with a round sum and get off home.</p>
+
+<p>The wars made the whole country dangerous for travelling, and it was
+neither safe to stay at home nor to move afield. But Job was not more
+persistent against his three friends than Hugh against the three
+unanimous Chapters, and his main argument was that the peace of the
+church must never be bought with money or this would endow its
+disturbers. His wisdom was well evidenced by events in the next reign.
+With this advice he urged them to sleep over the matter and discuss it
+next day. But the struggle to avoid compromising principles in order not
+only to serve the hour, but to save the love and, perhaps, the lives of
+friends was a very severe strain to him. When they had gone out he was
+dismally cast down and acknowledged that he had rarely compressed so
+much grief into so little space. Then he sat in silence, thought, and
+prayer that the tangle might be so unknotted, that God not be offended
+nor his own friends and sons slighted and alienated. Upon this he slept
+and dreamed sweet dreams of lovely sights and heard the roll of the
+Psalm of Divine Battle chaunted by heavenly voices, &ldquo;O God, wonderful
+art Thou in Thy holy places, even the God of Israel; He will give
+strength and power unto His people; blessed be
+<span class="pagebreak" title="98">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"></a>
+God.&rdquo;<a name="fnm_15" id="fnm_15"></a><a href="#fn_15" class="fnnum">15</a> He woke up
+refreshed, and at his weekly Saturday Confession deeply blamed himself
+for some hesitation he had felt, when baleful advice was given him.</p>
+
+<p>A little after this the Abbess of Fontevrault came to see him. The
+King&rsquo;s mother Eleanor, her guest, had been sent for in a hurry. The king
+had been hurt. A serf of Achard of Ch&acirc;lus had ploughed up a golden
+relic, an emperor with his family seated round a golden table. Ademar of
+Limoges had seized it. Richard demanded the whole and was after it sword
+in hand. The holders were in Castle Ch&acirc;lus, short of weapons but not of
+valour, and held out gallantly armed with frying-pans and whatnot. The
+place was undermined. Richard, without his hauberk, was directing the
+crash, when a man pulled an arrow from the mortar; aimed it and hit him
+on the neck and side. He went to his tent, and plucked at it, broke it
+off; was operated upon; would not keep quiet. The wound turned angry and
+then black, and the Lion lay dying. He made his will, a generous and
+charitable one, confessed his sins, was houselled and anhealed, and died
+on Passion Tuesday, April 6th. His brain and bowels were buried at
+Charroux, his heart at Rouen, and his body at his father&rsquo;s feet, in
+penitence, in the nunnery of Fontevrault. Hugh was on his way to the
+Cathedral at Angers to take duty the next day, Palm Sunday, when Gilbert
+de Lacy, a clerk, rode up to him and told him of the king&rsquo;s death and of
+the funeral next
+<span class="pagebreak" title="99">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a>
+day in Fontevrault. Hugh groaned deeply and announced
+at Angers that he should set out at once for that place. Every one
+begged and prayed that he would do no such thing. The mere rumour of the
+king&rsquo;s death had as usual let loose all the forces of disorder. Robbery,
+violence, and general anarchy were up. His own servants had been held up
+and robbed of forty silver marks, and the interregnum was more dreadful
+than any tyranny. What is the use of such charitable designs if you
+merely get left in the wilds by robbers, bare of carriage and clothes?
+they asked. His answer was worthy of a man who lived in holy fear and no
+other. &ldquo;<i>We</i> are all well aware what things can happen&mdash;fearful to the
+fearful&mdash;on this journey. But I think it a thing much more fearful that
+I should be coward enough to fail my late lord and king, by being away
+at such a crisis, by witholding my faith and grace from him in death,
+which I always showed him warmly in his life. What of the trouble he
+gave us, by giving in too much to the evil advice of those who flattered
+him? Certainly when I was with him, he never treated me but most
+honourably, never dismissed me unheard, when I made him some remarks
+face to face upon my business. If he wronged me when I was away, I have
+put it down to the spite of my detractors, not to his wickedness or
+malice. I will, therefore, pay him back to my power the honours he so
+often bestowed upon me. It will not be my fault if I do not help warmly
+at his obsequies. Say robbers do meet me on the road, say they do take
+the horses and carry off the robes, my feet will travel all the fleeter,
+because they
+<span class="pagebreak" title="100">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>
+are lightened from the vestment baggage. If they really
+tie my feet and rob me of the power of moving, then and then only will
+be a real excuse for being absent in the body, for it will be caused not
+by vice but by outside obstacles.&rdquo; He left his friends in the city and
+almost all his stuff, took one minor clerk, one monk, and a tiny train
+and set out. On the way he heard that the poor Queen Berengaria was at
+Castle Beaufort, so he left the doubtful highway for a dangerous forest
+track to visit her. He soothed her almost crazy grief, bid her bear
+grief bravely and face better days cautiously, said Mass for her,
+blessed her and her train, and went back at once. He got to Saumur the
+same day, where he was greeted with a sort of ovation by the townsfolk
+and was entertained by Gilbert de Lacy, who was studying there. Next
+day, Palm Sunday, he sped on to Fontevrault and met the bearers just at
+the doors. He paid all the royal honours he could to his late Master and
+was entertained at the Monastery. For three days he ceased not to say
+Mass and the Psalms for the kings lying there, as for all the faithful
+who lay quiet in Christ, prayed for their pardon and the bliss of
+everlasting light. A beautiful picture this of the brave old bishop in
+the Norman Abbey Church, where two kings, his friend and his forgiven
+foe, lay &ldquo;shrouded among the shrouded women&rdquo; in that Holy Week of long
+ago!</p>
+
+<p>This compassion was not only a matter of honour, but of faith. It was
+one of the principles of his life and conduct that hereby was set forth
+the love of God, and applied to the needs of man. He used often to say
+that countless other things manifested the boundless
+<span class="pagebreak" title="101">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>
+love of God to
+men, but of those we know, these surpass the greatness of all the rest,
+which He ceases not to bestow before man&rsquo;s rise and after his setting.
+&ldquo;To touch lightly a few of these in the case of men who rise and set:
+God the Son of God gave for each man before he was born the ransom of
+His own death. God the Father sent His own same Son into the world to
+die for the man: God the Holy Ghost poured Himself out an earnest for
+him. So together the whole Trinity, one God, together set up the
+Sacraments by which he is born, cleansed, defended, and strengthened,
+gave the props of His own law to rule and teach him, and generously made
+provision for his good by other mysterious means. When man&rsquo;s fitful life
+is past and its course cut off by death, when his once dearest look on
+him now with aversion, when parents and children cast him forth with
+anxious haste from the halls once his, God&rsquo;s most gracious kindness
+scorns not what all others despise. Then straightway He ordains not only
+angelic spirits to the ward of the soul at its return to its Maker, but
+He sends for the burial service those who are first and foremost of His
+earthly servants, to wit the priests and others in the sacred orders.
+And this is His command to them: &lsquo;Behold,&rsquo; He says, &lsquo;My priests and
+caretakers of My palaces in the world, behold My handiwork. I have
+always loved it. I spared not My only Son for it but made Him share in
+its mortality and its death. Behold, I say, that is now become a burden
+to its former lovers and friends. They crowd to cast it out and drive it
+forth. Away, then, speed and help My refugee: take up the Image of My
+Son, crucified
+<span class="pagebreak" title="102">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>
+for it: take instruments for incense and wax. Ring out
+the signals of My Church for a solemn assembly; raise high your hymnal
+voices, open the doors of My house and its inner shrines: place near to
+the altar, which holds the Body of My Son, what is left of that brother
+or sister; finally, cover him a bier with costly palls, for at last he
+triumphs: crowd it with lamps and candles, circle round him, overthrown
+as he is, with helping crowds of servants. Do more. Repeat the votive
+offering of My Son. Make the richest feast, and thus the panting spirit,
+restless and weary with the jars of the wonted mortality it has just
+laid by, may breathe to strength: and the flesh, empty for the while of
+its old tenant, and now to be nursed in the lap of the Mother Earth, may
+be bedewed with a most gracious holiness, so that at the last day when
+it is sweetly reunited to its well-known companion, it may gladly flower
+anew and put on with joy the everlasting freshness.&rdquo; This was no sudden
+seizure and passing emotion at the romance of funerals. He issued a
+general order in his diocese forbidding parish priests to bury the
+bodies of grown persons, if he were by to do it. If it were a case of
+good life, the more need to honour; if of an evil life, such would all
+the more yearn for greater succour. So he went to all, and if they were
+poor he ordered his almoner to find the lights and other requirements.
+Any funeral would bring him straight from his horse to pray at the bier.
+If he had no proper book wherein he might read without halting (and his
+eyes waxed dim at the last) he would stand near the officiant, chaunt
+the psalms with him, say the amens, and be clerk, almost a laic. If he
+had the right
+<span class="pagebreak" title="103">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>
+book, he would be priest, say the prayers, use the holy
+water, swing the censer, cast on the mould, then give shrift and benison
+and go on his way. If the place were a large city and many bodies came
+for burial he did just the same until all were finished. Potentates
+expecting to eat bread with him were often vexed and complained at these
+delays; but, host or guest, he had more appetite for holy than for
+social functions. King Richard at Rouen, like his father before him,
+with all the Court and the Royal Family, when they invited Hugh to
+table, had to keep fasting while Hugh performed these higher duties
+without clipping or diminishing the office. When the king&rsquo;s servants
+chafed, and would have spurred him on, he would say, &ldquo;No need to wait
+for us. Let him eat in the Lord&rsquo;s name;&rdquo; and to his friends, &ldquo;It is
+better for the king to eat without us, than for our humility to pass the
+Eternal King&rsquo;s order unfulfilled.&rdquo; Near Argentan, in Normandy, he once
+found a new grave by the roadside and learnt that a beggar-boy lay
+there. The priest had let him lie there, because there was no fee and no
+one would carry him to the church-yard. Hugh was deeply grieved, said
+the office himself, and rattled that priest pretty smartly to his bishop
+for denying Christian burial to the penniless and needy.</p>
+
+<p>Once while the cathedral works were being carried on, a mason engaged on
+the fabric asked him for pontifical shrift for a brother who had just
+died. It was winter, and the feast of St. Stephen. Hugh promptly gave
+the absolution, and then asked if the body were yet buried. When he
+learnt that it was only being watched in a somewhat distant church,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="104">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>
+he
+ordered three horses instantly, one for himself, one for his outrider,
+and one for his chaplain; but as only two were to be had he sent the
+chaplain on ahead, himself followed with a monk and a couple of servers,
+and devoutly buried not only the mason&rsquo;s brother, but five other bodies.
+Another time, when the Archdeacon of Bedford gave a large and solemn
+feast to the dignified clergy&mdash;who, by the way, seldom shine in these
+narratives&mdash;the bishop so wearied them by his funereal delays that they
+explained their impatience to him not without some tartness of reproof.
+His only reply was, &ldquo;Why do you not recall the voice of the Lord, who
+said with His holy lips, My meat is to do the will of My Father in
+heaven?&rdquo; Another time, again, one hot spring when there was a general
+meeting of magnates, he heard that one of the prelates was dead.<a name="fnm_16" id="fnm_16"></a><a href="#fn_16" class="fnnum">16</a> The
+man was an outrageous guzzler and toper, but Hugh prayed earnestly for
+him, and then asked where he was to be buried. The now unromantic spot
+of Bermondsey was to be the burying ground, and the funeral was on the
+very day and hour of the Westminster gathering, in which matters deeply
+interesting to Lincoln were to be handled. No one of the bishops or
+abbots would stir out for their detected dead fellow, but &ldquo;to desert him
+in his last need&rdquo; was impossible to his saintlier brother. He must be
+off to bury the man, council or no council. The body had been clad in an
+alb and chasuble. Its face was bare and black, and the gross frame was
+bursting from its clothes. Every one else had a gum, an essence or
+incense; but Hugh, who was
+<span class="pagebreak" title="105">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>
+peculiarly sensitive to malodours, showed
+nothing but tenderness for the corrupt mortality, and seemed to cherish
+it as a mother a babe. The &ldquo;sweet smelling sacrifice&rdquo; shielded him in
+his work of mercy, they said.</p>
+
+<p>William of Newburgh, a writer much given to ghost stories, tells a
+Buckingham tale of a certain dead man who would walk. He fell violently
+upon his wife first, and then upon his brothers, and the neighbours had
+to watch to fend him off. At last he took to walking even in the day,
+&ldquo;terrible to all, but visible only to a few.&rdquo; The clergy were called;
+the archdeacon took the chair. It was a clear case of Vampire. The man
+must be dug up, cut to bits, and burnt. But the bishop was very
+particular about the dead, and when they asked his leave he was
+indignant at the proposal. He wrote instead a letter with his own hand,
+which absolved the unquiet spirit. This was laid upon the dead man&rsquo;s
+breast, and thenceforward he rested in peace, as did his alarmed
+neighbours. Whatever we think of the tale, the tender reverent spirit of
+the bishop is still a wonder. Although greatly given to an enthusiasm
+for the saints, a puzzling enthusiasm for their teeth, nails, plaisters,
+and bandages, Hugh was looked upon as an enemy to superstition, and was
+an eager suppressor of the worship of wells and springs, which still
+show how hard the Pagan religion dies. He found and demolished this
+&ldquo;culture&rdquo; at Wycombe and Bercamstead.<a name="fnm_17" id="fnm_17"></a><a href="#fn_17" class="fnnum">17</a></p>
+
+<p>The great theological question of Hugh&rsquo;s time was
+<span class="pagebreak" title="106">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>
+certainly the
+Eucharistic one. Eucharistic doctrine grew, as the power of the Church
+grew; as the one took a bolder tone so did the other. The word
+Transubstantiation (an ambiguous term to the disputants who do not
+define substance) had been invented by Peter of Blois, but not yet
+enjoined upon the Church by the Lateran Council of 1215. The language of
+the earlier fathers, of St. Bernard, did not suffice. Peter Lombard&rsquo;s
+tentative terms had given way to less reserved speech. Thomas Aquinas,
+not yet born, was to unite the rival factions which forked now into
+Berengarius, who objected to the very terms Body of Christ, &amp;c., always
+used for the Sacrament; and now into some crude cannibal theories, which
+found support in ugly miracles of clotted chalices and bleeding fingers
+in patens. Abelard had tried to hush the controversy by a little
+judicious scepticism, but the air was full of debate. If learned men
+ignored the disputes the unlearned would not. Fanatical monks on the one
+side and fanatical Albigenses on the other, decried or over-cried the
+greatest mysteries of the faith, and brawled over the hidden manna.
+Hugh&rsquo;s old Witham monk Ainard had once preached a crusade against the
+blasphemers of the Sacraments, and is mentioned with honour for this
+very thing by Hugh&rsquo;s intimate and biographer. The saint&rsquo;s conspicuous
+devotion at the Mass, the care with which he celebrated and received, of
+themselves would point to a peculiarly strong belief in the Invisible
+Presence. Christians are, and have always been, lineally bound to
+believe in the supreme necessity of the Lord&rsquo;s Marriage Supper to the
+soul&rsquo;s health and obedience. They
+<span class="pagebreak" title="107">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>
+are bound to use the old language,
+&ldquo;This is My Body.&rdquo; In earlier days, when Church thinkers were all
+Platonists, or at least Realists, the verity of the Sacrament was the
+Idea behind it. The concrete veils of that Idea were hallowed only by
+their use, association, and impact. But when after the crusades
+Aristotle was no longer the Bishop of Arians, but now the supreme
+philosopher, the language hitherto natural to piety had either to be
+changed or infused by violence with new senses, or both. The latter half
+of the twelfth century saw this unhappy deadlock between history and
+reason, and made strenuous efforts to compose the strife. So far as we
+may judge, upon a difficult question, where little must be written and
+much would be required to express an exact opinion, Hugh seems to have
+held that by mystic sanctification the host is turned into Christ&rsquo;s
+Body; that this conversion is not a sudden but a gradual one, until the
+Son offers Himself anew, and hence the Sacrifice may be said to be
+repeated. The story which illustrates this position best is that of the
+young clerk who came to him at Buckden. The bishop had just been
+dedicating a large and beautiful chalice and upbraiding the
+heavily-endowed dignitaries for doing nothing at all for the poorly
+served churches from which they drew their stipends. Then he said Mass,
+and the clerk saw Christ in his hands, first as a little child at the
+Oblation, when &ldquo;the custom is to raise the host aloft and bless it&rdquo;; and
+again when it is &ldquo;raised to be broken and consumed in three pieces,&rdquo; &ldquo;as
+the Son of the Highest offering Himself to the Father for man&rsquo;s
+salvation.&rdquo; The clerk tells him of the double vision&mdash;the voucher of a
+message
+<span class="pagebreak" title="108">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>
+sent by his late crusading father, who warned him to tell the
+archbishop, through the Bishop of Lincoln, that the evil state of the
+church must be amended. The message and the messenger seem to answer
+exactly to the monk of Evesham, whose Dantesque revelations<a name="fnm_18" id="fnm_18"></a><a href="#fn_18" class="fnnum">18</a> are here
+almost quoted. The wrath of God was incurred by the unchaste living
+priests, who so behaved that the Sacraments were polluted, and by the
+manner in which archdeacons and others trafficked in bribes. Hugh heard
+the story at the altar, wept, dried the eyes of both, kissed the young
+man and brought him into the meal afterwards, and urged him to become a
+monk. This he did, and became the Monk of Evesham aforesaid. There is no
+necessary advance in Eucharistic doctrine in this story, for a similar
+vision was given to King Edward the Confessor, and Hugh was so reticent
+about such things that his chaplain Adam never dared to ask him,
+although he dreamed that he asked him and was snubbed for his pains.
+&ldquo;Although then, when you say, and more often, the Lord deigned to reveal
+this and other things to me, what do you want in the matter?&rdquo; In his
+last journey to Jouay,<a name="fnm_19" id="fnm_19"></a><a href="#fn_19" class="fnnum">19</a> an old, feeble and withered priest, who would
+not dine with him as the parish priest was wont, came to ask him to see
+a wonder and to beg for his prayers. His story was that he, being in
+mortal sin, blind and weak in faith and practices, was saying Mass, and
+doubting whether so dirty a sinner could really handle so white and
+stainless a glory. When the fraction took place, blood dripped from the
+host and it grew into flesh. He dropped the new thing
+<span class="pagebreak" title="109">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>
+into the chalice,
+covered it up, dismissed the people, and got papal absolution, and now
+would fain show the wonder. The lesser men were agape for the sight, but
+Hugh answered, &ldquo;In the Lord&rsquo;s name let them keep the signs of their
+infidelity to themselves. What are they to us? Are we to be astonished
+at the partial shows of the Divine gift, who daily behold this heavenly
+sacrifice whole and entire with most faithful gaze of mind? Let him, who
+beholds not with the inner sight of faith the whole, go and behold the
+man&rsquo;s little scraps with his carnal vision.&rdquo; He then blessed the priest
+and dismissed him, and rebuked his followers for curiosity, and gave
+them a clear Eucharistic lesson not repeated for us, upon what faith
+lays down in the matter. From his speech then and elsewhere the good
+Adam gathered that Hugh often saw what others only believed to be there,
+the &ldquo;bared face of the inner Man.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>These stories seem to dissociate Hugh from the grosser forms of
+Eucharistic teaching, and open the way for an explanation of his
+behaviour at F&eacute;champ, which is otherwise almost inexplicable. We may
+take it that he held a belief in a living Presence, which teeth could
+not bruise nor change decay. The language he uses is not consistent with
+later English teaching which shrinks from talking about a repeated
+sacrifice. It is also inconsistent with later Roman devotion, because he
+seems to dislike the notion of a conditioned or corporal Presence, and
+anyhow to shrink from the definite statements to which the Roman Church
+has since committed herself. He certainly did not fix the Coming of the
+Bridegroom at the Consecration Prayer, <i>a fortiori</i> to any one
+particular word of it.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="110">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>
+</p><p>Far less conjectural is the splendid stand which he made for chastity
+of life, at a time when the standard in such matters was lax both in the
+world and also in the church. It came as a surprise to his
+contemporaries that he should disapprove of the romantic ties between
+King Henry and fair Rosamond. That lady was buried at Godstowe by her
+royal lover, who draped her tomb, near the high altar, with silk, lamps,
+and lighted candles, making her the new founder, and for her sake
+raising the house from poverty and meanness to wealth and nobleness of
+building. While Hugh was earnestly praying at the altar (in 1191) he
+espied this splendid sepulchre. He asked whose it was, and when he
+learned said sternly, &ldquo;Take her hence, for she was a whore. The love
+between the king and her was unlawful and adulterous. Bury her with the
+other dead outside the church, lest the Christian religion grow
+contemptible. Thus other women by her example may be warned and keep
+themselves from lawless and adulterous beds.&rdquo; So far from being harsh,
+this decision to allow of no royal exceptions to the ten commandments
+was probably the kindest, strongest, and most wide-reaching protest that
+could be made against an unhappy and probably growing evil. This is of a
+piece with many other passages in his life, but hardly worth dwelling
+upon because the lawless loves, which in that day were too lightly
+regarded, in this day have usurped the sole title of immorality to
+themselves, as if there were not six other deadly sins besides. The best
+justification of the sentence is just this surprise with which it was
+received.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_15" id="fn_15"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_15">15</a></span> lxviii. 35. A psalm full of associations of battles long
+ago: sung against Julian the Apostate, used by Charlemagne, Anthony,
+Dunstan, and many more.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_16" id="fn_16"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_16">16</a></span> Simon of Pershore, if in 1198: and Robert of Caen, if in
+1196, but less likely.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_17" id="fn_17"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_17">17</a></span> The Wycombe Well is probably the Round Basin, near the
+Roman Villa, but the other I am unable to hear news of.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_18" id="fn_18"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_18">18</a></span> Published by Arber. See chap. xxxvi.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_19" id="fn_19"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_19">19</a></span> Joi.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="111">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br />
+<span class="little">HUGH THE BUILDER</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>The strong personality of the man, his boldness and sagacity combined,
+come out in his building as clearly as in his conduct; but since the
+learned are very litigious upon the questions of his architecture, the
+reader must have indulgence in his heart and a salt cellar in his hand,
+when he approaches this subject.</p>
+
+<p>First of all we must remember that in his age it was part of the
+education of a gentleman to know something about building. Hugh&rsquo;s
+grandfather must have built the old keep of Avalon Castle, which still
+stands above the modern ch&acirc;teau, and a family whose arms are, on a field
+or the eagle of the empire sable, were builders, both of necessity and
+of choice. When every baron, or at least every baron&rsquo;s father, had built
+himself a castle, planned and executed under his own eye; when King
+Richard in person could plan and superintend the building of his great
+Castle Saucy, the Ch&acirc;teau Gaillard, it is not wonderful that Hugh also
+should be ready and willing to do much in stone and mortar. Then, again,
+he must have had some
+<span class="pagebreak" title="112">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>
+architectural training at the Grande Chartreuse.
+The first buildings of wood were overthrown in 1126 by an avalanche, and
+Guigo, the fifth prior, had refounded the whole buildings after that
+date. The upper church, since then a chapter house, was built in
+Romanesque style, with round arches, two rose windows, and three
+sanctuary windows with wide splays. In 1150 Humbert, Count of Savoy,
+founded a beautiful chapel and a guest house for visitors; and even
+later than this there is a good deal of building going on at the lower
+house, farm buildings, guest house, and possibly even a church during
+the very time that Hugh was monk and procurator. Even if he took no
+personal part in any of these last works, he must have known and heard
+much of the art from men, who had done or were doing it. But it would
+not be rash to conclude that he had an apprenticeship in building before
+he set foot on English soil, and as well by education as by inheritance
+knew something of this work.</p>
+
+<p>Next we must bear in mind that every stone would, if possible, have a
+mystic signification. For some reason or other this notion makes the
+modern man impatient; but this impatience does not alter the facts, but
+only obscures their explanation. Everybody knows that the three eastern
+lights mean, as they did to St. Barbara, the blessed Trinity; but few
+people recognize that all numbers, whether in beams, pillars, sides,
+arches, or decoration had a well recognised symbolism, which had come
+down, hall-marked by St. Augustine and St. Bernard, to the building and
+worshipping generations of those and much later days.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="113">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>
+</p><p>What was done at Witham we cannot now fully tell, for everything has
+perished of the upper house. The monks&rsquo; church would be of stone, and
+probably was very like the present Friary Church. The cells certainly
+would be of wood in the second stage, for they were of &ldquo;weeps,&rdquo; as we
+have seen, in the first. This part of the Charterhouse we have concluded
+stood in a field now called &ldquo;Buildings,&rdquo; but now so-called without
+visible reason.</p>
+
+<p>Round the present Friary Church there were the houses of the original
+inhabitants, a little removed from their foreign intruders; not quite a
+mile away, as at Hinton, where the two houses are thus divided, but yet
+something near three quarters of that distance.</p>
+
+<p>When the inhabitants were removed to Knap in North Curry and elsewhere,
+they took their old rafters with them or sold these. Their walls seem to
+have been of mud and wattle, or of some unsaleable stuff, and these, no
+doubt, served for a time for the lay brethren, after a little trimming
+and thatching. But their church had to be looked to before it could
+serve for the worship of the <i>conversi</i>. The old inhabitants (near two
+hundred, Mr. Buckle thinks, rather generously), were still there up to
+Hugh&rsquo;s time, and if their church was like their houses the wooden roof
+was much decayed and the walls none of the best. Hugh resolved upon a
+stone vault of the Burgundian type, followed at the Grande Chartreuse,
+and he therefore had to thicken the walls by an extra case. The building
+was next divided into three parts, with doors from the north and west,
+so that men might seek refuge in the Holy
+<span class="pagebreak" title="114">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>
+Trinity from the dark of the
+world and its setting suns. The stone roof is supported upon small
+semi-octagonal vaulting shafts, ending in truncated corbels. This
+fondness for the number eight, which reappears markedly at Lincoln, has
+to do with St. Augustine&rsquo;s explanations that eight (the number next to
+seven, the number of creation and rest) signifies the consummation of
+all things and Doomsday. Four is the number of the outer world, with its
+seasons and quarters; three of the soul of man, the reflection of God;
+and eight, therefore, which comes after the union of these, is judgment
+and eternal life. Hugh was, no doubt, his own architect (if such a word
+is not an anachronism here), but he employed Somerset builders, who left
+the mark of English custom upon this otherwise peculiar and continental
+looking building. The leper window has been noticed above. The only
+other building at Witham which pretends to bear traces of Hugh&rsquo;s hand is
+the guest house, and this, as we have seen, may be at bottom the very
+house where Hugh hob-a-nobbed with King Henry.</p>
+
+<p>The same style, the same severity, the same sacramental feeling no doubt
+marked the Conventual Church, and it is sad to think what great and
+pathetic memories perished with its destruction. If only the pigstyes
+and barns built out of these old stones could have been the richer for
+what was lost in the transit, they would have been the richest of their
+kind. For Hugh turned to this his first great work in the house of
+Martha with a peculiar relish, which was that of a lover more than of a
+man who had merely heaped up stones against the wind. If
+<span class="pagebreak" title="115">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>
+Lincoln was
+his Leah, Witham was his dear Rachael. Hither he was translated, like
+Enoch or Elijah, from a vexing world for a time every year. The two
+parts of the Charterhouse were the embodiments of &ldquo;justice and
+innocence.&rdquo; Here was &ldquo;the vine of the Lord of Hosts.&rdquo; His cell was kept
+for him, and while all the world was hotly harvesting he was laying up
+here his spiritual stores. Here his face seemed to burn with the horned
+light of Moses, when he appeared in public. His words were like fire and
+wine and honey, but poised with discretion. Yet he never became a
+fanatical monk, nor like Baldwin, whom the Pope addressed as &ldquo;most
+fervent monk, clever abbot, lukewarm bishop, and slack archbishop.&rdquo; He
+warned his monastic brethren here that the great question at doom is
+not, Were you monk or hermit? but Did you show yourself truly Christian?
+The name is useless, or positively baleful, unless a man has the
+threefold mark&mdash;<i>caritas in corde; veritas in ore; castitas in
+corpore</i>&mdash;of love in the heart, truth on the lips, pureness in the body.
+Here he told them that chaste wedlock was as pure as continence and
+virginity, and would be blessed as high. He lived as he taught always,
+but here he seemed beyond himself. His buildings at Witham, enumerated
+in the Great Life, and not even planned before his time, are the major
+and minor churches, the cells for monks, the cloisters, the brothers&rsquo;
+little houses, and the guest chambers. The lay kitchen was a poor
+building of
+<a name="corr115" id="corr115"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn115" title="inconsistent hyphenation (elsewhere 'brush-wood')">brushwood</a>
+and thatch, six or seven paces from the
+guest house, the blaze of which, when it caught fire, could be seen from
+the glass windows of the west end of the lay church.
+<span class="pagebreak" title="116">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>
+The wooden cells
+of the brothers lay round this in a ring. The guest house roof was of
+shingles. This kitchen fire took place at the last visit of the bishop
+while he was at the &ldquo;night lauds.&rdquo; He gave over the office when it broke
+out, signed the cross several times, and prayed before the altar, while
+the young men fought the flame. He had already often ordered a stone
+kitchen to be built in its place, and so no real harm was done, for the
+fire did not spread. The only question which arises is whether the
+present guest house is far enough west to square with this story. No
+mention is made of the fish ponds, but they are likely enough to have
+been prepared in his time, for the rule, which never allowed meat, did
+allow fish on festivals. Hugh had no notion of starving other people,
+but used to make them &ldquo;eat well and drink well to serve God well.&rdquo; He
+condemned an asceticism run mad, and called it vanity and superstition
+for people to eschew flesh when they had no such commandment, and
+substitute for it foreign vegetables, condiments for fat, and expensive
+fishes. He liked dry bread himself, and the drier the tastier, but he
+did all he could to spare others. Consequently, we may credit him with
+the fish ponds.</p>
+
+<p>His work at Lincoln was on a much larger scale and happily much of it is
+still there, a goodly material for wonder, praise and squabbling. It was
+imposed upon him, for he found the Norman building more or less in
+ruins. This building consisted of a long nave, with a west front, now
+standing; and a choir, which ended something east of the present
+faldstool in a bow. At the east end of the nave was a tower,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="117">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>
+and to the
+north and south of this tower were two short transepts, or porches. The
+tower was either not very high or else was shortened, and perhaps
+recapped to make it safe after the earthquake, for the comparatively
+small damage which it did when it fell upon the choir proves that it
+could not have been very massive. It fell in Grossetestes&rsquo; time and its
+details with it.</p>
+
+<p>The first requisite for building is money: and money, as we have seen,
+was very hard to obtain in England just at this juncture. Three means by
+which Hugh raised it are known to us. The austere ideals of the
+Carthusian bishop, his plain vestments, his cheap ring, his simple
+clothes set free a good deal of the money of the see for this purpose.
+Then he issued a pastoral summons to the multitude of her sons to appear
+at least once a year at the mother church of Lincoln with proper
+offerings according to their power; especially rural deans, parsons, and
+priests through the diocese were to gather together at Pentecost and
+give alms for the remission of their sins and in token of obedience and
+recollection of their Lincoln mother. This, combined with a notice of
+detention of prebend for all non-resident and non-represented canons,
+must have brought the faithful up in goodly numbers to their
+ecclesiastical centre. If they were once there, the cracked and
+shored-up building and the bishop&rsquo;s zeal and personal influence might be
+entrusted to loose their purse strings, especially as he led the way,
+both by donation and personal work, for he carried the hod and did not
+disdain to bring mortar and stones up the ladder like any mason&rsquo;s
+&rsquo;prentice. Then, thirdly,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="118">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>
+he established or used a Guild of St. Mary, a
+confraternity which paid for, and probably worked at, the glorious task.
+Its local habitation was possibly that now called John of Gaunt&rsquo;s
+stables,<a name="fnm_20" id="fnm_20"></a><a href="#fn_20" class="fnnum">20</a> but anyhow it stood good for a thousand marks a year. A
+mark is thirteen and fourpence; and six hundred and sixty six pounds
+odd, in days when an ox cost three shillings and a sheep fourpence was a
+handsome sum. It could not have been far short of &pound;10,000 of our money.</p>
+
+<p>It is evident from records and architecture alike that the building had
+to be begun from the very roots and foundations. In examining it we had
+better begin with the chroniclers. The Great Life is curiously silent
+about this work, and if we had no other records we should almost
+consider that the work was done under, rather than by, the bishop. He
+went to Lincoln &ldquo;about to build on this mountain, like a magnificent and
+peaceful Solomon, a most glorious temple,&rdquo; says his laconic friend Adam.
+&ldquo;Also fifteen days before he died Geoffrey de Noiers (or Nowers) the
+constructor or builder of the noble fabric, came to see him. The
+erection of this fabric was begun from the foundations, in the renewal
+of the Lincoln church, by the magnificent love of Hugh to the beauty of
+God&rsquo;s house.&rdquo; The dying bishop thus spoke to him: &ldquo;In that we have had
+word that the lord king with the bishops and leading men of this whole
+kingdom are shortly about to meet for a general assembly, hasten and
+finish all that is needful for the beauty and adornment about the altar
+of my lord and patron saint, John Baptist, for we wish this
+<span class="pagebreak" title="119">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>
+to be
+dedicated by our brother, the Bishop of Rochester, when he arrives there
+with the other bishops. Yea, and we ourselves, at the time of the
+aforesaid assembly, shall be present there too. We used to desire
+greatly to consecrate that by our ministry; but since God has disposed
+otherwise, we wish that it be consecrated before we come thither on a
+future occasion.&rdquo; This is all that Adam has to tell us. Giraldus
+Cambrensis says, &ldquo;Item, he restored the chevet of his own church with
+Parian stones and marble columns in wonderful workmanship, and reared
+the whole anew from the foundation with most costly work. Similarly,
+too, he began to construct the remarkable bishop&rsquo;s houses, and, by God&rsquo;s
+help, proposed, in certain hope, to finish them far larger and nobler
+than the former ones.&rdquo; Then again he says, &ldquo;Item, he took pains to erect
+in choiceness, the Lincoln church of the blessed Virgin, which was built
+remarkably by a holy man, the first bishop of the same place, to wit the
+blessed Remigius, according to the style of that time. To make the
+fabric conformed to the far finer workmanship and very much daintier and
+cleverer polish of modern novelty, he erected it of Parian stones and
+marble columns, grouped alternately and harmoniously, and which set off
+one another with varying pictures of white and black, but yet with
+natural colour change. The work, now to be seen, is unique.&rdquo; The Legenda
+says that Hugh carried stones and cement in a box for the fabric of the
+mother Church, which he reared nobly from the foundations. Other
+chroniclers say just the same, and one adds that he &ldquo;began a remarkable
+episcopal
+<span class="pagebreak" title="120">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>
+hall&rdquo; as well. But far the most important account we have is
+that of the metrical life&mdash;written between 1220 and 1235. This gives us
+some of the keys to the intense symbolism of all the designs. Since a
+proper translation would require verse, it may be baldly Englished in
+pedagogic <i>patois</i>, as follows: &ldquo;The prudent religion and the religious
+prudence of the pontiff makes a bridge (<i>pons</i>) to Paradise, toiling to
+build Sion in guilelessness, not in bloods. And with wondrous art, he
+built the work of the cathedral church; in building which, he gives not
+only his wealth and the labour of his people, but the help of his own
+sweat; and often he carries in a pannier the carved stones and the
+sticky lime. The weakness of a cripple, propped on two sticks, obtains
+the use of that pannier, believing an omen to be in it: and in turn
+disdains the help of the two sticks. The diet, which is wont to bow the
+straight, makes straight the bowed. O remarkable shepherd of the flock,
+and assuredly no hireling! as the novel construction of the Church
+explains. For Mother Sion lay cast down, and straitened, wandering,
+ignorant, sick, old, bitter, poor, homely and base: Hugh raises her when
+cast down, enlarges her straitened, guides her wandering, teaches her
+ignorant, heals her sick, renews her old, sweetens her bitter, fills her
+when empty, adorns her homely, honours her when base. The old mass falls
+to the foundation and the new rises; and the state of it as it rises,
+sets forth the fitting form of the cross. The difficult toil unites
+three whole parts; for the most solid mass of the foundation rises from
+the centre,<a name="fnm_21" id="fnm_21"></a><a href="#fn_21" class="fnnum">21</a> the wall carries the
+<span class="pagebreak" title="121">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>
+roof into the air. [So the
+foundation is buried in the lap of earth, but the wall and roof shew
+themselves, and with proud daring the wall flies to the clouds, the roof
+to the stars.] With the value of the material the design of the art well
+agrees, for the stone roof talks as it were with winged birds, spreading
+its wide wings, and like to a flying thing strikes the clouds, stayed
+upon the solid columns. And a sticky liquid glues together the white
+stones, all which the workman&rsquo;s hand cuts out to a nicety. And the wall,
+built out of a hoard of these, as it were disdaining this thing,
+counterfeits to unify the adjacent parts; it seems not to exist by art
+but rather by nature; not a thing united, but one. Another costly
+material of black stones props the work, not like this content with one
+colour, not open with so many pores, but shining much with glory and
+settled with firm position; and it deigns to be tamed by no iron, save
+when it is tamed by cunning, when the surface is opened by frequent
+blows of the grit, and its hard substance eaten in with strong acid.
+That stone, beheld, can balance minds in doubt whether it be jasper or
+marble; but if jasper, dull jasper; if marble, noble marble. Of it are
+the columns, which so surround the pillars that they seem there to
+represent a kind of dance. Their outer surface more polished than new
+horn, with reflected visions, fronts the clear stars. So many figures
+has nature painted there that if art, after long endeavour, toils to
+simulate a like picture, scarce may she imitate nature. Likewise has the
+beauteous joining placed a thousand columns there in graceful order;
+which stable, precious, shining, with their stability carry on the whole
+work of the
+<span class="pagebreak" title="122">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>
+church, with their preciousness enrich it, with their shine
+make it clear. Their state indeed is lofty and high, their polish true
+and splendid, their order handsome and geometric, their beauty fit and
+useful, their use gracious and remarkable, their stability unhurt and
+sharp. A splendid double pomp of windows displays riddles to the eyes,
+inscribing the citizens of the Heavenly City and the arms whereby they
+tame the Stygian tyrant.<a name="fnm_22" id="fnm_22"></a><a href="#fn_22" class="fnnum">22</a> And two are greater, like two lights; of
+these the rounded blaze, looking upon the quarters of north and south,
+with its double light, lords it over all windows. They can be compared
+to the common stars, but these two are one like the sun, the other like
+the moon. So do these two candles lighten the head of the Church. With
+living and various colours they mimic the rainbow, not mimic indeed, but
+rather excel, for the sun when it is reflected in the clouds makes a
+rainbow: these two shine without sun, glitter without cloud.</p>
+
+<p><a name="corr122a" id="corr122a"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn122a" title="&ldquo; omitted">These</a> things, described but puerilely, have the weight of an allegory.
+Without it seems but as a shell, but within lies the kernel. Without it
+is as wax, but within is combed honey; and fire lightens more pleasantly
+in the shade. For foundation, wall roof, white carved stone, marble
+smooth, conspicuous and black, the double order of windows, and the twin
+windows, which, as it were, look upon the regions of north and south,
+are great indeed, in themselves, but figure greater things.</p>
+
+<p><a name="corr122b" id="corr122b"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn122a" title="&ldquo; omitted">The</a> foundation is the body, the wall man, the roof the spirit, the
+division of the Church threefold. The body possesses the earth, man the
+clouds, the spirit
+<span class="pagebreak" title="123">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>
+the stars. The white and carved stone means the
+chaste and wise; the whiteness is modesty, the carving dogma. By the
+effigy of marble, smooth, shining, dark, the bride is figured,
+guileless, well conducted, working. The smoothness very rightly means
+guilelessness, the splendour good conduct, the blackness work. The noble
+cohort of the clergy lightening the world with light divine is expressed
+by the clear windows. The corresponding order can everywhere be
+observed. The Canonic is set forth by the higher order; the Vicarious by
+the lower; and because the canonic handles the business of the world,
+and the busy vicarious fulfils, by its obligations, divine matters, the
+top line of windows shines bright with a ring of flowers around it,
+which signifies the varying beauty of the world, the lower contains the
+names of the holy fathers. The twin windows, which afford the rounded
+blaze, are the two eyes of the Church, and rightly in these respects
+seem to be, the greater the bishop, and the lesser the dean. The North
+is Satan, and the South the Holy Ghost, which the two eyes look upon.
+For the bishop looks upon the South to invite, but the dean upon the
+North to avoid it. The one sees to be saved, the other not to be lost.
+The brow of the church beholds with these eyes the candles of Heaven and
+the darkness of Lethe. Thus the senseless stones enwrap the mysteries of
+the living stones, the work made with hands sets forth the spiritual
+work; and the double aspect of the Church is clear, adorned with double
+equipage. A golden majesty paints the entry of the choir: and properly
+in his proper image Christ crucified is shewn, and
+<span class="pagebreak" title="124">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>
+there to a nicety
+the progress of His life is suggested. Not only the cross or image, but
+the ample surface of the six columns and two woods, flash with tested
+gold. The capitols<a name="fnm_23" id="fnm_23"></a><a href="#fn_23" class="fnnum">23</a> cleave to the Church, such as the Roman summit
+never possessed, the wonderful work of which scarce the monied wealth of
+Cr&oelig;sus could begin. In truth their entrances are like squares. Within
+a rounded space lies open, putting to the proof, both in material and
+art, Solomon&rsquo;s temple. If of these the perfection really stays, the
+first Hugh&rsquo;s work will be perfected under a second Hugh. Thus then
+Lincoln boasts of so great a sire, who blessed her with so many titles
+on all sides.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The church itself is the best comment upon this somewhat obscure
+account, and it may be briefly divided into Pre-Hugonian, Hugonian, and
+Post-Hugonian parts. The first, the Norman centre of the west fa&ccedil;ade,
+does not concern us, except that its lovely face often looked down upon
+the great bishop in his dark or tawny cloak trimmed with white lambs&rsquo;
+wool, which hid his hair shirt. Except for this Norman work and the
+Norman font, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the whole is
+by or for Hugh, for his shrine, his influence, and his example,
+completed what his work, and his plans, never dreamed about. Yet these
+last are responsible for much. He built a cruciform church, beginning
+with the entrance to the choir, with the aisles on either side. The
+chapels of St. Edward Martyr and St. James<a name="fnm_24" id="fnm_24"></a><a href="#fn_24" class="fnnum">24</a> form the base or step of
+the cross. The east transept, with all chapels adjoining, the
+choristers&rsquo; vestry,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="125">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>
+antevestry, dean&rsquo;s or medicine chapel, with its
+lovely door and the cupboards in the now floorless room above it, the
+vaulted passage and chamber adjoining, are all his. So are, possibly,
+the matchless iron screens between the two choirs (topped with modern
+trumpery). South-east of the Medicine Chapel is one of St. Hugh&rsquo;s great
+mystic columns, and there are a pair of them. Where the Angel Choir now
+lifts its most graceful form and just behind the high altar, rose the
+semi-hexagonal east end, the opened honeycomb, where most fitly was
+placed the altar of St. John Baptist. It was somewhere in the walls of
+this forehead that the original bishop&rsquo;s eye and dean&rsquo;s eye were once
+fixed, possibly in the rounded eye sockets which once stood where Bishop
+Wordsworth and Dean Butler are now buried.<a name="fnm_25" id="fnm_25"></a><a href="#fn_25" class="fnnum">25</a></p>
+
+<p>When we look closely at this work, we are astonished at the bold
+freedom, and yet the tentative and amateur character of it. The builders
+felt their way as they went along, and well they might, for it was not
+only a new church but a new and finer style altogether. They built a
+wall. It was not strong enough, so they buttressed it over the
+mouldings. The almost wayward double arcade inside was there apparently,
+before the imposed vaulting shafts were thought about. The stones were
+fully shaped and carved on the floor, and then put in their positions.
+Hardly anything is like the next thing. Sometimes the pointed arch is
+outside, as in &ldquo;St. James&rsquo;&rdquo; Chapel, sometimes inside
+<span class="pagebreak" title="126">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>
+as in &ldquo;St.
+Edward&rsquo;s.&rdquo; Look up at the strange vaulting above the choir, about the
+irregularity of which so much feigned weeping has taken place. It
+represents, maybe, the Spirit blowing where it listeth and not given by
+measure. So, too, mystic banded shafts are octagonal for blessedness,
+and they blossom in hidden crockets for the inner flowers of the Spirit,
+and there are honeycombs and dark columns banded together in joyful
+unity, all copied from nowhere, but designed by this holy stone poet to
+the glory of God. The pierced tympanum has a quatrefoil for the four
+cardinal virtues, or a trefoil for faith, hope, and charity. Compared
+with the lovely Angel Choir which flowered seventy years later, under
+our great King Edward, it may look all unpractised, austere; but Hugh
+built with sweet care, and sense, and honesty, never rioting in the
+disordered emotion of lovely form which owed no obedience to the spirit,
+and which expressed with great elaboration&mdash;almost nothing. He may have
+valued the work of the intellect too exclusively, but surely it cannot
+be valued too highly? The work is done as well where it does not as
+where it does show.</p>
+
+<p>The bishop&rsquo;s hall, which he began, could not have been much more than
+sketched and founded. It was carried on by one of his successors, Hugh
+de Wells (1209-1235), though one would like to believe that it was in
+this great hall that he entertained women, godly matrons, and widows,
+who sat by his side at dinner, to the wonder of monkish brethren. He
+would lay his clean hands upon their heads and bless them, sometimes
+even gently embrace them,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="127">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>
+and bid them follow the steps of holy women
+of old. Indeed he had quite got over the morbid terror he once felt for
+these guardians of the Divine humanity, for he used often to say to
+them, &ldquo;Almighty God has deserved indeed to be loved by the feminine sex.
+He was not squeamish of being born of a woman. Yea, and he has granted
+hereby a magnificent and right worthy privilege to all women folk. For
+when it is not allowed to man to be or to be named the Father of God,
+yet this has been bestowed upon the woman to be the parent of God.&rdquo; The
+traces of his work at the other manor houses are wiped out by time.
+There is nothing at Stow; Buckden was built later; and the other
+<a name="corr127" id="corr127"></a><a class="correction" href="#cn127" title="inconsistent hyphenation (elsewhere 'foot-prints')">footprints</a> of this building saint are lost upon the sands of time.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_20" id="fn_20"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_20">20</a></span> This building itself is of an earlier date.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_21" id="fn_21"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_21">21</a></span> Of the earth.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_22" id="fn_22"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_22">22</a></span> <i>I.e.</i>, Saints and Lances.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_23" id="fn_23"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_23">23</a></span> Side chapels.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_24" id="fn_24"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_24">24</a></span> Or of SS. Dennys and Guthlac it may be.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_25" id="fn_25"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_25">25</a></span> It is a pity in that case that the bishop lies under the
+old &ldquo;dean&rsquo;s eye,&rdquo; and <i>vice vers&acirc;</i>.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="128">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br />
+<span class="little">UNDER KING JOHN</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>When King Richard died, John, with a handful of followers, gave his
+host, Arthur of Brittany, the slip, and hurried off to Chinon, in
+Touraine. Hence he sent a humble message that the Bishop of Lincoln
+would deign to visit him. The reason was obvious. His fate hung in the
+balance, and the best loved and most venerated of English bishops would,
+if he would but recognise him, turn that scale against Arthur of
+Brittany. On the Wednesday in Holy Week, April 19th, 1199, Hugh left
+Fontevrault, and the anxious prince rode to meet him and to pay him
+every court. John would fain have kept him by his side, but the bishop
+excused himself, and the two travelled back to Fontevrault together, and
+finally parted at Samur. They visited the royal tombs at the former
+place, but the prudent nuns would not allow the dubious prince inside
+their walls &ldquo;because the abbess was not at home.&rdquo; John affected to be
+charmed at their scruples, and sent them a pious message, promising the
+bishop that he would shew them great favours. The answer was, &ldquo;You know
+that I greatly dislike
+<span class="pagebreak" title="129">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>
+every lie. I shall therefore take care not to
+tell them your lip promises, unless I have proof that you certainly mean
+to fulfil them.&rdquo; John at once swore that he would fulfil all as soon as
+might be, and the bishop in his presence told the holy women, commended
+the prince to them, gave the blessing and carried off the royal humbug.
+He then had a long tale of John&rsquo;s good resolutions: he would be pious to
+God, kind to his subjects, and just to all; he would take Hugh for his
+father and guide, and wait upon him. He then shewed him a stone, cased
+in gold, which he wore round his neck, and told him that its fortunate
+owner would lack nothing of his ancestral possessions. &ldquo;Put not your
+faith in a senseless stone,&rdquo; he was told, &ldquo;but only in the living and
+true heavenly stone, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lay him most surely as your
+heart&rsquo;s foundation and your hope&rsquo;s anchor. He truly is so firm and
+living a stone that He crushes all who oppose Him. He suffers not those
+who rest on him to fall, but ever raises them to higher things and
+enlarges them to ampler deservings.&rdquo; They reached then the church porch,
+where was a lively sculpture of Doomsday, and on the judge&rsquo;s left a
+company of kings and nobles led to eternal fire. The bishop said, &ldquo;Let
+your mind set ceaselessly before you the screams and endless agonies of
+these. Let these ceaseless tortures be ever in front of your heart&rsquo;s
+eyes. Let the careful remembrance of these evils teach you how great is
+the self loss which is laid upon those who rule other men for a little
+time, and, ruling themselves ill, are subjects to demon spirits in
+endless agony. These things, while one can avoid them, one is wise to
+fear ever, lest
+<span class="pagebreak" title="130">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>
+when one cannot avoid them, one should afterwards
+happen ceaselessly to endure them.&rdquo; He then pointed out that this Day of
+the Lord was put in the porch, so that those who entered to ask for
+their needs should not forget &ldquo;the highest and greatest need of all,
+pardon for sins,&rdquo; which they might ask and have and be free from pains
+and glad with eternal joys. John seized the bishop&rsquo;s hand and shewed the
+kings on the right. &ldquo;Nay, lord bishop, you should rather shew us these,&rdquo;
+he said &ldquo;whose example and society we pray to follow and attain.&rdquo; For a
+few days he seemed exceedingly submissive in deed and speech. The
+beggars who wished him well he thanked with bows. The ragged old women
+who saluted him he replied to most gently. But after three days he
+changed his tune and dashed the hopes which had begun to spring. Easter
+Sunday came, and the bishop was at Mass and John&rsquo;s chamberlain slipped
+twelve gold pieces into his hand, the usual royal offering. He was
+standing (they always stand at Mass) surrounded by a throng of barons
+before the bishop and gloated upon the gold, tossed it in his hand and
+delayed so long to offer it, that everybody stared. At last the bishop,
+angry at such behaviour, then and there said, &ldquo;Why gaze like that?&rdquo; John
+replied, &ldquo;Truly I am having a look at those gold coins of yours and
+thinking that if I had held them a few days ago, I should not offer them
+to you but pop them in my own purse. Still, all the same, take them.&rdquo;
+The angry bishop blushed for the king, drew back his arm, would not
+touch such money nor suffer his hand to be kissed; shook his head at him
+in fury. &ldquo;Put down there what you hold,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and go.&rdquo; The king
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="131">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>
+cast his money into the silver basin and slunk away. John&rsquo;s insult was
+all the greater because out of Lincoln none of the bishop&rsquo;s people was
+ever allowed to nibble one crumb of the alms. That day the bishop had
+preached upon the conduct and future prospects of princes. John neither
+liked the duration nor the direction of the sermon, and sent thrice to
+the preacher to stop his talk and get on with the Mass so that he might
+go to his victuals. But not a bit of it. The preacher talked louder and
+longer until all applauded and some wept, and he told them how worthily
+they ought to partake of the true Sacramental Bread, who came from
+heaven and gives life to the world. John shared neither in the word nor
+the Sacrament. Neither then nor on Ascension Day, when he was made king,
+did he communicate. Indeed it was said he had never done so since he was
+grown up.</p>
+
+<p>Next Sunday the court was at Rouen and Archbishop Walter was investing
+John with the sacred emblems of the Duchy of Normandy during the High
+Mass. A banner on a lance was handed to the new duke. John advanced,
+amid cheers, and the foolish cackle of laughter of his former boon
+companions. He looked over his shoulder to grin back at the fools, his
+friends, and from his feeble grasp the old banner fell upon the
+pavement! But Hugh had left him for England before this evil omen. When
+the bishop reached Fl&ecirc;che on Easter Monday, he went to church to vest
+for Mass. His servants rushed in to say that the guards had seized his
+horses and carts, and robbers had taken some of his pack horses. The
+company, including Gilbert de Glanville
+<span class="pagebreak" title="132">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>
+of Rochester, his friend,
+begged him not to say Mass, but merely to read the gospel and hurry out
+of the trap. Neither chagrined at his loss, nor moved by their terrors,
+he went deaf and silent to the altar. He was not content either with a
+plain celebration. He must need have sandals, tunic, and all the rest of
+the robes, and add a pontifical blessing to the solemn celebration. As
+he was unrobing the magistrates came in a fine state of repentance, with
+restitution, safe conducts, and humble words. He jested with them and
+past on to St. Peter&rsquo;s, at Le Mans. Here another alarm met them.
+Arthur&rsquo;s troopers rushed the place in the night meaning to catch John.
+News of more robberies and violence came, but thanks to the Abbot he got
+safely on and Dame Constance of Brittany sent him many apologies and
+assurances. He reached S&eacute;es safely but insisted upon going aside for a
+little pious colloquy with a learned and devout Abbot of Persigne,
+although the country was in a very dangerous condition for travelling.
+He found the good man away; so he said Mass and went on, and at last got
+home to tell them at Lincoln that all was peace. His progress was a
+triumph of delighted crowds, for the hearts of his people had been with
+him in all the struggle thus safely ended, and the sea of people
+shouted, &ldquo;Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,&rdquo; as their
+father rode towards his cathedral town. The commons evidently felt that
+the liberties of the church were the outworks of the liberties of the
+land.</p>
+
+<p>But the god of victory is a maimed god, and the battles of the world
+irked Hugh&rsquo;s contemplative soul. He wished to lay by his heavy burden of
+bishopric
+<span class="pagebreak" title="133">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>
+and to go back to his quiet cell, the white wool tunic, the
+silence, and the careful cleaning of trenchers. The office of a bishop
+in his day left little time for spiritual tillage either at home or
+abroad. Not only the bishops had to confirm, ordain to all orders,
+consecrate, anoint, impose penance, and excommunicate, but they had to
+decide land questions concerning lands in frank almoin, all probate and
+nullity of marriage cases, and to do all the legal work of a king&rsquo;s
+baron besides. The judicial duties lay heavily upon him. He used to say
+that a bishop&rsquo;s case was harder than a lord warden&rsquo;s or a mayor&rsquo;s, for
+he had to be always on the bench; they only sometimes. They might look
+after their family affairs, but he could hardly ever handle the cure of
+souls. For the second or third time he sent messengers to ask Papal
+leave to resign, but Innocent, knowing that &ldquo;no one can safely be to the
+fore who would not sooner be behind,&rdquo; rejected the petition with
+indignation; and Pharaoh-like increased his tasks the more by making him
+legate in nearly every important case of appeal. People who had nothing
+to rely upon except the justice of their cause against powerful
+opponents, clamoured for the Lincoln judgments, which then neither fear
+nor hope could trim, and which were as skilful as they were upright, so
+that men, learned in the law, ascribed it to the easy explanation of
+miracles that a comparative layman should steer his course so finely.</p>
+
+<p>In the various disputes between monks and bishops, which were a standing
+dish in most dioceses, he took an unbiassed line. In the long fight
+waged by Archbishop Baldwin first and then by Hubert Walter with
+<span class="pagebreak" title="134">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>
+the
+monks of Canterbury, which began in 1186, and was not over until Hugh
+was dead, he rather favoured the side of the monastery. Yet we find him
+speaking <i>multa aspera</i>, many stinging things to their spokesman, and
+recommending, as the monk said, prostration before the archbishop. His
+words to the archbishop have been already quoted. With Carlyle&rsquo;s Abbot
+Sampson and the Bishop of Ely he was appointed by Innocent to hush the
+long brawl. The Pope, tired and angry, wrote (September, 1199) to the
+commissioners to compel the archbishop, even with ecclesiastical
+censures. They reply rather sharply to his holiness that he is hasty and
+obscure; and so the matter dragged on. Then in 1195 the inevitable
+Geoffrey Plantagenet, the bastard, Archbishop of York, before mentioned,
+has a lively dispute with his canons. Hugh is ordered by the Pope to
+suspend him, but would rather be suspended (by the neck) himself.
+Geoffrey certainly was a little extreme, even for those days&mdash;a Broad
+Churchman indeed. He despises the Sacraments, said the canons, he hunts,
+hawks, fights, does not ordain, dedicate, or hold synods, but chases the
+canons with armed men and robs them; but Hugh, though he cannot defend
+the man, seems to know better of him, and at any rate will not be a mere
+marionette of Rome. Geoffrey, indeed, came out nobly in the struggles
+with king John in later story, as a defender of the people. Then there
+is the dispute between the Bishop of Coventry, another striking bishop,
+who brought stout fellows against the saucy monks. He had bought their
+monastery for three hundred marks of the king, and when they would not
+budge, he chased them away with beating
+<span class="pagebreak" title="135">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>
+and maiming, sacked their
+house, burnt their charters, and so on. Hugh was against this too
+vigorous gentleman, who was clearly indefensible; but it was by no means
+because he was blindly prejudiced in favour of monks, for he seems to
+have supported the Bishop of Rochester against his monks. These disputes
+of astonishing detail, are very important in the history of the church,
+as by their means the Papal Empire grew to a great height of power; and
+however little the bishops&rsquo; methods commend themselves, the monasteries,
+which became rebel castles in every diocese, were very subversive of
+discipline, and their warfare equally worldly.</p>
+
+<p>In cases less ecclesiastical, we have a glimpse of Hugh defending two
+young orphans against Jordan of the Tower, the most mighty of Londoners.
+This powerful robber of the weak came to the court with an army of
+retainers, king&rsquo;s men and London citizens, to overawe all opposition.
+The &ldquo;father of orphans&rdquo; made a little speech on the occasion which has
+come down to us. &ldquo;In truth, Jordan, although you may have been dear to
+us, yet against God we can yield nothing to you. But it is evident that
+against your so many and great abetters it is useless not only for these
+little ones to strive, but even for ourselves and our fellow judges. So
+what we shall do, we wish you to know. Yet I speak for my own self. I
+shall free my soul. I shall therefore write to my lord the Pope that you
+alone in these countries traverse his jurisdiction; you alone strive to
+nullify his authority.&rdquo; The vociferous and well-backed Jordan took the
+hint. He dismounted from his high horse, and the orphans got their own
+again. But these and like duties were
+<span class="pagebreak" title="136">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>
+a heavy cross to Hugh. He hoped
+to be excused of God because he obeyed orders, rather than rewarded
+because he did well. Like Cowley, he looked upon business as &ldquo;the
+frivolous pretence of human lusts to shake off innocence.&rdquo; He would not
+even look at his own household accounts, but delegated such work to
+trustworthy folk, while these behaved well. If they misbehaved he
+quickly detected it and sent them packing.</p>
+
+<p>We have now reached the year <span class="smcap lowercase">A.D.</span> 1200. King John has been crowned for a
+year. Hugh was not present at this ceremony, and the king, anxious still
+for his support, sends for him to be present at the great peace he was
+concluding with France. By this treaty the Dauphin was to marry Blanche
+of Castile and become Earl of Evreux, a dangerous earldom, and Philip
+was to drop the cause of young Arthur and give up debateable Vexin. Hugh
+also was tempted over seas by the hope of visiting his old haunts, which
+he felt must be done now or never, for health and eyesight were failing
+him, and he needed this refreshment for his vexed soul. It was in the
+Ch&acirc;teau Gaillard again that he met the king, left him in the sweet
+spring time at the end of May, for a pilgrim tour to shrines and haunts
+of holy men living and dead&mdash;a pilgrimage made possible by the new
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>Here it must be confessed that modern sympathy is apt to falter, for
+though we can understand the zeal of American tourists for chips of
+palaces and the communal moral code peculiar to arch&aelig;ologists, coin
+collectors, and umbrella snatchers, we cannot understand the enthusiasm
+which the manliest, holiest, and robustest minds then displayed for
+relics,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="137">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>
+for stray split straws and strained twigs from the fledged
+bird&rsquo;s nests whence holy souls had fled to other skies. To us these
+things mean but little; but to Hugh they meant very much. The facts must
+be given, and the reader can decide whether they are beauty spots or
+warts upon the strong, patient, brave face upon which they appear.</p>
+
+<p>His first objective, when he left the Andelys, was Meulan, and there he
+&ldquo;approached St. Nicasius.&rdquo; This saint, a very fine fellow, had been
+Bishop of Rheims, eight hundred years before. When the Vandals invaded
+the land he had advanced to meet them with a procession of singers and
+got an ugly sword cut, which lopt off a piece of his head. He went on
+still singing till he dropped dead. This brave fellow&rsquo;s skull Hugh took
+in his hands, worshipped the saint, gave gold; and then tried hard to
+tweak out one of his teeth: but such dentistry was unavailing. He then
+put his fingers into the nostrils which had so often drawn in the sweet
+odour of Christ and got with ease a lovely little bone, which had parted
+the eyes, kissed it and felt a richer hope of being directed into the
+way of peace and salvation; for so great a bishop would certainly fix
+his spiritual eyes upon him after this.</p>
+
+<p>Next he went to St. Denis, where he prayed long at the tombs of the
+saints. The scholars of Paris, of all breeds, turned out in crowds to
+see a man, who, after St. Nicholas, had done so much good to clerks.
+Kisses, colloquies and invitations rained upon him, but he chose to
+lodge in the house of his relative Reimund. This man he had made Canon
+of Lincoln, and he afterwards refused to buy off King John and became
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="138">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>
+an exile for conscience and the patron of exiles, and thus was in life
+and character a true son of St. Hugh. Among the visitors here were the
+Dauphin Lewis and Arthur of Brittany. The latter turned up his nose when
+told to live in love and peace with Uncle John; but Lewis carried off
+the bishop to cheer his weeping political bride Blanche, lately bartered
+into the match. The good bishop walked to the palace, and Blanche bore a
+merry face and a merry heart after he had talked with her.</p>
+
+<p>The next place was Troyes, and here a wretch came with a doleful story.
+He had been bailiff to the Earl of Leicester, had torn a rogue from
+sanctuary at Brackley; had been excommunicated by Hugh, with all his
+mates. They had submitted and been made to dig up the putrid body and
+carry it a mile, clad only in their drawers, be whipped at every church
+door they passed, bury the body with their own hands, and then come to
+Lincoln for more flogging: and all this in the winter. This sentence
+frightened the bailiff, who bolted; but ill-luck dogged him. He lost his
+place, his money, and at last came to beg for shrift and punishment.
+Hugh gave him a seven years&rsquo; penance and he went on his way rejoicing.</p>
+
+<p>The next great place was Vienne on the Rhone. Here were the ashes of St.
+Anthony of the Desert, wrapped in the tunic of Paul, the first hermit.
+The Carthusian Bruno had caught the enthusiasm for solitude from these
+ambulatory ashes, which had travelled from Alexandria to Constantinople
+and so to Vienne in 1070. Of course they were working miracles, chiefly
+upon those afflicted by St. Anthony&rsquo;s fire. The medical details are
+given at some length,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="139">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>
+and the cures described in the Great Life. For
+the general reader it is enough to say that Hugh said Mass near the
+precious but plain chest, and that he gave a good sum for the
+convalescent home where the poor sufferers were housed. Whether change
+of air, a hearty diet, and strong faith be enough to arrest this (now
+rare) disease is a scientific question rather than a theological one;
+but if, as we are told, St. Anthony sent thunder bolts upon castles and
+keeps where his pilgrims were maltreated, his spirit was somewhat of
+that Boanerges type which is flatly snubbed in the Gospel. From Vienne
+Hugh went to his own Grenoble among those mountains which have, as
+Ruskin says, &ldquo;the high crest or wall of cliff on the top of their
+slopes, rising from the plain first in mounds of meadow-land and bosses
+of rock and studded softness of forest; the brown cottages peeping
+through grove above grove, until just where the deep shade of the pines
+becomes blue or purple in the haze of height, a red wall of upper
+precipice rises from the pasture land and frets the sky with glowing
+serration.&rdquo;<a name="fnm_26" id="fnm_26"></a><a href="#fn_26" class="fnnum">26</a> A splendid procession came out to welcome him, and the
+city was hung with festoons of flowers and gay silken banners. He was
+led with chaunting to the cathedral of St. John Baptist, his particular
+saint, and that of his Order, upon the very feast of the great herald.
+There he sang the High Mass with intense devoutness, and after the
+gospel preached to the people, &ldquo;giving them tears to drink,&rdquo; but in
+moderation, for he begged all their prayers for his littleness and
+unworthiness, whereas they knew quite well what a good and great fellow
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="140">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>
+he was. Then he christened his own nephew, the heir of Avalon, whose
+uncle Peter was present, and the Bishop of Grenoble was godfather. The
+hitherto unbaptised boy was actually seven years old. Perhaps he had
+waited for Uncle Hugh to christen him, and when he had that honour he
+was not named Peter, as they proposed, but John, in honour of the place
+and day. Adam records that he taught the little fellow his alphabet and
+to spell from letters placed above the altar of St. John Baptist at
+Bellay.</p>
+
+<p>Then he left for the Grande Chartreuse, having to foot it most of the
+way up the mountains, sweating not a little, for he was of some
+diameter, but he out-walked his companions. He took care to drop in
+while the brothers were having their midday <i>siesta</i>, and he was careful
+not to be of the least trouble. Indeed, for three weeks he put off the
+bishop, as he did at Witham, and his insignia all but the ring, and
+became a humble monk once more. The clergy and the laity hurried to see
+him from the district, and the poor jostled to behold their father; and
+each one had dear and gracious words, and many found his hand second his
+generous tongue. Some days he spent at the lower house. Here, too, he
+compounded an old and bitter feud between the bishop and the Count of
+Geneva whereby the one was exiled and the other excommunicate.</p>
+
+<p>Near the end of his stay he made a public present to the House, a silver
+casket of relics, which he used to carry in his hand in procession at
+dedications. These were only a part of his collection, for he had a ring
+of gold and jewels, four fingers broad, with hollow spaces for relics.
+At his ardent desire and
+<span class="pagebreak" title="141">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>
+special entreaty the monks of Fleury once gave
+him a tooth from the jaws of St. Benedict, the first founder and, as it
+were, grandfather of his and other Orders. This came with a good strip
+of shroud to boot, and the goldsmith appeared, tools and all, warned by
+a dream, from Banbury to Dorchester to enshrine the precious ivory. The
+shred of shroud was liberally divided up among abbots and religious men,
+but the tooth, after copious kissing, was sealed up in the ring. At
+F&eacute;champ once (that home of relics!) they kept a bone of St. Mary
+Magdalen, as was rashly asserted, sewed up in silks and linen. He begged
+to see it, but none dared show it: but he was not to be denied. Whipping
+up a penknife from his notary, he had off the covers pretty quickly, and
+gazed at and kissed it reverently. Then he tried to break off a bit with
+his fingers, but not a process would come away. He then tried to nibble
+a snippet, but in vain. Finally, he put the holy bone to his strong back
+teeth and gave a hearty scrunch. Two tit-bits came off, and he handed
+them to the trembling Adam, saying, &ldquo;Excellent man, keep these for us.&rdquo;
+The abbots and monks were first struck dumb, then quaked, and then
+boiled with indignation and wrath. &ldquo;Oh! oh! Abominable!&rdquo; they yelled.
+&ldquo;We thought the bishop wanted to worship these sacred and holy things,
+and lo! he has, with doggish ritual, put them to his teeth for
+mutilation.&rdquo; While they were raging he quieted them with words which may
+give us the key to such otherwise indecent behaviour. Suppose they had
+been having a great Sacramental dispute, and some, as is likely, had
+maintained against the bishop that the grinding of
+<span class="pagebreak" title="142">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>
+the Host by the
+teeth of any communicant meant the grinding of Christ&rsquo;s very body, then
+it becomes evident that Hugh put this their belief to rather a rough
+proof, or reproof. Anyhow, he posed them with this answer, &ldquo;Since a
+short time back we handled together the most saintly body of the Saint
+of Saints with fingers granted unworthy; if we handled It with our teeth
+or lips, and passed It on to our inwards, why do we not also in faith so
+treat the members of his saints for our defence, their worship, and the
+deepening of our memory of them, and acquire, so far as opportunity
+allows, what we are to keep with due honour?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>At Peterborough they had the arm of St. Oswald, which had kept fresh for
+over five centuries. A supple nerve which protruded Hugh had sliced off
+and put in this wonderful ring. This, though he had offered it to the
+high altar at Lincoln, he would have left to the Charterhouse; but Adam
+reminded him of the fact, so instead thereof he ordered a golden box
+full of the relics he gave them to be sent after his death.</p>
+
+<p>With mutual blessings he took his last leave of the Grande Chartreuse,
+and left it in the body, though his heart and mind could never be
+dislodged from its desert place. This place was his father and his
+mother, but Lincoln, he did not forget, was his wife.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_26" id="fn_26"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_26">26</a></span> &ldquo;Modern Painters,&rdquo; iv. 253.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+<h2 class="vspacey">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="143">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>
+<a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X<br />
+<span class="little">HOMEWARD BOUND</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>After a brief visit to the Priory of St. Domninus Hugh made for
+Villarbenoit, his old school and college in one; but first he went to
+Avalon Castle, where his stout backers and brothers, William and Peter,
+ruled over their broad lands, who always had heartened and encouraged
+him in his battles for the liberties of the Church. Here &ldquo;nobles,
+middle-class men, and the lowest people&rdquo; received him with delight, and
+he spent two days at this his birthplace, and so on to Villarbenoit, and
+a fine dance his coming made for them all. He gave the Church a noble
+Bible worth ten silver marks, and passed to the cell of St. Maximin.
+Here aged hobblers and white-haired seniors, bowed mothers and women
+advanced in years, walled round him in happy throng. The bright-eyed
+lady of his unrest, possibly, was among these last, and they all bore
+witness to his early holiness, and prophesied his future niche in the
+calendar. After one more night at Avalon he set out for England.</p>
+
+<p>At Bellay the incautious canons allowed him to undo a sacred little
+bundle which held three fingers
+<span class="pagebreak" title="144">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>
+of St. John Baptist, which they trusted
+him to kiss, although for many years no one had even looked upon such
+awful articulations. After confession, absolution, and prayer the bones
+were bared, and he touched &ldquo;the joints which had touched God&rsquo;s holy
+head,&rdquo; kissed them, and signed the prostrate worshippers with them with
+the holy sign. Then he cut off a good piece of the ancient red cloth
+which had covered them and handed it to Adam. Thence he visited three
+more Charterhouses. In one of these, Arvi&egrave;res, he met a man of his own
+age, Arthault by name, who had resigned his bishopric and was ending his
+days as a holy monk. In full chapter the bishop and the ex-bishop met.
+Arthault, knowing Hugh had been at the peace-making between France and
+England, asked him to tell them the terms of the peace; but the latter
+smiled and said, &ldquo;My lord father, to hear and carry tales is allowable
+to bishops, but not to monks. Tales must not come to cells or cloister.
+We must not leave towns and carry tales to solitude.&rdquo; So he turned the
+talk to spiritual themes. Perhaps he saw that it is easier to resign a
+bishopric than to forsake the world altogether.</p>
+
+<p>The next important place was Clugny, where they read him a chapter from
+St. Gregory&rsquo;s &ldquo;Pastoral Care,&rdquo; and extorted the compliment from him that
+their well-ordained house would have made him a Clugniac if he had not
+been a Carthusian. Thence he went to Citeaux and said Mass for the
+Assumption (August 15th), and passed on to Clairvaux. Here he met John,
+the ex-Archbishop of Lyons, who was meditating away the last days of his
+life. Hugh asked him what scriptures most helped his
+<span class="pagebreak" title="145">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>
+thoughts, and the
+reply must have struck an answering chord in the questioner, &ldquo;To
+meditate entirely upon the Psalms has now usurped my whole inward being.
+Inexhaustible refreshment always comes new from these. Such is fresh
+daily, and always delicious to the taste of the inner man.&rdquo; Hugh&rsquo;s
+devotion to the Psalms is evidenced by many passages in his life, and
+not least by the fact that he divided the whole Psalter among the
+members of the Chapter so that it should be recited throughout every
+day. His own share included three Psalms, i., ii., and iii., and if the
+reader tries to look at these through the saint&rsquo;s eyes he will see much
+in them that he has not hitherto suspected to be there.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped a couple of days at Rheims, and was astonished at the good
+store of books the library owned. He &ldquo;blamed the slothful carelessness
+of modern times, which not only failed to imitate the literary activity
+of the Fathers in making and writing books, but neither read nor
+reverently treated the sacred manuscripts the care of the Fathers had
+provided.&rdquo; His own conduct in this respect, both at Witham and Lincoln,
+was far otherwise. He took pains about the library at each place. His
+gifts to Lincoln were&mdash;(1) Two great volumes of sermons by the Catholic
+doctors for the whole year. (2) A little book of the Father&rsquo;s Life with
+a red covering. (3) A Psalter with a large gloss.<a name="fnm_27" id="fnm_27"></a><a href="#fn_27" class="fnnum">27</a> (4) A Homeliary in
+stag&rsquo;s leather, beginning &ldquo;<i>Erunt signa</i>.&rdquo; And (5) A Martyrology with
+the text of the four Gospels. At Rheims, too, he also saw and worshipped
+the vessel of holy oil, which was used for anointing the kings of
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="146">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>
+France. Then he made his way to the northern coast to St. Omer&rsquo;s Camp.
+He would not put to sea at once lest he should fail of his Mass on Our
+Lady&rsquo;s birthday. He had been unwell for some days with quartan fever,
+and tried bleeding, but it did him no good. He could not eat, but was
+obliged to go and lie down upon his small bed. He broke into violent
+sweats, and for three days hardly tasted food. On the 7th of September
+he would travel ten miles to Clercmaretz Abbey to keep the feast. He
+slept in the infirmary, where two monks waited on him, but could get him
+to eat nothing. He said there his last Mass but one, and still fasting
+went back to St. Omers. He felt a good deal better after this, and went
+on to Wissant, where he made the usual invocations to Our Lady and St.
+Ann, and had a safe, swift passage, and immediately upon landing said
+his last Mass, probably at St. Margaret&rsquo;s Church, in Dover. He never
+missed a chance of saying Mass if he could, though it was not said daily
+in his time. But he would not allow his chaplain to celebrate if he had
+been lately bled, reproved him for the practice, and when he did it
+again very sharply rebuked him.</p>
+
+<p>From Dover he went to Canterbury, and prayed long and earnestly, first
+at the Saviour altar and then at the tombs of the holy dead,<a name="fnm_28" id="fnm_28"></a><a href="#fn_28" class="fnnum">28</a> and
+especially at the mausoleum of St. Thomas. The monastic flock (still
+<i>sub judice</i>) led him forth with deep respect. The news spread that he
+was ill, and the royal justiciaries and barons visited him and expressed
+their sympathy and affection in crowds, which must have considerably
+
+<span class="pagebreak" title="147">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>
+heightened his temperature. He explained to them with placid face that
+the scourge of the Lord was sweet to His servants, and what he said he
+enacted. &ldquo;But He, the head Father of the Family, who had put forth His
+hand to cut him down, withdrew not the sickle from reaping the stalk,
+which he had now seen white to the harvest.&rdquo; One of the signs of this
+was the growing dimness of his eyes, much tried by the dust and heat of
+travel. But he would not have them doctored. &ldquo;These eyes will be good
+enough for us as long as we are obliged to use them,&rdquo; he said. He
+crawled painfully on to London, part of the way on horseback and part by
+water, and in a high fever took to his bed in his own house, praying to
+be allowed to reach his anxious family at Lincoln. &ldquo;I shall never be
+able to keep away from spiritual presence with our dearest Sons in
+Christ, whether I be present or absent in the body. But concerning
+health or my bodily presence, yea, and concerning my whole self, may the
+will be done of the holy Father which is in Heaven.&rdquo; He had ceased to
+wish to live, he told his chaplain, for he saw the lamentable things
+about to come upon the Church of England. &ldquo;So it is better for us to die
+than to live and see the evil things for this people and the saints
+which are ahead. For doubtless upon the family of King Henry the
+scripture must needs be fulfilled which says there shall not be &lsquo;deep
+rooting from bastard slips&rsquo; and the &lsquo;seed of an unrighteous bed shall be
+rooted out.&rsquo; So the modern King of the French will avenge his holy
+father Lewis upon the offspring of wickedness, to wit, of her who
+rejected a stainless bed with him
+<span class="pagebreak" title="148">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>
+and impudently was joined with his
+rival, the king of the English. For this, that French Philip will
+destroy the stock royal of the English, like as an ox is wont to lick up
+the grass to its roots. Already three of her sons have been cut off by
+the French, two kings that is, and one prince. The fourth, the survivor,
+will have short peace at their hands.&rdquo; The next day, St. Matthew&rsquo;s, was
+his episcopal birthday, and he kept it up by having, for the first time
+in his life, the anointing of the sick. He first made a most searching
+confession to his chaplain, and then to the Dean of Lincoln, the
+Precentor, and the Archdeacon of Northampton.<a name="fnm_29" id="fnm_29"></a><a href="#fn_29" class="fnnum">29</a> He hesitated not to
+confess sins often before confessed to many, and made so straight, keen,
+and full a story of what he had left undone and what he had done that
+they never heard the like; and he often repeated, &ldquo;The evildoing is
+mine, truly, solely, and wholely. The good, if there is any, is not so.
+It is mixed with evil; it is everywhere gross with it. So it is neither
+truly nor purely good.&rdquo; The Sacrament was brought him at nine o&rsquo;clock
+the next day, and he flung himself from his bed, clad in his hair shirt
+and cowl, with naked feet, knelt, worshipped, and prayed long before it,
+recalling the infinite benefits of the Saviour to the children of men,
+commending his sinfulness to Christ&rsquo;s mercy, asking for help to the end
+and imploring with tears never to be left. Then he was houselled and
+anointed. He said, &ldquo;Now let our doctors and our diseases meet, as far as
+may be. In our heart there will be less trouble about them both. I have
+committed myself to Him, received Him, shall hold Him, stick to Him, to
+whom it is good to stick,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="149">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>
+Whom to hold is blessed. If a man receives
+Him and commits himself to Him he is strong and safe.&rdquo; He was then told
+to make his will, and said it was a tiresome new custom, for all he had
+was not his, but belonged to the church he ruled; but lest the civil
+officer should take all, he made his will. &ldquo;If any temporal goods should
+remain after my death in the bishopric, now here all which I seem to
+possess I hand over to the Lord Jesus Christ, to be bestowed upon the
+poor.&rdquo; The executors were the dean and the two archdeacons. After this
+simple but not surprising will he called for his stole and anathematized
+all who should knavishly keep back, or violently carry off, any of his
+goods, or otherwise frustrate his executors.</p>
+
+<p>He grew worse. He confessed daily the lightest thought or word of
+impatience against his nurses. He was much in prayer, and he had the
+offices said at the right times however ill he was. He sang with the
+psalm-singers while he could. If they read or sang carelessly or
+hurriedly, he chastened them with a terrible voice and insisted upon
+clear pronunciation and perfect time. He made every one stand and sit by
+turns, so that while one set were resting the other were reverencing the
+divine and angelic presences. He had always been punctilious about the
+times of prayer and used always to withdraw from the bench to say his
+offices when they were due.</p>
+
+<p>King John came in one day, but the bishop, who could sit up for his
+food, neither rose nor sat to greet him. The king said that he and his
+friends would do all they could for him. Then he sent out the courtiers
+and sat long and talked much and blandly;
+<span class="pagebreak" title="150">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>
+but Hugh answered very
+little, but shortly asked him to see to his and other bishops&rsquo; wills and
+commended Lincoln to his protection; but he despaired of John and would
+not waste his beautiful words upon him. After the king, the archbishop
+came several times, and promised also to do what he could for him. The
+last time he came he hinted that Hugh must not forget to ask pardon from
+any he had unjustly hurt or provoked by word or deed. No answer from the
+bed! Then he became a little more explicit and said that he, Hugh&rsquo;s
+spiritual father and primate, had often been most bitterly provoked, and
+that really his forgiveness was most indispensible. The reply he got was
+more bracing than grateful. Archbishops rarely hear such naked verities.
+&ldquo;It is quite true, and I see it well when I ponder all the hidden things
+of our conscience, that I have often provoked you to angers. But I do
+not find a single reason for repenting of it; but I know this, that I
+must grieve that I did not do it oftener and harder. But if my life
+should have to be passed longer with you I most firmly determine, under
+the eyes of all-seeing God, to do it much oftener than before. I can
+remember how, to comply with you, I have often and often been coward
+enough to keep back things which I ought to have spoken out to you, and
+which you would not well have brooked to hear, and so by my own fault I
+have avoided offence to you rather than to the Father which is in
+Heaven. On this count, therefore, it is that I have not only
+transgressed against God heavily and unbishoply, but against your
+fatherhood or primacy. And I humbly ask pardon for this.&rdquo; Exit the
+archbishop!</p>
+
+<p>
+<span class="pagebreak" title="151">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>
+</p><p>Now his faithful Boswell gives elaborate details of Hugh&rsquo;s long dying,
+not knowing that his work would speak to a generation which measures a
+man&rsquo;s favour with God by the oily slipperiness with which he shuffles
+off his clay coil. It was a case of hard dying, redoubled paroxysms,
+fierce fever, and bloody flux, and dreadful details. He would wear his
+sackcloth, and rarely change it, though it caked into knots which chafed
+him fiercely. But, though the rule allowed, he would not go soft to his
+end, however much his friends might entreat him to put off the rasping
+hair. &ldquo;No, no, God forbid that I should. This raiment does not scrape,
+but soothe; does not hurt, but help,&rdquo; he answered sternly. He gave exact
+details of how he was to be laid on ashes on the bare earth at the last
+with no extra sackcloth. No bishops or abbots being at hand to commend
+him at the end, the monks of Westminster were to send seven or eight of
+their number and the Dean of St. Paul&rsquo;s a good number of singing clerks.
+His body was to be washed with the greatest care, to fit it for being
+taken to the holy chapel of the Baptist at Lincoln, and laid out by
+three named persons and no others. When it reached Lincoln it was to be
+arrayed in the plain vestments of his consecration, which he had kept
+for this. One little light gold ring, with a cheap water sapphire in it,
+he selected from all that had been given him. He had worn it for
+functions, and would bear it in death, and have nothing about him else
+to tempt folk to sacrilege. The hearers understood, foolishly, from this
+that he knew his body would be translated after its first sepulture, and
+for this reason he had
+<span class="pagebreak" title="152">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>
+it cased in lead and solid stone that no one
+should seize or even see his ornaments when he was moved. &ldquo;You will
+place me,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;before the altar of my aforesaid patron, the Lord&rsquo;s
+forerunner, where there seems fitting room near some wall, in such wise
+that the tomb shall not inconveniently block the floor, as we see in
+many churches, and cause incomers to trip or fall.&rdquo; Then he had his
+beard and nails trimmed for death. Some of his ejaculations in his
+agonies are preserved. &ldquo;O kind God, grant us rest. O good Lord and true
+God, give us rest at last.&rdquo; When they tried to cheer him by saying that
+the paroxysm was over he said, &ldquo;How really blessed are those to whom
+even the last judgment day will bring unshaken rest.&rdquo; They told him his
+judgment day would be the day when he laid by the burden of the flesh.
+But he would not have it. &ldquo;The day when I die will not be a judgment
+day, but a day of grace and mercy,&rdquo; he said. He astonished his
+physicians by the robust way in which he would move, and his manly voice
+bated nothing of its old power, though he spoke a little submissively.
+The last lection he heard was the story of Lazarus and Martha, and when
+they reached the words, &ldquo;Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had
+not died,&rdquo; he bade them stop there. The funeral took up the tale where
+the reader left off, &ldquo;I am the Resurrection and the Life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>They reminded him that he had not confessed any miscarriages of justice
+of which he had been guilty through private love or hate. He answered
+boldly, &ldquo;I never remember that I knowingly wrested the truth in a
+judicial sentence either from hate or love,
+<span class="pagebreak" title="153">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>
+no, nor from hope or fear
+of any person or thing whatsoever. If I have gone awry in judgments it
+was a fault either of my own ignorance or assuredly of my assistants.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The leeches hoped much from meat, and, though the Order forbade it, his
+obedience was transferred to Canterbury. His friends posted off and got
+not only a permit, but a straight order enjoining this diet upon him. He
+said that neither for taste nor for medicine could he be prevailed upon
+to eat flesh. &ldquo;But to avoid offending so many reverend men, and, too,
+lest, even in the state of death, we should fail to follow in the
+footsteps of Him who became obedient even unto death, let flesh be given
+to us. Now at the last we will freely eat it, sauced with brotherly
+love.&rdquo; When he was asked what he would like he said that he had read
+that the sick fathers had been given pig&rsquo;s trotters. But he made small
+headway with these unseasonable viands or with the poor &ldquo;little birds&rdquo;
+they next gave him. On the 16th of November, at sunset, the monks and
+clerks arrived. Hugh had strength to lay his hand upon Adam&rsquo;s head and
+bless him and the rest. They said to him, &ldquo;Pray the Lord to provide a
+profitable pastor for your church,&rdquo; but their voices were dim in his
+ears, and only when they had asked it thrice he said, &ldquo;God grant it!&rdquo;
+The third election brought in great Grosseteste.</p>
+
+<p>The company then withdrew for compline, and as they ended the xci.
+Psalm, &ldquo;I will deliver him and bring him to honour,&rdquo; he was laid upon
+the oratory floor on the ashes, for he had given the sign; and while
+they chaunted <i>Nunc Dimittis</i> with
+<span class="pagebreak" title="154">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>
+a quiet face he breathed out his
+gallant soul, passing, as he had hoped, at Martinmas-tide &ldquo;from God&rsquo;s
+camp to His palace, from His hope to His sight,&rdquo; in the time of that
+saint whom he greatly admired and closely resembled.</p>
+
+<p>They washed his white, brave body, sang over it, watched it all night in
+St. Mary&rsquo;s Church, ringed it with candles, sang solemn Masses over it,
+embalmed it with odours, and buried the bowels near the altar in a
+leaden vessel. All London flocked, priests with crosses and candles,
+people weeping silently and aloud, every man triumphant if he could even
+touch the bier. Then they carried him in the wind and the rain, with
+lads on horseback holding torches (which never all went out at once),
+back to his own children. They started on Saturday<a name="fnm_30" id="fnm_30"></a><a href="#fn_30" class="fnnum">30</a> for Hertford, and
+by twilight next day they had reached Biggleswade on the Ivell, where he
+had a house, wherein the company slept. The mourning crowds actually
+blocked the way to the church. The bier was left in the church that
+Sunday night.</p>
+
+<p>By Monday they got to Buckden, and on the Tuesday they had got as far as
+Stamford, but the crowds were so great here that hardly could they fight
+their way through till the very dead of the night. The body, of course,
+was taken into the church; and a pious cobbler prayed to die, and lo!
+die he did, having only just time for confession, shrift, and his will;
+and way was made for him in death, though he could not get near the bier
+in life. The story recalled to Adam&rsquo;s mind a saying of his late master
+when people mourned too immoderately
+<span class="pagebreak" title="155">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>
+for the dead&mdash;&ldquo;What are you about?
+What are you about? By Saint Nut&rdquo; (that was his innocent oath), &ldquo;by
+Saint Nut, it would indeed be a great misfortune for us if we were never
+allowed to die.&rdquo; He would praise the miraculous raising of the dead, but
+he thought that sometimes a miraculous granting of death is still more
+to be admired. At Stamford they bought horn lanterns instead of wax
+torches, for these last guttered so in the weather that the riders got
+wax all over their hands and clothes. Then they made for Ancaster, and
+on Thursday they came to Lincoln. Here were assembled all the great men
+of the realm, who came out to meet the bier. The kings of England and
+Scotland, the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and barons were all there.
+No man so great but he thought himself happy to help carry that bier up
+the hill. Shoulders were relieved by countless hands, these by other
+hands. The greatest men struggled for this honour. The rains had filled
+the streets with mud above the ankles, sometimes up to men&rsquo;s knees. All
+the bells of the town tolled and every church sang hymns and spiritual
+songs. Those who could not touch the bier tossed coins upon the hearse
+which held the body. Even the Jews came out and wept and did what
+service they could.</p>
+
+<p>The body was taken to a bye place off the cathedral<a name="fnm_31" id="fnm_31"></a><a href="#fn_31" class="fnnum">31</a> and dressed as
+he had ordered&mdash;with ring, gloves, staff, and the plain robes. They
+wiped the balsam from his face, and found it first white, but then the
+cheeks grew pink. The cathedral was
+<span class="pagebreak" title="156">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156"></a>
+blocked with crowds, each man
+bearing a candle. They came in streams to kiss his hands and feet and to
+offer gold and silver, and more than forty marks were given that day.
+John of Leicester laid a distich at his feet, much admired then, but
+&ldquo;bald as his crown&rdquo; to our ears:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;Staff to the bishops, to the monks a measure true,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Counsel for schools, kings&rsquo; hammer&mdash;such behold was Hugh!&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The next day at the funeral his cheap vestments were torn in pieces by
+the relic-hunting, which it must be confessed he had done nothing to
+check; and he was buried near the wall not far from the altar of St.
+John Baptist, and, as seemed more suitable for the crowds who came
+there, on the northern side of the building itself.<a name="fnm_32" id="fnm_32"></a><a href="#fn_32" class="fnnum">32</a></p>
+
+<p>This tremendous funeral long lived in men&rsquo;s memory, and there is a far
+prettier verse about it than the old distich of John&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">&ldquo;A&rsquo; the bells o&rsquo; merrie Lincoln<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Without men&rsquo;s hands were rung,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And a&rsquo; the books o&rsquo; merrie Lincoln<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Were read without man&rsquo;s tongue;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And ne&rsquo;er was such a burial<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sin&rsquo; Adam&rsquo;s days begun.&rdquo;<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Passing by the shower of gold rings, necklaces, and bezants which were
+given at his shrine, it is certain that the coals of enthusiasm were
+blown by the report of miracles, never for very long together kept at
+bay by medi&aelig;val writers. While wishing to avoid the <i>affirmatio falsi</i>
+and to give no heed to lying fables, we must not risk being guilty of a
+<i>suppressio
+<span class="pagebreak" title="157">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a>
+veri</i>. The miracles at the tomb come in such convenient
+numbers that their weight, though it possibly made the guardians of the
+shrine, yet breaks the tottering faith of the candid reader. But some
+are more robust, and for them there is a lively total which makes
+Giraldus&rsquo;s lament for the fewness of miracles in his day seem rather
+ungrateful. &ldquo;Four quinsies&rdquo;&mdash;well, strong emotion will do much for
+quinsies. &ldquo;One slow oozing&rdquo;&mdash;the disease being doubtful, we need not
+dispute the remedy. &ldquo;Three paralytics&rdquo;&mdash;in the name of Lourdes, let them
+pass. &ldquo;Three withered, two dumb, two hunchbacks, one boy dead&rdquo;&mdash;here we
+falter. &ldquo;One jaundice case&rdquo; sounds likelier; &ldquo;one barren woman&rdquo; need not
+detain us. &ldquo;Four dropsies, four blind, and nine lunatics&rdquo;&mdash;and now we
+know the worst of it. It would have been a great deal easier to accept
+the whole in a venture (or forlorn hope) of faith if Hugh had witnessed
+and some one else performed these miracles, for he had a scrupulously
+veracious mind. He was so afraid of even the shadow of a lie that he
+used to attemper what he said with words of caution whenever he repeated
+what he had done or heard: &ldquo;that is only as far as I recollect.&rdquo; He
+would not clap his seal to any letter which contained any questionable
+statement. &ldquo;We remember to have cited you elsewhere,&rdquo; a common legal
+phrase, would damn a document if he did not remember, literally and
+personally, to have done so. His influence, too, can be discerned in the
+candid Adam, whose honest tale often furnishes us with an antidote to
+his impossible surmises. But veracity, unfortunately, is not highly
+infectious, and it is a little difficult not
+<span class="pagebreak" title="158">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>
+to believe that the high
+and serene virtues of the great man gone were promptly exploited for the
+small men left. One miracle there seems no reason to doubt. John, in an
+almost maudlin fit of emotional repentance, made peace at the funeral
+with his Cistercian enemies and founded them a home at Beaulieu in the
+New Forest. Indeed, these were the true miracles which recommended Hugh
+to the English people, so that they regarded him as a saint indeed, and
+clamoured for him to be called one formally&mdash;the miracles wrought upon
+character, the callous made charitable, liars truthful, and the lechers
+chaste; the miracles of justice, of weak right made strong against proud
+might, and poor honesty made proof against rich rascality; the miracle
+of England made the sweeter and the handsomer for this humble and
+heavenly stranger.</p>
+
+<p>The later history need not detain us long. His body was moved, says
+Thomas Wykes in the <i>Annales Monastici</i>, in the year 1219. Perhaps&mdash;and
+this is a mere guess&mdash;the place where his body lay was injured at the
+time of the battle and capture of Lincoln two years before; and for
+better protection the coffin was simply placed unopened in that curious
+position two-thirds into the wall of the apse foundation, where it was
+found in our day. In 1220 he was canonized by Pope Honorius III., who
+was then at Viterbo organising a crusade, after a report vouching for
+the miracles drawn up by the great Archbishop Stephen Langton and John
+of Fountains, a just and learned man, afterwards Treasurer of England.</p>
+
+<p>Sixty years later, that is to say, in 1280, John
+<span class="pagebreak" title="159">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>
+Peckham, the pious
+friar archbishop, Oliver Sutton, the cloister-building Bishop of
+Lincoln, and others, among them King Edward I. and his good wife
+Eleanor, opened the tomb and lifted out the body into a shrine adorned
+with gold and jewels and placed it upon a marble pedestal in the Angel
+Choir, either where the modern tomb of Queen Eleanor now stands or just
+opposite. The head came away and sweated wonder-working oils, and was
+casketted and placed at the end of the present Burghersh tombs, as a
+shrine of which the broken pedestal and the knee-worn pavement are still
+to be seen. The body was placed in a shrine cased with plates of gold
+and silver, crusted with gems, and at the last protected by a grille of
+curious wrought iron. A tooth, closed in beryl with silver and gilt,
+appears as a separate item in the Reformation riflings. The history of
+both shrines and of the bones they held is a tale by itself, like most
+true tales ending in mystery. Perhaps, as King Henry VIII. had not much
+veneration for holy bones, but, like our enlightened age, much preferred
+gold, silver, and jewels, his destroying angels may have left the relics
+of Hugh&rsquo;s forsaken mortality to the lovely cathedral, where his memory,
+after seven centuries, is still pathetically and tenderly dear.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_27" id="fn_27"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_27">27</a></span> Which alone still survives.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_28" id="fn_28"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_28">28</a></span> Dunstan, Alphege, Lanfranc, Anselm, and others
+presumably.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_29" id="fn_29"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_29">29</a></span> Roger de Roldeston, William de Blois, and Richard of
+Kent.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_30" id="fn_30"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_30">30</a></span> November 18, 1200.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_31" id="fn_31"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_31">31</a></span> Possibly on the site where St. Hugh&rsquo;s chapel now stands in
+desolation.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="fn_32" id="fn_32"></a><span class="label"><a href="#fnm_32">32</a></span> <i>A boreali ipsius &aelig;dis regione</i>, not of the cathedral, but
+of the new honeycomb apse, please.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<p class="center biggap little">
+<span class="pagebreak" title="160">&nbsp;</span><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>
+<b>The Gresham Press</b><br />
+UNWIN BROTHERS,<br />
+WOKING AND LONDON.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr />
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h4><a name="tnotes" id="tnotes"></a>
+Transcriber's note</h4>
+<p>A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected;
+they and other possible errors are listed below.</p>
+
+<p>Inconsistent hyphenation:
+<a name="cn14a" id="cn14a"></a><a href="#corr14a">nowadays</a>
+(<a name="cn82" id="cn82"></a><a href="#corr82">now-a-days</a>),
+<a name="cn115" id="cn115"></a><a href="#corr115">brushwood</a>
+(<a name="cn68" id="cn68"></a><a href="#corr68">brush-wood</a>),
+<a name="cn127" id="cn127"></a><a href="#corr127">footprints</a>
+(<a name="cn3" id="cn3"></a><a href="#corr3">foot-prints</a>).</p>
+
+<p>Page 1: Page number corrected to <a name="cn1" id="cn1"></a><a href="#corr1">1</a> from 2.</p>
+
+<p>Page 10: "Under the smoothe" corrected to "Under the <a name="cn10" id="cn10"></a><a href="#corr10">smooth</a>".</p>
+
+<p>Page 14: "<a name="cn14b" id="cn14b"></a><a href="#corr14b">seiges</a> of Milan" not changed;
+"<a name="cn14c" id="cn14c"></a><a href="#corr14c">beseiges</a> their city" not changed.</p>
+
+<p>Page 15: "lord of Normany" corrected to "lord of <a name="cn15" id="cn15"></a><a href="#corr15">Normandy</a>".</p>
+
+<p>Page 17: "Manuel <a name="cn17" id="cn17"></a><a href="#corr17">Commenus</a>" probable error for "Manuel Comnenus". Not changed.</p>
+
+<p>Page 24: "<a name="cn24" id="cn24"></a><a href="#corr24">post</a>-Hugonian" possible error for "Post-Hugonian". Not changed.</p>
+
+<p>Page 32:
+"was thorougly understood" corrected to "was <a name="cn32a" id="cn32a"></a><a href="#corr32a">thoroughly</a> understood";
+"between Normany and England" corrected to "between <a name="cn32b" id="cn32b"></a><a href="#corr32b">Normandy</a> and England";
+"audibly says, &lsquo;Oh," corrected to "audibly says, <a name="cn32c" id="cn32c"></a><a href="#corr32c">&ldquo;Oh</a>,".</p>
+
+<p>Page 39: "They ought to chose" corrected to "They ought to <a name="cn39" id="cn39"></a><a href="#corr39">choose</a>".</p>
+
+<p>Page 44: "<a name="cn44" id="cn44"></a><a href="#corr44">præ</a>-Edwardian" not changed.</p>
+
+<p>Page 62: "<a name="cn62" id="cn62"></a><a href="#corr62">beseiged</a> in Lincoln" not changed.</p>
+
+<p>Page 76: "to smoothe those English" corrected to "to <a name="cn76" id="cn76"></a><a href="#corr76">smooth</a> those English".</p>
+
+<p>Page 89: "neural <a name="cn89" id="cn89"></a><a href="#corr89">tremours</a>" not changed.</p>
+
+<p>Page 122: Opening double quotation marks (signifying continued quotation) are
+missing from the paragraphs starting <span class="together">"<a name="cn122a" id="cn122a"></a><a href="#corr122a">These</a></span> things, described but
+puerilely" and "<a name="cn122b" id="cn122b"></a><a href="#corr122b">The</a> foundation is the body", and have not been added.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, by Charles L. Marson
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln
+       A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England
+
+
+Author: Charles L. Marson
+
+
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2008  [eBook #26065]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Louise Pryor and the Project Gutenberg Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
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+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      Some of the spellings and hyphenations in the original
+      are unusual; they have not been changed. A few obvious
+      typographical errors have been corrected, and they and
+      other possible errors are listed at the end of this e-text.
+
+
+
+
+
+HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN
+
+London : Edward Arnold : 1901
+
+
+HUGH
+BISHOP OF LINCOLN
+
+A SHORT STORY OF ONE OF THE MAKERS OF MEDIAEVAL ENGLAND
+
+by
+
+CHARLES L. MARSON
+Curate of Hambridge
+Author of "The Psalms at Work," Etc.
+
+
+                  Tua me, genitor, tua tristis imago
+      Saepius occurens, haec limina tendere adegit.
+      Stant sale Tyrrheno classes. Da jungere dextram
+      Da, genitor; teque amplexu ne subtrahe nostro.
+
+      AEN. VI. 695.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London
+Edward Arnold
+37, Bedford Street, Strand
+1901
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                   PAGE
+
+      INTRODUCTION                         vii
+
+   I. THE BOY HUGH                           1
+
+  II. BROTHER HUGH                          12
+
+ III. PRIOR HUGH                            26
+
+  IV. THE BISHOP ELECT AND CONSECRATE       42
+
+   V. THE BISHOP AT WORK                    60
+
+  VI. IN TROUBLES                           78
+
+ VII. AND DISPUTES                          94
+
+VIII. THE BUILDER                          111
+
+  IX. UNDER KING JOHN                      128
+
+   X. HOMEWARD BOUND                       143
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+In a short biography the reader must expect short statements, rather
+than detailed arguments, and in a popular tale he will not look for
+embattled lists of authorities. But if he can be stirred up to search
+further into the matter for himself, he will find a list of authorities
+ancient and modern come not unacceptable to begin upon.
+
+The author has incurred so many debts of kindness in this work from many
+friends, and from many who were before not even acquaintances, that he
+must flatly declare himself bankrupt to his creditors, and rejoice if
+they will but grant him even a second-class certificate. Among the major
+creditors he must acknowledge his great obligations to the hospitable
+Chancellor of Lincoln and Mrs. Crowfoot, to the Rev. A. Curtois, Mr.
+Haig, and some others, all of whom were willing and even anxious that
+the story of their saint should be told abroad, even by the halting
+tongues of far-away messengers. The same kind readiness appeared at
+Witham: and indeed everybody, who knew already about St. Hugh, has
+seemed anxious that the knowledge of him should be spread abroad. It
+has snowed books, pamphlets, articles, views, maps, and guesses; and if
+much has remained unsaid or been said with incautious brusqueness,
+rather than with balanced oppressiveness, the reader who carps will
+always be welcome to such material as the author has by him, for
+elucidating the truth. If he has been misled by a blind guide, that
+guide must plead that he has consulted good oculists and worthy
+spectacle-makers, and has had every good intention of steering clear of
+the ditch.
+
+Though what a man is counts for more than what he does, yet the services
+of St. Hugh to England may be briefly summed up. They were (1)
+Spiritual. He made for personal holiness, uncorruptness of public and
+private life. He raised the sense of the dignity of spiritual work,
+which was being rapidly subordinated to civic work and rule. He made
+people understand that moral obligations were very binding upon all men.
+(2) Political. He made for peace at home and abroad: at home by
+restraining the excesses of forestars and tyrants; abroad by opposing
+the constant war policy against France. (3) Constitutional. He first
+encountered and checked the overgrown power of the Crown, and laid down
+limits and principles which resulted in the Church policy of John's
+reign and the triumph of Magna Carta. (4) Architectural. He fully
+developed--even if he did not, as some assert, invent--the Early English
+style. (5) Ecclesiastical. He counterbalanced St. Thomas of Canterbury,
+and diverted much of that martyr's influence from an irreconcileable
+Church policy to a more reasonable, if less exalted, notion of liberty.
+(6) He was a patron of letters, and encouraged learning by supporting
+schools, libraries, historians, poets, and commentators.
+
+Ancient authorities for his Life are:--(1) The Magna Vita, by Chaplain
+Adam (Rolls); (2) Metrical Life, Ed. Dimock, Lincoln, 1860; (3) Giraldus
+Cambrensis, VII. (Rolls); (4) Hoveden's Chronicle (Rolls); (5)
+Benedicti, Gesta R. Henry II. (Rolls); (6) for trifles, Matthew Paris,
+I. and II. (Rolls), John de Oxenden (ditto), Ralph de Diceto (ditto),
+Flores Histor. (ditto), Annales Monastici (ditto); (7) also for
+collateral information, Capgrave Illustrious Henries (Rolls), William of
+Newburgh, Richard of Devizes, Gervase's Archbishops of Canterbury, and
+Robert de Monte, Walter de Mapes' De Nugis (Camden Soc). Of modern
+authorities, (1) Canon Perry's Life (Murray, 1879) and his article in
+the Dictionary of National Biography come first; (2) Vie de St. Hughues
+(Montreuil, 1890); (3) Fr. Thurston's translation and adaptation of this
+last (Burns and Oates, 1898); (4) St. Hugh's Day at Lincoln, A.D. 1900,
+Ed. Precentor Bramley (pub. by Clifford Thomas, Lincoln, N.D.); (5)
+Guides to the Cathedral, by Precentor Venables, and also by Mr.
+Kendrick; (6) Archaeological matter, Archaeological Institute (1848),
+Somerset Archaeolog. XXXIV., Somerset Notes and Queries, vol. IV., 1895,
+Lincoln Topographical Soc., 1841-2; (7) Collateral information--_cf._
+Miss Norgate's "England under Angevin Kings" (Macmillan), Robert
+Grosseteste, F. E. Stevenson (ditto), Stubbs' "Opera Omnia" of course,
+Diocesan History of Lincoln, Grande Chartreuse (Burns and Oates), "Court
+Life under Plantagenets" (Hall), "Highways in Normandy" (Dearmer);(8)
+of short studies, Mr. Froude's and an article in the _Church Quarterly_,
+XXXIII., and Mrs. Charles' "Martyrs and Saints" (S.P.C.K.) are the
+chief.
+
+Of this last book it is perhaps worth saying that if any man will take
+the trouble to compare it with John Brady's _Clavis Calendaria_, of
+which the third edition came out in 1815, he will see how much the tone
+of the public has improved, both in courtesy towards and in knowledge of
+the great and good men of the Christian faith.
+
+St. Hugh's Post-Reformation history is worth noting for the humour of
+it. He is allowed in the Primer Calendar by unauthorised Marshall, 1535;
+out in Crumwell and Hilsey's, 1539; out by the authorised Primer of King
+and Clergy, 1545; still out in the Prayer-books of 1549 and 1552; in
+again in the authorised Primer of 1553; out of the Prayer-book of 1559;
+in the Latin one of 1560; still in both the Orarium and the New Calendar
+of the next year, though out of the Primer 1559; in the Preces Privatas
+1564, with a scornful _admonitio_ to say that "the names of saints, as
+they call them, are left, not because we count them divine, or even
+reckon some of them good, or, even if they were greatly good, pay them
+divine honour and worship; but because they are the mark and index of
+certain matters dependent upon fixed times, to be ignorant of which is
+most inconvenient to our people"--to wit, fairs and so on. Since which
+time St. Hugh has not been cast out of the Calendar, but is in for ever.
+
+In the text is no mention of the poor swineherd, God rest him! His stone
+original lives in Lincoln cloisters, and a reproduction stands on the
+north pinnacle of the west front (whereas Hugh is on the south
+pinnacle), put there because he hoarded a peck of silver pennies to help
+build the House of God. He lives on in stone and in the memories of the
+people, a little flouted in literature, but, if moral evidence counts,
+unscathedly genuine: honourable in himself, to the saint who inspired
+him, and to the men who hailed him as the bishop's mate--no mean builder
+in the house not made with hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE BOY HUGH
+
+
+St. Hugh is exactly the kind of saint for English folk to study with
+advantage. Some of us listen with difficulty to tales of heroic virgins,
+who pluck out their eyes and dish them up, or to the report of antique
+bishops whose claim to honour rests less upon the nobility of their
+characters than upon the medicinal effect of their post-mortem humours;
+but no one can fail to be struck with this brave, clean, smiling face,
+which looks out upon us from a not impossible past, radiant with sense
+and wit, with holiness and sanity combined, whom we can all reverence as
+at once a saint of God and also one of the fine masculine Makers of
+England. We cherish a good deal of romance about the age in which St.
+Hugh lived. It is the age of fair Rosamond, of Crusades, of lion-hearted
+King Richard, and of Robin Hood. It is more soberly an age of builders,
+of reformers, of scholars, and of poets. If troubadours did not exactly
+"touch guitars," at least songsters tackled verse-making and helped to
+refine the table manners of barons and retainers by singing at dinner
+time. The voice of law too was not silent amid arms. Our constitutional
+government, already begotten, was being born and swaddled. The races
+were being blended. Though England was still but a northern province of
+a kingdom, whose metropolis was Rouen, yet that kingdom was becoming
+rather top-heavy, and inclined to shift its centre of gravity
+northwards. So from any point of view the time is interesting. It is
+essentially an age of monks and of monasteries; perhaps one should say
+the end of the age of monastic influence. Pope Eugenius III., the great
+Suger and St. Bernard, all died when Hugh was a young man. The great
+enthusiasm for founding monasteries was just beginning to ebb. Yet a
+hundred and fifteen English houses were founded in Stephen's reign, and
+a hundred and thirteen in the reign of Henry II., and the power of the
+monastic bodies was still almost paramount in the church. It was to the
+monasteries that men still looked for learning and peace, and the
+monasteries were the natural harbours of refuge for valiant men of
+action, who grew sick of the life of everlasting turmoil in a brutal and
+anarchic world. Indeed, the very tumults and disorders of the state gave
+the monasteries their hold over the best of the men of action. As the
+civil life grew more quiet and ordered, the enthusiasm for the cloister
+waned, and with it the standard of zeal perceptibly fell to a lower
+level, not without grand protest and immense effort of holy men to keep
+the divine fire from sinking.
+
+Hugh of Avalon was born in Avalon Castle in 1140, a year in which the
+great tempest of Stephen's misrule was raging. In France, Louis VII. has
+already succeeded his father, Louis VI.; the Moors are in Spain, and
+Arnold of Brescia is the centre of controversy. Avalon Castle lies near
+Pontcharra, which is a small town on the Bredo, which flows into the
+Isere and thence into the Rhone. It is not to be confused with Avallon
+of Yonne. The Alpine valleys about Pontcharra are lovely with flowers
+and waters, and have in them the "foot-prints of lost Paradise."
+Burgundy here owed some loyalty to the empire rather than to France, and
+its dukes tried to keep up a semi-independent kingdom by a balanced
+submission to their more powerful neighbours. The very name Hugh was an
+old ducal name, and there is little doubt that William de Avalon, Hugh's
+father, claimed kin with the princes of his land. He was a "flower of
+knighthood" in battles not now known. He was also by heredity of a pious
+mind. Hugh's mother, Anna, a lovely and wealthy lady, of what stock does
+not appear, was herself of saintly make. She "worshipped Christ in His
+limbs," by constantly washing the feet of lepers, filling these wretched
+outcasts with hope, reading to them and supplying their wants. She seems
+to have been a woman of intellectual parts, for though she died before
+Hugh was ten, he had already learned under her, if not from her, to use
+language as the sacrament of understanding and understanding as the
+symbol of truth. He had some grip of grammar and logic, and though he
+did not brood over "Ovid's leasings or Juvenal's rascalities," rather
+choosing to ponder upon the two Testaments, yet we may gather that his
+Latin classics were not neglected. The spiritual life of Grenoble had
+been nourished by a noble bishop, also Hugh, who had seen the vision of
+seven stars resting upon a certain plot of ground, which induced him to
+grant the same to St. Bruno, the founder of the Grande Chartreuse. Here
+he served himself as a simple monk, laying aside his bishop's robes, not
+a score of miles from Avalon. This Hugh was a religious and free
+thinking man, who, though he found evil a great metaphysical stumbling
+block to faith, yet walked painfully by the latter. He died in 1132 or
+thereabouts, and his life was most probably the occasion of our Hugh's
+name, and of much else about him.
+
+The De Avalons had two other boys both older than Hugh: William, who
+inherited the lands, and Peter, who was settled by his brother Hugh at
+Histon, in Cambridge, but he does not seem to have made England his
+home. Hugh had also at least one cousin, William, on his mother's side,
+who attended upon him at Lincoln, and who (unless there were two of the
+same name) developed from a knight into an holy Canon after his great
+relative's decease. These relatives were always ready to lend a hand and
+a sword if required in the good bishop's quarrels. The last particularly
+distinguished himself in a brawl in Lincolnshire Holland, when an armed
+and censured ruffian threatened the bishop with death. The good
+Burgundian blood rose, and William twisted the sword from the villain's
+hand, and with difficulty was prevented from driving it into his body.
+
+When the Lady Anna died, her husband, tired of war, power, and
+governance, distributed his property among his children. Under his
+armour he had long worn the monk's heart, and now he was able to take
+the monk's dress, and to "labour for peace after life, as he had
+already won it in life." So he took Hugh and Hugh's money with him, and
+went off to the little priory of Villarbenoit (of seven canon power),
+which bordered upon his own lands, and which he and his forbears had
+cherished. This little priory was a daughter of Grenoble (St. Hugh of
+Grenoble being, as we infer, a spiritual splendour to the De Avalons),
+and, not least in attraction, there was a canon therein, far-famed for
+heavenly wisdom and for scholarship besides, who kept a school and
+taught sound theology and classics, under whom sharp young Hugh might
+climb to heights both of ecclesiastical and also of heavenly preferment.
+Great was the delight of the canons at their powerful postulant and his
+son, and great the pains taken over the latter's education. The
+schoolmaster laid stress upon authors such as Prudentius, Sedulius, and
+Fulgentius. By these means the boy not only learnt Latin, but he also
+tackled questions of Predestination and Grace, glosses upon St. Paul,
+hymns and methods of frustrating the Arian. Above all, he was exercised
+in the Divine Library, as they called the Bible, taught by St. Jerome.
+Hugh was of course the favourite of the master, who whipt him with
+difficulty, and kept him from the rough sports of his fellow scholars,
+the future soldiers, and "reared him for Christ." The boy had a masterly
+memory and a good grip of his work, whether it were as scholar, server,
+or comrade. The Prior assigned to him the special task of waiting upon
+his old father. That modest, kind-hearted gentleman was getting infirm,
+and the young fellow was delighted to be told off to lead him, carry
+him, dress and undress him, tie his shoes, towel him, make his bed, cook
+for him and feed him, until the time of the old knight's departure
+arrived.
+
+The dates of St. Hugh's life and ministrations must be taken with a
+grain of salt. The authorities differ considerably, and it is impossible
+to clap a date to some of the saint's way-marks without first slapping
+in the face some venerable chronicler, or some thought-worn modern
+historian. If we say with the Great Life that Hugh was ordained Levite
+in his nineteenth year, we upset Giraldus Cambrensis and the metrical
+biographer, who put it in his fifteenth; and Matthew Paris and the
+Legend, who write him down as over sixteen. Mr. Dimock would have us
+count from his entry into the canonry, and so counts him as twenty-four;
+Canon Perry and Father Thurston say "nineteenth year," or "nineteen."
+The Canons Regular of Villarbenoit seem to have been rather liberal in
+their interpretation of church regulations, but it is hardly likely that
+the bishop of Grenoble would so far stretch a point as to ordain a lad
+much below the canonical age, even if he were of a great house and great
+piety. Anyhow it is hardly worth while for the general reader to waste
+time over these ticklish points. It is enough to say that Hugh was
+ordained young, that he looked pink and white over his white stole and
+broidered tunic, and that he soon preached vigorously, warmly, and
+movingly to the crowd and to his old acquaintances. Sinners heard a very
+straightforward message, and holy persons were edified by the clever way
+in which he handled difficult topics, and in him they "blessed the true
+Joseph, who had placed his own cup in the mouth of his younger brother's
+sack." Indeed, he must have been a captivating and interesting young
+man, and since he was so strikingly like Henry II. of England that
+folks' tongues wagged freely about it, we may picture him as a young man
+of moderate height, rather large in the brow, with red brown hair,
+bright grey eyes, large chest, and generally of an athletic build and
+carriage. He had a face which easily flushed and told both of anger and
+a lively sense of humour.
+
+He was the delight of his house, and of the people about, who welcomed
+him with enthusiasm when he came back after nearly forty years' absence.
+But most of all he was the apple of the eye to his old scholarly father
+prior, who loved him as his own soul. It is not wonderful that when one
+of the scanty brotherhood was called upon to take charge of a small
+country living, the "cell of St. Maximin," the zealous deacon was chosen
+to administer the same. The tiny benefice could hardly support one, with
+small household, but Hugh insisted upon having an old priest to share
+the benefice. A little parcel of glebe and a few vines, tended by honest
+rustics, were his. They were able by pious frugality to nourish the poor
+and grace the rich. The parishioners grew in holiness. The congregation
+swelled from many sources, and the sermons (of life and word) were
+translated into sound faith and good conversation. This experience of
+parish work must have been of the greatest value to the future bishop,
+for the tragedy and comedy of life is just as visible in the smallest
+village as it is in the largest empire. The cloister-bred lad must have
+learnt on this small organ to play that good part which he afterwards
+was called upon to play upon a larger instrument. One instance is
+recorded of his discipline. A case of open adultery came under his
+notice. He sent for the man and gave him what he considered to be a
+suitable admonition. The offender replied with threats and abuse. Hugh,
+gospel in hand, pursued him first with two and then with three
+witnesses, offering pardon upon reform and penance. No amendment was
+promised. Both guilt and scandal continued. Then Hugh waited for a
+festival, and before a full congregation rebuked him publicly, declared
+the greatness of his sin, handed him over to Satan for the death of his
+flesh with fearful denunciations, except he speedily came to his senses.
+The man was thunderstruck, and brought to his knees at a blow. With
+groans and tears he confessed, did penance (probably at the point of the
+deacon's stick), was absolved and received back to the fold; so
+irresistible was this young administrator who knew St. Augustine's
+advice that "in reproof, if one loves one's neighbour enough, one can
+even say anything to him."
+
+But Hugh was ill at ease in his charge, and his heart burned towards the
+mountains, where the Grande Chartreuse had revived the austerities of
+ancient monasticism. It seemed so grand to be out of and above the
+world, in solitary congregation, with hair shirt, hard diet, empty flesh
+pot, and full library, in the deep silence and keen air of the
+mountains. Here hands that had gripped the sword and the sceptre were
+turned to the spade and lifted only in prayer. There were not only the
+allurements of hardship, but also his parents' faith and his own early
+lessons tugging at his heart strings. He found means to go with his
+prior into the awful enclosure, and the austere passion seized him. He
+told his heart's desire to an old ex-baron, who probably felt some alarm
+that a young gentleman who had campaigned so slightly in the plains of
+active life should aspire to dwell upon these stern hills of
+contemplation. "My dear boy, how dare you think of such a thing?" he
+answered, and then, looking at the refined young face before him, warned
+the deacon against the life. The men were harder than stones, pitiless
+to themselves and to others. The place dreary, the rule most burdensome.
+The rough robe would rake the skin and flesh from young bones. The harsh
+discipline would crush the very frame of tender youth.
+
+The other monks were less forbidding. They warmly encouraged the
+aspiration, and the pair returned to their home, Hugh struggling to hide
+the new fire from his aged friend. But the old man saw through the
+artless cloakings and was in despair. He used every entreaty to save
+Hugh for the good work he was doing, and to keep his darling at his
+side. Hugh's affectionate heart and ready obedience gave way, and he
+took a solemn oath not to desert his canonry, and so went back to his
+parishing.
+
+But then came, as it naturally would come to so charming and vigorous a
+lad, the strong return of that Dame Nature who had been so long forked
+forth by his cloistral life. A lady took a liking to this heavenly
+curate. Other biographers hint at this pathetic little romance, and
+cover up the story with tales of a wilderness of women; but the
+metrical biographer is less discreetly vague, and breaks into a tirade
+against that race of serpents, plunderers, robbers, net weavers, and
+spiders--the fair sex. Still, he cannot refrain from giving us a graphic
+picture of the presumptuous she-rascal who fell in love with Hugh, and
+although most of his copyists excise his thirty-nine graphic lines of
+Zuleika's portrait, the amused reader is glad to find that all were not
+of so edifying a mind. Her lovely hair that vied with gold was partly
+veiled and partly strayed around her ivory neck. Her little ear, a
+curved shell, bore up the golden mesh. Under the smooth clear white
+brow she had curved black eyebrows without a criss-cross hair in them,
+and these disclosed and heightened the clear white of the skin. And her
+nose, too--not flat nor arched, not long nor snub, but beyond the
+fineness of geometry, with light, soft breath, and the sweet scent of
+incense. Such shining eyes too: like emeralds starring her face with
+light! And the face, blended lilies and roses in a third lovely hue that
+one could not withdraw one's eyes from beholding. The gentle pout of her
+red lips seemed to challenge kisses. Shining as glass, white as a bell
+flower, she had a breast and head joined by a noble poised throat, which
+baited the very hook of love. Upon her lily finger she wore a red and
+golden ring. Even her frock was a miracle of millinery. This lovely
+creature, complete to a nail, much disturbed the mind of Hugh, and
+played her pretty tricks upon her unexercised pastor: now demure, now
+smiling, now darting soft glances, now reining in her eyes. But he, good
+man, was rock or diamond. At last the fair creature actually stroked
+his arm, and then Hugh was startled into a panic. His experience and
+training had not been such as to fit him to deal with situations of this
+sort. He fled. He cut out the skin of the arm where her rosy fingers had
+rested. He found it impossible to escape from the sight of many fair
+maids of Burgundy. Zuleika was fascinating enough, but his original Adam
+within (whom he called Dalilah) was worse. He forsook his post, broke
+his vow, and bolted to the Grande Chartreuse.
+
+One modern biographer, who is shocked at his perjury to the prior, would
+no doubt have absolved him if he had married the lass against his
+canonic vows. Another thinks him most edifyingly liberal in his
+interpretation of duty. Is there any need to forestall Doomsday in these
+matters? The poor fellow was in both a fix and a fright. Alas! that
+duties should ever clash! His own view is given with his own
+decisiveness. "No! I never had a scruple at all about it. I have always
+felt great delight of mind when I recall the deed which started me upon
+so great an undertaking." The brothers of the Charterhouse gladly took
+him in, the year being about 1160, and his age about twenty, let us say;
+hardly an age anyhow which would fit him for dealing with pert minxes
+and escaping the witcheries of the beauty which still makes beautiful
+old hexameters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+BROTHER HUGH
+
+
+"Ye might write th' doin's iv all th' convents iv th' wurruld on the
+back of a postage stamp, an' have room to spare," says Mr. Dooley; and
+we rather expect some hiatus in our history here. Goodbye to beef,
+butter, and good red wheat; white corn, sad vegetables, cold water,
+sackcloth take their place, with fasts on bread and water, and festivals
+mitigated by fish. Goodbye to pillows and bolsters and linen shirts.
+Welcome horse-hair vests, sacking sheets, and the "bitter bite of the
+flea,"--sad entertainment for gentlemen! Instead of wise and merry talk,
+wherein he excelled, solitary confinement in a wooden cell (the brethren
+now foist off a stone one upon credulous tourists) with willing slavery
+to stern Prior Basil. The long days of prayer and meditation, the nights
+short with psalmody, every spare five minutes filled with reading,
+copying, gardening and the recitation of offices. All these the novice
+took with gusto, safe hidden from the flash of emerald eyes and the
+witchery of hypergeometrical noses. But temptation is not to be kept out
+by the diet of Adam and of Esau, by locked doors, spades, and inkpots.
+The key had hardly turned upon the poor refugee when he found he had
+locked in his enemies with him. His austerities redoubled, but as he
+says he "only beat the air" until He who watches over Israel without
+slumber or sleep laid His hand upon him and fed him with a hidden manna,
+so fine and so plentiful that the pleasures of life seemed paltry after
+the first taste of it. After this experience our Hugh used to be
+conscious always of a Voice and a Hand, giving him cheer and strength,
+although the strong appetites of his large nature troubled him to the
+last. Here Hugh devoured books, too, until the time floated by him all
+too fleetly.
+
+His great affectionate heart poured itself out upon wild birds and
+squirrels which came in from the beech and pine woods, and learned to
+feed from his platter and his fingers. It is difficult to read with
+patience that his prior, fearing lest he should enjoy these innocent
+loves too much, and they would "hinder his devotion," banished these
+pretty dears from the dreary cell. But in charity let us suppose that
+the prior more than supplied their place, for Hugh was told off to tend
+a weak old monk, to sing him the offices, and to nurse the invalid. This
+godly old man, at once his schoolmaster and his patient, sounded him
+whether he wished to be ordained priest. When he learned that, as far as
+lay in Hugh he desired nothing more, he was greatly shocked, and reduced
+his nurse-pupil to tears by scolding him for presumption; but he
+presently raised him from his knees and prophesied that he would soon be
+a priest and some day a bishop. Hugh was soon after this ordained
+priest, and was distinguished for the great fervour of his behaviour in
+celebrating the Mass "as if he handled a visible Lord Saviour"--a
+touching devoutness which never left him, and which contrasted
+strikingly with the perfunctory, careless or bored ways of other
+priests. He injured his health by over-abstinence, one effect of which
+was to cause him to grow fat, Nature thus revenging herself by
+fortifying his frame against such ill-treatment.
+
+In the talk time after Nones, the brothers had much to hear about the
+storms which raged outside their walls. It is rather hard for us
+nowadays to see things through Charterhouse spectacles. There is
+our lord the Pope, Alexander III., slow and yet persistent, wrestling
+hard with the terrible Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who is often
+marching away to seiges of Milan, reducing strong rogues and
+deeply wronging the church (whose forged documents are all purely
+genuine). Then what a hubbub there is in the church! Monstrous
+anti-popes, one of whom, Victor, dies, and a satanic bishop Henry of
+Liege consecrates another, Pascal, and the dismal schism continues. Then
+our lord Alexander returns to Rome, and the Emperor slaughters the
+Romans and beseiges their city and enthrones Pascal. There
+are big imperial plans afoot, unions of East and West, which end in
+talk: but Sennacherib Frederick is defeated by a divine and opportune
+pestilence. Then Pascal dies, and the schism flickers, the Emperor
+crawls to kiss the foot of St. Peter, and finally, in 1179, Alexander
+reigns again in Rome for a space. Meantime, Louis VII., a pious
+Crusader, and dutiful son of the Regulars, plays a long, and mostly a
+losing, game of buffets with Henry of Anjou, lord of Normandy, Maine,
+Touraine, Poitou, Aquitaine and Gascony, and leader of much else
+besides, King also of England, and conqueror of Ireland--a terrible man,
+who had dared to aspire to hang priestly murderers. He has forced some
+awful Constitutions of Clarendon upon a groaning church, or a church
+which ought to groan and does not much, but rather talks of the laws and
+usage of England being with the king. But the noble Thomas has withstood
+him, and is banished and beggared and his kith and kin with him. The
+holy man is harboured by our good Cistercian brothers of Pontigny, where
+he makes hay and reaps and see visions. He is hounded thence. These
+things ignite wars, and thereout come conferences. Thomas will not
+compromise, and even Louis fretfully docks his alimony and sends him
+dish in hand to beg; but he, great soul, is instant in excommunication,
+whereafter come renewed brawls, fresh (depraved) articles. Even the
+king's son is crowned by Roger of York, "an execration, not a
+consecration." At last (woeful day!) Thomas goes home still cursing, and
+gets his sacred head split open, and thus wins the day, and has immense
+glory and sympathy, which tames the fierce anti-anarchist king. He, too,
+kneels to our lord Alexander, and swears to go crusading in three years'
+time, meanwhile paying Templars to do it for him. All this comes out in
+driblets after Nones, and brings us to 1171 A.D., brother Hugh being
+aged about one and thirty. When the old monk died Hugh was given another
+old man to wait upon--Peter, the Archbishop of Tarentaise, who came
+there often for retreat and study. This renowned old man had been a
+friend of St. Bernard, and was a great stickler and miracle worker for
+Alexander III., and he was a delegate to make peace between Henry and
+Louis, when he died in 1174. Hugh found his quotations, compiled any
+_catena_ he wished to make, retrieved saintly instances, washed his
+feet, walked with him, and sat with him on a seat between two large fir
+trees, which seat "miraculously grew no higher, as the trees grew." In
+this manner Hugh knew and was known of the outside world, for Archbishop
+Peter was a man of large following and acquaintance.
+
+And now Hugh is made, wincingly, the procurator or bursar of the Grande
+Chartreuse, after he has spent eight years there, and is plunged in a
+sea of worldly business. The prior makes good use of his tact, business
+capacity, and honourable nature. He had thought and read to some
+purpose, for he ruled the lay brothers with diligence, and instructed
+the monks with great care, stirring up the sluggish and bitting the
+heady into restfulness. He did his worldly work vigorously, and turned
+it swiftly to spiritual gain. He had strong wine of doctrine for the
+chapter-house, milk for the auditorium. The secular people, if they were
+rich, he taught not to trust in riches; if they were poor, he refreshed
+them with such rations as the Order allowed. If he had nothing else, he
+always had a kind and cheery word to give. Among the travellers must
+have been many noble postmen, who carried letters in their hands and
+messages in their heads from Henry to Humbert of Maurienne, who held the
+keys of all the Alpine roads to Italy and Germany and whose infant
+daughter was betrothed to the boy John Lackland with dowries disputable,
+whereat Henry junior rebels, and makes uncommon mischief. The
+procurator was keen and accurate in his work. He never mislaid the
+books, forgot, fumbled, or made a "loiter," _morantia_, as they called
+it, when the office halted or was unpunctual. The lay brethren did not
+have to cough at any trips in his reading, which was their quaint way of
+rebuking mistakes.
+
+Henry II. was reconciled in 1172 and his crusade was to begin in 1175;
+but during these years his dominions were in constant flame. Scotland
+and France harried him. His sons leagued against him. His nobles rose.
+He fought hard battles, did humble penances at St. Thomas' tomb, and
+came out victorious, over his political and ecclesiastical opponents
+too, and began again the ordering of his unruly realms. What a rough and
+tumble world the Chronicles reveal as we turn them over! There is a
+crusade in Asia Minor in 1176. Manuel Commenus relates his success and
+failure. There are heretics in Toulouse who are Puritans, half Quaker
+and half Arian, condemned by a Council of Lombers, 1176. Next year Henry
+seems to have begun his penance, which was commuted from a crusade into
+three religious foundations, and rather shabbily he did it. Some people
+try to put Newstead in Selwood in the list, but this was founded in
+1174; and Le Liget has been mentioned, a Charterhouse in Touraine
+founded in 1178. The most probable explanation is this. Henry tried to
+do the penance (a) by buying out the Secular Canons of Waltham at a
+price determined by Archbishop Richard. He replaced these by Canons
+Regular under Walter de Cant. He then endowed them handsomely and had
+papal authority for this. (b) He found this so expensive that he tried
+to do the other two more cheaply. A scandal had arisen in Amesbury. He
+expelled the incontinent nuns, and brought over from Font Evroult a
+colony of more devout ladies in their room. The chroniclers show that
+this evasion was severely commented upon, and we may conclude that Le
+Liget was a tardy substitute--a cheap strip of forest land granted to an
+order which was celebrated for its dislike of covetousness, and whose
+rules required manual labour and a desert (and so valueless) land. Le
+Liget, be it noticed, is founded after the peace of Venice has given
+more power to the Papal elbow. The Lateran Council is also a little
+threatening towards King Henry in March, 1179, particularly on the
+question of the ferocity of mercenaries. Young Philip Augustus is also
+evidently succeeding his waning father, and generally speaking it is
+better to be conciliatory and to admit that the Amesbury plan was
+perhaps insufficient. At any rate, it is well to found another house:
+Carthusians of course, for they are holy, popular, and inexpensive.
+Henry, who was generous enough for lepers, hospitals, and active
+workers, did not usually care very much for contemplative orders, though
+his mother, the Empress Matilda, affected the Cistercians and founded
+the De Voto Monastery near Calais, and he inherited something from her.
+These considerations may have first prompted and then fortified Henry's
+very slow and reluctant steps in the work of founding Witham, in
+substance and not in shadow. It is also quite possible that he had not
+entirely given up the notion of going on a crusade after all.
+
+The first attempt was little more than a sketch. 5,497 acres were
+marked off for the new house, in a wet corner of Selwood forest. But the
+land was not transferred from William FitzJohn and the villeins were not
+evicted or otherwise disposed of. The place was worse than a desert, for
+it contained possessors not dispossessed. The poor monks, few and
+unprepared, who came over at their own expense, probably expecting a
+roof and a welcome, found their mud flat was inhabited by indignant
+Somersetae, whose ways, manners, language, and food were unknown to them.
+The welcome still customarily given in these parts to strangers was
+warmer than usual. The foreign English, even if their lands were not
+pegged out for Charterhouses, were persuaded that the brethren were
+landsharks of the most omnivorous type. The poor prior quailed,
+despaired, and hastily bolted, leaving an old and an angry monkish
+comrade to face the situation with a small company of lay brothers.
+Another prior arrived, and to the vexation of the king shuffled off his
+maltreated coil in a very short time. After spending Christmas (1179-80)
+in Nottingham, the king crossed into Normandy with young Henry before
+Easter, meaning to avenge the wrongs Philip Augustus did to his
+relatives. Here most probably it was that a noble of the region of
+Maurienne (come no doubt upon business of the impending war), chatted
+with him about the Charterhouse. He paid a warm tribute to Hugh in words
+of this kind, "My lord king, there is only one sure way of getting free
+from these straits. There is in the Charterhouse a certain monk, of high
+birth but far higher moral vigour. His name is Hugh of Avalon. He
+carries on him all the grace of the virtues; but besides, every one who
+knows him takes to him and likes him, so that all who see him find their
+hearts fairly caught. Those who are privileged to hear him talk are
+delighted to find his speech divinely or angelically inspired. If the
+new plantation of this most holy order in your lands should deserve to
+have this man to dress and rule it, you will see it go joyfully forward
+straight away towards fruiting in every grace. Moreover, as I am
+certain, the whole English Church will be very greatly beautified by the
+radiance of his most pure religion and most religious purity. But his
+people will not easily let him go from their house, and he will never go
+to live elsewhere unless it be under compulsion and against his will, so
+your legation must be strong and strenuous: you must struggle to compass
+the matter even with urgent prayers until you get this man and him only.
+Then for the future your mind will be released from the anxieties of
+this care, and this lofty religion will make a noble growth to your
+excellency's renown. You will discover in this one man, with the whole
+circle of the other virtues, whatever mortal yet has shown of
+longsuffering, sweetness, magnanimity, and meekness. No one will dislike
+him for a neighbour or house-mate; no one will avoid him as a foreigner.
+No one will hold him other than a fellow politically, socially, and by
+blood, for he regards the whole race of men as part and parcel of
+himself, and he takes all men and comforts them in the arms and lap of
+his unique charity." The king was delighted with this sketch, and sent
+off post haste Reginald, Bishop of Bath (in whose diocese Witham lay),
+and an influential embassage to secure the treasure, if it could be
+done.
+
+But the man who was being sought had just about then been finding the
+burden of this flesh so extremely heavy that he was more inclined to run
+riot in the things that do not belong to our peace than to settle
+comfortably upon a saint's pedestal or to take up a new and disagreeably
+dull work. The fatal temptations of forty, being usually unexpected, are
+apt to upset the innocent more surely than are the storms of youth; and
+poor Hugh was now so badly tried that the long life of discipline must
+have seemed fruitless. He just escaped, as he told his too-little
+reticent biographer, from one nearly fatal bout by crying out, "By Thy
+passion, cross, and life-giving death, deliver me." But neither frequent
+confession, nor floggings, nor orisons, seemed to bring the clean and
+quiet heart. He was much comforted by a vision of his old prior Basil,
+who had some days before migrated to God. This dear old friend and
+father stood by him radiant in face and robe, and said with a gentle
+voice, "Dearest son, how is it with thee? Why this face down on the
+ground? Rise, and please tell thy friend the exact matter." Hugh
+answered, "Good father, and my most kind nurser, the law of sin and
+death in my members troubles me even to the death, and except I have thy
+wonted help, thy lad will even die." "Yes, I will help thee." The
+visitor took a razor in his hand and cut out an internal inflamed
+tumour, flung it far away, blessed his patient, and disappeared, leaving
+no trace of his surgery in heart or flesh. Hugh told this story in his
+last illness to Adam, his chaplain, and added that though after this the
+flesh troubled him, its assaults were easy to scorn and to repress,
+though always obliging him to walk humbly.
+
+The king's messengers took with them the Bishop of Grenoble and unfolded
+their errand. The Charterhouse was horrified, and the prior most of all.
+He delayed a reply. The first prior refused the request. The votes
+varied. Bovo, a monk who afterwards succeeded to Witham, declared
+strongly that it was a divine call, that the holiness of the order might
+be advertised to the ends of the earth. Hugh was too large a light to
+keep under their bushel. He seems better fitted to be a bishop than a
+monk, he said. Hugh was then bidden to speak. He told them that with all
+the holy advice and examples about him he had never managed to keep his
+own soul for one day, so how could any wise person think him fit to rule
+other folk? Could he set up a new house, if he could not even keep the
+rules of the old one? This is childishness and waste of time. "Let us
+for the future leave such matters alone, and since the business is hard
+and urgent do you only occupy yourselves to see that this king's
+undertaking be frittered no longer away half done, to the peril of souls
+and the dishonour of the holy order, and so from among you or from your
+other houses choose a man fit for this work and send him with these men.
+Since these are wise, do you too answer them wisely. Grant their desire,
+not their request. Give them a man not such as they seek under a
+mistake, but such as they devoutly and discreetly demand. It is not
+right that men should be heard unadvisedly who mistake the man of their
+request and who do not really want to be mistaken in the man's
+qualifications. So, in a word, do not grant their request, but cheer
+them by bettering it." The prior and Hugh were of one decision. The
+former declared point blank that he would not say go, and finally he
+turned to the Carthusian Bishop of Grenoble, "our bishop, father, and
+brother in one," and bade him decide. The bishop accepted the
+responsibility, reminded them of the grief which arose when St. Benedict
+sent forth St. Maur to Western Gaul, and exhorted Hugh that the Son of
+God had left the deepest recess of His Deity to be manifest for the
+salvation of many. "You too must pilgrimage for a little time from your
+dearest, breaking for a while the silence of the quiet you have loved."
+After much interruption from Hugh, the sentence was given. They all
+kissed him and sent him away forthwith. The king received him with much
+graciousness and ordered him to be carried honourably to Witham, and the
+wretched remnant in the mud flat received him as an angel of God. Well
+they might do so, for they seemed to have passed a melancholy winter in
+twig huts, now called "weeps," in a little paled enclosure, not only
+without the requisites of their order, but with barely bread to their
+teeth. There was no monastery, not even a plan of one. William FitzJohn
+and his clayey serfs scowled upon the shivering interlopers, uncertain
+what injustice might be done to them and to their fathers' homes, in
+sacrifices to the ghost of St. Thomas.
+
+Witham is a sort of glorified soup-plate, still bearing traces of its
+old Selwood Forest origin, for the woodlands ring round it. The infant
+river Avon creeps through its clayey bottom, and there are remains of
+the old dams which pent it into fish-ponds. Of the convent nothing
+remains except a few stumps in a field called "Buildings," unless the
+stout foundations of a room, S.E. of the church, called the
+reading-room, mark the guest house, as tradition asserts. Much of the
+superstructure of this cannot go back beyond the early sixteenth
+century, but the solid walls, the small size (two cottage area), allow
+of the fancy that here was the site of many colloquies between our Hugh
+and Henry Fitz-Empress.{1}
+
+The church itself is one of the two erected by St. Hugh, partly with his
+own hands. It is the lay brothers' church (called since pre-Franciscan
+days, the Friary). The conventual church has left no wrack behind. The
+style is entirely Burgundian, a single nave, with Romanesque windows,
+ending in an apse. The "tortoise" roof, of vaulted stone, is as lovely
+as it is severe. In 1760 the Tudor oaken bell-turret survived. The
+horrid story of how a jerry-built tower was added and the old
+post-Hugonian font built into it, how a new font was after long
+interval added, does not concern us. The tower was happily removed, the
+old font found and remounted (as if the text ran, "One faith, two
+baptisms"), and a stone nozzle built to uphold three bells. The
+buttresses are copied from St. Hugh's Lincoln work.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{1} The present Vicar is anxious to turn this place, which has been
+alternately cottages, a lock-up, and a reading-room, into a lecture hall
+and parish room; but the inhabitants, unworthy of their historical
+glories, seem rather disposed to let the old building tumble into road
+metal, to their great shame and reproach.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PRIOR HUGH
+
+
+It did not require much talent to see that the first requisite of the
+foundation was a little money, and consequently we find ten white pounds
+paid from the Exchequer to the Charterhouse brethren, and a note in the
+Great Life to say that the king was pleased with Hugh's modesty, and
+granted him what he asked for. Next there was a meeting of all who had a
+stake of any kind in the place, who would be obliged to be removed lest
+their noise and movement should break the deep calm of the community. It
+was put to each to choose whether he would like a place in any royal
+manor, with cottage and land equal to those they gave up, or else to be
+entirely free from serfdom, and to go where they chose. It is noteworthy
+that some chose one alternative, some the other, not finding villeinage
+intolerable. Next came the question of compensation for houses, crops,
+and improvements, that the transfer might be made without injustice but
+with joy on both sides. Here Henry boggled a little. "In truth, my
+lord," said the prior, "unless every one of them is paid to the last
+doight for every single thing the place cannot be given to us." So the
+king was forced to do a little traffic, which he considered to be a dead
+loss, and acquired some very old cottages with rotten rafters and
+cracked walls at a handsome price. The salesmen liked this new business;
+it filled their pockets, and they blessed the new influence. This good
+merchant had traded so as to gain both justice and mercy, but he tackled
+the king once more, with twinkling eye. "Well, my lord king, you see I
+am new and poor, yet I have enriched you in your own land with a number
+of houses." The king smiled. "I did not covet riches of this nature.
+They have made me almost a beggar, and I cannot tell of what good such
+goods may be." Hugh wanted this very answer. "Of course, of course," he
+rejoined, "I see you do not reck much of your purchase. It would befit
+your greatness if these dwellings were handed over to me, for I have
+nowhere to lay my head." The king opened his eyes and stared at his
+petitioner. "Thou wouldst be a fine landlord. Dost thou think we cannot
+build thee a new house? What on earth shouldest thou do with these?" "It
+does not befit royal generosity to ask questions about trifles. This is
+my first petition to thee, and why, when it is so small, should I be
+kept waiting about it?" The king merrily answered, "Hear the fellow!
+Almost using violence too, in a strange land. What would he do if he
+used force, when he gets so much out of us by words? Lest we should be
+served worse by him, he must have it so." The cat was soon out of the
+bag. Each house was presented back to the man who had sold it, either to
+sell or to remove as he chose, lest in any way Jerusalem should be
+built with blood.
+
+Then the building began, but no more; for the ten white pounds did not
+go far, and the workmen angrily and abusively asked for wages. A
+deputation went off to Henry, who was collecting troops and dismissing
+them, ordering, codifying, defending, enlarging and strengthening his
+heterogeneous empire. Now he was on one side of the sea, now on the
+other. He promised succour, and the brethren brought back--promises. The
+work stopped, and the Prior endured in grim silence. Another embassage
+is sent, and again the lean wallets return still flabby. Then the
+brethren began to turn their anger against the Prior. He was slothful
+and neglectful for not approaching the king in person (although the man
+was abroad and busy). Brother Gerard, a white-haired gentleman, "very
+successful in speaking to the great and to princes," fell upon his
+superior for glozing with a hard-hearted king and not telling him
+instantly to complete the buildings under pain of a Carthusian stampede.
+Not only was the Order wronged, but themselves were made fools of, who
+had stuck so long there without being able even to finish their mere
+dolls' houses. Brother Gerard himself would be delighted to din
+something into the King's ears in the presence of his prior. To this all
+the brethren said "Aye." Hugh gratefully accepted their counsel, and
+added, "All the same, Brother Gerard, you will have to see to it that
+you are as modest as you are free in your discourse. It may well be,
+that in order to be able to know us well, that sagaciously clever and
+inscrutable minded prince pretends not to hear us, just to prove our
+mettle. Doubtless he knows that it belongs to that perfection which we
+profess to fulfil, that lesson of our Lord which tells us, 'In your
+patience ye shall possess your souls,' and that too of most blessed
+Paul, 'In all things let us shew forth ourselves as the ministers of
+God, in much patience.' But much patience is assured in this, if much
+longsuffering bears with much gentleness much that opposes and thwarts.
+For patience without longsuffering will not be much, but short; and
+without gentleness will merely not exist." So said, Hugh Gerard and old
+Ainard (a man of immense age and curious story) set out to the king.
+They were all received like angels, with honour, polite speeches,
+excuses, instant promises, but neither cash nor certain credit. Then
+Gerard fumed and forgot the advice of his superior, and broke out into a
+furious declaration that he was off and quit of England, and would go
+back to his Alpine rocks, and not conflict with a man who thought it
+lost labour to be saved. "Let him keep the riches he loves so well. He
+will soon lose them, and leave them to some ungrateful heir or other.
+Christ ought not to share in them; no, nor any good Christian." These,
+and harsher words, too, were Gerard's coaxes. Poor Hugh used often, in
+after life, to remember them with horror. He got red and confused. He
+told his brother to speak gentlier, to eschew such terms, or even to
+hold his tongue: but Gerard (of holy life, grey head, and gentle blood)
+scolded on without bridle. Henry listened in a brown study. Neither by
+look, nor word, did he appear hit. He let the monk rate, kept silence
+and self control, and when the man had talked himself out, and an
+awkward silence reigned, he glanced at Hugh's confused and downcast
+face. "Well, good man," he said, "and what are you thinking about within
+yourself? You are not preparing to go off too, and leave our kingdom to
+us, are you?" The answer came humbly and gently, but with perfect
+manliness. "I do not despair of you so far, my lord. I am rather sorry
+for all your hindrances and business, which block the salutary studies
+of your soul. You are busy, and when God helps, we shall get on well
+with these health-giving projects." Henry felt the spell at once; flung
+his arms round Hugh, and said with an oath, "By my soul's salvation,
+while I live and breathe, thou shalt never depart from my kingdom. With
+thee I will share my life's plans, and the needful studies of my soul."
+The money was found at once, and a royal hint given. The demon blood of
+the Angevins, which frightened most men, and kept Henry in loneliness,
+had no terrors for Hugh; and Henry could hardly express the pleasure he
+felt in a rare friendship which began here. He loved and honoured no
+other man so much, for he had found a man who sympathised with him
+without slavishness, and whose good opinion was worth having. This close
+friendship, combined with physical likeness, made it generally believed
+that Hugh was Henry's own son. Hugh did not always agree with the king,
+and if he felt strongly that any course was bad for king and kingdom
+would say so roundly in direct words of reproof, but withal so
+reasonably and sweetly that he made "the rhinoceros harrow the valleys"
+after him, as his biographer quaintly puts it, glancing at Job. The
+counsel was not limited to celestial themes. Hugh checked his temper,
+softened his sentences, and got him to do good turns to churches and
+religious places. He unloosed the king's rather tight fist, and made him
+a good almsgiver. One offence Hugh was instant in rebuking--the habit of
+keeping bishoprics and abbacies vacant. He used also to point out that
+unworthy bishops were the grand cause of mischiefs in God's people,
+which mischiefs they cherished, caused to wax and grow great. Those who
+dared to promote or favour such were laying up great punishments against
+the Doomsday. "What is the need, most wise prince, of bringing dreadful
+death on so many souls just to get the empty favour of some person, and
+the loss of so many folk redeemed by Christ's death? You invoke God's
+anger, and you heap up tortures for yourself hereafter." Hugh was for
+free canonical election, with no more royal interference than was
+required to prevent jobbery and quicken responsibility.
+
+The two friends visited each other often, and the troubles of Henry's
+last years were softened for him by his ghostly friend. It is quite
+possible that Hugh's hand may be traced in the resignation of Geoffrey
+Plantagenet, the king's dear illegitimate son, who was (while a mere
+deacon) bishop-elect of Lincoln from 1173 to 1181. From the age of
+twenty to twenty-eight he enjoyed the revenues of that great see without
+consecration. The Pope objected to his birth and his youth. Both
+obstacles could have been surmounted, but Geoffrey resigns his claims in
+the Epiphany of the latter year, and gets a chancellorship with five
+hundred marks in England and the same in Normandy. His case is a bold
+instance of "that divorce of salary from duty" which even in those times
+was thoroughly understood.
+
+There is a story, one might almost say the usual story, of the storm at
+sea. The king with a fleet is between Normandy and England, when a
+midnight storm of super-Virgilian boisterousness burst upon them. After
+the manner of Erasmus' shipwreck, every one prays, groans, and invokes
+both he and she saints. The king himself audibly says, "Oh, if only my
+Charterhouse Hugh were awake and instant at his secret prayers, or if
+even he were engaged with the brethren in the solemn watch of the divine
+offices, God would not so long forget me." Then, with a deep groan, he
+prayed, "God, whom the William Prior serves in truth, by his
+intervention and merits, take kindly pity upon us, who for our sins are
+justly set in so sore a strait." Needless to say the storm ceased at
+once, and Henry felt that he was indeed upon the right tack, both
+nautically and spiritually. Whatever view we take of this tale (storms
+being frequent, and fervent prayers of the righteous availing much), the
+historic peep into King Henry's mind is worth our notice. The simplicity
+and self-abasement of his ejaculation shew a more religious mind than
+some would allow to him.
+
+Anyhow, the prior was hard at work. He soon transformed the "weeps" into
+stone. He built the two houses, the friary for the lay brethren and the
+monastery for the monks. He prayed, read, meditated and preached. His
+body slept, but his heart woke, and he repeated "Amens" innumerable in
+his holy dreams. On feast days, when the brethren dined together, he
+ate with them, and then he had the meal sauced with reading. If he ate
+alone, he had a book by his trencher of dry bread rarely garnished with
+relishes. A water pot served him for both flagon and tureen. He allowed
+himself one little human enjoyment. A small bird called a burnet made
+friends with him and lived in his cell, ate from his fingers and his
+trencher, and only left him at the breeding season, after which it
+brought its fledged family back with it. This little friend lived for
+three years with the prior, and to his great grief came no more in the
+fourth. The learned have exhausted their arts to discover what a burnet
+can be, and have given up the chase. Some would have him to be a
+barnacle goose, others a dab-chick or coot--none of which can fairly be
+classed as _aviculae_ small birds. Burnet is brown or red brown, and
+rather bright at that. We have it in Chaucer's "Romaunt of the Rose"
+[4756]:
+
+    "For also welle wole love be sette
+    Under ragges as rich rochette,
+    And else as wel be amourettes
+    In mournyng blak, as bright burnettes."
+
+Consequently if the reader likes to guess (in default of knowledge) he
+might do worse than think of the Robin Redbreast as a likely candidate.
+He is called in Celtic Broindeag, is a small, friendly, crumb-eating,
+and burnet bird, and behaves much as these ancient legends describe. The
+name burnet still survives in Somerset.
+
+Not only the burnet bird felt the fascination of the prior, but monks
+drew towards Witham and men of letters also. Men of the world would
+come to be taught the vanity of their wisdom; clergy whose dry times
+afflicted them found a rich meal of Witham doctrine well worth the spare
+diet of the place. The prior by no means courted his public, and the
+Order itself was not opened at every knuckle tap. Even those who were
+admitted did not always find quite what they wanted. We read of one man,
+a Prior of Bath, who left the Charterhouse because he "thought it better
+to save many souls than one," and returned to what we should call parish
+work. Alexander of Lewes, a regular Canon, well versed in the
+_quadrivium_ (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), found the
+solitude intolerable to his objective wits. He was not convinced of the
+higher spirituality of co-operative hermitages. He found it too heavy to
+believe that there was no Christendom outside the Charterhouse plot, and
+no way of salvation except for a handful of mannikins. Alexander, with
+stinging and satiric terms, left in a huff, followed by acrimonious
+epithets from his late brethren. He became a monk at Reading, and filled
+a larger part upon a more spacious stage, and yet would have most gladly
+returned; but the strait cell was shut to him relentlessly and for ever.
+Andrew, erst sacristan of Muchelney, was another who left the Order for
+his first love, but his dislike of the life was less cogently put. It
+was not exactly that the prior could not brook opposition: but he hated
+a man who did not know his own mind, and nothing would induce him to
+allow an inmate who eddied about.
+
+The Charterhouse now had ecclesiastical independence. The bishop's power
+ended outside its pale. Bruton Convent could tithe the land no more,
+nor feed their swine or cattle there, nor cut fuel, instead of which
+the rectory of South Petherton, and its four daughter chapelries, was
+handed over to this bereaved convent. This was in April, 1181. This
+transaction was some gain to the game-loving king, for the Withamites
+ate neither pork nor beef, and so the stags had freer space and more
+fodder.
+
+But nevertheless the monks' poverty was almost ludicrous. Hugh wanted
+even a complete and accurate copy of the scriptures, which he used to
+say were the solitary's delight and riches in peace, his darts and arms
+in war, his food in famine and his medicine in sickness. Henry asked why
+his scribes did not make copies. The answer was that there was no
+parchment. "How much money do you want?" asked the king. "One silver
+mark," was the ungrasping request. Henry laughed and ordered ten marks
+to be counted out and promised a complete "divine library" besides. The
+Winchester monks had just completed a lovely copy (still in existence).
+King Henry heard from a student of this fine work and promptly sent for
+the prior. With fair words and fine promises he asked for the Bible. The
+embarrassed monk could not well say no, and the book was soon in Hugh's
+hands. This Prior Robert shortly after visited Witham and politely hoped
+the copy was satisfactory. If not, a better one could be made, for great
+pains had been taken by St. Swithun's brethren to make this one
+agreeably to their own use and custom. Hugh was astonished. "And so the
+king has beguiled your Church thus of your needful labour? Believe me,
+my very dear brother, the Library shall be restored to you instantly.
+And I beg most earnestly through you that your whole fraternity will
+deign to grant pardon to our humility because we have ignorantly been
+the occasion of this loss of their codex." The prior was in a fright, as
+well he might be, at the shadow of the king's wrath. He assured Hugh
+that his monks were all delighted at the incident. "To make their
+delight continue, we must all keep quiet about the honest restoration of
+your precious work. If you do not agree to take it back secretly, I
+shall restore it to him who sent it hither; but if you only carry it off
+with you, we shall give him no inkling of the matter." So the Winchester
+monks got back their Bible, and Witham got the said Prior Robert as one
+of its pupils instead, fairly captured by the electric personality of
+the Carthusian.
+
+Though Hugh's influence was very great, we must not quite suppose that
+the king became an ideal character even under his direction. There is an
+interregnum not only in Lincoln but in Exeter Diocese between Bishop
+Bartholomew and John the Chaunter, 1184-1186; one in Worcester between
+the translation of Baldwin and William de Northale, 1184-1186; and a bad
+one in York after the death of Roger, 1181, before King Richard
+appointed his half-brother Geoffrey aforementioned, who was not
+consecrated until August, 1191. But Hugh's chief work at Witham was in
+his building, his spiritual and intellectual influence upon the men he
+came to know, in the direction of personal and social holiness: and,
+above all, he was mastering the ways and works of England so
+sympathetically that he was able to take a place afterwards as no longer
+a Burgundian but a thorough son of the nation and the church. One
+instance may be given of his teaching and its wholesome outlook. He
+lived in an age of miracles, when these things were demanded with an
+insatiable appetite and supplied in a competitive plenty which seems
+equally inexhaustible, almost as bewildering to our age as our deep
+thirst for bad sermons and quack medicines will be to generations which
+have outgrown our superstitions. St. Hugh had drunk so deeply and
+utterly and with all his mind of the gravity and the humility which was
+traditional from the holy authors of the Carthusian Order, that "there
+was nothing he seemed to wonder at or to wish to copy less than the
+marvels of miracles. Still, when these were read or known in connection
+with holy men, he would speak of them gently and very highly respect
+them. He would speak of them, I say, as commending of those who showed
+them forth, and giving proof to those who marvelled at such things, for
+to him the great miracle of the saints was their sanctity, and this by
+itself was enough for guidance. The heartfelt sense of his Creator,
+which never failed him, and the overwhelming and fathomless number of
+His mighty works, were for him the one and all-pervading miracle." If we
+remember that Adam, his biographer, wrote these words not for us, but
+for his miracle-mongering contemporaries, they will seem very strong
+indeed. He goes on to say that all the same, whether Hugh knew it or
+not, God worked many miracles through him, as none of his intimates
+could doubt, and we could rather have wished that he had left the
+saint's opinion intact, for it breathes a lofty atmosphere of bright
+piety, and is above the controversies of our lower plane.
+
+The time was now coming when Witham had to lose its prior. Geoffrey
+(son, not of fair Rosamond, but of Hickenay) had resigned in January,
+1182. After sixteen months' hiatus, Walter de Coutances, a courtier, was
+elected, ordained, and consecrated, and enthroned December, 1183; but in
+fifteen months he was translated to the then central See of Rouen and
+the wretched diocese had another fifteen months without a bishop, during
+which time (April 15, 1185, on holy Monday) an earthquake cracked the
+cathedral from top to bottom.{2}
+
+In May, 1186, an eight-day council was held at Eynsham, and the king
+attended each sitting from his palace at Woodstock. Among other business
+done was the election, not very free election, to certain bishoprics and
+abbeys. Among the people who served or sauntered about the Court were
+the canons of Lincoln, great men of affairs, learned, and so wealthy
+that their incomes overtopped any bishop's rent-roll, and indeed they
+affected rather to despise bishoprics--until one offered. The See of
+Lincoln had been vacant (with one short exception) for nearly eighteen
+years. It contained ten of the shires of England--Lincoln, Leicester,
+Rutland, Northampton, Huntingdon, Cambridge, Bedford, Buckingham,
+Oxford, and Hertford. The canons chose three men, all courtiers, all
+rich, and all well beneficed, viz., their dean, Richard Fitz Neal, a
+bishop's bastard, who had bought himself into the treasurership; Godfrey
+de Lucy, one of their number, an extravagant son of Richard the chief
+justice; and thirdly another of themselves, Herbert le Poor, Archdeacon
+of Canterbury, a young man of better stuff. But the king declared that
+this time he would choose not by favour, blood, counsel, prayer, or
+price; but considering the dreadful abuses of the neglected diocese he
+wished for a really good bishop, and since the canons could not agree he
+pressed home to them the Prior of Witham, the best man and the
+best-loved one. With shouts of laughter the canons heard the jest and
+mentioned his worship, his habit, and his talk, as detestable; but the
+king's eye soon changed their note, and after a little foolishness they
+all voted for the royal favourite. The king approves, the nobles and
+bishops applaud, my lord of Canterbury confirms, and all seems settled.
+The canons rode off to Witham to explain the honours they have
+condescended to bestow upon its prior. He heard their tale, read their
+letters. Then he astonished their complacency by telling them that he
+could understand the king's mind in the matter and that of Archbishop
+Baldwin, himself a Cistercian; but that they, the canons, had not acted
+freely. They ought to choose a ruler whose yoke and ways they could
+abide, and, moreover, they ought not to hold their election in the Court
+or the pontifical council, but in their own chapter. "And so, to tell
+you my small opinion, you must know that I hold all election made in
+this way to be absolutely vain and void." He then bade them go home and
+ask for God's blessing, and choose solely by the blessing and help of
+the Holy Ghost, looking not to king's, bishop's, nor any man's approval.
+"That is the only answer to return from my littleness. So go, and God's
+good angel be with you." They begged him to reconsider it, to see the
+king or the archbishop; but the prior was inflexible, and they left the
+Guest House in wonder not unmixed with delight. The king's man was not
+the pet boor they had taken him for, but single-eyed, a gentleman, a
+clever fellow, and a good churchman. The very men who had cried out that
+they had been tricked now elected him soon and with one consent; and off
+they post again to Witham.
+
+This time he read the letters first, and then heard their tale and
+expressed his wonder that men so wise and mannerly should take such
+pains to court an ignoramus and recluse, to undertake such unwonted and
+uncongenial cares, but they must be well aware that he was a monk and
+under authority. He had to deal not with the primate and chief of the
+English Church in this matter, but with his superior overseas, and so
+they must either give up the plan altogether or undertake a toilsome
+journey to the Charterhouse; for none but his own prior could load his
+shoulders with such a burden. In vain they argued. A strong embassy had
+to be sent, and sent it was without delay, and the Chartreuse Chapter
+made no bones about it, but charged brother Hugh to transfer his
+obedience to Canterbury; and thus the burden of this splendid unhappy
+See was forced upon the shoulders which were most able to bear the
+weight of it.
+
+One would be glad to know what Henry thought of it all, and whether he
+liked the tutoring his courtiers got and were about to get. The humour,
+shrewdness, tact, and piety combined must have appealed to his
+many-sided mind and now saddened heart. He had lost his heir and was
+tossed upon stormy seas, so perhaps he had small leisure to spare for
+the next act of the drama.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{2} The king crossed to Normandy the very next day, and it is possible
+that this was the date of the sea scene mentioned above.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE BISHOP ELECT AND CONSECRATE
+
+
+Hugh knew well enough what the Chartreuse Chapter would say if the
+English meant to have him, and so he began his preparations at once.
+Other men fussed about fine copes, chasubles, and mitres, and dogged the
+clerical tailors, or pottered about in goldsmiths' shops to get a grand
+equipment of goblets. To him the approaching dignity was like a black
+cloud to a sailor, or a forest of charging lances to the soldier under
+arms. He fell hard to prayer and repentance, to meditation upon the
+spiritual needs of his new duties, lest he should have holy oil on his
+head and a dry and dirty conscience. He gave no time to the _menu_ of
+the banquet, to the delicacies, the authorities, and the
+lacquey-smoothed amenities of the new life. He was racked with misery at
+the bare imagination of the fruitless trouble of palace business
+exchanged for the fruitful quiet of his cell. He feared that psalms
+would give way to tussles, holy reading to cackle, inward meditation to
+ugly shadows, inward purity to outer nothingness. His words to the
+brethren took a higher and a humbler tone, which surprised them, for
+even they were used to see bishoprics looked upon as plums, and sought
+with every device of dodgery. Yet here was a man who could keep his soul
+unhurt and cure the hurts of others, yet whose cry was, "In my house is
+neither bread nor clothing; make me not a ruler of the people." St.
+Augustine's fierce words upon the Good Shepherd and the hireling were in
+his mind. "The soul's lawful husband is God. Whoso seeks aught but God
+from God is no chaste bride of God. See, brothers, if the wife loves her
+husband because he is rich she is not chaste. She loves, not her
+husband, but her husband's gold. For if she loves her husband she loves
+him bare, she loves him beggared." So Hugh prepared his soul as for a
+bridal with the coming bridegroom.
+
+When the inevitable command came, more than three months after his first
+election, he meekly set out for his duties at "the mount of the Lord,
+not Lebanon,{3} but Lincoln." He was white in dress, white in face, but
+radiant white within. He sat a horse without trappings, but with a roll
+of fleece and clothes, his day and night gear. Around him pricked his
+clergy upon their gold-buttoned saddles. They tried various devices to
+get his bundle away to carry it upon their own cruppers, but neither
+jest nor earnest could unstrap that homely pack. The truth was that he
+would not allow himself to change his old simple habits one jot, lest he
+should develop the carnal mind. So they drew across Salisbury Plain and
+on to Marlborough. Here was the Court and a great throng, and this
+public disgrace of the pack was too much for the Lincoln exquisites.
+They cut the straps of the objectionable bundle and impounded it. From
+Marlborough the cavalcade rode into London, and Hugh was consecrated on
+Sunday, September 21 (Feast of St. Matthew, the converted capitalist),
+1186. King Henry was in fine feather, and, forgetting his rather near
+habits, produced some fine gold plate, a large service of silver, a
+substantial set of pots and pans, and a good sum of ready money to meet
+the expenses of the festive occasion. Without some such help a penniless
+Carthusian could hardly have climbed up that Lebanon at all, unless by
+the sore scandal of a suit to the Lincoln Jewry. This handsome present
+was made at Marlborough. William de Northalle was consecrated Bishop of
+Worcester on the same day, of whom nothing else transpires than that he
+died not long after, and is supposed to have been an old and toothless
+bishop promoted for his ready fees. The place of consecration was
+Westminster Abbey, in its prae-Edwardian state, and so no longer extant.
+
+Hugh would undoubtedly sleep in the house in which he afterwards died.
+This lay at the back of Staple Inn, where the new bursar, whom the king
+had given him, bestowed the royal pots and crocks. Consecration like
+necessity brings strange bedfellows, and plain, cheap-habited Hugh, by
+gaudily trimmed William in his jewelled mitre, must have raised a few
+smiles that Sunday morning.
+
+Hugh's delays had ended with his prior's order, and he saw nothing now
+to stay his journey northwards. With him rode Gilbert de Glanville,
+Bishop of Rochester, a _malleus monachorum_, a great hammerer of monks,
+and perhaps told off for the duty of enthroning the new bishop to
+silence those who had a distaste for all monkery. Herbert le Poor, late
+rival candidate for the See, also pranced alongside with all the
+importance of a great functionary, whose archidiaconal duty it was to
+enthrone all bishops of the Province of Canterbury. For this duty he
+used to have the bishop's horse and trappings and much besides; but
+alas! the new man slept at St. Catherine's Priory on Michaelmas Eve and
+walked upon his bare toes to the cracked cathedral next morning. When he
+was fairly and ceremonially seated the archdeacon held out his practised
+palm for the customary fee (archdeacons are still fee-extracting
+creatures). He was astonished to hear the radical retort, "What I gave
+for my mitre" (it was a very cheap one) "that and no more will I give
+for my throne." Both Herbert and with him Simon Magus fell backward
+breathless at this blow.{4} But Hugh had a short way of demolishing his
+enemies, and the archdeacon appears hereafter as his stout follower
+knocked, no doubt, into a friend. All who were present at this ceremony
+had their penances remitted for thirteen days. Two other incidents are
+recorded of this time. One is that the bursar asked how many small
+fallow deer from the bishop's park should be killed for the inauguration
+feast. "Let three hundred be taken, and if you find more wanted do not
+stickle to add to this number." In this answer the reader must not see
+the witless, bad arithmetic of a vegetarian unskilled in catering, but a
+fine determination, first to feed all the poor folk of his metropolis
+with the monopolies of princes; and secondly, to sever himself wholly
+and dramatically from the accursed oppression of the game and forest
+laws. When Hugh told the story at Court it served as a merry jest, often
+broken, no doubt, against game (but not soul) preserving prelates, but,
+as the sequel shows, there was method in it. The other incident is that
+in the convent after Matins, on the morning of his enthronement, he
+slept and heard a voice which comforted his doubtful heart, too fearful
+lest this step should not be for the people's health or his own. "Thou
+hast entered for the waxing of thy people, for the waxing of salvation
+to be taken with thy Christ."
+
+The new bishop lived at his manor at Stowe (of which part of the moat
+and a farmhouse are now to be seen by the curious), a place parked and
+ponded deliciously. Almost as soon as he was installed a new swan came
+upon the waters, huge and flat-beaked, with yellow fleshings to his
+mandibles. This large wild bird dwarfed the tame swans into geese by
+comparison, and no doubt tame swans and geese were small things in those
+days compared to our selected fatlings. This bird drove off and killed
+the other swans, all but one female, with whom he companied but did not
+breed. The servants easily caught him and brought him to the bishop's
+room as a wonder. The beast-loving man, instead of sending him to the
+spit, offered him some bread, which he ate, and immediately struck up an
+enthusiastic friendship with his master, caring nothing for any throngs
+about him. After a time he would nestle his long neck far up into the
+bishop's wide sleeve, toying with him and asking him for things with
+pretty little clatterings. The bird seemed to know some days before he
+was due that he was coming, for it flapped about the lake and made
+cries. It would leave the water and stalk through the house walking wide
+in the legs. It would neither notice nor brook any other man, but rather
+seemed jealous, and would hiss and flap away the rest of the company. If
+the bishop slept or watched, the swan would keep dogs and other animals
+at bay. With true spiritual instinct it would peck hard at the calves of
+chaplains. If the bishop was abed no one was allowed near him without a
+most distressing scene, and there was no cajoling this zealous watchman.
+When the bishop went away the bird would retire to the middle of its
+pool, and merely condescend to take rations from the steward; but if its
+friend returned it would have none of servants. Even two years' interval
+made no difference to the faithful swan. It prophetically proclaimed his
+unexpected arrival. When the carts and forerunners arrived (with the
+household stuffs) the swan would push boldly in among the crowd and cry
+aloud with delight when at last it caught the sound of its master's
+voice, and it would go with him through the cloister to his room,
+upstairs and all, and could not be got out without force. Hugh fed it
+with fingers of bread he sliced with his own hand. This went on for
+nearly all Hugh's episcopate. But in his last Easter the swan seemed ill
+and sullen, and kept to his pond. After some chase they caught him in
+the sedge, and brought him in, the picture of unhappiness, with drooping
+head and trailing wing, before the bishop. The poor bird was to lose its
+friend six months after, and seemed to resent the cruel severance of
+coming death, though it was itself to live for many a day after its
+master had gone home to his rest. There, floating conspicuous on the
+lake, it reminded orphaned hearts of their innocent, kind, and pure
+friend who had lived patiently and fearlessly, and taken death with a
+song--the new song of the Redeemed.
+
+The first act of the new bishop was naturally to enlist captains for the
+severe campaign, and he ran his keen eye over England and beyond it for
+wise, learned, and godly men who could help a stranger. He wrote a
+touchingly humble letter to Archbishop Baldwin to help him to find
+worthy right-hand men, "for you are bred among them, you have long been
+a leader, and you know them 'inside and under the skin,' as the saying
+goes." Baldwin, an Exeter labourer by birth, by turns a schoolmaster,
+archdeacon, Cistercian abbot, Bishop of Worcester, and primate--a
+silent, dark, strong man, gentle, studious, and unworldly--was delighted
+at the request. He sent off Robert of Bedford, an ardent reformer and
+brilliant scholar, and Roger Roldeston, another distinguished scholar,
+who afterwards was Dean of Lincoln. These, like Aaron and Hur, upheld
+the lawgiver's hands, and they, with others of a like kidney, soon
+changed the face of affairs. Robert died early, but Roger was made
+Archdeacon of Leicester, confessor, and at the end executor to the
+bishop. After gathering captains the next thing was an eight-fold lash
+for abuses--decrees (1) against bribes; (2) against vicars who would not
+sing Mass save for extra pay; (3) against swaggering archdeacons who
+suspended churches, and persons beyond their beat. These gentlemen, in
+the absence of a bishop, seem to have grown into popes at the least. (4)
+Mass not to be laid as a penance upon any non-priestly person. This was
+a nimble way by which confessors fined penitents to their own profit.
+(5) Annual and other customary masses to be said without temporal gain.
+(6) Priestly administration only to be undertaken by those who are
+proved to be duly ordained by the archbishop or one of his suffragans:
+forged orders being plentiful. (7) Incumbents to be tonsured, and clergy
+to wear "the crown" instead of love-locks. (8) Clergy not to sue clergy
+in ecclesiastical cases before civil justices, Erastian knaves being
+active, even then.
+
+Next year brought a much more fighting foe, Godfrey the chief forestar.
+There was a Forest Assize only three years back, and a great outbreak of
+game preserving, dog licensing, bow confiscating, fines, imprisonment
+and slaughter, new rights for old tyrants, boys of twelve and clergy to
+be sworn to the hunting peace, mangling of mastiffs, banishment of
+tanners and parchmenters from woodlands--and if this was within the law,
+what could not be done without the law by these far away and favoured
+gamekeepers? The country groaned. Robbers and wolves could easily
+demolish those whom the foresters did not choose to protect, and the
+forest men went through the land like a scourge. Some flagrant injustice
+to one of Hugh's men brought down an excommunication upon Godfrey, who
+sent off to the king in fury and astonishment; and Henry was in a fine
+fit of anger at the news, for the Conqueror long ago had forbidden
+unauthorised anathemas against his men. Certain courtiers, thinking to
+put Hugh in the way of obliging the king, suggested that a vacant
+prebend at Lincoln should be given to one of themselves. The king sent a
+letter to that effect, which he did with some curiosity, suggesting this
+tit for tat. The messengers jingled through Oxford from Woodstock and
+found the bishop at Dorchester touring round his weedy diocese, who
+addressed the expectant prebendary and his friends with these words:
+"Benefices are not for courtiers but for ecclesiastics. Their holders
+should not minister to the palace, revenue, or treasury, but as
+Scripture teachers to the altar. The lord king has wherewith to reward
+those who serve him in his business, wherewith to recompense soldiers'
+work in temporals with temporals. It is good for him to allow the
+soldiers of the highest King to enjoy what is set aside for their future
+necessities and not to agree to deprive them of their due stipends."
+With these words he unhesitatingly sent the courtiers empty and packing.
+The fat was in the fire, and the angry courtiers took care that the
+chimney should draw. A man galloped off to say "Come to the king at
+once," and when the bishop was nearing Rosamond's bower, the king and
+his nobles rode off to the park, and sat down in a ring. The bishop
+followed at once. No one replied to his salute, or took the least notice
+of him. He laid hands upon a great officer next the king and moved him
+and sat down, in the circle of black looks. Then the king called for a
+needle. He had hurt one of his left fingers, and he sewed a stall upon
+it. The bishop was practised in silence, and was not put out by it. At
+last he said gently, "You are very like your relatives in Falaise."
+Henry threw himself back and laughed in a healthy roar. The courtiers
+who understood the sarcasm were aghast at its audacity. They could not
+but smile, but waited for the king, who, when he had had his laugh out,
+explained the allusion to the Conqueror's leather dressing and gloving
+lineage. "All the same, my good man, you must say why you chose, without
+our leave, to put our chief forester under the ban, why moreover you so
+flouted our little request that you neither came in person to explain
+your repulse nor sent a polite message by our messengers." Hugh answered
+simply that he knew the king had taken great trouble about his election,
+so it was his business to keep the king from spiritual dangers, to
+coerce the oppressor and to dismiss the covetous nonsuited. It would be
+useless and stupid to come to court for either matter, for the king's
+discretion was prompt to notice proper action and quick to approve the
+right. Hugh was irresistible. The king embraced him, asked for his
+prayers, gave the forester to his mercy. Godfrey and his accomplices
+were all publicly flogged and absolved, and the enemy, as usual, became
+his faithful friend and supporter. The courtiers ceased to act like
+kites and never troubled him again. On the contrary, some of them helped
+him so heartily that, if they had not been tied by the court, he would
+have loved to have beneficed them in the diocese. But non-residence was
+one of the scandals of the age and Hugh was inflexible in this matter.
+Salary and service at the altar were never to be parted. Even the Rector
+of the University of Paris, who once said how much he would like to be
+associated with Lincoln by accepting a canonry, heard that this would
+also be a great pleasure to the bishop, "if only you are willing to
+reside there, and if, too, your morals will keep pace with your
+learning." The gentleman was stricter in scholarship than in life, but
+no one had ever taken the liberty to tell him of it, and he is said to
+have taken the hint. Herein Hugh was quite consistent. He would not take
+any amount of _quadrivium_ as a substitute for honest living, and next
+after honest living he valued a peaceable, meek, conformist spirit,
+which was not always agape for division and the sowing of discords. He
+took some pains to compose quarrels elsewhere, as for instance, between
+Archbishop Baldwin and the monks of Canterbury. The archbishop wished to
+found a house of secular canons at Hackington in honour of SS. Stephen
+and Thomas of Canterbury. The monks were furious; the quarrel grew. Hugh
+thought and advised, when asked, that the question of division
+outweighed the use of the new church, and that it would be better to
+stop at the onset than to have to give up the finished work. But,
+objected Baldwin, holy Thomas himself wanted to build this church. "Let
+it suffice that you are like the martyr in proposing the same. Hear my
+simplicity and go no further." He preached union with constant fervour,
+and used to say that the knowledge that his spiritual sons were all at
+his back made him fear neither king nor any mortal, "neither do I lose
+the inward freedom from care, which is the earnest of, and the practice
+for, the eternal calm. Nor do my masters (so he called his canons) break
+and destroy a quiet that knows no dissent, for they think me gentle and
+mild. I am really tarter and more stinging than pepper, so that even
+when I am presiding over them at the chapter, the smallest thing fires
+me with anger. But they, as they ought, know their man of their choice
+and bear with him. They turn necessity into virtue and give place to me.
+I am deeply grateful to them. They have never opposed a single word of
+mine since I first came to live among them. When they all go out and the
+chapter is over, not one of them, I think, but knows I love him, nor do
+I believe I am unloved by a single one of them." This fact and temper of
+mind it was which made it possible to work the large diocese, for, of
+course, the bishop did not act in any public matter without his clergy.
+But personally his work was much helped by his self-denial and
+simplicity of his life. He never touched flesh but often used fish. He
+would drink a little wine, not only for health, but for company's sake.
+He was a merry and jest-loving table companion, though he never was
+undignified or unseemly. He would allow tumblers and musicians to
+perform at banquets, but he then appeared detached and abstracted rather
+than interested; but he was most attentive when meals were accompanied
+by readings about martyrs' passions, or saints' lives, and he had the
+scriptures (except the four gospels, which were treated apart) read at
+dinner and at the nightly office. He found the work of a bishop obliged
+him to treat that baggage animal, the body, better than of yore. His
+earlier austerities were avenged by constant pains in the bowels and
+stomach troubles, but in dedications of churches, ordinations, and other
+offices he would out-tire and knock up every one else, as he went from
+work to work. He rose before dawn and often times did not break his fast
+till after midday. In hot summer weather, he would oblige his ministers
+(deacon, sub-deacon, acolytes, &c.) to take a little bread and wine lest
+they should faint at the solemn Mass. When they hesitated, he upbraided
+them with want of faith and of sense, because they could not obey orders
+or see the force of them. When he journeyed and crowds came to be
+confirmed themselves or to present their little ones, he would get off
+his horse at a suitable spot and perform that rite. Neither tiredness,
+weakness, haste, rough ground, nor rain would induce him to confirm from
+the saddle. A young bishop afterwards, with no possible excuse, would
+order the frightened children up among restive horses. They came weeping
+and whipped by insolent attendants at no small risk--but his lordship
+cared nothing for their woe and danger. Not so dear Father Hugh. He took
+the babes gently and in due order, and if he caught any lay assistants
+troubling them would reproach them terribly, sometimes even thrashing
+the rascals with his own heavy hand. Then he would bless the audience,
+pray for the sick, and go on with his journey.
+
+He was passionately fond of children, not only because they were
+innocent, but because they were young: and he loved to romp with
+them--anticipating by nearly seven centuries the simple discovery of
+their charm, and he would coax half words of wondrous wit from their
+little stammering lips. They made close friends with him at once, just
+as did the mesenges or blue tits who used to come from woods and
+orchards of Thornholm, in Lindsey, and perch upon him, to get or to ask
+for food.{5}
+
+There is a story of a six months' old infant which jumped in its
+mother's arms to see him, waved its armlets, wagged its head, and made
+mysterious wrigglings (hitherto unobserved by bachelor monks) to greet
+him. It dragged his hand with its plump palm to its mouth as if to kiss
+it, although truth compels biographer Adam to acknowledge the kiss was
+but a suck. "These things are marvellous and to be deeply astonished
+at," he says. Hugh gave the boy apples or other small apposites (let us
+hope it was not apples, or the consequences of such gross ignorance
+would be equally marvellous), but the child was too interested in the
+bishop to notice the gifts. The bishop would tell how while he was still
+Prior he once went abroad to the Carthusian Chapter and stopped with
+brother William at Avalon. There his nephew, a child who could not even
+speak, was laid down upon his bed and (above the force of nature)
+chuckled at him--actually chuckled. Adam expected these two to grow up
+into prodigies and heard good of the latter, but the former he lost
+sight of--a little low-born boy in Newark Castle. Hugh used to put his
+baby friends to school when they grew older. Benedict of Caen was one of
+these, and he slipped off Roger de Roldeston's horse into a rushing
+stream, but was miraculously not drowned: and Robert of Noyon was
+another whom he picked up at Lambeth in the archbishop's train and put
+to school with the nuns at Elstow.
+
+These tender passages are to be contrasted with quite other sides to
+the man. Once an old rustic arrived late for a roadside confirmation.
+The bishop was in the saddle and trotting off to another place near,
+when the old fellow bawled after him that he, too, wished to be
+bishopped. Hugh more than once bade him hurry with the rest to the next
+place, but the man sat plump on the ground and said it was the bishop's
+fault and not his if he missed that Grace. The prelate looked back, and
+at last pulled up, turned his horse, rode back, and was off saddle
+again, and had the rite administered swiftly; but having laid holy hands
+upon him, he laid also a disciplinary one, for he boxed the old fellow's
+ears pretty smartly, which spanking some would have us to believe was a
+technical act of ritual, a sort of _accolade_ in fact. The same has been
+suggested about the flogging of forester Godfrey; for the mere resonance
+of these blows it seems, is too much for the tender nerves of our
+generation. Another bumpkin with his son once ran after the bishop's
+horse. The holy man descended, opened his chrism box, and donned his
+stole, but the boy had been confirmed already. The father wanted to
+change the boy's name; it would bring him luck. The bishop, horrified at
+such paganism, asked the boy's name. When he heard that it was John he
+was furious. "John, a Hebrew name for God's Grace. How dare you ask for
+a better one? Do you want him called 'hoe' or 'fork'? For your foolish
+request, take a year's penance, Wednesday's Lenten diet and Friday's
+bread and water."{6}
+
+He was hardly abreast of his very legal time in reverence for the
+feudal system. One of his tenants died and his bailiffs seized the best
+thing he had, to wit, an ox, as heriot due to the lord. The poor widow
+in tears begged and prayed for her ox back again, as the beast was
+breadwinner for her young children. The seneschal of the place chimed
+in, "But, my lord, if you remit these and similar legal dues, you will
+be absolutely unable to hold the land at all." The bishop heard him and
+leapt from his horse to the ground, which was very muddy. He dug both
+hands into the dirt. "Now I have got the land," he said, "and yet I do
+remit the poor little woman her ox," and then he flung the mud away, and
+lifting his eyes added, "I do not want the land down here; I want
+heaven. This woman had only two to work for her. Death has taken the
+better one and are we to take the other? Perish such avarice! Why, in
+the throes of such wretchedness, she ought to have comfort much rather
+than further trouble." Another time he remitted L5 due from a knight's
+son, at his father's death, saying it was unjust and mischievous that he
+should lose his money because he had lost his father too. "He shall not
+have double misfortune at any rate at our hands." Even in the twelfth
+century piety and business sometimes clashed.
+
+Hugh had not been enthroned a year, when Christendom was aghast and
+alarmed at the news from the East. Saladin with eighty thousand men had
+met the armies of the Cross at Tiberias (or Hittin), had slaughtered
+them around the Holy Rood itself, in the Saviour's own country, had
+beheaded all the knights of the Temple and the Hospital who would not
+betray the faith. Jerusalem had fallen, and Mahomet was lord of the holy
+fields. "The rejoicing in hell was as great as the grief when Christ
+harrowed it," men said. The news came in terrible bursts; not a country
+but lost its great ones. Hugh Beauchamp is killed, Roger Mowbray taken.
+The Pope, Urban III., has died of grief. The Crusade has begun to be
+preached. Gregory VIII. has offered great indulgences to true penitents
+and believers who will up and at the Saracens. He bade men fear lest
+Christians lose what land they have left. Fasting three days a week has
+been ordered. Prince Richard has the cross (and is one, to his father).
+Berter of Orleans sings a Jeremiad. Gilbert Foliot (foe to St. Thomas)
+is dead. Peace has been made between France of the red cross and England
+of the white, and Flanders of the green. King Henry has ordered a tax of
+a tenth, under pain of cursing, to be collected before the clergy in the
+parishes from all stay-at-homes. Our Hugh is not among the bishops
+present at this Le Mans proclamation. The kingdom is overrun, in
+patches, with tithe collectors. Awful letters come from Christian
+remnants, but still there is no crusade; France and England are at war.
+The new Pope is dead. Now old Frederick Barbarossa is really off to
+Armenia. Prayers and psalms for Jerusalem fill the air. The Emperor is
+drowned. Archbishop Baldwin and Hugh of Durham, notwithstanding,
+quarrel with their monks. Scotland is always in a tangle. Great King
+Henry, with evil sons and failing health, makes a sad peace in a fearful
+storm, learns that son John too has betrayed him, curses his day and his
+sons, and refuses to withdraw his curse, dies at Chinon before the
+altar, houselled and anhealed, on the 6th of July, 1189. But when dead
+he is plundered of every rag and forsaken.
+
+That last Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity, Hugh had been abroad with
+the poor king, and had been the only bishop who insisted upon keeping
+his festivals with full sung Mass and not a hasty, low Mass.
+
+Hugh de Nonant, the new bishop of Coventry, one Confessor's Day had
+begun saying the introit, when his Lincoln namesake lifted up his voice
+and began the long melic intonation. "No, no, we must haste. The king
+has told us to come quickly," said the former. The answer was, "Nay, for
+the sake of the King of kings, who is most powerfully to be served, and
+whose service must bate nothing for worldly cares, we must not haste but
+feast on this feast," and so he came later, but missed nothing. Before
+the king died Hugh had gone back to his diocese again, and heard the
+sorrowful news there.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{3} The white.
+
+{4} He was acting by a Canon of 1138, passed at Westminster.
+
+{5} Thornholm is near Appleby, and is a wooded part of the county even
+to this day.
+
+{6} From this and from various incidental remarks it may be concluded
+that Hugh knew Hebrew, which is not remarkable, because the learned just
+then had taken vigorously to that tongue and had to be restrained from
+taking lessons too ardently in the Ghetto. Some of his incidental
+remarks certainly did not come from St. Jerome, the great cistern of
+mediaeval Hebrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE BISHOP AT WORK
+
+
+Henry was dead before his friend was three years a bishop, and with him
+died Hugh's hopes of better men on the bench, for Richard's bishops were
+treasurers, justiciars and everything but fathers of their dioceses.
+Tall, blue-eyed, golden-haired Richard the Viking, had a simple view of
+his father's Empire. It was a fine basis for military operations.{7} He
+loosed some of the people's burdens to make them pay more groats. He
+unlocked the gaols. He made concessions to France and Scotland. He
+frowned upon the Jews, a frown which only meant that he was going to
+squeeze them, but which his people interpreted into a permission to
+wreak their hatred, malice, and revenge upon the favoured usurers.
+
+The massacre of Jews which began in London and finally culminated in the
+fearful scenes of York, spread to other parts and broke out in place
+after place. In Lent (1190) the enlisting for the crusade was going on
+in Stamford. The recruits, "indignant that the enemies of the Cross of
+Christ who lived there should possess so much, while they themselves
+had so little for the expenses of so great a journey," rushed upon the
+Jews. The men of Stamford tried to stop the riot, but were overcome, and
+if it had not been for the Castle the Jews would have been killed to a
+man. Two of the plunderers fell out over the booty. One, John by name,
+was killed, martyred it was supposed. The old women had dreams about
+him. Miracles began. A shrine was set up and robber John began to
+develop into Saint John. Then down came the bishop, scattered the
+watchers and worshippers, hacked down the shrine and forbade any more
+such adoration of Jew-baiting thieves, with a thundering anathema. The
+Lincoln people next began the same game, but they did not reckon with
+the new warden, Gerard de Camville, who had bought the revenues and
+provided a harbour there for the Israelites. We may believe that the
+bishop also was not behind hand in quelling such bloody ruffianism, for
+the Jews were afterwards very conspicuous in their grief at his death,
+evidently owing him something.
+
+King Richard, athirst for adventure, sold all that he could, taxed all
+that he could, and then set off for the crusade, carrying with him
+Baldwin the gentle archbishop, who was to die in despair at the gross
+habits and loose morals of the crusading hosts. He left behind him
+brother John, whom he had tried to bribe into fidelity, and a little
+lame, black foreigner, Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, who had been adviser,
+schemer, general brain box and jackal to the Lionheart, and who now
+swept through England with a thousand knights, trying cleverly and
+faithfully to rule the restive English and to keep them in some order
+and loyalty, in his ill-bred, active way. But the whole position was
+impossible and more impossible, first, because of John the always
+treasonable; and secondly, because of Walter, late Bishop of Lincoln and
+now of Rouen (the Pilate or Pilot?) whom Richard sent to guard the
+guardian. Geoffrey, half brother to the king, next came upon the scenes
+as a new complication. He had been made Archbishop of York and overlord
+of Durham. Black William's sister Richenda seized this archbishop and
+imprisoned him: and then Hugh joined the anti-Longchamp party, sided
+actively with John and with Gerard de Camville, who was beseiged in
+Lincoln. Hugh excommunicated Richenda. His influence turned the scale
+against Longchamp.
+
+It would require a treatise in itself to unfold all the tangled story of
+the first half of Richard's reign till the king returned to England
+after war, prison, and heavy ransom, in March 1194. Practically, at this
+date the Bishop of Lincoln disappears as much as possible from political
+life; or at least tried to do so. He was building the cathedral and
+doing his duty as bishop, befriending the needy and the outcast, and
+showing himself the enemy of wrong-doers. Now we hear of him clipping
+the love locks of his young sacristan Martin, who straightway became a
+monk; now following in the steps of great St. Martin by some passionate
+acts of pity, and now retiring mostly in harvest time (when all hands
+are busy and all hearts are out of reach) to his beloved Witham for a
+month's retreat.
+
+Of course all devout people in the Middle Ages had an especial care for
+lepers because of that most fortunate mistranslation in Isaiah liii. 4.
+which we render "we did esteem Him stricken," but which the Vulgate
+renders _putavimus eum quasi leprosum_: we did esteem Him as it were a
+leper. Hence service to lepers was especially part of service to Christ.
+At Maiden Bradley, in Somerset, was a colony of leprous sisters; and at
+Witham Church a leper window looked towards their house. At Lincoln{8}
+was the Hospital of the Holy Innocents called La Malandrie. It was
+founded by St. Remigius, the Norman cathedral builder, with thirteen
+marks revenue and further endowed by Henry I. and Henry II. The
+condition of all these leper outcasts was more than miserable. The
+disease was divided into the breeding, full and shipwreck periods. When
+the first was detected the patient was led to church, clothed in black,
+Mass and Matins for the dead were said over him, earth was thrown upon
+his foot, and then he was taken to a hovel on waste land where he was to
+be buried at the last. Here he found a parti-coloured robe, a coat, two
+shirts, a rattle, knife, staff, copper girdle, bed, table, and lamp, a
+chair, chest, pail, cask and funnel, and this was his portion for ever.
+He was not before 1179 allowed even a leprous priest to say Mass for
+him. The disease rotted away his flesh till he died, limbless or
+faceless in fearful shipwreck, and unhouselled. These wretches this
+bishop took under his peculiar care. He would wash them with his own
+hands, as his mother did before him, kiss them, serve them with meat,
+drink, and money. He would have thirteen together in his room, if he
+could find that number. He maintained many, both men and women. He would
+go to the Malandry, stop in a cell there, accompanied by a few of his
+devoutest and closest friends, and cosset the lepers motheringly,
+telling them they were desolate and afflicted only to be rewarded for
+ever, persuading them to a holy life with his pitying words, reproving
+them for their evil deeds (and many lepers were horribly immoral); but
+before ever he talked to them he kissed the men, embracing longer and
+more lovingly those who were worst smitten. The swelled, black,
+gathered, deformed faces, eyeless or lipless, were a horror to behold,
+but to Hugh they seemed lovely, in the body of their humiliation. Such
+he said were happy, were Paradise flowers, great crown gems of the King
+Eternal. He would use these as a text and speak of Christ's compassion
+to the wretched, Christ who now took ulcerous Lazarus by angels to
+Abraham's bosom and now became weak with our weakness. "Oh, how happy
+they were who were close about that so sweet man as his friends!
+Whatever his foot trod upon, or any part of him had touched, or his
+hands had handled, it would be sweet indeed to me, to devour with
+kisses, to put to my eyes, to bury in my very heart if I could. What of
+this superfluous humour, if one may use the word of what flowed from the
+tree of life? What am I to feel of that humour which used to be poured
+from a vase of such blessing because He bare our infirmity? Why, of
+course, if I only could, I should diligently gather Him, yes, and drain
+Him with my lips, drink Him in with my jaws, and hide just Him in my
+inward parts. Those are the really wretched, who fear aught else than to
+offend One so sweet. Those are the pitiful who esteem aught else sweet,
+or seek aught else than sweetly to cleave to this sweet One and sweetly
+obey Him. I do not know what he can feel to be bitter, who with the
+inner palate of the heart has learnt by continuous meditation to feed on
+the sweetness of this Sweet." Thus inspired, he looked upon the weaker
+limbs of Christ, honouring those whom others passed by.
+
+Not only was he bountiful to lepers, but what with the alms asked of him
+and given by a hand that often outran the tongue of need, he gave away a
+third of all he had in this way alone. Once at Newark he met a leper and
+kissed him. There a most learned Canon from Paris, William de Montibus,
+a great master and author, an early Cruden, and the Chancellor of the
+Diocese, said to him, "Martin's kiss cleansed the leper." The bishop
+answered humbly, "Martin kissed the leper and cured his body, but the
+leper's kiss has cured my soul."
+
+Of Hugh's courage several instances are cited (but impossible now to
+date). He went several times unarmed against threatening bands of men
+who flourished naked swords. In Lincoln Church, in Holland as
+aforementioned, and in Northampton, he faced angry clerks and laymen,
+knights and men at arms, and burgesses with equal vigour, and
+excommunicated them. It is not unlikely that the first was in defence of
+the Jews, and the third when he stopped the worship of a thief at the
+last place. The second may have been when he placed himself among the
+enemies of Longchamp.
+
+He was believed, and he believed himself, to be able to cause death to
+those whom he excommunicated. This was so firmly acknowledged that it
+saved him in many a severe pinch, and shielded him from indifference,
+beggary, and defeat. Many instances are given us, in which misfortune
+and death followed upon his censures. If any one likes to plead _post
+hoc, non ergo propter hoc_, judgment may go by default; but at any rate
+the stories show the life of the time most vividly, and the battle for
+righteousness which a good bishop had to wage.
+
+There lived at Cokewald an oldish knight, Thomas de Saleby, whose wife
+Agnes was barren. William, his brother, also a knight, but of
+Hardredeshill, was the heir to the estate. Dame Agnes detested William
+and schemed to disappoint him. She gave out that she was with child.
+William disbelieved, consulted friends, but could find no remedy. About
+Easter, 1194, the lady affected to be confined. A baby, Grace by name,
+was smuggled into the room, and sent back to its mother to be suckled.
+Outwitted, William went off in distress to the bishop, who sent for Sir
+Thomas, in private, charged him, and tried to make him confess. But he,
+"fearing the scoldings of his too tongue-banging wife more than God's
+justice, and being, moreover, spell-bound by her viperine hissings,"
+affected utter innocence. The bishop plied him vigorously, urging public
+opinion and his own old weak state. At last he promised that he would go
+home and talk with Agnes, and report the next day, and if he found these
+things so, would obey orders. "Do so," said the bishop, "but know that
+if you bate your promise, the sentence of excommunication will strike
+solemnly and fearfully all the doers and abetters of this wrong." But
+Agnes' tongue outdid the bishop's, and Thomas sulked indoors. The bishop
+preached about this in public, on the Easter Monday, and said it was a
+sin unto death. He then knotted the cord of anathema round the daring
+conspirators. Satan was soon up and at Thomas. He wrenched away the soul
+of the unhappy knight, who had gone to bed to escape the worry, and
+there died a sad example to wife-ruled husbands. Agnes, however, defied
+them all and braved out her story; and here is the crux: the infant was
+legally legitimate because Thomas had acknowledged it to be such. King
+Richard allowed little Grace, aged four, to be betrothed to Adam, a
+brother of Hugh de Neville, his chief forestar. Hugh, who was always at
+war with child marriages, issued a special _caveat_ in this case. But
+when he was away in Normandy they found a priest (a fool or bribed) to
+tie the knot. The priest was suspended and the rest excommunicated. In
+the next act the chambermaid confessed; and lastly Agnes' nerve gave
+way, and she did the same. But Adam still claimed the lands, won a suit
+in London, although William bid five hundred marks against him, and died
+drunk at an inn, with his baby bride. Hugh's comment was that "the name
+forestar is right and aptly given, for they will stand far from the
+kingdom of God." But the little heiress was again hunted into marriage,
+this time by a valet of John's, Norman of the chamber, who bought her
+for two hundred marks. He died, and the little girl was sold for three
+hundred marks to Brien de Insula, a man known to history. Grace at the
+last died childless, though she seems to have been a pious wife; and
+Saleby came back at the last to William's long defrauded line.
+
+Yet another forestar also under ban found some men in his forest cutting
+brush-wood, handled them insolently and was cut to pieces and stuck
+together again with twigs and left at the cross roads.
+
+Again a deacon, Richard de Waure, quarrelled with a knight, Reginald de
+Argentun, and maliciously accused him of treason. The bishop forbade the
+suit, but the deacon danced off to my lord of Canterbury, Hubert the
+Justiciar, who was the real King of England and one of the ablest men
+the country had to serve her. He felt it right that the suit should
+continue. Hugh declared that he had acted as Justiciar, not as
+Metropolitan, and suspended Richard, who again went off to Hubert and
+got the sentence relaxed, and boasted that he was free from Lincoln
+jurisdiction. Hugh simply added excommunication to the contumacious
+deacon. Again the archbishop loosed, and Hugh bound. "If a hundred times
+you get absolved by the lord archbishop, know that we re-excommunicate
+you a hundred times or more, as long as we see you so all too hardened
+in your mad presumption. It is evident what you care for our sentence.
+But it is utterly fixed and settled." Then the deacon hesitated, but
+before he could make up his mind his man cracked open his head with an
+axe.
+
+Then again there was a girl at Oxford, who, backed by a Herodias mother,
+left her husband for another love. The husband appealed to the bishop,
+who told her to go back. She kept repeating that she would sooner die.
+Hugh tried coaxing. He took her husband's hand and said, "Be my daughter
+and do what I bid you. Take your husband in the kiss of peace with God's
+benison. Otherwise I will not spare you, be sure, nor your baneful
+advisers." He told the husband to give her the kiss of peace. But when
+he advanced to do so the hussey spat in his face near the altar (of
+Carfax) and before many reverend fathers. With a fearful voice the
+bishop said, "You have eschewed the blessing and chosen the curse. Lo!
+the curse shall catch you." He gave her a few days' respite and then
+pronounced the curse. "She was suffocated by the enemy of mankind, and
+suddenly changed lawless and vanishing pleasures for unending and just
+tortures," says the unhesitating scribe.
+
+Once a Yorkshire clerk was turned out of his benefice by a knight (who
+was in our sense also a squire) simply that the gentleman might clap in
+his brother. The poor parson appealed to Courts Christian and Courts
+Civil, but found his enemy was much too favoured for him to effect
+anything. He tried Rome, but, poor Lackpenny, got what he might have
+expected from that distant tribunal. In his distress he turned to the
+chivalrous Bishop of Lincoln. Now, Hugh had no business at all to meddle
+with Archbishop Geoffrey Plantagenet's diocese, but it was a case of
+"Who said oppression?" He banned the obtruding priest by name and all
+his accomplices. Some died, some went mad or blind. Thus William got his
+own again, for, as all who knew expected, Hugh's anathema meant
+repentance or death.
+
+These anecdotes explain much that follows, and not a little the great
+strain that there was between Archbishop Hubert Walter and the Bishop of
+Lincoln. Perhaps this strain was bound to be felt, because the policy of
+the former was to employ churchmen largely in political and secular
+affairs, the policy of the other to exclude them as much as possible. In
+the abstract we can hardly think that it is well that priests should
+rule the State or bishops manipulate the national finances. But to lay
+down that rule at the close of the twelfth century was to cut the spine
+between the brains of the State and its members. Hugh, perhaps, allowed
+too little for the present distress; Hubert for the distant goal. Anyhow
+they collided.
+
+Hubert, in his capacity of financial viceroy, the moment Richard had
+come back from captivity, been re-crowned, and gone off again, sent off
+the visiting justices to look after various pleas of the Crown, among
+which was a question of defaults. These gentlemen began their milking
+process in September, 1194. It was discovered that an old tribute of an
+expensive mantel had been paid in times past by Lincoln See to the King.
+This pall was a matter of 100 marks (say L2,000 of our money). In the
+long vacancy and under Bishop Walter there had been no payment, and the
+royal claim was for a good many years back, there being apparently some
+limitations. Arrears of 1,000 marks were demanded, or a lump sum of
+3,000 to have done with the tribute. Hugh thought it an unworthy and
+intolerable thing that our Lady's Church and he, as its warder, should
+be under tribute at all, and he was prepared to do anything to end the
+"slavery." However little we can share this notion, at least it was a
+generous one. The demand came after the Saladin taxes, the drain for the
+Crusade, for the king's ransom, and during the building of the
+cathedral. It came to a man who gave a third of his money in alms and
+who lived from hand to mouth, often borrowing on his revenues before he
+got them. He proposed to meet this new huge call by retiring to Witham
+and devoting the whole emoluments of the See to redeeming this
+fictitious mantel. But the clergy, who knew by experience both order and
+chaos, rose in arms, and monastic advisers added their dissuading
+voices. Well might the clergy support their bishop. They had in times
+past paid for the king's mantel with episcopal trimmings, and other
+prelates had not scorned a little cabbage over this rich tailoring.
+Richard cynically expected that Hugh would do the same, but his clergy
+knew him better. They offered to find the money. But Hugh, though he
+allowed them to do so, would not allow one fruitful vein to be worked.
+He absolutely forbade penance fines, lest, for money's sake, the
+innocent should be oppressed and the guilty be given less pains than
+were needed. Some folk told the bishop that rascals had more feeling in
+their purses than in their banned souls or banged bodies. He replied
+that this was because their spiritual fathers laid on too lightly upon
+the sinners. "But," they pleaded, "Thomas the Martyr, of most blessed
+memory, fined sinners." Hugh answered, "Believe me, it was not on that
+head that he was a saint. Quite other virtue merits marked him a saint;
+by quite another story he won the meed of martyr palm."
+
+Hubert must have felt it more of a financial than a moral victory when
+the 3,000 marks clinked in the treasurer's box.
+
+The next battle between these two doughty men (or shall we say systems
+of thought?) was fought about Eynsham Abbey. Old Abbot Geoffrey died,
+and at his election the Abbey had been under the See of Lincoln; but
+since then King Henry had claimed the gift of abbacies, a claim his son
+was not likely to bate. A suit with the Crown, Hugh's friends argued,
+was hopeless or not worth the trouble; but this argument seemed
+sacrilegious to the intrepid bishop. What? Allow God and the Queen of
+Heaven to be robbed? Who ever agreed to let Lincoln be so pilled? He is
+but a useless and craven ruler who does not enlarge instead of lessen
+the dignities and liberties of the Holy Church. He went stoutly to the
+contest, crossed and recrossed the sea, and at last persuaded a sort of
+grand jury of twenty-four clerks and laymen that he was the patron. In a
+year's time he won his case and saw Robert of Dore, a good abbot, well
+in his chair. Hugh spent a week with his almost bereft family, gave the
+new man a fine chased silver and ivory crook and a great glorious
+goblet, and amplified the place with a generous hand.
+
+This was a legal triumph for the bishop, but surely it was a moral
+triumph for the _Curia Regis_ to do ample justice to a strong opponent
+of the Crown? Of course, nobody wanted another St. Thomas episode again,
+least of all enacted against a man who carried the Church of England
+with him, as St. Thomas, living, never did; but Hugh had small favour
+with the king at this time. By these successive battles the Bishop of
+Lincoln had come to be looked upon as the leader of the Church and the
+champion of her liberties. To us those "liberties" seem a strange claim,
+beyond our faith and our ken, too. It seems obvious to us that men,
+whether clerks or laymen, who eat, drink, wear, build, and possess on
+the temporal plane, should requite those who safeguard them in these
+things with tribute, honour, and obedience; and freedom from State
+control in things temporal seems like freedom to eat buns without paying
+the baker. Free bilking, free burgling, and so on, sound no less
+contradictory. But the best minds of England seven centuries ago dreamed
+of another citizenship and a higher, of which the Church was the city--a
+city not future only and invisible, but manifest in their midst, which
+they loved with passion and were jealous over, too exclusively perhaps,
+but in the event not unwisely. It is less difficult for us to see that
+any cause which would set the unselfish and lofty-minded men of that
+time against the preponderating power of the Crown made for the welfare
+and peace of the country in the future. The anarchy of Stephen's reign,
+Henry's mastery, and Richard's might, with Hubert Walter's genius,
+resulted in a dangerous accumulation of power that did actually prove
+almost disastrous to the State. Consequently Bishop Hugh's greatest
+contest with the Crown demands the sympathy both of men who still dream
+of the spiritual city in (but unsoiled by) hands of mortals, and also of
+those who value constitutional liberties in modern politics. The war
+with France kept Richard active abroad. The flow of money from England
+was too thin to enable him to strike the final blow he wished to strike.
+Hubert Walter's power was so hampered he could do little beyond
+scutages, but in December, 1197, he called together a Council at Oxford.
+He told this universal assembly of the barons of all England that the
+king was in straits. He was outclassed and outmanned and like to be even
+dispossessed by a most powerful and determined enemy. He asked their
+deliberations as to help for the king in his difficulties. Oxford was
+the king's birthplace and was also in Lincoln diocese.{9} The Court
+party, who advocated abject submission to the king's becks, at once
+proposed that the barons of England, among whom were the bishops, should
+furnish three hundred knights to the king, which knights should serve
+for a year without furlough. The Bishop of Lincoln's consent was asked,
+and he made no reply at first, but turned it over in his mind. The
+archbishop, of course, spoke for the motion. Richard FitzNigel, Bishop
+of London, a man of finance, purchase, and political sagacity, one of
+the historians of the time, assured them that he and his would try every
+fetch to relieve the royal need. This brought up Hugh in an instant.
+"You, wise and noble gentlemen here before me, know that I am a stranger
+in this country of yours and was raised to a bishop's office from a
+simple hermit life. So when the Church of my Lady Mary the Holy Mother
+of God was handed over to my inexperience to rule I applied myself to
+explore its customs, dignities, dues, and burdens. For near thirteen
+years, up till now, I have not trod out of the straight tracks of my
+forerunners. I know the Lincoln Church is bound to furnish military
+service for the King, but only in this country. Beyond the bounds of
+England none such is due from her. Hence I think it would be wiser for
+me to foot it back to my native soil and till the wilderness in my
+wonted way, rather than bear a bishopric here, lose the ancient
+immunities of the Church entrusted to me, and subject her to
+unprecedented vexations." This answer the archbishop took very ill. His
+voice choked, his lips quivered. He took up the tale, however, without
+comment, and asked Herbert le Poor, Bishop of Salisbury, the very man
+who, as Archdeacon of Canterbury, had been snubbed for simony at Hugh's
+installation, and who might be expected to render a public nothing now
+for his then empty hand. But he had learnt something since that day, and
+he replied curtly that he could give no other answer than that of my
+lord of Lincoln, unless it were to the enormous prejudice of his Church.
+Then the archbishop blazed into fury. He loosed many a bitter shaft
+against Bishop Hugh. He broke up the assembly and told the king who it
+was had made the whole matter to miscarry. Two and even three postmen
+were sent off to lash the Lion into frenzy, and Richard ordered all that
+the bishop had to be confiscated as soon as possible. Herbert, the
+seconder, had the same sentence, and was soon Poor in estate as well as
+name, and only got peace and possession back after injuries, losses,
+vexings, and many insults. But no man laid a finger even upon the most
+trumpery temporal of the Bishop of Lincoln. His anathema meant death.
+For nine months Richard hounded his minions on, but they dared not bite.
+Instead they beseeched the bishop's pity for their unhappy position, and
+he resolved to seek the king and talk him over. He had no friend at
+Court to prepare his way. Fine old William Earl Marshall and the Earl of
+Albemarle tried to stop him or to make some way for him; but he did not
+allow them to sacrifice themselves, but sent word to the king that he
+was coming. Two things had happened since that December. Innocent III.
+had become Pope--the Augustus of the papal empire, and he was already
+acting most vigorously and unhesitatingly. Secondly, Hubert Walter had
+resigned, because the Pope took Lincoln views of bishops being judges,
+councillors, treasurers, and the like. These things made Hugh's chances
+more favourable. Richard's wrath, too, was a straw fire, and it had time
+to cool, and cooled quicklier because it had shocked his English
+subjects. Moreover, though highly abominable as he considered the
+Bishop's checkmate, he had got the cash after all by breaking the great
+seal and having a new one made, which necessitated a new sealing of all
+old parchments, and royal wax is dear to this day. It would, therefore,
+not be amiss to smooth those English who were smarting at the broken
+seal and broken faith. Hugh's chances, then, were not quite desperate,
+although he had been able to stop the mouth of the Lion for nine whole
+months by his intrepidity, fame, and the help of heaven. The rest of
+the story, which is given minutely, gives one a little window into the
+times hard to equal for its clearness.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{7} Plato's Aristocrat has a son, who is a great timocrat.
+
+{8} "South-east of the Great Bar Gate between that and the little Bar
+Gate in the north-west angle of the Great South Common."
+
+{9} Perhaps for both reasons chosen as the trysting-place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+IN TROUBLES--
+
+
+The king had before this time noticed a spot of immense military
+importance on the Seine between Rouen and Paris, the rock of Andelys.
+Indeed he had once tossed three Frenchmen from the rock. It was, or
+might be, the key to Normandy on the French side, and he feared lest
+Philip should seize upon it and use it against him. Consequently he
+pounced upon it, and began to fortify it at lavish expense. Archbishop
+Walter of Rouen, and late of Lincoln, in whose ecclesiastical patrimony
+it lay, was furious, and obtained an Interdict, and Philip was chafed
+too.{10} The former was appeased by the gift of Dieppe, and the latter
+left to digest his spleen as best he might. The work was just about
+finished in May when a shower of red rain fell, to the horror of all
+except the dauntless king, who "would have cursed an angel" who had told
+him to desist from this his great delight. Here it was that the king lay
+waiting for the truce with France to expire.
+
+The bishop arrived at the Rock castle in the morning of St. Augustine's
+day (Aug. 28th). The king was in the chapel hearing Mass, and thither
+the bishop followed him, and straightway saluted him. Now the king was
+in the royal dais, near the outer door. Two bishops were standing just
+below him. (We must think of something like a small upstair college
+chapel for the theatre of this tale.) These two were old Hugh Pudsey,
+Bishop of Durham, and young Eustace, Bishop of Ely: the former a
+generous, loose-handed, loose-living old gentleman, the latter
+Longchamp's successor, a great scholar and revenue officer. Hugh looked
+past the shoulders of these two and saluted again. The king glared at
+him for a few seconds and then turned his face. The unabashed bishop put
+his face nearer: "Give me the kiss, lord king." The king turned his face
+further away, and drew his head back. Then the bishop clutched the
+king's clothes at the chest, vigorously shook them, and said again, "You
+owe me the kiss, for I have come a long way to you." The king, seemingly
+not astonished in the least, said, "You have not deserved my kiss." The
+strong hand shook him still harder, and across the cape which he still
+held taut, the bold suppliant answered confidently, "Oh yes, I have
+deserved it. Kiss me." The king, taken aback by this audacious
+importunity, smiled and kissed him. Two archbishops (Walter of Rouen
+most likely being one) and five other bishops were between the royal
+seat and the altar. They moved to make room for their uncourtly brother.
+But he passed through their ranks and went right up to the horn of the
+altar, fixed his looks firmly on the ground, and gave his whole
+attention to the celebration of the Divine mysteries. The king could
+hardly take his eyes off the bishop all through the service. So they
+continued until the threefold invocation of the Lamb of God that taketh
+away the sins of the world. Then the celebrant, the king's chaplain,
+gave the kiss of peace to a certain foreign archbishop, whose business
+it was, by court custom, to bring it to the king. Richard came from his
+place right up to the altar steps to meet him, received "the sign of the
+peace which we get from the sacrifice of the Heavenly Lamb," and then
+with humble reverence yielded the same to the Bishop of Lincoln by the
+kiss of his mouth. This respectful service, which the other archbishop
+was making ready to receive, as the custom was, and to pass on himself,
+was thus given direct to the holy man. The king stept quickly up to him,
+when Hugh was expecting nothing of the sort, but was wrapt in
+prayer.{11}
+
+When the Mass was over, Hugh went to the king and spoke a few strong
+words of remonstrance against his unjustifiable anger, and explained his
+own innocence. The king could answer nothing to the purpose, but said
+that the Archbishop had often written suspicious suggestions against
+him. The bishop soon showed that these were groundless, and added,
+"God's honour apart, and the salvation of your soul and mine, I have
+never opposed your interests even in the least degree." The king
+immediately asked him to come next day to the recently constructed
+castle of Chateau Gaillard, and ordered the bishop to be given a big
+Seine pike, knowing that he would not eat meat. But before they left the
+chapel Hugh gripped him by the hand and led him from his high seat to a
+place near the altar. There he set him down and sat beside him. "You are
+our parishioner, lord king" (he was born in Oxford), "and we must answer
+at the tremendous judgment of the Lord of all for your soul, which He
+redeemed with His own blood. So I wish you to tell me how stands it with
+your soul in its inner state? so that I may be able to give it some
+effectual counsel and help, as the Divine breathing shall direct. A
+whole year has gone by since I last spoke with you."
+
+The king answered that his conscience was clear, nearly in everything,
+except that he was troubled by hatred against the enemies whom he was
+apt to find doing him wrong, and wickedly attacking him. The reply was,
+"If in all things you please the grace of the Ruler of all, He will
+easily appease your enemies or give them into your hand. But you must
+beware with all your might, that you are not living against the laws of
+your Maker in any way (and God forbid you should) or even doing any
+wrong to your neighbours. The Scripture says that 'When a man's ways
+please the Lord, He maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.' On
+the other hand it says of others, 'The world shall fight with him,
+against the unwise,' and again the holy man saith of the Lord, 'Who hath
+hardened himself against Him and hath prospered?'
+
+"Now there is a public report of you, and I grieve to say it, that you
+neither keep faithful to the marriage bed of your own wife, nor do you
+guard untouched the privileges of churches, especially in providing and
+choosing their rulers. Yes, it is said, and a huge piece of villainy it
+is, that moved by money or favour, you are used to promote some to the
+rule of souls. If this is true, then without any doubt, peace cannot be
+granted to you by God." When he had given this careful and timely
+admonition and instruction, the king excused himself on some points, on
+others asked earnestly for the bishop's intercession, and was sent off
+with a blessing. The bishop then went in gladness to his pike. Richard's
+opinion was that "if all the other bishops were like him, no king or
+prince would dare to rear his neck against them." Such salutary
+treatment now-a-days is the sole perquisite of the very poor. The higher
+up men get on the social scale, the less they need such honest dealing,
+it now appears.
+
+But Hugh was not quite out of the toils. The king's counsellors
+suggested that he should carry back letters to the barons demanding aid
+and succour, letters which it was known would be well weighted by the
+authority of the postman, and would ensure their bearer continuance of
+the royal favour. The king's servants informed the bishop of this move,
+and his clerkly friends pointed out the great advantage to himself of
+this service. He answered: "That be far from me. It jumps neither with
+my intention nor my office. It is not my part to become the carrier of
+letters royal. It is not my part to co-operate in the least degree in
+exactions of this sort. Do not you know that this mighty man begs as it
+were with a drawn sword? Particularly this power (of the Crown), under
+guise of asking, really forces. Our English first attract with their
+gentle greetings, and then they force men with harshest compulsion to
+pay not what is voluntary but just what they choose to exact. They often
+compel unwilling folk to do what they know was once done spontaneously,
+either by this generation or the last. I have no cause to be mixed up in
+such dealings. These may please an earthly king at one's neighbour's
+expense, but afterwards they move the indignation of Almighty God." He
+asked the counsellors to arrange that this burden should not be laid
+upon him with its consequent refusal, conflict, and disfavour. Richard
+heard the tale and sent a message, "God bless you, but get away home,
+and do not come here to-morrow as we said, but pray for us to the Lord
+without ceasing," which message was most grateful to the bishop, and he
+soon set his face north. His exultant chaplains felt sure that all would
+turn out well, for on the steps of the chapel, when their hearts were
+all pit-a-pat, they had heard the chorus prose of St. Austin being
+chaunted, "Hail, noble prelate of Christ, most lovely flower," a lucky
+omen! And again when they reached chapel doors they heard the bishops
+and clerks within in unison continue the introit, "O blessed, O holy
+Augustine, help thou this company."
+
+A month later Richard won a smart little victory near Gisors, where King
+Philip drank moat water, and nearly got knocked on the head. The king
+announced this in a letter, and asked for more prayers, and Adam, the
+biographer, felt that the heavenly triumph of his friend was complete.
+He would have been less elate if he had known that all the bishops got a
+similar letter, even wicked old Hugh de Pudsey.
+
+Lincoln by this time was the home of learned and reliable men. The
+canons, prebends, and placemen had been chosen with great care. Hugh had
+cast his net far and wide and enclosed some very edible fishes. We know
+of not a few. William of Leicester, Montanus, has already been
+mentioned. Giraldus Cambrensis (a most learned, amusing, and malicious
+writer, on the lines of Anthony A. Wood, or even of Horace Walpole) was
+another. Walter de Map a third.{12} It was part of Hugh's high sense of
+duty which made him fight with all his weight for a worthy though a
+broad-minded use of patronage. He often upbraided the archbishop with
+his careless use of this power, who was immersed in worldly business and
+too given to bestow benefices for political or useful services. He said
+himself that the most grievous worldly misfortune he ever suffered was
+to find men whom he trusted and advanced turn out to be immoral
+sluggards. Yet another of his promotions was that of William de Blois,
+who afterwards succeeded him. In fact, like every great bishop of the
+time, he gathered his _eruditi_, his scholars, around him, and these
+were not looked upon as mere dreamers and impracticable bookworms. Lore
+and action went hand in hand. The men of affairs and the men of
+learning, in this age, were interchangeable persons. Consequently when
+Richard's attention was directed to Lincoln and its bishop, when he
+noticed that it was a centre for sound and steady clerks whose wallets
+were by no means unstuffed, and when he reflected that he had failed to
+lay hands upon the bishop's money, he resolved to have something at any
+rate from this fine magazine. He wrote to the archbishop to order, by
+letter, twelve eminent clerks, who had prudence, counsel, and eloquence,
+to serve at their own expense in the Roman Court, in Germany, Spain, and
+elsewhere. The post from Canterbury duly arrived with twelve sealed
+"pair of letters," to be directed to eminent men, and with a special
+letter to order the bishop to hasten and obey. The bearer found the
+bishop at his Buckden House, and dinner was just on the board. There was
+much buzz and hum among those present when the tale was told, but Hugh
+made no reply. He simply sat down to table. The clergy, a pavid flock,
+chattered their fears between the mouthfuls. They hoped rather
+hopelessly, that the answer would be all sugary and smiling; at any rate
+that their master would try a little ogling of the archbishop, who
+could, if he would, make things ever so much better. While they were
+exchanging their views upon expediency and the great propriety of saving
+one's skin, the stout-hearted bishop rose from table. He had consulted
+none of these scared advisers, so that he might not throw the
+responsibility upon their shivering backs. He turned to the messenger
+and said, "These are novelties, and hitherto unheard of, both the
+things which my lord has ordered on the king's authority and on his own.
+Still he may know that I never was, nor will be, a letter carrier of his
+epistles; and I never have, nor will now, oblige our clergy to undertake
+royal service. I have often stopped even clerks of other parts,
+beneficed in our bishopric, from daring to make themselves beholden to
+secular patronage in public offices, such as forest diversion, and other
+like administrations. Some, who were less obedient on this point, we
+have even chastened by long sequestration of their livings. On what
+reasonable count, then, ought we to pluck men from the very vitals of
+our Church, and send them by order on the royal service? Let it be
+enough for our lord the king that (certainly a danger to their soul's
+salvation) the archbishops, neglecting the duty of their calling, are
+already utterly given over to the performance of his business. If that
+is not enough for him, then this bishop will come with his people. He
+will come, I say, and hear his orders from the king's own lips. He will
+come ready to carry out what is right next after those same orders.
+
+"But as for you, take the bundle of twelve letters which you say you
+have brought to us, and be off with them and make just what use you
+please of them. But every single word which I speak to you, be sure to
+repeat to our lord the archbishop: and do not fail to end with the
+message that if the arrangement holds that our clergy are to go to the
+king, I myself likewise will go with them. I have not gone before
+without them; and they will not go without me now. This is the right
+relation between a good shepherd and good sheep: he must not scatter
+them by foolishly letting them out of his ken. They must not get into
+trouble by rash escape from him."
+
+The letter carrier, a court cleric, was finely indignant. He was a man
+careful-chosen, haughty by nature, but still more haughty as royal
+envoy. He was bridling up for a volley of threats when the bishop cut
+him short, and ordered him off at the double. He slunk away abashed. A
+deputation, of weight, from Lincoln next waited upon the archbishop to
+expostulate with him for playing chuck taw with the immunity of the
+church, and franking with his authority such messages. He smiled
+graciously, after the manner of his kind, and hid his spleen. He meant
+no harm, of course: if harm there were, he was glad to be disobeyed, and
+he would make all quiet and right. Of course in reality he took care to
+twist the Lion's tail with both hands, and the next thing was a public
+edict, that all the goods of the bishop were to be taken care of by the
+king's collectors. The good man heard and remarked, "Did I not tell you
+truly of these men: their voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the
+hands of Esau?" It was easier to order than to execute. The anathema
+counted for much, but the public conscience no doubt for more. The
+officers balked and remonstrated. Richard insisted, but his tools bent
+in his hand. "Those English are scared at shadows," he said; "let us
+send Mercadier. He will know how to play with the Burgundian fellow."
+This amiable man was the captain of the Routiers, whose playful habits
+may be guessed from the fact that he is the gentleman who afterwards
+skinned Bertrand de Gourdon for shooting the king. One of the king's
+friends answered, "Mercadier is necessary, my lord the king, to your
+war. We should lose our pains and also his services if the Lincoln
+bishop's anathema should take effect." The king agreed that the risk was
+too heavy, so he ordered Stephen de Turnham to take charge of the
+bishop's goods, as he loved his life and limbs. This man had been
+seneschal of Anjou under the king's father, and was well affected to the
+bishop; but he was between the devil and the deep sea. With some
+heaviness and nervousness Stephen moved upon Sleaford. Between
+Peterborough and Market Deeping, whom should he fall in with but the
+bishop and his party! The uneasy disseizers fetched a compass, halted,
+and got hold of some of the clergy. They were as humble as Ahaziah's
+third captain before Elijah. They were obliged to do it, but, poor
+lambs, they would not hurt so much as a swan's feather. And would the
+bishop, by all that was invokeable, kindly defer his anathema? or else
+the king would be royally angry, and they would get more than they
+deserved. The bishop answered the clergy, "It is not their parts to keep
+our things whole. Let them go. Let them finger and break in upon the
+goods, as they think fit. They are not ours but our Lady's, the holy
+Mother of God." He then brought out the end of his linen stole from his
+cloak (which stole he always wore, ready for confirmation and
+excommunication) shook it and added, "This little bit of stuff will
+bring back to the last halfpenny whatever they reeve away." He then
+passed on to Buckden (near Huntingdon), where he issued orders to all
+the archdeacons and rural deans, that so soon as the officers should
+arrive they should clang bells, light candles and solemnly ban all who
+should violently and unrighteously touch the property of their Church.
+The flutter in the clerical dovecot was immense, but the bishop simply
+said good-night to his excited chaplains and was soon in the sweetest
+slumber. Except that he said Amen in his sleep a few more times than
+usual, and more earnestly, they saw no trace of neural tremours about
+his sedate carriage. He seems to have been well aware of the gravity of
+the struggle, for he had already announced at Lincoln that he would have
+to go abroad. He had gathered his children at the Mass, where he added
+the priestly blessing from the law of Moses,{13} had commended himself
+to their prayers, given them the kiss of peace and commended them to
+God, and was already on the way to the archbishop. He stayed a few days
+at Buckden. Thence he slowly made his way to London. On the road a rural
+dean consulted him upon the case of a girl with second sight and a
+terrific tongue. This damsel would prophetically discover things stolen
+or lost, and she had a large following. If any discreet and learned man
+tackled her she would talk him down, and put him to rout. She was
+brought to meet Hugh by the roadside, amid a crowd of confirmation
+candidates. He addressed her, chiding not so much the damsel as the
+demon within her, "Come now, unhappy girl, what can you divine for us?
+Tell me please, if you can, what this hand holds in it?" He held out his
+right hand closed over his stole end. She made no reply, but fell at
+his feet in a sort of faint. After a pause he bade them lift her up and
+asked through the dean (for he was ignorant of the country woman's talk)
+how she had learnt to divine? "I cannot divine. I implore the mercy of
+this holy bishop," she replied, and knelt at his feet. He laid his hands
+upon her head, prayed, blessed her, and sent her to the Prior of
+Huntingdon, the penitentiary priest of the district, to hear her
+confession. She not only gave up witchcraft, but ceased to be
+brazen-faced and a shrew: so that people bruited this matter as a
+miracle, and a handsome one it was. The bishop probably saved her from
+the vengeance of this rural dean, for witch-burning was not unknown even
+then, as Walter de Map witnesses. This was not the first essay of our
+bishop in witch-laying. When he was still Prior of Witham, Bartholomew,
+Bishop of Exeter, a learned and pious man, and one of St. Thomas'
+opposers, consulted him upon a sad case. Bishop Bartholomew was
+interested in spiritualism (which shews the same face in every century,
+and never adds much to its phenomena), as Matthew Paris recounts. A poor
+girl was the prey of a most violent and cruel Incubus, whom no fasts or
+austerities could divorce from her. Hugh suggested united prayer on her
+behalf, which was made, but not answered. A rival Incubus, however, came
+upon the scenes, of a softer mood, and wooed with mild speeches. He
+promised to deliver her, and pointed out the perforated St. John's wort
+as a herb odious to devils. This the artful woman put in her bosom and
+her house, and kept both suitors at bay.{14} The bishop was much struck
+with this story, as well he might be, and used often to tell it. A monk
+told him another similar tale from Essex; but enough of such fables.
+
+When he left Huntingdon the bishop went on to St. Albans, seemingly in a
+leisurely way, and as he drew near to this place, he met a crowd of
+provost's men dragging a condemned thief to the gallows. The poor
+creature's arms were braced behind his back. The word went round quickly
+that it was Hugh of Lincoln, and there was the usual rush to beg for his
+blessing, police craft and piety being wedded in those officers. The
+captive by some acrobatics managed to rush too, and came against the
+horse's neck, was knocked down, and in the dust cried for mercy. The
+bishop drew rein and asked who the man was and what he wanted. His
+attendants, who knew the language, answered him, "It is not your part,
+my lord, to ask more about the fellow. Indeed, you must let him just
+pass." They feared lest the bishop, already in deep water, should fall
+into still deeper by some chivalrous audacity. But he would know the
+tale and why the man cried him mercy: and when he knew it, he cried,
+"Lackaday! God be blessed!" and turning to the hangmen, he said, "Come
+back, my sons, with us to St. Albans. Hand the man over to us, and tell
+your masters and the judges that we have taken him from you. We will see
+that you take no harm." They did not dare to resist, but gave up their
+victim. He was quickly untied and given to the almoner. When they
+reached the abbey the clergy and attendant came to the bishop and begged
+him most earnestly to allow the civil magistrates to do their office.
+"Up till now, my lord, neither the king nor any other man who lay in
+wait for you, could bring a just or a just-seeming charge against you.
+But if when the legal judges have passed sentence and handed the case to
+the executive, you quash that sentence by your pontifical authority,
+your ill-wishers will call it a blow against the king's crown, and you
+will fall into the condemnation of flat treason." "I am assured of your
+kindness," he answered; "but let these judges come in to us and you
+shall hear what we have to say to each other." The judges were already
+tapping at the doors, for a word with the audacious bishop. "Gentlemen,
+you are wise enough to know that your holy Mother the Church has
+everywhere this prerogative: all who are falling into any danger of
+condemnation and fly to her, may get freedom, and be kept unhurt." This
+they well knew and believed to be quite right. "If you know this, you
+ought to know that where the bishop is, united to the faithful in
+Christ, there too is the church. He who is used by his ministry to
+dedicate the material stones of the church to the Lord; who also has the
+work of sanctifying the living stones, the real stuff of the church, by
+each of the Sacraments, to rear from them the Lord's temple, he by right
+must enjoy the privileges of ecclesiastical dignity, wherever he be, and
+succour all who are in danger, according to his legal order."
+
+The judges gratefully agreed, remembered that this was so expressed in
+ancient English law, but now obsolete, thanks to bishops' sloth or
+princes' tyranny. They summed up by this politeness, "My lord, we are
+your sons and parishioners. You are our father and pastor. So it will
+not be ours to run counter to your privilege or to dispute it: nor
+yours, by your leave, to bring us into any hazard. If you decide upon
+the man's release, we offer no opposition; but by your leave we trust
+you to see that we incur no danger from the king." "Well and rightly
+spoken," said he, "and on these terms I take him from your hands. For
+this infraction, I will make answer where I must." So the man escaped
+the gallows, and was set free again when they reached London.
+
+Two remarks are worth making here. First, that the right of sanctuary,
+both for accused and of guilty persons, were guaranteed by the old Laws
+Ecclesiastical of King Edward the Confessor, as collected by William the
+First in the fourth year of his reign, which laws were romantically dear
+to the English people. The stretch came in where the Church was
+interpreted to mean the bishop and faithful. Secondly, Saint Nicholas
+similarly rescued two men from the scaffold, but not at a moment so
+inopportune for himself. If the rescue had law behind it, and it might
+be so defended, it was a very awkward moment to choose to champion a
+hangdog. But this was the age of chivalry, and without such innate
+chivalry Hugh would never have cast the spell he did over King Richard's
+England.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{10} "I will take it, though it were built of iron," he said; to which
+Richard replied, "And I will defend it, though it were of butter."
+
+{11} There is no osculatory to be found in the records. This is a
+slightly later invention, and no one seems to kneel in this picture.
+
+{12} Whom some wish to acquit of writing that jovial drinking song,
+
+    "I intend to end my days,
+      In a tavern drinking."
+
+{13} "The Lord bless thee and keep thee," &c. Numbers, vi., 24.
+
+{14} If the reader disbelieves this story, let him read Bede upon Luke
+viii., 30, says the narrator.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+--AND DISPUTES
+
+
+When Hugh, under this new cloud, did at last reach London the archbishop
+had no counsel to give, except that he should shear his clergy rather
+tight and send their golden fleeces to appease the king. "Do not you
+know that the king thirsts for money as a dropsical man does for water,
+my lord bishop?" To this the answer was, "Yes. He is a dropsical man,
+but I will not be water for him to swallow." It was plain that the
+archbishop was no friend in need, and back they went towards Lincoln. At
+Cheshunt he found a poor, mad sailor triced up in a doorway by hands and
+feet. Hugh ran to him, made the holy sign, and then with outstretched
+right hand began the Gospel, low and quick, "In the beginning was the
+Word." The rabid patient cowered, like a frightened hound; but when the
+words "full of grace and truth" were reached, he put out his tongue
+derisively. Hugh, not to be beaten, consecrated holy water, sprinkled
+him, and bade folk put some in his mouth. Then he went on his way; and
+the mad man, no longer mad, sanely went on pilgrimage, men said, and
+made a fine end at the last. His own bishop, who had met him, had
+clapped spurs to his horse and bolted. It may be suspected that this
+bolting bishop was the newly elect of London, who was William de Santa
+Maria, an ex-Canon of Lincoln, Richard's secretary, Giraldus' opponent,
+better known than loved in his late Chapter.
+
+Matters being settled at Lincoln, he set out again for London and paused
+to ask the Barons of the Exchequer most kindly to see to the indemnities
+of his church while he was away. They rose to greet him and readily gave
+their promises. They prayed him to take a seat among them even for a
+moment. So pleased were they to have the archfoe of clerical secularism
+in this trap, that they called it a triumph indeed, to see the day when
+he sat on the Treasury bench. He jumped up, a little ashamed, kissed
+them all, and said, "Now I, too, can triumph over you if after taking
+the kiss you allow in anything less than friendly to my church." They
+laughingly said, "How wonderfully wise this man is! Why, he has easily
+laid it upon us, that whatever the king orders, we cannot without great
+disgrace trouble him at all." He blessed them all and was soon in
+Normandy. But Richard was following hot-foot the two half-brother
+Ademars, lords of Limoges and Angouleme, who had been playing into the
+hands of the French enemy. There was nothing to do but wait patiently,
+which he did at St. Nicholas' Monastery, Angers, from February to the
+beginning of March, 1199. Pope Innocent III.'s legates were also there,
+and they passed three weeks together. He conferred ordinations near
+here in the Abbey of Grandmont; refusing to ordain one of Walter Map's
+young friends, who afterwards became a leper. The king, it was reported,
+was full of huge threats and savage designs against his despisers, and
+if the clergy trembled before, they now shook like aspen leaves. The
+story of Hugh's predicament had got wind. The Hereford Canons wanted to
+choose the witty Walter Map to be bishop. He was already Archdeacon of
+Oxford, Canon of Lincoln, and Prebend of Hereford, but alas! he was also
+a friend of the disfavoured bishop. This fact is worth some emphasis, as
+it illustrates the large-mindedness of the saint. Walter was not only a
+vigorous pluralist, much stained by non-residence, but he was a
+whipster, whose lash was constantly flicking the monks, then in their
+decline. If any one considers his description of the Cistercians; of the
+desert life wherein they love their neighbour by expelling him; of their
+oppression whereby they glory not in Christ's Cross but in crucifying
+others; of their narrowness who call themselves Hebrews and all others
+Egyptians; of their sheep's clothing and inward ravening; of their
+reversals of Gospel maxims and their novelties; he will see that the
+lash for Cistercians must have fallen a good deal also upon Carthusian
+shoulders. Then Master Walter was towards being a favourer of Abelard
+and of his disciple Arnald of Brescia, whose ascetic mind was shocked at
+the fatal opulence of cardinals. Altogether Walter was a man who feared
+God, no doubt, but hardly showed it in the large jests which he made,
+which to our ears often sound rather too large. But Hugh recognised in
+the satirist a power for righteousness, and certainly loved and favoured
+him. Consequently the Hereford Canons with those of Angers and of the
+Lincoln Chapter laid their heads together to compose the strife between
+king and bishop: and the readiest way was of course for the latter to
+compound with a round sum and get off home.
+
+The wars made the whole country dangerous for travelling, and it was
+neither safe to stay at home nor to move afield. But Job was not more
+persistent against his three friends than Hugh against the three
+unanimous Chapters, and his main argument was that the peace of the
+church must never be bought with money or this would endow its
+disturbers. His wisdom was well evidenced by events in the next reign.
+With this advice he urged them to sleep over the matter and discuss it
+next day. But the struggle to avoid compromising principles in order not
+only to serve the hour, but to save the love and, perhaps, the lives of
+friends was a very severe strain to him. When they had gone out he was
+dismally cast down and acknowledged that he had rarely compressed so
+much grief into so little space. Then he sat in silence, thought, and
+prayer that the tangle might be so unknotted, that God not be offended
+nor his own friends and sons slighted and alienated. Upon this he slept
+and dreamed sweet dreams of lovely sights and heard the roll of the
+Psalm of Divine Battle chaunted by heavenly voices, "O God, wonderful
+art Thou in Thy holy places, even the God of Israel; He will give
+strength and power unto His people; blessed be God."{15} He woke up
+refreshed, and at his weekly Saturday Confession deeply blamed himself
+for some hesitation he had felt, when baleful advice was given him.
+
+A little after this the Abbess of Fontevrault came to see him. The
+King's mother Eleanor, her guest, had been sent for in a hurry. The king
+had been hurt. A serf of Achard of Chalus had ploughed up a golden
+relic, an emperor with his family seated round a golden table. Ademar of
+Limoges had seized it. Richard demanded the whole and was after it sword
+in hand. The holders were in Castle Chalus, short of weapons but not of
+valour, and held out gallantly armed with frying-pans and whatnot. The
+place was undermined. Richard, without his hauberk, was directing the
+crash, when a man pulled an arrow from the mortar; aimed it and hit him
+on the neck and side. He went to his tent, and plucked at it, broke it
+off; was operated upon; would not keep quiet. The wound turned angry and
+then black, and the Lion lay dying. He made his will, a generous and
+charitable one, confessed his sins, was houselled and anhealed, and died
+on Passion Tuesday, April 6th. His brain and bowels were buried at
+Charroux, his heart at Rouen, and his body at his father's feet, in
+penitence, in the nunnery of Fontevrault. Hugh was on his way to the
+Cathedral at Angers to take duty the next day, Palm Sunday, when Gilbert
+de Lacy, a clerk, rode up to him and told him of the king's death and of
+the funeral next day in Fontevrault. Hugh groaned deeply and announced
+at Angers that he should set out at once for that place. Every one
+begged and prayed that he would do no such thing. The mere rumour of the
+king's death had as usual let loose all the forces of disorder. Robbery,
+violence, and general anarchy were up. His own servants had been held up
+and robbed of forty silver marks, and the interregnum was more dreadful
+than any tyranny. What is the use of such charitable designs if you
+merely get left in the wilds by robbers, bare of carriage and clothes?
+they asked. His answer was worthy of a man who lived in holy fear and no
+other. "_We_ are all well aware what things can happen--fearful to the
+fearful--on this journey. But I think it a thing much more fearful that
+I should be coward enough to fail my late lord and king, by being away
+at such a crisis, by witholding my faith and grace from him in death,
+which I always showed him warmly in his life. What of the trouble he
+gave us, by giving in too much to the evil advice of those who flattered
+him? Certainly when I was with him, he never treated me but most
+honourably, never dismissed me unheard, when I made him some remarks
+face to face upon my business. If he wronged me when I was away, I have
+put it down to the spite of my detractors, not to his wickedness or
+malice. I will, therefore, pay him back to my power the honours he so
+often bestowed upon me. It will not be my fault if I do not help warmly
+at his obsequies. Say robbers do meet me on the road, say they do take
+the horses and carry off the robes, my feet will travel all the fleeter,
+because they are lightened from the vestment baggage. If they really
+tie my feet and rob me of the power of moving, then and then only will
+be a real excuse for being absent in the body, for it will be caused not
+by vice but by outside obstacles." He left his friends in the city and
+almost all his stuff, took one minor clerk, one monk, and a tiny train
+and set out. On the way he heard that the poor Queen Berengaria was at
+Castle Beaufort, so he left the doubtful highway for a dangerous forest
+track to visit her. He soothed her almost crazy grief, bid her bear
+grief bravely and face better days cautiously, said Mass for her,
+blessed her and her train, and went back at once. He got to Saumur the
+same day, where he was greeted with a sort of ovation by the townsfolk
+and was entertained by Gilbert de Lacy, who was studying there. Next
+day, Palm Sunday, he sped on to Fontevrault and met the bearers just at
+the doors. He paid all the royal honours he could to his late Master and
+was entertained at the Monastery. For three days he ceased not to say
+Mass and the Psalms for the kings lying there, as for all the faithful
+who lay quiet in Christ, prayed for their pardon and the bliss of
+everlasting light. A beautiful picture this of the brave old bishop in
+the Norman Abbey Church, where two kings, his friend and his forgiven
+foe, lay "shrouded among the shrouded women" in that Holy Week of long
+ago!
+
+This compassion was not only a matter of honour, but of faith. It was
+one of the principles of his life and conduct that hereby was set forth
+the love of God, and applied to the needs of man. He used often to say
+that countless other things manifested the boundless love of God to
+men, but of those we know, these surpass the greatness of all the rest,
+which He ceases not to bestow before man's rise and after his setting.
+"To touch lightly a few of these in the case of men who rise and set:
+God the Son of God gave for each man before he was born the ransom of
+His own death. God the Father sent His own same Son into the world to
+die for the man: God the Holy Ghost poured Himself out an earnest for
+him. So together the whole Trinity, one God, together set up the
+Sacraments by which he is born, cleansed, defended, and strengthened,
+gave the props of His own law to rule and teach him, and generously made
+provision for his good by other mysterious means. When man's fitful life
+is past and its course cut off by death, when his once dearest look on
+him now with aversion, when parents and children cast him forth with
+anxious haste from the halls once his, God's most gracious kindness
+scorns not what all others despise. Then straightway He ordains not only
+angelic spirits to the ward of the soul at its return to its Maker, but
+He sends for the burial service those who are first and foremost of His
+earthly servants, to wit the priests and others in the sacred orders.
+And this is His command to them: 'Behold,' He says, 'My priests and
+caretakers of My palaces in the world, behold My handiwork. I have
+always loved it. I spared not My only Son for it but made Him share in
+its mortality and its death. Behold, I say, that is now become a burden
+to its former lovers and friends. They crowd to cast it out and drive it
+forth. Away, then, speed and help My refugee: take up the Image of My
+Son, crucified for it: take instruments for incense and wax. Ring out
+the signals of My Church for a solemn assembly; raise high your hymnal
+voices, open the doors of My house and its inner shrines: place near to
+the altar, which holds the Body of My Son, what is left of that brother
+or sister; finally, cover him a bier with costly palls, for at last he
+triumphs: crowd it with lamps and candles, circle round him, overthrown
+as he is, with helping crowds of servants. Do more. Repeat the votive
+offering of My Son. Make the richest feast, and thus the panting spirit,
+restless and weary with the jars of the wonted mortality it has just
+laid by, may breathe to strength: and the flesh, empty for the while of
+its old tenant, and now to be nursed in the lap of the Mother Earth, may
+be bedewed with a most gracious holiness, so that at the last day when
+it is sweetly reunited to its well-known companion, it may gladly flower
+anew and put on with joy the everlasting freshness." This was no sudden
+seizure and passing emotion at the romance of funerals. He issued a
+general order in his diocese forbidding parish priests to bury the
+bodies of grown persons, if he were by to do it. If it were a case of
+good life, the more need to honour; if of an evil life, such would all
+the more yearn for greater succour. So he went to all, and if they were
+poor he ordered his almoner to find the lights and other requirements.
+Any funeral would bring him straight from his horse to pray at the bier.
+If he had no proper book wherein he might read without halting (and his
+eyes waxed dim at the last) he would stand near the officiant, chaunt
+the psalms with him, say the amens, and be clerk, almost a laic. If he
+had the right book, he would be priest, say the prayers, use the holy
+water, swing the censer, cast on the mould, then give shrift and benison
+and go on his way. If the place were a large city and many bodies came
+for burial he did just the same until all were finished. Potentates
+expecting to eat bread with him were often vexed and complained at these
+delays; but, host or guest, he had more appetite for holy than for
+social functions. King Richard at Rouen, like his father before him,
+with all the Court and the Royal Family, when they invited Hugh to
+table, had to keep fasting while Hugh performed these higher duties
+without clipping or diminishing the office. When the king's servants
+chafed, and would have spurred him on, he would say, "No need to wait
+for us. Let him eat in the Lord's name;" and to his friends, "It is
+better for the king to eat without us, than for our humility to pass the
+Eternal King's order unfulfilled." Near Argentan, in Normandy, he once
+found a new grave by the roadside and learnt that a beggar-boy lay
+there. The priest had let him lie there, because there was no fee and no
+one would carry him to the church-yard. Hugh was deeply grieved, said
+the office himself, and rattled that priest pretty smartly to his bishop
+for denying Christian burial to the penniless and needy.
+
+Once while the cathedral works were being carried on, a mason engaged on
+the fabric asked him for pontifical shrift for a brother who had just
+died. It was winter, and the feast of St. Stephen. Hugh promptly gave
+the absolution, and then asked if the body were yet buried. When he
+learnt that it was only being watched in a somewhat distant church, he
+ordered three horses instantly, one for himself, one for his outrider,
+and one for his chaplain; but as only two were to be had he sent the
+chaplain on ahead, himself followed with a monk and a couple of servers,
+and devoutly buried not only the mason's brother, but five other bodies.
+Another time, when the Archdeacon of Bedford gave a large and solemn
+feast to the dignified clergy--who, by the way, seldom shine in these
+narratives--the bishop so wearied them by his funereal delays that they
+explained their impatience to him not without some tartness of reproof.
+His only reply was, "Why do you not recall the voice of the Lord, who
+said with His holy lips, My meat is to do the will of My Father in
+heaven?" Another time, again, one hot spring when there was a general
+meeting of magnates, he heard that one of the prelates was dead.{16} The
+man was an outrageous guzzler and toper, but Hugh prayed earnestly for
+him, and then asked where he was to be buried. The now unromantic spot
+of Bermondsey was to be the burying ground, and the funeral was on the
+very day and hour of the Westminster gathering, in which matters deeply
+interesting to Lincoln were to be handled. No one of the bishops or
+abbots would stir out for their detected dead fellow, but "to desert him
+in his last need" was impossible to his saintlier brother. He must be
+off to bury the man, council or no council. The body had been clad in an
+alb and chasuble. Its face was bare and black, and the gross frame was
+bursting from its clothes. Every one else had a gum, an essence or
+incense; but Hugh, who was peculiarly sensitive to malodours, showed
+nothing but tenderness for the corrupt mortality, and seemed to cherish
+it as a mother a babe. The "sweet smelling sacrifice" shielded him in
+his work of mercy, they said.
+
+William of Newburgh, a writer much given to ghost stories, tells a
+Buckingham tale of a certain dead man who would walk. He fell violently
+upon his wife first, and then upon his brothers, and the neighbours had
+to watch to fend him off. At last he took to walking even in the day,
+"terrible to all, but visible only to a few." The clergy were called;
+the archdeacon took the chair. It was a clear case of Vampire. The man
+must be dug up, cut to bits, and burnt. But the bishop was very
+particular about the dead, and when they asked his leave he was
+indignant at the proposal. He wrote instead a letter with his own hand,
+which absolved the unquiet spirit. This was laid upon the dead man's
+breast, and thenceforward he rested in peace, as did his alarmed
+neighbours. Whatever we think of the tale, the tender reverent spirit of
+the bishop is still a wonder. Although greatly given to an enthusiasm
+for the saints, a puzzling enthusiasm for their teeth, nails, plaisters,
+and bandages, Hugh was looked upon as an enemy to superstition, and was
+an eager suppressor of the worship of wells and springs, which still
+show how hard the Pagan religion dies. He found and demolished this
+"culture" at Wycombe and Bercamstead.{17}
+
+The great theological question of Hugh's time was certainly the
+Eucharistic one. Eucharistic doctrine grew, as the power of the Church
+grew; as the one took a bolder tone so did the other. The word
+Transubstantiation (an ambiguous term to the disputants who do not
+define substance) had been invented by Peter of Blois, but not yet
+enjoined upon the Church by the Lateran Council of 1215. The language of
+the earlier fathers, of St. Bernard, did not suffice. Peter Lombard's
+tentative terms had given way to less reserved speech. Thomas Aquinas,
+not yet born, was to unite the rival factions which forked now into
+Berengarius, who objected to the very terms Body of Christ, &c., always
+used for the Sacrament; and now into some crude cannibal theories, which
+found support in ugly miracles of clotted chalices and bleeding fingers
+in patens. Abelard had tried to hush the controversy by a little
+judicious scepticism, but the air was full of debate. If learned men
+ignored the disputes the unlearned would not. Fanatical monks on the one
+side and fanatical Albigenses on the other, decried or over-cried the
+greatest mysteries of the faith, and brawled over the hidden manna.
+Hugh's old Witham monk Ainard had once preached a crusade against the
+blasphemers of the Sacraments, and is mentioned with honour for this
+very thing by Hugh's intimate and biographer. The saint's conspicuous
+devotion at the Mass, the care with which he celebrated and received, of
+themselves would point to a peculiarly strong belief in the Invisible
+Presence. Christians are, and have always been, lineally bound to
+believe in the supreme necessity of the Lord's Marriage Supper to the
+soul's health and obedience. They are bound to use the old language,
+"This is My Body." In earlier days, when Church thinkers were all
+Platonists, or at least Realists, the verity of the Sacrament was the
+Idea behind it. The concrete veils of that Idea were hallowed only by
+their use, association, and impact. But when after the crusades
+Aristotle was no longer the Bishop of Arians, but now the supreme
+philosopher, the language hitherto natural to piety had either to be
+changed or infused by violence with new senses, or both. The latter half
+of the twelfth century saw this unhappy deadlock between history and
+reason, and made strenuous efforts to compose the strife. So far as we
+may judge, upon a difficult question, where little must be written and
+much would be required to express an exact opinion, Hugh seems to have
+held that by mystic sanctification the host is turned into Christ's
+Body; that this conversion is not a sudden but a gradual one, until the
+Son offers Himself anew, and hence the Sacrifice may be said to be
+repeated. The story which illustrates this position best is that of the
+young clerk who came to him at Buckden. The bishop had just been
+dedicating a large and beautiful chalice and upbraiding the
+heavily-endowed dignitaries for doing nothing at all for the poorly
+served churches from which they drew their stipends. Then he said Mass,
+and the clerk saw Christ in his hands, first as a little child at the
+Oblation, when "the custom is to raise the host aloft and bless it"; and
+again when it is "raised to be broken and consumed in three pieces," "as
+the Son of the Highest offering Himself to the Father for man's
+salvation." The clerk tells him of the double vision--the voucher of a
+message sent by his late crusading father, who warned him to tell the
+archbishop, through the Bishop of Lincoln, that the evil state of the
+church must be amended. The message and the messenger seem to answer
+exactly to the monk of Evesham, whose Dantesque revelations{18} are here
+almost quoted. The wrath of God was incurred by the unchaste living
+priests, who so behaved that the Sacraments were polluted, and by the
+manner in which archdeacons and others trafficked in bribes. Hugh heard
+the story at the altar, wept, dried the eyes of both, kissed the young
+man and brought him into the meal afterwards, and urged him to become a
+monk. This he did, and became the Monk of Evesham aforesaid. There is no
+necessary advance in Eucharistic doctrine in this story, for a similar
+vision was given to King Edward the Confessor, and Hugh was so reticent
+about such things that his chaplain Adam never dared to ask him,
+although he dreamed that he asked him and was snubbed for his pains.
+"Although then, when you say, and more often, the Lord deigned to reveal
+this and other things to me, what do you want in the matter?" In his
+last journey to Jouay,{19} an old, feeble and withered priest, who would
+not dine with him as the parish priest was wont, came to ask him to see
+a wonder and to beg for his prayers. His story was that he, being in
+mortal sin, blind and weak in faith and practices, was saying Mass, and
+doubting whether so dirty a sinner could really handle so white and
+stainless a glory. When the fraction took place, blood dripped from the
+host and it grew into flesh. He dropped the new thing into the chalice,
+covered it up, dismissed the people, and got papal absolution, and now
+would fain show the wonder. The lesser men were agape for the sight, but
+Hugh answered, "In the Lord's name let them keep the signs of their
+infidelity to themselves. What are they to us? Are we to be astonished
+at the partial shows of the Divine gift, who daily behold this heavenly
+sacrifice whole and entire with most faithful gaze of mind? Let him, who
+beholds not with the inner sight of faith the whole, go and behold the
+man's little scraps with his carnal vision." He then blessed the priest
+and dismissed him, and rebuked his followers for curiosity, and gave
+them a clear Eucharistic lesson not repeated for us, upon what faith
+lays down in the matter. From his speech then and elsewhere the good
+Adam gathered that Hugh often saw what others only believed to be there,
+the "bared face of the inner Man."
+
+These stories seem to dissociate Hugh from the grosser forms of
+Eucharistic teaching, and open the way for an explanation of his
+behaviour at Fechamp, which is otherwise almost inexplicable. We may
+take it that he held a belief in a living Presence, which teeth could
+not bruise nor change decay. The language he uses is not consistent with
+later English teaching which shrinks from talking about a repeated
+sacrifice. It is also inconsistent with later Roman devotion, because he
+seems to dislike the notion of a conditioned or corporal Presence, and
+anyhow to shrink from the definite statements to which the Roman Church
+has since committed herself. He certainly did not fix the Coming of the
+Bridegroom at the Consecration Prayer, _a fortiori_ to any one
+particular word of it.
+
+Far less conjectural is the splendid stand which he made for chastity
+of life, at a time when the standard in such matters was lax both in the
+world and also in the church. It came as a surprise to his
+contemporaries that he should disapprove of the romantic ties between
+King Henry and fair Rosamond. That lady was buried at Godstowe by her
+royal lover, who draped her tomb, near the high altar, with silk, lamps,
+and lighted candles, making her the new founder, and for her sake
+raising the house from poverty and meanness to wealth and nobleness of
+building. While Hugh was earnestly praying at the altar (in 1191) he
+espied this splendid sepulchre. He asked whose it was, and when he
+learned said sternly, "Take her hence, for she was a whore. The love
+between the king and her was unlawful and adulterous. Bury her with the
+other dead outside the church, lest the Christian religion grow
+contemptible. Thus other women by her example may be warned and keep
+themselves from lawless and adulterous beds." So far from being harsh,
+this decision to allow of no royal exceptions to the ten commandments
+was probably the kindest, strongest, and most wide-reaching protest that
+could be made against an unhappy and probably growing evil. This is of a
+piece with many other passages in his life, but hardly worth dwelling
+upon because the lawless loves, which in that day were too lightly
+regarded, in this day have usurped the sole title of immorality to
+themselves, as if there were not six other deadly sins besides. The best
+justification of the sentence is just this surprise with which it was
+received.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{15} lxviii. 35. A psalm full of associations of battles long ago: sung
+against Julian the Apostate, used by Charlemagne, Anthony, Dunstan, and
+many more.
+
+{16} Simon of Pershore, if in 1198: and Robert of Caen, if in 1196, but
+less likely.
+
+{17} The Wycombe Well is probably the Round Basin, near the Roman Villa,
+but the other I am unable to hear news of.
+
+{18} Published by Arber. See chap. xxxvi.
+
+{19} Joi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+HUGH THE BUILDER
+
+
+The strong personality of the man, his boldness and sagacity combined,
+come out in his building as clearly as in his conduct; but since the
+learned are very litigious upon the questions of his architecture, the
+reader must have indulgence in his heart and a salt cellar in his hand,
+when he approaches this subject.
+
+First of all we must remember that in his age it was part of the
+education of a gentleman to know something about building. Hugh's
+grandfather must have built the old keep of Avalon Castle, which still
+stands above the modern chateau, and a family whose arms are, on a field
+or the eagle of the empire sable, were builders, both of necessity and
+of choice. When every baron, or at least every baron's father, had built
+himself a castle, planned and executed under his own eye; when King
+Richard in person could plan and superintend the building of his great
+Castle Saucy, the Chateau Gaillard, it is not wonderful that Hugh also
+should be ready and willing to do much in stone and mortar. Then, again,
+he must have had some architectural training at the Grande Chartreuse.
+The first buildings of wood were overthrown in 1126 by an avalanche, and
+Guigo, the fifth prior, had refounded the whole buildings after that
+date. The upper church, since then a chapter house, was built in
+Romanesque style, with round arches, two rose windows, and three
+sanctuary windows with wide splays. In 1150 Humbert, Count of Savoy,
+founded a beautiful chapel and a guest house for visitors; and even
+later than this there is a good deal of building going on at the lower
+house, farm buildings, guest house, and possibly even a church during
+the very time that Hugh was monk and procurator. Even if he took no
+personal part in any of these last works, he must have known and heard
+much of the art from men, who had done or were doing it. But it would
+not be rash to conclude that he had an apprenticeship in building before
+he set foot on English soil, and as well by education as by inheritance
+knew something of this work.
+
+Next we must bear in mind that every stone would, if possible, have a
+mystic signification. For some reason or other this notion makes the
+modern man impatient; but this impatience does not alter the facts, but
+only obscures their explanation. Everybody knows that the three eastern
+lights mean, as they did to St. Barbara, the blessed Trinity; but few
+people recognize that all numbers, whether in beams, pillars, sides,
+arches, or decoration had a well recognised symbolism, which had come
+down, hall-marked by St. Augustine and St. Bernard, to the building and
+worshipping generations of those and much later days.
+
+What was done at Witham we cannot now fully tell, for everything has
+perished of the upper house. The monks' church would be of stone, and
+probably was very like the present Friary Church. The cells certainly
+would be of wood in the second stage, for they were of "weeps," as we
+have seen, in the first. This part of the Charterhouse we have concluded
+stood in a field now called "Buildings," but now so-called without
+visible reason.
+
+Round the present Friary Church there were the houses of the original
+inhabitants, a little removed from their foreign intruders; not quite a
+mile away, as at Hinton, where the two houses are thus divided, but yet
+something near three quarters of that distance.
+
+When the inhabitants were removed to Knap in North Curry and elsewhere,
+they took their old rafters with them or sold these. Their walls seem to
+have been of mud and wattle, or of some unsaleable stuff, and these, no
+doubt, served for a time for the lay brethren, after a little trimming
+and thatching. But their church had to be looked to before it could
+serve for the worship of the _conversi_. The old inhabitants (near two
+hundred, Mr. Buckle thinks, rather generously), were still there up to
+Hugh's time, and if their church was like their houses the wooden roof
+was much decayed and the walls none of the best. Hugh resolved upon a
+stone vault of the Burgundian type, followed at the Grande Chartreuse,
+and he therefore had to thicken the walls by an extra case. The building
+was next divided into three parts, with doors from the north and west,
+so that men might seek refuge in the Holy Trinity from the dark of the
+world and its setting suns. The stone roof is supported upon small
+semi-octagonal vaulting shafts, ending in truncated corbels. This
+fondness for the number eight, which reappears markedly at Lincoln, has
+to do with St. Augustine's explanations that eight (the number next to
+seven, the number of creation and rest) signifies the consummation of
+all things and Doomsday. Four is the number of the outer world, with its
+seasons and quarters; three of the soul of man, the reflection of God;
+and eight, therefore, which comes after the union of these, is judgment
+and eternal life. Hugh was, no doubt, his own architect (if such a word
+is not an anachronism here), but he employed Somerset builders, who left
+the mark of English custom upon this otherwise peculiar and continental
+looking building. The leper window has been noticed above. The only
+other building at Witham which pretends to bear traces of Hugh's hand is
+the guest house, and this, as we have seen, may be at bottom the very
+house where Hugh hob-a-nobbed with King Henry.
+
+The same style, the same severity, the same sacramental feeling no doubt
+marked the Conventual Church, and it is sad to think what great and
+pathetic memories perished with its destruction. If only the pigstyes
+and barns built out of these old stones could have been the richer for
+what was lost in the transit, they would have been the richest of their
+kind. For Hugh turned to this his first great work in the house of
+Martha with a peculiar relish, which was that of a lover more than of a
+man who had merely heaped up stones against the wind. If Lincoln was
+his Leah, Witham was his dear Rachael. Hither he was translated, like
+Enoch or Elijah, from a vexing world for a time every year. The two
+parts of the Charterhouse were the embodiments of "justice and
+innocence." Here was "the vine of the Lord of Hosts." His cell was kept
+for him, and while all the world was hotly harvesting he was laying up
+here his spiritual stores. Here his face seemed to burn with the horned
+light of Moses, when he appeared in public. His words were like fire and
+wine and honey, but poised with discretion. Yet he never became a
+fanatical monk, nor like Baldwin, whom the Pope addressed as "most
+fervent monk, clever abbot, lukewarm bishop, and slack archbishop." He
+warned his monastic brethren here that the great question at doom is
+not, Were you monk or hermit? but Did you show yourself truly Christian?
+The name is useless, or positively baleful, unless a man has the
+threefold mark--_caritas in corde; veritas in ore; castitas in
+corpore_--of love in the heart, truth on the lips, pureness in the body.
+Here he told them that chaste wedlock was as pure as continence and
+virginity, and would be blessed as high. He lived as he taught always,
+but here he seemed beyond himself. His buildings at Witham, enumerated
+in the Great Life, and not even planned before his time, are the major
+and minor churches, the cells for monks, the cloisters, the brothers'
+little houses, and the guest chambers. The lay kitchen was a poor
+building of brushwood and thatch, six or seven paces from the guest
+house, the blaze of which, when it caught fire, could be seen from the
+glass windows of the west end of the lay church. The wooden cells of
+the brothers lay round this in a ring. The guest house roof was of
+shingles. This kitchen fire took place at the last visit of the bishop
+while he was at the "night lauds." He gave over the office when it broke
+out, signed the cross several times, and prayed before the altar, while
+the young men fought the flame. He had already often ordered a stone
+kitchen to be built in its place, and so no real harm was done, for the
+fire did not spread. The only question which arises is whether the
+present guest house is far enough west to square with this story. No
+mention is made of the fish ponds, but they are likely enough to have
+been prepared in his time, for the rule, which never allowed meat, did
+allow fish on festivals. Hugh had no notion of starving other people,
+but used to make them "eat well and drink well to serve God well." He
+condemned an asceticism run mad, and called it vanity and superstition
+for people to eschew flesh when they had no such commandment, and
+substitute for it foreign vegetables, condiments for fat, and expensive
+fishes. He liked dry bread himself, and the drier the tastier, but he
+did all he could to spare others. Consequently, we may credit him with
+the fish ponds.
+
+His work at Lincoln was on a much larger scale and happily much of it is
+still there, a goodly material for wonder, praise and squabbling. It was
+imposed upon him, for he found the Norman building more or less in
+ruins. This building consisted of a long nave, with a west front, now
+standing; and a choir, which ended something east of the present
+faldstool in a bow. At the east end of the nave was a tower, and to the
+north and south of this tower were two short transepts, or porches. The
+tower was either not very high or else was shortened, and perhaps
+recapped to make it safe after the earthquake, for the comparatively
+small damage which it did when it fell upon the choir proves that it
+could not have been very massive. It fell in Grossetestes' time and its
+details with it.
+
+The first requisite for building is money: and money, as we have seen,
+was very hard to obtain in England just at this juncture. Three means by
+which Hugh raised it are known to us. The austere ideals of the
+Carthusian bishop, his plain vestments, his cheap ring, his simple
+clothes set free a good deal of the money of the see for this purpose.
+Then he issued a pastoral summons to the multitude of her sons to appear
+at least once a year at the mother church of Lincoln with proper
+offerings according to their power; especially rural deans, parsons, and
+priests through the diocese were to gather together at Pentecost and
+give alms for the remission of their sins and in token of obedience and
+recollection of their Lincoln mother. This, combined with a notice of
+detention of prebend for all non-resident and non-represented canons,
+must have brought the faithful up in goodly numbers to their
+ecclesiastical centre. If they were once there, the cracked and
+shored-up building and the bishop's zeal and personal influence might be
+entrusted to loose their purse strings, especially as he led the way,
+both by donation and personal work, for he carried the hod and did not
+disdain to bring mortar and stones up the ladder like any mason's
+'prentice. Then, thirdly, he established or used a Guild of St. Mary, a
+confraternity which paid for, and probably worked at, the glorious task.
+Its local habitation was possibly that now called John of Gaunt's
+stables,{20} but anyhow it stood good for a thousand marks a year. A
+mark is thirteen and fourpence; and six hundred and sixty six pounds
+odd, in days when an ox cost three shillings and a sheep fourpence was a
+handsome sum. It could not have been far short of L10,000 of our money.
+
+It is evident from records and architecture alike that the building had
+to be begun from the very roots and foundations. In examining it we had
+better begin with the chroniclers. The Great Life is curiously silent
+about this work, and if we had no other records we should almost
+consider that the work was done under, rather than by, the bishop. He
+went to Lincoln "about to build on this mountain, like a magnificent and
+peaceful Solomon, a most glorious temple," says his laconic friend Adam.
+"Also fifteen days before he died Geoffrey de Noiers (or Nowers) the
+constructor or builder of the noble fabric, came to see him. The
+erection of this fabric was begun from the foundations, in the renewal
+of the Lincoln church, by the magnificent love of Hugh to the beauty of
+God's house." The dying bishop thus spoke to him: "In that we have had
+word that the lord king with the bishops and leading men of this whole
+kingdom are shortly about to meet for a general assembly, hasten and
+finish all that is needful for the beauty and adornment about the altar
+of my lord and patron saint, John Baptist, for we wish this to be
+dedicated by our brother, the Bishop of Rochester, when he arrives there
+with the other bishops. Yea, and we ourselves, at the time of the
+aforesaid assembly, shall be present there too. We used to desire
+greatly to consecrate that by our ministry; but since God has disposed
+otherwise, we wish that it be consecrated before we come thither on a
+future occasion." This is all that Adam has to tell us. Giraldus
+Cambrensis says, "Item, he restored the chevet of his own church with
+Parian stones and marble columns in wonderful workmanship, and reared
+the whole anew from the foundation with most costly work. Similarly,
+too, he began to construct the remarkable bishop's houses, and, by God's
+help, proposed, in certain hope, to finish them far larger and nobler
+than the former ones." Then again he says, "Item, he took pains to erect
+in choiceness, the Lincoln church of the blessed Virgin, which was built
+remarkably by a holy man, the first bishop of the same place, to wit the
+blessed Remigius, according to the style of that time. To make the
+fabric conformed to the far finer workmanship and very much daintier and
+cleverer polish of modern novelty, he erected it of Parian stones and
+marble columns, grouped alternately and harmoniously, and which set off
+one another with varying pictures of white and black, but yet with
+natural colour change. The work, now to be seen, is unique." The Legenda
+says that Hugh carried stones and cement in a box for the fabric of the
+mother Church, which he reared nobly from the foundations. Other
+chroniclers say just the same, and one adds that he "began a remarkable
+episcopal hall" as well. But far the most important account we have is
+that of the metrical life--written between 1220 and 1235. This gives us
+some of the keys to the intense symbolism of all the designs. Since a
+proper translation would require verse, it may be baldly Englished in
+pedagogic _patois_, as follows: "The prudent religion and the religious
+prudence of the pontiff makes a bridge (_pons_) to Paradise, toiling to
+build Sion in guilelessness, not in bloods. And with wondrous art, he
+built the work of the cathedral church; in building which, he gives not
+only his wealth and the labour of his people, but the help of his own
+sweat; and often he carries in a pannier the carved stones and the
+sticky lime. The weakness of a cripple, propped on two sticks, obtains
+the use of that pannier, believing an omen to be in it: and in turn
+disdains the help of the two sticks. The diet, which is wont to bow the
+straight, makes straight the bowed. O remarkable shepherd of the flock,
+and assuredly no hireling! as the novel construction of the Church
+explains. For Mother Sion lay cast down, and straitened, wandering,
+ignorant, sick, old, bitter, poor, homely and base: Hugh raises her when
+cast down, enlarges her straitened, guides her wandering, teaches her
+ignorant, heals her sick, renews her old, sweetens her bitter, fills her
+when empty, adorns her homely, honours her when base. The old mass falls
+to the foundation and the new rises; and the state of it as it rises,
+sets forth the fitting form of the cross. The difficult toil unites
+three whole parts; for the most solid mass of the foundation rises from
+the centre,{21} the wall carries the roof into the air. [So the
+foundation is buried in the lap of earth, but the wall and roof shew
+themselves, and with proud daring the wall flies to the clouds, the roof
+to the stars.] With the value of the material the design of the art well
+agrees, for the stone roof talks as it were with winged birds, spreading
+its wide wings, and like to a flying thing strikes the clouds, stayed
+upon the solid columns. And a sticky liquid glues together the white
+stones, all which the workman's hand cuts out to a nicety. And the wall,
+built out of a hoard of these, as it were disdaining this thing,
+counterfeits to unify the adjacent parts; it seems not to exist by art
+but rather by nature; not a thing united, but one. Another costly
+material of black stones props the work, not like this content with one
+colour, not open with so many pores, but shining much with glory and
+settled with firm position; and it deigns to be tamed by no iron, save
+when it is tamed by cunning, when the surface is opened by frequent
+blows of the grit, and its hard substance eaten in with strong acid.
+That stone, beheld, can balance minds in doubt whether it be jasper or
+marble; but if jasper, dull jasper; if marble, noble marble. Of it are
+the columns, which so surround the pillars that they seem there to
+represent a kind of dance. Their outer surface more polished than new
+horn, with reflected visions, fronts the clear stars. So many figures
+has nature painted there that if art, after long endeavour, toils to
+simulate a like picture, scarce may she imitate nature. Likewise has the
+beauteous joining placed a thousand columns there in graceful order;
+which stable, precious, shining, with their stability carry on the whole
+work of the church, with their preciousness enrich it, with their shine
+make it clear. Their state indeed is lofty and high, their polish true
+and splendid, their order handsome and geometric, their beauty fit and
+useful, their use gracious and remarkable, their stability unhurt and
+sharp. A splendid double pomp of windows displays riddles to the eyes,
+inscribing the citizens of the Heavenly City and the arms whereby they
+tame the Stygian tyrant.{22} And two are greater, like two lights; of
+these the rounded blaze, looking upon the quarters of north and south,
+with its double light, lords it over all windows. They can be compared
+to the common stars, but these two are one like the sun, the other like
+the moon. So do these two candles lighten the head of the Church. With
+living and various colours they mimic the rainbow, not mimic indeed, but
+rather excel, for the sun when it is reflected in the clouds makes a
+rainbow: these two shine without sun, glitter without cloud.
+
+These things, described but puerilely, have the weight of an allegory.
+Without it seems but as a shell, but within lies the kernel. Without it
+is as wax, but within is combed honey; and fire lightens more pleasantly
+in the shade. For foundation, wall roof, white carved stone, marble
+smooth, conspicuous and black, the double order of windows, and the twin
+windows, which, as it were, look upon the regions of north and south,
+are great indeed, in themselves, but figure greater things.
+
+The foundation is the body, the wall man, the roof the spirit, the
+division of the Church threefold. The body possesses the earth, man the
+clouds, the spirit the stars. The white and carved stone means the
+chaste and wise; the whiteness is modesty, the carving dogma. By the
+effigy of marble, smooth, shining, dark, the bride is figured,
+guileless, well conducted, working. The smoothness very rightly means
+guilelessness, the splendour good conduct, the blackness work. The noble
+cohort of the clergy lightening the world with light divine is expressed
+by the clear windows. The corresponding order can everywhere be
+observed. The Canonic is set forth by the higher order; the Vicarious by
+the lower; and because the canonic handles the business of the world,
+and the busy vicarious fulfils, by its obligations, divine matters, the
+top line of windows shines bright with a ring of flowers around it,
+which signifies the varying beauty of the world, the lower contains the
+names of the holy fathers. The twin windows, which afford the rounded
+blaze, are the two eyes of the Church, and rightly in these respects
+seem to be, the greater the bishop, and the lesser the dean. The North
+is Satan, and the South the Holy Ghost, which the two eyes look upon.
+For the bishop looks upon the South to invite, but the dean upon the
+North to avoid it. The one sees to be saved, the other not to be lost.
+The brow of the church beholds with these eyes the candles of Heaven and
+the darkness of Lethe. Thus the senseless stones enwrap the mysteries of
+the living stones, the work made with hands sets forth the spiritual
+work; and the double aspect of the Church is clear, adorned with double
+equipage. A golden majesty paints the entry of the choir: and properly
+in his proper image Christ crucified is shewn, and there to a nicety
+the progress of His life is suggested. Not only the cross or image, but
+the ample surface of the six columns and two woods, flash with tested
+gold. The capitols{23} cleave to the Church, such as the Roman summit
+never possessed, the wonderful work of which scarce the monied wealth of
+Croesus could begin. In truth their entrances are like squares. Within
+a rounded space lies open, putting to the proof, both in material and
+art, Solomon's temple. If of these the perfection really stays, the
+first Hugh's work will be perfected under a second Hugh. Thus then
+Lincoln boasts of so great a sire, who blessed her with so many titles
+on all sides."
+
+The church itself is the best comment upon this somewhat obscure
+account, and it may be briefly divided into Pre-Hugonian, Hugonian, and
+Post-Hugonian parts. The first, the Norman centre of the west facade,
+does not concern us, except that its lovely face often looked down upon
+the great bishop in his dark or tawny cloak trimmed with white lambs'
+wool, which hid his hair shirt. Except for this Norman work and the
+Norman font, it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that the whole is
+by or for Hugh, for his shrine, his influence, and his example,
+completed what his work, and his plans, never dreamed about. Yet these
+last are responsible for much. He built a cruciform church, beginning
+with the entrance to the choir, with the aisles on either side. The
+chapels of St. Edward Martyr and St. James{24} form the base or step of
+the cross. The east transept, with all chapels adjoining, the
+choristers' vestry, antevestry, dean's or medicine chapel, with its
+lovely door and the cupboards in the now floorless room above it, the
+vaulted passage and chamber adjoining, are all his. So are, possibly,
+the matchless iron screens between the two choirs (topped with modern
+trumpery). South-east of the Medicine Chapel is one of St. Hugh's great
+mystic columns, and there are a pair of them. Where the Angel Choir now
+lifts its most graceful form and just behind the high altar, rose the
+semi-hexagonal east end, the opened honeycomb, where most fitly was
+placed the altar of St. John Baptist. It was somewhere in the walls of
+this forehead that the original bishop's eye and dean's eye were once
+fixed, possibly in the rounded eye sockets which once stood where Bishop
+Wordsworth and Dean Butler are now buried.{25}
+
+When we look closely at this work, we are astonished at the bold
+freedom, and yet the tentative and amateur character of it. The builders
+felt their way as they went along, and well they might, for it was not
+only a new church but a new and finer style altogether. They built a
+wall. It was not strong enough, so they buttressed it over the
+mouldings. The almost wayward double arcade inside was there apparently,
+before the imposed vaulting shafts were thought about. The stones were
+fully shaped and carved on the floor, and then put in their positions.
+Hardly anything is like the next thing. Sometimes the pointed arch is
+outside, as in "St. James'" Chapel, sometimes inside as in "St.
+Edward's." Look up at the strange vaulting above the choir, about the
+irregularity of which so much feigned weeping has taken place. It
+represents, maybe, the Spirit blowing where it listeth and not given by
+measure. So, too, mystic banded shafts are octagonal for blessedness,
+and they blossom in hidden crockets for the inner flowers of the Spirit,
+and there are honeycombs and dark columns banded together in joyful
+unity, all copied from nowhere, but designed by this holy stone poet to
+the glory of God. The pierced tympanum has a quatrefoil for the four
+cardinal virtues, or a trefoil for faith, hope, and charity. Compared
+with the lovely Angel Choir which flowered seventy years later, under
+our great King Edward, it may look all unpractised, austere; but Hugh
+built with sweet care, and sense, and honesty, never rioting in the
+disordered emotion of lovely form which owed no obedience to the spirit,
+and which expressed with great elaboration--almost nothing. He may have
+valued the work of the intellect too exclusively, but surely it cannot
+be valued too highly? The work is done as well where it does not as
+where it does show.
+
+The bishop's hall, which he began, could not have been much more than
+sketched and founded. It was carried on by one of his successors, Hugh
+de Wells (1209-1235), though one would like to believe that it was in
+this great hall that he entertained women, godly matrons, and widows,
+who sat by his side at dinner, to the wonder of monkish brethren. He
+would lay his clean hands upon their heads and bless them, sometimes
+even gently embrace them, and bid them follow the steps of holy women
+of old. Indeed he had quite got over the morbid terror he once felt for
+these guardians of the Divine humanity, for he used often to say to
+them, "Almighty God has deserved indeed to be loved by the feminine sex.
+He was not squeamish of being born of a woman. Yea, and he has granted
+hereby a magnificent and right worthy privilege to all women folk. For
+when it is not allowed to man to be or to be named the Father of God,
+yet this has been bestowed upon the woman to be the parent of God." The
+traces of his work at the other manor houses are wiped out by time.
+There is nothing at Stow; Buckden was built later; and the other
+footprints of this building saint are lost upon the sands of time.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{20} This building itself is of an earlier date.
+
+{21} Of the earth.
+
+{22} _I.e._, Saints and Lances.
+
+{23} Side chapels.
+
+{24} Or of SS. Dennys and Guthlac it may be.
+
+{25} It is a pity in that case that the bishop lies under the old
+"dean's eye," and _vice versa_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+UNDER KING JOHN
+
+
+When King Richard died, John, with a handful of followers, gave his
+host, Arthur of Brittany, the slip, and hurried off to Chinon, in
+Touraine. Hence he sent a humble message that the Bishop of Lincoln
+would deign to visit him. The reason was obvious. His fate hung in the
+balance, and the best loved and most venerated of English bishops would,
+if he would but recognise him, turn that scale against Arthur of
+Brittany. On the Wednesday in Holy Week, April 19th, 1199, Hugh left
+Fontevrault, and the anxious prince rode to meet him and to pay him
+every court. John would fain have kept him by his side, but the bishop
+excused himself, and the two travelled back to Fontevrault together, and
+finally parted at Samur. They visited the royal tombs at the former
+place, but the prudent nuns would not allow the dubious prince inside
+their walls "because the abbess was not at home." John affected to be
+charmed at their scruples, and sent them a pious message, promising the
+bishop that he would shew them great favours. The answer was, "You know
+that I greatly dislike every lie. I shall therefore take care not to
+tell them your lip promises, unless I have proof that you certainly mean
+to fulfil them." John at once swore that he would fulfil all as soon as
+might be, and the bishop in his presence told the holy women, commended
+the prince to them, gave the blessing and carried off the royal humbug.
+He then had a long tale of John's good resolutions: he would be pious to
+God, kind to his subjects, and just to all; he would take Hugh for his
+father and guide, and wait upon him. He then shewed him a stone, cased
+in gold, which he wore round his neck, and told him that its fortunate
+owner would lack nothing of his ancestral possessions. "Put not your
+faith in a senseless stone," he was told, "but only in the living and
+true heavenly stone, the Lord Jesus Christ. Lay him most surely as your
+heart's foundation and your hope's anchor. He truly is so firm and
+living a stone that He crushes all who oppose Him. He suffers not those
+who rest on him to fall, but ever raises them to higher things and
+enlarges them to ampler deservings." They reached then the church porch,
+where was a lively sculpture of Doomsday, and on the judge's left a
+company of kings and nobles led to eternal fire. The bishop said, "Let
+your mind set ceaselessly before you the screams and endless agonies of
+these. Let these ceaseless tortures be ever in front of your heart's
+eyes. Let the careful remembrance of these evils teach you how great is
+the self loss which is laid upon those who rule other men for a little
+time, and, ruling themselves ill, are subjects to demon spirits in
+endless agony. These things, while one can avoid them, one is wise to
+fear ever, lest when one cannot avoid them, one should afterwards
+happen ceaselessly to endure them." He then pointed out that this Day of
+the Lord was put in the porch, so that those who entered to ask for
+their needs should not forget "the highest and greatest need of all,
+pardon for sins," which they might ask and have and be free from pains
+and glad with eternal joys. John seized the bishop's hand and shewed the
+kings on the right. "Nay, lord bishop, you should rather shew us these,"
+he said "whose example and society we pray to follow and attain." For a
+few days he seemed exceedingly submissive in deed and speech. The
+beggars who wished him well he thanked with bows. The ragged old women
+who saluted him he replied to most gently. But after three days he
+changed his tune and dashed the hopes which had begun to spring. Easter
+Sunday came, and the bishop was at Mass and John's chamberlain slipped
+twelve gold pieces into his hand, the usual royal offering. He was
+standing (they always stand at Mass) surrounded by a throng of barons
+before the bishop and gloated upon the gold, tossed it in his hand and
+delayed so long to offer it, that everybody stared. At last the bishop,
+angry at such behaviour, then and there said, "Why gaze like that?" John
+replied, "Truly I am having a look at those gold coins of yours and
+thinking that if I had held them a few days ago, I should not offer them
+to you but pop them in my own purse. Still, all the same, take them."
+The angry bishop blushed for the king, drew back his arm, would not
+touch such money nor suffer his hand to be kissed; shook his head at him
+in fury. "Put down there what you hold," he said, "and go." The king
+cast his money into the silver basin and slunk away. John's insult was
+all the greater because out of Lincoln none of the bishop's people was
+ever allowed to nibble one crumb of the alms. That day the bishop had
+preached upon the conduct and future prospects of princes. John neither
+liked the duration nor the direction of the sermon, and sent thrice to
+the preacher to stop his talk and get on with the Mass so that he might
+go to his victuals. But not a bit of it. The preacher talked louder and
+longer until all applauded and some wept, and he told them how worthily
+they ought to partake of the true Sacramental Bread, who came from
+heaven and gives life to the world. John shared neither in the word nor
+the Sacrament. Neither then nor on Ascension Day, when he was made king,
+did he communicate. Indeed it was said he had never done so since he was
+grown up.
+
+Next Sunday the court was at Rouen and Archbishop Walter was investing
+John with the sacred emblems of the Duchy of Normandy during the High
+Mass. A banner on a lance was handed to the new duke. John advanced,
+amid cheers, and the foolish cackle of laughter of his former boon
+companions. He looked over his shoulder to grin back at the fools, his
+friends, and from his feeble grasp the old banner fell upon the
+pavement! But Hugh had left him for England before this evil omen. When
+the bishop reached Fleche on Easter Monday, he went to church to vest
+for Mass. His servants rushed in to say that the guards had seized his
+horses and carts, and robbers had taken some of his pack horses. The
+company, including Gilbert de Glanville of Rochester, his friend,
+begged him not to say Mass, but merely to read the gospel and hurry out
+of the trap. Neither chagrined at his loss, nor moved by their terrors,
+he went deaf and silent to the altar. He was not content either with a
+plain celebration. He must need have sandals, tunic, and all the rest of
+the robes, and add a pontifical blessing to the solemn celebration. As
+he was unrobing the magistrates came in a fine state of repentance, with
+restitution, safe conducts, and humble words. He jested with them and
+past on to St. Peter's, at Le Mans. Here another alarm met them.
+Arthur's troopers rushed the place in the night meaning to catch John.
+News of more robberies and violence came, but thanks to the Abbot he got
+safely on and Dame Constance of Brittany sent him many apologies and
+assurances. He reached Sees safely but insisted upon going aside for a
+little pious colloquy with a learned and devout Abbot of Persigne,
+although the country was in a very dangerous condition for travelling.
+He found the good man away; so he said Mass and went on, and at last got
+home to tell them at Lincoln that all was peace. His progress was a
+triumph of delighted crowds, for the hearts of his people had been with
+him in all the struggle thus safely ended, and the sea of people
+shouted, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord," as their
+father rode towards his cathedral town. The commons evidently felt that
+the liberties of the church were the outworks of the liberties of the
+land.
+
+But the god of victory is a maimed god, and the battles of the world
+irked Hugh's contemplative soul. He wished to lay by his heavy burden of
+bishopric and to go back to his quiet cell, the white wool tunic, the
+silence, and the careful cleaning of trenchers. The office of a bishop
+in his day left little time for spiritual tillage either at home or
+abroad. Not only the bishops had to confirm, ordain to all orders,
+consecrate, anoint, impose penance, and excommunicate, but they had to
+decide land questions concerning lands in frank almoin, all probate and
+nullity of marriage cases, and to do all the legal work of a king's
+baron besides. The judicial duties lay heavily upon him. He used to say
+that a bishop's case was harder than a lord warden's or a mayor's, for
+he had to be always on the bench; they only sometimes. They might look
+after their family affairs, but he could hardly ever handle the cure of
+souls. For the second or third time he sent messengers to ask Papal
+leave to resign, but Innocent, knowing that "no one can safely be to the
+fore who would not sooner be behind," rejected the petition with
+indignation; and Pharaoh-like increased his tasks the more by making him
+legate in nearly every important case of appeal. People who had nothing
+to rely upon except the justice of their cause against powerful
+opponents, clamoured for the Lincoln judgments, which then neither fear
+nor hope could trim, and which were as skilful as they were upright, so
+that men, learned in the law, ascribed it to the easy explanation of
+miracles that a comparative layman should steer his course so finely.
+
+In the various disputes between monks and bishops, which were a standing
+dish in most dioceses, he took an unbiassed line. In the long fight
+waged by Archbishop Baldwin first and then by Hubert Walter with the
+monks of Canterbury, which began in 1186, and was not over until Hugh
+was dead, he rather favoured the side of the monastery. Yet we find him
+speaking _multa aspera_, many stinging things to their spokesman, and
+recommending, as the monk said, prostration before the archbishop. His
+words to the archbishop have been already quoted. With Carlyle's Abbot
+Sampson and the Bishop of Ely he was appointed by Innocent to hush the
+long brawl. The Pope, tired and angry, wrote (September, 1199) to the
+commissioners to compel the archbishop, even with ecclesiastical
+censures. They reply rather sharply to his holiness that he is hasty and
+obscure; and so the matter dragged on. Then in 1195 the inevitable
+Geoffrey Plantagenet, the bastard, Archbishop of York, before mentioned,
+has a lively dispute with his canons. Hugh is ordered by the Pope to
+suspend him, but would rather be suspended (by the neck) himself.
+Geoffrey certainly was a little extreme, even for those days--a Broad
+Churchman indeed. He despises the Sacraments, said the canons, he hunts,
+hawks, fights, does not ordain, dedicate, or hold synods, but chases the
+canons with armed men and robs them; but Hugh, though he cannot defend
+the man, seems to know better of him, and at any rate will not be a mere
+marionette of Rome. Geoffrey, indeed, came out nobly in the struggles
+with king John in later story, as a defender of the people. Then there
+is the dispute between the Bishop of Coventry, another striking bishop,
+who brought stout fellows against the saucy monks. He had bought their
+monastery for three hundred marks of the king, and when they would not
+budge, he chased them away with beating and maiming, sacked their
+house, burnt their charters, and so on. Hugh was against this too
+vigorous gentleman, who was clearly indefensible; but it was by no means
+because he was blindly prejudiced in favour of monks, for he seems to
+have supported the Bishop of Rochester against his monks. These disputes
+of astonishing detail, are very important in the history of the church,
+as by their means the Papal Empire grew to a great height of power; and
+however little the bishops' methods commend themselves, the monasteries,
+which became rebel castles in every diocese, were very subversive of
+discipline, and their warfare equally worldly.
+
+In cases less ecclesiastical, we have a glimpse of Hugh defending two
+young orphans against Jordan of the Tower, the most mighty of Londoners.
+This powerful robber of the weak came to the court with an army of
+retainers, king's men and London citizens, to overawe all opposition.
+The "father of orphans" made a little speech on the occasion which has
+come down to us. "In truth, Jordan, although you may have been dear to
+us, yet against God we can yield nothing to you. But it is evident that
+against your so many and great abetters it is useless not only for these
+little ones to strive, but even for ourselves and our fellow judges. So
+what we shall do, we wish you to know. Yet I speak for my own self. I
+shall free my soul. I shall therefore write to my lord the Pope that you
+alone in these countries traverse his jurisdiction; you alone strive to
+nullify his authority." The vociferous and well-backed Jordan took the
+hint. He dismounted from his high horse, and the orphans got their own
+again. But these and like duties were a heavy cross to Hugh. He hoped
+to be excused of God because he obeyed orders, rather than rewarded
+because he did well. Like Cowley, he looked upon business as "the
+frivolous pretence of human lusts to shake off innocence." He would not
+even look at his own household accounts, but delegated such work to
+trustworthy folk, while these behaved well. If they misbehaved he
+quickly detected it and sent them packing.
+
+We have now reached the year A.D. 1200. King John has been crowned for a
+year. Hugh was not present at this ceremony, and the king, anxious still
+for his support, sends for him to be present at the great peace he was
+concluding with France. By this treaty the Dauphin was to marry Blanche
+of Castile and become Earl of Evreux, a dangerous earldom, and Philip
+was to drop the cause of young Arthur and give up debateable Vexin. Hugh
+also was tempted over seas by the hope of visiting his old haunts, which
+he felt must be done now or never, for health and eyesight were failing
+him, and he needed this refreshment for his vexed soul. It was in the
+Chateau Gaillard again that he met the king, left him in the sweet
+spring time at the end of May, for a pilgrim tour to shrines and haunts
+of holy men living and dead--a pilgrimage made possible by the new
+peace.
+
+Here it must be confessed that modern sympathy is apt to falter, for
+though we can understand the zeal of American tourists for chips of
+palaces and the communal moral code peculiar to archaeologists, coin
+collectors, and umbrella snatchers, we cannot understand the enthusiasm
+which the manliest, holiest, and robustest minds then displayed for
+relics, for stray split straws and strained twigs from the fledged
+bird's nests whence holy souls had fled to other skies. To us these
+things mean but little; but to Hugh they meant very much. The facts must
+be given, and the reader can decide whether they are beauty spots or
+warts upon the strong, patient, brave face upon which they appear.
+
+His first objective, when he left the Andelys, was Meulan, and there he
+"approached St. Nicasius." This saint, a very fine fellow, had been
+Bishop of Rheims, eight hundred years before. When the Vandals invaded
+the land he had advanced to meet them with a procession of singers and
+got an ugly sword cut, which lopt off a piece of his head. He went on
+still singing till he dropped dead. This brave fellow's skull Hugh took
+in his hands, worshipped the saint, gave gold; and then tried hard to
+tweak out one of his teeth: but such dentistry was unavailing. He then
+put his fingers into the nostrils which had so often drawn in the sweet
+odour of Christ and got with ease a lovely little bone, which had parted
+the eyes, kissed it and felt a richer hope of being directed into the
+way of peace and salvation; for so great a bishop would certainly fix
+his spiritual eyes upon him after this.
+
+Next he went to St. Denis, where he prayed long at the tombs of the
+saints. The scholars of Paris, of all breeds, turned out in crowds to
+see a man, who, after St. Nicholas, had done so much good to clerks.
+Kisses, colloquies and invitations rained upon him, but he chose to
+lodge in the house of his relative Reimund. This man he had made Canon
+of Lincoln, and he afterwards refused to buy off King John and became
+an exile for conscience and the patron of exiles, and thus was in life
+and character a true son of St. Hugh. Among the visitors here were the
+Dauphin Lewis and Arthur of Brittany. The latter turned up his nose when
+told to live in love and peace with Uncle John; but Lewis carried off
+the bishop to cheer his weeping political bride Blanche, lately bartered
+into the match. The good bishop walked to the palace, and Blanche bore a
+merry face and a merry heart after he had talked with her.
+
+The next place was Troyes, and here a wretch came with a doleful story.
+He had been bailiff to the Earl of Leicester, had torn a rogue from
+sanctuary at Brackley; had been excommunicated by Hugh, with all his
+mates. They had submitted and been made to dig up the putrid body and
+carry it a mile, clad only in their drawers, be whipped at every church
+door they passed, bury the body with their own hands, and then come to
+Lincoln for more flogging: and all this in the winter. This sentence
+frightened the bailiff, who bolted; but ill-luck dogged him. He lost his
+place, his money, and at last came to beg for shrift and punishment.
+Hugh gave him a seven years' penance and he went on his way rejoicing.
+
+The next great place was Vienne on the Rhone. Here were the ashes of St.
+Anthony of the Desert, wrapped in the tunic of Paul, the first hermit.
+The Carthusian Bruno had caught the enthusiasm for solitude from these
+ambulatory ashes, which had travelled from Alexandria to Constantinople
+and so to Vienne in 1070. Of course they were working miracles, chiefly
+upon those afflicted by St. Anthony's fire. The medical details are
+given at some length, and the cures described in the Great Life. For
+the general reader it is enough to say that Hugh said Mass near the
+precious but plain chest, and that he gave a good sum for the
+convalescent home where the poor sufferers were housed. Whether change
+of air, a hearty diet, and strong faith be enough to arrest this (now
+rare) disease is a scientific question rather than a theological one;
+but if, as we are told, St. Anthony sent thunder bolts upon castles and
+keeps where his pilgrims were maltreated, his spirit was somewhat of
+that Boanerges type which is flatly snubbed in the Gospel. From Vienne
+Hugh went to his own Grenoble among those mountains which have, as
+Ruskin says, "the high crest or wall of cliff on the top of their
+slopes, rising from the plain first in mounds of meadow-land and bosses
+of rock and studded softness of forest; the brown cottages peeping
+through grove above grove, until just where the deep shade of the pines
+becomes blue or purple in the haze of height, a red wall of upper
+precipice rises from the pasture land and frets the sky with glowing
+serration."{26} A splendid procession came out to welcome him, and the
+city was hung with festoons of flowers and gay silken banners. He was
+led with chaunting to the cathedral of St. John Baptist, his particular
+saint, and that of his Order, upon the very feast of the great herald.
+There he sang the High Mass with intense devoutness, and after the
+gospel preached to the people, "giving them tears to drink," but in
+moderation, for he begged all their prayers for his littleness and
+unworthiness, whereas they knew quite well what a good and great fellow
+he was. Then he christened his own nephew, the heir of Avalon, whose
+uncle Peter was present, and the Bishop of Grenoble was godfather. The
+hitherto unbaptised boy was actually seven years old. Perhaps he had
+waited for Uncle Hugh to christen him, and when he had that honour he
+was not named Peter, as they proposed, but John, in honour of the place
+and day. Adam records that he taught the little fellow his alphabet and
+to spell from letters placed above the altar of St. John Baptist at
+Bellay.
+
+Then he left for the Grande Chartreuse, having to foot it most of the
+way up the mountains, sweating not a little, for he was of some
+diameter, but he out-walked his companions. He took care to drop in
+while the brothers were having their midday _siesta_, and he was careful
+not to be of the least trouble. Indeed, for three weeks he put off the
+bishop, as he did at Witham, and his insignia all but the ring, and
+became a humble monk once more. The clergy and the laity hurried to see
+him from the district, and the poor jostled to behold their father; and
+each one had dear and gracious words, and many found his hand second his
+generous tongue. Some days he spent at the lower house. Here, too, he
+compounded an old and bitter feud between the bishop and the Count of
+Geneva whereby the one was exiled and the other excommunicate.
+
+Near the end of his stay he made a public present to the House, a silver
+casket of relics, which he used to carry in his hand in procession at
+dedications. These were only a part of his collection, for he had a ring
+of gold and jewels, four fingers broad, with hollow spaces for relics.
+At his ardent desire and special entreaty the monks of Fleury once gave
+him a tooth from the jaws of St. Benedict, the first founder and, as it
+were, grandfather of his and other Orders. This came with a good strip
+of shroud to boot, and the goldsmith appeared, tools and all, warned by
+a dream, from Banbury to Dorchester to enshrine the precious ivory. The
+shred of shroud was liberally divided up among abbots and religious men,
+but the tooth, after copious kissing, was sealed up in the ring. At
+Fechamp once (that home of relics!) they kept a bone of St. Mary
+Magdalen, as was rashly asserted, sewed up in silks and linen. He begged
+to see it, but none dared show it: but he was not to be denied. Whipping
+up a penknife from his notary, he had off the covers pretty quickly, and
+gazed at and kissed it reverently. Then he tried to break off a bit with
+his fingers, but not a process would come away. He then tried to nibble
+a snippet, but in vain. Finally, he put the holy bone to his strong back
+teeth and gave a hearty scrunch. Two tit-bits came off, and he handed
+them to the trembling Adam, saying, "Excellent man, keep these for us."
+The abbots and monks were first struck dumb, then quaked, and then
+boiled with indignation and wrath. "Oh! oh! Abominable!" they yelled.
+"We thought the bishop wanted to worship these sacred and holy things,
+and lo! he has, with doggish ritual, put them to his teeth for
+mutilation." While they were raging he quieted them with words which may
+give us the key to such otherwise indecent behaviour. Suppose they had
+been having a great Sacramental dispute, and some, as is likely, had
+maintained against the bishop that the grinding of the Host by the
+teeth of any communicant meant the grinding of Christ's very body, then
+it becomes evident that Hugh put this their belief to rather a rough
+proof, or reproof. Anyhow, he posed them with this answer, "Since a
+short time back we handled together the most saintly body of the Saint
+of Saints with fingers granted unworthy; if we handled It with our teeth
+or lips, and passed It on to our inwards, why do we not also in faith so
+treat the members of his saints for our defence, their worship, and the
+deepening of our memory of them, and acquire, so far as opportunity
+allows, what we are to keep with due honour?"
+
+At Peterborough they had the arm of St. Oswald, which had kept fresh for
+over five centuries. A supple nerve which protruded Hugh had sliced off
+and put in this wonderful ring. This, though he had offered it to the
+high altar at Lincoln, he would have left to the Charterhouse; but Adam
+reminded him of the fact, so instead thereof he ordered a golden box
+full of the relics he gave them to be sent after his death.
+
+With mutual blessings he took his last leave of the Grande Chartreuse,
+and left it in the body, though his heart and mind could never be
+dislodged from its desert place. This place was his father and his
+mother, but Lincoln, he did not forget, was his wife.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{26} "Modern Painters," iv. 253.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+HOMEWARD BOUND
+
+
+After a brief visit to the Priory of St. Domninus Hugh made for
+Villarbenoit, his old school and college in one; but first he went to
+Avalon Castle, where his stout backers and brothers, William and Peter,
+ruled over their broad lands, who always had heartened and encouraged
+him in his battles for the liberties of the Church. Here "nobles,
+middle-class men, and the lowest people" received him with delight, and
+he spent two days at this his birthplace, and so on to Villarbenoit, and
+a fine dance his coming made for them all. He gave the Church a noble
+Bible worth ten silver marks, and passed to the cell of St. Maximin.
+Here aged hobblers and white-haired seniors, bowed mothers and women
+advanced in years, walled round him in happy throng. The bright-eyed
+lady of his unrest, possibly, was among these last, and they all bore
+witness to his early holiness, and prophesied his future niche in the
+calendar. After one more night at Avalon he set out for England.
+
+At Bellay the incautious canons allowed him to undo a sacred little
+bundle which held three fingers of St. John Baptist, which they trusted
+him to kiss, although for many years no one had even looked upon such
+awful articulations. After confession, absolution, and prayer the bones
+were bared, and he touched "the joints which had touched God's holy
+head," kissed them, and signed the prostrate worshippers with them with
+the holy sign. Then he cut off a good piece of the ancient red cloth
+which had covered them and handed it to Adam. Thence he visited three
+more Charterhouses. In one of these, Arvieres, he met a man of his own
+age, Arthault by name, who had resigned his bishopric and was ending his
+days as a holy monk. In full chapter the bishop and the ex-bishop met.
+Arthault, knowing Hugh had been at the peace-making between France and
+England, asked him to tell them the terms of the peace; but the latter
+smiled and said, "My lord father, to hear and carry tales is allowable
+to bishops, but not to monks. Tales must not come to cells or cloister.
+We must not leave towns and carry tales to solitude." So he turned the
+talk to spiritual themes. Perhaps he saw that it is easier to resign a
+bishopric than to forsake the world altogether.
+
+The next important place was Clugny, where they read him a chapter from
+St. Gregory's "Pastoral Care," and extorted the compliment from him that
+their well-ordained house would have made him a Clugniac if he had not
+been a Carthusian. Thence he went to Citeaux and said Mass for the
+Assumption (August 15th), and passed on to Clairvaux. Here he met John,
+the ex-Archbishop of Lyons, who was meditating away the last days of his
+life. Hugh asked him what scriptures most helped his thoughts, and the
+reply must have struck an answering chord in the questioner, "To
+meditate entirely upon the Psalms has now usurped my whole inward being.
+Inexhaustible refreshment always comes new from these. Such is fresh
+daily, and always delicious to the taste of the inner man." Hugh's
+devotion to the Psalms is evidenced by many passages in his life, and
+not least by the fact that he divided the whole Psalter among the
+members of the Chapter so that it should be recited throughout every
+day. His own share included three Psalms, i., ii., and iii., and if the
+reader tries to look at these through the saint's eyes he will see much
+in them that he has not hitherto suspected to be there.
+
+He stopped a couple of days at Rheims, and was astonished at the good
+store of books the library owned. He "blamed the slothful carelessness
+of modern times, which not only failed to imitate the literary activity
+of the Fathers in making and writing books, but neither read nor
+reverently treated the sacred manuscripts the care of the Fathers had
+provided." His own conduct in this respect, both at Witham and Lincoln,
+was far otherwise. He took pains about the library at each place. His
+gifts to Lincoln were--(1) Two great volumes of sermons by the Catholic
+doctors for the whole year. (2) A little book of the Father's Life with
+a red covering. (3) A Psalter with a large gloss.{27} (4) A Homeliary in
+stag's leather, beginning "_Erunt signa_." And (5) A Martyrology with
+the text of the four Gospels. At Rheims, too, he also saw and worshipped
+the vessel of holy oil, which was used for anointing the kings of
+France. Then he made his way to the northern coast to St. Omer's Camp.
+He would not put to sea at once lest he should fail of his Mass on Our
+Lady's birthday. He had been unwell for some days with quartan fever,
+and tried bleeding, but it did him no good. He could not eat, but was
+obliged to go and lie down upon his small bed. He broke into violent
+sweats, and for three days hardly tasted food. On the 7th of September
+he would travel ten miles to Clercmaretz Abbey to keep the feast. He
+slept in the infirmary, where two monks waited on him, but could get him
+to eat nothing. He said there his last Mass but one, and still fasting
+went back to St. Omers. He felt a good deal better after this, and went
+on to Wissant, where he made the usual invocations to Our Lady and St.
+Ann, and had a safe, swift passage, and immediately upon landing said
+his last Mass, probably at St. Margaret's Church, in Dover. He never
+missed a chance of saying Mass if he could, though it was not said daily
+in his time. But he would not allow his chaplain to celebrate if he had
+been lately bled, reproved him for the practice, and when he did it
+again very sharply rebuked him.
+
+From Dover he went to Canterbury, and prayed long and earnestly, first
+at the Saviour altar and then at the tombs of the holy dead,{28} and
+especially at the mausoleum of St. Thomas. The monastic flock (still
+_sub judice_) led him forth with deep respect. The news spread that he
+was ill, and the royal justiciaries and barons visited him and expressed
+their sympathy and affection in crowds, which must have considerably
+heightened his temperature. He explained to them with placid face that
+the scourge of the Lord was sweet to His servants, and what he said he
+enacted. "But He, the head Father of the Family, who had put forth His
+hand to cut him down, withdrew not the sickle from reaping the stalk,
+which he had now seen white to the harvest." One of the signs of this
+was the growing dimness of his eyes, much tried by the dust and heat of
+travel. But he would not have them doctored. "These eyes will be good
+enough for us as long as we are obliged to use them," he said. He
+crawled painfully on to London, part of the way on horseback and part by
+water, and in a high fever took to his bed in his own house, praying to
+be allowed to reach his anxious family at Lincoln. "I shall never be
+able to keep away from spiritual presence with our dearest Sons in
+Christ, whether I be present or absent in the body. But concerning
+health or my bodily presence, yea, and concerning my whole self, may the
+will be done of the holy Father which is in Heaven." He had ceased to
+wish to live, he told his chaplain, for he saw the lamentable things
+about to come upon the Church of England. "So it is better for us to die
+than to live and see the evil things for this people and the saints
+which are ahead. For doubtless upon the family of King Henry the
+scripture must needs be fulfilled which says there shall not be 'deep
+rooting from bastard slips' and the 'seed of an unrighteous bed shall be
+rooted out.' So the modern King of the French will avenge his holy
+father Lewis upon the offspring of wickedness, to wit, of her who
+rejected a stainless bed with him and impudently was joined with his
+rival, the king of the English. For this, that French Philip will
+destroy the stock royal of the English, like as an ox is wont to lick up
+the grass to its roots. Already three of her sons have been cut off by
+the French, two kings that is, and one prince. The fourth, the survivor,
+will have short peace at their hands." The next day, St. Matthew's, was
+his episcopal birthday, and he kept it up by having, for the first time
+in his life, the anointing of the sick. He first made a most searching
+confession to his chaplain, and then to the Dean of Lincoln, the
+Precentor, and the Archdeacon of Northampton.{29} He hesitated not to
+confess sins often before confessed to many, and made so straight, keen,
+and full a story of what he had left undone and what he had done that
+they never heard the like; and he often repeated, "The evildoing is
+mine, truly, solely, and wholely. The good, if there is any, is not so.
+It is mixed with evil; it is everywhere gross with it. So it is neither
+truly nor purely good." The Sacrament was brought him at nine o'clock
+the next day, and he flung himself from his bed, clad in his hair shirt
+and cowl, with naked feet, knelt, worshipped, and prayed long before it,
+recalling the infinite benefits of the Saviour to the children of men,
+commending his sinfulness to Christ's mercy, asking for help to the end
+and imploring with tears never to be left. Then he was houselled and
+anointed. He said, "Now let our doctors and our diseases meet, as far as
+may be. In our heart there will be less trouble about them both. I have
+committed myself to Him, received Him, shall hold Him, stick to Him, to
+whom it is good to stick, Whom to hold is blessed. If a man receives
+Him and commits himself to Him he is strong and safe." He was then told
+to make his will, and said it was a tiresome new custom, for all he had
+was not his, but belonged to the church he ruled; but lest the civil
+officer should take all, he made his will. "If any temporal goods should
+remain after my death in the bishopric, now here all which I seem to
+possess I hand over to the Lord Jesus Christ, to be bestowed upon the
+poor." The executors were the dean and the two archdeacons. After this
+simple but not surprising will he called for his stole and anathematized
+all who should knavishly keep back, or violently carry off, any of his
+goods, or otherwise frustrate his executors.
+
+He grew worse. He confessed daily the lightest thought or word of
+impatience against his nurses. He was much in prayer, and he had the
+offices said at the right times however ill he was. He sang with the
+psalm-singers while he could. If they read or sang carelessly or
+hurriedly, he chastened them with a terrible voice and insisted upon
+clear pronunciation and perfect time. He made every one stand and sit by
+turns, so that while one set were resting the other were reverencing the
+divine and angelic presences. He had always been punctilious about the
+times of prayer and used always to withdraw from the bench to say his
+offices when they were due.
+
+King John came in one day, but the bishop, who could sit up for his
+food, neither rose nor sat to greet him. The king said that he and his
+friends would do all they could for him. Then he sent out the courtiers
+and sat long and talked much and blandly; but Hugh answered very
+little, but shortly asked him to see to his and other bishops' wills and
+commended Lincoln to his protection; but he despaired of John and would
+not waste his beautiful words upon him. After the king, the archbishop
+came several times, and promised also to do what he could for him. The
+last time he came he hinted that Hugh must not forget to ask pardon from
+any he had unjustly hurt or provoked by word or deed. No answer from the
+bed! Then he became a little more explicit and said that he, Hugh's
+spiritual father and primate, had often been most bitterly provoked, and
+that really his forgiveness was most indispensible. The reply he got was
+more bracing than grateful. Archbishops rarely hear such naked verities.
+"It is quite true, and I see it well when I ponder all the hidden things
+of our conscience, that I have often provoked you to angers. But I do
+not find a single reason for repenting of it; but I know this, that I
+must grieve that I did not do it oftener and harder. But if my life
+should have to be passed longer with you I most firmly determine, under
+the eyes of all-seeing God, to do it much oftener than before. I can
+remember how, to comply with you, I have often and often been coward
+enough to keep back things which I ought to have spoken out to you, and
+which you would not well have brooked to hear, and so by my own fault I
+have avoided offence to you rather than to the Father which is in
+Heaven. On this count, therefore, it is that I have not only
+transgressed against God heavily and unbishoply, but against your
+fatherhood or primacy. And I humbly ask pardon for this." Exit the
+archbishop!
+
+Now his faithful Boswell gives elaborate details of Hugh's long dying,
+not knowing that his work would speak to a generation which measures a
+man's favour with God by the oily slipperiness with which he shuffles
+off his clay coil. It was a case of hard dying, redoubled paroxysms,
+fierce fever, and bloody flux, and dreadful details. He would wear his
+sackcloth, and rarely change it, though it caked into knots which chafed
+him fiercely. But, though the rule allowed, he would not go soft to his
+end, however much his friends might entreat him to put off the rasping
+hair. "No, no, God forbid that I should. This raiment does not scrape,
+but soothe; does not hurt, but help," he answered sternly. He gave exact
+details of how he was to be laid on ashes on the bare earth at the last
+with no extra sackcloth. No bishops or abbots being at hand to commend
+him at the end, the monks of Westminster were to send seven or eight of
+their number and the Dean of St. Paul's a good number of singing clerks.
+His body was to be washed with the greatest care, to fit it for being
+taken to the holy chapel of the Baptist at Lincoln, and laid out by
+three named persons and no others. When it reached Lincoln it was to be
+arrayed in the plain vestments of his consecration, which he had kept
+for this. One little light gold ring, with a cheap water sapphire in it,
+he selected from all that had been given him. He had worn it for
+functions, and would bear it in death, and have nothing about him else
+to tempt folk to sacrilege. The hearers understood, foolishly, from this
+that he knew his body would be translated after its first sepulture, and
+for this reason he had it cased in lead and solid stone that no one
+should seize or even see his ornaments when he was moved. "You will
+place me," he said, "before the altar of my aforesaid patron, the Lord's
+forerunner, where there seems fitting room near some wall, in such wise
+that the tomb shall not inconveniently block the floor, as we see in
+many churches, and cause incomers to trip or fall." Then he had his
+beard and nails trimmed for death. Some of his ejaculations in his
+agonies are preserved. "O kind God, grant us rest. O good Lord and true
+God, give us rest at last." When they tried to cheer him by saying that
+the paroxysm was over he said, "How really blessed are those to whom
+even the last judgment day will bring unshaken rest." They told him his
+judgment day would be the day when he laid by the burden of the flesh.
+But he would not have it. "The day when I die will not be a judgment
+day, but a day of grace and mercy," he said. He astonished his
+physicians by the robust way in which he would move, and his manly voice
+bated nothing of its old power, though he spoke a little submissively.
+The last lection he heard was the story of Lazarus and Martha, and when
+they reached the words, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had
+not died," he bade them stop there. The funeral took up the tale where
+the reader left off, "I am the Resurrection and the Life."
+
+They reminded him that he had not confessed any miscarriages of justice
+of which he had been guilty through private love or hate. He answered
+boldly, "I never remember that I knowingly wrested the truth in a
+judicial sentence either from hate or love, no, nor from hope or fear
+of any person or thing whatsoever. If I have gone awry in judgments it
+was a fault either of my own ignorance or assuredly of my assistants."
+
+The leeches hoped much from meat, and, though the Order forbade it, his
+obedience was transferred to Canterbury. His friends posted off and got
+not only a permit, but a straight order enjoining this diet upon him. He
+said that neither for taste nor for medicine could he be prevailed upon
+to eat flesh. "But to avoid offending so many reverend men, and, too,
+lest, even in the state of death, we should fail to follow in the
+footsteps of Him who became obedient even unto death, let flesh be given
+to us. Now at the last we will freely eat it, sauced with brotherly
+love." When he was asked what he would like he said that he had read
+that the sick fathers had been given pig's trotters. But he made small
+headway with these unseasonable viands or with the poor "little birds"
+they next gave him. On the 16th of November, at sunset, the monks and
+clerks arrived. Hugh had strength to lay his hand upon Adam's head and
+bless him and the rest. They said to him, "Pray the Lord to provide a
+profitable pastor for your church," but their voices were dim in his
+ears, and only when they had asked it thrice he said, "God grant it!"
+The third election brought in great Grosseteste.
+
+The company then withdrew for compline, and as they ended the xci.
+Psalm, "I will deliver him and bring him to honour," he was laid upon
+the oratory floor on the ashes, for he had given the sign; and while
+they chaunted _Nunc Dimittis_ with a quiet face he breathed out his
+gallant soul, passing, as he had hoped, at Martinmas-tide "from God's
+camp to His palace, from His hope to His sight," in the time of that
+saint whom he greatly admired and closely resembled.
+
+They washed his white, brave body, sang over it, watched it all night in
+St. Mary's Church, ringed it with candles, sang solemn Masses over it,
+embalmed it with odours, and buried the bowels near the altar in a
+leaden vessel. All London flocked, priests with crosses and candles,
+people weeping silently and aloud, every man triumphant if he could even
+touch the bier. Then they carried him in the wind and the rain, with
+lads on horseback holding torches (which never all went out at once),
+back to his own children. They started on Saturday{30} for Hertford, and
+by twilight next day they had reached Biggleswade on the Ivell, where he
+had a house, wherein the company slept. The mourning crowds actually
+blocked the way to the church. The bier was left in the church that
+Sunday night.
+
+By Monday they got to Buckden, and on the Tuesday they had got as far as
+Stamford, but the crowds were so great here that hardly could they fight
+their way through till the very dead of the night. The body, of course,
+was taken into the church; and a pious cobbler prayed to die, and lo!
+die he did, having only just time for confession, shrift, and his will;
+and way was made for him in death, though he could not get near the bier
+in life. The story recalled to Adam's mind a saying of his late master
+when people mourned too immoderately for the dead--"What are you about?
+What are you about? By Saint Nut" (that was his innocent oath), "by
+Saint Nut, it would indeed be a great misfortune for us if we were never
+allowed to die." He would praise the miraculous raising of the dead, but
+he thought that sometimes a miraculous granting of death is still more
+to be admired. At Stamford they bought horn lanterns instead of wax
+torches, for these last guttered so in the weather that the riders got
+wax all over their hands and clothes. Then they made for Ancaster, and
+on Thursday they came to Lincoln. Here were assembled all the great men
+of the realm, who came out to meet the bier. The kings of England and
+Scotland, the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and barons were all there.
+No man so great but he thought himself happy to help carry that bier up
+the hill. Shoulders were relieved by countless hands, these by other
+hands. The greatest men struggled for this honour. The rains had filled
+the streets with mud above the ankles, sometimes up to men's knees. All
+the bells of the town tolled and every church sang hymns and spiritual
+songs. Those who could not touch the bier tossed coins upon the hearse
+which held the body. Even the Jews came out and wept and did what
+service they could.
+
+The body was taken to a bye place off the cathedral{31} and dressed as
+he had ordered--with ring, gloves, staff, and the plain robes. They
+wiped the balsam from his face, and found it first white, but then the
+cheeks grew pink. The cathedral was blocked with crowds, each man
+bearing a candle. They came in streams to kiss his hands and feet and to
+offer gold and silver, and more than forty marks were given that day.
+John of Leicester laid a distich at his feet, much admired then, but
+"bald as his crown" to our ears:
+
+    "Staff to the bishops, to the monks a measure true,
+    Counsel for schools, kings' hammer--such behold was Hugh!"
+
+The next day at the funeral his cheap vestments were torn in pieces by
+the relic-hunting, which it must be confessed he had done nothing to
+check; and he was buried near the wall not far from the altar of St.
+John Baptist, and, as seemed more suitable for the crowds who came
+there, on the northern side of the building itself.{32}
+
+This tremendous funeral long lived in men's memory, and there is a far
+prettier verse about it than the old distich of John--
+
+    "A' the bells o' merrie Lincoln
+    Without men's hands were rung,
+    And a' the books o' merrie Lincoln
+    Were read without man's tongue;
+    And ne'er was such a burial
+    Sin' Adam's days begun."
+
+Passing by the shower of gold rings, necklaces, and bezants which were
+given at his shrine, it is certain that the coals of enthusiasm were
+blown by the report of miracles, never for very long together kept at
+bay by mediaeval writers. While wishing to avoid the _affirmatio falsi_
+and to give no heed to lying fables, we must not risk being guilty of a
+_suppressio veri_. The miracles at the tomb come in such convenient
+numbers that their weight, though it possibly made the guardians of the
+shrine, yet breaks the tottering faith of the candid reader. But some
+are more robust, and for them there is a lively total which makes
+Giraldus's lament for the fewness of miracles in his day seem rather
+ungrateful. "Four quinsies"--well, strong emotion will do much for
+quinsies. "One slow oozing"--the disease being doubtful, we need not
+dispute the remedy. "Three paralytics"--in the name of Lourdes, let them
+pass. "Three withered, two dumb, two hunchbacks, one boy dead"--here we
+falter. "One jaundice case" sounds likelier; "one barren woman" need not
+detain us. "Four dropsies, four blind, and nine lunatics"--and now we
+know the worst of it. It would have been a great deal easier to accept
+the whole in a venture (or forlorn hope) of faith if Hugh had witnessed
+and some one else performed these miracles, for he had a scrupulously
+veracious mind. He was so afraid of even the shadow of a lie that he
+used to attemper what he said with words of caution whenever he repeated
+what he had done or heard: "that is only as far as I recollect." He
+would not clap his seal to any letter which contained any questionable
+statement. "We remember to have cited you elsewhere," a common legal
+phrase, would damn a document if he did not remember, literally and
+personally, to have done so. His influence, too, can be discerned in the
+candid Adam, whose honest tale often furnishes us with an antidote to
+his impossible surmises. But veracity, unfortunately, is not highly
+infectious, and it is a little difficult not to believe that the high
+and serene virtues of the great man gone were promptly exploited for the
+small men left. One miracle there seems no reason to doubt. John, in an
+almost maudlin fit of emotional repentance, made peace at the funeral
+with his Cistercian enemies and founded them a home at Beaulieu in the
+New Forest. Indeed, these were the true miracles which recommended Hugh
+to the English people, so that they regarded him as a saint indeed, and
+clamoured for him to be called one formally--the miracles wrought upon
+character, the callous made charitable, liars truthful, and the lechers
+chaste; the miracles of justice, of weak right made strong against proud
+might, and poor honesty made proof against rich rascality; the miracle
+of England made the sweeter and the handsomer for this humble and
+heavenly stranger.
+
+The later history need not detain us long. His body was moved, says
+Thomas Wykes in the _Annales Monastici_, in the year 1219. Perhaps--and
+this is a mere guess--the place where his body lay was injured at the
+time of the battle and capture of Lincoln two years before; and for
+better protection the coffin was simply placed unopened in that curious
+position two-thirds into the wall of the apse foundation, where it was
+found in our day. In 1220 he was canonized by Pope Honorius III., who
+was then at Viterbo organising a crusade, after a report vouching for
+the miracles drawn up by the great Archbishop Stephen Langton and John
+of Fountains, a just and learned man, afterwards Treasurer of England.
+
+Sixty years later, that is to say, in 1280, John Peckham, the pious
+friar archbishop, Oliver Sutton, the cloister-building Bishop of
+Lincoln, and others, among them King Edward I. and his good wife
+Eleanor, opened the tomb and lifted out the body into a shrine adorned
+with gold and jewels and placed it upon a marble pedestal in the Angel
+Choir, either where the modern tomb of Queen Eleanor now stands or just
+opposite. The head came away and sweated wonder-working oils, and was
+casketted and placed at the end of the present Burghersh tombs, as a
+shrine of which the broken pedestal and the knee-worn pavement are still
+to be seen. The body was placed in a shrine cased with plates of gold
+and silver, crusted with gems, and at the last protected by a grille of
+curious wrought iron. A tooth, closed in beryl with silver and gilt,
+appears as a separate item in the Reformation riflings. The history of
+both shrines and of the bones they held is a tale by itself, like most
+true tales ending in mystery. Perhaps, as King Henry VIII. had not much
+veneration for holy bones, but, like our enlightened age, much preferred
+gold, silver, and jewels, his destroying angels may have left the relics
+of Hugh's forsaken mortality to the lovely cathedral, where his memory,
+after seven centuries, is still pathetically and tenderly dear.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+{27} Which alone still survives.
+
+{28} Dunstan, Alphege, Lanfranc, Anselm, and others presumably.
+
+{29} Roger de Roldeston, William de Blois, and Richard of Kent.
+
+{30} November 18, 1200.
+
+{31} Possibly on the site where St. Hugh's chapel now stands in
+desolation.
+
+{32} _A boreali ipsius aedis regione_, not of the cathedral, but of the
+new honeycomb apse, please.
+
+
+
+
+  The Gresham Press
+  UNWIN BROTHERS,
+  WOKING AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note
+
+A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected; they and other
+possible errors are listed below.
+
+Inconsistent hyphenation: nowadays (now-a-days), brushwood (brush-wood),
+footprints (foot-prints)
+
+Chapter I
+
+   "Under the smoothe" corrected to "Under the smooth".
+
+Chapter II
+
+   "seiges of Milan" not changed.
+
+   "beseiges their city" not changed.
+
+   "lord of Normany" corrected to "lord of Normandy".
+
+   "Manuel Commenus" probable error for "Manuel Comnenus". Not
+   changed.
+
+   "post-Hugonian" possible error for "Post-Hugonian". Not changed.
+
+Chapter III
+
+   "was thorougly understood" corrected to "was thoroughly
+   understood".
+
+   "between Normany and England" corrected to
+   "between Normandy and England".
+
+   "audibly says, 'Oh," corrected to "audibly says, "Oh,".
+
+   "They ought to chose" corrected to "They ought to choose".
+
+Chapter IV
+
+   "prae-Edwardian" not changed.
+
+Chapter V
+
+   "beseiged in Lincoln" not changed.
+
+   "to smoothe those English" corrected to "to smooth those
+   English".
+
+Chapter VI
+
+   "neural tremours" not changed.
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+   Opening double quotation marks (signifying continued quotation)
+   are missing from the paragraphs starting "These things, described
+   but puerilely" and "The foundation is the body", and have not
+   been added.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUGH, BISHOP OF LINCOLN***
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