or this and that, tradesmen thriving and markets increasing,
and the abbey never one penny the richer for it all. It was quite time
that Abbot Sampson should be roused to do his duty, and to do it in very
sharp fashion indeed. However we will let one of the monks tell his own
tale in his own gossiping way:--

"In the tenth year of Abbot Sampson's abbacy we monks, after full
deliberation in chapter, laid our formal plaint before the abbot in his
court. We said that the rents and revenues of all the good towns and
boroughs in England were steadily growing and increasing to the
enrichment of their lords, in every case save in that of our town of St.
Edmund. The customary rent of L40 which it pays never rises higher. That
this is so we imputed solely to the conduct of the townspeople, who are
continually building new shops and stalls in the market-place without
any leave of the convent" (abbey-land though it was). "The only
permission, in fact, which they ask is that of their alderman, an
officer who himself was of old times a mere servant of our sacrist, and
bound to pay into his hands the yearly rent of the town, and removable
at his pleasure."

Never, Jocelyn evidently thinks, was a case plainer; but into the
justice or injustice of it the burgesses refused sturdily to enter. When
they were summoned to make answer they pleaded simple possession. "They
were in the King's justice, and no answer would they make concerning
tenements which they and their fathers had held in peace for a year and
a day." Such answer would in fact, they added, be utterly contrary to
the freedom of the town. No plea could have been legally more complete
as none could have been more provoking. The monks turned in a rage upon
the abbot, and simply requested him to eject their opponents. Then they
retired angrily into the chapter-house, and waited in a sort of white
heat to hear what the abbot would do. This is what Sampson did. He
quietly bade the townsmen wait; then he "came into chapter just like one
of ourselves, and told us privily that he would right us as far as he
could, but that if he were to act it must be by law. Be the case right
or wrong, he did not dare eject without trial his free men from land and
property which they had held year after year; in fact, if he did so, he
would at once fall into the King's justice. At this moment in came the
townsfolk into the chapter-house, and offered to compromise the matter
for an annual quit rent o