Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds.
The Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds is about a simple story of the wise, firm, yet gentle rule of a medieval abbot over a great English monastery told from the perspective of a monk named Jocelin. Jocelin tells a story of a few brief years in the long history of an old English abbey in Bury St. Edmunds. There are three main characters that Jocelin focuses on during his story. The three figures that dominate this book are: St. Edmund, Abbot Samson, and Jocelin himself. Each figure plays an important role throughout the course of the story.
First, I will start with St. Edmund. He was a man of "overriding importance to the life of the community at Bury" (Jocelin xi). St. Edmund was the king of the East Angles and was martyred by the Danes in 869; he was shot with arrows and beheaded. Although, sometime after his death, his presence was still felt by the monks of his house. The monks saw themselves as St. Edmund's men, fighting as his host. St. Edmund protected these monks and they in turn honored his rights and name. The abbey church was St. Edmund's house and behind the high altar in the church, stood a shrine of St. Edmund. His shrine was formed of gold plates decorated with colored stones, which just shows how much he meant to the rest of the community.
Next, there is Abbot Samson who is the central figure of this story. "Abbot Samson was of medium height and almost completely bald; he had a prominent nose and thick lips. His eyes were crystal clear, with a penetrating gaze, and he had extremely sharp hearing. His eyebrows were bushy and were frequently trimmed" (36). The abbot of St. Edmund's was a man of power; he was not the man to flinch from his duty, or let difficulties mend themselves by pretending not to see them. He let all see that he was the abbot and he had come to rule. Samson was a tireless traveler on horseback and on foot and he regularly toured his manors and visited the villages of West Suffolk until he was prevented by his old age.
