ruin, William the
Sacristan received charge to repair it; strict charge, but no money;
Abbot Hugo would, and indeed could, give him no fraction of money. The
_Camera_ in ruins, and Hugo penniless and inaccessible, Willelmus
Sacrista borrowed Forty Marcs (some Seven-and-twenty Pounds) of
Benedict the Jew, and patched-up our Camera again. But the means of
repaying him? There were no means. Hardly could _Sacrista_,
_Cellerarius_, or any public officer, get ends to meet, on the
indispensablest scale, with their shrunk allowances: ready money had
vanished.

Benedict's Twenty-seven pounds grew rapidly at compound-interest; and
at length, when it had amounted to a Hundred pounds, he, on a day of
settlement, presents the account to Hugo himself. Hugo already owed
him another Hundred of his own; and so here it has become Two Hundred!
Hugo, in a fine frenzy, threatens to depose the Sacristan, to do this
and do that; but, in the mean while, How to quiet your insatiable Jew?
Hugo, for this couple of hundreds, grants the Jew his bond for Four
hundred payable at the end of four years. At the end of four years
there is, of course, still no money; and the Jew now gets a bond for
Eight hundred and eighty pounds, to be paid by instalments, Fourscore
pounds every year. Here was a way of doing business!

Neither yet is this insatiable Jew satisfied or settled with: he had
papers against us of 'small debts fourteen years old;' his modest
claim amounts finally to 'Twelve hundred pounds besides
interest;'--and one hopes he never got satisfied in this world; one
almost hopes he was one of those beleaguered Jews who hanged
themselves in York Castle shortly afterwards, and had his usances and
quittances and horseleech papers summarily set fire to! For
approximate justice will strive to accomplish itself; if not in one
way, then in another. Jews, and also Christians and Heathens, who
accumulate in this manner, though furnished with never so many
parchments, do, at times, 'get their grinder-teeth successively pulled
out of their head, each day a new grinder,' till they consent to
disgorge again. A sad fact,--worth reflecting on.

Jocelin, we see, is not without secularity: Our _Dominus
Abbas_ was intent enough on the divine offices; but then his
Account-Books--?--One of the things that strike us most, throughout,
in Jocelin's _Chronicle_, and indeed in Eadmer's _Anselm_, and other
old monastic Books, written evidently by pious men, is this, Th