London - Edward Rutherfurd [156]
But as time went by, there were things that troubled him.
Wasn’t the Abbey, with its ever-increasing lands, just a little too rich? Didn’t the monks live a little too well? What had happened to the vow of poverty? When the scribes proudly showed him the great charters that granted the Abbey’s possessions, were they not a little too obsessed with them?
For years he had put such doubts from him. Life at Westminster was delightful. Why question it? And then, two months ago, something had happened.
He had worked happily in the scriptorium for years now, copying manuscripts. He had even developed a fine hand. But the keeping and care of the monastic records was a task reserved for the more senior scribes. So he was honoured one morning when one of them, motioning Michael to join him, asked for his help. In his hand he held a charter that, Michael saw at once, came from an ancient Saxon king. “What are we going to do?” he asked. And was greatly astonished by the answer.
“Age it,” the monk had replied blandly. “You know, dust, oil, brine.” He smiled. “It’ll be old in no time.”
Only then had Brother Michael begun to understand.
In the month that followed, he had looked over most of the charters held by Westminster Abbey. As he sought information, he had asked naïve questions and spent hours in minute study. By the end of that time he had gone to the abbot and announced with a terrible gravity:
“I have discovered that at least half the charters in the Abbey are forgeries.”
Never in his life would he forget what happened next.
The abbot had laughed.
In fact, the situation at Westminster Abbey was substantially worse than Brother Michael had realized. The great Life of Edward the Confessor was largely a work of fiction. As for the Abbey’s claims to be older than St Paul’s, there was no proof at all. This being the case, it was clearly God’s will that the missing documents be provided.
So they had forged them. And still a constant stream of documents came forth. In an age when such forgeries, especially in the Benedictine order, were common all over Europe, the English Abbey of Westminster was the undisputed master of the craft. Charters of land grants, royal writs giving tax exemptions, even papal bulls – some were so well done that they would not be detected for centuries. All attested the Abbey’s rights and its almost incredible antiquity.
A few days later, after the abbot had told him not to concern himself, the same monk had again asked for his help. This time Michael had refused.
Within a very few weeks the situation had become intolerable. They reminded him of his vow of obedience and of his loyalty. He prayed for guidance. But he could not escape the dilemma.
All these charters are really about increasing the Abbey’s privilege and wealth, he reasoned to himself. How does that square with my vow of poverty? As for obedience, if I cannot obey with good conscience, what sort of obedience is that? He was out of sympathy with the great house and they all knew it. There was only one proper course of action. And so he had stood once more before the abbot and calmly told him: “I’m leaving.”
“You are proud,” the abbot thundered. “Who are you to question us?” Then, as almost any well-meaning monk would have done, the abbot pointed out with sweet reasonableness, “Do you not see? What we do is for the glory of God. When we write history or tell the lives of the saints, it is not just to inform men of what occurred, but to illustrate