“You are come to make some demand of us. Speak it out plainly.”
“Father Abbot, so I will! We think - and I speak for the whole guild merchant and borough gathering of Shrewsbury - that in such a year we have the best possible case for asking that the abbey should either pay a higher fee for the fair, or, better by far, set aside a proportion of the fair tolls on goods, whether by horse-load or cart or boat, to be handed over to the town, and spent on restoring the walls. You benefit by the protection the town affords you; you ought, we think, to bear a part with us in maintaining its defences. A tenth share of the profits would be welcomed, and we should thank you heartily for it.
It is not a demand, with respect, it is an appeal. But we believe the grant of a tenth would be nothing more than justice.”
Abbot Radulfus sat, very erect and lean and lofty, gravely considering the phalanx of stout burgesses before him. “That is the view of you all?”
Edric Flesher spoke up bluntly: “It is. And of all our townsmen, too. There are many who would voice the matter more forcibly than Master Corviser has done. But we trust in your fellow-feeling, and wait your answer.”
The faint stir that went round the chapter-house was like a great, cautious sigh. Most of the brothers looked on wide-eyed and anxious; the younger ones shifted and whispered, but very warily. Prior Robert Pennant, who had looked to be abbot by this time, and been sorely disappointed at having a stranger promoted over his head, maintained a silvery, ascetic calm, appeared to move his lips in prayer, and shot sidelong looks at his superior between narrowed ivory lids, wishing him irredeemable error while appearing to compassionate and bless.
Old Brother Heribert, recently abbot of this house and now degraded to its ranks, dozed in a quiet corner, smiling gently, thankful to be at rest.
“We are considering, are we not,” said Radulfus at length, gently and without haste, “what you pose as a dispute between the rights of the town and the rights of this house. In such a balance, should the judgment rest with you, or with me?
Surely not! Some disinterested judge is needed. But, gentlemen, I would remind you, there has been such a decision, now, within the past half-year, since the siege of which you complain. At the beginning of this year his Grace King Stephen confirmed to us our ancient charter, with all its grants in lands, rights and privileges, just as we held them aforetime. He confirmed also our right to this three-day fair on the feast of our patron Saint Peter, at the same fee we have paid before, and on the same conditions. Do you suppose he would have countenanced such a grant, if he had not held it to be just?”
“To say outright what I suppose,” said the provost warmly, “I never supposed for a moment that the thought of justice entered into it. I make no murmur against what his Grace chose to do, but it’s plain he held Shrewsbury to be a hostile town, and most like still does hold it so, because FitzAlan, who is fled to France now, garrisoned the castle and kept it over a month against him. But small say we of the town ever had in the matter, and little we could have done about it! The castle declared for the Empress Maud, and we must put up with the consequences, while FitzAlan’s away, safe out of reach. My lord abbot, is that justice?”
“Are you making the claim that his Grace, by confirming the abbey in its rights, is taking revenge on the town?” asked the abbot with soft and perilous gentleness.
“I am saying that he never so much as gave the town a thought, or its injuries a look, or he might have made some concession.”
“Ah! Then should not this appeal of yours be addressed rather to the Lord Gilbert Prestcote, who is the king’s sheriff, and no doubt has his ear, rather than to us?”
“It has been so addressed, though not with regard to the fair. It is not for the sheriff to give away any part of what has been bestowed on the abbey. Only you, Father, can do that,” said Geoffrey Corviser briskly. It began to be apparent that the provost knew his way about among the pitfalls of words every bit as well as did the abbot.
“And what answer did you get from the sheriff?”
“He will do nothing for us until his own walls at the castle are made good. He promises us the loan of labour when work there is finished, but labour we could supply, it’s money and materials we need, and it will be a year or more before he’s ready to turn over even a handful of his men to our needs. In such a case, Father, do you wonder that we find the fair a burden?”
“Yet we have our needs, too, as urgent to us as yours to you,” said the abbot after a thoughtful moment of silence. “And I would remind you, our lands and possessions here lie outside the town walls, even outside the loop of the river, two protections you enjoy that we do not share. Should we, men, be asked to pay tolls for what cannot apply to us?”
“Not all your possessions,” said the provost promptly. “There are within the town some thirty or more messuages in your hold, and your tenants within them, and their children have to wade in the kennels of broken streets as ours do, and their horses break legs where the paving is shattered, as ours do.”
“Our tenants enjoy fair treatment from us, and considerate rents, and for such matters we are responsible. But we cannot be held responsible for the town’s dilapidations, as we can for those here on our own lands. No,” said the abbot, raising his voice peremptorily when the provost would have resumed his arguments, “say no more! We have heard and understood your case, and we are not without sympathy. But Saint Peter’s Fair is a sacred right granted to this house, on terms we did not draw up; it is a right that inheres not to me as a man, but to this house, and I in my passing tenure have no authority to change or mitigate those terms in the smallest degree. It would be an offence against the king’s Grace, who has confirmed the charter, and an offence against those my successors, for it could be taken and cited as a precedent for future years. No, I will not set aside any part of the profits of the fair to your use, I will not increase the fee we pay you for it, I will not share in any proportion the tolls on goods and stalls. All belong here, and all must be gathered here, according to the charter.” He saw half a dozen mouths open to protest against so summary a dismissal, and rose in his place, very tall and straight, and chill of voice and eye. “This chapter is concluded,” he said.
There were one or two among the delegation who would still have tried to insist, but Geoffrey Corviser had a better notion of his own and the town’s dignity, and a shrewder idea of what might or might not impress that self-assured and austere man. He made the abbot a deep, abrupt reverence, turned on his heel, and strode out of the chapter-house, and his defeated company recovered their wits and marched as haughtily after him.
There were booths already going up in the great triangle of the horse-fair, and all along the Foregate from the bridge to the corner of the enclosure, where the road veered right towards Saint Giles, and the king’s highway to London. There was a newly-erected wooden jetty downstream from the bridge, where the long riverside stretch of the main abbey gardens and orchards began, the rich lowland known as the Gaye. By river, by road, afoot through the forests and over the border from Wales, traders of all kinds began to make their way to Shrewsbury.
And into the great court of the abbey flocked all the gentry of the shire, and of neighbouring shires, too, lordlings, knights, yeomen, with their wives and daughters, to take up residence in the overflowing guest-halls for the three days of the annual fair. Subsistence goods they grew, or bred, or brewed, or wove, or span for themselves, the year round, but once a year they came to buy the luxury cloths, the fine wines, the rare preserved fruits, the gold and silver work, all the treasures that appeared on the feast of Saint Peter ad Vincula, and vanished three days later. To these great fairs came merchants even from Flanders and Germany, shippers with French wines, shearers with the wool-clip from Wales, and clothiers with the finished goods, gowns, jerkins, hose, town fashions come to the country. Not many of the vendors had yet arrived, most would appear next day, on the eve of the feast, and set up their booths during the long summer evening, ready to begin selling early on the morrow. But the buyers were arriving in purposeful numbers already, bent on securing good beds for their stay.