Dom Stephen Marron
© Douai Magazine 2:1 (1922) 7-19
The post-Reformation history of the English Benedictines has its interest for Catholics of to-day, for the monks took their part side by side with the other Orders and the secular clergy, in keeping alive the Faith, They are represented in the honour roll of martyrs and are intimately connected with the history of many of the staunch Catholic families, whose sons entered the monasteries, and in whose homes the missioner monks were harboured in persecution times. If the monks have their place in the Catholic history of the period, the good namfc and reliability of their chronicler will be a matter of common interest too. That chronicler in the seventeenth century was Dom Bennet Weldon, a monk of St. Edmund's Monastery in Paris. For nearly two centuries Weldon's chronicles were accepted without dispute. It was only a few years ago that his good name was called into question, by Mr. Edmund Bishop, in the pages of the Downside Review (March, 1897). For one reason or another no one troubled to controvert the aspersions of Mr. Bishop and, as a result, subsequent writers on English Benedictine topics have been content to accept and re-echo his verdict and thus further promulgate it among the reading public. Dom Gilbert Dolan reminds them of ' Weldon's usual unhappy inaccuracy,'[1] and Dr. Guilday warns them that ' Weldon is in general so untrustworthy' [2] while Dom Bede Camm says that ' Weldon throughout is nothing if not inaccurate,' and that f Weldon is, in fact, utterly untrustworthy.'[3] Even Fr. Benedict Mackey allows himself on one occasion to speak of ' our inaccurate Weldon,'[4] but Fr. Taunton, pro more suo, rounds it all off thus : l Weldon may once for all be dismissed from serious notice as an altogether unreliable authority' [5] The fons et origo of this wholesale condemnation is Mr. Bishop's article to which the reader is usually referred.
We turn to that article, which is headed ' The Beginning of Donay Convent.' In it Mr. Bishop provides three items ; viz., a criticism of Weldon's account of the beginning of St. Gregory's, an attack on the personal character of the chronicler, and a summary sentence on his whole work. The first item is offered as a select sample of Weldon's faultiness. But Mr. Bishop's exposition itself contains many inaccuracies, is based on assumptions out of keeping with the documentary evidence and is cast in an atmosphere wholly unfair to the chronicler. The article will have to be taken step by step and considered in detail, but much as I should have preferred to treat of it at the outset, more fundamental questions in the case between Weldon and his critics must first be exposed for the due understanding of any particular point, and these will be quite sufficient for the limits of this essay. As for the attack on the personal character of the chronicler and the general conclusion derived therefrom, the less said the better. It is regrettable that Mr. Bishop allowed himself to be so far carried away. Even if there were any truth in his assertions, the personal attack together with its foregone conclusion, ' Such a person is hardly likely to turn out a credible historian/' forms a method of criticism scarcely worthy of a scholar, and certainly much too a priori to convince a critical reader. Most readers however are not critical, and such as are would no doubt accept Mr. Bishop's conclusion, despite his methods, because of his acknowledged scholarship. They would take it as the considered judgment of one who has presumably made a careful and exhaustive study of the chronicler's works, and is complete master of the subject, as Mr. Bishop's confident and judicial style suggests him to be.
Such, at least, was my own attitude ; but closer acquaintance with the chronicler's works and with those of his critics, has reversed that attitude. It has revealed the honesty and -carefulness of the chronicler and at the same time considerably shaken my implicit trust in the word of his critics, by unveiling the misrepresentation to which he has been subjected at their hands. Mr. Bishop led the way and others have followed more or less blindly in his wake. Herein injustice has been done not to the chronicler alone but to the Congregation as a whole, which, when all is said and done, must depend in great part on Weldon for the records of its history, despite all the research that has been made during recent years in archives at home and abroad. This holds true even for the early history of St. Gregory's, which Mr. Bishop had so much at heart. After careful research had been made by himself and others in all likely places Mr. Bishop at length confessed • ' Th practical upshot then at the present time is this : the account of the foundation of St. Gregory's given by Weldon, whatever be its intrinsic value when subjected to criticism, is technically a A after all is said and done, remains, a primary source for the subject '[6]
I may add that Weldon's chronicle is so interwoven in current accounts of English Benedictine history, that even the works of h' critics are so to say, built on it. One recognises at times who]S pages that are practically word for word Weldon. Often G reference is given ; sometimes reference is given to Dr. Olive '° Collections or to Abbot Allansons Collections, or to articles in thS Downside Review, or elsewhere, but for all that it is originaliv Weldon. Surely then Mr. Bishop did the English Benedictines an ill service when he aspersed the good name of their chronicler and denounced his work so roundly, so indiscriminately, and, as I hope to show, so erroneously.
First of all, one brief word about the chronicler. Dom Bennet Weldon became a monk at St. Edmund's, Paris, m the vear 1690. He was of good family and education, and as a youth had been, received into the Catholic Church in London, by Dom Joseph Johnstone, a monk of Paris, who was then stationed at the Royal Chapel of St. James'. Shortly after his conversion Weldon went over to take the habit at St. Edmund's, but was sent to study for a time at Pontlevoy among the Benedictines of S. Maur. He evidently imbibed the Maurist zeal for study. He was essentially of the student type of monk, wrote what Mr. Bishop calls ' a noble hand,' and took naturally to the work of a chronicler. A volume of Memoirs of James II, which was his first composition, is now among the manuscripts in the British Museum [7]. Fr. Gregson, President of the English Congregation, then proposed to him that he should gather material concerning the Congregation, with a view to preserving records for some future historian. This the monk did.
Towards the end of 1707 he completed his task, and the result of his labours was two large tomes of over 1,500 folio pages, bound in full calf and entitled Memorials to help ye writing of ye History, etc. These we still possess. Later he drew from his collections a brief sketch of our seventeenth century history and called it Chronological Notes. The first draft was completed in 1709 but, not content therewith, he set to work on a ' reviewed corrected and augmented ' version, which he finished up to date in 1711. His manuscript of this we also have. Two years later he died. Whether in the interval he made a further revised draft or no I cannot say. He published none of his work, nor was any of it ever published until the year 1881, when Dom Gilbert Dolan, a monk of Downside, brought out anonymously an edition of the Chronological Notes. Through this edition our chronicler was brought before the public.
The Chronological Notes form a small, and by far the least valuable portion of Weldon's contribution to our history, and the manner in which they have been edited is unfortunately not at all that could be desired. To begin with, sufficient effort was not made to secure the most authentic text. As I have already stated, Weldon's manuscript of his 1711 revised draft is still extant. Dom Dolan was evidently unaware of the fact for he neither used nor mentioned it. Indeed, he seems to have been unaware of the fact that Weldon had made a complete revision of his first draft, for he says that the ' Chronological Notes 'J ' were finished in 1709, though a few additions were subsequently made.37 The edition was based on mere copies as he tells us : : Two copies of this work are preserved at St. Gregory's Downside, and from them the present edition has been prepared.'[8] Of the origin, nature completeness, etc. of the Downside copies and of the method on which the edition was prepared from them, no information is given.[9]
Whatever may have been the method employed in preparing the edition it seems clear that the text as it stands represents no single draft of the work as it cam'e from Weldon's hand. It is no the revised version of 1711 for it differs very considerably therefrom as regards both matter and arrangement, and moreover gives a few items of the year 1712, a fact which suggests that 1 a later draft. This however is not the case, for in great par least it unmistakeably follows a copy of the 1709 uncorrecte^ version. The title page, to begin with, is 1709, and the text 1 has numerous indications of a like origin. A clear one ?;PPe so far on as p. 214. Mention is made of a certain annual gut tro the French king, ' which has only ceased this 1709 ' says the text. Evidently the 1709 version ! Weldon in his revised draft, written two years later, naturally changes this to ' which only ceased at 1709 ' and he adds an explanation which does not appear in tne printed edition.
Again various inaccuracies occur throughout the edition which are also to be found in his Memorials (1707 ) ; these inaccuracies he copied presumably, into his first sketch of the Notes (1709) but he has corrected them in his revision. Obviously he would have retained these corrections in any later draft, if heever made one. Thus on p. 178 the edition has it that Abbot Cajetan died in 1641, in his 73rd year. This is also in the Memorials, and presumably in the 1709 Notes. In the revised version it is corrected to ' Sept, 27, 1650 in his 82nd year.' The edition {p. 147) gives a certain brief of Paul V as of 1607. The Memorials have 1609, which probably was also in the first draft of the Notes. It is a mistake for 1619, to which Weldon corrects himself in his revised version. It is evident, I think, that the copyist who is followed in the printed edition, had before him the earlier draft of the Notes, for it is easier to make 1607 out of 1609 than out of 1619. Again, the printed edition (p. 162) has a quotation ' Mortua est anima ejus morte justorum et facta sunt novissima ejus etc/* The Memorials have this likewise : therefore presumably the 1709 Notes have the same ; but in the revised draft it is corrected to the exact words of scripture (Num. 23, 10) : ' Moriatur anima mea morte justorum et fiant novissima mea horum similia.' From these and similar examples, I conclude that the printed text follows, in great part, a copy of the earlier uncorrected version of the Notes.
Furthermore, new matter and improvements of text which the chronicler introduced into his revised work, do not appear in the printed edition. Passages which, evidently through forget-fulness, he inserted out of their due chronological order in his first essay, he has rectified. For instance the passage in the printed edition (p. 240) beginning ' In the foregoing General Chapter, etc,' as also the account of Dom Dunstan Lake's death (p. 252), which are chronologically misplaced, Weldon has restored to their due order in his revision.
I conclude, then, that the printed edition is based largely on a copy of the uncorrected draft (1709), and as it also goes beyond this, giving items up to 1712, it is evidently a mixed version. A more satisfactory way of editing the Notes would be to print Weldon's own manuscript in its entirety, which no doubt Dom Dolan would have done had he had known of it. The half-dozen or so-extra lines dealing with 1712, which are apparently in one of the copies, might be added, accompanied by an editorial footnote. This method would avoid other inconveniences ; for the copyist followed in the edition was evidently not over scrupulous to render the exact text of his original. For instance, it was Weldon's custom when writing of his own monastery to use pronouns of the first person, we, us, our, etc., as appears from his manuscript, wherein he also gives many items of more intimate interest for St. Edmund's : all of which the copyist omits or alters as he thinks fit. When a copyist allows himself in any way to tamper with the text, the possibilities are great, and there are passages in the printed edition in which it looks uncommonly as though the copyist had altered and amplified matters of interest to his point of view, whatever draft he may have been following.
But the most serious blot on the edition remains yet to be noted. It is this :' scores of dates have been introduced into the printed text, in brackets and out of brackets, which are not Weldon's at all. They are to be found neither in his Memorials nor in his manuscript of the Notes. I say scores for safety : on five pages alone I count one score. Indeed other items are introduced besides dates and no indication is given to the reader, of what is Weldon and what is not. Consequently the chronicler has been made to bear the blame of any inaccuracies therein : and there are inaccuracies.
To begin with : in his attack on Weldon's account of the Beginning of Douay Convent, the very passage which Mr. Bishop selects as a sample of the chronicler's inaccuracy (indeed the one item which Mr. Bishop has gone any length to disprove), is the assertion that Dom Bradshaw founded Douay convent at the ff end of November 1605.' He shows at some length that Fr. Bradshaw was elsewhere engaged at that period, and out of this point he makes capital against Weldon in this article and elsewhere. The fact is that end of November 1605 is not Weldon at all. It is one of the spurious dates of the printed edition.
Again, Dom Birt in his Obit Book (p. 9) assigns the death of Dom Richard Hodgson to February 29th, 1626. In a footnote he remarks that February 29th must be wrong, since 1626 was not a leap year, and adds 'in the uncertainty Weldon's date is retaimed.' Here again it is not Weldon's date but one of the spurious dates.[10]
The Catholic Record Society [11] publishes among the records of the Cambrai (now Stanbrook) nuns, a Register of Benefactors, which contains the names of several Benedictine fathers and gives dates of death. In various instances (I.e. p. 82) the editor adds a note to the effect that Weldon gives different dates. Nowhere has Weldon the dates thus credited to him ; once again they are spurious datefc of the printed edition. What makes the case more remarkable here, is the fact that Weldon among his records of the Camera nuns in his Memorials (I 636 sqq), gives this very Register w** \° course, the dates from which he is said to differ. The first tun mental point in the case, then, is, the manner in which We work has been presented to the public. He is at the very badlv misrepresented.
The second point to which attention should be drawn is the way in which this misrepresentation has been further emphasised and amplified by his critics, who have a monopoly of him. They accept Mr. Bishop's verdict from the first, and treat the chronicler accordingly, so that it is quite a fashion to make an occasional reference to Weldon's inaccuracy or un trust worthiness, and to attribute errors to him with easy confidence. Their knowledge of Weldon is almost entirely from the edited Notes, Even Mr. Bishop, on whom they rely, knew nothing of Weldon's manuscript of the Notes and so depended on the printed edition. At the original of the more important work, the Memorials, he once had a passing glance.
' I saw them—literally that and no more—just 25 years ago.' For the rest he used a copy (made not directly from the original but from another copy) which, to judge from Mr. Bishop's quotations, is .neither complete nor accurate. For all that, the critics do not hesitate to condemn Weldon, summarily, and their readers are given to understand that his whole work is consistently inaccurate and valueless. Now if the critic exacts accuracy from the author, the author in turn may expect some accuracy from the critic. The method of roundly condemning a work on the strength of a glance at the Contents and the Index, is not ideal. Some care and discrimination is expected in criticism, but how sadly it is lacking in the present case the reader may judge from the following facts.
The two volumes of Memorials are practically interleaved with documents. Weldon was not a stylist nor even an historian, but a collector and compiler of records. He has preserved to us, bound in his larger work, over two hundred documents, in great part originals, partly also contemporary or quasi—contemporary copies, duly authenticated. • These have their own value, but they form part of Weldon's work, for without him they would have gone the way of the bulk of our documents. He has also copied into his work numerous others, the originals of which he was apparently not at liberty to bind into his collections. In a word, the two volumes are a compilation of documents and copies of records from various sources. Their value depends mainly on two things ; Weldon's honesty and accuracy as a copyist, and the reliability of his sources.
I have tested Weldon as a copyist, and that in two ways : namely, by comparing his copies with certain original documents which he used and which have survived to us, and also by a careful examination of internal evidence in the work itself. In both ways he is shown to be not merely honest and careful but even scrupulously so, keenly alive to the importance of accuracy and zealous to secure it. As he copies, he chats with the reader, in the margin, and keeps him ' an courant' These marginal notes are the hall mark of honesty. If his source is defective he tells you so. ( I am forced to copy this from a miserable copyiste for want of a better ' (I 24). ' I am troubled that I have not been able to find ye original of ye following attestation ' (I 181) ; but he informs you who wrote the copy which he uses. If a word is missing or worn away, he leaves a blank and notes in the margin, ' A word is missing, perhaps resignaremus' (I 215). Does he doubt the accuracy of a fact or date in his original, he copies his original faithfully-and expresses his doubt or difficulty in the margin. ' I fear this date is false and that it should be 1620, but it is perfectly marked 1610 ; it certainly must be 1620 (I 443). ' Ye date is of ye 13 or 15 July. I cant tell exactly which, it is so illmarked'' (I 124)4 Thus continually, where a less scrupulous copyist would have made up his mind and gone ahead ! He likewise shows great caution not to assert anything for which he has not explicit authority. Thus he copies a document dated 1612, signed Jean Joncquoy, Regent of Marchiennes, and next a document dated 1614 signed • Jean Joncquoy, Abbot of Marchiennes. In the margin (I 36) he says he thinks these must be one and the same man, u but I will not assert it for there may be two of a name in a house.' This is scrupulous caution indeed, but it is typical of Weldon.. A careful study of Weldon has convinced me that he was rather a crank for accuracy, and that whatever inaccuracies are to be found in his volumes may be traced in part to his sources, and the rest represent his share in the inevitable lot of even the most painstaking chroniclers. Mr. Bishop, however, allows himself to be so carried away as to assert that Weldon ' was not a man endowed with a natural sense of truthfulness' [12]
As regards the value of the sources from which he copied, Mr. Bishop tells us that Weldon ' builds up history on the sole foundation of his own misguided fancy.' [13] The chronicler, however, assures us that he used chiefly ' authenticall instruments and such like papers.'[14] A glance at his larger work with its array of documents, and its detailed accurate references, (an item conspicuous by its absence in Mr. Bishop's article), bears out his statement. The extent of the sources used evidences the chronicler's diligence and width of research, and amply justifies his simple boast, 'I love thorough work . . . and look wherever I surmise there may be anything to ye purpose.' A list of the works referred to would in itself be a valuable guide and help to an historian of the Congregation. He had to hand practically every work composed up till then on our history, whether in print or in manuscript, and his work is all the more valuable because many of these sources never got beyond the manuscript stage and are now lost He copied largely from a manuscript Chronological History of the Congregation compiled from the congregational archives at St. Gregory's, by Dom Philip Ellis, a monk of St. Gregory's, who was later raised to the episcopate. He also copied largely from Dom Augustine Baker's Treatise on the Mission, Dom Maihew's Trophaea, and his work on Benedictine Writers, Dom Sadler's Obituaries, Dom Reyner's Apostolatus, also from Pitt's works, Yepez, Bucelin, and others. Even Dom Bede Camm pays him a passing tribute on the score of his sources.[15] Such general works and the usual books of records, Acts of Chapter, Council books, Profession books and the like, he used abundantly. Nor was he content with these alone. He took pains to procure from each house (whether of monks or nuns) material and accounts from their respective archives. These he obtained chiefly through the influence of the President and of the Prior of Paris, who were interested in the work.
Such accounts and documents he either bound into his volumes just as he received them, or copied them in verbatim, sometimes adding extracts from the letter of the superior who sent the accounts. Mr. Bishop's statement then that he ' builds up history on the sole foundation of his own misguided fancy,' is incorrect. Not less false is his assertion that Weldon ' dissembles his difficulties.' We have already had some samples of his honesty, and they might be multiplied indefinitely. g In mustering up old papers tis impossible not to find them sometimes to seem to contradict one another' (I 84). { I fear here is a mistake' (I 7). [14]1 What it means I leave to those who have conveniency of clearing ye difficulty ' (I 128). ' The Acts of this Chapter I have not been able to get a sight off' (I 128). Examples may be seen in the printed Chronological Notes ; see pages 136, 138, 146, etc. In fact, far from dissembling his difficulties, Weldon is much too scrupulously open about them. These remarks will give the reader some idea of the misrepresentation to which our chronicler has been subjected by Mr. Bishop, and, through him, by others. While asserting that Weldon is an honest and careful copyist and chronicler I do not say that he has no inaccuracies. Such cannot be said of any chronicler or historian. Absolute accuracy is morally unattainable, even in works of lesser dimensions. Weldon's tomes are a mass of details, facts and dates, not only of the larger events of our history, but of every monk of the congregation. The Obit Book of the English Benedictines, worked upon by successive scholars for many years, for all our ' modern methods,' still contains many inaccuracies' There are inaccuracies even in the obits of our martyrs, some of which might have been avoided by a careful use of Weldon's documents, Ven. Philip Powel was a priest before 1623, for he signs a document as ' Priest and Cellarer ': January 12th, 1622. That being so, it seems clear also that he must have been born befGre 1599, and contemporary accounts written by his confreres agree on an earlier date. Ven. Alban Roe was professed, not in 1612, but on October 21st, 1614, and I think it is inaccurate to state that Ven. Ambrose Barlow was clothed on January 4th, 1615, for he was clothed at Clermont, September 4th, 1614, and left there for Douay only on May 15th, 1615. I am fully aware of the difficulties attached to these compilations of dates, but Weldon had to face the same difficulties in common with other chroniclers.
Since the chronicler has found no defender, writers with easy confidence attribute many inaccuracies to him that are not his at all. We have seen that some come from the spurious additions to the edition of Chronological Notes. Others are errors of his sources, even authoritative sources. These mistakes of his sources he frequently corrects in the margin but that does not prevent their being still attributed to him, for there are instances where his critics credit him with inaccuracies which he has thus explicitly corrected. He is frequently charged with inaccuracy, where in fact the critic is inaccurate, and the chronicler is correct. Finally authors having made errors themselves throw the blame on Weldon. Thus Mr. Bishop, in drawing up a list of Priors of St. Gregory's, puts in the first place Ven. John Roberts, and in the second, Nicholas Becket (1607). Dom B. Camm shows him to be at fault as regards the first period [16], and as for the second, Mr. Bishop himself afterwards acknowledged there was a mistake, but blamed it on Weldon. ' I was ill-advised enough on this point to listen to Weldon ; I trusted the little rogue ; and (as is his constant way with people who do so) he nipped me.' [17] But Weldon nowhere says that Fr. Becket was Prior of St. Gregory's in 1607. The error, if it is an error, is Mr. Bishop's own.
In another place, when Weldon gives us to understand that Dom John Barnes was at Douay in 1607, Mr. Bishop accuses him of error, and says categorically, ' Barnes did not leave Spain at all until some time after his ordination on February 27th, 1608.' [18] Now that Fr. Barnes did not leave Spain before he was a priest, is a mere assumption on Mr. Bishop's part. I have before me two documents ; one is a commendatory letter (May 12th, 1612), given to Fr. Barnes by Fr. Gifford, who had long been Fr. Barnes' colleague and intimate friend ; and therein Fr. Gifford distinctly states that Dom Barnes, when only a deacon, was sent by Fr. Bradshaw (who was superior of the monks at Douay), into Spain for certain business. The other document is an attestation by Fr. Rudesind Barlow, which shows that Dom Barnes received all his Orders, diaconate included, at Salamanca, in 1605 and the following years, but received the priesthood elsewhere. I conclude then that Dom Barnes when but a deacon left Salamanca to help Fr. Bradshaw who was founding St. Gregory's at Douay, and that he was later sent back to Spain by Fr. Bradshaw. on certain business, on which occasion he received the priesthood, not at Salamanca, but from the Bishop of Tuy, and that not on February 27th, as Mr. Bishop says, but on September 20th, 1608.
Hence when Mr. Bishop goes on to say that Fr. Barnes on first coming from Spain went straight to Dieulwart, and so never was at Douay in the early years, he is contradicted by Fr. Gifford's statement that it was 'on his return1' from Spain that Fr. Barnes went to Dieulwart. On this point then, it is not Weldon but Mr. Bishop who is at fault. Dom Dolan when discussing in the Downside Review [19] the question of the burial place of Fr. Sigebert Buckley, says : ' Weldon with his usual unhappy inaccuracy speaks of ' Ponshall the seat of Mr. Norton in Surrey or Sussex.' Pontshall, it seems, was really in Hampshire. Whence then did Weldon get his inaccurate information ? From a letter written to General Chapter by Dom Anselm Beech, the very man who superintended the burial of Fr Buckley, and who, giving an account of the same to Chapter, says that he had buried him ff prope domum Domni Norton quae vocatur Pontshall in agro vel Surreyae vel Sussexiae.' Weldon is simply quoting the account given by the best authority on the point, and he gets his version, not from any second-hand copy, but from the original acts of Chapter signed and certified manu propria by the President and his definitors, which original acts we still possess.
Weldon in his Memorials (I 13) gives Bishop Ellis' account of the landing of the Benedictine missioners in 1603. Therein it is asserted that the missioners from both Italy and Spain, landed almost simultaneously and at the same harbour, namely Dover. After faithfully rendering his author, as is his wont, Weldon corrects the statement in the margin, as follows : ' Here is a mistake. They might well arrive in England just about ye same time . . . but they did not land at ye same Haven.' He then refers the reader to a quotation which he copied from the above mentioned letter of D. Anselm Beech to General Chapter. Therein that father, who was himself one of those early missioners from Italy, says that he landed at Yarmouth. In spite of Weldon's marginal correction Dom Bede Camm imputes to the chronicler the erroneous statement that the missioners all landed at Dover, and then continues solemnly, ' But this is certainly a mistake, for the Cassinese landed at Yarmouth,'as we know from Dom Anselm's own letter to General Chapter.' He then quotes the letter and gives the reference precisely as given by Weldon, from whose Memorials it is evident, Dom Bede got the whole of his information.[20] I may add that Dom Camm in the same work exemplifies the unjust attitude towards Weldon which has been assumed by writers in consequence of Mr. Bishop's aspersions. He gives Weldon little credit for such help as he had himself received from him, and in the index has the imposing item : ' Weldon, corrected' of which the above is a specimen. On one page he says : ' Weldon throughout is nothing if not inaccurate' [21], and in the very same breath he himself gives an inaccurate reference.
On another page he says : ' Weldon is, in fact, utterly untrustworthy' [22], and again in the same breath, referring to Mr. Bishop's article he continues : ' From Mr. Bishop's valuable article we learn that Fr. Augustine started the work at Douay, at the end of November, 1605/' Now this is a statement which Mr. Bishop had attributed (falsely, as we have seen) to Weldon, and the one statement that he had been at great pains to disprove. Likewise after the misrepresentation of Weldon concerning the landing of the missioners, on the very next page Dom Camm quotes a passage as of Fr. Baker, which is really half Weldon and half Baker. The footnote reference given is MS. Work on the Mission. This is an example of how writers fail to acknowledge their indebtedness to Weldon, for it was from Weldon that Fr. Camm here drew his material. I much doubt if Fr. Baker's own MS. Work on the Mission still exists, or any copy of it older than Weldon's in his Memorials. At any rate it is evident from Fr. Camm's embodying one of Weldon's comments in his quotation, that it was from Weldon that he drew (unacknowledged) his quotation.
As I hope to treat of the Beginning of Douay Convent separately, I shall say nothing about it here, but pass on to Mr. Bishop's treatment of-Weldon's records of the beginnings of the two other surviving houges, St. Lawrence's and St. Edmund's, which may also serve as a sample of his general attitude towards Weldon.
On the early history of St. Laurence's, Dieulouard, Mr. Bishop informs us that the documents are completely preserved at Nancy and ' that President Gregson's account of it supplied to Weldon is, on comparison and examination, found to be practically valueless to the historical enquirer.'[23] What idea does this convey to the reader save that Weldon's account is at least inadequate or inaccurate ? And yet the exact contrary is the case. I have compared Weldon's account with Mr. Bishop's transcripts from the Nancy archives, and find that date for date, and fact for fact, Weldon gives the full main proceedings with perfect accuracy. A more unbiassed critic would rather have said that the documents as far as they go, ensure the accuracy of the chronicler. But Mr. Bishop sins even more grievously by silence, for among the original documents preserved by Weldon, there is one concerning the beginnings of St. Laurence's, which, for living interest, is worth all the Nancy documents. This document which has been called the ' Dieulouard Diary,' consists of several closely-written pages, and gives in the form of a diary or annals, a detailed account of the early years at Dieulouard, from December 2nd, 1606, when Fr. Bradshaw received the gift of it from the Nancy Chapter, until November 27th, 1609 (not November 1st, as Mr. Bishop inaccurately says). Elsewhere, Mr. Bishop himself has vouchsafed to call this a ' precious fragment,' an ' invaluable fragment.' [24]
Why then has he no word about it here ? For all his appreciation, Mr. Bishop failed to realise its true worth, for he says, ' Though in substance contemporary, in its present form it comes from a hand of the succeeding generation, who has introduced one or two obvious mistakes.' The document is not merely a copy ; a study of the document with its corrections, additions and erasures, shows this. Nor is it exactly from ' a hand of the succeeding generation/' but it is the original composed and written by Dom Laurence Reyner, one of the pioneers of St. Laurence's, and the only man who personally lived there through all the events described. This I gathered from a study of the document. The exact detail and circumstance point to an eyewitness, and the only person who therein remains stable while others come and go is Dom Reyner. Other small items point the same way, and led me to compare the document with a bundle of letters and papers, which we have, in Dom Reyner's hand. The result, to me, is conclusive. The small neat handwriting is unmistakeably the same even at first glance, but more unmistake-ably so on closer inspection. Some of the capitals in particular are peculiar. They are repeated in the letters and I have no doubt left that the Diary is in Fr. Laurence Reyner's hand. He wrote it, I should say, about 1609, or a little later ; certainly before the Anglo-Spanish controversy at Dieulouard was well going. He intended it to be the beginning of the ' Annals of the Monastery of St. Laurence's at Dieulouard,' as he entitled it ; but it evidently got no further, for it breaks off abruptly at the top of a page.
Mr. Bishop has.treated Weldon's records of the beginnings of St. Edmund's, with similar unfairness and inaccuracy. He gives the reader to understand that Weldon has preserved two accounts of the beginning of the Paris monastery. As a fact, he has preserved for the historian three, or four if we count the short account which he copies from the Annie Benedictine. He binds in the original manuscript of one account without comment ; the second he copies verbatim, the third he embodies in his own narrative. Mr. Bishop is attracted by the second one, which is based on the cartulary of the English monks at Chelles. Of this he writes, ' In the Collections (Weldon) gives another which he found ' in a'little Latin printed business put out by Maurus of S. Cross ' This is Maurus Hames, professed at S. Malo's in 1630 ; the author, however, speaks as though he were writing in 1623 ' [25]
Mr Bishop insinuates that there is some confusion here in Weldon ; that whereas the author of the account claims to be writing in 1623, Maurus Hames to whom Weldon attributes the account was not a professed monk until 1630. This later statement is, no doubt, an inaccurate rendering of Weldon's more exact assertion that the said Maurus was in 1630 ' incorporated into ye Convent of S. Malo [26]. He was a monk of Chelles long before he joined S. Malo's. I can trace him back in various documents to 1619, when he was professed an English monk of the Spanish Congregation.
In July, 1622, he was sent from Douay to Dieulouard, but went instead to Chelles, joined Fr. Walgrave as a Cluniac, and was ordained priest there. About 1623 there appeared under his name, but written I believe by Fr. Barnes, a work called the Syllabus, which I have no doubt is just our ' little printed latin business/' Now Mr. Bishop has so misquoted Weldon that he has obliterated two indications that Maurus had been a monk at Chelles. What Weldon really says is : ' I find in a little printed latin business put out by one of Fr. Walgrave s Conventuals of Chelles, by name F. Maurus of ye H Crosse, a further account/'1 Here it is distinctly stated that Maurus was a monk of Chelles when he brought out the book, and his correct title is ' of the Holy Cross/' Holy Cross was the monastic church at Chelles.
Mr. Bishop selects and quotes (or misquotes) Weldon's quaintly depreciatory description of his source, with the object of drawing ridicule and discredit on the chronicler, as though he were ignorant of the value of his source. But Weldon knew much more about the nature of the work than did Mr.- Bishop. He knew it was reliable up to a certain point ; ' whom, so far as I have found true, I have copied,' he says. He had good reason for his caution and also for his caustic description of the work, for it was a piece of controversy, as Weldon himself tells us and as we otherwise know. The monks of St. Edmund's had recently shaken off an unworthy subjection to Chelles and that with the full approval of the Regimen of the Congregation, to which the Chelles monks also were subject. When the Chelles writer then arrives in his narrative at the point of severance,'he begins to misrepresent in support of his party view. The attitude of the monks of Chelles was condemned by due ecclesiastical authority and, I believe, also the Syllabus. Hence Weldon's belitting description of it, and his distrust of it after a certain point Thus it is, then, that Mr. Bishop misrepresents Weldon, whereas all the time it is the chronicler who knows what he is about, and his critic is in a state of ignorance that might have been dispelled by a more careful and accurate use of Weldon's work.
I would then call a halt in the campaign of misrepresentation against our chronicler, initiated by Mr. Bishop. The other critics follow him with implicit confidence, but he had an axe to grind which demanded the head of Weldon, who stands in the way of many of his preconceived notions. We shall see more of this when treating of the Beginning of Douay Convent, where we shall also have occasion to examine further the errors of Weldon's critics.