Annalist
by Dom Justin McCann
© Douai Magazine 18:3 (1955) 141
Among the manuscript treasures of Douai Abbey, and not least in value and importance, are the two massive folios written by Dom Benet Weldon at St. Edmund's in Paris and completed in the year 1707. These two volumes, in their more than fifteen hundred pages, contain a careful transcript of all the records for the first century of the revived English Benedictine Congregation that (with the assistance of the President) Dom Benet could come by. And the records are linked together by a thread of explanatory narrative, based upon the best information he could get from the various houses of the Congregation. Copying out everything in an admirably legible hand, and performing his work with absolute honesty and with a scrupulous attention to accuracy, Dom Benet produced a veritable storehouse of first-class materials for the history of his chosen period. And such precisely was his purpose. He did not set out to write a history of the Congregation in the seventeenth century; it was his modest aim to provide the essential materials by means of which some more gifted pen might write that history. Hence he entitled his work Memorials for the History, etc. Dom Benet is now generally known as 'Weldon' and his work as 'Weldon's Collections.' I may be allowed to adopt these conventions.
Weldon's purpose was obviously a good one, and he performed his task as well as it could be performed in his day. Other important records,unknown to him, have since been discovered in the archives of Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands; for the early Congregation was intimately associated with all these countries. These supplement his work; they do not detract from its importance, for these two reasons: (1) Many of the original sources which Weldon used and cited in his work are now lost, and his transcripts are all that we have of them. Such, for instance, is the case with the Chronological History of the Congregation written by D. Philip Ellis of St. Gregory's (afterwards Bishop Ellis) about the year 1680. (2) Even more important is the fact that throughout his work—wherever he was allowed so to use them—Weldon has interleaved his pages with original documents. It is in this way, for instance, that the precious Dieulouard Diary has been preserved to us.
In writing, as I propose to do, about Fr. Stephen's contributions to the history of the early Congregation, I have chosen to begin with Weldon because Weldon's massive tomes exercised a special influence upon him and held a central position in his historical work. I do not mean to imply that Fr. Stephen used no other sources; he did, wherever he could lay hands upon them; but Weldon remained his major source and was his constant standby. My most vivid memory of him is of the student at work in his room near the library, and by his side for constant reference those two great folios.
Fr. Stephen and I did not meet during the period of our 'monastic infancy,' for my residence at Belmont ended about a month before his began. And, since we belonged to different houses, it was quite possible that we might have proceeded thus and—after the manner of Euclid's parallels—never have met at all. However, after twelve years of teaching at Ampleforth, I was posted in 1920 to Oxford, from which place from time to time I was able to enjoy the hospitality of Douai. We thus became acquainted, and presently the General Chapter of 1921 gave us an official association. We were appointed to be the Censors of Books for the Congregation, a post which we held together for exactly twenty years. The post of Censor cannot be called an exacting one, nor does it normally involve co-operation between the Censors. Every now and then a book might be submitted to one or other of us which presented some difficulty and persuaded us to take counsel together ; but such occasions were few and far between, so that this association did not tend of itself to make us better acquainted. It was, in fact, in an altogether different field that we discovered a real community of interest.
While at Ampleforth I had served for a number of years as librarian and in that capacity had taken a special interest in the old manscripts. These included a great many copies of Fr. Baker's treatises as well as many records pertaining to the early history of the Congregation. I took a special interest in the Baker items, but for their full appreciation found it necessary to get a certain smattering of knowledge about Congregational history. While I was thus engaged at Ampleforth, Fr. Stephen at Douai—also a librarian—was making a deeper study of the same history and its problems. He was, in fact, reading and pondering Weldon's Collections.
And not only the Collections. After completing this major work, Weldon had composed a much smaller one to which he gave the title of Chronological Notes. This is a summary abridgement of the story told by his Collections and roughly speaking consists of the narrative material with which he had linked together the original records. Of this work he produced two versions: a first text in 1709; a second and amended text in 1711. His major work, though greatly used by historians, has never been printed; his minor work, the Chronological Notes, was printed in 1881, edited by Dom Gilbert Dolan of Downside. Having thoroughly mastered Weldon's work—he had at hand Weldon's final edition of his Chronological Notes—Fr. Stephen turned his attention to a phenomenon which he had observed in a number of modern writers, viz. a consistent denigration of Weldon and his historical writings, and he subjected this phenomenon to a careful examination. I must give a summary account of this matter, since it was the occasion of Fr. Stephen's first, and sensational, appearance in the field of Congregational history.
This, in brief, was the trouble. The distinguished liturgiologist, Edmund Bishop (1846-1917), had given much of his life to the unravelling of ritual origins, a field in which precise evidence is often lacking and much scope is left for hypothesis and conjecture. As a devoted friend of Downside he became deeply interested in the early history of St. Gregory's community and turned his attention to the elucidation of that early history. For this purpose he had, inevitably, to use Weldon's Collections and his Chronological Notes. Of the first he had a none too accurate copy; of the second he had Dom Gilbert Dolan's printed edition, already mentioned. But this printed text had been based upon an imperfect, unrevised copy of Weldon's work; and, what was worse, the Editor had inserted a few items of his own and in particular had supplied many dates, of which a large number were erroneous. Noting these errors—which were not Weldon's—Edmund Bishop became impatient with the chronicler and conceived that he was not to be trusted. He became more impatient still when he found that Weldon gave no countenance to certain theories which he had formed for himself regarding the beginnings of St. Gregory's. We have said that he became at this more impatient still; he did more than express his impatience, he definitely discredited the chronicler's work. In the pages of the Downside Review (March, 1897), taking his title from Weldon and expounding The Beginning of Douay Convent, he was gay and jocular at Weldon's expense; but in their substance his remarks were serious and damaging. He said, for example, that Weldon 'builds up history on the sole foundation of his own misguided fancy': a strange judgment on a work which is so largely a faithful transcript of historical records. Worse than that, he calumniated a scrupulously honest writer when he asserted that Weldon 'was not a man endowed with a natural sense of truthfulness.' These are samples only of the misguided attack upon Weldon which Edmund Bishop made in this and other articles. As a consequence of this forthright assault by a distinguished scholar, it became the fashion for other writers, when citing Weldon, to mention his 'usual unhappy inaccuracy,' to describe him as 'nothing if not inaccurate,' or as 'utterly untrustworthy,' or as 'altogether unreliable.' It is a striking example of the pervasive power of detraction, its sole source being Edmund Bishop.
Such was the situation with which Fr. Stephen found himself confronted. He marshalled his specialized knowledge of Weldon's writings and delivered a frontal attack on the critics in his first and most effective article, published in the Douai Magazine for January of 1922 and entitled Weldon and his Critics. The article was incisively written—as the situation demanded—but there was no resisting its logical argument and well-founded conclusions. He was fully justified in ending it with the emphatic words: 'I would therefore call a halt in the campaign of misrepresentation against our chronicler, initiated by Mr. Bishop. The other writers 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.'
I have already described this article as 'sensational.' It was widely acclaimed and made a deep impression. With it Fr. Stephen took his place as a major authority on our early history. I well remember the interest and appreciation with which I myself read his essay. My reaction to it was not unlike the reaction of the poet:
'Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken'.
The promise made by Fr. Stephen at the end of his first article was fulfilled in the next issue of the Magazine (July, 1922) by an article to which he gave Edmund Bishop's title:The Beginning of Douay Convent, and in which he subjected Bishop's account to much severe but just criticism. With that article he practically concluded his defence of Weldon. In succeeding articles, passing beyond that controversy, he gave his own positive account of The Second Benedictine Mission to England (January, 1923) and of the Re-establishment of the English Benedictine Congregation (July, 1923 and January, 1924). There is much valuable matter in all these essays; and, even when he turns aside from the main history, his 'Notes' on minor points contain useful corrections and precisions. There are three such 'Notes' in the January Number of 1924: The Reyner Brothers, The Three Dunstans, Was Venerable Thomas Helme once Cook at Dieulouard? My own collection of his contributions to the Douai Magazine ranges from 1922 to 1933 and comprises twenty-one items. And not the least valuable of these is the last of all: Dom Sigebert Buckley and his Brethren (Vol. VII, No. 3; Spring, 1933). In this article he adds to our slender knowledge of Father Buckley's career, both at Marian Westminster and during the long purgatory of Queen Elizabeth's reign. In particular, he provides, from the old registers of St. Paul's Cathedral, the precise dates for Fr. Buckley's Minor Orders, Diaconate, and Priesthood.
With that final article—to the best of my knowledge—Fr. Stephen ceased to write on English Benedictine history. It may seem to some reader of these lines that, after all, a series of magazine articles was a slender literary harvest for a man of Fr. Stephen's knowledge and historical acumen. But, of course, he was never at liberty to devote more than a small portion of his time to such work. What he did was done in the intervals between other and pressing duties. Nor was he a rapid and fluent writer ; in fact, I believe that the task of literary composition never came easy to him. However, if he ceased to write himself, he maintained his interest in the subject and was always ready to impart his special knowledge to other students of the subject. He was frequently consulted by Dom Hugh Connolly of Downside and by myself.
What are we to say of the quality of his work ? Already a certain general judgment has been passed upon it; but we may at this point ask whether it had its imperfections or any notable defects. In his own defence of Weldon Fr. Stephen did not attempt to prove that the chronicler was entirely free from fault, but candidly admitted that his work had imperfections and occasional, unintentional errors. I believe that he would have been prepared to admit that he himself also was not immune from the weaknesses of our common humanity, and would not have claimed any sort of infallibility. He was, in fact, working with valuable but limited resources, and there were many documents that lay beyond his reach. So, on occasion, here and there, it is possible to find fault with a particular statement or a particular conclusion. May I be allowed to illustrate this point by means of an item which touched upon a field in which I had done some special work?
In his first, magisterial article on Weldon and his Critics, Fr. Stephen made the point that Weldon had transcribed many important sources that are since lost. And, having occasion to mention his transcript of the historical matter in Fr. Baker'sTreatise on the English Mission (1636), which is of primary importance for our early history, he made this observation: '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.' But that was a mistake. It is true that Fr. Baker's autograph does not exist; but there are two manuscript copies of the complete work, and both are older than Weldon's transcript of 1707. The Ampleforth copy (MS. 119) dates from the year 1645, i.e. less than ten years after the date of the original. It was probably made from the original, for the scribe was Dame Barbara Constable of Cambray, and Cambray had the custody of Fr. Baker's autographs. The Downside copy (Baker MS. 25) dates from the year 1678, the scribe being Dom Wilfrid Reeve of St. Gregory's.
Fr. Stephen, in fact, had not the same facilities for his work that Dom Benet Weldon had had. The latter had the advantage of him in two respects: he was able to give his whole time to it; he had more abundant materials at his disposal. By this I do not mean to affirm that the library of St. Edmund's at Paris was any better stocked than is the Community's present library; what I mean is that, through the active assistance of the President—in those days when the Congregation was a highly unitary body and its President an all-powerful executive—he was able to draw effectively upon the resources of the Congregation at large. And this, although he was not an official Annalist of the Congregation.
I turn aside momentarily to note that in its early period the Congregation did not possess any such official as an Annalist, and that it did not really get one until the middle of the nineteenth century. It is true that in 1717 the General Chapter appointed Fr. Edward Chorley of St. Gregory's to the post, with the high-sounding title of ' Historiographer.' But Fr. Chorley died the very next year and no further appointment was made until 1842. This time, however, the effort was emphatically successful; for as Annalist, Abbot Athanasius Allanson (1804-76) produced a comprehensive and accurate History of the Congregation from its revival to the year 1850, an elaborate Biography of its members, and a whole series of substantial volumes dedicated to the transcription of every sort of document and record.
But if, for long periods, there was no official Annalist, the Congregation has never lacked its unofficial historians. In its first century there were such people as Frs. Edward Maihew, Leander Jones, Augustine Baker, Philip Ellis, and others. In the eighteenth century, besides Weldon, there were Frs. John Townson and William Hewlett. The nineteenth century was dominated by the great figure of the official Annalist, Abbot Allanson; but, after his death and at the beginning of the present century, there was again an outcrop of annalists of the unofficial sort. I would instance such writers as Frs. Norbert Birt and Cuthbert Almond; and there were others.
It is to the ranks of the unofficial annalists that Fr. Stephen belongs. After his decisive emergence in 1922, there may be said to have been a sort of triumvirate of these free-lance students, interested in their various ways in our history: a triumvirate with a member in each of the three older houses of the Congregation. The three were Fr. Hugh Connolly of Downside, Fr. Stephen Marron of Douai, and myself of Ampleforth. Fr. Hugh was a trained scholar, with the technique of scholarship at his finger-tips. For the quantity and quality of his work I regard him as facile princeps among us. Fr. Stephen, by comparison, was an amateur, but an amateur endowed with such natural gifts of intelligence and historical acumen that he was able to produce the valuable historical work of which this article has already spoken. These two members of the triumvirate were occupied with the main stream of our early history; the third member was chiefly concerned with a tributary, viz. the life and writings of Fr. Baker, and his work may not be compared with theirs.
Downside Abbey possesses the major collection of Baker manuscripts and my researches in that field inevitably brought me into very close relationhsip with Downside's acting archivist, that is to say, with the senior member of our triumvirate, Fr. Hugh Connolly; and I remember with pleasure that our association ripened into one of intimate friendship. His death in 1948 not only broke up the triumvirate; it was also a grievous personal loss. With Fr. Stephen I could not, in the nature of the case, have any such close association; yet we were united by a strong community of interests, and each of us eagerly followed any work that the other was doing. Our opportunities for friendly intercourse were not many, especially when I was in 1947 translated to the North. But he never visited the present place of my sojourning—which was also his home-town—without calling upon me and talking with all his old interest and zest about the subjects which we had in common.
And now he also is dead and our triumivirate is altogether in ruins. Yet there is still a great deal of work to be done and it is to be hoped that the race of unofficial annalists will not die out. Meanwhile, I must mourn for Fr. Stephen's death and from my heart accord him my Ave atque Vale.