was a rigid disciplinarian toward all beneath him, a supple
diplomatist to all above. He held high debate with neighboring
abbots and lords, with bishops, with papal legates, and even on
occasion with the King's majesty himself. Many were the subjects
with which he must be conversant. Questions of doctrine,
questions of building, points of forestry, of agriculture, of
drainage, of feudal law, all came to the Abbot for settlement. He
held the scales of justice in all the Abbey banlieue which
stretched over many a mile of Hampshire and of Surrey. To the
monks his displeasure might mean fasting, exile to some sterner
community, or even imprisonment in chains. Over the layman also
he could hold any punishment save only corporeal death, instead of
which he had in hand the far more dreadful weapon of spiritual
excommunication.

Such were the powers of the Abbot, and it is no wonder that there
were masterful lines in the ruddy features of Abbot John, or that
the brethren, glancing up, should put on an even meeker carriage
and more demure expression as they saw the watchful face in the
window above them.

A knock at the door of his studio recalled the Abbot to his
immediate duties, and he returned to his desk. Already he had
spoken with his cellarer and prior, almoner, chaplain and lector,
but now in the tall and gaunt monk who obeyed his summons to enter
he recognized the most important and also the most importunate of
his agents, Brother Samuel the sacrist, whose office,
corresponding to that of the layman's bailiff, placed the material
interests of the monastery and its dealings with the outer world
entirely under his control, subject only to the check of the