21 - Collapse and Renewal

Summary

IN 1190 the disgraced former prior of Christ Church Canterbury, Roger Norreis, had been foisted upon Evesham abbey in succession to Abbot Adam. It turned out to be an even greater misfortune than the monks might have imagined, and one that would be compounded during Roger's long abbacy by a frustrating three-way struggle between Norreis, who was a charming but dangerous libertine, the Evesham monk Thomas of Marlborough, a vigorous, tenacious, and eloquent lawyer, and Master Mauger, their conscientious and respected bishop.

Norreis's family background is unknown except that he had a nephew (nepos) called Roger and a kinsman called Matthew Dolfin; Dolfin and Norreis are surnames that indicate northern ancestry. In his first few years at Evesham the abbot's conduct seemed acceptable but as he became accustomed to the privileges of office the flaws in his character began to assert themselves, and privilege then turned to licence and licence to utter wantonness. All the while he was able to cloak his weaknesses in a seductive bonhomie that was hard to resist. Fluent and impressive in speech, he had the air of being both learned and courtly, and in his quarters he kept a convivial table at which good food and drink were freely enjoyed by his household, his guests, and himself. Norreis allowed himself the luxuries, unusual for a monk, of sleeping in linen sheets, of wearing comfortable shirts and linen garments, of sporting smart boots like a knight’s, and of going about the abbey in a cape instead of in the customary monastic dress. Such were the attributes of a secular baron, not an abbot, and he made no attempt to conceal them from the convent. Still less appropriate to a monk was Roger's enjoyment of carnal relations with women, with some of whom he was reputed to have fathered children. Needless to say, he disappointed early expectations that he might sometimes attend the church, consult the monks in chapter, dine with them, or sit with them in the cloister. Although the abbots of Evesham had begun to live apart from the monks long before Abbot Roger's time, with him the separation was taken beyond acceptable limits.