Frederic the thirteenth abbot

The appointment of Frederic to the abbacy of St Alban and the birth and character of the same.

He was succeeded by Abbot Frederic. His distinguished origin could be traced from ancient Saxon and Danish stock as he was a kinsman of King Cnut and connected with him in lineal vdescent. At this particular time when King Edward had migrated from the world, King Harold II, that is the son of Earl Godwin, had the effrontery to usurp this kingdom, although his legal claims to it were slender. And so, with God championing the right, his reign did not last even for a year.

The misery of the English people at the time of the same

In the time of this abbot, with England conquered and subjugated by the Normans, the ills falling upon the land began to be multiplied. This fitted the holy King Edward's account of his dream in which he saw the Seven Sleepers turning from their right side on to their left. The dream was an omen for all men, but especially for the English; robbery, envy, haughtiness, ‘all-night gambling’, drinking sessions, different forms of lechery, unclean acts and perjury grew to unpropitious proportions, as the little fire of love grew cold. Everywhere burglars prowled and highwaymen were common. The ‘all-night gambling’, with its frightful oaths not heard before by Englishmen, bred quarrels and murder. And as the golden age now left the land, it was followed by an age of silver – or rather of clay.

The nobles of England, who since the time of Brut, had known nothing of the yoke of slavery, were scorned, mocked and trampled upon. They were forced to shave their beards and cut their hair in Norman fashion.

Out of the door went their accustomed drinking horns and vessels, and their junketings and feastings, as they were compelled to submit to new regulations. And so many of the English nobles threw off the yoke of slavery and fled to the woods with their households, bent on brigandage. The result was that it was barely safe for any man to approach their neighbourhood.