The copies extant of Abbo's _Passio_ are numerous. (For List, see Hardy's Catalogue, vol. i, p. 526.) At least four of them (two in the Cottonian collection, one at the Bodleian, and one at Lambeth) belonged to Bury Abbey, the earliest being Tiberius B. ii., which has on fol. 1_a_ the words "Liber feretrariorum S. Edmundi in quo continentur uita passio et miracula S. Edmundi." It is a beautiful MS. of the end of the eleventh or beginning of the twelfth century; "and the gold enrichment is sometimes splendid" (Arnold I. lxv.), though the illumination is unfinished. The other Cottonian MS. (Titus A. viii.) is of the thirteenth century, and has on fol. 65 the words "Liber monachorum S. Edmundi." (Both these books will be referred to later.)
The next writer on the subject was HERMAN THE ARCHDEACON, who, at the end of the eleventh century, wrote a treatise _De Miraculis Sancti Eadmundi_.
Herman was Archdeacon to Bishop Arfast of Thetford, at the time when the latter first endeavoured to establish his see at Bury; but later he must have become a monk of St. Edmund, and he manifests in his narrative enthusiastic devotion to the monastery. In the prologue he explains that he compiled his work at the request of Abbot Baldwin "felicis memoriæ" (died 1097), partly from oral tradition, partly from an old and almost undecipherable manuscript "exarata calamo cujusdam difficillimo, et, ut ita dicam, adamantino." Mr. Arnold has printed the text of Herman on pp. 26-92 of his vol. I. from the Cottonian volume Tiberius B. ii. above referred to, which is composed of Abbo's _Passio_ and Herman's _Miracula_.
A third writer was GALFRIDUS DE FONTIBUS, who wrote in the days of Abbot Ording (1146-1156) a short tract, _De Infantia Sancti Eadmundi_, of which only one MS. is known (in the Cambridge University Library). Further additions to the legends and miracles were made by OSBERT of CLARE, prior of Westminster, who flourished between 1108 and 1140, but whose writings are not now separately extant, though extracts from them appear in the manuscripts of other authors.
It would seem that working upon all these records, and doubtless others which have not descended to us, Samson, at the period of his life when he was still a subordinate officer of Bury Abbey, set about compiling a treatise of his own. His prologue indicates that he was moved to narrate the glorious miracles of the glorious king and martyr St. Edmund by the orders of his superiors and the exhortations of his fellow monks. His work seems, however, to have been mainly that of a compiler and editor, though the prologue, described by Mr. Arnold (I., liii.) as "written in a massive and manly style," was doubtless of his own composition. The work appears after Abbo's _Passio_ in the Cottonian MS. Titus A. viii., and consists of two books, Liber I. containing sixteen chapters, and Liber II. twenty-one chapters. All but four of the chapters in the first book refer to narratives that had been told before by Herman, and Samson "has merely re-written them, adding no new facts, but greatly improving the style." The second book contains another prologue, followed by a prefatory letter; and a hand of the fourteenth or early fifteenth century has written in the Cottonian MS. "Osberti de Clara prioris Westmonasterii" in the margin of the prologue, and "Incipit epistola Osberti prioris Westmonasterii missa con. S. Edmundi de miraculis ejusdem" in the margin at the beginning of the letter.