train of three hundred horsemen, the Archbishop of Rheims, the brothers
of the King of France, and a long array of bishops. The Pope dared not
receive him with the warmth he felt, but was courteous, more so than his
cardinals; and Becket unfolded and discussed the Constitutions of
Clarendon, which of course found no favor with the Pope. He rebuked
Becket for his weakness in promising to sign a paper which curtailed so
fundamentally the privileges of the Church. Some historians affirm he
did not extend to him the protection he deserved, although he confirmed
him in his office. He sent him to the hospitable care of the Abbot of
Pontigny. "Go now," he said, "and learn what privation is; and in the
company of Christ's humblest servants subdue the flesh to the spirit."
In this Cistercian abbey it would seem that Becket lived in great
austerity, tearing his flesh with his nails, and inflicting on himself
severe flagellations; so that his health suffered, and his dreams
haunted him. He was protected, but he could not escape annoyances and
persecutions. Henry, in his wrath, sequestrated the estates of the
archbishopric; the incumbents of his benefices were expelled; all his
relatives and dependents were banished,--some four hundred people; men,
women, and children. The bishops sent him ironical letters, and hoped
his fasts would benefit his soul.
The quarrel now was of great interest to all Europe. It was nothing less
than a battle between the spiritual and temporal powers, like that, a
century before, between Hildebrand and the Emperor of Germany. Although
the Pope was obliged from motives of policy,--for fear of being
deposed,--to seem neutral and attempt to conciliate, still the war
really was carried on in his behalf. "The great, the terrible, the
magnificent in the fate of Becket," says Michelet, "arises from his
being charged, weak and unassisted, with the interests of the Church
Universal,--a post which belonged to the Pope himself." He was still
Archbishop; but his revenues were cut off, and had it not been for the
bounty of Louis the King of France, who admired him and respected his
cause, he might have fared as a simple monk. The Pope allowed him to
excommunicate the persons who occupied his estates, but not the King
himself. He feared a revolt of the English Church from papal authority,
since Henry was supreme in England, and had won over to his cause the
English bishops. The whole question became complicated and interesting.
It was the common topic of discourse in all the castles and convents of
Europe. The Pope, timid and calculating, began to fear he had supported
Becket too far, and pressed upon him a reconciliation with Henry, much
to the disgust of Becket, who seemed to comprehend the issue better than
did the Pope; for the Pope had, in his desire to patch up the quarrel,
permitted the son of Henry to be crowned by the Archbishop of York,
which was not only an infringement of the privileges of the Primate, but
was a blow against the spiritual power. So long as the Archbishop of
Canterbury had the exclusive privilege of crowning a king, the King was
dependent in a measure on the Primate, and, through him, on the Pope. At
this suicidal act on the part of Alexander, Becket lost all patience,
and wrote to him a letter of blended indignation and reproach. "Why,"
said he, "lay in my path a stumbling-block? How can you blind yourself
to the wrong which Christ suffers in me and yourself? And yet you call
on me, like a hireling, to be silent. I might flourish in power and
riches and pleasures, and be feared and honored of all; but since the
Lord hath called me, weak and unworthy as I am, to the oversight of the
English Church, I prefer proscription, exile, poverty, misery, and
death, rather than traffic with the liberties of the Church."
What language to a Pope! What a reproof from a subordinate! How grandly
the character of Becket looms up here! I say nothing of his cause. It
may have been a right or a wrong one. Who shall settle whether spiritual
or temporal power should have the ascendency in the Middle Ages? I speak
only of his heroism, his fidelity to his cause, his undoubted sincerity.
Men do not become exiles and martyrs voluntarily, unless they are backed
by a great cause. Becket may have been haughty, irascible, ambitious.
Very likely. But what then? The more personal faults he had, the greater
does his devotion to the interests of the Church appear, fighting as it
were alone and unassisted. Undaunted, against the advice of his friends,
unsupported by the Pope, he now hurls his anathemas from his retreat in
France. He excommunicates the Bishop of Salisbury, and John of Oxford,
and the Archdeacon of Ilchester, and the Lord Chief-Justice de Luci,
and everybody who adhered to the Constitutions of Clarendon. The bishops
of England remonstrate with him, and remind him of his plebeian origin
and his obligations to the King. To whom he replies: "I am not indeed
sprung from noble ancestors, but I would rather be the man to whom
nobility of mind gives the advantages of birth than to be the degenerate
issue of an illustrious family. David was taken from the sheepfold to be
a ruler of God's people, and Peter was taken from fishing to be the head
of the Church. I was born under a humble roof, yet, nevertheless, God
has intrusted me with the liberties of the Church, which I will guard
with my latest breath."
Henry now threatens to confiscate the property of all the Cistercian
convents in England; and the Abbot of Pontigny, at the command of his
general, is forced to drive Becket away from his sanctuary. Becket
retires to Sens, sad at heart and grieved that the excommunications
which he had inflicted should have been removed by the Pope. Then Louis,
the King of France, made war on Henry, and took Becket under his
protection. The Pope rebuked Louis for the war; but Louis retorted by
telling Alexander that it was a shame for him not to give up his
time-serving policy. In so doing, Louis spoke out the heart of
Christendom. The Pope, at last aroused, excommunicated the Archbishop
of York for crowning the son of Henry, and threatened Henry himself
with an interdict, and recalled his legates. Becket also fulminated his
excommunications. There was hardly a prelate or royal chaplain in
England who was not under ecclesiastical censure. The bishops began to
waver. Henry had reason to fear he might lose the support of his English
subjects, and Norman likewise. He could do nothing with the whole Church
against him.
The King was therefore obliged to compromise. Several times before, he
had sought reconciliation with his dreadful enemy; but Becket always, in
his promises, fell back on the phrase, "Saving the honor of his order,"
or "Saving the honor of God." But now, amid the fire of
excommunications, Henry was compelled to make his peace with the man he
detested. He himself did not much care for the priestly thunderbolts,
but his clergy and his subjects did. The penalty of eternal fire was a
dreadful fear to those who believed, as everybody then did, in the hell
of which the popes were supposed to hold the keys. This fear sustained
the empire of the popes; it was the basis of sacerdotal rule in the
Middle Ages. Hence Becket was so powerful, even in exile. His greatness
was in his character; his power was in his spiritual weapons.
In the hollow reconciliation at last effected between the King and the
Prelate, Henry promised to confirm Becket in his powers and dignities,
and molest him no more. But he haughtily refused the customary kiss of
peace. Becket saw the omen; so did the King of France. The peace was
inconclusive. It was a truce, not a treaty. Both parties distrusted
each other.
But Henry was weary with the struggle, and Becket was tired of
exile,--never pleasant, even if voluntary. Moreover, the Prelate had
gained the moral victory, even as Hildebrand did when the Emperor of
Germany stooped as a suppliant in the fortress of Canossa. The King of
England had virtually yielded to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Perhaps
Becket felt that his mission was accomplished; that he had done the work
for which he was raised up. Wearied, sickened with the world, disgusted
with the Pope, despising his bishops, perhaps he was willing to die. He
had a presentiment that he should die as a martyr. So had the French
king and his prelates. But Becket longed to return to his church and
celebrate the festivities of Christmas. So he made up his mind to return
to England, "although I know, of a truth," he said, "I shall meet my
passion there." Before embarking he made a friendly and parting visit to
the King of France, and then rode to the coast with an escort of one
hundred horsemen. As Dover was guarded by the King's retainers, who
might harm him, he landed at Sandwich, his own town. The next day he set
out for Canterbury, after an absence of seven years. The whole
population lined the road, strewed it with flowers, and rent the air
with songs. Their beloved Archbishop had returned. On reaching
Canterbury he went directly to his cathedral and seated himself on his
throne, and the monks came and kissed him, with tears in their eyes. One
Herbert said, "Christ has conquered; Christ is now King!"
From Canterbury Becket made a sort of triumphal progress through the
kingdom, with the pretence of paying a visit to the young king at
Woodstock,--exciting rather than allaying the causes of discord,
scattering his excommunications, still haughty, restless, implacable; so
that the Court became alarmed, and ordered him to return to his diocese.
He obeyed, as he wished to celebrate Christmas at home; and ascending
his long-neglected pulpit preached, according to Michelet, from this
singular text: "I am come to die in the midst of you."
Henry at this time was on the Continent, and was greatly annoyed at the
reports of Becket's conduct which reached him. Then there arrived three
bishops whom the Primate had excommunicated, with renewed complaints and
grievances, assuring him there would be no peace so long as Becket
lived. Henry was almost wild with rage and perplexity. What could he do?
He dared not execute the Archbishop, as Henry VIII. would have done. In
his age the Prelate was almost as powerful as the King. Violence to his
person was the last thing to do, for this would have involved the King
in war with the adherents of the Pope, and would have entailed an
excommunication. Still, the supremest desire of Henry's soul was to get
Becket out of the way. So, yielding to an impulse of passion, he said to
his attendants, "Is there no one to relieve me from the insults of this
low-born and turbulent priest?"
Among these attendants were four courtiers or knights, of high birth and
large estates, who, hearing these reproachful words, left the court at
once, crossed the channel, and repaired to the castle of Sir Ranulf de
Broc, the great enemy of Becket, who had molested him in innumerable
ways. Some friendly person contrived to acquaint Becket with his danger,
to whom he paid no heed, knowing it very well himself. He knew he was to
die; and resolved to die bravely.
The four armed knights, meanwhile, on the 29th of December, rode with an
escort to Canterbury, dined at the Augustinian abbey, and entered the
court-yard of the Archbishop's palace as Becket had finished his mid-day
meal and had retired to an inner room with his chaplain and a few
intimate friends. They then entered the hall and sought the Archbishop,
who received them in silence. Sir Reginald Fitzurst then broke the
silence with these words: "We bring you the commands of the King beyond
the sea, that you repair without delay to the young King's presence and
swear allegiance. And further, he commands you to absolve the bishops
you have excommunicated." On Becket's refusal, the knight continued:
"Since you will not obey, the royal command is that you and your clergy
forthwith depart from the realm, never more to return." Becket angrily
declared he would never again leave England. The knights then sprang to
their feet and departed, enjoining the attendants to prevent the escape
of Becket, who exclaimed: "Do you think I shall fly, then? Neither for
the King nor any living man will I fly. You cannot be more ready to kill
me than I am to die."
He sought, however, the shelter of his cathedral, as the vesper bell
summoned him to prayers,--followed by the armed knights, with a company
of men-at-arms, driving before them a crowd of monks. The Archbishop was
standing on the steps of the choir, beyond the central pillar, which
reached to the roof of the cathedral, in the dim light shed by the
candles of the altars, so that only the outline of his noble figure
could be seen, when the knights closed around him, and Fitzurst seized
him,--perhaps meaning to drag him away as a prisoner to the King, or
outside the church before despatching him. Becket cried, "Touch me not,
thou abominable wretch!" at the same time hurling Tracy, another of the
knights, to the ground, who, rising, wounded him in the head with his
sword. The Archbishop then bent his neck to the assassins, exclaiming,
"I am prepared to die for Christ and His Church."
Such was the murder of Becket,--a martyr, as he has been generally
regarded, for the liberties of the Church; but, according to some,
justly punished for presumptuous opposition to his sovereign.
The assassination was a shock to Christendom. The most intrepid
churchman of his age was slain at his post for doing, as he believed,
his duty. No one felt the shock more than the King himself, who knew he
would be held responsible for the murder. He dreaded the consequences,
and shut himself up for three days in his chamber, refusing food,
issuing orders for the arrest of the murderers, and sending ambassadors
to the Pope to exculpate himself. Fearing an excommunication and an
interdict, he swore on the Gospel, in one of the Norman cathedrals, that
he had not commanded nor desired the death of the Archbishop; and
stipulated to maintain at his own cost two hundred knights in the Holy
Land, to abrogate the Constitutions of Clarendon, to reinvest the See of
Canterbury with all he had wrested away, and even to undertake a crusade
against the Saracens of Spain if the Pope desired. Amid the calamities
which saddened his latter days, he felt that all were the judgments of
God for his persecution of the martyr, and did penance at his tomb.
So Becket slew more by his death than he did by his life. His cause was
gained by his blood: it arrested the encroachments of the Norman kings
for more than three hundred years. He gained the gratitude of the Church
and a martyr's crown. He was canonized as a saint. His shrine was
enriched with princely offerings beyond any other object of popular
veneration in the Middle Ages. Till the time of the Reformation a
pilgrimage to that shrine was a common form of penance for people of all
conditions, and was supposed to expiate their sins. Even miracles were
reputed to be wrought at that shrine, while a drop of Becket's blood
would purchase a domain!
Whatever may be said about the cause of Becket, to which there are two
sides, there is no doubt about his popularity. Even the Reformation, and
the changes made in the English Constitution, have not obliterated the
veneration in which he was held for five hundred years. You cannot
destroy respect for a man who is willing to be a martyr, whether his
cause is right or wrong. If enlightened judgments declare that he was "a
martyr of sacerdotal power, not of Christianity; of a caste, and not of
mankind;" that he struggled for the authority and privileges of the
clergy rather than for the good of his country,--still it will be
conceded that he fought bravely and died with dignity. All people love
heroism. They are inclined to worship heroes; and especially when an
unarmed priest dares to resist an unscrupulous and rapacious king, as
Henry is well known to have been, and succeeds in tearing from his hands
the spoils he has seized, there must be admiration. You cannot
extinguish the tribute of the soul for heroism, any more than that of
the mind for genius. The historian who seeks to pull down a hero from
the pedestal on which he has been seated for ages plays a losing game.
No brilliancy in sophistical pleadings can make men long prefer what is
_new_ to that which is _true_. Becket is enshrined in the hearts of his
countrymen, even as Cromwell is among the descendants of the Puritans;
and substantially for the same reason,--because they both fought bravely
for their respective causes,--the cause of the people in their
respective ages. Both recognized God Almighty, and both contended
against the despotism of kings seeking to be absolute, and in behalf of
the people who were ground down by military power. In the twelfth
century the people looked up to the clergy as their deliverers and
friends; in the seventeenth century to parliaments and lawyers. Becket
was the champion of the clergy, even as Cromwell was the champion--at
least at first--of the Parliament. Carlyle eulogizes Cromwell as much as
Froude abuses Becket; but Becket, if more haughty and repulsive than
Cromwell in his private character, yet was truer to his principles. He
was a great hero, faithful to a great cause, as he regarded it, however
averse this age may justly be to priestly domination. He must be judged
by the standard which good and enlightened people adopted seven hundred
years ago,--not in semi-barbarous England alone, but throughout the
continent of Europe. This is not the standard which reason accepts
to-day, I grant; but it is the standard by which Becket must be
judged,--even as the standard which justified the encroachments of Leo
the Great, or the rigorous rule of Tiberius and Marcus Aurelius, is not
that which enthrones Gustavus Adolphus and William of Orange in the
heart of the civilized world.
AUTHORITIES
Eadmer's Life of Anselm; Historia Novarum; Sir J. Stephen's Life of
Becket, of William of Malmsbury, and of Henry of Huntington;
Correspondence of Thomas Becket, with that of Foliot, Bishop of London,
and John of Salisbury; Chronicle of Peter of Peterborough; Chronicle of
Ralph Niper, and that of Jocelyn of Brakeland; Dugdale's Monasticon;
Freeman's Norman Conquest; Michelet's History of France; Green, Hume,
Knight, Stubbs, among the English historians; Encyclopaedia Britannica;
Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury; Lord Littleton on Henry
II.; Stanley's Memorials of Canterbury; Milman's Latin Christianity;
article by Froude; Morris's Life of Thomas à Becket; J. Craigie
Robertson's Life of Thomas Becket.
THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.
* * * * *
ABOUT A.D. 800-1300.
There is no great character with whom Feudalism is especially
identified. It was an institution of the Middle Ages, which grew out of
the miseries and robberies that succeeded the fall of the Roman Empire.
Before I present the mutual relation between a lord and his vassal, I
would call your attention to political anarchies ending in political
degradation; to an unformed state of society; to semi-barbarism, with
its characteristic vices of plunder, rapine, oppression, and injustice;
to wild and violent passions, unchecked by law; to the absence of
central power; to the reign of hard and martial nobles; to the miseries
of the people, ground down, ignorant, and brutal; to rude agricultural
life; to petty wars; to general ignorance, which kept society in
darkness and gloom for a thousand years,--all growing out of the eclipse
of the old civilization, so that the European nations began a new
existence, and toiled in sorrow and fear, with few ameliorations: an
iron age, yet an age which was not unfavorable for the development of
new virtues and heroic qualities, under the influence of which society
emerged from barbarism, with a new foundation for national greatness,
and a new material for Christianity and art and literature and science
to work upon.
Such was the state of society during the existence of feudal
institutions,--a period of about five hundred years,--dating from the
dismemberment of Charlemagne's empire to the fifteenth century. The era
of its greatest power was from the Norman conquest of England to the
reign of Edward III. But there was a long and gloomy period before
Feudalism ripened into an institution,--from the dissolution of the
Roman Empire to the eighth and ninth centuries. I would assign this
period as the darkest and the dreariest in the history of Europe since
the Roman conquests, for this reason,--that civilization perished
without any one to chronicle the changes, or to take notice of the
extinction.
From Charlemagne there had been, with the exception of brief intervals,
the birth of new ideas and interests, the growth of a new civilization.
Before his day there was a progressive decline. Art, literature,
science, alike faded away. There were no grand monuments erected, the
voice of the poet was unheard in the universal wretchedness, the monks
completed the destruction which the barbarians began. Why were libraries
burned or destroyed? Why was classic literature utterly neglected? Why
did no great scholars arise, even in the Church? The new races looked in
vain for benefactors. Even the souvenirs of the old Empire were lost.
Nearly all the records of ancient greatness perished. The old cities
were levelled to the ground. Nothing was built but monasteries, and
these were as gloomy as feudal castles at a later date. The churches
were heavy and mournful. Good men hid themselves, trying to escape from
the miserable world, and sang monotonous chants of death and the grave.
Agriculture was at the lowest state, and hunting, piracy, and robbery
were resorted to as a means of precarious existence. There was no
commerce. The roads were invested with vagabonds and robbers. It was the
era of universal pillage and destruction. Nothing was sacred. Universal
desolation filled the souls of men with despair. What state of society
could be worse than that of England under the early Saxon kings? There
were no dominant races and no central power. The countries of Europe
relapsed into a sullen barbarism. I see no bright spot anywhere, not
even in Italy, which was at this time the most overrun and the most
mercilessly plundered of all the provinces of the fallen Empire. The old
capital of the world was nearly depopulated. Nothing was spared of
ancient art on which the barbarians could lay their hands, and nothing
was valued.
This was the period of what writers call _allodial_ tenure, in
distinction from feudal. The allodialist owned indeed his lands, but
they were subject to incessant depredations from wandering tribes of
barbarians and from robbers. There was no encouragement to till the
soil. There was no incentive to industry of any kind. During a reign of
universal lawlessness, what man would work except for a scanty and
precarious support? His cattle might be driven away, his crops seized,
his house plundered. It is hard to realize that our remote ancestors
were mere barbarians, who by the force of numbers overran the world.
They seem to have had but one class of virtues,---contempt of death, and
the willing sacrifice of their lives in battle. The allodialist,
however, was not a barbaric warrior or chieftain, but the despoiled
owner of lands that his ancestors had once cultivated in peace and
prosperity. He was the degenerate descendant of Celtic and Roman
citizens, the victim of barbaric spoliations. His lands may have passed
into the hands of the Gothic conquerors; but the Gothic or Burgundian or
Frankish possessor of innumerable acres, once tilled by peaceful
citizens, remained an allodial proprietor. Even he had no protection and
no safety; for any new excursion of less fortunate barbarians would
desolate his possessions and decimate his laborers. The small proprietor
was especially subject to pillage and murder.