natural and probably more usual way, going first to the transept of the
Martyrdom, over an entrance to which was inscribed--
“Est sacer intra locus venerabilis atque beatus
Præsul uti Sanctus Thomas est martyrisatus.”
Neither could the pilgrims then nor we now see practically anything of
what met the eye on the fatal day itself; nor shall we--as did
they--kneel before the wooden altar the while the guardian of it shows
to us the precious relics kept there. _But_--if we wish to understand
the spirit of the multitude in those days, we must forget ourselves for
the nonce, and become as little children of great faith.
Then we pass on down into the crypt under the choir and Trinity Chapel,
whose darkness is broken by the light of many lamps. Here, if we are but
common folk, we shall be shown only a part of the skull of the saint, to
which we may put our lips; his shirt and hair-cloth drawers, which
formed one of his chief claims to saintliness--for dirtiness was akin to
godliness in those times. If, however, we are folk of high degree, the
glowing treasures of the chapel of Our Lady Undercroft will be opened to
us.
Then up into the choir, where in coffers of gold and silver and ivory
there are hundreds of relics, and, as we have seen--
“...the holy relikes ech man with his mowith
Kissid, as a goodly monk the names told and taught.”
Of what kind these relics were we have already made note.
In St Andrew’s Tower were exhibited to the privileged the pastoral staff
of the saint, the cloak and the blood-stained kerchief, even rags and
shreds upon which he had wiped his nose and mopped his brow. We do not
wish to be irreverent; there are certain relics of pious and saintly men
which all can treat with respect if not with adoration; but relic
worship ran mad and was too often reduced to absurdity, sometimes of a
positively disgusting character.
Onward to the shrine of the saint, first visiting Becket’s Crown--the
Corona--where we would be shown the portion of the saint’s skull which
was shorn off by the murderer’s sword.
Then to the shrine itself, where lay the holy body, enclosed in
splendour which has been described on another page.
The shrine was shown, maybe for the last time, in August 1538, to a
Madame de Montreuil, as described in a letter to Cromwell: “....so by
ten of the cloc, she ... went to the church, where I showed her Sainte
Thomas’s shrine, and all such things worthy of sight, at which she was
not little marveilled of the great riches thereof, saing to be
innumerable; and that if she had not seen it, all the men in the wourlde
would never a made her to belyve it. Thus ever looking and viewing more
than an oure as well the shryne as Sainct Thomas’s hed, being at both
sett cushions to knyle, and the Priour opening Saint Thomas’s hed,
_saing_ to her three times, ‘This is Sainct Thomas’ hed,’ and offered
her to kysse it, but she nother knyled nor would kysse it, but still
viewing the riches thereof.”[6]
So for six jubilees continued this throng to come from all the lands of
Europe to this shrine in this English city; the shrine of a saint of
whom no saintly deed has been recorded.
Then came the downfall, which Hasted has plainly described: “As this
saint was stripped of the name, honour, and adoration which had for so
great a length of time been paid to him; so was this church, most
probably a principal allurement to the dead, robbed of all the riches,
the jewels of inestimable value, and the vast quantities of gold and
silver, with which this shrine was splendidly and gloriously adorned:
his relics and bones were likewise taken away, and so destroyed and
disposed of, that what became of them could not be known, least they
might fall into such hands as might still honour them with veneration.”
With this adoration of the shrine the great end of the pilgrimage was
attained, and our company departed “dyner-ward"--
“And sith they drowgh to dyner-ward, as it drew to noon.
Then, as manere and custom is, signes there they bought;
Fa men of contré shuld know whom they had sought,
Eche man set his silver in such thing as they likid.”
“Signes,” among which were small lead bottles, containing water mingled
with the blood of the martyr; and leaden brooches, upon which were a
representation of the head of the saint, and the words _Caput Thomæ_. So
when the pilgrims scattered abroad over the countries from which they
had come, both on their journey homeward and on their return, men might
know that they had been on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas of
Canterbury; as Erasmus describes them--coming from this and other
shrines--“covered with scallop shells, stuck all over with leaden and
tin figures, adorned with straw necklaces and a bracelet of serpents’
eggs”; also, with scrip and staff, which their priests have blessed for
them before they set out on what often was a long and perilous journey.
Here is the prayer asking for blessing upon the scrip and staff--“O Lord
Jesu Christ, who of Thy unspeakable mercy, at the
[Illustration: THE GREYFRIARS’ HOUSE, CANTERBURY]
bidding of the Father, and by the co-operation of the Holy Spirit, wast
willing to come down from heaven, and to seek the sheep that was lost by
the deceit of the Evil One, and to carry him back on Thine own shoulders
to the flock of the Heavenly hand; and didst command the sons of Mother
Church by prayer to ask, by holy living to seek, and by knocking to
persevere; that so they may the more speedily find the reward of saving
life; we humbly beseech Thee that Thou wouldest be pleased to bless this
scrip and staff, that whosoever for love of Thy Name, shall seek to bear
the same by his side, to hang it at his neck, or to carry it in his
hands, and so on his pilgrimage to seek the aid of the saints, with the
accompaniment of humble prayer, being protected by the guardianship of
Thy right hand, may be found worthy to attain unto the joy of the
everlasting vision; through Thee, O Saviour of the World, who, with the
Father and the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth, ever our God, world
without end.” And when the scrip and staff were given by the priest to
the pilgrim, he said: “Take this scrip to be worn as the badge and habit
of thy pilgrimage; and this staff to be thy strength and stay in the
toil and travail of thy pilgrimage, that thou mayest be able to overcome
all the hosts of the Evil One, and to reach in safety the shrine of the
Blessed St Thomas of Canterbury, and the shrines of other saints whither
thou desirest to go; and having dutifully completed thy course, mayest
come again to thine own people with thanksgiving.”
Let not us of these later days take upon us to jest at these “men of
old,” who “with gladness” set forth upon this pilgrimage. There were
sinners and humbugs among them, as there have been and are every time
and everywhere; but among them, also, men of humble and contrite hearts.
May we not hope that their prayer has been granted, and that the
pilgrimage of life brought them at the last “unto the joy of the
everlasting vision”?
THE RELIGIOUS
It is impossible to see into the future, all but impossible to see
clearly into the past; the past, as the future, often decks itself in
colours to which it has no claim. The chief impression on the minds of
most of us when we look back to mediæval days, is that they were
picturesque if somewhat uncomfortable. But both ways we usually fall
short of the fact; they were most picturesque, most uncomfortable. We
have seen how once upon a time the Cathedral, now so decorously grey,
blazed with purple and fine linen; so too was it with all life; the very
streets now so sober-minded were then a veritable kaleidoscope; all life
was highly coloured, save that of the cloister. In those times in the
good city of Canterbury it must have been as difficult when one took his
walk abroad to avoid the sight of a hospital or of a holy house as
to-day to escape from the clangour of church bells.
If we would understand rightly the Canterbury of Becket and Cranmer, we
must remember that the rulers of the land were then the King and his
nobles and the clergy, the men of arms and the men of peace; there was
then no vast and powerful middle class. It is scarcely doubtful that had
Augustine not set up his tabernacle in Canterbury that the city would
have played but a small part on the stage of English history; she owes
her honour and renown to the men of peace who made her their capital in
England.
Canterbury never became more than a fairly large country town, yet we
find that within her bounds were no fewer than eleven religious
houses. With two we are already friendly, the two Benedictine
establishments--the abbey of St Augustine and the priory of Christ
Church. To the latter were attached the cells of St Martin at Dover and
Canterbury College, Oxford. There were also the Austin Canons’ priory of
St Gregory; houses belonging to the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Austin
Friars; St Sepulchre, St Mildred’s; and various hospitals, including St
John Baptist’s, the Poor Priests’, St Lawrence’s for lepers, and
Eastbridge Hospital. It will help us to travel back if we gain some
outline and idea, at any rate, of the “religious” life of those times.
It was thought by many then, as by many now, that a “regular” life, led
under strict rule, with self-denial and in retirement from the world,
helped men and women to attain nearer to the example of Christ than
could otherwise be hoped. The rule of St Benedict was by no means so
ascetic as those of some of the other orders. It was introduced into
England by Augustine in 597. Then--dealing only with those whom once we
should have met often in Canterbury--there were the Dominicans, or Black
Friars, so called on account of the black cloak and hood which they wore
over their white tunic when they went out of the bounds of their houses;
they were a preaching brotherhood, their work in life being to convert
the heathen and the heretical; they crossed over to this island in
1221. The Franciscans, or Grey Friars, also called Minorites, in their
humility holding themselves the least of all the orders. The
Augustinian, Austin, or Black Canons, a monastic order, whose first
foundation in this country was at Holy Trinity, Aldgate. The Austin
Friars, the shadow of whose presence lingers familiarly in London ears,
were ranked as “mendicants.”
Though there were considerable differences between the different
“rules,” the life and occupations of monks of different orders were, on
the whole, not dissimilar. So let us turn back again to the priory of
Christ Church and endeavour to restore in our mind’s eye some of the
monastic buildings that centred round the Cathedral, and the ways and
manners and aims of those who dwelt therein. Once for all let us abandon
the too common idea that the “religious” led an existence of laziness,
and frequently of over-indulgence in the good things of the world from
which to so great an extent they had taken a vow of abstinence.
Of the church we have already written sufficient. The building of next
importance was always the cloisters, which usually stood to the south of
the church, so securing a shelter from cold winds--necessary, indeed, in
our climate. Here let us turn aside for a moment; recall, such of us as
can do so, Magdalen College, Oxford, with its chapel, cloisters, hall,
and buttery, then we can conjure up at once a general idea of a great
monastic establishment. Returning to Canterbury, we find the cloisters
nestling on the north side of the church, so situate on account of
pressing reasons of space. After the church, after _opus dei_, the life
of a monk may be said to have centred in the cloister. Here the novices
and junior monks “learned their lessons,” which were many and arduous;
here the elders put those lessons into daily practice. It cannot have
been a sybaritic life; far from it. Then the refectory, or frater, which
at Canterbury ran along the north side of the cloisters--and here again
we may well recall one of the old college halls, or that beautiful hall
of the Middle Temple; the dim beams of the great roof, the dark
wainscotting, the screen at the lower end, the daïs at the upper, the
long tables running lengthwise; and--what we do not, luckily, see
now--the floor strewn with rushes, only too seldom changed. Opening off
the cloisters, generally on the east side, the chapter house. The
dormitories at Canterbury were situated in the angle formed by the
frater and the chapter house. Other buildings of importance were the
infirmary,
[Illustration: DOORWAY FROM THE CLOISTERS INTO THE MARTYRDOM]
the prior’s lodging, the almonry, and ample accommodation for the
entertaining of guests.
So that we may not gain too rosy a view of monastic hospitality, let us
turn to an account of it given by one of the ungodly, Denys of Burgundy,
who had no such stomach for monkish entertainment as had his comrade
Gerard. This was his indictment: “Great gate, little gate, so many steps
and then a gloomy cloister. Here the dortour; there the great cold
refectory, where you must sit mumchance, or at least inaudible.... ‘And
then,’ said he, ‘nobody is a man here, but all are slaves--and of what?
of a peevish, tinkling bell that never sleeps. An ’twere a trumpet now,
aye sounding alarums, ’twouldn’t freeze a man’s heart so. Tinkle,
tinkle, tinkle, and you must sit to meat with maybe no stomach for food.
Ere your meat settles in your stomach, tinkle, tinkle, and ye must to
church with maybe no stomach for devotion; I am not a hog at prayers,
for one. Tinkle, tinkle, and now you must to bed with your eyes open.
Well, by then you have contrived to shut them, some uneasy imp of
darkness has got to the bellrope, and tinkle, tinkle, it behoves you say
a prayer in the dark, whether you know one or not. If they heard the
sort of prayers I mutter when they break my rest with their tinkle!
Well, you drop off again and get about an eyeful of sleep; lo, it is
tinkle, tinkle, for matins.’”
Caricature sometimes tells the truth more understandably than history or
realism, and these facetiæ of Denys convey a fairly accurate idea of
part of a monk’s life. From midnight to midnight it was lived by rule
and rote, full of worship, full of work. But it will become us and
entertain us to take a more serious view of the hospitality exercised by
a great convent. The Guest House, or Hostry, was an important and
integral part almost of every monastery. It was the especial duty of one
of the senior monks to look to it that everything was ready for the
guests who might come. The building devoted to the duties of hospitality
were at Canterbury of very considerable size, a hundred and fifty feet
long by forty broad, consisting of a main hall, out of which opened
small sleeping apartments resembling cubicles. The abbot himself would
receive and entertain guests of high degree; merchants and others doing
business with the house would be taken charge of by the cellarer. The
following passage, quoted by Abbot Gasquet from the _Rites of Durham_,
is interesting: “There was a famous house of hospitality, called the
Guest Hall, within the Abbey garth of Durham, on the west side, towards
the water, the Terrar of the house being master thereof, as are
appointed to give entertainment to all states, both noble, gentle, and
whatsoever degree that came thither as strangers, their entertainment
not being inferior to any place in England, both for the goodness of
their diet, the sweet and dainty furniture of their lodgings, and
generally all things necessary for travellers. And, withal, this
entertainment continuing, (the monks) not willing or commanding any man
to depart, upon his honest and good behaviour. This hall is a goodly
brave place, much like unto the body of a church, with very fair pillars
supporting it on either side, and in the midst of the hall a most large
range for the fire. The chambers and lodgings belonging to it were
sweetly kept, and so richly furnished that they were not unpleasant to
lie in, especially one chamber called the ‘King’s chamber,’ deserving
that name, in that the King himself might very well have lain in it, for
the princely linen thereof.... The Prior (whose hospitality was such as
that there needed no guest-hall, but that they (the Convent) were
desirous to abound in all liberal and free almsgiving) did keep a most
honourable house and very noble entertainment, being attended upon both
with gentlemen and yeomen, of the best in the country, as the honourable
service of his house deserved no less. The benevolence thereof, with
relief and alms of the whole Convent, was always open and free, not only
to the poor of the city of Durham, but to all the poor people of the
country besides.”
Guests might remain some two days or nights, as a rule, special
permission having to be obtained for any longer period.
Yet another quotation, this time from the _Memoirs of the Life of Mr
John Inglesant_, wherein he narrates the visit to the Priory of Westacre
in Wiltshire of Richard Inglesant, on an errand from the Earl of Essex
and on business for the burly King Henry. The Priory was a small house
and set in the country, but the impression his first night there made
upon him will serve to carry us back along the corridors of time: “In
the middle of the summer afternoon he crossed the brow of the hilly
common, and saw the roofs of the Priory beneath him surrounded by its
woods. The country all about lay peaceful in the soft, mellow
sunlight.... The house stood with a little walled court in front of it,
and a gate-house; and consisted of three buildings--a chapel, a large
hall, and another building containing the Prior’s parlour and other
rooms on the ground floor, and a long gallery or dormitory above, out of
which opened other chambers; the kitchens and stables were near the
latter building, on the right side of the court. The Prior received
Inglesant with deference, and took him over the house and gardens,
pointing out the well-stocked fish-ponds and other conveniences, with no
apparent wish of concealing anything.... He supped with the Prior in
hall, with the rest of the household, and retired with him to the
parlour afterwards, where cakes and spiced wine were served to them, and
they remained long together.... At last Inglesant betook himself to rest
in the guest-chamber, a room hung with arras, opening from the gallery
where the monks slept.... The Prior’s care had ordered a fire of wood on
the great hearth that lighted up the carved bed and the hunting scene
upon the walls. He lay long and could not sleep. All night long, at
intervals, came the sound of chanting along the great hall and up the
stairs into the dormitory, as the monks sung the service of matins,
lauds, and prime.”
Yes, it was a busy, pious life that was led in a well-ordered monastery;
the service of God and of man combined to leave few idle moments, and
the true religions, we are told, combined “with monastic simplicity an
angelic good humour.” As men vary outside, so do they within monastic
walls: some saints, some sinners; some dour, some sweet; some patient,
some hot-blooded. They were human, those old monks, though somehow
to-day we are apt to look upon them as either too entirely
other-worldly, or too entirely this-worldly.
Before quitting them it will not be unamusing, or, indeed, without
instruction, to quote a few passages from Fuller’s _The Church-history
of Britain from the Birth of Jesus Christ until the Year M.DC.XLVIII._,
in which that worthy writer tells us of “Some generall Conformities
observed in all Convents,” dealing with “the rule of the antient
Benedictines.”
“_Let Monks_ (after the example of _David_) _praise God seven times a
day_.
“1. _At Cock-crowing_: Because the Psalmist saith, _At midnight will I
praise the Lord_: and most conceive that Christ rose from the dead about
that time.
“2. _Matutines_: at the _first hour_, or _six of the clock_, when the
Jewish morning sacrifice was offered. And at what time Christ’s
resurrection was by the Angels first notified to the women.
“3. At the _third hour_, or _nine of the clock before none_: when,
according to _S. Marke_, Christ was condemned, and scourged by _Pilate_.
“4. At the _sixt hour_, or _twelve of the clock at high noon_: when
Christ was crucified and darknesse over all the earth.
“5. At the _ninth hour_, or _three of the clock in the afternoon_: when
Christ gave up the ghost, and, which was an hour of publick prayer in
the Temple, and privately in his closet with _Cornelius_.
“6. Vespers: at the _twelfth hour_, or _six a clock in the afternoon_:
when the evening sacrifice was offered in the Temple, and when Christ is
supposed taken down from the Crosse.
“7. At _seven of the clock at night_ (or the first hour beginning the
nocturnall twelve): when Christ’s agonie in the garden was conceived
began.
“The first of those was performed at two of the clock in the morning:
when the Monks (who went to bed at eight at night) had slept six hours,
which were judged sufficient for nature.”
Further, we read:--
“Let every Monk have two Coats, and two Cowles, etc.”
“Let every Monk have his Table-book, Knife, Needle, and Handkerchief.”
“Let the Bed of every Monk have a Mat, Blanket, Rugge, and Pillow.”
We may part from them with the words of Hasted in our ears; of the
Reformation and of the destruction of Becket’s shrine, he says: “This
great change could not but seem strange to the people who had still
veneration for their reputed saint; and the violence offered to his
shrine could not but fill their hearts with inward regret, and private
murmurings; but their discontent did not break out into open rebellion
here, as it did on some like occasion in different places in the
kingdom. To quiet the people, therefore, and to convince them of the
propriety, and even necessity, of these changes, the monks were in
general cried out against, as given to every shameful and abominable
vice; and reports were industriously spread abroad, that the monasteries
were receptacles of the worst of people.... The greater monasteries
were, for the most part, well governed, and lived under the strictest
discipline; ... they promoted learning, they educated youth, and
dispensed charity with a liberal hand to all around them.... The Prior,
who at the time of the dissolution had presided over this convent for
three-and-twenty years, was a learned, grave, and religious man, and his
predecessors had been such for a length of time before. The convent was
a society of grave persons; the aged were diligent to train up the
novices both in the rules of their institution, and in gravity and
sobriety.... All their revenues and gains were expended, either in alms
and hospitality, or in the stately and magnificent building of their
church.... Their time was for the most part spent in exercises of
fasting, penance, and devout meditations, and in attending the divine
offices in the church.”
The lives of nuns in convents of women were to all intents and purposes
practically the same as those led by monks, so we will visit for a few
minutes--in spirit--the nunnery of St Sepulchre, which stood near the
old Riding-gate. It was founded by St Anselm about the year 1100 for
Benedictine nuns, whose lives were passed very much in accordance with
those of their brother monks. Hasted tells us that Prior Walter, of
Christ Church, gave to the nunnery “as much wood as one horse, going
twice a day, could fetch thence, where the wood reeves should
appoint"--namely, from the wood of Blean, beyond Harbledown; “but there
being much uncertainty in this grant, the nuns, in 1270, releasing it,
procured in lien and by way of exchange for it a certain portion of the
above-mentioned wood to be assigned and made over to them; which wood
retains from these nuns the name of Minchen Wood at this time.” And
further on he says discreetly, “Time and indulgence of superiors
bringing their corruptions, nuns became in process of time not such
recluses as their order required.” So in 1305 steps were taken by
Archbishop Winchelsea to keep them more straitly. It was here that the
Holy Maid of Kent, “the great impostor of her time, was a veiled nun and
votaress.”