CHAPTER II.

EARLY LIFE.-A.D. 1118-1154.

THE popular story of Becket's birth is as follows :-His father, Gilbert, became the captive of a Saracen emir in the Holy Land. The emir's daughter and only child fell in love with him, aided him to escape, and some time after followed him, knowing only two words of any European language-the names of London and of Gilbert. By means of these, however, she was able to make her way from Palestine to Cheapside, where Gilbert's house stood, on the ground now occupied by the Mercers' Chapel; and here, as she was wandering about, "quasi bestia erratica"a ("like a cow in a fremd loaning," as Scott might have translated the phrase), making the echoes resound with the name of her beloved, and attended by a train of idle boys, she was recognised by Richard, the servant of Gilbert, and companion of his adventures. And the tale ends as it ought to end with her baptism by the name of Matilda, which was solemnised by six bishops in St. Paul's Cathedral, her union with Gilbert, and the birth of a son, who was in due time to be developed into St. Thomas of Canterbury."

a Bromton, as cited below. b'Life and Martyrdom of Thomas Beket,' by Robert of Gloucester,

ed. Black. Lond. (Percy Society), 1845, pp. 1-8; Bromton, ap. Twysden, 1053-5; Quadril. Prior, in

b

66

Dr. Giles sees no reason to doubt" this story;a and it is told without any appearance of misgiving by Thierry, by Froude, and by Michelet. Mr. Sharon Turner also adopts it, although not without some suspicions, in which he would seem to have been preceded by Berington. And the assumption of its truth has been made to serve as an explanation of various things, such as the character of Matilda's devotion, her son's social position, his vehement "Oriental" temperament, nay, the delicate shape and whiteness of his hands." As to the details, authors are not quite agreed. Some represent Gilbert as a gentleman travelling for the improvement of his mind, like Lord Lindsay or Mr. Eliot Warburton; some make him a penitential pilgrim ; others a crusading knight; while Sir James Mackintosh (who, however, argues only for the possibility of the story, and not for its truth) supposes him to have been a trader, journeying in the way of business. But M. Thierry boldly turns him into an exemplification of the great Saxon theory. Gilbert, he says, was one of those Saxons who, "yielding to the necessity of a subsistence," took service under Norman masters; and

h

e England during the Middle Ages, 3rd ed. i. 221.

f "So relates the fabling Bromton." Berington, Hist. of Hen. II. p. 60.

Froude, 91. Professor Reuter does not well know what to make

"His mother was certainly a of it, but seems to believe the Saracen."

33.

d Hist. de France, iii. 149, ed. Brux. 1840.

Saracen parentage. i. 295.

b Hist. Eng. i. 153.

i iii. 95.

thus, in some subordinate capacity, he attended an anonymous knight "of alien race" to the Holy Land. And if we desire proof of this view, the historian of the Conquest refers us to Bromton,-who describes Gilbert as a pilgrim going to Jerusalem in consequence of a vow, and taking with him one servant out of a numerous household,—and to the Scotch ballad of "Young Bekie' (once familiar to London streets through the travestie entitled "Lord Bateman ""),-in which he figures as a lord of castles and broad lands, impelled to rove by an enlightened curiosity!

The marriage, we learn from M. Thierry," made a great noise-as well it might. It is, however, remarkable that no sound or echo of this noise reached the contemporaries, who lived in intimacy with the offspring of the union, and wrote his life-such as Grim and Roger, Garnier of Pont St. Maxence, Herbert of Bosham, Fitzstephen, and John of Salisbury. These and other early writers, while they mention the parents of the saint, and describe their station and characters, say nothing whatever which could imply that there was anything extraordinary in their history-that Gilbert had ever visited the East, whether as master or as servant, as inquiring traveller, crusader, palmer, or merchantor that Matilda was other than the home-born child of Christian parents. In short, the romantic account of Becket's parentage is one of the innumerable fictions which have grown up around his memory, and is un

Published about 1840, with illustrations by Cruikshank.

b iii. 97.

known to any writer earlier than the compiler of the First Quadrilogue,-if he was earlier than Robert of Gloucester, whose metrical account of the Life and Martyrdom' was composed a century after the hero's death.a

b

There is, however, a further question as to Gilbert— Was he a Saxon at all? "It appears," says M. Thierry, "that his real name was Beck, and that the Normans, among whom he lived, added to this a familiar diminutive, and thus turned it into Becket." But in truth the word beck, instead of being exclusively Saxon, was one of the few remains of their old Teutonic language which lingered among the descendants of the Northmen after their settlement in France: thus Caudebec, Bolbec, and the famous abbey of Le Bec, which within the first century after the Conquest gave three primates to the English Church, each derived its name from its beck or brook. And as beck was used to signify a brook, so we know, from the evidence of Norman charters, that the diminutive bequet (or becket) was used to signify a little brook; and, moreover, the earliest appearance of this diminutive as a surname in any formal document is not in England, but in Normandy. Nothing, therefore, could

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b

well be more unfortunate than the attempt to press the family name into the service of M. Thierry's Saxon theory. On the other hand, we have express statements in the early writers that the Archbishop's descent was Norman; for Fitzstephen states that a Norman origin was a bond of common interest between Gilbert and Archbishop Theobald; and another biographer tells us that Gilbert was a native of Rouen-one of many who settled in England for purposes of commerce -and that his wife was a native of Caen, named Roësa. The statement of this last writer as to the wife's name is indeed contradictory of all other old authorities, and one of Becket's own letters seems to imply that the family had been resident in London for more than one generation; but that it was originally Norman appears to be certain. If we might venture on an attempt to harmonise accounts which after all must remain in some measure inconsistent, we should conjecture that the

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c Anon. Lambeth. ib. ii. 73. d At least I have not observed it elsewhere; but it is to be found in Fox, Acts and Mon.' (i. 232, ed. 1684.) Whence did he derive it?

e "

'Quod si ad generis mei radicem et progenitores meos intenderis, cives quidem fuerunt Londonienses, in medio concivium suorum habitantes sine querela, nec omnino infimi." S.T.C. iii. 286. John of Salisbury styles him "Natione Londoniensis (Ep. 193); and Roger Wendover speaks of him as an "indigena" of London. ii. 293.