LIFE OF BECKET. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. 'Si quis hujusmodi causam et initium discordiæ, medium et finem, nosse desiderat, illa magna scrutetur volumina quæ de eodem scripta sunt: Vitam scilicet, quam socius passionum ejus præter martyrium Magister scripsit HEREBERTUS, et aliam quam cum miraculis multis scripsit WILLIELMUS Cantuariensis monachus. Legat et volumen Epistolarum ejus, quas Prior compilavit ALANUS. Legat et Miracula quæ vidit et conscripsit BENEDICTUS, cum Vita ipsius quam breviter dictavit JOHANNES Carnotensis Episcopus. Modicum etiam, si placet, visitet GERVASIUM, qui archiepiscopatus ipsius breviter gesta transcurrit et annos."-Gervas. Dorobern., Actus Pontificum Cantuar., ap. Twysden, col. 1670. THE three centuries and a half during which Thomas of Canterbury was revered as the most glorious of English saints were followed by an almost equally long period of disrepute. Among Protestants of every kind his name was a byword, while, although he found defenders in the Roman Church, their apologies were, for the most part, written with an air of constraint, and appeared to betray a feeling that a hero so remote from modern sympathies was rather an incumbrance than a strength to their cause. In our own time, however, a fresh turn in the course of opinion has produced something of a reaction in his favour. B uuu པ ཨ L IཨI, ་ས་༦, མ ULLO nanuD UL in Thierry, it took the form of historical ccording to this eminent writer, the contest ecket and Henry II. was, in essence and in iggle, not of the ecclesiastical with the secubut of the Saxon with the Norman race.a shop is to be regarded as the representative ons, -as asserting the cause of the people oppressive descendants of the conquerors, re upheld by their sympathy in his troubles, rated by their veneration after death. The M. Thierry's universal solvent; everywhere he imagines the influence of race manifesting › novelty and boldness of this theory, and the ry skill with which it is enforced, have obt much attention and some acceptance; but it to be utterly untenable, except with such ns as deprive it of all that is peculiar or con la Conquête de l'Anles Normands,' t. i. t. iii. 158. Ed. Brux Salisbury would alhave disposed of M. y by anticipation :ersequuntur in hac -iensem Archiepiscopersequuntur quod quod natione Lon sed quod an→ Dei scelera eorum." T. Lappenberg, in his ngland,' has tempeonclusively exposed many of the passages in which hensions of many churchmen, the late Mr. felt himself attracted towards the character of as a champion of the Church against the secular He argued that the facts relating to the Archbish in many respects been misrepresented, and, furth he had been judged on wrong principles by la unsound writers. In some points Mr. Froude n considered as having established his case; in othe evident that he writes as a mere apologist, anxious to make out that his hero's conduct may have bee than to ascertain whether it really was so. Th of argument which began with Mr. Froude ha followed in the English Church by Archdeacon Ch by Dr. Giles, and in some degree by Mr. Warter on this as on other subjects the cautious tone whi long prevailed among writers of the Roman communion has lately been exchanged for something very like audacity. Thus, the variety of opinions to be dealt with by an inquirer who may wish to understand the controverted question of Becket's merits has of late been considerably increased. b A large addition has also been made to our printed materials for the history. Of these the chief repository was formerly a corpulent little quarto, edited by Christian Wolf (or Lupus), a Friar Eremite of St. Augustine, and published at Brussels in 1682. The volume contains a collection of letters, with a Life which is mostly compiled from four contemporary writers, and is thence known by the title of Quadrilogus, pr Historia Quadripartita. But of late years the mass of printed authorities has been swelled by various publications, especially by Dr. Giles's Sanctus Thomas Cantuariensis. The value of the additions contained in this work is, indeed, but indifferently proportioned to their bulk: for the new letters a 'Epistolæ et Vita Divi Thomæ Martyris, &c., in lucem productæ ex MS. Vaticano, opera et studio F. Christ. Lupi, Iprensis.' b John of Salisbury, Herbert of Bosham, Alan of Tewkesbury, and William of Canterbury. To these, in the History of the 'Passion,' is added a fifth,-Benedict of Peterborough. There are two such compilations, which are both referred to the thirteenth century. That which was edited by Lupus, and which took its final shape in the pontificate of Gregory XI. (A.D. d In eight volumes octavo, Oxford, 1845-6. Vols. i.-ii. contain Lives; vols. iii. and iv. Letters of Becket and others; vols. v. and vi. Letters of Foliot and others; vols. vii. and viii. the works of Herbert of Bosham. The contents of these volumes are reprinted by the Abbe Migne, in vols. cxc., &c., of his Patrologia.' |