having taken place at Benevento (i. 314), probably through a confusion with the history of Archbishop Ralph, who in 1115 there waited on Paschal II. (W. Malmesb., Gesta Pontif. in Patrol. clxxix., 1508.)

XXII. THE POPE'S TREATMENT OF BECKET (p. 153).

Even popes may be wronged, and it is right to defend even Professor Reuter's hero, Alexander, from the injustice which is done him in this part of the story by Mr. Sharon Turner's misapprehension and M. Michelet's misrepresentation. Mr. Turner says that Becket's" messenger was two days at Rome [the Pope being, as we have seen, really at Sens] before he obtained an audience, and, though received at last with the public gesticulations of sighs, and even tears, and congratulations that the Church had such a pastor, yet, when his friend mentioned Becket's petition to be invited to Rome [i. e., Sens], the immediate answer of the Pope was a peremptory refusal." (i. 255.) For this a reference is given to "lib. i. ep. 23"-the same letter which is quoted in the text, p. 150. That letter, however, was not written, as Mr. Turner and M. Thierry (iii. 138) suppose, after Becket's flight, but a year earlier; and the statement that Alexander " peremptorily refused to invite" the Archbishop, is founded on a misconception of a passage the true sense of which will appear from Mr. Froude's translation (p. 70):-"Lastly, on our requesting that His Holiness would send your Lordship a summons to appear before him, he answered, with much apparent distress, God forbid! rather may I end my days than see him leave England on such terms, and bereave his Church at such a crisis!

M. Michelet may be left to speak for himself—that Becket wrote from Pontigny, "charging himself with having been intruded into his see, and declaring that he resigned

his dignity; " that "Alexander refused to see him, and contented himself with writing to him, that he re-established him in his episcopal dignity-Go,' he coldly wrote to the exile, 'Go, learn in poverty to be the consoler of the poor'" (iii. 171). This is really not an unfair specimen of the brilliant historian's accuracy, either in his account of Becket, or in such other parts of his story as I have been able to examine particularly.

XXIII.-JOHN, BISHOP OF POITIERS (p. 166).

John des Belles-Mains was a native of Canterbury, and had been Treasurer of York. He is described by Robert of St. Michel as "vir jocundus et largus et apprime eruditus" (A. D. 1162), and by John of Salisbury as "vir singularis eloquii, et qui omnibus quos viderim trium linguarum gratia præstat" (Polycrat. viii. 7, col. 735 D). He was one of Becket's most confidential friends, and Fitzstephen says that in the beginning of the troubles he was made Bishop of Poitiers, and John of Salisbury was banished, with a view of depriving the Archbishop of their counsel (215). But this, as Mr. Morris has pointed out (p. 417), is incorrect, inasmuch as the Treasurer of York was promoted to Poitiers before the breach between Becket and the King. M. Thierry (iii. 134) quotes a letter of John of Salisbury (Ep. 147) as showing that an attempt to poison the Bishop was made by the King's party about the time of Becket's flight. If such an attempt had been made, should pretty surely have heard more of it; but, in truth, the poisoning is mentioned merely as matter of rumour (Epp. 146-7), and it would seem that this rumour (in so far as it had any foundation at all) arose from the fact of the Bishop's having had a severe natural illness. Moreover, the date is not, as M. Thierry supposes, 1164, but 1166-after the meeting at Chinon, which is mentioned in the text, p. 182.

we

From Poitiers John was translated in 1181 to the archbishopric of Lyons, which he resigned in 1195; and he died as a monk at Clairvaux (Patrol. ccix. 873-8). Among the letters of Alan of Tewkesbury (11-2, in S. T. C. viii.) are two addressed to John when Archbishop of Lyons, by which it appears that, to the indignation of the Canterbury monks, he then held the living of Eynesford, which had been the occasion for one of Becket's quarrels.

XXIV.-VÉZELAY (p. 184).

I venture to introduce here an extract from a rough diary, written in October, 1855 :

"After climbing a long hill, on the brow of which stands a cross, a new prospect opened—a wide valley, with high hills on the farther side, reminding me of the views towards Wales from the country beyond Tenbury; and in advance of the range a steep rock, covered in great part with vineyards, and crowned by the town of Vézelay,trees rising above the ramparts, and between them the lofty apse of the abbey church. To the left, a village with a turreted château; in the bottom, the beautiful spire of St. Père, and the Cure, widened in one place by a weir, flowing through the valley. There was a long descent, and, after passing through the dirty village of St. Père (reserving the church for my return), a long ascent to Vézelay. The shape of the little town is something like that of a flat fish -the abbey holding the place of the head, while the junction with the main range of hills is the tail. The road winds up a hill opposite the south side of that on which the town is built, and passes on (towards Clamécy, I believe) outside. Turning from it on reaching the height, you enter between two pillars, and find yourself in the main street. The feet at once feel the change from a good macadamised road to a stone pavement, which is even worse than that of most old

French towns. The street is narrow, the houses are dingy, the shops dark and poor. A few drowsy people standing at doors gaze at you with an incurious stare. You go on; the street becomes narrower and steeper; nobody is seen; all seems asleep; Bayeux, and even Sandwich, are nothing in their deadness to Vézelay. Here and there bits of carved stone-work appear, built into the walls of houses. At length you come out on a little open space, and look on the western front of the great church. One tower is gone; the other is Romanesque below, and Gothic above, but not (I think) late Gothic, as the Handbook' says, except in quite the highest part. There is a window of five lights, with an arch above it. You enter the porch, which has three bays, with pointed arches, and an arcade above them. This is of the early part of the twelfth century, and already existed in Becket's time. A great doorway, and a smaller one at each side, Romanesque arches, with much sculpture, admit you to the nave, which is very long, and of stern early Romanesque, but surely not (as I remember that Froude says) 'anterior to Norman,' or as old as the ninth century. There is no triforium, and the roof is of a barrel fashion. The whole church is now in process of restoration. The choir is of the transitional style so common in the great churches of these parts, although the specimens of it on a large scale are few in England (our own cathedral being the chief); it, too, was probably already built when Becket made this the scene of his excommunications. The curé, a polite elderly personage, was in the church, and kindly showed me the crypt, with the recess in which the relics of St. Mary Magdalene were kept until cast out by the Huguenots. During the restoration, service is performed in the ancient chapter-house, a low, vaulted

a I have since found that Mr. | burnt down on the eve of St. Mary Fergusson refers it to the eleventh. Magdalene, in 1120. Rob. AntisHandbook of Architecture, 655. siod. in Rec. des Hist., xii. 291.

The former choir had been

Romanesque building. The sight of Vézelay was well worth the trouble of my journey by diligence from Auxerre, and of my I walk from Avallon."

XXV.-DATE OF THE EXCOMMUNICATIONS AT VÉZELAY (p. 186).

The day is variously stated. Dr. Giles (I do not know on what authority) says that it was Easter-day (Life and Letters, i. 332). Herbert (vii. 229) and Gervase (1400), followed by Mr. Buss (399), name St. Mary Magdalene's day (July 22), when, for the festival of the patroness," very many nations flock from various kingdoms " (Herb.). But it is evident, from the correspondence (which is better authority than Herbert's narrative, written from memory long after), that it was earlier (see iv. 195; Joh. Sarisb., ep. 175, fin. &c.). Diceto (539) and Wendover (ii. 313) place the excommunication on Ascension-day; Dr. Pauli (as I myself formerly did) on the Sunday following (68). But the best authority seems to be the circumstantial account given by John of Salisbury in a letter to the Bishop of Exeter (Ep. 145, col. 137), which is followed in the text. From Soissons to Vézelay must have been a journey of more than two days, and the Whitsun festival will account better than the Ascension for the words "de diversis nationibus," which John uses in describing the assembled crowds. Dr. Pauli observes that the words of Nicolas of Rouen (Thom. Ep. 347)—" Alii quoque conjectant quod in festo S. Mariæ Magdalenæ in regis personam sententiam preferetis (taken in conjunction with the discordant statements of John of Salisbury and Herbert) "might suggest the supposition of two scenes at Vézelay" (69), and Dom Brial (Rec. des Hist., xvi. 255) infers the same from Gervase of Canterbury's narrative. But this appears to be a mistake, and Dr. Pauli does not venture to adopt it.