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 GELIUM, 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

The reaction began in France, where, in the hands of M. Augustin Thierry, it took the form of historical theory. According to this eminent writer, the contest between Becket and Henry II. was, in essence and in spirit, a struggle, not of the ecclesiastical with the secular power, but of the Saxon with the Norman race." The Archbishop is to be regarded as the representative of the Saxons,-as asserting the cause of the people against the oppressive descendants of the conquerors, and therefore upheld by their sympathy in his troubles, and consecrated by their veneration after death. The Saxons are M. Thierry's universal solvent; everywhere he finds or he imagines the influence of race manifesting itself. The novelty and boldness of this theory, and the great literary skill with which it is enforced, have obtained for it much attention and some acceptance; but we believe it to be utterly untenable, except with such qualifications as deprive it of all that is peculiar or considerable.b

many of the passages in which the theory is inculcated; and see Wilmans, in Schmidt's 'Zeitschr. für Geschichtswissenschaft,' i. 182-5 (Berlin, 1844), and Reuter's 'Alexander III.,' i. 347 (ib. 1845), for a general réfutation of it, in so far as it relates to the history of Becket. There is, indeed, reason to believe that M. Thierry himself had in his last years greatly modified his opinion as to this part of his subject, and that he intended to state his change of views in a new edition of his 'Conquête d'Angleterre,' on

In England, on the other hand, the reaction originated in a religious interest. At a time when the course of politics and of popular religion had excited the apprehensions of many churchmen, the late Mr. Froude felt himself attracted towards the character of Becket as a champion of the Church against the secular power. He argued that the facts relating to the Archbishop had in many respects been misrepresented, and, further, that he had been judged on wrong principles by lax and unsound writers. In some points Mr. Froude must be considered as having established his case; in others it is evident that he writes as a mere apologist, anxious rather to make out that his hero's conduct may have been right than to ascertain whether it really was so. The style of argument which began with Mr. Froude has been followed in the English Church by Archdeacon Churton, by Dr. Giles, and in some degree by Mr. Warter;a and on this as on other subjects the cautious tone which had

b

which he was engaged almost to the time of his death; but I am not aware that this work has yet appeared.

a Remains of the Rev. R. H. Froude,' vol. iv. Derby, 1839. The contents of this volume had partly appeared in the British Magazine,' vols. ii.-v. (1833-4); but a considerable portion of it is due to the editor of the Remains,' although in referring to it I have for the most part not attempted to distinguish between the two writers. It may be well to mention, for the information of some readers,

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.

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, or 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

of Foliot (printed from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library) are for the most part of no great interest; the portions of Herbert of Bosham's Life which were not already known through the Quadrilogus consist mainly of tedious moralising and rhetorical flourishes; his Liber Melorum is (as Dr. Giles appears painfully to feel) hardly readable even by an editor, and is utterly unreadable by any one else; while much of the other new matter is merely a repetition of the old, and in some cases Dr. Giles has printed, as new, pieces which had long been before the world. Yet, however lightly we may estimate the greater part of the new materials, we are bound to be thankful to the editor who has furnished us with the means of judging of them; and there is in Dr. Giles's book matter which is both fresh and important. The Life by Edward Grim, which Surius had abridged in his Acta Sanctorum," is now printed at full length: one by Roger, a monk who served the Archbishop while resident at Pontigny,—one by an unknown author, who professes to have witnessed his murder," and others of smaller importance, are said to be entirely new.

The original authorities, then, may be classified as follows:

E. g., the passages of R. de Diceto which are given as an appendix to Alan (S. T. C., i. 375, seqq.). The oversight as to the Sarum Breviary, which will be noticed hereafter (p. 51), is almost of the same kind.

b Dec. 29, t. vi. 330, ed. Venet., 1571. It had been also partly

given in Martene's Thesaurus Anecdotorum.' See Giles, S. T. C., ii., Pref. p. x.

CS. T. C. i. 92; cf. ii. 52.

d S. Thom. Cant. ii. 72. This biographer is styled Anonymus Lambethiensis, from the circumstance that the MS. is in the Lambeth Library.