The Conquering Family

by Thomas B. Costain

  “You would be choosing a gay dress,” he said, bending down from his great height to speak in a low tone in the King’s ear, “to figure at the head of your sober monks of Canterbury.”

  When Henry pressed the matter, saying that no other appointment would suit him, the chancellor became equally serious. He shook his head doubtfully. “If you do as you say,” he declared, “you will soon hate me, my lord King, as much as you love me now.”

  Henry was not to be denied. He did not seem willing to put any belief in his minister’s objections, not even when the latter said that as archbishop he would not be able to agree with the royal policy. It was firmly in the King’s mind that it would be a perfect arrangement to have Becket at the head of the Church as well as State so that he, Henry, could devote himself more to his continental possessions, where the imperial dream was taking on firmer substance all the time. If Becket had stated categorically that he would relinquish the chancellorship if made primate, the shrewd King would have declared that retention of the secular post was an indispensable consideration and that the appointment to Canterbury could not be made otherwise. That the discussion did not reach this point is proof that Becket did not so declare himself.

  In any careful sifting of the little evidence which exists, in the light shed upon the character of Becket by later events, the conclusion cannot be avoided that his objections were not deep-seated. He was fascinated by the greatness offered him, for the Archbishop of Canterbury was second in the kingdom only to the King himself. Knowing the attitude he would adopt, conscious of the inflexibility of which he was capable, he found this great role not one to be rejected. Even aware that there could be one ending only to the part he intended to play, he was prepared in his heart to accept the tragic consequences. Whether from deep convictions which he had kept suppressed or a less praiseworthy desire to strut importantly on the pages of history, he raised no positive objections to the King’s will. A clear-cut statement would have ended the matter. But he did not make it.

  A year passed and Henry was still in France when the matter of the appointment came up. The King sent Richard de Lucy to inform the chapter of his desire and resolve to see the chancellor chosen as successor to Theobald. The members of the chapter were stunned. It seems that the possibility of this nomination had not occurred to any of them. Becket had been a capable administrator and he was popular, although the lordliness of his ways had aroused some criticism and jealousy. But he was not in holy orders, and on all clashes of authority and policy he had stood against the Church. The leading men of the Church knew what was in the King’s mind and they were unanimously and bitterly opposed to such a selection.

  The matter was debated for some days. It was whispered around that the King’s mother, the old Empress, now living quietly in Rouen and refusing fiercely to visit the land of her birth, which had rejected her, had warned her son against Becket. The meetings were held in London, and it was apparent that even the citizens were puzzled and to some degree adverse, despite the fact that the great honor was designed for one of themselves. The offices of the chancellery were being crowded to the point of suffocation by place-seekers, priests and laymen alike, who could not wait to curry favor. Becket was going methodically about his duties, seeing the visitors, of course, and smiling pleasantly—and saying nothing whatever.

  It seems quite possible that the opposition of the chapter would have hardened to the point of refusal if the chancellor had expressed any objections on his part. Becket, however, continued throughout to say nothing.

  Finally, therefore, “the whole Church sighing and groaning,” the will of the King prevailed. Thomas à Becket was chosen. He accepted and was quickly ordained priest. On the third day of June he was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury by Henry of Winchester.

  He thus became the first man born on English soil to fill that great post since the Conquest.

  2

  The Church in England, to the overlordship of which Thomas à Becket has thus been called, was at a high peak of its power and influence. It is impossible to exaggerate or overemphasize the faith which men had in the early Middle Ages. They worshiped God and His Son and the Virgin and all the saints openly and humbly. They might be guilty of violent crimes, but in the end they came back to be forgiven and eased of their burdens of sin. At no other period could the fanaticism of the Crusades have been aroused.

  It is not surprising, therefore, that the tendency to monasticism became so widespread and that the bell towers of holy buildings began to dot the landscape. It is recorded that one hundred and thirteen new monasteries were built in England during the reign of Henry II, three to a year. These, unhappily, were established by foreign orders, and they were not only under the control of Norman abbots but the first quota in every instance was of Norman monks. The Gilbertines, the only order of English origin, never became either powerful or large, twenty-six houses being the total number of branches. St. Benedict, whose rule had so sensibly avoided the extremes of austerity, was responsible for most of the monasteries in England, including that of St. Martin at Battle with its high altar above the spot where Harold fell. But that very lack of severe discipline was now beginning to show the inevitable consequences in a certain sloth in field work, in gluttony, and a slackening of fervor. When the brothers sat in the chapter house, the proceedings did not always take the form of readings from the lectern or open confession, but there could be general discussion which might turn on whether the head cook would provide a pittance, an unexpected extra at a meal, such as one of his round steamed puddings, rich with suet and filled with raisins like the beady eyes of homemade dolls. When the sound of the skilla summoned them to meals it was not to partake of mixtum, bread and wine. Giraldus Cambrensis, the Welshman who was twice nominated Archbishop of St. David’s and twice was ousted in favor of royal choices, visited Canterbury on one occasion and saw sixteen courses served. The cheerful Benedictines did not wait to talk until their feet carried them out of the cloisters and into the stype, the passage leading to the cemetery, where conversation was in order; they were disposed to chat on all occasions, unlike the grim Carthusians, on whom was imposed rigorous silence.

  And the Black Benedictines were very rich. They had been so well endowed and had been made the recipients of so many rich bequests in wills that they owned great tracts of lands and they collected tithes and rents and exercised feudal power over the bodies of men and women of mark and moor. An abbot’s household read like a royal establishment with chamberlain, seneschal, marshal, pander, master of horse, valet, cook, palfrey men, and porters.

  Out of the Benedictines, however, there had now arisen a much more vigorous order, the Cistercians or Gray Monks, who wore habits of that color with no more than a black scapular to remind them of their derivation. As the second abbot of the parent Cistercian house at Cîteaux in France had been an Englishman, St. Stephen Harding, it was natural that the first step in expansion should be across the Channel. They initially came over in 1127 and founded an abbey at Furness. This was to prove a wonderfully fine thing for the country. The Gray Monks, who had gone back to the sterner provisions of St. Benedict’s rule, were refusing donations. They were raising simple buildings, not allowing bells to weigh more than five hundred pounds and refusing to display gold and silver in their chapels. They established the rule that a monk must be bled four times a year to keep him in bodily docility as well as spiritual humbleness. And they were great farmers, depending on what they raised from the land for their subsistence. As it fell out, they were particularly successful in the raising of sheep and the proper preparing of wool. Many of the new monasteries established in Henry’s time were Cistercian, and it was partly due to them that the barges on the Thames were so well filled with wool of the very finest quality.

  A great man indeed was this Englishman, St. Stephen Harding. He was directly responsible for the sternness of the Cistercian concept and for the great growth of the order. He it was who trained a young novice of gre
at physical beauty and purity of mind and set his feet so firmly in the path of piety that the youth became the famed St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the passionate advocate of the Third Crusade. On one early occasion when the members of the new order had nothing to eat, Stephen and one lay member went out to beg alms. The lay brother collected more than was needed, but when Stephen found that the bread had been given by a priest who had obtained his benefice by simony, he gave the food to some nearby shepherds. “God forbid that we should eat of his sin,” he declared, “and that it should be turned into the substance of our bodies.” He was the first of that long line of truly holy men who carried the title of the abbot of abbots.

  The Cistercians were injecting new life into the monasterial body, but practices had grown up in the Church itself which played no small part in the growth later of Lollardism. There was, for instance, the great absurdity of sanctuary. The Church, out of a deep compassion for the unfortunate and a desire to check violence, had in the earliest days followed the Hebrew practice of setting aside certain edifices as places where fugitives could go and receive a hearing. This had become so blown up into excess by this time that no one could be taken by the law from the bounds of a church. Every innocent man had, therefore, a chance to get himself free of persecution; but also every scamp, every thief, every assassin with blood on his hands could throw off pursuit by prostrating himself before a shrine or even by the act of ringing the galilee bell. Sometimes the sanctuary seekers would “abjure the realm,” which meant their consent to exile, but this was unlikely unless their crimes were heinous enough to involve the strictest punishment. The self-made exile would be stripped by the monks and given a cloak with a cross on the shoulder, and in this garb he would be sent by the nearest route to the coast. With a few pence only in his pocket he would be shipped abroad on the first boat and dumped ashore. Mostly, however, the hunted men preferred to wait in the kind shelter of the churchly wing.

  Such popular sanctuaries as St. Martin’s-in-the-Lane and Westminster Abbey itself were as much infested with refugees as the head of a beggar with lice. It was disconcerting to find men with hangdog faces sitting in the grounds, peering out from the entrances and slinking through the gloom of the chapels; most particularly startling to find in the frith-stool, which had once constituted the whole of sanctuary, some shifty-eyed rogue whose crimes had stirred the countryside, knowing that as long as he sat there the law could not touch him. Sometimes these furtive guests would be supported by relatives and food would be sent in to them. Sometimes, if they had learning, they supported themselves by copying. Frequently they would venture out at night and rob passers-by and then rush back into the zone of safety.

  Although this was like a hair shirt on the back of the Church and a condition which the priests hated and deplored, they were committed to it by the tradition of compassion. They refused resolutely to surrender as much as an inch to the state, and they followed up with outraged vigor any desecration of sanctuary. It is even recorded of Hugh of Lincoln, most saintly of bishops, that he once stopped a procession taking a young thief to the gallows and, out of pity for the terror on the youth’s face, conveyed him to safety. One may sympathize with the kindly bishop, realizing that one of the foulest of earlier cruelties was to hang men for the theft of a horse or a purse or a loaf of bread, and yet concede that this was stretching priestly privilege to a dangerous point.

  Sanctuary was particularly galling to Henry, who was striving to set the administration of justice in order. He had gone to the extreme of putting the nobility on a level with common men in the matter of the “frank-pledge,” by which groups of ten were formed to act in the interests of justice and to serve as pledges for each other. A system of co-operation had been established among the various counties so that the hue and cry could carry from one end of the country to the other. No man might take a stranger into his home for more than one night without becoming responsible for him. Above everything, the King was struggling to turn trial by jury into a workable system. Sanctuary, that worn-out and fantastic survival from biblical days, was a continuous thorn in the flesh of legal process.

  The chantry, and the cantarists who lived on its bounty, was also reaching the proportions of a scandal. It was growing, nevertheless, out of the great depth of men’s faith which created a desire for remission of sin by every means possible. When a rich man came to die he was haunted by his sins and left money for prayers to be said for the good of his soul. If he were rich enough, he would provide a fund to pay for masses and prayers over a period of years, even sometimes in perpetuity. If the funds sufficed, a chantry would be set up for the purpose. A chapel might be added to the exterior of a church or even erected by itself, and a priest would be selected to perform the duties. Early wills left such sums as six pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence a year for the living of the priest, with a house and a “proper garden” for his shelter. Lesser bequests kept cantarists at work at stated intervals, and they were then called annuallers, praying before shrines in stated churches or cathedrals. As many as thirty shrines might be found in a single edifice, with priests kneeling before them at all hours, begging mercy for dead donors. It has even been asserted that the larger churches had to keep a close schedule for the use of the various shrines and to maintain daily notice boards so that chantry arrangements might not become tangled.

  A chantry post was a desirable thing to a priest who had entered the Church without a sense of dedication, and great was the competition for them. There is no way of computing the number which existed at this time, but there were literally thousands of them. It became a marked evil later on, particularly during the Black Death, when the ranks of the clergy were decimated. Not even the necessities of those dreadful days could persuade some selfish cantarists to give up their well-cushioned existences.

  An intellectual awakening was under way in Europe, but this early renaissance does not seem to have touched England to any extent. Such learning as existed was in the Church, and it must be said that the standard of scholarship was not high in English cloisters. There were only one hundred and fifty books in the library at Canterbury. A small theological school existed at Oxford and would grow into the great university, but English youths who desired learning were sent to France or Italy.

  The indomitable pride in the power of the Church which Thomas à Becket was to display in his struggle with the King was a reflection of church policy, although he alone had the audacity to proclaim it in unqualified terms. As the bishops had been military leaders in the early days of the Norman occupation, under obligation to maintain certain armed forces, it was not surprising that a militant note was still reflected. Churchmen were as arrogant as the barons and did not hesitate to fight for what they conceived to be their rights. There was the episode in 1176 when Cardinal Hugezin arrived as papal legate. A bitter dispute arose between the two English archbishops, Richard of Canterbury and Roger of York, as to which should sit on the right hand of the man from Rome. The Yorkist pretensions so enraged the officials in Richard’s train that they knocked Roger down and jumped on his prostrate body. This, needless to state, created a great scandal, with appeals to the King and then to the Pope, and it ended in Canterbury’s paying a heavy fine.

  The disregard for the Saxon people which had actuated all Normans, priest and nobleman alike, was still not entirely eradicated from church leadership. High churchmen had too small regard for the lowliest of their charges and were prone to insist on everything allowed them under canon law. They still exercised a curious privilege known as deodand, which gave to the Church the instrument of a man’s death, even if it happened to be a horse on which the continued existence of the bereaved family depended.

  One cure for conditions such as these was soon to make itself felt on the Continent; but Thomas à Becket, most militant of English primates, was not to see the first glimmerings of a great reform in the Church for whose unstinted prerogatives he was to die. St. Dominic would be born in 1170 at Calaroga in Cas
tile, and from him would come the inspiration of the Dominicans, the order of Preaching Friars. St. Francis would be born twelve years later at Assisi and would give to the world his conception of religious asceticism in the order of Black Franciscans, dedicated to the help of the poor and the sick, and to service in poverty.

  But the First Franciscans were not to arrive in England until years after Becket’s death, when they would begin their magnificent ministrations in London, existing on charity and living in an unheated house in the most squalid part of London called Stinking Lane. The feminine branch of the order, known as the Poor Clares, would come still later to lend their gentle hands to nursing the poor and doing much to adjust the balance.

  3

  Something that was to puzzle all England and to set tongues wagging in every part of Europe was happening at Canterbury. The first intimation that the court had of it was when the new archbishop stalked into the White-Hall where Prince Henry had installed himself. The prince was now twelve years of age and as much devoted to his old tutor as ever. There also were the chief justiciar and several members of the Curia Regis. Their jaws must have dropped open in surprise at what they saw.

  The once magnificent Becket, the lover of fine fabrics and silken shirts and costly jewels, was dressed in the coarsest of priestly garb. His compelling eyes looked out from under a heavy cowl, one hand clasped his breviary, his feet were in thonged sandals. The forty-four-year-old primate seemed to have aged. His face was pale, presumably from fasting.

  He placed in the hands of the prince, as deputy for the King, his father, the Great Seal of England, saying briefly that his new duties made it impossible for him to continue in the office of chancellor. He asked that, with the surrender of the Seal, he be absolved at once of his former responsibilities. Having said this, he fell silent and waited, burying both of his long sensitive hands in the sleeves of his brown habit and keeping his gaze straight ahead.