by Mary Malloy
Becket was an arrogant man but he also tried to be a holy one. When the monks of Canterbury prepared his body for burial they found that under his vestments he wore a lice-infested hair shirt. It was meant to make him suffer constantly in a small way. He apparently took it off only to be scourged or whipped on the back, a greater suffering to which he had submitted himself that very morning. Fearing the return of the knights, the body was buried quickly in the crypt of the church—though some of the monks reported that there was a short delay while they waited for it to rise and make the sign of the cross over them before lying down again.
The miracles began immediately. A blind man, who didn’t know about the murder, came to the cathedral that day and was cured. A paralyzed woman drank some water into which drops of blood were dripped and she walked again. The pilgrimages began.
For the next fifty years pilgrims made a point of venerating three places in the church: the scene of the crime, called “The Martyrdom,” where an altar had been constructed called “The Altar of the Sword’s Point”; the high altar where Becket’s body had lain overnight; and the crypt where he was buried. The tip of the sword that killed him was saved and exhibited as a relic; the blood-stained stone on which he died was cut out of the floor and sent to Rome. Eventually the makeshift grave was replaced by a masonry tomb. Two large openings in each side allowed the faithful to be closer to the saint by sticking their heads or hands inside to touch the coffin.
A fire in the cathedral five years after Becket’s death damaged much of the area above the tomb and when rebuilding began it was decided to expand the Trinity Chapel above Becket’s grave and to build there a new shrine. On a summer day in 1220, fifty years after the murder, the new shrine was dedicated and, with great pomp and circumstance, Becket’s remains—his “relics” since he was a saint—went into it. This “translation” of the corpse, as they called the exhumation and movement of the body of a saint from one place to another, would thereafter be venerated each year on July 7.
Since Becket had not been embalmed in any way, all that was left to move into the new shrine were bones, and at least some of them did not get translated into the new shrine. The head and the severed cap of the skull were each kept in separate jeweled reliquaries. At least some bones went to Rome and to other shrines, and for years one could see various parts of Becket around Europe. (A tooth, for instance, was in Verona.) Weirdest of all, there were at least three arms attributed to him, in Florence and Lisbon.
Two monks from Canterbury went on to positions at other monasteries and brought relics of Becket with them. Benedict, the Abbot of Peterborough, arrived at his new post in 1179 with two bottles of blood, clothes that had belonged to the Archbishop, and stones from the floor where Becket fell. Roger, the Abbot of St. Augustine’s monastery, just around the corner from the cathedral in Canterbury, received his new post by agreeing to their request to bring with him a portion of the skull of the saint.
Thus the flesh and bones and blood and brains that made Thomas Becket such an impressive man when he was alive were transformed by the circumstances of his murder into the relics of a saint.
The article that Nora Stanley gave to Lizzie had an excellent outline of the life and death of Thomas Becket, and an account of all the known sources that described the shrine that had held his bones. There were a number of good descriptions in medieval journals, but only a few surviving images. A stained glass window in Canterbury Cathedral had, by some good fortune, escaped the ravagers who destroyed the shrine that it depicted. There was a manuscript drawing that had, unfortunately, been damaged, destroying the lower part of the image. There were a few pewter pilgrim badges in the shape of the shrine, one of which, from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, was illustrated in the article. And there was the stained glass window that had been commissioned by the Weaver for Salisbury Cathedral and now survived only in the ink drawing made of it in 1789, when the stained glass was replaced with clear panes.
Between the time it was dedicated in 1220 and its total destruction in 1538, the shrine had dominated Canterbury Cathedral and been the focus of every pilgrim’s visit. As Lizzie read the various descriptions of it, she examined the details of the images, especially the one that had been on the stained glass window that was, presumably, originally drawn by the Weaver.
There were four parts to the shrine: a six-foot-high base made of pink marble; a bejeweled and gold-plated wooden ark that held the feretrum, the box that contained the bones; a gold mesh covering onto which particularly rich pilgrims had attached jewels and other precious and valuable offerings; and a painted wooden cover that could be lowered over the top to protect the valuables and raised again by a rope and pulleys.
On the pilgrim badge in the Metropolitan collection, a tiny figure with a stick pointed out the most valuable jewels on the mesh. Below him the saint was laid out full length in his vestments and mitre, his hands clasped in prayer. The Weaver had created more of an x-ray image, showing not an effigy of the saint, but rather his bones, visible through all the containers that surrounded them. The long bones of the legs and arms were wrapped in a decorated piece of fabric, though the details of the design on it had not been captured by the artist who replicated the window. The skull was placed at the top of the bundle.
“I absolutely love the Weaver!” Lizzie announced to Kate when she finished reading the article. “It is amazing how well you can come to know someone who lived six hundred years ago.”
“You always say that about the people you study.”
“I know, but this is special, maybe because she’s a woman and my subject matter usually steers me to the stories of men.”
Kate was, as usual, studying their collection of maps, looking at the route for the next two days, which would take them to Winchester.
“I asked about the path at the tourist information office,” Kate said. “There is a path between Salisbury and Winchester that is well marked and you’ll love this, the logo is a bishop’s hat. It looks from the pictures here that there might be one on every stile.”
“Every damned stile, if you don’t mind,” Lizzie said, cursing the ubiquitous fence-crossing ladders of the public footpaths. “Please give them their correct name.”
“Stiles may not be the worst of it for the next few days,” Kate continued. “The woman there told me we need to be careful of adders.”
“Adders!” Lizzie exclaimed. “Good Lord! I hope you are kidding.”
When Kate’s expression made it clear that she was completely serious, Lizzie began to worry about snakes, and the next morning when they set out for the top of the ridge and a continuation of their journey she jumped in fear at a large earthworm, a bent stick, and a piece of red twine.
Their path was called the Clarendon Way and, as promised, there were markers with a bishop’s mitre on every stile. Lizzie and Kate turned frequently in the first hour to see the steeple of Salisbury Cathedral shrink in the distance. It was a lovely Sunday and the path was filled with walkers, more than Lizzie had seen at any point along the way. There was great color, many flowers, fields of yellow blooms and fragrant pea blossoms. All along the way pheasants popped their heads up above the tall grass, and then ducked down again. Bees buzzed in the blossoms and beetles were in profusion. Lurking beneath the beauty, Lizzie imagined adders, slithering among the stalks and stems.
They had a full Sunday lunch of roast lamb at the Silver Plow in Pitton and asked about the path to Winterslow.
“I’m sorry,” their young waitress answered. “I’m not from around here.”
When pressed further, it turned out that she was a native of a place about four miles distant, but in the other direction.
“Gadzooks!” Kate said as they left the restaurant. “I just don’t understand people who are so disinterested in their surroundings!”
Between West Winterslow and Middle Winterslow they encountered a stile that was barricaded, with a notice attached saying that the footpath was no longer a p
ublic right-of-way, and that those who wished to argue this fact should appear at the office of an official in a town that couldn’t be found on the map by a date that was now some three weeks past.
To backtrack and find another path would mean a great loss of time. They pondered the situation, discussed it for several minutes and finally decided that three weeks wasn’t such a long time and they would simply cross the stile and push on. At the far end of the illegal field was a much more menacing sight, black long-horned cows.
“Are those bulls?” Lizzie asked.
“How would I know,” Kate answered, “I’m from Boston and I spend half my time at sea.”
“That Wainwright book you gave me has somewhat freaked me out on this topic,” Lizzie told her friend. “He was really afraid of bullocks, as he called them. He had this theory that you could look the thing in the eye and tell whether or not the animal was a bullock or something else—some surgically altered alternative, I believe—though he never was quite specific about this.”
“It seems to me if that is what you want to know, you should probably look someplace other than his eye!”
“Can you see the other place on these animals?”
“Nope.”
“Would you recognize the surgical alteration if you saw it?”
“Nope.”
“I think giving a bull a sympathetic look in the eye to see if he has been castrated must be a guy thing.”
“I have to agree with you there. One thing I can say with certainty is that these animals have no udders.”
“Most of them are lying down and they look pretty peaceful.”
They agreed to walk softly along the fence and be ready to jettison their packs and dive under it if it became necessary. In this way they got to the far corner of the field and a hedge-bound road. They looked across the low hedge, well-trimmed but thick and brambly; climbing over it was out of the question. The next stile was on the far side of the livestock, which were presenting themselves in a dramatic tableau at the opposite side of the field.
“We can go back or we can go forward,” Kate whispered. “Which is it?”
Lizzie gripped the sturdy walking stick that she carried. While striking a bull with it had not seemed out of the question when she was back in Massachusetts, it was clearly not a desirable option here. The cattle were much bigger than she expected. Nonetheless, she could not bear the thought of turning around.
“Let’s do it!” she whispered. “Though if one of them stands up, I am going to wet my pants!”
They walked quickly but softly through the herd. Except for the occasional flick of a tail to ward off a fly, there was no movement made by any of the cows. The stile was crossed and they were once more on their way.
“I hate Wainwright,” Lizzie said. “Not only was he really a sexist creep, but he made me afraid of cows! And I’m no fan of the woman at the information center either,” she added. “Between my fears of cows and adders I’m a nervous wreck.”
“Don’t talk about it so much and it won’t be so bad.”
“What? Are you saying you weren’t just as afraid of those cows?”
“I’m not saying,” Kate said. “That’s the point.”
“Is this some captain thing?”
Kate nodded sagely.
They reached their lodging for the night at Broughton, an inn said to have been frequented by Charles Dickens, and threw down their packs. They each took a long bath and retreated to the pub for a meal and a pint of cider, which had become their drink of choice.
“Here’s to our mastery of the herd of bulls,” Lizzie said raising her glass.
The publican smiled at them. “Now there’s one I ’aven’t’eard afore,” he said. “Are you in finance?”
Lizzie laughed. “No, I meant it literally. We actually walked through a field filled with bulls,” she said proudly.
Now the barman laughed. “Well now, that’s not very likely,” he said, trying to maintain a polite expression. “You never find more than one bull in a field.”
Lizzie put down her glass. “What are those menacing things that you sometimes find gathered in a field?”
“If they weren’t cows, they were steers.” He looked at the blank looks on the faces of the American women. “They’ve been castrated and are no more dangerous than lambs.”
Simultaneously, the two women picked up their pints and drained them.
“Damn Wainwright!” Lizzie said as she put her glass back on the bar.
Chapter 26
The day was hot and the sun was bright as they continued the next morning from the inn, through the local churchyard and onto the path. Lizzie put on a straw hat that Martin had given her, with two silver scallop shells attached to the ribbon, signs of the pilgrim in ancient times. It was a bank holiday in England and once again the path was a popular place to be. They passed families and solo walkers, bike-riders, people on horseback, dogs, and even a woman pushing a baby in a stroller along the packed dirt of the path.
Not far out of Broughton they found themselves in very dry and dusty fields. There was none of the waving grasses or cool forest of the previous day. Here the agriculture was all low to the ground and baking in the hot sun. Up and down hills they tramped. Lizzie taught Kate the words to the William Blake poem that had been set to the hymn tune “Jerusalem.”
“And did those feet in ancient times, walk upon England’s mountains green,” they sang.
“Is this going to be our theme song?” Kate said.
“If I recall, when we spoke about this last, you said you wanted to choose a Beatles song.”
“My choice is the song ‘In My Life,’” Kate said. She made a stab at singling about places she remembered and how much she loved them despite their having changed, but gave up the effort when her memory of the lyrics failed her, and turned the conversation to their plans for the day.
It amused Lizzie that Kate always referred to their walk as a “voyage” and she mentioned this to her.
“I have variously thought of it as a project, plan, journey, adventure, or error of judgment, but I like the notion of a voyage. It imparts structure to this amorphous thing that at times seems to have neither conscious beginning nor foreseeable conclusion.”
“That is because you are interested in the process, Lizzie, where I like to have a plan.”
They crossed the Test River and at the village of King’s Samborne lunched at the John of Gaunt Inn. Lizzie told Kate that John of Gaunt had been Chaucer’s chief patron, and through him Chaucer was connected to three kings: Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV. When Kate asked for more information, Lizzie pulled out her notebook and constructed a narrative of the facts.
Chaucer’s father bought a position for him as a page in the court of Edward III, probably in the household of the Earl of Ulster. The Earl’s daughter was married to Lionel, the second son of Edward III, and from them came the House of York. John of Gaunt was Lionel’s brother, the father of Henry IV, and the founder of the House of Lancaster. These were the feuding families whose conflict was the War of the Roses.
“John of Gaunt apparently took a liking to young Geoff and sponsored his rapid rise at court,” Lizzie said. “He even became related to Chaucer when he married Katherine Swynford, the sister of Chaucer’s wife—this was John of Gaunt’s third marriage, though, so Chaucer was not the uncle of Henry IV.”
Lizzie’s feet were tired and she enjoyed drinking cider, and she pulled out a guide to The Royal Line of Succession for details of the story she was telling to prolong their departure. It was with regret that she put her shoes back on to return to the road, and with relief two hours later that she saw the B&B they had booked in Winchester.
As they unpacked their bags, Kate handed Lizzie a small package. “After the great Wainwright disaster I almost fear to give you this,” she said. “But I think you’ll like this guy better.”
In the package was a copy of a book called The Old Road, written by Hilaire Belloc in 191
1.
“You might know him from some of his essays on nautical themes,” Kate continued. “I have always liked his writing. I saved it until Winchester because it describes a pilgrimage from here to Canterbury.”
“Thank you,” Lizzie said warmly. “It was on my reading list early on, but I never got myself a copy. I’ll start it tonight.”
They still had time to visit the Cathedral before dusk, and decided to walk there as the afternoon cooled. By chance they passed the simple yellow-painted house where Jane Austen died. Though a private residence, it had a plaque acknowledging her life and death. It was just a few steps more to one of the passages through the wall that surrounded the cathedral.
“Strange to think Jane Austen must have walked these very steps when she was able,” Lizzie said. “I’ve been thinking so much about the Weaver since I started, but Alison and I noticed when we planned the trip that much of the path could have been planned as a Jane Austen pilgrimage. We’ll go by her house at Chawton in a few days.”
The interior of Winchester Cathedral was vast and remarkably cool. The two friends went immediately to Jane Austen’s grave.
“There is the stone that covers the relics of my favorite author,” Lizzie said.
Kate read the inscription: “The benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her, and the warmest love of her intimate connections. Their grief is in proportion to their affection, they know their loss to be irreparable.”
Over the years a brass plaque and a stained glass window had been added, to acknowledge her genius as a writer. The stained glass window was disappointing in every way except the choice of the main text: “In the beginning was the Word.”
“That’s fitting for Jane Austen,” Lizzie said. “I think when the stone was carved they had no idea what a lasting impact her writing would have.”