Medieval Sourcebook:
Roger of Hoveden:
The Chronicle: On the Disputes between Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury
and King Henry II of England
Roger of Hoveden was a royal clerk who compiled a History of England in the early
years of the thirteenth century. As a royal clerk he was well-placed to gather
information from members of the royal court, and he also included many documents,
especially letters, into his history. I have condensed his chronicle for the years
1154 - 1190, presenting his account of the disputes between Becket and the king, the
archbishop's death and the subsequent investigation by the pope into Henry's
responsibility in the murder.
The account is divided by year. Note that Roger began the year on Christmas
Day, so for him, Becket's murder, which occured on 29 December 1170, occured in the early
days of the year 1171, so his account of the murder occurs under the entry for that year.
1154 | 1155 | 1156 | 1157 | 1158 | 1159 | 1160 | 1161 | 1162 | 1163 | 1163 | 1164 | 1165 | 1166 | 1167 | 1168 | 1169 | 1170 | 1171 | 1172 | 1174 | 1179 | 1190
Index to documents quoted by Roger:
- Address of the Blessed Thomas to Henry, King of England, at his Council
Held at Chinon. (1165)
- Letter of the Blessed Thomas to Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff.
(1165)
- Letter of the Blessed Thomas to his suffragan bishops. (1165)
- Letter of Pope Alexander to Henry, king of England. (1166)
- Letter of Pope Alexander to Gilbert, bishop of London, in behalf of the
blessed Thomas. (1166)
- Letter of Gilbert, Bishop of London, to Pope Alexander upon the answer
of the King on the Business of the Archbishop of Canterbury. (1166)
- Letter of the Blessed Thomas to King Henry. (1166)
- Letter of the Blessed Thomas to Robert bishop of Hereford. (1166)
- Letter of the Blessed Thomas to Pope Alexander (1167)
- Letter of Pope Alexander to Henry, king of England (1167)
- Letter of the Blessed Thomas to Gilbert, Bishop of London (1167)
- Letter of the suffragans of Canterbury to the Blessed Thomas,
Archbishop of Canterbury (1167)
- Letter of the Suffragans of Canterbury to Alexander, the Supreme
Pontiff (1167)
- Letter of the Blessed Thomas to Gilbert, Bishop of London, with
reference to the sentence pronounced against him (1168)
- Letter of Thomas to the Chapter of London, upon avoiding communion with
those who are excommunicated (1168)
- Letter of the Blessed Thomas to Robert, Bishop of Hereford (1168)
- Letter of Pope Alexander to Henry, King of England (1169)
- Letter of the Suffragans of Canterbury to the Papal Legates (1169)
- Letter of Pope Alexander to Roger, Archbishop of York, and Hugh, Bishop
of Durham (1170)
- Letter of Louis King of the Franks, to pope Alexander, on the death of
the Blessed Thomas (1171)
- Letter of William, Archbishop of Sens, to pope Alexander, on the death
of the Blessed Thomas (1171)
- Letter of Theobald, Earl of Blois, to Pope Alexander on the death of
the Blessed Thomas (1171)
- Letter of William, Archbishop of Sens, to our lord the Pope, against
the King of England, in relation to the death of the Blessed Thomas (1171)
- Letter of Henry's representatives in Rome to Henry, King of England (1171)
- Letter of Pope Alexander to the Archbishop of Bourges (1171)
- Charter of Absolution of our lord the King (1172)
- Letter of the same Cardinals to the archbishop of Ravenna (1172)
- Decrees published at Avranches by the cardinals Albert and Theodinus (1172)
1154
In the year of grace 1154, being the nineteenth and last year of the reign of king
Stephen, Eustace, the son of king Stephen, departed this life. ... In the same year king
Stephen laid siege to many castles, and took them, and leveled many of them with the
ground; almost the very last of which was the castle of Drax; shortly after which, king
Stephen died, and was buried at the abbey of Eversham. He was succeeded on the throne by
Henry, duke of Normandy, son of the empress Matilda, who was crowned and consecrated king
by Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, at London, on the Lords day before the
Nativity of our Lord. In the same year, Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury, gave to Thomas
Becket, his clerk, the archdeaconry of Canterbury. In this year also, Louis, king of the
Franks, caused himself to be divorced from his wife Eleanor, daughter of the duke of
Aquitaine, the archbishops, bishops, earls and barons, making oath that she had ceased to
deserve to be his wife. However, Henry, king of England, took the before-named Eleanor to
wife, and had by her sons and daughters. The king of France, however, by his wife Eleanor,
had no issue of the male sex, and only two daughters, one of whom he married to Henry,
earl of Champagne, and the other to Theobald, earl of Blois, brother of the said earl
Henry. After this, Louis, king of the Franks, took to wife the daughter of the king of
Spain, by whom he had two daughters only.
1155
In the year 1155, being the first year of the reign of king Henry, son of the empress
Matilda, the said king laid siege to the castles of his enemies in England, and captured
them; some of which he retained in his own hands, and some he leveled with the ground.
After this, he crossed over into Normandy, and did homage to Louis, king of the Franks,
for Normandy, Aquitaine, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, with all their appurtenances. In the
same year, died pope Anastasius, who was succeeded by Adrian.
1156
In the year of grace 1156, being the second year of the reign of Henry, son of the
empress Matilda, the said king returned from Normandy to England, and caused nearly all
the castles, which had been erected in England in the time of king Stephen, to be
demolished, and issued a new coinage, which was the only one received and current
throughout the realm; he also established peace in the kingdom, and commanded the laws of
king Henry, his grandfather, to be observed inviolably throughout the whole of his
kingdom, and in many matters followed the advice of Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury.
1157
In the year of grace 1157, being the third year of the reign of king Henry, son of the
empress Matilda, the said king, by the advice and entreaty of Theobald, archbishop of
Canterbury, conferred the chancellorship upon Thomas, archdeacon of Canterbury, and
bestowed upon him many revenues, both ecclesiastical and of a secular nature, and received
him so much into his esteem and familiarity, that throughout the kingdom there was no one
his equal, save the king alone. In the same year, Malcolm, king of the Scots, came to the
king of England at Chester, and did homage to him in the same way that his grandfather had
done homage to the former king Henry, saving always all his dignities.
1158
In the year of grace 1158, being the fourth year of the reign of king Henry, son of the
empress Matilda, the said king Henry caused himself to be crowned a second time at
Lincoln, without the walls of the city, at Wikeford. In the same year, by the kings
command, the castle of Werk was rebuilt. The king, and Malcolm, king of the Scots, met at
Carlisle, but separated mutually displeased; in consequence of which, the king of Scots
was not created a knight for the present.
1159
In the year of grace 1159, being the fifth year of the reign of king Henry, son of the
empress Matilda, the said king Henry caused himself, a third time, together with his wife
Eleanor, to be crowned at Worcester, at the festival of Easter; and when they came to the
offertory, they took off their crowns, and offered them upon the altar; vowing before God,
that they would never in all their lives wear them again.
In the same year, pope Adrian departed this life, and was succeeded by pope Alexander the
Third, who was canonically elected and consecrated. But Frederick, emperor of the Romans,
being unwilling to acknowledge him, erected an idol for himself, Octavianus, an antipope,
and, an execrable convention and league being formed of those of his own blood, against
pope Alexander, he with his nation determined to pay veneration to him, on which a schism
arose in the church, which lasted eighteen years.
In the same year, Henry, king of England, having levied a large army, laid siege to
Toulouse, and although he sat before it for a long time, and wasted his treasure in
various expenses, still he was able to effect nothing there, and without gaining his
object, took his departure. In this expedition died William, earl of Boulogne, son
of king Stephen, and Hamo, son of the earl of Gloucester, with many others. On his return
from this expedition, Malcolm, king of Scotland, was knighted by Henry, king of the
English, at Tours.
1160
In the year of grace 1160, being the sixth year of the reign of king Henry, son of the
empress Matilda, Malcolm, king of the Scots, returned to his country from the expedition
against Toulouse.
1161
In the year of grace 1161, being the seventh year of the reign of king Henry, son of
the empress Matilda, that king and Louis, king of the Franks, disagreed respecting some
divisions of their territories, and the castles of Gisors and Neafle, which at that time
were in the hands of Louis, king of the Franks, and which the said king Henry claimed as
properly belonging to his dukedom of Normandy. But shortly after they came to terms on
these conditions; that the king of France should give his two daughters, whom he had had
by his wife, the daughter of the king of Spain (the name of one of whom was Margaret, and
of the other Alice) in marriage to the two sons of king Henry, namely, Henry and Richard,
who were as yet but little children; that he should deliver the before-named castles of
Gisors and Neafle into the hands of the Templars for safe custody, until such time as his
above-named daughters should be married to the said sons of king Henry, and that it should
be arranged with them, that is to say, with Robert de Firou and Tostes de Saint Omer, that
when, Margaret, the daughter of the king of France, had been married to Henry, the son of
the king of England, they should deliver up to king Henry both the castles.
These terms being agreed to on both sides, and confirmed by oath, the king of the Franks
delivered both of his daughters to the king of England, and the above-named castles into
the custody of the Templars. Shortly after this period, Henry, king of England, caused his
son Henry to be married to Margaret, the daughter of the king of France, although they
were as yet but little children, crying in the cradle; Robert de Pirou, Tostes de Saint
Omer, and Richard de Hastings, the Templars who had custody of the said castles, being
witnesses and consenting thereto; immediately upon which they surrendered those castles to
the king of England. In consequence, the king of France was extremely indignant at them,
and banished these knights from the kingdom of France, upon which the king of England
received them and rewarded them with many honors. In the same year, Theobald, archbishop
of Canterbury, legate of the Roman Church, departed this life.
1162
In the year from the Incarnation of our Lord 1162, being the eighth year of king Henry,
son of the empress Matilda, the said king conferred the see of Canterbury on Thomas, his
chancellor. In the same year, pope Alexander came into France, having been expelled from
his see by Frederick, the emperor of the Romans. He was honorably entertained by king
Louis and by Henry, king of the English, who looked upon him as pope of the Catholic
Church. In the same year, Malcolm, king of the Scots, gave his sister Ada in marriage to
the earl of Holland.
1163
In the year of grace 1163, being the ninth year of the reign of king Henry, son of the
empress Matilda, the said king of England returned from Normandy into England; and king
Malcolm having recovered at Doncaster from a severe illness, a solemn treaty of peace was
made between him and the king of England. In the same year, pope Alexander held a general
council at Tours, at which he excommunicated Octavianus the antipope.
In the same year, a great dissension arose between the king of England and Thomas,
archbishop of Canterbury, relative to the ecclesiastical dignities, which the said king of
the English was attempting to disturb and lower in estimation, whereas the archbishop
endeavored by every possible means to keep the ecclesiastical power and dignities intact.
For it was the kings wish that if priests, deacons, subdeacons, and other rulers of
the church should be apprehended on the commission of theft, or murder, or felony, or
arson, or the like crimes, they should be taken before secular judges, and punished like
the laity. Against this the archbishop of Canterbury urged, that if a clerk in holy
orders, or any other ruler of the Church, should be charged upon any matter, he ought to
be tried by ecclesiastics and in the ecclesiastical court; and if he should be convicted,
that then he ought to be deprived of his orders, and that, when thus stripped of his
office and his ecclesiastical preferment, if he should offend again, he ought to be tried
at the pleasure of the king and of his deputies.
1164
In the year of grace 1164, being the tenth year of the reign of king Henry, son of the
empress Matilda, the said Henry gave to Henry, duke of Saxony, his daughter Matilda in
marriage. In the same year, having called together a great council, and all the
archbishops and bishops of England being assembled in his presence, he requested them, out
of their love for and obedience to him, and for the establishment of the kingdom, to
receive the laws of king Henry, his grandfather, and faithfully to observe them: on which,
Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, made answer for himself and the others, that they would
receive those laws which the king said were made by his grandfather, and with good faith
would observe the same; saving their orders and the honor of God and of the Holy
Church in all respects. But this reservation greatly displeased the king, and he used
every possible method to make the bishops promise that they would, without any exception
whatever, observe those laws; to this, however, the archbishop of Canterbury would on no
account agree.
A considerable time after this, Arnulph, bishop of Lisieux, came over to England, and
anxiously endeavored, day and night, to make peace between the king and the archbishop,
but was unable to ensure complete success. Upon this, by the advice of the bishop of
Lisieux, the king separated Roger, archbishop of York, Robert de Melun, bishop of
Hereford, Robert, bishop of Lincoln, and some other prelates of the church, from the
society and counsel of the archbishop of Canterbury, in order that through them he might
more easily induce the archbishop to yield to his own attempts. After this, there came to
England. a certain man belonging to the religious orders, named Philip de Eleeoemosyna,
being sent as a legate a latere, by Alexander the Supreme Pontiff, and all the
cardinals, for the purpose of making peace between the king and the archbishop of
Canterbury; by whom the pope and all the cardinals sent word to the archbishop of
Canterbury, that he must make peace with the king of England his master, and promise,
without any exception, to obey his laws. Assenting therefore to this and other advice on
the part of these great men, the archbishop of Canterbury came to the king at Woodstock,
and there made a promise to the king and agreed that he would, in good faith, and without
any bad intent, observe his laws.
Shortly after this, the clergy and people of the kingdom being convened at Clarendon, the
archbishop repented that he had made this concession to the king, and, wishing to recede
from his agreement, said that in making the concession he had greatly sinned, but would
sin no longer in so doing. In consequence of this, the kings anger was greatly
aroused against him, and he threatened him and his people with exile and death; upon
which, the bishops of Salisbury and Norwich came to the archbishop together with Robert,
earl of Leicester, Reginald, earl of Cornwall, and the two Templars, Richard de Hastings
and Tostes de Saint Omer, and in tears threw themselves at the feet of the archbishop, and
begged that he would at least, for the sake of the kings dignity, come to him, and
in the presence of the people declare that he would observe his laws. The archbishop
being consequently overcome by the entreaties of such great men, came to the king, and in
the presence of the clergy and the people, said that he had acceded to those laws which
the king called those of his grandfather. He also conceded that the bishops should receive
those laws and promise to observe them. Upon this, the king gave orders to all the earls
and barons of the realm, that they should go out and call to remembrance the laws of king
Henry his grandfather, and reduce them to writing. When this had been done, the king
commanded the archbishops and bishops to annex their seals to the said writing; but, while
the others were ready so to do, the archbishop of Canterbury swore that he would never
annex his seal to that writing or conform those laws.
When the king saw that he could not by these means attain his object, he ordered a written
copy of these laws to be made, and gave a duplicate of it to the archbishop of Canterbury,
which he, in spite of the prohibition of the whole of the clergy, received from the
kings hand, and turning to the clergy, exclaimed, Courage, brethren! by means
of this writing we shall be enabled to discover the evil intentions of the king, and
against whom we ought to be on our guard; after which he retired from the court, and
was unable by any means to recover the kings favor. And because he had acted
unadvisedly in this matter, he suspended himself from the celebration of divine service
from that hour, until such time as he himself, or his messenger, should have spoken
thereon with our lord the pope.
After this, there came to England Rotrod, archbishop of Rouen, on behalf of our lord the
pope, for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation between the king and the archbishop of
Canterbury; to which, however, the king would on no account consent, unless our lord the
pope should, by his bull, confirm those laws. When this could be in nowise effected, the
king sent John of Oxford and Geoffrey Riddel, his clerks, to pope Alexander, requesting
him to give the legateship of the whole of England to Roger, the archbishop of York, that
so through his means he might be able to confound the archbishop of Canterbury. But our
lord the pope would not, as to this part of it, listen to the kings request.
However, upon the petition of the kings clerks, our lord the pope conceded that the
king himself should be legate for the whole of England; on such terms, however, that he
could do nothing offensive to the archbishop of Canterbury. The king, on seeing this, in
his indignation sent back to our lord the pope the letters appointing him legate, which
John of Oxford and Geoffrey Riddel had brought.
In the same year, on the vigil of Saint Agatha, the virgin and martyr, a great earthquake
took place in the island of Sicily; so much so, that the city of Catania was utterly
destroyed, and the bishops and clergy, and all the inhabitants of the city, perished;
thirty thousand fighting men, in fact, besides women and children, which could not be
numbered. On the same day, after the destruction of the city of Catania, the sea receded a
distance of three thousand seven hundred and fifty paces, leaving vast quantities of fish
of various kinds on the sands; end when the inhabitants of the country adjacent to the
city that had been overthrown flocked together, and were intent upon taking the fish, the
sea flowed back again and surrounded them, and swept them away into the deep.
1165
In the year of grace 1165, being the eleventh year of the reign of king Henry, son of
the empress Matilda, the said king assembled a great council at Northampton, where he
inflicted great annoyances upon Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury. For in the first
place, the king made his own horses take up their quarters at the archbishops
lodgings, on which the prelate sent word to the king that he would not come to court until
his lodgings had been cleared of the kings horses and men. On the day after the
council, archbishop Thomas came to the kings court, attended by his suffragan
bishops, and demanded his leave immediately to cross the sea to go to pope Alexander, who
at this time was staying in France; this, however, he could not obtain; but the king said
to him, You shall first answer me, for the injustice you have done to John, my
marshal, in your court. For this John had made complaint to the king that when he
had claimed in the archbishops court a certain piece of land against him, as held by
hereditary right, and had for a long time impleaded him in respect thereof, he was unable
to obtain any redress from him, and had appealed from the jurisdiction of the
archbishops court upon oath, according to the custom of the kingdom. To this the
archbishop made answer:
There has been no refusal of justice to John in my court; but he himself (whether by
the advice of some one else, or whether of his own free will, I know not) brought into my
court a certain bundle, end took the oath upon it, that in consequence of denial of
justice he withdrew from my court; whereas it appeared to the justices of my court that it
was he who had done the injustice towards me, in thus withdrawing from my court; as it is
one of the statutes of your kingdom which says, If any person shall wish to appeal
from the court of another person, he must make oath upon the Holy Evangelists.
However, the king, paying no attention to Thomas, when he had said these words, made oath
that he would have both justice and judgment at his hands. The barons of the kings
court thereupon sentenced him to be amerced by the king, and although the archbishop
endeavored to appeal against this judgment, still, by the entreaties and advice of the
barons he suffered himself to be amerced by the king, in the sum of five hundred pounds,
and found security for that sum.
Upon this, he retired from the court and went to his lodgings, and, on account of the
annoyance and vexation which he felt in his mind, took to his bed and fell extremely ill.
When this became known to the king, that he might annoy him still more, he immediately
sent to him, and summoned him by trusty summoners, to appear before him on the following
day, prepared to give him an account of the stewardship, which he had held in the kingdom
before his consecration. The archbishop, however, being sensible that a heavy sentence of
banishment awaited him, if he should hasten to make his appearance at the court, sought
every excuse for delay; both on the ground of the time given by the summons being
extremely short, as also of his severe attack of illness. Upon this, the king seeing that
the archbishop would not appear that day, sent to him Robert, earl of Leicester, and
Reginald, earl of Cornwall, to be witnesses of his illness. When they came, they found him
lying ill in bed, and at his entreaty granted him a respite from coming to the court until
the following morning. On the same day it was told him, and word was brought to him by
those of the kings household, that if he appeared at the kings court, he would
either be thrown into prison or to death.
In consequence of this, the archbishop, after conferring with his friends on these
matters, by the advice of a certain prudent person, next morning, before going to the
court, celebrated with the greatest devotion the mass of Saint Stephen, the Proto-martyr,
the office of which begins to this effect, Etenim sederunt principes, et adversum me
loquebantur, etc., and commended his cause to the supreme Judge, who is God. Still,
for celebrating this mass, he was afterwards severely accused by Gilbert, bishop of
London, who spoke in the kings behalf. For the bishop of London made it an
accusation against him, that he had celebrated this mass by means of the magic art, and
out of contempt of the king.
After having thus celebrated the mass, the archbishop placed over his shoulders his stole,
and then put on his black canonical cape, and forthwith set out for the kings court.
Immediately upon this, a great crowd of people collected together from all quarters to see
what would be the end of it. He carried his cross in his right hand, while with the left
he held the reins of the horse on which he was seated, and on coming to the kings
palace dismounted, and, still holding the cross, entered the royal mansion; after which,
he entered the outer chamber alone, still carrying his cross; but no one of his people
followed him thither. On entering the chamber, he found there a great number of the common
people, on which he took his seat among them. The king, however, was in his private closet
with the persons of his household.
On this, Gilbert, the bishop of London, came to the archbishop on the kings behalf,
and greatly censured him for coming to the court thus armed with the cross, and even tried
to wrest it from his hands, but the archbishop grasped it too tightly for him; whereupon,
Henry, the bishop of Winchester, said to the bishop of London, Brother, allow the
archbishop to retain his cross; for he ought himself to be well able to carry it.
The bishop of London, being greatly enraged at this remark, turned to the bishop of
Winchester, and replied, Brother, you have spoken to ill purpose, and evil will
ensue to you therefrom, inasmuch as you have spoken against the kings
interests.
Next came to him Roger, the archbishop of York. Oh, how oft did he wish to approach
him with bland requests, and soft entreaties to use! But the old embers of hatred
forbade him so to do, end would not allow trim to utter a word in a peaceful way. On the
contrary, he uttered the most severe reproaches against him for thus coming to court armed
with the cross; saying that the king had a sword which was still sharper, and therefore,
if he followed his advice, he would lay aside his cross. On this, one of the bystanders
made this remark: Believe me, if you believe him, you will be deceived. The fowler
plays sweetly on his pipe while decoying the birds. Beneath sweet honey noxious poisons
lie concealed. However, the archbishop of Canterbury refused to put aside his cross,
but said: If the kings sword carnally slays the body, my sword pierces
spiritually, and sends the soul to hell. Now while he was sitting there waiting,
some persons secretly told him that his death had been sworn by the kings followers;
in consequence of which, from that hour he sought an opportunity for withdrawing from the
court, and, that he might more easily withdraw, appealed to the Supreme Pontiff, placing
the cause of the Church and of himself under the protection of God and of our lord the
pope; and gave orders to all the bishops inviolably to observe his appeal. Upon this, all
the bishops advised him to comply with the kings wishes, and, surrendering his see,
throw himself upon his mercy; but the archbishop refused to trust them upon that point.
At this moment the king sent him word by his knights to come to him without delay, and
render to him a full account of ad the receipts of the revenues of the kingdom during the
time that he had been his chancellor. And, in particular, he was questioned with reference
to thirty thousand pounds of silver; on which the archbishop made answer: My lord
the king knows that I have often rendered him an account with reference to all the demands
he is now making upon me, before my election to the archbishopric of Canterbury. But, upon
my election to that see, the kings son, Henry, to whom the kingdom was bound by its
oath, and all the barons of the exchequer, and Richard de Lucy, the justiciar of England,
released me before God and the Holy Church, from all receipts and reckonings, and from all
secular exactions on behalf of our lord the king, and thus, free and acquitted, was I
elected to the administration of the duties of this office; and for that reason do I
refuse to plead any further. The king, upon hearing this, said to his barons:
Make haste and pronounce judgment upon this person, who, being my liege-man, refuses
to take his trial in my court; on which they went forth, and pronounced that he
deserved to be arrested and placed in confinement. On hearing this, the king sent to him
Reginald, earl of Cornwall, and Robert, earl of Leicester, to inform him of the judgment
that had been pronounced upon him; who accordingly said to him: Listen to the
judgment pronounced upon you. To this, the bishop made answer: In the name of
Almighty God, and under penalty of excommunication I forbid you this day to pronounce
judgment upon me, inasmuch as I have appealed unto the presence of our lord the
pope. While the above-named earls were carrying this answer to the king, the
archbishop went forth from the chamber, and going through the midst of them, reached his
palfrey, and mounting it, left the palace, all the people shouting after him and saying:
Where are you going, traitor? Stop, and hear your sentence!
When, however, he had arrived at the outer gates, he found them shut, and was in great
apprehension of being taken by his enemies, but Almighty God delivered him. For, Peter de
Munctorio, one of his servants, espied a number of keys hanging on a mail near the gate,
and taking them down, opened it, on which the archbishop sallied forth on horseback, the
kings porters standing by, and uttering not a word. The archbishop made all haste to
arrive at the house of some canons regular, where he was hospitably entertained, and
commanded the tables to be set out and all the poor that were to be found before the gates
to be introduced to eat and drink in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. This was
accordingly done; and he, together with them and his people, becomingly partook of the
repast in the refectory of the canons, and, when it was finished, made his bed in the
church, between the nave and the altar. In the meantime, he had secretly ordered
preparations to be made for his journey, as it was his intention to depart by night. At
twilight, therefore, when the king and the rest were supping in the town, taking with him
two friars of the Cistercian order, the name of one of whom was Robert de Caune, and of
the other Scaiman, and a single servant, who was called Roger de Broc, he went out of the
town through the gate, which was left entirely without guards, and at daybreak arrived at
Lincoln, and was entertained at the house of James. Here the archbishop changed his dress,
and, changing his name, ordered himself to be called by that of Dereman; and then, being
recognized by few persons, taking remote ways and bye-paths, he hastened towards the
sea-shore, he and his attendants riding on at night, and concealing themselves in the day
among his friends and acquaintances. At last they arrived at the sea-shore, and reaching
the port of Sandwich, secretly embarked on board of a ship, and then, secretly setting
sail, in the morning landed in Flanders, whence he immediately made his way to France.
Before, however, he had arrived at the court of Louis, king of the Franks, Gilbert
Folliot, bishop of London, and William, earl of Arundel, had arrived on behalf of the king
of England, to prevent the king of France from receiving the archbishop of Canterbury in
his kingdom, and to request him to beg our lord the pope, out of his love for him, not to
receive the archbishop of Canterbury into his favor. But the more pains the above-named
envoys of the king of England took to have the archbishop of Canterbury expelled from the
kingdom of France, the more did the king of France favor him and his cause. In addition to
this, the king of France sent brother Francis his almoner, to pope Alexander, who was at
this time staying in France, begging him, as he esteemed the honor of the Ro-man Church
and the aid of the kingdom of France, in all things to maintain Thomas, the archbishop of
Canterbury, and his cause against the tyrant of England; and, accordingly, from this
moment our lord the pope received the archbishop of Canterbury into great favor.
In the meantime, Henry, king of England, sent to our lord the pope Roger, archbishop of
York, Henry, bishop of Winchester, Gilbert, bishop of London, Hilary, bishop of
Chichester, and Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter, together with Guido Rufus, Richard de
Ivechester, and John of Oxford, clerks, and William, earl of Arundel, Hugh de Gondeville,
Bernard de Saint Valery, and Henry Fitzgerald, laymen. These persons found the pope at the
city of Sens, and gave utterance to many evil and false accusations against the archbishop
of Canterbury; but our lord the pope did not believe them, as he knew that they were
bearing false witness against him.
On seeing that they could not gain their object, they requested of our lord the pope that
two legates might be sent to England to take cognizance of the dispute which existed
be-tween the king and the archbishop of Canterbury, and to de-cide it to the honor of God,
and of the Holy Church, and of the realm. However, our lord the pope was not willing to
send any cardinal or any legate, as he was aware that the king of Eng-land was powerful
both in word and deed, and that legates might easily be corrupted, as being more athirst
for gold and silver than for justice and equity. Upon this, the envoys of the king of
England, being unable to gain their object, withdrew from the court of our lord the pope.
On the fourth day after, Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury, came thither, and, throwing
himself at the feet of our lord the pope, presented to him the above-mentioned writing, in
which were written the laws of England, which the king called the laws of his grandfather.
The pope, having heard them read in presence of all the cardinals, and of the clergy and a
large concourse of people, pronounced a perpetual condemnation upon them, and
excommunicated all persons who should observe them, or in any way maintain them.
In this year two comets made their appearance before sunrise, in the month of August; one
in the west, the other in the north. A comet is a star which does not appear at all times,
but in especial at the death of a king, or upon the ruin of a nation. When it appears
refulgent with a hairy crown, it fore-tells a royal death; but, if it has long locks of
hair which, as it scintillates, it spreads abroad, it betokens the ruin of a nation.
In the same year, pope Alexander returned to Rome, and was honorably received by the
people of that city. In this year died Malcolm, king of the Scots, and was succeeded by
his brother William. In this year, also, Henry, king of the English, crossed over from
England into Normandy, having issued a shocking and execrable edict against pope Alexander
and Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury; the words of which were to the following effect:
If any person shall be found carrying letters or a man-date of our lord the pope, or
of the archbishop of Canterbury, containing an interdict of Christian offices in England,
let him be arrested and without delay let justice be done upon him, as a traitor to the
king and the realm. Moreover, let no clerk, monk, or lay brother of any orders, be
permitted to cross the sea, or to return to England, unless he has a letter from the
justiciaries permitting him to cross over, or a letter from the king allowing his return.
And if any such person shall be found, let him be arrested and detained. It is also
forbidden that any person shall bring any mandate whatsoever of our lord the pope, or of
the archbishop of Canterbury. And, if any such person shad be found, let him be arrested
and detained. It is also universally forbidden that any per-son shall appeal to our lord
the pope, or to the archbishop of Canterbury, and that, in future, any mandate of theirs
shall be received in England; and it is ordered that no pleas whatsoever shall be held at
their mandate. And if any per-son shall do anything against this prohibition, let him be
arrested and detained. And further, if any bishop, priest, abbot, monk, clerk, or layman,
shall observe any sentence of interdict, without delay let him be banished the king-dom,
and all his kindred, but they are to take away none of their chattels with them, but let
their chattels and possessions be seized into the kings hand. Also, let all clerks,
who have benefices in England, be admonished throughout every county, within three months
after summons, to return to their benefices, as they wish to retain those benefices and
return to England. and if they shall not return within the period before-mentioned, then
let their chattels and possessions be seized into the kings hand. also, let the
bishops of London and Norwich be summoned to appear before the kings justiciaries,
to make redress for having, contrary to the statutes of the realm, laid an interdict on he
lands of earl Hugh, and passed sentence against him. also, let Saint Peters pence be
collected and kept.
The Address of the Blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury,
to Henry, king of England, at his Council Held at Chinon.
With great longing have I longed to see your face, and to converse with
you; much, indeed, on my own account, but more especially on yours. On my own account
that, on seeing your face, you might recall to mind the services which, in my obedience to
you, I have devotedly rendered to you to the best of my conscience; as God may help me at
the last judgment, when all shall stand before His tribunal to receive according to what
they have done in the body, whether good or whether evil; also, that I might move you to
take compassion upon me, who am obliged to live on charity among the people of a foreign
land; although, by the grace of God, I still have sufficient provision and in
abundance. It is also my great consolation that the Apostle says, All that
will live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution, and the words of the Prophet
are, I have not seen the righteous man forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.
Again, for your own sake, for these three reasons: because you are my lord, because
you are my king, and because you are my son in the Spirit. Because you are my lord, I owe
and offer to you my counsel, as is due from every bishop to his lord, in accordance with
the honor of God and of the Holy Church; because you are my king, I am bound to respect
and to admonish you; because you are my son, I am bound by the duties of my office to
chastise and to correct you. For a father corrects his son, sometimes in kind words and
sometimes in harsh, that, by the one means or the other, he may recall him to do what is
right. You ought to understand that by the grace of God, you are a king for the following
purposes: first, because it is your duty to govern yourself, and to amend your life
with the practice of good manners, in order that by your example others may be induced to
reform their lives, according to the saying of the wise man, that the world is formed
after the example of a king. In the second place, for encouraging some and punishing
others, by virtue of the power which you have received from the Church with the sacrament
of anointing, and with the sword which, in virtue of your office, you wield for the
destruction of evil-doers to the Church. For kings are anointed in three places: on the
head, on the breast, and on the arms, thereby signifying glory, knowledge and strength.
The kings who, in ancient times, did not observe the judgments of God, but sinned against
His commandments, were deprived of both glory, knowledge and strength, both they and their
descendants: as examples in proof whereof, witness Saul, Nebuchadnezzar, Solomon, and many
others. But those who, after their offenses, in contrition of heart humbled themselves
before the Lord, to them was granted more abundantly and more effectually the grace of
God, together with all the blessing above-mentioned: as for instance, David, Hezekiah, and
many others. Christ founded the Church and gained its liberty with His own blood, by
enduring the scourges, the spitting, the nails, and the straits of death, and thereby left
us an example to follow in His footsteps; wherefore the Apostle says, If we be dead
with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer we shall also reign with him.
The Church of God is composed of two orders the clergy and the people. Among
the clergy are the Apostles and the Apostolical men, the bishops and other rulers of the
Church, to whom has been entrusted the care and government of that Church, and who have
the management of ecclesiastical concerns, that they may cause all things to tend to the
salvation of souls. For which reason it was said to Peter, and in Peter to the other
rulers of the Church, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. In the number of the people are
kings, dukes, earls, and other potentates, who have the management of secular business,
that they may cause it entirely to tend to the peace and unity of the Church. And,
inasmuch as it is certain that kings receive their power from the Church, and not it from
them, but (with your leave I say it) from Christ, you ought not to give your commands to
bishops to absolve or to excommunicate any person, to bring the clergy before secular
courts, to pronounce judgment relative to tithes and churches, to forbid bishops taking
cognizance of breaches of faith or vows in such manner as is here set forth in writing
among your customs, which you style the laws of your grandfather. For the Lord says,
Keep my laws; and, again, by the mouth of the prophet, Woe unto them
that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;
to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my
people. Therefore, let my lord, if so it pleases him, listen to the counsels of his liege,
the advice of his bishop, and the correction of his father. Let him, for the future, have
no intercourse or communication with schismatics. For it is well known to almost all the
world how duteously and how honorably you received our lord the pope, how greatly you have
cherished and have honored the Church of Rome, how greatly our lord the pope and the
Church of Rome have loved and honored your person, and, on whatever occasion, in
conformity with the will of God they possibly could, have listened to your requests. Do
not then attempt, my lord, if you wish for the salvation of your soul, in any way to
withdraw from that Church what is its own, or in any degree to contravene justice in
acting towards it; but rather allow it to enjoy the same freedom in your kingdom which it
is known to enjoy in others. Keep in remembrance also the profession which you made and
placed in writing upon the altar at Westminster, to preserve its liberties to the Church
of God, at the time when, by my predecessor, you were consecrated and anointed king.
Restore, also, the church of Canterbury, in which you received your promotion and
consecration, to that state and dignity which it enjoyed in the days of your predecessors
and mine. Restore, also, the possessions which belong to that church, the towns, the
castles, the estates, of which you have made distribution at your will, and replace in
full all the things which have been taken from either me as well as my clerks and laymen.
Likewise, allow me freely and in peace to return to my see, and I am ready to serve you
loyally and duteously, as my most dear lord and king, in so far as I can, saving always
the honor of God and of the Roman Church and my orders. But if you will not do thus, then
know, for a certainty, that you will feel the severity of Gods vengeance.
The Letter of the blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, to
Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff.
To your presence, most holy father, do I fly for refuge; inasmuch as you have
redeemed the liberties of the Church, amid so great hazards to yourself, understand that
that is the sole or the principal cause of the persecutions to which, following your
example, I have been subjected. For I lamented that the foundations of the Church are
being gradually shaken, and that her rights are being destroyed by the avarice of princes,
and I therefore thought it my duty to meet the malady on its approach. The more I felt
myself bound in duty to my liege lord, to whom, after God, I owe everything, the more
safely did I think I might oppose his wicked instigators; until they had gained full
possession of the serenity of his favor, and had clouded it against me; from which time,
as is the way among princes, they threw out charges and accusations, in order thereby to
ensure my persecution; on which, I preferred to be driven away rather than willingly to
succumb. To these evils, this was added, that I was summoned, as though a layman, to
appear before the king and to satisfy him thereon. And still further, in the quarter to
which I looked for support in my resistance, I was deceived; for I found my brethren, the
bishops, at the bidding of the courtiers, prepared to pronounce judgment against me. Thus,
almost crushed by the multitude of my antagonists, I have taken breath in your presence,
which does not overlook even those who are in extreme need. Under your protection will I
prove, that I ought not to have been brought for trial before that tribunal, nor yet
before those persons. For what else, my father, would this have been than to rob you of
your rights? What else than to subject the spiritual power to the temporal? When once
made, this precedent could be generally established; and for that reason, I considered it
my duty the more firmly to oppose it, because a more ready method of doing injury would be
introduced, if any weakness were manifested at the outset. But it will be their remark,
The things which are Caesars should be rendered unto Caesar; still, if in many
things we must obey the king, we must not obey him on those points, the result of which
would be, that he would not be a king. To do thus would be to make him not Caesar, but a
tyrant; and then they would have to resist him, not for me, but in their own behalves. For
if to him is reserved the highest possible judgment, when he is all-powerful to pronounce
judgment upon body and life, will there be any last appeal among man kind when he gives
judgment according to his own motives? If those who have attacked me have taken the side
of justice, for what reason do they censure me? If, on the other hand, I have made my
appeal to him, to whom it is not lawful or excusable to disallow an appeal, the
consequence is, that they must either be accusing me unjustly, or must have distrust in
your justice. For doubly should I be confounded, if before your Holiness I should be
convicted. And do I merit persecution on the part of those, in behalf of whom I have laid
myself open to such attacks, and should have gained my point, had they only been so
inclined ? But badly fares the head, if it is forsaken by the limbs. If too the eyes were
to assume a tongue in opposition to the head, if they were to be gifted with foresight,
they would find that they were contriving evil against themselves; so likewise have the
kings followers used their aid against me to ensure their own slavery. What can have
been the cause of hatred so great that, in order to destroy me, they should destroy
themselves? The consequence is, that while they neglect their spiritual for their temporal
duties, they fail in both. And is it the fact that, while I protested aloud and appealed
to your presence, they presumed by their judgment to condemn their own father? Why, if
they have made a compact to agree with the prince who is so offended at me in relation to
the universal Church, even to you, most holy father, may their suspicion extend. But they
will affirm that they have held with the king by reason of their duty to their liege; even
so, corporeally to him, but spiritually to me. Whom then, in preference to themselves,
ought they to have held with? Ought they not to have submitted in preference to the loss
of things corporeal rather than spiritual? But to this they may reply, that this was not a
proper time for provoking the prince. How astutely do they argue to ensure their own
slavery! Why, they themselves encourage it, who give shelter beneath their wings to his
excesses; for if they had not given their sanction, he would have refrained from acting
thus. And on what occasion is constancy more required than during a time of persecution?
Are not his friends proved by the test of persecution ? If people always succumb, what are
they to look for? Resistance is necessary at times. Look then with condescension, most
holy father, upon my exile and persecutions, and remember that once in your time I
occupied an exalted position, and that for your sake I have been loaded with injuries. Put
forth your severity, and restrain those at whose instigations this persecution has
befallen me; and let not aught of these things be imputed to my lord the king, who is
rather the instrument, than the author of these machinations.
The Letter of the blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, to
his suffragan bishops.
Thomas, by the grace of God, the humble servant of the church of Canterbury, to
his venerable brethren, the bishop of London, and the other bishops of the whole province
of Canterbury; may they so enjoy temporal blessings, as pot to lose those of eternity. My
most dearly-beloved brethren, wherefore do ye not arise with me against my enemies? Why do
ye not take part with me against those who work iniquity? Is it that ye are ignorant that
the Lord scattereth abroad the bones of those who please men? They shall be confounded,
inasmuch as the Lord hath despised them. Your discreetness well knows that when the errors
of a man are not opposed, they are approved; and that when truth is not defended, it is
smothered. He, too, who does not hasten to the reproval of that which ought to be
corrected, appears, Saint Gregory giving his testimony thereto, to encourage him who
commits the wrong. Enough, and even more than enough, have we put up with our lord, the
king of England; and yet, in return, the Church of God has received no support from him.
We hold that it is a thing dangerous and not to be endured, to leave unpunished for the
future, as hitherto, the excessive outrages committed by him and his officials against the
Church of God and the ministers of that Church and the more especially so inasmuch as most
frequently by letters and messages, and other means, as was our duty, we have endeavored
to recall him from the perverseness of his course. But since we have been hardly heard by
him, much more listened to, after invoking the grace of the Holy Spirit, we have publicly
condemned, and have made null and void that writing in which are contained, not those
customs, but rather those corruptions by which at the present time the Church of England
is disturbed and put to confusion, as also the authority of the said writing. All who
observe, or enforce, or counsel, or aid, or defend the same, we do likewise excommunicate;
and all you bishops, by the authority of God and of ourselves, we do absolve from the
promises, by which, against the rules of the Church, you bound yourselves to the
observance thereof For who is there that can doubt that the priests of Christ are
appointed to be the fathers and masters of kings and princes, and of all the faithful? Is
it not understood to be an act of lamentable madness for the son to attempt to make his
father, or the disciple his master, obedient to him, and by unrighteous means of
compulsion to render him subject to his power? One, too, whom he believes to have power to
bind and to loose him not only on earth, but even in heaven as well? Therefore, in order
that we may not fall into the commission of this error, we have rendered of no effect, and
have made null and void the authority of that writing, as also the writing itself,
together with all the corruptions that are therein contained; and more especially the
following: Appeal shall not in any case be made to the Apostolic See, except with
the kings permission. It shall not be lawful for an archbishop or bishop to depart
from the kingdom, to attend the summons of our lord the pope, without the kings
permission. It shall not be lawful for a bishop to excommunicate any person who holds of
the king in capite, or to lay an interdict upon any one of his officers, without the
kings permission. It shall not be lawful for a bishop to take cognizance of perjury
or breach of faith. The clergy are to be brought before secular tribunals. Laymen, whether
the king or other persons, are to take cognizance of causes as to churches and tithes, and
other enactments to a like effect. We do also denounce as excommunicated, and have
excommunicated by name, the man called John of Oxford, who has fallen into a damnable
heresy, by tendering an oath to schismatics, through whom a schism that had almost died
out has revived in Germany, as also for communicating with that most notorious schismatic,
Reginald of Cologne; and because, contrary to the mandate of our lord the pope and of
myself, he has taken unlawful possession of the deanery of the church of Salisbury, a deed
which, so detestable as it is, so contrary to right, so pernicious in its example to the
Church of God, we do make utterly null and void, and do render it of no effect whatsoever;
and it is our command to the bishop of Salisbury, and the chapter of that church, in
virtue of their obedience, and at the peril of their orders, on seeing this our letter,
thenceforth no longer to hold him as dean thereof. In like manner, we do denounce as
excommunicated, and have excommunicated, Richard de Ivechester, because he has fallen into
the same damnable heresy, by holding communication with Reginald of Cologne, the
schismatic, as also by inventing and contriving all kinds of mischief with those
schismatics and Germans, to the destruction of the Church of God, and especially of the
Church of Rome, according to the terms agreed upon between our lord the king and them. We
have also excommunicated Richard de Lucy and Jocelyn de Baliol, who have been the authors
and fabricator of these corruptions; also Ranulph de Broc, who has taken possession of the
property of the church of Canterbury, which by right is a provision for the poor, and
withholds the same and has arrested our men as though they were laymen, and detains them
in his custody. We have also excommunicated Hugh de Saint Clair and Thomas Fitz-Bernard,
who, without either connivance or consent on our part, have laid hands upon the property
and possessions of the said church of Canterbury All others beside who in future shall lay
violent hands upon the property and possessions of the church of Canterbury against our
will and consent, we have included in the same sentence of excommunication; according to
the words of pope Lucius: All spoilers of the Church and withholders of he
possessions, putting them away from the threshold of the said mother Church, we do
excommunicate, sentence to damnation and pronounce to be guilty of sacrilege. And
not these only but those even who assent thereto, does he comprehend in the same sentence.
The Scripture, also, in one place, tells us the he who agrees with the sinful, and defends
another in his sin shall be accursed before God and man, and shall be visited with the
most severe afflictions and likewise, that if any one defends another in his sin, he shall
be more severely corrected than he who has committed the sin. As yet, indeed, we have
delayed pronouncing this sentence against the person of our lord the king, in the hope
that perchance, by the inspiration of the Divine grace, he may recover his senses, still,
we shall very shortly pronounce it, unless he shall make haste so to do. Therefore, we do
command your brotherhood, and by virtue of your obedience enjoin you, that henceforth you
hold the aforesaid men who have been excommunicated by us as excommunicated, and cause
them to be denounced as such; in obedience to the decree of pope Honorius: Be it
lawful for all bishops to declare the names of those who have been excommunicated by them
both to the neighboring bishops, as well as to the people of their own diocese, and
placing them in a public place before the doors of the churches, to warn all comers
thereby, so that due diligence may be given to both points, entrance into the churches may
be everywhere denied to those excommunicated, and grounds for excommunication may be
removed from the rest. And you, brother, the bishop of London, we do command, and,
by virtue of our authority over you, enjoin the same, that you will disclose and show this
our letter to the rest of your brethren and to all our brother bishops of our province.
Fare ye well in Christ, and pray continually for us.
After these things, Henry, king of England, returned from Normandy to England, and marched
with a great army into Wales, where he lost many of his nobles, barons, and men. He also
did justice upon the sons of Rees, and upon the sons and daughters of his nobles, for he
had the eyes of the male children put out, and cut off the noses and ears of the females.
1166
In the year 1166, being the twelfth year of the reign of king Henry, son of the empress
Matilda, the said king Henry expelled from England, and from all the lands of his
dominions, all the men and women he could possibly find belonging to the kindred of the
blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury; even infants crying in the cradle, and still
hanging at the mothers breast, he sent into banishment, that, upon seeing them, the
grief of the above-named archbishop might be increased. What art thou doing, thou tyrant?
What madness is it that hath overcome thee, that thou shouldst thus drive away from thy
kingdom those who have done thee no injury, and in whose mouths no guile has been found?
There is no reason why the issue of the banished, so long as they observe the laws, should
not live in the city!
When the blessed Thomas beheld them, he was greatly afflicted, and, sharing in their
sorrows, became more than a martyr. No wonder was it, then, if his mind, becoming
disturbed, melted away, like water dropping from the snow. Still, all these sorrows
did the man of God endure with great long-suffering. He had hardly remained two years at
the abbey of Pontigny, with the abbot Gwarine, and the monks who were there in the service
of God, under whose charge he had been placed by Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff, when the
king of England sent word to the above-named abbot of Pontigny, that if he any longer
harbored the archbishop of Canterbury in his house, he would, in such case, banish all the
monks of his order from England. The consequence of this was, that the blessed Thomas, of
his own accord, departed from that house, in order that so many houses of the religious
might not, on his account, come to ruin. He, therefore, betook himself to Louis, king of
the Franks; by whom he was hospitably received, and sent to the abbey of Saint Columba,
near the city of Sens.
The Letter of pope Alexander to Henry, king of England.
Alexander the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to early beloved son Henry,
the illustrious king of England, health and the Apostolic benediction: Although your great
devotion towards us and your mother the Holy Church seems in some measure to have waxed
cool, still, at no season do we relax our paternal feelings towards you and the kingdom
entrusted to your government. Inasmuch, then, as the stripes of a friend are better than
the kisses of an enemy, your highness ought diligently to advert thereto, and, seriously
giving it your consideration, observe that as the clergy are distinguished in their lives
habits from the laity, so also are the tribunals of the clergy bound to be entirely
different from the tribunals of the laity. Wherefore, if you confound the same in an
unseemly manner, render subject to your power that which belongs to Jesus Christ, enact,
at your own goodwill, new laws for the oppression of the churches and of the poor of
Christ, and introduce customs which you style those of your grandfather, then, without
doubt, at the last judgment, which you will not be able to escape, you yourself will be
judged in a similar manner, With the same measure with which you mete, it shall be
measured to you again. But, lest our admonitions may appear in some measure tedious
or harsh to the ears of your highness, recollect the words of the Scripture, that
the son whom the father loveth he correcteth, knowing this for certain, that
the more ardently we love your person with all brotherly love in the Lord, and the more
frequently and thoughtfully we recall to mind the marks of your most sincere attachment to
us and to the Church of God, which you formerly so frequently and so bounteously showed,
the more readily do we make these intimations to you, to whom, with all the yearnings of
our heart, we wish spiritual and eternal welfare. But if the future judgment is in any way
to deter you, or if a crown of glory, as a reward in your eternal rest, has any delights
for you, then does it befit you to worship true justice, which is God; to concede to every
one his rights, and to leave to the ecclesiastics all ecclesiastical matters, and
especially those of a criminal nature, which arise from breaches of faith or of oaths, and
all cases relative to the property and possessions of churches. In fact, it would neither
befit, nor, indeed, be expedient for your serene highness to confound the offices of king
and priest. For, if the whole of the property of the Church, which by means of oppression
of this nature has been converted to your use, were to be expended by you in the relief of
the poor, or in other works of piety, you would therein be paying a mark of respect not
more pleasing to God than if, after offering one alms-dish on the altar. you were to cover
up another, or, if you were to crucify Peter, that you might deliver Paul from peril of
death. For you ought to recollect, and have it as an example on this occasion before your
eyes, how king Saul, who, after he had conquered Amalek, wished, against the commandment
of the Lord, to reserve the spoil, was reproved by the Lord when he made it his excuse
that he had reserved it for sacrifice; and how, while he was still alive, another man was
appointed to the royal honors and dignities. The sins of the people had raised him to be
king, but his own offenses deprived him of the government of the kingdom. How king Uzziah,
also, when he attempted to sacrifice and to usurp the office of priest, was, as a worthy
punishment, smitten with leprosy, it would be for your wellbeing to recall to mind. If,
however, you shall ascribe your successes to your might and prowess, and not to God,
beyond a doubt He who has set you over others, and made you a great prince in the world,
for the governance of the faithful, and not for their oppression, will, with rebuke,
require of you the talents which have been entrusted to you; and, as we read of Rehoboam,
the son of Solomon, who, for his fathers sins, was driven from his kingdom, so will
God visit the sips of the father upon the children. Do you, then, give no heed to the evil
suggestions of any person, nor incline your ear to those who are always whispering
mischief, but diligently attend to those things which concern your salvation. Wherefore,
make it your endeavor to govern to the honor of God and the peace and tranquility of the
Church, for which alone you have received the government of your kingdom, and study to
rule it to the best of the power that God has given you, to the end that God may preserve
for you your temporal kingdom, and, after that, may give you one to endure world without
end.
The letter of pope Alexander to Gilbert, bishop of London, in
behalf of the blessed Thomas.
Alexander the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brother
Gilbert, bishop of London, health and the Apostolic benediction. Inasmuch as, in relation
to the matters which we have enjoined to your brotherhood, you have shown efficient zeal
and diligence, and have made it your care faithfully to solicit and advise our most dearly
beloved son in Christ, Henry, the illustrious king of England, upon the increase and
exaltation of the Church and of ourselves, we deem it every way pleasing and acceptable,
and, returning you most abundant thanks for the same, with extreme praises, do commend
your prudent anxiety in the same unto the Lord. And, inasmuch as we do love the said king
and illustrious prince with the greatest affection, as a most truly beloved son, so both
through you and through our venerable brethren, the archbishop of Rouen and the bishop of
Hereford, as also through our most dearly beloved daughter in Christ, his mother, the
former illustrious empress of the Romans, have we often and often, in divers ways, tried
to induce and encourage him to observe his duty to the Church. Wherefore, we do rejoice
and exult in the Lord at the dutifulness of the said king, of which in your letter you
have informed us. But, inasmuch as we wish him to continue in his duty to the Church of
God and to ourselves, as from the beginning he has been wont to do, we do ask of your
brotherhood, enjoin, and command that, anxiously and diligently, you will often and often
advise him, both yourself and by others, and exhort him by all means, and prevail upon
him, after his usual manner, to use his best endeavors for the honor and exaltation of the
said Church, and manfully to support and maintain and defend her cause. Let him, also,
love and honor the churches and ecclesiastical persons, and preserve their rights. Our
venerable brother, also, the archbishop of Canterbury, let him receive again into his love
and favor. And we, if he shall continue to pay to Saint Peter and to ourselves that honor
and respect which he has begun to do, will love him with sincere affection, and will use
our endeavors in every way, as will be our duty, for the exultation of himself and the
preservation of the kingdom entrusted to him. And, indeed, we would prefer to outdo him in
patience and long-suffering, so long as we can possibly endure so to do, rather than cause
him vexation in any way. Given this Wednesday, the eleventh day before the calends of
September.
The Letter of Gilbert, bishop of London, to pope Alexander
upon the answer of the King on the business of the archbishop of Canterbury.
To his father and lord, Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff, the brother Gilbert,
servant of the church of London, the debt of sincere affection and the service of humble
obedience. Your mandate, dearest father in Christ, has been received by us with due
veneration, immediately on which, we presented ourselves before your son, and our dearest
lord, the illustrious king of the English, who is now at the bead of his army in the
French territory; and, in conjunction with our venerable brother, the bishop of Hereford,
we diligently and carefully admonished him according to the tenor of your mandate. We set
before his eyes all the particulars of your letter, and, beseeching him and expostulating
with him as far as was becoming towards his royal majesty, we constantly and incessantly
exhorted him that he would satisfy us as to his purposes, and that, if he had in any way
departed from the paths of reasonableness, he would not delay, at your admonition, through
us, to return to the ways of truth and justice; that, following the pious admonition of
his father, he would desist from all evil actions, would love God with purity of heart,
and would regard with his usual veneration his holy mother, the Roman Church; that he
would neither impede those who wished to visit her, nor prevent appeals being made to her;
that benignly recalling and restoring our brother, the lord archbishop of Canterbury, to
his see, he would remain firm and immovable in his reverence for Saint Peter and yourself,
and that, giving his entire attention to works of piety, he would not oppress either the
churches or ecclesiastical persons in his realm or in his territories, nor yet allow them
to be oppressed by his means or those of another; but, on the contrary, diligently
preserve them under his royal protection, to the end that He, through whom kings reign,
might preserve for him his temporal kingdom while on earth, and bestow on him an eternal
one in heaven: that otherwise, if he would not listen to those wholesome counsels, your
Holiness, who has hitherto patiently borne with him, could no longer bear with him in your
long-suffering. We further added, that we greatly feared for him, that if he did not
correct his faults, he would before long incur the wrath of Almighty God; so much so, that
his kingdom would not be of long continuance, nor his family allowed to prosper; but that
He who had exalted him when humble, would now, when exalted, hurl him down with a heavy
fall from the summit of the throne. On this, he received your admonition with much
thankfulness and with much forbearance, and with great meekness made answer to each part
of it in order. In the first place, he asserted that his feelings were in no way estranged
from you, and that he had never had in his mind any other intentions, provided you showed
a paternal solicitude towards him, than to love you as his father, to support and cherish
the Holy Church of Rome as his mother, and humbly to obey and follow your holy commands,
saving always the dignity of himself and of his kingdom. But that, if for some time past
he has not looked upon you with reverence, he asserts that the following is the reason for
the same: that although he maintained your cause in your need, with all his heart, with
all his soul, and with all his strength, your Holiness did not return him the like,
according to his deserts, in his time of need, when he had recourse to you through his
envoys; but he complains, and feels ashamed to say, that in almost every request he has
made of you, he has met with a repulse. Trusting, however, in a fathers love, which,
when it shall think fit, will listen to his son, hoping for and expecting a more cheerful
countenance, he remains firm and constant, as we have already said, in his attachment to
Saint Peter and to yourself. For this reason it is that he will not attempt to prevent any
one who may wish to visit your Holiness, and neither, as he affirms, has he hitherto
prevented them. As regards the question of appeals, by the ancient institutions of his
realm, he claims it as his privilege and duty that no clerk shall go out of his kingdom
for any civil suit, unless he has first made trial whether by the kings own
authority and mandate he can obtain justice. But if he shall be unable to obtain this,
then, the king making no opposition whatsoever thereto, any person whatsoever shall be at
liberty to appeal to your excellency, whenever he shall think fit. And if upon this point
your rights or dignities have been in any way prejudiced, he promises that he will
speedily correct the same, with the help of God, in a synod of all the clergy of his
dominions. As regards the emperor, although the king knew him to be a schismatic, still
until this day he has never heard that you had excommunicated him. But if on our
information he shall come to know that such is the case, if he has entered into any
unlawful compact with him or with any other person, this he also promises he will have
similarly corrected by the judgment and counsel of the Church of his realm. The king also
asserts that he has by no means expelled our father, the lord archbishop of Canterbury,
from his kingdom, as he has left it entirely of his own accord, so when he shall have a
mind so to do, he will be entirely at liberty with his entire sanction to return to his
church. Provided always, that while he receives satisfaction on those points upon which he
makes complaint, he shall be willing that the royal privileges should be faithfully
observed to which he has been sworn. And, if any church or ecclesiastical person shall
make proof that they have been wronged by him or his people, he will be prepared to make
full compensation, according to the judgment of the whole Church. This is the answer which
we have received from our lord the king, although we could have wished that we had
received something more entirely according to your wishes. This answer, however, we have
determined upon notifying to your highness, that from his reply your wisdom might be
enabled to form a judgment how to put an end to these matters. But our lord, the king,
seems in especial to justify his cause, upon the fact that on all the points which have
been mentioned, he will abide by the judgment and counsel of the Church in his dominions;
and he promises that he will in nowise prevent the return of our father, the lord
archbishop of Canterbury, as we have previously mentioned. Wherefore we have thought
proper to supplicate your excellency, keeping this always before our eyes, A bruised
reed shalt thou not break, and the smoking flax shalt thou not quench. Moderate for
a time, if so it please you, within the bounds of discretion that zeal which is kindled by
the flames of the Divine Spirit to avenge each injury done to the Church of God; lest by
pronouncing an interdict or the extreme sentence of excommunication, you may have to
lament that numberless churches are subverted, and so, which God forbid, irrevocably
alienate from your allegiance both the king himself, and numberless people with him. :For
it is as good for the limb to be joined to the head, even though wounded, as to be cast
away from the body when cut off. For wounded limbs return to a state of healthfulness.
whereas, when once cut off, they have great difficulty in adhering to the body. To cut off
a limb, is to entail desperation; whereas the cautious treatment of the surgeon will very
frequently heal the wound. Wherefore. it so it please you, it were better that, at the
present moment, you should use your endeavors in healing the wound, it any such there is,
than that, by cutting off the most noble portion of the Church of God, you should bring to
utter confusion that which, for this long time past, has been in a state of confusion
beyond what can possibly be expressed. For, that as yet your words have not taken their
full effect, or have been entirely appreciated. Is then the Divine grace to be despaired
of? At an acceptable time, they may both have their full effect, and be entirely
appreciated. Is the hand of God so shortened, that it cannot save? Or is his ear stopped,
so that it cannot hear? Those words are swift in their course: God, when he wills it, with
a high hand works changes in all things, and gives unhoped-for accomplishment to the
prayers of his Saints. Royal blood, then only knows how to be overcome when it has been
successful; nor is it ashamed to yield when it has gained the victory. By kindness is it
to be mollified, by advice and long-suffering is it to be overcome. But what if this
long-suffering, when manifested, or needed for a time to be manifested, causes some loss
of temporal possessions? Is there nothing to be rescued from the wreck when the fate of
multitudes is threatened? Are not many things needed to be thrown into the deep when the
confusion of land, sea, and waves is threatening destruction? Foolishly, but still in
charity, do we address you in no fictitious language. If this should be the termination of
the matter, that, losing everything, the lord archbishop of Canterbury should submit to
continual exile, and, which God forbid, England should no longer obey your commands, it
would have been much better patiently to have endured this for a time, than with such zeal
to have insisted upon acting with severity. For, suppose that your vengeance shall not be
able to separate still more of us from our obedience to you still, there will not
be wanting some to bow the knee to Baal, and without regard to religion and justice, to
receive the pall of Canterbury at the hands of their idol. Nor will there be wanting
persons to occupy our sees, and, seated in our seats, to show him obedience with all
feelings of duty. Many are already prognosticating such things, hoping that offenses may
arise, and that the straight may be made crooked. Wherefore, father, we do not mourn or
lament our own misfortunes; but unless you meet these evils, we see that a shocking
subversion of the Church of God is threatened, and that, becoming weary of our lives, we
may curse the day on which we were born to behold such a sight as this. Beloved
father in Christ, may Almighty God preserve you in safety for long to come.
The Letter of the blessed Thomas to King Henry.
To his most revered lord, Henry, by the grace of God, the illustrious king of the
English, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and earl of Anjou, Thomas, by the same grace the
humble servant of the church of Canterbury, health and best prayers for his prosperity in
all things. To speak concerning God stands in need of a mind utterly free and unbiased;
upon this subject it is that I address my lord, and, I trust, with peace towards all men.
I beseech you, my lord, that, with patience of mind, you will endure some little advice,
which, by the grace of God, which is never ineffectual, will contribute to the salvation
of your soul and to my acquittal. Difficulties beset me on every side; even tribulation
and difficulties have come upon me, who am placed between two most grave and fearful
alternatives. When I say between two most fearful alternatives, I mean a dangerous silence
on the one hand, and admonition of you on the other. If, on the one hand, I am silent, it
will be death to me, and I shall not escape the hands of the Lord, who says, If thou
cost not warn the wicked from his wicked way, and he shall die in his iniquity, his blood
He will require at your hands. If, on the other hand, I admonish you I fear, which
God forbid, that I shall not escape the wrath of my lord. And I trust that it may not
befall me, according to what the wise man says, that when a person sends to intercede or
to admonish a person who is not pleased thereat, it is to be feared lest, becoming
angered, his mind may be provoked to do what is worse. What, then, am I to do? Am I to
speak, or am I to be silent? In either alternative there is danger, no doubt. But inasmuch
as it is safer to fall under the indignation of men than into the hands of the living God,
trusting in the mercy of the Most High, in whose hands are the hearts of kings, and who
will induce them as He shall think fit (and I trust that He will, to take the better
part), I will speak to my lord, inasmuch as I have once begun so to do. For often are good
things provided for those who are unwilling, and especially when the safety more than the
will is consulted. In your land is kept in captivity the daughter of Sion, the spouse of a
great king, oppressed by many, insulted by those who long have hated her, and by whom she
ought rather to be honored than addicted, and in especial by you. Keeping, therefore, in
your recollection each of those blessings which God has bestowed upon you in the beginning
of your reign, in the middle thereof, and almost unto the present moment, do you release
her, and allow her to reign jointly with her husband, to the end that God may bless you,
and that your kingdom may forthwith begin to recover its strength, and this reproach be
taken away from your generation, and that unbroken peace may reign in your days. Believe
me, most serene prince, my much loved lord, the Almighty is slow in retribution,
long-suffering in His patience, but most severe in His vengeance. Hear me, and do that
which is right. But, if otherwise, it is greatly to be feared that (and I trust that so it
may not be) He will gird His sword upon His thigh, and will come in His might and with a
strong hand, armed with many woes, to set free His spouse, and that not without heavy
oppressions and servitude, attended by tribulation. But if you listen to me, then the Lord
will of necessity be sensible forthwith of your duteousness as acting the part of a
valiant soldier on His side, and in such case He will bless you, and will add glory unto
your glory, even unto the issue of your sons and of your daughters, down to distant times.
But if otherwise, I fear, and may God avert it from you, that the sword will not depart
from your house, until the Most High shall have come and avenged the injuries done to Him
and His; just as it did not depart from the house of Solomon, although God had made choice
of him, and had conferred upon him such great wisdom, and such an enjoyment of
peacefulness, that it was said by all, This is the son of wisdom and of peace;
yet, inasmuch as he departed from the path of the Lord, and proceeded from wickedness to
wickedness, God divided asunder his kingdom, and gave it unto his servant; and, in
especial, because, after the commission of his sin, he did not instantly seek to appease
the Lord, as his father David had done, who immediately after his offense humbled himself
before the Lord, corrected his fault, sought for mercy, and obtained pardon; and would
that, with the grace of God, you would do the like. These words I write unto you at
present, the rest I have placed in the mouth of him who bears these presents, a pious man,
one of great credit, and, as I believe, a faithful servant of yours. In them, I pray that
so it may please you to place full belief; still in preference, with your favor, I could
wish to enjoy the condescension of an interview with you. Once and always to my lord,
farewell!
The Letter of the blessed Thomas to Robert bishop of Hereford.
Thomas, by the grace of God, the humble servant of the church of Canterbury, to
his venerable brother Robert, by the same grace, bishop of Hereford, health and blessings
in all things. If so it is that my letters have caused anxiety in your brotherhood, would
that it were the case that I had not found you slothful in feeling, and not watchful in
the due performance of the duties of the office you have undertaken. I have chosen to be
cast out and to become accurse on behalf of you all, a reproach before men and a scorn
before the people, that I might not behold the evils of the holy ones, and keep silence
upon the injuries done to my nation; and anxiously did I wish that perchance some one of
you in his zeal for the law of God, and his love of the liberties of the Church, would
follow and come after me, that so we might not give horns to the sinful. And behold! you,
whom I believed to be given unto me by the Lord, that with me you might build, and weed,
and plant, are suggesting encouragement amid ruin, and solace in despair inasmuch as you
are preaching humility, nay, even abject submission, and ale announcing tidings of good,
while, on every side, confusion prevails, to the injury of God and of the clergy: and
this, at the moment when you ought to be strengthening the constancy of my mind amid its
vacillation, and, with me, sustaining the attack, in order to defend our inheritance of
the cross and repel and crush the enemies of the church, to be suggesting counsel to my
ears, to be breathing fresh life into my spirit, to the end that I might entreat with the
more firmness, that I might argue with the greater cogency, and rebuke with the greater
severity. And, if they should refuse to hear me, then, undoubtedly, ought you to have
exclaimed Why dost thou sleep? Unsheathe the sword of Saint Peter, avenge the
blood of the servants of Christ that has been shed, the injuries of the Church which are
being daily committed against us and ours. Has it entirely escaped your memory with
what injuries I have been afflicted, with what insults persecuted, when, in my own person,
against all authority and against all semblance of right, Christ was brought to be judged
before a lay tribunal? Still, I will not recall to your mind the injury done to my own
person but to the Church. Consider with thoughtfulness, and deeply reflect upon it in your
mind, what was done before my departure, what was being done at my departure, what has
been done since, what, in fact, is being done every day in your country, in relation to
the Church of God and its servants. With what conscience can you possibly conceal these
things from yourself; you, of whom hopes were entertained that you would be the redeemer
of Israel, the liberator of the Church from bondage? And, now, because you have so long
held your peace, I am always in affliction for you, my own begotten son, lest he should
come after you who shall take away your birthright, and shall deprive you, which may God
forbid, of the blessing of the first-born. But, though even thus far you have held your
peace, resume your might (my most dearly-beloved son) and cry aloud - it is your duty so
to do - lift up your voice against them, inspire them with fear, awaken their contrition,
banish their self-satisfaction, that so the anger of God may not descend upon them, and
the whole people perish ; or even, which may God forbid, the rulers with the people. For,
even now, Divine vengeance is at the gates. These things do I write unto you, not for your
confusion, but to put you on your guard; to the end that, relying upon the authority of
God and of myself, for the future you may be strengthened and may be willing more manfully
and more boldly to perform the duties of your office. This one thing in especial I wish
you to be assured of, with the mercy of God, confusion to his Church shall not be extorted
from me. In addition to what I have said, I give you thanks for this, that even now you
have visited me, and have comforted me with your solaces. Further, there is one thing
which I am not able to endure without the greatest bitterness of soul - verily, I weep for
my most beloved lord the king. For fear and trembling have come upon me, and the shades
have overwhelmed me, since I have seen that tribulation and difficulties are threatening
my lord the king. And no wonder. For he has vexed the Church of God, and has put her to
confusion, and has made hard- ships the lot of his clergy, giving them the wine of sorrow
to drink. Therefore, thus saith the Lord to him Where now, simple man, are the wise
counsellors who used to say to thee, Thou art the son of the wise, the son of
ancient kings, whose customs must be observed throughout England; which if a person shall
not observe, he is not a friend to Caesar, but an enemy to the crown, a criminal at the
judgment-seat. But, assuredly, that person is rather the friend of the cross of
Christ; for, Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write
grievousness which they have prescribed, to turn aside the needy from judgment, and. take
away the right of the poor of my people, that churches and widows may be their prey,
and that they may plunder the possessions of certain of the clergy. What shall these
persons do on the day of visitation and of calamity that approacheth from afar? To whose
aid will they fly for refuge, and lay aside their vaingloriousness, that they may not be
bowed down under judgment, and fall with the slain? Where, now, are his wise men? Let them
come forth, and let them disclose to him and say what the Lord of Hosts has determined as
to England. His wise men are become fools, and his nobles have come to nought; they have
deceived England, and into the midst of the people of England its lord has introduced a
feeling of stupefaction. By their deeds they have made England to go astray, even as a
drunken man goes astray, vomiting and staggering; and for England help there will be none.
Who shall know the beginning or end hereof? For they have devoured Jacob, and have laid
waste his dwelling-place, and have said, Let us take possession of the holy place of
God, and have reviled the priests and their chief men, saying, Whither will ye
fly for refuge from our hands, or in whom do ye put your trust? Why have ye fled,
and proved disobedient to our commands? Oh, how empty are these thoughts! how
shame these deeds in the sight of the Lord, who beholds how vain they are! For He
will laugh to scorn him who thinks thus, when He shall see him acting thus; because His
day is near at hand, even now He is at the gates, and will say, Behold the men who
have not placed reliance in their God, but have put their trust in the multitude of their
riches, and have waxed strong in their vanity! But it is in vain that they do thus;
the Lord will not leave His church, nor His clergy, without a defender, without the
heaviest vengeance. For it has been founded upon a firm rock; and that rock is Christ, who
has founded it with his own blood. Assuredly, if they do not make amends herein, they will
not escape with impunity, inasmuch as they have trodden under foot the Holy of Holies, the
house of God, and have afilicted His priests with injuries and abusive words. These are
those to whom the Lord himself has said, I have said, ye are gods; and all of you
are children of the Most High; and also, in another place, He that hateth you,
hateth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that toucheth you, toucheth the
apple of my eye. Let them then return to their senses; let them avert evil from
themselves; let them with the greatest humility show repentance. But if they do not, then
it is to be feared, and, oh may it be averted! that the lord will speedily come, and will
bring upon them and their land great tribulation and the most heavy vengeance of His
retribution. Behold! our Lord shall come and shall not delay, and He shall save us;
inasmuch as He will never forsake those who put their trust in Him. For the prophet saith,
Trust in the Lord, and do good, slid thou shalt be fed upon his riches; and,
again, Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine
heart; and put your trust in the Lord, and He shall soon deliver thee from the
snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. And, that I may end all that I
have said herein with a becoming conclusion, inasmuch as the Lord has shown what and how
great things we ought to endure for His name and in the defense of His Church, I hold it
necessary for you to pray, both you and the whole Church entrusted to your charge,
continually for u; to the end that, what through our own merits we are unable to endure,
by your intercession and that of the holy men who are subject to you, we may be enabled to
endure, and that thereby we may deserve to obtain everlasting grace. Farewell, and be
comforted; farewell, likewise, to the whole of the Church of England, and may she be
comforted in the Lord, that so we likewise may fare well.
In the same year Henry, king of England, after his return from Wales, crossed over from
England into Normandy, whither he was followed by William, king of the Scots.
1167
In the year of grace 1167, being the thirteenth year of the reign of king Henry, son of
the empress Matilda, the said Matilda, formerly empress of the Romans, and mother of the
above-named king, departed this life, and was buried at Rouen, at the abbey called Saint
Mary de Pratis. In the same year, Frederick, emperor of the Romans, went to Rome, and by
violence and with an armed band, thrust Guido of Crema, the antipope and schismatic, into
the Apostolic See. On his departure, a deadly plague immediately broke out among his
people, and Reginald, the archbishop elect of Cologne, who was the head of the whole
schism, perished on the Alps; in order that his hones might be separated from the flesh
and taken to Cologne, the whole of his body was boiled in water.
The Letter of the blessed Thomas, the archbishop, to Pope
Alexander.
To his most loving father and lord, Alexander, by the grace of God, Supreme
Pontiff, Thomas, the humble servant of the church of Canterbury, due and dutiful
obedience. I have endured enough and more than enough, most loving father, while waiting
for the reformation of the king of England, and yet have gathered no fruits whatever of my
long suffering; but, on the contrary, while unthinkingly submitting thereto, I have
incurred the loss and utter destruction of the authority and liberties of the Church of
God. I have often-times by messengers, religious and fitting men, called upon him, and
have frequently invited him to make due satisfaction; as also by letters, the copies
whereof I have sent unto you. I have announced to him the Divine wrath and vengeance, if
he fails to come to his proper senses; whereas he more and more persists in his evil
courses, treading under foot and depressing the Church of God; both persecuting myself
personally and those who are in banishment with me, so far as even to attempt to deprive
me, by threats and menaces, of the kindnesses of the servants of God, who for the sake God
and of yourself provide us with food. For he has written to the abbot of the Cistercians,
that as he loves those abbeys of his order which are in his power, so must he withhold
from us all services and attentions on part of his order. But why enlarge? For,
notwithstanding my long suffering, to that degree has the harshness of the king and his
officers proceeded, that even if any number of religious men whatsoever were to inform you
thereupon, even upon oath, I should be much surprised if even then your Holiness would
give any belief to their assertions. Reflecting, therefore, upon these things with great
anxiety of mind, and the danger ensuing therefrom, both to the king and to yourself, I
have publicly condemned these pernicious, I will not say customs, but perversions or
corruptions, by which the Church of England is disturbed and confounded, together with the
writing and the authority of the writing by which they were confirmed; as also the
observers, enforcers, and defenders of the same. I have also in general terms
excommunicated his abettors, advisers, and coadjutors, whosoever they may chance to be,
whether clergy or laity, and have absolved my bishops from the oath by which they have
been violently forced to the observance of the said customs. But these are the points
which, in this writing, I have especially condemned. Appeal shall not in any case be
made to the Apostolic See, except with the kings permission. It is not lawful for a
bishop to take cognizance of perjury or breach of faith. It is not lawful for a bishop to
excommunicate any person who holds aught of the king in capite, or his lands, or to lay an
interdict upon any one of his officers without the kings permission. Clerks, or
those of the religious orders, are to be brought before secular tribunals; laymen, whether
the king or other persons, are to take cognizance of causes as to churches pr tithes. It
is not lawful for an archbishop or bishop to depart from the kingdom, to attend the
summons of our lord the pope, without the kings permission; and other enactments to
a like effect. By name also I have excommunicated John of Oxford, who has held communion
with that schismatic and excommunicated person, Reginald of Cologne; and who, contrary to
the mandate of our lord the pope, and of ourselves, has taken unlawful possession of the
deanery of the church of Salisbury, and, at the court of the emperor, has administered the
oath for the supporting of that schism. In like manner also, I have denounced and
excommunicated Richard of Ivechester, because he has fallen into the same damnable heresy,
by holding communication with that most notorious schismatic at Cologne, and inventing and
contriving all kinds of mischief, with those schismatics and Germans, to the destruction
of the Church of God, and more especially of the Church of Rome, according to the treaties
agreed upon between the king of England and them, and Richard de Lucy and Jocelyn de
Baliol, who have been the encouragers of the royal tyranny, and the fabricators of these
heretical corruptions. I have also excommunicated Ranulph de Broc, Hugh de Saint Clair,
and Thomas Fitz-Bernard, who, without, our license and consent, have seized the property
and possessions of the church of Canterbury. I have excommunicated all besides who,
contrary to our will and assent, have laid hands upon the property and possessions of the
church of Canterbury. The king, however, I have not as yet personally excommunicated,
being still in expectation of his reformation; him, however, I shall not delay to
excommunicate, if he does not speedily recover his senses, and submit to discipline for
what he has done. To the end, therefore, most holy father, that the authority of the
Apostolic See, and the liberties of the Church of God, which in our country have almost
perished, may be, enabled to be in some measure restored, it is necessary, and in every
way expedient, that you should entirely ratify, and by your letters confirm, what I have
done. Farewell, and may your Holiness enjoy all happiness.
The Letter of Pope Alexander to Henry, king of England.
The bishop Alexander, servant of the servants of God, to his beloved son, Henry, the
illustrious king of the English, health and the Apostolic benediction. With what paternal
and kindly feelings we have often convened your royal excellence, and have frequently
exhorted you, both by letters and our nuncios, to become reconciled to our venerable
brother Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, and to restore to him and his clerks their
churches, with the other things which you have taken from them, the prudence of your
highness is by no means unaware, inasmuch as it is public and notorious to nearly the
whole of Christendom. Wherefore, seeing that we have hitherto been able to make but little
progress in this matter, or by kind and gentle conduct to soothe the emotions of your
mind, we are rendered sad and sorrowful, and grieve that we are disappointed in our hopes
and expectations; particularly as we love you sincerely as our most dearly-beloved son in
the Lord, and we see this great danger threatening you; and inasmuch as it is written,
Cry aloud, and spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their
transgression; and likewise, If thou cost not warn the wicked from his way,
his blood will I require at thy hand; and by Jeremiah, the slothful man was ordered
to be stoned with the dung of oxen. We have determined no longer to bear your hardness of
heart as heretofore, to the detriment of justice and your own salvation; nor will we for
the future close the mouth of the said archbishop in any way, or prevent him from freely
doing his duty, and avenging with the sword of ecclesiastical severity the wrongs which
have been done to himself and to the Church entrusted to his charge. Now, as to the points
which are contained in this letter relative to the matters before mentioned, as also
others of less importance, our well-beloved brother, the prior of Mont-Dieu, and the
brother Bernard de Corilo, men who indeed pay more respect to God than to kings, will in
words further explain to your highness. May He, to pay obedience to whose admonitions is
to reign, and in whose hands are the hearts of princes, incline your mind and will, that
so you may be prevailed upon rather, than, against God and your salvation, persist any
longer in so determined a course of obstinacy. But if even now you shall refuse to hearken
to the proposals which they shall make to you in my behalf, then without doubt you will
have occasion to fear what is to ensue, and to dread the Divine vengeance in the world to
come.
The Letter of the blessed Thomas, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, to Gilbert, Bishop of London.
Thomas, the humble minister of the church of Canterbury, to Gilbert, bishop of
London, may he, now as always, so pass through good things temporal as not to lose those
eternal. It is a cause for wonder, indeed, for extreme astonishment, that a man of
prudence, well versed in Holy Scripture, and especially wearing the appearance of
religion, should, laying aside the fear of God, so manifestly, not to say irreverently,
set himself against truth, oppose justice, and, to the utter confusion of all light and
wrong, seek to overthrow the establishment of the Holy Church, which the Most High hath
founded. For it is the Truth which says, the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it. He is generally supposed not to be of sane mind who intends the ruin thereof,
and is like a man who binds a rope around a vast mountain, and attempts to throw it down.
But is it because I am inflamed with anger or with hatred, that, in my exasperation, I am
driven to utter words of this nature against my brother, and colleague, and fellow-bishop?
God forbid! But to the above effect have I collected from your letter, which I received
through your archdeacon; nor was I enabled thereby to gather grapes of thorns, or figs of
thistles. That it may be clear whether or not it is so, let us examine it, and bring its
contents to the light. The end, when compared with the beginning, presents a very strong
resemblance to a scorpion. The one approaches us, using smooth and gentle language, the
other, stinging us severely, attempts to impose silence upon us. For, what else is it,
first to acknowledge your dutiful subjection to us, and to promise obedience in conformity
with that subjection, and then, in the end, to have recourse to appeal, in order that you
may not be obliged to obey? The Apostle says, Do I purpose that with me there should
be yea, yea, and nay, nay? As the Apostles could not always be with the disciple, of
necessity did the disciples receive power from the Lord of treading upon serpents and
scorpions; for even unto this day Ezekiel is dwelling with the scorpions. And now consider
in what sense you say, We do have recourse to the remedy of appeal? You call
yourself a follower of Christ; in this speech you are found to be far otherwise. For the
efficacious, nay, rather the most efficacious remedy of all our evils, namely, Christ, has
recommended to us obedience, not only in word, but by His most evident example, inasmuch
as He became obedient to His Father even unto death. And with what grace do you call that
a remedy which is an impediment to obedience? Not a remedy, indeed, but, more properly, a
hindrance ought it to be called. But on what grounds do you rest your confidence in this
presumption? Is it that you expect to find a defender of your disobedience in him who has
received the office and the command to take cognizance of all acts of disobedience? It
were wrong in you to expect this of him, and greatly to be in him. You might have been
withheld from a supposition of that kind by the first and second repulses you have already
experienced. For, in the first place, you appeared personally; after which, the letter
which you wrote for the purpose of persuading him experienced how firmly stands the vicar
of Saint Peter, and with what truthfulness, when, neither by prayers, nor by gifts, nor by
suggestions, nor by promises, could you move him. But a third attempt must be made, that,
after the example of his lord, he may, on a third attempt, come off triumphant. Besides,
that no annoyance may be wanting, you have put off the time for your appeal nearly a whole
year. You have had no compassion on my exile or on the difficulties of the Holy Church,
the spouse of Christ, whom He has obtained with His own blood. Besides, to pass this over,
which, indeed, I ought not to do, it was your duty to use some foresight in his behalf, to
whom you assert yourself to be a well-wisher, I mean our lord the king, who, so long as he
behaves thus towards us, or the Church of Christ, will be able neither to go to war, nor
to live in peace, without danger to his soul. Let us now pass on to the rest. You mention
that some confusion arose on my departure, and in consequence of my departure. Let the
authors and contrivers of this confusion be afraid, lest they also be brought to
confusion. You extol me with great praises, as to the good purpose of my journey, and
indeed it is the duty of a prudent man not to be neglectful of his character; but still,
it is the part of a discreet one, in relation to himself, not to believe another rather
than himself. I am accused as though I had done certain injuries to my lord the king; but
inasmuch as you do not mention one of them by name, I do not even know what it is I am to
make answer to; therefore, as I am only charged in a superficial manner on that point, in
a superficial manner only shall I defend myself In the meanwhile, however, take this for,
my answer - because I am conscious of having done nothing wrong, for that treason I have
not justified myself. You express surprise at the letter of warning which I sent him. What
father sees his son going astray and holds his peace? What person is there that does not
smite another with the rod, that he may not run upon the sword? The father despairs of the
son whom he does not correct with threats or the scourge. However, God forbid that I
should think as you do. that our lord. growing impatient under correction, will by degrees
proceed to the extermination of the seceders! For the plantation of our heavenly Father
will not be rooted up. A most violent tempest is now tossing the ship; I have hold of the
helm, and do you invite me to sleep? Do you collect and place before my eves the benefits
that have been conferred upon me by our lord the king, and speak of my being elevated from
a lowly state to the highest position? Still, in my simplicity, to give you some small
answer, what lowly state is it you are thinking of? If you look at the time at which he
placed me high in his service, there were the archdeaconry of Canterbury, the priorship of
Beverley, many benefices, several prebendal stalls, with other things, not a few, which,
at that period attached to my name, go far to disprove that I was in such a low position
as you affirm, with relation to the things of this world. And if you look at the origin of
my family and my ancestors, they were citizens of London, who dwelt in the midst of the ir
fellow-citizens without reproach, and persons by no means of the lowest station. But as,
one day, when the darkness of the world is removed, we shall be judged by the light of
truth, which will be the most glorious, to have been born of humble parents, or even those
of the lowest rank, or of the great and honored ones of the world? For the Apostle says:
Those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon those we bestow
more abundant honor. What do pedigrees avail? says the heathen
poet. What then ought a learned and religious Christian bishop to say? But perhaps, by
your mention of my lowly condition, it was your intention to put me somewhat to confusion;
however, how criminal it is to put ones father to confusion, you yourself will see
from the commandment of the Lord, which you have received as to honoring your father. But,
as for commending the kings favor to me, there was no great need to take the trouble
of recapitulating his services done to me. For I call the Lord as my witness that nothing
under the sun do I prefer to his favor and safety, save only those things which belong to
God and to the Holy Church; for otherwise it will not be possible for hire to reign with
happiness or with safety. As it is, so be it. There are many other favors, and still
greater ones, than are mentioned in your letter, which I have received at his hands. In
return for all these, even if they were to be doubled, ought I to peril the liberties of
the Church of God, much less for the preservation of my own character, which has so
frequently swerved from what is right? If I have acted with greater forbearance towards
others, in this I will spare neither you, nor any one else, not even an angel, if he were
to acme down from heaven, but the instant I should hear him suggesting such a course, he
should hear from me these words, Get thee behind me, Satan, thou savourest not the
things that are of God! Far from me be such madness as that! May the Lord
avert such insanity from me, that any one should persuade me, by any backsliding, to make
a bargain about the body of Christ; for, in such case, I should be likened to Judas, the
seller of our Lord to the Jews, the buyers of Christ! But as to my promotion, which you
state in your letter to have taken place, the mother of my lord the king dissuading him
therefrom, the kingdom exclaiming against it, and the Church, so far as she could, heaving
sighs thereat, this I tell you in answer thereto. I did not hear exclamations on the part
of the kingdom, but rather acclamations; and if there was any dissent on the part of my
lords mother, they did not come to the ears of the public. It might possibly be the
case that some ecclesiastics did sigh upon that promotion, as aspirants generally do, when
they found that they were disappointed in the hopes they had once entertained. And,
possibly, at this day, it is those same persons who, by way of revenge for their
misfortune, are the authors and advisers of the present dissensions. But Woe to him
by whom offenses come! Against the aforesaid obstacles, and against others, if any
there were, the dispensations of God prevailed, as we may at this day perceive. For I am
compelled by Him, who is justice itself, to postpone Him for nothing whatsoever, who in
His mercy has placed me in this position. The points, also, which you seem to put forward,
by way of justifying the king, I think ought not to be lightly passed over, or without
some discussion; and I could only wish that he had not taken so wide a departure from
justice, and that my complaints against him appeared less just. You say that he is, and
always has been, ready to give me satisfaction. This you assert you can confidently say
and maintain. Hold then a moment and answer these questions. When you say that he is ready
to give satisfaction, in what sense do you understand it? You see those of whom God says
that He is the father and the judge. the orphans, the widows, the fatherless, the
innocents, and those who are utterly unacquainted with this controversy which is going on
between us, you see these proscribed, and you are silent; you see the clergy banished, and
you do not exclaim against it; you see others spoiled of their property, and loaded with
insults, and you do not reprove it; you see my servants thrown into prison and confined
there, and you hold your peace; you see the property of your mother church of Canterbury
being made away with, and you offer no resistance; you see swords threatening the very
throat of me your father, and myself escaping with the greatest difficulty, and you
express no sorrow; still worse even, you are not ashamed to take part with my persecutors,
and in me, persecutors of God and His Church, and that too, not in secret. Is this, then,
giving satisfaction, not to correct evils which have been perpetrated, and day after day,
to add to what is bad what is still worse? But perhaps you understand it in a contrary
sense, and that to obey the will of the unrighteous is to give satisfaction, according to
the words, I will make mine arrows drunk with blood. However, you will say to
me, My father, of what do you accuse me? I will acquit myself in a few words. I am
afraid for my gown. It is true, my son, and too true what you say, and it is for
that reason, that you wield not the sword. But as to what you say, that he is prepared to
stand by the judgment of his realm, as though, forsooth, that were a full satisfaction;
who is there on earth, or even in heaven, that would presume to pronounce judgment with
reference to the ordinances of God? Let human matters be pronounced judgment upon; but let
Divine things remain utterly unshaken, and be left alone. How much better would it be, my
brother, how much more healthful for him, and more safe for yourself, if you were to labor
in every way to disclose to him and to persuade him, what is the will of God with
reference to maintaining the peace of His Church, and to warn him not to covet those
things which do not belong to his administration, and to remind him to honor the priests
of God, not giving heed to who they are, but whose servants they are. You charge me with
having been warped by prejudice against the bishop of Salisbury and John of Oxford, not a
dean as you call him, but the usurper of a deanery But you ought to bear in mind that
certain manifestoes preceded my judgment. You say too, that you have been moved thereby;
how should you not? Ucalegon trembles when his neighbors party-wall is on fire and I
only wish that you may be becomingly moved from the position which you have so
unbecomingly taken up. Let then my lord, at your intimation, know and understand, that He
who rules not only the kingdom of men, but of angels as well, has ordained under Him two
powers, princes and priests; the one earthly, the other spiritual; the one to minister,
the other to warn; to the one of whom He has conceded power, to the other He has willed
respect to be shown. But he who withholds aught of his rights from the one or the other,
resists the ordinances of God. Let not my lord then disdain to show respect to those to
whom the Supreme ruler of all has not disdained to show respect; I have said ye are
Gods and again, I have made you a God unto Pharaoh, and thou shalt
not revile the Gods; meaning the priests. And again, when speaking by Hoses of him
who was about to swear, he says, Bring him unto the Gods, that is to say, the
priests. And let not my lord presume to attempt to pronounce judgment on his judges. For
to the earthly powers are not entrusted the keys of heaven, but to the priests. Wherefore
it is written, the priests lips shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the
law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord; and Saint Paul says,
Shall we not judge angels? How much more men. That also, at your suggestion,
should be brought to our lords recollection as worthy of remembrance and imitation,
which we read in Ecclesiastical History concerning the emperor Constantine, to whom when
there had been presented written accusations against the bishops, he took the libels, and,
calling the accused before him, in their sight, burned them, at the same time saying:
Ye are gods, made so by the true God. Go settle your disputes among yourselves, for
it is not fit ting for us men to give judgment on gods. Oh mighty emperor! Oh
discreet ruler upon earth! one who did not fraudulently usurp that which belongs to
another, and thus earned an eternal kingdom in heaven. therefore, let my lord make
it his study to imitate a prince so mighty, so discreet, and so prosperous; who enjoys
both a praiseworthy memory upon earth, and an eternal and glorious life in heaven.
Otherwise, let him fear what the Lord has threatened in Deuteronomy, saying: The man
that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest, shall die before the
judge. For unto this he has been called, and hereby the temporal peace and
mightiness of his kingdom, of which you remind me, is ministered unto him from heaven.
Otherwise, notwithstanding his many virtues, the king will not be saved even though
kingdoms should be subdued by him, and nations should be prostrate. But enough upon these
points. Whoever you have had as your fellow-writers in the aforesaid letter, let them
understand that this answer made to you is an answer to themselves. For the future, my
brethren, I warn you, I beg and entreat of you that schisms may not separate, nor enmities
overshadow us; but let us have one heart and one soul in the Lord, and let us listen to
Him who telleth us to struggle for justice with all our soul, and to contend for it to the
death, and the Lord will conquer for us our enemies. And let us not forget that strict
judge, standing before whose tribunal the truth alone shall judge us, all area) of and
trust in the powers of this world being laid aside. Farewell to your brotherhood in the
Lord.
The Letter of the Suffragans of the Church of Canterbury to
the blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury.
To their venerable father and lord, Thomas, by the grace of God, archbishop of
Canterbury, the suffragan bishops of that church and the beneficed clergy appointed over
the various places throughout their dioceses, due submission and obedience. Whereas,
father, on your departure for foreign parts, through the very unexpectedness and novelty
of the circumstance, considerable confusion arose, still, we did hope, through your
humility and prudence, with the aid of the Divine favor, for a return therefrom to the
serenity of our former peaceful state. That was, indeed, a solace to us, which, after your
departure, reached us all by general report; that you, while passing your time in the
parts beyond sea, had no ulterior designs; that you were guilty of no machinations against
our lord the king or against his kingdom, but endured with moderation the burden of
poverty which you had spontaneously taken upon yourself; that you were devoting your time
to reading and prayer, and were atoning for the loss of time past by fastings, watchings,
and tears, and, occupied in spiritual pursuits, were making your way, by the increase of
your virtues, to the perfection of blessedness. We rejoiced to hear that by pursuits of
this nature you were applying yourself to the restoration of the blessings of peace, and,
in consequence thereof, we did entertain a hope that you would be enabled also to bring
the heart of our lord the king to feelings of graciousness, so that, in his royal
clemency, he might cease to be angered against you, and no longer recall to mind the
injuries that had been inflicted upon him in your departure, and in the consequences
thereof. Your friends and well-wishers did enjoy some access to him while these things
were heard of you, and when they made entreaties for the bestowal on you of his favor, he
received each with benignity. But now, from the information of certain persons, we have
learned that which we recall to mind with anxiety, namely, that you have issued against
him a letter of warning, in which you omit the salutation, and in which you do not make
any attempt to gain his favor, or have recourse to entreaties; in which you neither
breathe nor write aught in a friendly spirit; but, on the contrary, with extreme severity,
you declare in the threats which you utter against him, that you will shortly have to
pronounce against him an interdict or else sentence of excommunication. Now, should this
be carried out with as much severity as it has been asserted with harshness, we then no
longer have any hope that peace may succeed the present state of confusion, but are
greatly afraid that he will be inflamed to a lasting and inexorable hatred. But the
prudence of the devout takes into consideration the results of things, using its best
endeavors that what it has commenced with discretion it may also bring to a good end.
Therefore, if so it please you, let your discreetness consider to what it tends, and
whether, by attempts of this nature, it can obtain the end which is its object. As for us,
in consequence of these endeavors, we have fallen from great hopes, and after conceiving
the hope of at some time obtaining peace, we now find ourselves repelled by deep despair
from the very threshold of hope. And thus, while the combat is being waged as it were with
the sword drawn, there is no room whatever to be found for entreaty in your behalf.
Therefore do we write to our father what in our Christian love is our advice to him, not
to super-add difficulties to difficulties, injuries to injuries, but rather, desisting
from threats, to observe patience and humility. Let him entrust his cause to the Divine
clemency, to the favor and mercy of his lord, and, thus doing, let him heap and gather hot
coals of fire upon the heads of many. By thus acting brotherly love will be excited, and,
the ford inspiring and the advice of the good prevailing, perhaps piety alone would be
enabled to do that which threats have proved unable. It would be as well for you to be
spoken of in terms of praise for your voluntary submission to poverty, as, for ingratitude
for benefits received to become the subject of general remark. For all persons have a full
recollection how kind the king our master has strewn himself towards you, to what a pitch
of glory he has raised you from an humble station, and how he has with feelings so joyous
received you into his especial favor, that the whole of the various portions of his
dominions, which extend from the northern ocean to the Pyrenees, he has rendered subject
to your power; so much so, that in them public opinion considered those only as fortunate
who were able to find grace in your eyes. And, that no worldly fickleness might be able to
shake your glory, he has willed immovably to root you in the things which belong to God.
While his mother dissuaded him, the kingdom expostulated, the Church of God, so far as she
could, sighed and groaned, he made it his object, in every possible way, to raise you to
that elevated post which you now enjoy, hoping that he should for the future reign
happily, and, amid the greatest security, rejoice in your aid and counsel. If, then, he
receives injury where he looks for security, what will be the remark made on you by the
voice of all? What will be your reward, or what your character, in consequence of your
having made such a return as this? Do, then, if so it please you, spare your own
character, spare, too, your own fame, and, in humility, endeavor to surpass our lord, and,
in Christian charity, your son. If, however, our advice cannot prevail upon you to do
this, at least the love and fidelity of the Supreme Pontiff, and of the holy Roman Church,
ought to influence you. For you ought easily to be persuaded not to wish to make any
attempt which may increase the labors of your mother, who has now labored so long, by
causing her grief, which deplores the disobedience of many, to be increased by the loss of
those who are obedient. For what if, and God forbid it should be so, through your
irritation of him, or by your agency, our lord the king, whom people and kingdoms follow
and obey, the gift of the Lord, should withdraw from our lord the pope, and decline to
follow him for the future, after his refusal to give him satisfaction against you? For,
what entreaties, what gifts, what promises, and how many of them, are strongly urging him
to this step! whereas he has hitherto stood firmly upon a rock, and has victoriously, with
feelings of deep devotion, trodden under foot the whole that the world could make offer
of. One thing only do we fear, that him whom these offers of riches, and the whole of that
which in the estimation of men is precious, could not influence, the indignation of his
feelings of themselves may be enabled to overcome. Should this come to pass through your
agency, you will have entirely to adopt the lamentations of Jeremiah, and in future will
never by any means be enabled to deny unto your eyes a fountain of tears. Recollect,
therefore, if so it please you, that the design of your highness, if it should succeed,
will in every way conduce to the injury of our lord the pope and the holy Roman Church,
and, if so it please you, of yourself as well. But those who are near you, and have deep
designs, perhaps will not allow you to proceed upon this path. They entreat you to make
trial against our lord the king who you are, and, in all matters which belong to him, to
exercise your utmost possible power. For what power is there an object of fear to the
sinful, of dread to him who refuses to give satisfaction? We do not, indeed, say that our
lord the king has never done amiss, but we do say, and aver with confidence, that he has
always been ready to make satisfaction to our lord. The king, who has been so appointed by
the Lord, provides for the peace of his subjects in all things, that he may be enabled to
preserve the same for the churches and the people entrusted to him, while, at the same
time, the dignities which were the due of and accorded to the kings before him, he asks as
his own due and to be accorded to him. Wherefore, if any disagreement has arisen between
him and you, having been convened and warned thereon by the Supreme Pontiff, in his
paternal love, through our venerable brethren the bishops of London and Hereford, he has
not treated the same with superciliousness, but has shown that he does not require what
does not belong to him in all those matters in which any grievance has been put forward
relative to a church or any ecclesiastical person, and has humbly and meekly made answer
that he will conform to the judgment of the Church of his kingdom; which he is also
prepared to fulfill in deed, and to esteem it a pleasing obedience when he is advised to
correct the same, if he has been guilty of any offense towards God. And, not only to give
satisfaction, but also to make reparation, if required, is he prepared. If then, he is
ready both to give satisfaction and to make reparation to the Church in those matters
which concern the Church, and not in the least to shrink therefrom, thus bowing his neck
to the yoke of Christ, with what right, by what law, by what canon or interdict will you
oppress him or, which God forbid, with what weapon of the Gospel will you smite him? Not
to be carried away by impulse, but to be prudently regulated by the judgment, is a thing
worthy of praise. Wherefore, this is the common petition of us all, that you will not give
way to precipitate counsels, and thus betray us, but rather by your paternal kindness make
it your study to provide for the sheep entrusted to your charge, that they may enjoy life,
and peace, and security. Indeed, that is a subject of concern to us all, which we have
lately heard of as being done, preposterously as some think, against our brother the
bishop of Salisbury and his dean. Against them, following, as it seems to us, rather the
warmth of anger than the path of justice, you have hurled the penalties of suspension or
condemnation before an inquiry has taken place as to their faults. This is a new method of
giving judgment, hitherto, we trust, unknown to laws and canons, first to condemn for it,
and afterwards to take cognizance of the fault. This we beg you not to attempt to put in
practice against our lord the king and his kingdom, or against ourselves and the churches
and dioceses entrusted to our charge, to the detriment of our lord the pope, to the loss
and disgrace of the holy Church of Rome, and to the no slight increase of your own
confusion. To such a course on your part we oppose the remedy of appeal, having already in
the face of the Church personally made appeal to our lord the pope against our fears of
oppression. And now once more do we appeal to him in writing, and we name the day of the
Ascension of Our Lord as the appointed time for our appeal. Still, with all possible
duteousness, we entreat you, adopting more healthful counsels, to spare your own and our
labor and expense, and to make it your endeavor to place your case in such a position that
it may admit of a remedy. Father, we wish you farewell in the Lord.
The Letter of the Suffragans of the Church of Canterbury to
Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff.
"To their father and lord, the Supreme Pontiff Alexander, the bishops of the
province of Canterbury, and the beneficed clergy appointed over many places throughout
their dioceses, to their lord and father, the due service of love and obedience. We
believe, father, that your excellency will remember that, through our venerable brethren,
the bishops of London and Hereford, you did, by letter to them some time since directed,
convene your dutiful son, our most dear lord, the illustrious king of the English, and did
advise him, in your paternal love, as to the correction of certain points which seemed to
your Holiness in his kingdom to stand in need of correction. On receiving your mandate
with due reverence, as is well known to all, he did not thereupon give way to any
ebullition of anger, or with haughtiness despise to pay obedience thereto; but immediately
thereupon, feeling gratitude for your paternal correction he submitted himself to the
judgment of the Church, repeating upon each point the commands which, according to the
tenor of your mandate, had been carefully given to him thereupon; that he would be
obedient to the judgment of the Church of his kingdom, and that what in it should seem
worthy of correction, he would of his own praiseworthy counsel, and, with a duteousness in
a prince most commendable, correct. From this determination he has not withdrawn, nor does
he intend to fall away from his promise: but, on the contrary, whoever shall sit as judge,
whoever shall take cognizance, and whoever shall pronounce judgment, he himself, showing
respect to the Divine mandates, and not putting forward the pride of majesty, but rather,
like an obedient son, is ready in all things to submit to that judgment, and in a lawful
manner to show obedience to the sentence, and so prove himself a prince bound to respect
the laws. Wherefore, as he submits himself to the judgment of the Divine laws, it is not
necessary, either by interdict, or by threats, or by the goads of maledictions, to urge
him to give the satisfaction required; for his deeds do not in any way withdraw themselves
from the light, nor do they in any measure need to fly to the shade for concealment. For
the king, who is in faith a most devout Christian, in the bonds of chastity a most
exemplary husband, a preserver and defender of peace and justice of incomparable activity,
sets all his wishes thereupon, and is animated by every desire, that all scandals may be
removed from his kingdom, that all sins with their abominations may be banished therefrom,
that peace and justice may universally prevail, and that, amid profound security and
pleasing quietude, all things may rejoice and flourish under his rule. When, therefore, he
learned that by the enormous excesses of certain insolent clerks the peace of his kingdom
was in no slight degree disturbed, showing to the clergy all due reverence, he reported
their excesses to the bishops, the judges of the Church, in order that the spiritual sword
might come to the aid of the temporal, and the spiritual power might establish and
consolidate in the clergy that peace which he revered and cherished in the people. On this
occasion the zeal of both parties was made manifest; the judgment of the bishops taking
this position, that murder and similar crimes ought only to be punished in the clergy by
deprivation of orders. The king, on the other hand, was of opinion that this punishment
was not at all equal to the guilt, and that due care was not had for the establishment of
peace, if a reader or an acolyte should be allowed to kill any man illustrious for his
exemplary piety or his high station, and then come off safe with solely the loss of his
orders. The clergy, therefore, insisting that thus it has been ordained by heaven in favor
of their order, while our lord the king was for visiting guilt with, as he hopes, a
justifiable hatred, and striving to root peace still more deeply, a holy contention arose,
which is excused, we believe, before the Lord, by the single-mindedness of either party.
On his side, it is not from a love of dominion, nor with the object of crushing the
liberties of the Church, but from a wish to establish peace, that our lord the king has
made this attempt that the customs of the kingdom and the dignities of the kings which
have before his time been observed in the kingdom of England by ecclesiastical persons and
peacefully maintained, should be still upheld. And that, upon these points, the cord of
contention might not be prolonged to succeeding times, and public notice be attracted
thereto, the elders, bishops, and other great men of the kingdom, having been adjured
thereupon by their faith and their hopes in God, after having been informed upon the usage
in time past, the required immunities were openly discussed and published upon the
testimony of the chief men throughout the kingdom. This, then, is the cruelty of our lord
the king towards the Church of God which has been so loudly exclaimed against throughout
the whole kingdom, this is his persecution, this is his malignity, the reports of which
have been spread abroad among ourselves as well as in other quarters. Still, in all these,
if there is anything contained that is dangerous to the soul, anything offensive to the
Church, he has promised all along, and does most steadfastly promise, that, advised and
moved thereto by your authority, he will, with the most holy duteousness, by reason of his
reverence for Christ, and for the honor which he professes to pay to the Holy Church, whom
he confesses to be his mother, and for the salvation of his own soul, correct the same,
according to the advice of the Church of his realm. And, indeed, our father, our
aspirations for peace, would, as we hope, before this have obtained their wished-for end,
if the asperity of our father, the lord archbishop of Canterbury, had not kindled afresh
the anger that was now subdued and almost extinguished. For he, from whose long-suffering
we had hitherto hoped for peace, from whose moderation a renewal of his favor, has most
harshly and irreverently made an attack upon him whom he ought to have softened with his
admonitions, and to have subdued by well-deserving and meekness, by means of grievous and
threatening letters, little savoring of the devotedness of the father or the
long-suffering of the priest, upon the occasion of his lately taking proceedings against
certain disturbers of the peace. He has most bitterly threatened sentence of
excommunication against him, and the penalties of interdict against his kingdom. If, then,
his humility is thus rewarded, what is to be done with him when he is contumacious? If
ready duteousness and obedience are thus esteemed, in what way will punishment be
inflicted upon obstinate perverseness? To these grievous threats, things more grievous
have been added. For upon certain faithful and familiar friends of our lord the king, the
first nobles of the realm, who especially take part in the private counsels of the king,
and by whose hands the sovereigns intentions and the business of the kingdom are
carried out, he has passed sentence of excommunication, and has publicly denounced them as
excommunicated, when they have been neither cited nor defended, nor are, as they say,
conscious of having committed any fault, nor have been convicted or made confession
thereof. In addition to this, our venerable brother, the bishop of Salisbury, when absent
and undefended, having neither confessed to or been convicted of any crime, has been
suspended from the sacerdotal and episcopal office before the grounds of his suspension
had been submitted to the judgment of his brother bishops of the province, or indeed of
any one else. If, therefore, this method of passing judgment is to be carried out with
regard to the king, and with regard to the kingdom, in so preposterous, not to say,
irregular a manner, what are we to suppose may be the possible consequence? For the days
are evil, and find numerous pretexts for speaking ill of us, unless the bonds of peace and
of brotherly love, by which the sovereignty and the priesthood are held together, are
burst asunder, and we, together with 1 he clergy entrusted to our charge, depart hence
dispersed in exile, or else, which God forbid! withdraw from our fealty to you, and are
hurled into the evils of schism, and into the abyss of iniquity and disobedience. For this
is the shortest possible way to the entire destruction of religion, and to the subversion
and ruin of both clergy and people. Wherefore, let not, in the days of your Apostolate,
the Church be thus grievously subverted; let not our lord the king and the people his
servants, be, which God forbid! turned away from their obedience to you; let not the wrath
of our lord the archbishop of Canterbury, which, by the machinations of certain private
persons, is contrived to be leveled against him and his mandates, be enabled to work any
grievance against our lord the king, or his kingdom, or ourselves, or the churches
committed to our charge. To your highness, by word and by writing, we have appealed, and
have fixed on the Ascension of our Lord as the day of our appeal, choosing, in all
humility, to endure whatsoever shall in all respects be pleasing unto your Holiness,
rather than suffer daily grievances, till we are wearied, from his manifestations of
loftiness of spirit, our deserts not meriting the same. Beloved father in Christ, may the
Lord Almighty preserve the safety of your Church to avail even unto ages far
distant.
1168
In the year of grace 1168, being the fourteenth year of the reign of king Henry, son of
the empress Matilda, Richard, earl of Striguil, assembling a great army, invaded Ireland,
and subdued the greater part of it, with the assistance of Milo de Coggeham, a warlike
soldier, and then, making a treaty with the king at Dublin, received his daughter as his
wife, together with the kingdom of Dublin. In the same year died Guido of Crema the second
antipope, and was succeeded by John, abbot of Struine, who was styled pope Calixtus. In
the same year died Robert, earl of Leicester, chief justiciary of England.
The Letter of the blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, to
Gilbert, Bishop of London, with reference to the sentence pronounced against him.
Thomas, by the grace of God, archbishop of Canterbury, and legate of the
Apostolic See, to Gilbert, bishop of London - would indeed that he could say, his brother
- may he turn away from evil and do what is good. Your extravagances we have borne with,
so long as we could, and we hope that our endurance and long-suffering, which have been to
ourselves detrimental beyond measure, may not redound to the injury of the whole Church.
But inasmuch as you have always abused our patience, and have not been willing to listen
to our lord the pope or ourselves in the advice which concerned your salvation, but
rather, your obstinacy has been always increasing for the worse; at length, the
necessities of our duty and the requirements of the law forcing us thereto, we have, for
just and manifest causes, smitten and excommunicated you with the sentence of anathema,
and have cut you off from the body of Christ, which is the Church, until you make condign
satisfaction. Therefore, by virtue of your obedience, and at the peril of your salvation,
of your dignity and of your priestly orders, as the form of the Church prescribes, we do
command you to abstain from all communion with the faithful; lest by coming in contact
with you, the Lords flock may be contaminated to its ruin, whereas it ought to be
instructed by your teaching, and taught by your example how to live.
The Letter of Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, to the Chapter
of London, upon avoiding communion with those who are excommunicated
Thomas, by the grace of God, archbishop of Canterbury, and legate of the
Apostolic See, to the dean, archdeacon and clergy of the church of London, health, and may
they faithfully abstain from communion with excommunicated persons. That ought not to
escape your discernment, which almost the whole Latin world acknowledges, how
unrighteously, taking the opportunity of the general schism, Gilbert, bishop of London,
our brother, would that we could say our true brother, has acted in the cause of the
Church, and has endeavored to disturb the peace thereof. Still, with great longsuffering
we have hitherto endured this, while he has always abused the same, and to his manifold
errors has added the crime of disobedience as well. We, therefore, being able no longer to
conceal this from ourselves, the necessities of our duty, and the requirements of the law
forcing us thereto, have publicly excommunicated him, and we do enjoin you in virtue of
your obedience, and at the peril of your priestly orders and of your salvation, forthwith
to abstain from all communion with him, as befits the faithful in Christ. Likewise, under
the same penalties, we do order you to avoid those whose names are hereunder written. With
a like sentence; also, God willing, we shall, on the day of the Ascension, condemn those
who have been solemnly cited by us, unless in the meantime they shall make satisfaction,
namely, Gilbert, archdeacon of Canterbury, and Robert, his vicar, Richard de Ivechester,
Richard de Lucy, William Giffard, Adam de Cheringes, and those who, either at the
kings command or of their own rashness have taken possession of the property of
ourselves, or of our clergy, as also those who, by their aid or counsel, are known to have
instigated the feelings of our lord the king against the liberties of the Church, and to
the proscription and plunder of the innocent, and those who hinder the nuncios of our lord
the pope, and of ourselves, From ministering to the necessities of the Church. Let not
Your heart be disturbed hereat, or be afraid, inasmuch as by the mercy of God we are safe,
under the protection of the Apostolic See, against the backslidings of the malignant and
the subterfuges of appeals. These are the names of those excommunicated Jocelyn,
bishop of Salisbury, earl Hugh, Ranulph de Broc, Thomas Fitz-Bernard, Robert de Broc,
clerk, Hugh de Saint Clair, Letardus de Norfleet clerk, Nigel de Saccaville, and Richard,
the brother of William de Hastings, who has taken possession of our church at New Coton.
Farewell.
The Letter of the blessed Thomas, the archbishop, to Robert,
bishop of Hereford.
Thomas, by the grace of God, the humble servant of the church of Canterbury, to
his venerable brother Robert, by the same grace, bishop of Hereford, health and constant
perseverance in justice and in the defense of mother Church. For the glory of the Saints,
and for the damnation of the wicked it is necessary that offenses must come: in
tribulations the elect are to be proved, who by patience gain for themselves a crown, and
improve others by their example. But woo unto those by whom offences do come! Whereas, the
bishop of London has not abstained from giving offence but among other works of his
notable wickedness, since he has been delivered up unto Satan, has even gone so far as,
with insolent audacity and parricidal impiety, to lift up his heel against his and your
mother, the holy church of Canterbury, in presuming to say that he owes no submission and
will pay no obedience to him by whom he was translated to his see; and to the weight of
his condemnation has added this, that he would be for causing the transfer of the
archiepiscopal throne to the see of London - we do therefore entreat your brotherhood, in
whom we have full confidence, with all possible affection to oppose the shield in defense
of your mother, against this son of Belial, who in the front of other Gentiles, like
another Goliah of Gath, has not been ashamed to come forth alone, by the Lords
working, from the camp of the uncircumcised, and has not feared to challenge to the combat
the whole community of the sons of the church of Canterbury, while he is thirsting for the
blood of their mother, and is forsaking the unity of catholic concord. For he has written
to our lord the pope, on behalf of our brother the archbishop of York, beseeching him with
lying and deceitful testimony that he will allow him to bear the cross throughout our
province, supposing that some great gain will be the result, if through hatred to our
person he shall be enabled in any way to inflict an injury upon the Church to which by his
canonical profession he owes duty and obedience. But Christ, who from its first
foundation, amid various storms and many and great tempests, has guided and cherished the
church of Canterbury, has wrought mercifully in that, in full consistory, his falsehood
and wickedness have been, by means of unexceptionable witnesses, made manifest. Wherefore,
in the first place I return thanks to God, and in the next to yourselves and the rest of
our brethren, who have withheld yourselves from all communion with him from the time that
it was known that he had been condemned to excommunication, and have ordered by public
notice throughout your see, not only him, but the rest of those who have been
excommunicated among you, to be avoided. In this has been made manifest your fidelity, and
the constancy of your virtue has shone forth, which has determined that the threats of
public power and of officials, equally with their blandishments, ought to be postponed to
the commands of God. You have set at liberty your consciences, you have preserved your
good name, while, both by the words of truth, and by the example of fortitude, you have
taught that it is more becoming to obey God than man. Inasmuch, therefore, as the love of
God, diffused so greatly by his Holy Spirit in your hearts, has gone forth to the public
as a testimony of your well-doing, all servile fear being repulsed and laid aside, let
this sincerity of yours feel assured that God will speedily beat down Satan under your
feet, and will bring the contest to a happy issue; and this, too, the more speedily and
gloriously, the more fervently and constantly your truth shall have been made manifest in
the course on which you have begun. Wherefore, in the love of God, we do beg and entreat
of you, and, by your fidelity, by your obedience, and by the sincere affection which you
entertain towards your mother, the church of Canterbury, adjure you; that in order to
maintain the dignity and the rights of the church of Canterbury to which you have made
profession of fidelity, you will arise and come to our rescue against the above-named
archbishop, and send in writing to our lord the pope, and to the court, a testimony of the
truth, such as it befits her sons to bear for their mother church. For he who shall
withhold it on the occasion of so unjust an attack, beyond all doubt ought to be esteemed
as unfaithful, and worse than unfaithful, and one against whom right would demand that all
the faithful should wage war even unto the death. Nor indeed can this course be productive
of any danger, inasmuch as the truth is clear, and according to the saying, is manifest
even to the blind. But inasmuch as he is cursed who withdraws his sword from blood, and
the evil-doer is to be scourged in order that the wise man may be instructed to his
salvation; whoever does not meet the parricide with a stone and a sword, renders himself
subject to the curses of the law. For he appears to give his consent thereto, who does
not, when he can, reason with, or hinder him who commits such excesses. And, in order that
it may not be more stringently demanded at our hands, if we any longer conceal from
ourselves the great and manifest errors of those who persecute the Church and whom now for
a period of nearly a whole five years, we have endured with great long-suffering, in hopes
that they might come to a feeling of repentance, we denounce to your brotherhood as
publicly excommunicated, Geoffrey, archdeacon of Canterbury, and Robert his vicar, Richard
de Ivechester, William Giffard, Earl Hugh, Richard de Lucy, Adam de Cheringes, as also
those who against the rules of the sacred canons have received ecclesiastical offices or
benefices from lay hands, or taken unlawful possession of them of their own authority; and
likewise those who hinder the messages of our lord the pope, and of ourselves, from
treating the necessities of the Church. We do therefore, by the authority of our lord the
pope, and of ourselves, command you that you will hold, and will cause to be held
throughout your bishopric, these persons in such wise as the discipline of the sacred
canons has prescribed in the case of persons solemnly excommunicated. We bid your
brotherhood farewell in the Lord, and may it remember in the prayers of the holy to pray
for us and the cause of God which is in our hands.
1169
In the year of grace 1169, being the fifteenth year of the reign of king Henry, son of
the empress Matilda, ... Henry, king of England, fearing that the blessed Thomas, the
archbishop of Canterbury, would pronounce sentence of excommunication against his own
person, and lay an interdict on his kingdom, appealed in behalf of himself and his
kingdom, to the presence of the Supreme Pontiff; and sending envoys to him, requested that
he would send one or two legates a latere to England, to enquire into the dispute which
existed between him and Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury, and terminate it to the
honor of God and of the Holy Church; and also that the persons above-named, whom the
archbishop of Canterbury had excommunicated, might in the meantime be absolved. Wherefore
our lord the pope wrote to the following effect:
The Letter of pope Alexander to Henry, king of England.
Alexander the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Henry, the illustrious
king of the English, health and the Apostolic benediction. The envoys sent by your
mightiness, namely, our well-beloved sons Robert Cumin and Ralph de Tameworde, persons
devoted to ourselves and to the Church of God, and, as we believe, most faithful servants
to your royal highness, together with the letter which your excellency transmitted unto us
by their hands, we have received with the more kindly feelings, and have with the greater
favor and honor granted the prayer thereof, the more fully we were sensible that they had
been sent by a mighty prince and most Christian king: to whom, indeed, we wish, so far as
with the will of God we may, all glory and honor; and whose advantage, in every way in
which we becomingly may, both we and our brethren and the whole Church wish for the more
ardently, the more that in our greatest necessity we have experienced your most devoted
sincerity towards us. For our memory at no time hereafter will be able possibly to lose
the recollection of the marks of duty shown to us by you at a time so opportune, nor will
they by any lapse of time be overshadowed in the sight of the church. We have thought
proper to send certain persons as legates a latere, according to your request, although it
seemed to us most inconvenient and most difficult at this time to part with any, when we
are standing in need of the presence and counsel of our brethren, and especially of those
whom you require, being not unmindful however, as we have already mentioned, of your
praiseworthy and distinguished dutifulness to us. These we have thought fit to send to the
presence of your highness, with full powers to take cognizance of and give judgment upon
the ecclesiastical matters which are the subject of dispute between you and our venerable
brother, the archbishop of Canterbury, as also, the controversy which exists between the
said archbishop and the bishops of your kingdom with regard to the appeal made unto
ourselves, and such other matters in dispute in your kingdom as they shall be enabled to
bring to a satisfactory conclusion, and, according as the Lord shall give them His
assistance therein, to terminate the same in a canonical manner. We shall by all means
also forbid the said archbishop in any way to attempt to molest, or disturb, or disquiet
either yourself, or your people, or the kingdom entrusted to your government, until these
matters in dispute shall have been brought to a legitimate conclusion. But, if the
aforesaid archbishop shall in the meantime, pronounce any sentence upon you, or your
kingdom, or any person in your realm, we do pronounce the same to be null and void, and
not in any way to affect you. To put an end to such a course, and as a proof of our
wishes, you are, in case necessity shall arise for so doing, to produce this present
letter. But, otherwise, we do beg of your serene highness, and strongly recommend you, not
to let this letter or the tenor thereof be known to any person whatsoever, but to keep it
entirely secret. And as for those persons of your household and your advisers, whom the
said archbishop has already subjected to sentence of excommunication, the parties sent by
us will, with the Lords assistance, absolve them. Put if, in the meantime, any one
of them shall be in fear of immediate death, we do grant that he may be absolved by any
bishop, or religious and discreet man, on the oath being administered to him, according to
the custom of the Church, that if he shall recover he will consider himself bound to obey
our mandates.
Upon this, the above-mentioned legates of our lord the pope having arrived in Normandy,
certain of the suffragans of the church of Canterbury wrote to the following effect:
[Letter of the Suffragans of Canterbury to the Papal
Legates]
Cure is preferable to complaint. But, our sins requiring the same, our holy
mother the Church has been placed between the hammer and the anvil, and, unless the Divine
mercy shall look down upon her, will shortly feel the blow of that hammer. For, the
wickedness of the schismatics wax ing strong, for defending his faith and for his love of
justice, our father has been exiled by our other father from his country, and the hardened
mind of Pharaoh forbids him liberty to return to his see. Added to this, in things
spiritual as well as in things temporal the church of Canterbury is sadly impoverished.
Like a ship upon the sea deprived of her pilot, she is buffeted to and fro, and is exposed
to the winds, while, by the royal authority, her shepherd is forbidden to remain within
the territories of his own country. He, wise though he may be, at his own peril and that
of his Church, as also of ourselves, has, together with himself, exposed us to the
bitterness of penalties and of labors; not reflecting that to use soothing methods will
not detract from his own power. And further, although with all our affections we
sympathize with his sufferings, he has proved ungrateful towards us, and, although we are
in the same condemnation, ceases not to persecute us. For, between himself and the most
serene king of the English, a certain controversy arose: at the desire of both, a certain
day was fixed upon, that, upon the same, with the mediation of justice, an end might be
put to this controversy. Upon that day, in obedience to the royal command, the
archbishops, bishops, and other heads of the Church, were convoked, in order that the more
extensive the council then held, the more manifest might be the exposure of fraud and
malice. On the day appointed, this disturber of the kingdom and of the Church presents
himself before the face of the Catholic king, and, being distrustful of the nature of his
own merits, arms himself with the resemblance of the cross of our Lord, as though about to
come into the presence of a tyrant. Nor yet even at this was the kings majesty
offended, but he entrusted the judgment of his cause to the fidelity of the bishops, that
so he might be free from all suspicion. It remained, therefore, for the bishops to end the
dispute by pronouncing judgment, that they might thereby bring the disputants to a
reconciliation, and bury in oblivion the causes of their dissensions. He, however, came
thither, and forbade sentence to be pronounced upon himself before the king, that so the
royal mind might be the more violently inflamed to anger. The result of these excesses is,
that the author thereof is in duty bound to expose himself to the vengeance of every one,
being ashamed to deprecate a merited retribution, in not pausing at offending a most
powerful prince in the days of the persecution of the Church. For it is his offence that
has redoubled the weight of the blows of persecution. It would have been better for
himself if he had placed a curb upon his prosperity, lest, while striving presumptuously
to arrive at the summit of felicity, he might, in return for his presumption, be thrust
down to a lower place. And, if the misfortunes of the Church did not move him, he ought at
least to have been dissuaded from acting in opposition to the king by the advancement,
both in riches and honors, which the king had bestowed upon him. Whereas, on the other
hand, he faces him as an adversary, and objects, that for him to stand in judgment before
the king would be a diminution of the dignity of the Apostolic See. But if he was not
aware that in that judgment there was but little derogatory to the dignity of the Church,
still, it was his duty to have concealed his feelings for a time, in order that peace
might be restored unto the Church. Again, another objection that he takes, ascribing to
himself the title of father, is, that it seems to savor of arrogance for sons to meet
together for the condemnation of their father, a thing that they ought by no means to do.
But, if he really had been a father, in the first place his humility would have moderated
the pride of his sons, in order that hatred of the father might not spring up in those
sons. Therefore, most holy fathers, it is clear from what is stated above, that our
adversary ought to fail in his presences, being actuated by the malignity of his hatred
alone, and supported by no reasonable grounds whatsoever, and inasmuch as the care of all
the churches is known at present to rest upon ourselves.
When Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury, and some of his fellow-exiles, came to an
interview with the legates, on the octave of Saint Martin, between Gisors and Trie, the
legates discoursed at length with the archbishop on the Christian charity of our lord the
pope, the anxiety which the Roman Church had hitherto manifested in his behalf, their own
labors and the perils of their journey, the mighty power of the king of England, the
necessities of the Church, the wickedness of the times, the love and kindness which the
king of England had manifested towards him, and the honor which the king had always paid
him. They also added the complaints, and the injuries which the king of England complained
that he had suffered at his hands, laying it to his charge, among other things, that he
had excited the king of the Franks to wage war against him, and sought his advice how they
might be enabled to appease such vast indignation, because they were well aware that no
remedy could be applied to such dangers without great humility, moderation, and marks of
respect.
But the archbishop of Canterbury, in all humility and meekness of spirit, after duly
returning thanks to our lord the pope and to them, made answer to each point, upon true
and probable grounds, showing the emptiness of the kings complaints, and fully
explaining the injuries and intolerable losses of the Church. And, inasmuch as they
required of him humility and marks of respect, he answered that he would most willingly
show all humility, and the greatest possible honor and respect, saving always the honor of
God, the liberties of the Church, the dignities belonging to his own person, and the
possessions of the churches; and if anything should seem to them to require to be added,
or to be taken away, or to be changed, he entreated that they would give him their advice,
it being his fixed determination to acquiesce therein, saving always the conditions of his
profession and orders. To this, however, they made answer, that they had come not to
advise him, but to seek his advice, and to prepare the way for a reconciliation.
They also made inquiry of the archbishop, whether, in the presence of the legates, he was
willing to promise to observe the customs which the kings had made use of in the times of
his predecessors, and thus, all complaints being hushed up, to be reinstated in the
kings favor, and return to his see and the performance of his duties, and the
enjoyment of peace by him and his people? To this the archbishop made answer, that no one
of his predecessors, under any of the kings, had been bound to make this profession, and
that he, with the help of God, would never promise to observe customs, which were openly
opposed to the law of God, and, besides that, rooted out the privileges derived from the
Apostles, and destroyed the liberties of the Church; which, also, our lord the pope, at
Sens, in their presence, and in that of many others, had condemned, and some of which, he
himself subsequently thereto, following the authority of our lord the pope, had subjected,
together with those who observed them, to the penalties of excommunication, as the
Catholic church in many councils is known to have done.
Upon this, he was asked to promise, if not a confirmation of them, at least connivance and
toleration on his part, or, not making mention in any way of the customs, to return to his
see and his former state of tranquility. To this the archbishop made answer: It is a
proverb among the people of our nation, that silence looks like assent:
and observed that, while the king would appear to be left in possession of these customs,
and would unjustly and violently compel the Church to the observance of them, if all
opposition should cease, through silence being obtained on his part, the authority of the
legates being interposed for that purpose, the king would immediately appear to himself
and to others to have gained his point in the contest. He also added, that he would go
into exile, be perpetually proscribed, and, if God so ordained it, die, in defense of
justice, rather than obtain a peace of this description, to the loss of his salvation, and
to the prejudice of the liberties of the Church. For that there is a God who, in such a
case, forbids the priesthood to be silent, and, in case they dissemble, has prepared hell
for their portion, where there will be no dissembling of their punishment. The book of the
abominations was also read by him, and he made inquiry of the cardinals, whether it was
lawful for such things to be put in practice by Christians, much more concealed from their
pastors?
They then proceeded to another question, inquiring whether he would be willing to abide by
their judgment upon the matters in dispute between himself and the king? To this he made
answer, that he fully confided in the integrity of his cause; and that when he himself and
his people, who had been for a long time left destitute, should have been fully restored
to the enjoyment of everything, taking into consideration causes, and circumstances, and
times, he would readily obey the law, and that he neither could nor would decline it, but,
on the contrary, both where, and when, and how, it should be his duty, would submit to the
judgment of him or them, by whose judgment, whether one or more, our lord the pope should
have made it his determination to abide. That, in the meantime, he and his people could
not be urged on to litigation, and not even poverty would have this effect, even though he
should have been in want of victuals, had he not been aided with money by the most
Christian king of the Franks. Yet he was unwilling, at the first glance, to shrink from
judgment, even though he might have the best possible grounds for suspecting either of
them, lest he might thereby seem to justify the kings cause, nor yet did he desire
to engage in litigation before he had been entirely restored, in order that he might
thereby be enabled to support his own cause.
1170
In the year 1170, being the sixteenth year of the reign of king Henry, son of the
empress Matilda, the said king Henry kept the solemn festival at Nantes, in Brittany, on
the day of the Nativity of our Lord, which took place on the fifth day of the week. After
this, the king made a hostile attack upon the lands of earl Eudo, and laid waste nearly
the whole thereof, and compelled earl Eudo himself to surrender.
After this, in the first week of the month of March, he crossed over from Normandy to
England, between Barbeflet and Portsmouth; on which passage, after being tossed about by a
most dreadful storm, from the hour of midnight until the ninth hour of the following day,
with great difficulty he reached England and landed at Portsmouth. But nearly all the
other ships that were with him were broken and shattered, and reached various ports of
England just as the strength of the gale drove them along. One of them, however, which was
a better and more recently built vessel than all the rest, but more unfortunate, went
down, together with Henry de Agnelles and his two sons, Gilbert de Sulemny, and master
Ralph de Beaumont, a physician, and one of the kings household, together with other
men and women, to the number of four hundred.
In the same year, king Henry passed the festival of Easter at Windsor. ... After this, at
the feast of Saint Barnabas the Apostle, the said king held a great council at London,
with the nobles and chief men of his kingdom, upon the coronation of his son, Henry; and
on the Lords day following, which took place on the seventeenth day before the
calends of July, the clergy and people assembling and agreeing thereto, he himself caused
the above-named Henry, his son, to be crowned and consecrated king at Westminster, by
Roger, archbishop of York, who was assisted in this duty by Hugh, bishop of Durham,
Walter, bishop of Rochester, Gilbert, bishop of London, and Jocelyn, bishop of Salisbury;
no mention whatever being made of the blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, to whom by
right of his see the coronation and consecration belonged. The day after this coronation,
the king, his father, made William, king of the Scots, and David, his brother, and the
earls and barons of the kingdom, pay homage to the new king, and swear fealty to him
against all men, saving their fealty to himself
When it became known to Louis, king of the Franks, that his daughter Margaret had
not been crowned together with her husband, the king of England, he assembled a large
army, and hostilely invaded Normandy. On hearing of this, the king of England, the father,
leaving the king his son behind in England, crossed over into Normandy, and made peace
with king Louis, at a conference held at Vendôme, on the festival of Saint Mary
Magdalene, promising that next year he would cause his son to be crowned again, and his
wife with him. On returning from this conference, the king, the father, came into
Normandy, and was attacked at Motamgran by a grievous malady, on which he divided his
dominions among his sons in the following manner:
He gave to his son Richard the dukedom of Aquitaine, and all the lands which he had
received with his mother, queen Eleanor; and to his son Geoffrey he gave Brittany, with
Alice, the daughter of earl Conan, whom he had obtained as his wife, from Louis, king of
the Franks. To king Henry, his son, he gave Normandy, and all the lands which had belonged
to his father, Geoffrey, earl of Anjou. These three sons he also made do homage to Louis.
king of France. To John, his youngest son, who was as yet an infant, he gave the earldom
of Mortaigne. A considerable time after this, king Henry, the father, on recovering from
his illness, went on a pilgrimage to Saint of Roquemadour.
In the meantime, the blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, now passing his sixth year
in exile, made complaint to Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff, against Roger, the archbishop
of York, and the above-named four bishops who had assisted him at the coronation of the
new king, in the province of Canterbury; whereupon, at his instance, the Supreme Pontiff
excommunicated the bishops of London, Rochester, and Salisbury and the archbishop of York,
and suspended Hugh, the bishop of Durham, from all his episcopal duties. For which purpose
he wrote to them to the following effect:
The Letter of pope Alexander to Roger, archbishop of York, and
Hugh, bishop of Durham.
Alexander, the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brethren,
Roger, archbishop of York, and Hugh, bishop of Durham, health and the Apostolical
benediction. Although you have shown yourselves praiseworthy and pleasing unto us in many
respects, and we do sincerely embrace you in the arms of Christian love; still, for all
this, we ought not to omit that those things which have been done by you, and which,
remain uncorrected, beget death, and to remind you, and correct you in our zeal for what
is right, as the Lord says by His prophet, When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt
surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his
wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, and his blood
will I require at shine hand. For the persecution of the English Church, and the
diminution of her liberties which have taken place through the conduct of your king,
whether of his own accord, or whether rather at the suggestion of others, have for this
long time past greatly afflicted our mind, and caused us no small grief and anxiety. For
whereas it was his duty to have thought of correcting those things which have been
wrongfully done by his predecessors, rather adding prevarications to prevarications, he
has both placed and established customs thus evil under the protection of the royal
dignity. Under these, both the liberties of the Church are destroyed, and the decrees of
the successors of the Apostles are, as far as possible, deprived of their validity. Nor
has he thought that it ought to suffice, if under him the Divine laws in the kingdom of
England should be reduced to silence and to nothingness, unless he should also transmit
his sins to his heirs, and cause his kingdom long to exist without the ephod and without
the pall. For this reason it is that these usurpations, so unrighteous and so utterly
unjustifiable, he has caused to be confirmed by your oath, and by those of others of our
brethren and fellow bishops, and has pronounced as an enemy whatever person should think
fit to differ from these unrighteous ordinances. This is proved by the exile of our
venerable brother, Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury; this is also strewn by the
dreadful proscription of his clergy and kindred, and of those even who, still hanging at
their mothers breasts, were crying in the cradle. Even the fear of death is appealed
to, if the mind of any one is aroused, in contradiction to these enactments, a desire to
obey the Divine laws. We ourselves, by whose judgment those prevarications ought to have
been corrected or punished, were with much urgency on the occasion of a time of trouble
pressed to confirm the same. Strong endeavors were also made, and no efforts were spared,
that we might, at a time when they had not been explained to us, confer upon these
usurpations, the confirmation of the Apostolical authority. This indeed took place at the
very beginning. In process of time, however, the archbishop above-named being sent into
exile for having performed the duty of his pastoral office, and frequently requesting from
our assistance the customary aid of the Roman Church, we sent to the king
before-mentioned, some of the best and most eminent of our brethren; we also sent other
ecclesiastical persons, and did imagine that by our humility and forbearance his obduracy
might be surmounted: and so it should have been, for Solomon says, By long
forbearance is a prince softened, and a soft tongue breaketh anger. But he, trifling
with our long-suffering by the manifold arts of his envoys, seems so utterly to have
hardened his heart against our advice, that he will not curb his wrath against the
above-named archbishop, nor allow any portion to be withdrawn, of those unrighteous
statutes, but will rather afflict the church of Canterbury with the entire loss of its
possessions, and by these means despoil it of its ancient dignity in the ecclesiastical
office. For lately, when he wished his son to be crowned, despising the said archbishop,
to whom that duty is said of ancient right to belong, by your hand, brother archbishop, he
caused the crown of the kingdom to be placed on his head in the province of another.
Besides, at his coronation, no surety was given, according to usual custom, for preserving
the liberties of the Church, or indeed, according to report, even demanded; but on the
contrary, it is said to have been confirmed upon oath, that it is the duty of all to keep
inviolate the customs of the kingdom, which they say were established by his grandfather,
and by reason of which the dignity of the Church is endangered. Although in acting thus,
the obstinacy of the above-named king greatly vexes us, yet we are still more moved by the
weakness of yourselves and of our other fellow-bishops, who, and with grief we say it,
have become as it were rams having no horns, and have fled without courage from before the
face of their pursuer. For although, brother archbishop, it might possibly have been
allowable for you to act thus in your own province, still, how it was allowable for you in
the province of another, and of him in especial, who was almost the only one to go forth
in exile for justice and thereby to give glory to God, we are unable to discover either
upon the grounds of common sense, or according to the constitutions OI the holy fathers.
But should any one, by way of excuse for so great a betrayal, make it an objection that in
other kingdoms many and grave enormities are perpetrated, in truth we can make answer,
that we find no kingdom that as yet has rushed into so great a contempt of the Divine
laws, as to cause enormities so manifest to be promulgated by the writings and oaths of
bishops, unless, indeed, any one should have the impudence to bring that forward, of which
the schismatics who have been lately cut off from communion with the faithful, have with
damnable and unheard-of pride been guilty. Wherefore, inasmuch as, according to the
words of the prophet, the evil has been done among you, to an extent beyond all other
provinces in his usurpations, and after having confirmed these unrighteous customs you
have not aroused yourselves to yourselves the shield of faith, in order that you might
stand in the house of the Lord in the day of battle, but have laid your bodies on the
ground, that there might be a way for him to pass over you; and lest if we should be any
longer silent, we might, together with you, be involved on the day of judgment in the same
sentence of damnation, by the authority of the Roman Church, of which with the aid of the
Lord we are the servant, we do suspend you from all duties of the episcopal office, hoping
that at least, under discipline and paternal correction, you will return to a sense of
your duty, and, as you ought, apply yourselves to defending the liberties of the Church.
But if not even then you resume the zeal that ought to belong to your ecclesiastical
office, then shall we, by the Lords assistance, have recourse to that which is now
impending over you. Be it then your care that that is not said to you, which was said to
one by the prophet: Because thou hast rejected what is holy, I will also reject
thee, so that thou shalt be no priest to me. For, as we, God so disposing, according
to His good pleasure, are seen to occupy the place of him who could be withheld from
preaching the word of God neither by stripes nor by bonds, we are bound, not under an
ambiguous expectation of peace, to place the money of the Divine word which has been
entrusted to us in a napkin, and so keep it tied up until the hour for getting in the
profit thereof shall arrive, and the creditor coming shall strictly demand of us an
account thereof.
In the meantime, Louis, king of the Franks, and the archbishops, bishops, and nobles of
the kingdom of France, besought the Roman Pontiff in behalf of the archbishop of
Canterbury, by the love which they bore him, and with protestations of implicit obedience,
no longer to admit the excuses and delays which the king of England continually put
forward, as he loved the kingdom of France and the honor of the Apostolic See. William,
the bishop of Sens, also, being astonished at the desolate condition of the English
church, repaired to the Apostolic See, and obtained of the Roman Church, that, an end
being put to all appeals, the king of the English should be subjected to excommunication,
and his kingdom to interdict, unless peace were restored to the church of Canterbury.
Thus, at last, it pleased God, the dispenser of all things, to recompense the merits of
His dearly beloved Thomas, and to crown his long labors with the victorious palm of
martyrdom. He, therefore, brought the king of England to a better frame of mind, who,
through the paternal exhortation of our lord the pope, and by the advice of the king of
the Franks and of many bishops, received the archbishop again into favor, and allowed him
to return to his church.
Accordingly, peace was established between the archbishop and the king of England, on the
fourth day before the ides of October, being the second day of the week, at Montluet,
between Tours and Amboise, upon which, everything being arranged, they returned, each to
his place. Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury, returned to the abbey of Saint Columba,
where he had resided for nearly the last four years. But, one day while the said
archbishop lay there, prostrated in prayer before a certain altar in the church, he heard
a voice from heaven saying to him, Arise quickly, and go unto thy see, and thou
shalt glorify my Church with thy blood, and thou shalt be glorified in me.
Thereupon, at the commencement of the seventh year of his banishment, when he was now
beloved by God and sanctified by spiritual exercises, and rendered more perfect by the
sevenfold grace of the Holy Ghost, he hastened with all speed to return to his see. For
the pious father was unwilling any longer to leave the church of Canterbury desolate; or
else it was, because, as some believe, he had seen in the spirit the glories of his
contest drawing to a close, or through a fear that, by dying elsewhere, he might be
depriving his own see of the honor of his martyrdom.
As for his life, it was perfectly unimpeachable before God and man. To arise before
daybreak did not seem to him a vain thing, as he knew that the Lord has promised a crown
to the watchful. For every day he arose before daybreak, while all the rest were asleep,
and entering his oratory would pray there for a long time; and then returning, he would
awake his chaplains and clerks from their slumbers, and, the matins and the hours of the
day being chanted, devoutly brats the mass; and every day and night he received three or
five flagellations from the hand of a priest. After the celebration of the mass, every day
he re-entered his oratory, and, shutting the door after him, devoted himself to prayer
with abundant tears; and no one but God alone knew the manner in which he afflicted his
flesh. And thus did he do daily unto his flesh until the hour for dining, unless some
unusual solemnity or remarkable cause prevented it. On coming forth from his oratory he
would come to dine among his people, not that he might sate his body with costly food, but
that he might make his household cheerful thereby, and that he might fill the poor ones of
the Lord with good things, whom, according to his means, he daily increased in numbers.
And although costly and exquisite food and drink were set before him, still, his only food
and drink were bread and water.
One day, while the archbishop was sitting at the table of Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff,
a person who was aware of this secret, placed before him a cup full of water. On the
Supreme Pontiff taking it up, and tasting it, he found it to be the purest wine, and
delicious to drink; on which he said: I thought that this was water; and on
replacing the cup before the archbishop, the wine immediately returned to its former taste
of water. Oh wondrous change by the right hand of the Most High! Every day, when the
archbishop arose from dinner, unless more important business prevented him, he always
devoted himself to reading the Scriptures until the hour of vespers, at the time of
sunset. His bed was covered with soft coverlets and cloths of silk, embroidered on the
surface with gold wrought therein; and while other persons were asleep, he alone used to
lie on the bare floor before his bed, repeating psalms and hymns, and never ceasing from
prayers, until at last, overcome with fatigue, he would gradually recline his head upon a
stone put beneath it in place of a pillow: and thus would his eyes enjoy sleep, while his
heart was ever watchful for the Lord. His inner garment was of coarse sackcloth made of
goats hair; with which his whole body was covered from the arms down to the knees.
But his outer garments were remarkable for their splendor and extreme costliness, to the
end that, thus deceiving human eyes, he might please the sight of God. There was no
individual acquainted with this secret of his way of living, with the exception of two -
one of whom was Robert, canon of Merton, his chaplain, and the name of the other was Brun,
who had charge of his sackcloth garments, and washed them when necessary; and they were
bound by their words and oaths that, during his life, they would disclose these facts to
no one.
After the transactions above related, archbishop Thomas came to Witsand, but, upon hearing
that Roger, archbishop of York, and the bishops of London and Salisbury, were at Dover,
for the purpose of meeting him, he was unwilling to proceed thither, but landed in England
at Sandwich. Having thus crossed the sea, the archbishop and future martyr was received in
his church with great thankfulness, and with honor and glory, and especially by the monks,
in solemn procession, all weeping for joy, end exclaiming, as they gave thanks,
Blessed is he, who cometh in the name of the Lord. But he, like a good father,
receiving them all with the kiss of peace, admonished them with paternal exhortations, and
instructed them to love the brotherhood, to obey God, to persevere in doing good, and to
strive even to the death for the law of God.
At this period, Henry, king of England, the son of king Henry, was in England, and the
Nativity of our Lord was approaching, which that king, with the nobles of his land, was
about to celebrate with the usual solemnities. To this celebration it was the intention of
the blessed Thomas, although not invited, to go. However, when he had come to London,
Jocelyn, the queens brother, came to him, and forbade him, in the kings name,
to go any further, upon which the blessed Thomas returned to Canterbury.
Accordingly, again was this champion of Christ afflicted with injuries and hardships still
more atrocious, beyond measure and number, and, by public proclamation, enjoined not to go
beyond the limits of his church. Whoever showed to him, or to any one of his household, a
cheerful countenance, was held to be a public enemy. However, all these things the man of
God endured with great patience, and staying among those of his own household, edified
them all with his conversation and with words of exhortation: and once more the archbishop
took his seat in his church, fearless, and awaiting the hour at which he should receive
from God the crown of martyrdom. For, being warned by many beforehand, he knew that his
life would be but short, and that death was at the gates.
Upon this, as though he had but that moment commenced to live, he used all endeavors,
by spiritual exercises, to redeem the moments of his past life; and knowing that this life
is but a journey and a warfare, in order that he might be sanctified in body, and
disembarrassed in spirit by vices, armed with virtues, he girded himself up for the race,
and prepared himself for the struggle of the conflict. Therefore, in finishing his race,
he ran not as uncertainly, and, in fighting well, he did not fight as
one that beateth the air. Then almost all his thoughts and discourse were upon the
end of this life and the troubles of its path. Sometimes, also, in his discourses
delivered to his brethren, the monks of the church of Canterbury, and the clergy and
people of that city, he would say: I have come to you to die among you. And
sometimes he would say: In this church there are martyrs, and, before long, God will
increase the number of them. This he said, signifying by what death he should
glorify the Lord.
1171
In the year of grace 1171, being the seventeenth year of the reign of king Henry, son
of the empress Matilda, the said king was at Bure, in Normandy, on the day of the Nativity
of our Lord, being the sixth day of the week, and queen Eleanor and his sons, Richard,
Geoffrey, and John, were with him. In the same year, his son Henry, king of England, was
in England. On the same day, the blessed Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury, being then
at Canterbury, after delivering a sermon to the people, excommunicated Robert de Broc,
who, the day before, had cut off the tail of one of his sumpter-horses.
Hardly had the father been residing one month in his see, when lo! on the fifth day of the
feast of the Nativity of our Lord, there came to Canterbury four knights, or rather sworn
satellites of Satan, whose names were as follow: William de Tracy, Hugh de Morville,
Richard Brito, and Reginald Fitz-Urse, men of families remarkable for their
respectability, but destined, by their daring to commit so enormous a crime, to blemish
the glories of knighthood and the honors of their ancestors with perpetual ignominy.
Accordingly, these persons made their way into the presence of the archbishop, and, as
nothing salutary was the object of their message, in the malice they had conceived they
omitted pronouncing any salutation, and addressed him in an insolent and haughty manner.
Threats were exchanged on both sides, and threat was answered with threat. At last,
leaving behind them abuse and insults, they departed: but, immediately after, they
returned and broke into the cloister of the monks, with a large retinue of armed men,
being also armed themselves. Now the archbishop, with meekness and self-possession, had
gone before them to the choir of the church, the monks having entreated, nay, forced him,
on account of the solemnity of the season, to perform the service at vespers. When he
perceived these armed men behind him, in the middle of the cloisters, it might have been
expected that their own malignant feelings would have warned them to leave the church;
but, neither did reverence for the solemn occasion dissuade them from their crime, nor the
innocence of the patriarch prevent them from shedding his blood. Indeed, so entirely had
their shameless determination to perpetrate the crime taken possession of them and blinded
them, that they neither regarded the disgrace to their knighthood, nor took account of any
danger. Therefore, following the archbishop with headlong and heedless steps, with drawn
swords, they entered the church, and furiously cried aloud, Where is this
traitor?, After which, no one making answer, they repeated, Where is the
archbishop? Upon this, he, the confessor, and, shortly to be, the martyr in the
cause of Christ, being sensible that under the first name he was falsely charged, and
that, by virtue of his office, the other belonged to him, came down from the steps to meet
them, and Behold, here am I, showing such extraordinary presence of mind, that
neither his mind seemed agitated by fear nor his body by trepidation.
On this, in the spirit of his frenzy, one of these fell knights made answer to him,
You shall now die, for it is impossible for you to live any longer. To which
the bishop made answer, with no less self-possession in his language than in his mind,
I am ready to die for my God, and for asserting justice and the liberties of the
Church; but, if you seek my life, in the name of Almighty God, and under pain of
excommunication, I forbid you, in any way, to hurt any other person, whether monk, or
clerk, or layman, whether great or small, but let them be as exempt from the penalty as
they have been guiltless of the cause. These words of his would serve to express
those of Christ in His passion, when He said, If ye seek me, let these go their
way.
On this, the knights instantly laid hands on him and seized him, that, for the
perpetration of their design, they might drag him out of the church, but were unable so to
do. The archbishop, on seeing his murderers with drawn swords, after the manner of one in
prayer, bowed his head, uttering these as his last words, To God and to Saint Mary,
and to the Saints, the patrons of this church, and to Saint Denis, I commend myself and
the cause of the Church. After this, amid all these tortures, this martyr, with
unconquerable spirit and admirable constancy, uttered not a word or a cry, nor heaved a
sigh, nor lifted his arm against the smiter; but, bowing his head, which he had exposed to
their swords, held it unmoved until the deed was completed.
Upon this, the above-named knights, fearing the multitude of persons of both sexes that
came running to the spot, hastened the perpetration of the crime, lest possibly it might
be left incomplete, and their intentions be frustrated thereby; and while one of them was
extending his arm and brandishing his sword over the head of the archbishop, he cut off
the arm of a clerk, whose name was Edward Grim, and at the same time wounded the anointed
of the Lord in the head. For this clerk had extended his arm over the head of the father,
in order that he might receive the blow as he struck, or rather ward it off thereby. The
righteous man still stood erect, suffering in the cause of righteousness, like the
innocent lamb, without a murmur, without complaint, and, offering himself up as a
sacrifice to the Lord, implored the protection of the Saints. And, in order that no one of
these fell satellites might be said to be guiltless in consequence of not having touched
the archbishop, a second and a third atrociously struck the head of the suffering martyr
with their swords, and crave it asunder, and dashed this victim of the Holy Ghost to the
ground. The fourth, raging with a still more deadly, or rather fiendlike, cruelty, when
prostrate and expiring, cut off his shorn crown, dashed in his skull, and, thrusting his
sword into the head, scattered his brains and blood upon the stone pavement. In the
mixture of the two substances the difference of color seemed to remind any one, who
considered the matter with due piety, of the twofold merits of the martyr. For, in the
whiteness of the brains was shown the purity of his innocence, while the purple color of
the blood bespoke his martyrdom. With both these becomingly arrayed, as though with a
nuptial garment, the martyr Thomas was rendered a worthy guest at the heavenly table.
Thus, even thus, the martyr Thomas become, by virtue of his long-suffering, a precious
stone of adamant for the heavenly edifice, being squared by the blows of swords, was
joined in heaven unto Christ, the headstone of the corner. Wherefore this our Abel, being
made perfect by the glory of martyrdom, in a moment lived out many ages.
Thus it was that, at the beginning of the seventh year of his exile, the above-named
martyr Thomas struggled even unto the death for the love of God and the liberties of the
Church, which had almost entirely perished as regards the English Church. He did not stand
in fear of the words of the unrighteous, but, having his foundation upon a firm rock, that
is, upon Christ, for the name of Christ, and in the Church of Christ, by the swords of the
wicked, on the fifth day of the Nativity of our Lord, being the day after Innocents
day, he himself an innocent, died. His innocent life and his death, as being precious in
the eyes of God, innumerable miracles deservedly bespeak, which, not only in the place
where he rested, but in divers nations and kingdoms, were wondrously shown.
On the same day the passion of the blessed Thomas was revealed by the Holy Ghost to the
blessed Godric, the anchorite, at Finchale a place which is distant from Canterbury more
than a hundred and sixty miles. The monks of the church of Canterbury, on this, shut the
doors of the church, and so the church remained with the celebration of the mass suspended
for nearly a whole year, until they had received a reconciliation of the church from our
lord the pope Alexander. But the monks took up the body of their martyr, and the first
night placed it in the choir, performing around it the service for the dead. It is also
said, and with truthfulness, that when they had completed around the body the obsequies of
mortality, and while he was lying on the bier in the choir, about daybreak he raised his
left hand and gave them the benediction; after which, they buried him in the crypt.
As for the knights who had perpetrated this unholy deed, instantly becoming conscious of
the heinousness of their conduct, and despairing of forgiveness, they did not dare to
return to the court of the king of England, but retired into the western parts of England
to Knaresborough, the town of Hugh de Morville, and there remained until they had become
utterly despised by the people of that district. For all persons avoided any communication
with him, and no one would eat or drink with them. The consequence was that they ate and
drank by themselves, and the remnants of their victuals were cast out to the dogs, which,
when they had tasted thereof, refused to eat any more. Behold the signal and deserved
vengeance of God! that those who had despised the anointed of the Lord should be despised
even by dogs. However, a considerable time after this, the four knights above-named, who
felt the accusation of their own consciences for having perpetrated this deed, went to
Alexander, the pope of Rome, and, being enjoined by him to do penance, set out for
Jerusalem. Performing penance according to the popes injunctions, they died at
Montenegro, and were buried at Jerusalem before the doors of the Temple. The inscription
on their tomb was to the following effect: Here lie the wretched men who martyred
the blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury. It was in the year one thousand one hundred
and seventy-one that the primate Thomas died by their swords.
The Letter of Louis king of the Franks, to pope Alexander, on
the death of the blessed Thomas.
To his lord and most holy father, Alexander, by the grace of God Supreme Pontiff,
Louis, king of the Franks, health and due reverence. The man who commits violence upon his
mother revolts against human laws, and he remembers not the kindness of his Creator, who
is not saddened at violence offered to the Holy See. Put more especially is there ground
for condolence, and the novelty of a cruelty so unheard-of arouses a novelty in sorrow, in
that wickedness, making an attack upon the holy one of God, has with the sword pierced the
beloved son of Christ, and more basely even than cruelly stabbed him who was the light of
the church of Canterbury. Let an unheard-of kind of retribution be invented. Let the sword
of Saint Peter be unsheathed to avenge the martyr of Canterbury; inasmuch as, for the
universal Church does his blood cry aloud, complaining not so much for himself as
demanding vengeance for the whole Church. Behold! at the tomb of the martyr, as we have
had revealed unto us, the Divine glory is revealed in miracles, and by Him are Divine
manifestations made where his remains are deposited, for whose name he so valiantly
struggled. We bid your Holiness, and your brotherhood, farewell in the Lord.
The Letter of William, archbishop of Sens, to pope Alexander,
on the death of the blessed Thomas.
To his most holy father and lord, Alexander, by the grace of God, Supreme
Pontiff, William, the humble servant of the church of Sens, health and due obedience with
all duteousness. To your Apostleship, holy father, all power has been granted in heaven
and upon earth. In your hand is a two-edged sword, over nations and over kingdoms are you
appointed, to bind their kings in fetters, and their nobles in chains of iron. Behold
therefore, my lord, and consider what vintage they have gathered in. For a wild boar from
the wood has destroyed the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth, and a single wild beast has
pastured thereon. The church of Canterbury, rather the Church universal, from the ends of
the earth, in your presence is pouring forth tears that drop blood, and sprinkled with
bitterness, because she has been set up as a mark for the arrow, and has been made a
reproach unto her neighbors. And those who behold her, wag their heads at her and say,
where is their God? But she weeping and turning back, is crying aloud in the ears of the
Lord of Hosts, Avenge, O Lord, the blood of thy servant and martyr, the archbishop of
Canterbury, who has been slain, nay, crucified, for the liberties of the Church! Holy
father! a thing horrible to be mentioned, a disgraceful crime, an enormous piece of
flagitiousness has been perpetrated in your days, a thing at which both the ears shall
tingle of each that shall hear of it, the like of which has not been heard in Theman, and
has not been seen in Canaan. For another Herod, of the seed of Canaan and not of Judah,
the offspring of vipers, sending his lictors from his side, has not been struck with
horror at scarring with deep wounds the sign of the passion of our Lord, which he carried
on his head, and at disfiguring with shameful marks the heavenly likeness. By reason
whereof, as all the Church affirms, the cause and the penalty equally make him to be a
martyr. The penalty is our grief, for the sufferings inflicted on him: the cause was the
rigor of the ecclesiastical censure, because he contended for the law of his God even unto
the death. It is therefore your part, O most merciful father, keeper of the walls of
Jerusalem, to apply a remedy to what is past, and to employ foresight for the future. For
what place is there that can be safe, if the rage of a tyrant is to stain with blood the
Holy of Holies? And is it with impunity to tear in pieces the vicegerents of Christ, the
foster children of the Church? Let then the ecclesiastical laws arouse themselves, let
ecclesiastical rights put on their armor. Let the vengeance for the blood of this glorious
martyr, which cries aloud from England, enter into your presence. For cry aloud it will,
and will arouse not only the earth but the heavens as well. And so consult for healing our
sorrows, that you consult both for your own good name and the liberties of the Church. As
to the rest, we have thought proper to inform the fatherly affection of your Holiness,
that whereas you gave it as your command both to the lord archbishop of Rouen and to
ourselves, that we should place under an interdict the lands that belong to the king of
England on this side the sea, if he should not keep the peace which he had promised to our
lord of Canterbury of glorious memory; adding also, that if either of us should be unable
or unwilling to take part in carrying out the same, the other should nevertheless obey
your commands; the above-named archbishop of Rouen, after we had caused your letter to be
presented to him, signified to us that he would come to the city of Sens, and would act
according to the tenor of your mandate. But when he had come thither, together with the
bishops of Lisieux, Evreux, and Worcester, and very many others, both clergy as well as
laymen, of the household of the above-named king, after many shiftings and excuses on his
part, he made answer, that he was on his road to your presence, and felt unwilling to pour
forth too bitter a censure upon the above-named king. But we being sensible that whoever
despises obedience to the Apostolic mandates, incurs the guilt of paganism, according to
the tenor of your mandate, with the common advice of our brethren, all the bishops, and of
the abbots of Saint Denis, Saint Germain de Pres, Pontigny, Vaucouleurs, Le Mans, and
several other religious and wise men, have pronounced sentence against his lands on this
side the sea, and have in your name enjoined the said archbishop and bishops to cause the
same to be observed. For we know that he has neither, as he had promised, restored his
possessions, nor had established security for him, as his death gives proof. Through a
native of the diocese of Canterbury, whom we sent to him, he has also signified unto us
that he had given cause for his death, and that he had had him slain. For this reason, we
do supplicate your clemency, that you will ratify the sentence before-mentioned, and, as
befits your majesty, and is expedient for the safety of the Church, will cause it to be in
suchwise observed, that the honor of God and your own will may be preserved. And as for
ourselves, who embrace your Holiness with that duteousness of which you are so well aware,
we will by no means by reason hereof allow ourselves to be contemned. We wish you
farewell, and as befits your majesty and holiness. so do.
The Letter of Theobald, earl of Blois, to pope Alexander on
the death of the blessed Thomas.
To his most reverend lord and father, Alexander, by the grace of God, Supreme
Pontiff, Theobald, earl of Blois, and procurator of the kingdom of France, health and due
obedience with filial subjection. It pleased your majesty, that between the lord
archbishop of Canterbury and the king of England, peace should be restored, and renewed
concord established. Wherefore, according to the tenor of your mandate, the king of
England received him with a cheerful countenance, and with features that bespoke
joyousness, and made promises to hum of peace and restoration to favor. At this agreement
and reconciliation I was present, and in my presence the lord archbishop of Canterbury
complained to the king of the coronation of his son, whom with premature aspirations and
ardent desire, he had caused to be promoted to the elevation of the royal dignity. The
king of England, being guilty of this wrong, and being conscious of his guilt, gave to the
archbishop of Canterbury a pledge confirmatory of his right, and promising that he would
make satisfaction. The archbishop also made complaint of those bishops who, contrary to
the right and the honor of the church of Canterbury, had presumed to intrude a new king
upon the seat of royalty; not through zeal for justice, not that they might please God,
but that they might propitiate a tyrant. With regard to these, the king granted him free
license and authority to pronounce sentence against them according as might seem fit and
proper to you and to himself. These things, in fact, I am prepared to attest, and to
substantiate to you either upon oath, or in any other way you may think fit. Upon this, a
reconciliation having been made, the man of God fearing nothing, returned, that he might
submit his throat to the sword, and expose his neck to the smiter; and on the day after
the day of the Holy Innocents, this innocent lamb suffered martyrdom; his righteous blood
was shed in the place where the viaticum of our salvation, the blood of Christ, was wont
to be sacrificed. Those dogs of the court, the people of the kings household and his
domestics, showed themselves true servants of the king, and guiltily shed innocent blood.
The detestable circumstances of this monstrous crime I would give you in detail, but I
fear, lest it might be ascribed to me as being done through hatred, and the bearers of
these presents will recount it more at large, and with greater precision; from their
relation you will learn how great an accumulation of grief, how vast a calamity has
befallen the universal Church, and the martyr of Canterbury. This calamity, with due
regard to her honor, the mother Church of Rome cannot conceal from herself. For whatever
is dared to be done against an only daughter, the same extends to her parent as well, nor
without injury to the mother is the daughter made captive. Unto you, therefore, does the
blood of the righteous man cry aloud, demanding vengeance. Hay then, holy father, the
Almighty Father aid and counsel you, who gave the blood of His Son to the world, that He
might wipe away the guilt of the world, and cleanse the spots of our sins. May He both
instill into you a wish for vengeance, and the power of obtaining it, that so the Church,
put to confusion by the magnitude of this unheard-of crime, may have reason to rejoice at
the condign punishment thereof.
The Letter of William, archbishop of Sens, to our lord the
pope, against the king of England, in relation to the death of the blessed Thomas.
To his most loving father and lord, Alexander, by the grace of God Supreme
Pontiff, William, the humble servant of the church of Sens, the spirit of counsel and
fortitude, with all service of due obedience. While writing these lines, or rather before
I had begun to write them, I stopped short and hesitated, being greatly in doubt in what
kind of language I could present to the eyes of your clemency the atrocity of the crime
lately perpetrated, and the enormity of the offense so recently committed. And, indeed, I
believe that the outcry of the world must have already filled the ears of your Holiness,
who have your seat upon the watch-tower of the world, how that this, not king of the
English, but enemy rather of the English and of the whole body of Christ, has lately
committed wickedness against the holy one, the son of your right hand, whom you had
confirmed unto yourself. His departure from this world, and the mode of his departure,
even though perchance you may have heard from the diverse or adverse relation of any
persons, I will faithfully and conscientiously relate what has been signified unto me by
those who were present, and, in a few words, explain the circumstances of the perpetration
of this crime, the enormity of which can hardly be imagined. During the Nativity of our
Lord, on the day after the Feast of the Innocents, towards sunset, and about the hour of
vespers, the executioners having gained admission, the three, namely, who had been the
first to arrive, approached this valiant champion of Christ in a most threatening and
insolent manner; the names of whom, that their memories may be visited with everlasting
maledictions, I here insert, Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, and Reginald Fitz-Urse;
these, on their first approach, on being saluted by the man of God, did not return the
salutation, inasmuch as, having entered upon the ways of perdition, they manifestly
rejected all that was salutary; but, on the contrary, contumeliously and malignantly
thundered forth threats against him, if he did not, in obedience to the kings
mandate, absolve the bishops who were suspended or excommunicated. On his making answer
that this manifestly pertained to your province, as being the sole judge thereon, and that
he could not think of claiming any himself where so great an authority was concerned; they
immediately, on the kings behalf, denounced him as a traitor, and instantly went
forth to their company of soldiers. As they went forth they also ordered, in the
kings name, those knights who belonged to the household of the man of God, upon
peril of their lives and forfeiture of all their honors, to go forth likewise, and
silently and patiently await the result. A similar proclamation of the king was published
throughout the city. But this single champion of Christ has, in our days, despised the
threats of princes, and was with the greatest difficulty, by the persuasion of the
knights, compelled to go forth from the place where he had already, as it were, received a
foretaste of death; and this was done that he might not seem unwilling to meet his end.
God, therefore, providing the mother church. dedicated in honor of Christ himself,
entering the same, the anointed of the Lord was deemed worthy to be sacrificed for the
name of Christ in the spot where each day Christ as well is offered up. This priest of the
Most High, standing before the altar, and embracing in his arms the cross which he had
been accustomed to have carried before him, and praying, voluntarily offered himself as a
peace. offering to God between the cross and the horns of the altar. For the hour of his
passion was drawing nigh; on bended knees, with throat extended, and neck bowed down, he
received the cup of salvation, and was beheaded by the three executioners above-named,
having been first reviled with insults and many reproaches, that in no way he might be
defrauded of the example which he had before him in the passion of his ford. And that,
still more, the form thereof might find a remarkable resemblance in his case, at the same
hour he prayed for his murderers, adding thereto, and earnestly entreating, that his
household might be kept unhurt by the present evils. Therefore, alone, and not without the
shedding of blood, did the priest enter into the Holy place. And inasmuch as, since the
death of the holy man we have heard, from the frequent relation of many persons, that
certain wonderful things, by the working of the Lord, have taken place, they ought not to
be entirely omitted. For, it is said, and is steadfastly affirmed, that after his passion,
he appeared in a vision to many, whom he informed that he was not dead, but living, and
showed them, not wounds, but only the scars of wounds. Among these, he is said distinctly
to have appeared to a certain aged monk, named Neil, but in what way I will not descant
upon, in order that too long a narrative may be avoided; but the bearers thereof will
faithfully and at large relate the circumstances. The story, too, about the blind man,
who, immediately on his passion being ended, rubbed his eyes with the still warm blood and
received his eyes and his sight, has been heard by all. There is also a story related by
many, not unworthy of credit, relative to the tapers that were placed around his body,
which, on being put out, afterwards were lighted again of themselves. And, a thing still
more pleasing and miraculous, after all the obsequies of mortality had been performed
around his body, while he was lying upon the bier in the choir, about dawn, raising his
left hand, he gave the benediction. Arouse yourself, then, man of God, and put on the
velour of those whose seat you hold; on the one hand let pity, on the other let
indignation, move you to smite the smiter of your son; the one you owe to your son, the
other to the tyrant: and so increase the glory upon earth of him whom God thus wondrously
glorifies in heaven. But, to the other, award ignominy; who upon earth has so dreadfully
persecuted God and has smitten the sides of your own body, has torn forth your
entrails therefrom, and has trodden them under foot on the earth; who has also, by the
hands of I know not what uncircumcised and unclean wretches, so perfidiously, so
inhumanly, slaughtered your son, whom alone you loved as though a mother; neither fearing
to commit violence upon the father, nor taking compassion upon his age. Wherefore, those
to whose ministry you have succeeded, to their zeal succeed as well. And, inasmuch as you
see the wickedness of Ahab, let emulation of Elias move you. Ahab slew [Naboth] and took
possession; but, if we carefully weigh all the circumstances of the crime perpetrated by
Ahab, Ahab is justified before this man. For this crime is one that by far deserves the
first place among all the crimes of the wicked that are read of or related; as, all the
wickedness of Nero, the perfidiousness of Julian, and even the sacrilegious treachery of
Judas does it exceed. For look at this, and consider - what a personage, in what a church,
what a time, too, for perpetrating the crime did ho made choice of; namely, the Nativity
of our Lord, the day after the feast of the Holy Innocents; so that, since the old one, in
our days a new Herod has risen up. The protection, too, that was publicly granted to him
failed to recall the traitor from the commission of this wickedness. As though, too, of
himself he was not sufficiently mad, he has had encouragers, who have given horns to a
sinner, those false brethren, men to be detested by all churches throughout the world,
namely, that devil Roger, the archbishop of York, Gilbert, bishop of London, and Jocelyn,
bishop of Salisbury, not bishops but apostates, who have not secretly sold your son, their
brother, but, in truth, have slain him, fearing neither the curse of the aged father, nor
having regard for his sorrows or his age. That their life, both now and always henceforth,
may be passed in bitterness, and their memory may be visited with eternal maledictions,
may, Holy Father, your authority and your severity equally effect. Holy Father, we bid
your Holiness farewell.
In the meantime, Rotrod, archbishop of Rouen, Gilles, bishop of Evreux, and Roger, bishop
of Worcester, with Richard Barre, and some others of the clerks and household of the king
of England, set out to wait upon the Roman Pontiff, in behalf of the king of England and
his kingdom. But the lord archbishop of Rouen, being worn out with infirmities and old
age, after having accomplished nearly half the journey, was able to proceed no further,
but returned to Normandy to his see, and the above-named bishops, with the kings
clerks, proceeded on their journey. On arriving, they obtained with the greatest
difficulty of the Supreme Pontiff that two cardinals, Theodinus and Albert, should come on
behalf of our lord the pope to Normandy, in order to take cognizance of the dispute which
existed between the king and the church of Canterbury, of the death of the martyr of
Canterbury, and of other ecclesiastical dignities, and to give judgment thereon, according
as God should suggest to them. On this, the persons who had gone to Rome wrote to our lord
the king to this effect:
[Letter of Henry's representatives in Rome to Henry, King of
England]
To their most dearly beloved lord, Henry, the illustrious king of England, duke
of Normandy and Aquitaine, and earl of Anjou, Robert, abbot of Vaucouleurs, the archdeacon
of Salisbury, Robert, archdeacon of Lisieux, Richard Barre, and master Henry, health and
fealty in all things, and in all places obedience. Be it known unto your majesty, that
Richard Barre went before us, and, amid great danger and hardships, preceded us to the
court of our lord the pope. We four, with the two bishops, the dean of Evreux, and master
Henry, with great difficulty arrived at Sienna, where we were detained for some days, as
the earl Macharius had closed the roads on every side, so that there were no means of
egress for any one. As we four, together with the bishops, who greatly desired to proceed,
were unable so to do, being beset with the greatest difficulty of judging how to act, by
the common consent of all, we sallied forth secretly at midnight; and thus, over the
ridges of mountains, and through places almost inaccessible, with great fear and peril, we
at last arrived at Tusculanum. Here we found Richard Barre, anxious, as he expressed
himself, to sustain your honor, and skillfully, usefully, and unceasingly striving for the
promotion of your interests, but, nevertheless, in great trouble and sorrow, because our
lord the pope had not received him, and other persons had not strewn themselves affable
and hospitable towards him. As for ourselves, on our arrival, our lord the pope would
neither see us, nor admit us to the kiss, nor at his foot. Indeed, most of the cardinals
hardly deigned to give us a reception even with a word. In consequence of this, being long
racked with anxious cares, in the bitterness of our spirit, we entreated those who were
more faithfully attached to you, by every possible means, that, through their
intervention, our lord the pope might in some way or other grant us the indulgence of an
audience. At length, at their urgent request, the lord abbot of Vaucouleurs and Robert,
archdeacon of Lisieux, who were not so strongly suspected, obtained a reception. But when
they, on giving the salutation on your behalf, made mention of your name as being a most
devoted son of the Church of Rome, the whole court cried aloud with one voice,
Forbear! forbear! as though it were abominable to our lord the pope to hear
mention made of your name. Upon this, they left the court, and returned at a later hour to
our lord the pope, and gave him information as to the object of our mission, and what
injunctions we had received from your majesty. They also related, in their order, each of
the benefits you had conferred on the archbishop of Canterbury, and all the excesses and
affronts he had been guilty of against your dignity. The whole of these matters were at
first privately mentioned to him, and afterwards, in the presence of our lord the pope and
all the cardinals, they being confronted by two clerks of Canterbury, Alexander, and
Gunther of Flanders. The fifth day of the week before Easter now drawing nigh, on which,
according to usage of the Roman Church, our lord the pope is wont publicly to absolve or
publicly to excommunicate, feeling certain that as to what regarded your grievances and
those of your kingdom they had hitherto managed matters with the greatest foresight, we
consulted those whom we knew to be faithful to your majesty; namely, the lord of
Portuenza, the lord Jacinto, the lord of Pavia the lord of Tusculanum, the lord Peter de
Mirio (the lord John of Naples being absent), and begged them with the most urgent prayers
and entreaties, that they would disclose to us the intentions of our lord the pope towards
us, and what determination he purposed to form on our case. However, the information they
gave us in answer was nothing but what was ill-boding and disgraceful to your highness;
and we learned from their relation and that of brother Francis, a trustworthy man,
interrupted as it was by sobs, that, by the common advice of his brethren, our lord the
pope had immutably determined on that day to pronounce sentence of interdict upon you by
name, and upon all your dominions on both sides of the sea, and to confirm the sentence
that had been pronounced against the bishops. Being, consequently, placed in a position of
the greatest difficulty, we made the most stringent efforts, both through the cardinals
and through those of our companions who had access to him, and through the people of his
household, to induce him to pause in this design, or at least defer it until the arrival
of your bishops. When this could not by any means be effected, we, as became us, and as we
are bound in duty to you, being neither able nor bound to put up with disgrace to your own
person and calamity to the whole of your dominions, having convened all our companions
before certain of the cardinals, at length discovered a way for the preservation of your
safety and honor, safe, and becoming, and advantageous to the whole of your dominions, as
well as necessary for the bishops. Hereby we averted from you, and from your dominions,
and from your bishops, the disgrace and peril that were impending, and exposed ourselves
for obtaining this liberation to the whole of the danger, believing and having an assured
hope that the whole matter will proceed according to what we believe to be your wishes,
and according to what we feel assured ought to be your wishes. The lords bishop of
Worcester and of Evreux, together with Robert, dean of Evreux, and master Henry, were
shortly about to follow, and, indeed, we left them behind, anxious and vexed beyond
measure because they had not been able to come on according to their wishes, for the
purpose of carrying out the business you had entrusted them with. However, it was their
suggestion, as much as our own, that we should by some means or other precede them, in
order to be enabled to prevent the disgrace and mischiefs which our adversaries were
preparing for us; for we were assured that serious troubles were in preparation for you at
the court, and were in dread of the usual custom of that day. With wishes for your lasting
prosperity, we bid your highness farewell: be comforted in the Lord, and let your heart
rejoice, inasmuch as, to your glory, the present clouds will be succeeded by serenity. On
the Saturday before Palm Sunday we arrived at the court, and the bearer of these presents
has left us on Easter Day.
In the meantime, there came into Normandy two cardinals, Gratianus and Vivianus, sent as
legates a latere by Alexander, the Supreme Pontiff, who vexed the king of England by many
and various annoyances, and wished to place him and his dominions under interdict. But the
king of England being warned of this beforehand, had, before their arrival, appealed to
the presence of our lord the Supreme Pontiff, and by these means kept himself and his
dominions unhurt by the exercise of their severity.
Still, fearing the power of the Apostolic See, he hastened to the sea-shore, and crossed
over from Normandy to England, giving orders that no person who should bring a brief, of
whatever rank or order he might be, should be allowed to cross over, either from Normandy
to England or from England to Normandy, unless he should first give security that he would
seek to inflict neither evil nor injury upon the king or his kingdom.
...
In the meantime, Gilbert, bishop of London, and Jocelyn, bishop of Salisbury, sent to Rome
and received letters of absolution, the tenor of which was as follows:
The Letter of Pope Alexander to the Archbishop of Bourges.
Alexander the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brethren,
the archbishop of Bourges and the bishop of Nivernois, health, and the Apostolic
benediction. We believe that it is not unknown to your brotherhood how Thomas of blessed
memory, formerly archbishop of Canterbury, in obedience to our mandate, pronounced
sentence of excommunication upon the bishops of London and Salisbury: which we took due
care to have ratified and confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See. Now, inasmuch
as the aforesaid bishops, being worn out with old age and infirmity of body, and, one of
them laboring under a malady, are not able to come to our presence: to you, in whose
prudence and fidelity we have full confidence, we have thought proper to entrust their
absolution, for which, envoys from Henry, the king of England, and the said bishops have
made the most urgent application. Therefore, we do command your brotherhood, by these
Apostolic writings, within one month from the time when the said messengers shall have
returned home - (as to the approach of the legates whom we have thought proper to send
into those parts to take cognizance of this atrocious crime and misdeed which has been
perpetrated and of the forgiveness of the king, that they have passed the Alps you are not
unaware), that, after having publicly received their oaths according to the custom of the
Church, that they are ready to pay obedience to our mandate, you will absolve them from
the ban of excommunication by pronouncing sentence of suspension for the same cause for
which they were recently sentenced to excommunication, the said cause being still valid
and of full effect. But if you shall be satisfied that the bishop of Salisbury, from
laboring under the effects of disease, cannot come to you, then it is our pleasure that
you shall attend upon him personally. Or if you shall be made to attend upon him, then you
are to send proper persons, in whom both you and we ourselves may be able to place full
reliance, who, having publicly received his oath, in the presence of the church, that he
is ready to pay obedience to our mandates, may thereupon absolve him. But if, brother
archbishop, it shall not be in your power to give attention to this matter, then do you,
brother bishop, together with the abbot of Pontigny, give your most diligent attention to
the injunctions which we have given. Given at Tusculanum, on the eighth day before the
calends of May.
1172
In the year of grace 1172, being the eighteenth year of the reign of king Henry the
Second, the said king was at Dublin, in Ireland, on the day of the Nativity of our Lord,
which took place on Saturday, and there he gave a royal feast. Having stayed there until
the beginning of Lent, he proceeded thence to the city of Wexford, where he remained until
Easter. While he was staying there, Theodinus and Albert, the cardinals who were sent as
legates "a latere" by the Supreme Pontiff, came into Normandy. On their arrival
being known, the king hastened to meet them; ...
The festival of Easter approaching, the kings household crossed over from Ireland to
England, on Easter Day, and landed at Milford Haven, near Pembroke. The king, however, by
reason of the solemnity of the day, was unwilling to embark, but embarked the day after,
and landed in Wales near Saint Davids. After this, the king repaired with all haste
to Portsmouth, and, taking with him his son Henry, passed over from England to Normandy,
and found the above-named cardinals at Caen, and, by their advice, made peace with Louis,
king of the Franks, as to the coronation of his daughter; and accordingly, with the
consent and advice of the above-named cardinals, sent back the king, his son, to England,
and with him Rotrod, archbishop of Rouen, Gilles bishop of Evreux, and Roger, bishop of
Worcester, for the purpose of crowning him and Margaret, his wife, the daughter of Louis,
king of France: on which, they crowned them in the church of Saint Swithin, at Winchester,
on the sixth day before the calends of September, being the Lords Day. Immediately
after the coronation had taken place, his son, the king, with the queen, his wife, and the
archbishop of Rouen, and the bishops of Evreux and Worcester, crossed over from England to
Normandy.
The Purgation of King Henry for the death of the blessed Thomas.
Henry, the king of England, the father, king Henry, his son, Rotrod, archbishop of
Rouen, and all the bishops and abbots of Normandy, met at the city of Avranches, in
presence of the cardinals, Theodinus and Albert. In their presence, the king of England,
the father, on the fifth day before the calends of October, being the fourth day of the
week, and the feast of Saints Cosmus and Damianus, the Martyrs, proved his innocence in
the church of Saint Andrew the Apostle, by oath, in the presence of the above-named
cardinals, and of all the clergy and the people, upon the relics of the Saints, and upon
the Holy Gospels, and that he had neither commanded nor wished that the archbishop of
Canterbury should be put to death, and that, when he heard thereof, he was greatly
concerned. But, inasmuch as he could not apprehend those malefactors who slew
Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, of blessed memory, and he feared that they had
perpetrated that profane deed in consequence his agitated state of mind and the
perturbation in which they had seen him, he made oath that he would give satisfaction in
the following manner:
In the first place, he made oath that he would not withdraw from Alexander, the Supreme
Pontiff, and his Catholic successors, so long as they should repute him to be a Catholic
king.
He also made oath that he would neither prevent appeals nor allow them to be prevented,
but that they should be freely made in his kingdom to the Roman Pontiff in causes
ecclesiastical; yet so, that if any parties should be suspected by him, they should give
him security that they would not seek the injury of him or of his kingdom.
He also made oath that, for a period of three years from the Nativity of our Lord then
next ensuing he would assume the cross, and would in the following summer go in person to
Jerusalem, unless he should remain at home by permission of Alexander, the Supreme
Pontiff, or of his Catholic successors: provided, that if in the meantime, by reason of
urgent necessity, he should set out for Spain to war against the Saracens, then for so
long a period as he should be engaged in that expedition he might defer setting out for
Jerusalem.
Besides this, he made oath that in the meantime he would give to the Templars as much
money as in the opinion of the brethren of the Temple would suffice for the maintenance of
two hundred knights, for the defense of the land of Jerusalem, during a period of one
year.
Besides this, he remitted his wrath and displeasure against all those, both clergy and
laity, who were in exile for the cause of Saint Thomas, and allowed them freely and
peacefully to return home.
He also made oath that the possessions of the church of Canterbury, if any had been taken
away, he would restore in full, in the same state in which they were one year before the
blessed Thomas, archbishop of Canterbury, had departed from England.
He also made oath that he would utterly abolish the customs which had been introduced in
his time to the prejudice of the churches of his kingdom.
All these articles he made oath that he would observe faithfully and without evil intent.
He also made his son, king Henry, swear to observe these articles, those excepted which
only related personally to himself. And, to the intent that the same might be retained in
the memory of the Roman Church, the king, the father, caused his seal to be set to the
writing in which the above-stated articles were contained, together with the seals of the
above-named cardinals.
The Charter of Absolution of our lord the King.
To Henry, by the grace of God, the illustrious king of the English, Albert
titular of Saint Laurentius in Lucinia, and Theodinus, titular of Saint Vitalis, cardinal
priests, legates of the Apostolic See, health in Him who giveth health unto kings. That
the things which take place may not come to be matter of doubt, both custom suggests and
the ordinary requirements of utility demand that the same should be regularly stated at
length in writing. For this reason it is that we have thought proper to have committed to
writing those injunctions which we have given you, because you entertain a fear that those
malefactors who slew Thomas of blessed memory, the late archbishop of Canterbury,
proceeded to the commission of that crime in consequence of your agitated state of mind
and the perturbation in which they saw you to be. As to which deed, however, you have of
your own free will exculpated yourself in our presence, to the effect that you neither
gave command nor wished that he should be put to death; and that, when news reached you of
the same, you were greatly concerned thereat. From the ensuing feast of Pentecost, for the
period of one year, you shall give as much money as in the opinion of the brethren of the
Temple will suffice to maintain two hundred knights for the defense of the land of
Jerusalem during a period of one year. Also, from the Nativity of our Lord next ensuing,
for a period of three years, you shall assume the cross, and shall in the ensuing summer
in person set out for Jerusalem, unless you shall remain at home by the permission of our
lord the pope, or of his Catholic successors provided that if, by reason of urgent
necessity, you shall set out for Spain to war against the Saracens, so long a period as
shall elapse from the time of your setting out you shall be enabled to defer setting out
for Jerusalem. You shall not prevent appeals, nor allow them to be prevented; but they
shall freely be made to the Roman Pontiff, in causes ecclesiastical, in good faith, and
without fraud and evil intent, in order that causes may be considered by the Roman
Pontiff, and be brought to a conclusion by him; yet so, that if any parties shall be
suspected by you, they shall give you security that they will not seek the injury of you
or of your kingdom. The customs which have been introduced in your time, to the prejudice
of the churches of your kingdom, you shall utterly abolish. The possessions of the church
of Canterbury, if any have been taken away, you shall restore in full, in the same state
in which they were one year before the archbishop departed from England. Moreover, to the
clerks and to the laity of either sex, you shall restore your protection and favor and
their possessions, who, by reason of the before-named archbishop, have been deprived
thereof. These things, by the authority of our lord the pope, we do, for the remission of
your sins, enjoin and command you to observe, without fraud and evil intent. Wherefore, to
the above effect, in the presence of a multitude of persons, you have, as you venerate the
Divine Majesty, made oath. Your son, also, has made oath to the same effect, with the
exception only of that which in especial related personally to yourself. You have also
both made oath that you will not withdraw from our lord the pope, Alexander, and his
Catholic successors, so long as they shall repute you, like your predecessors, to be
Catholic kings. And further, that this may be firmly retained in the memory of the Roman
Church, you have ordered your seal to be set thereto.
The Letter of the same Cardinals to the archbishop of Ravenna.
To their venerable and beloved brother in Christ, Gilbert, by the grace of God,
archbishop of Ravenna, Albert, by the Divine condescension, titular of Saint Laurentius in
Lucinia, and Theodinus, titular of Saint Vitalis, cardinal priests, legates of the
Apostolic See, that which God has promised that He will grant unto the watchful. Inasmuch
as we believe that you are desirous to hear somewhat relative to our present state and the
progress of the business which was entrusted to our charge; we have thought proper by this
present writing to inform your brotherhood how God has dealt as towards ourselves and
through the ministry of our humble exertions. Know, therefore, that after the illustrious
king of England had learned as a truth that we had arrived in his kingdom, laying aside
every obstacle that might retard him, and omitting the transaction of pressing business,
he passed over from England into the Norman territories, and instantly sent unto us many
messengers of honorable rank, inquiring of us in what place we would prefer to meet and
hold a conference with him. It at length pleased us to meet for the purpose of holding a
conference at the monastery of Savigny, where we might be aided by the prayers of
religious men. We came thither, and thither also came many persons of either order from
out of his kingdom to meet us; and we diligently treated, so far as we were able, upon
what related to his own salvation and the obedience enjoined by us. As, however, we were
unable to agree on all points, he withdrew from us, as though about to cross over to
England, and we remained there with the intention of going the following day to the city
of Avranches. However, on the next day, there came to us the bishop of Lisieux and two
archdeacons, and that being conceded which we demanded, we proceeded to the city
before-mentioned. At this place, on the Lords Day, on which is sung Vocem
jocunditatis, we went forth to meet a considerable number of persons, as they did to
meet us; and the king then fulfilled the conditions that had been made, with such extreme
humility that, beyond a doubt, this maybe believed to be the work of Him who looks down
upon the earth and maketh it to tremble. Still, how that he showed himself a fearer of God
and an obedient son of the Church, it is not necessary, in the present brief narrative, to
relate. For this his actions sufficiently manifest, and will manifest still more fully,
according to the hopes that have been given us of the future. In the first place,
therefore, as to the death of Thomas, of blessed memory, the late archbishop of
Canterbury: not in consequence of our exacting it, but of his own free-will, touching the
Holy Gospels, he purged his conscience, making oath to the effect that he had neither
commanded nor wished that the said archbishop should be put to death; and that, when he
heard thereof, he was greatly concerned. But because what had been done he feared had been
done through his instrumentality, he made the following oath as to giving satisfaction for
the same. In the first place, he made oath that he will not withdraw from our lord the
pope, Alexander, and his Catholic successors, so long as they shall repute him to be a
Catholic king and a Christian. The same he also made his eldest son swear in the charter
of absolution for the death of the blessed Thomas. He also promised on oath other things
very necessary for the clergy and for the people; all of which we have carefully and in
their order as he swore them sot forth in the charter of his absolution. He also promised
other things of his own free will to be carried out, which are not necessary in their
order to be committed to writing. We have written to you to this effect, that you may know
that he is obedient to God, and much more disposed to be duteous to the Divine will than
heretofore he has been. In addition to this, you must know that his son made oath to the
same effect with himself in relation to the customs above-mentioned. Besides this, he
publicly announced that he would repeat again, at Caen, all that had passed there, in
presence of a greater assemblage of persons, in order that there might be left to no one
any room to doubt his sincerity. He has also released the bishops from the promise which
they made to him as to observing the customs, and has promised that he will not exact this
in future.
On the following day, the above-named cardinals held a great synod there, together with
the archbishop, bishops, and clergy of Normandy, and there they agreed to the decrees
underwritten, and enjoined that they should be strictly and inviolably observed by all.
The Decrees published at Avranches by the cardinals Albert and
Theodinus.
Youths are, under no circumstance, to be admitted to the government of those churches,
and the administration of those offices, in which there is the cure of souls.
Further, the sons of priests are not to be placed in the churches of their fathers.
Further, the laity are not to have a share of offerings made in the church.
Further, churches are not to be entrusted to the charge of vicars hired by the year.
Further, the priests of the larger churches, who have the means of so doing, are to be
compelled to have another minister under them.
Further, priests are not to be ordained without having a sure title.
Further, churches are not to be let out at a yearly rent.
Further, let the minister who performs the duties of the church be deprived of no
portion of one third part of the tithes.
Further, let those persons who hold tithes by hereditary right be at liberty to give
them to some fitting clerk, whomsoever they may choose; but upon this understanding, that,
after him, they are to revert to the church to which of right they belong.
Let no man while his wife is still living enter into monastic orders, and so, on the
other hand, with regard to the wife, unless they shall have both passed the time for
satisfying the lusts of the flesh.
Further, at the Advent of our Lord, to all who shall be able to obey, and especially to
the clergy and the knighthood, let fasting and abstinence from flesh be enjoined.
Further, clerks are not to be appointed judges to administer the jurisdiction of
secular powers; and those who shall presume so to do, let them be expelled from their
ecclesiastical benefices.
But, as regards the new books relative to those excommunicated, the property of the
dead that the priests receive, the benediction of brides, baptism, and the eight-and-forty
pounce which are demanded for the absolution of those excommunicated, there was nothing
settled, as the bishops of Normandy were unwilling to receive a decree on those subjects.
In the same synod, the archbishop of Tours claimed the archbishopric of Dol as properly
belonging to his own archbishopric, affirming that there ought not to be there an
archiepiscopal see; but the clergy of Dol stoutly maintained the contrary.
1174
[In 1173, Henry II faced the open rebellion of his sons Henry, Richard and
Geoffrey, aided by Louis VII, the king of France (who was also the father-in-law of Henry
the Young King); additionally, King William of Scotland invaded England from the
north. The rebellion continued in 1173.]
[King Henry] landed at Southampton, in England, on the eight day before the ides of
July, being the second day of the week, bringing with him his wife, queen Eleanor, and
queen Margaret, daughter of Louis, king of the Franks, and wife of his son Henry, with
Robert, earl of Leicester, and Hugh, earl of Chester, whom he immediately placed in
confinement.
On the day after this, he set out on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Thomas the Martyr,
archbishop of Canterbury. On his approach, as soon as he was in sight of the church, in
which thc body of the blessed martyr lay buried, he dismounted from the horse on which he
rode, took off his shoes, and barefoot, and clad in woollen garments, walked three miles
to the tomb of the martyr, with such humility and compunction of heart, that it may be
believed beyond a doubt to have been the work of Him who looketh down on the earth, and
maketh it to tremble. To those who beheld them, his footsteps, along the road on which he
walked, seemed to be covered with blood, and really were so, for his tender feet being cut
by the hard stones, a great quantity of blood flowed from them on to the ground. When he
had arrived at the tomb, it was a holy thing to see the affliction which he suffered, with
sobs and tears, and the discipline to which he submitted from the hands of the bishops and
a great number of priests and monks. Here, also, aided by the prayers of many holy men, he
passed the night, before the sepulchre of the blessed Martyr, in prayer, fasting, and
lamentations. As for the gifts and revenues which, for the remission of his sins, he
bestowed on this church, they can never under any circumstance be obliterated from the
remembrance thereof In the morning of the following day, after hearing mass, he departed
thence, on the third day before the ides of July, being Saturday, with the intention of
proceeding to London. And, inasmuch as he was mindful of the Lord in his entire heart, the
Lord granted unto him the victory over his enemies, and delivered them captive into his
hands.
For, on the very same Saturday on which the king left Canterbury, William, king of the
Scots, was taken prisoner at Alnwick by the above-named knights of Yorkshire, who had
pursued him after his retreat from Prudhoe. Thus, even thus;
How rarely is it that vengeance with halting step forsakes the pursuit of the
wicked! Together with him, there were taken prisoners Richard Cumin, William de
Mortimer, William de lIsle, Henry Revel, Ralph de Ver, Jordan le Fleming, Waltheof
Fitz-Baldwin de Bicre, Richard Maluvel, and many others, who voluntarily allowed
themselves to be made prisoners, lest they might appear to have sanctioned the capture of
their lord.
[Henry II was able to come to favorable terms with the other rebels soon thereafter.]
1179
In the same year, Philip, the son of Louis, king of the Franks, and of the said queen,
Ala, fell ill, and was in danger of his life; at which his father was extremely grieved,
and was admonished in his sleep by a Divine revelation to vow that he would go on a
pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Thomas the Martyr, at Canterbury, to prevail upon him to
restore his son to health.
In consequence of this, Louis, king of the Franks, sent ambassadors to Henry, king of
England, the father, and asked for leave and a safe conduct upon coming into England, and
also liberty to return without any impediment, which was granted accordingly. Therefore,
putting his trust in the Lord, contrary to the advice of many, he set out for England.
Taking with him Philip, earl of Flanders, and Baldwin, earl of Guisnes, Henry, duke of
Louvaine, count William de Mandeville, the advocate of Bethune, and other barons of the
kingdom of France, he came to Witsand, and thence passed over to England, arriving at
Dover on the eleventh day before the calends of September, being the fourth day of the
week. The king of England, the father, came to meet him on the sea-shore, and received him
with great honor and congratulations, as his most dearly-beloved liege lord and friend,
and, with due respect, supplied all necessaries for him and his people.
On the following day, that is to say, on the vigil of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle, he
escorted him to the tomb of Saint Thomas the Martyr, at Canterbury. Upon arriving there
Louis, king of the Franks, offered upon the tomb of Saint Thomas the Martyr a cup of gold,
very large and of great value, and gave, for the use of the monks there in the service of
God, a hundred tuns of wine, to be received yearly for ever at Poissy, in France, entirely
at the expense of the king of France. In addition to this, he granted them that whatever
in future should be bought in the kingdom of France for their own use, should be free from
toll and all other customs and excise. All this he caused to be confirmed by his charter,
which they received at the hands of Hugh de Pudsey, chancellor of the king of France, and
son of Hugh, bishop of Durham. On the third day after this, the king of France and his
people who were with him returned to Dover, under the escort of the king of the English;
and on the following day, namely, the seventh day before the calends of September, being
the Lords Day, the king of France crossed over from England to Flanders, and landed
at Witsand.
In the meantime, his son Philip, through the merits and prayers of the blessed Thomas
the Martyr, was restored to his former health: on hearing which, the king of France,
elated, amid great public rejoicings, ordered by proclamation that all the chief men of
his kingdom, both ecclesiastical and secular, should assemble at Rheims, at the beginning
of the calends of November, in order to celebrate there the coronation of his son Philip.
When they were assembled there, William, archbishop of Rheims, crowned the before-named
Philip, the son of his sister Ala, who was now in the fifteenth year of his age, and
anointed him king at Rheims, in the church there of the Pontifical See, on the day of the
feast of All Saints, being assisted in the performance of that office by William,
archbishop of Tours, and the archbishops of Bourges and Sens, and nearly all the bishops
of the kingdom. Henry, the king of England, the son, in the procession from the chamber to
the cathedral on the day of the coronation, preceded him, bearing the golden crown with
which the said Philip was to be crowned, in right of the dukedom of Normandy. Philip, earl
of Flanders, also walked before, bearing before him the sword of the kingdom. Other dukes,
counts, and barons also preceded and followed him, each being appointed to perform some
duty therein, according as the king had commanded them. But king Louis, his father,
laboring under old age and a paralytic malady, was unable to be present at his coronation;
for, as he was returning from England and staying at Saint Denis, being struck by a sudden
chill, he had an attack of paralysis, and lost the use of the right side of his body.
1190
[King Richard the Lion-hearted is en route to the Holy Land during the Third Crusade.
A storm at sea menaces some of his ships.]
When they had now passed through the British Sea and the Sea of Poitou, and had come into
the Spanish Sea, on the holy Day of the Ascension of our Lord, at the third hour of the
day, a mighty and dreadful tempest overtook them, and in the twinkling of an eye they were
separated from each other. While the storm was raging, and all in their affliction were
calling upon the Lord, the blessed Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury and Martyr,
appeared at three different times to three different persons, who were on board a London
ship in which was William Fitz-Osbert, and Geoffrey, the goldsmith, saying to them,
Be not afraid, for I, Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the blessed Edmund the
Martyr, and the blessed Nicholas, the Confessor, have been appointed by the Lord guardians
of this fleet of the king of England; and if the men of this fleet will guard themselves
against sin, and repent of their former offenses, the Lord will grant them a prosperous
voyage, and will direct their foot. steps in His paths. After having thrice repeated
these words, the blessed Thomas vanished from before their eyes, and immediately the
tempest ceased, and there was a great calm on the sea.
Source.
Roger wrote originally in Latin. This translation was made by Henry T. Riley and
was published as The Annals of Roger de Hoveden. 2 vols. London: Bohn,
1853. I believe this translation is now in the public domain. The electronic
form of this presentation is ©1998 by Scott McLetchie and may not be reproduced for any
commercial purposes whatsoever. It may be reproduced for non-profit educational
purposes.
Etext file created for a class by Scott Mcletchie [letchie@loyno.edu],
and used by permission here.
This text is part of the Internet
Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright.
Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational
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permission is granted for commercial use.
© Paul Halsall, October 1998
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
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