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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
It has been observed concerning this curious window, that there was some difficulty in ascertaining which of the figures might be intended for Becket. But as the central portrait in the upper compartment is alone ornamented with a mitre, it is, I think, justly remarked at p. 368, of the IXth Volume of Archæologia, that it was probably designed for the primate. The words under the lower middle figure might occasion a doubt, it being drawn in a military habiliment, and not differing in the least from the figures in the side pannels declared to be those of the murderers of the archbishop. However, as I imagine, Martim Thomæ signifies, in general, that the martyrdom of Thomas is the subject of this relick of antiquity, which obviously exhibits persons rather than things. For not a single trait of the murderous act is displayed; and without the inscriptions it might long have remained uncertain to what historical occurrence this coloured glass alluded.
page 334 note [a] In a window in the library of Trinity College in Oxford, is a figure with a mitre and crosier, and the point of a sword sticking in his forehead; from which circumstance Mr. Huddesford supposed it to represent Becket. Collection of the Wills of Kings and Queens of England, &c. p. 70, note a. The circumstance does not, however, seem to correspond with the relation of the murder of Becket. It was only the crown of his head that was struck and severed, and Briton's sword was broken by the blow upon the pavement. Corona capitis tota ei amputata est. Hist. Ang. Script. a Sparke, vita S. Tho. Cantuar. a W. Stephan, p. 87.
page 335 note [b] The lines comprizing the names of the four knights are transposed in Brompton's Chronicle, but are there more correctly spelt. Willelmus Traci, Reginaldus filius ursi, Ricardus Brito, necnon Morvilius Hugo. X Script. col. 1363.
page 335 note [c] Aliqui dicentes; captus es; venies nobiscum; injectis manibus, cum ab ecclesia extrahere volebant; ille respondens; nunquam ibo; hic facietis, quod facere vultis, et quod vobis prœcepium est. Stephan. p. 87.
page 335 note [d] Alter quidem Herodes, semen Canaan, et non Juda, progenies viperarum, missis a suo latere lictoribus, signum dominicæ passionis, quod desuper in vertice gerebat, nequaquam exhorruit profundis exarare vulneribus. Wilkins Concil, I. 467, Per archidiaconum nobis significavit, quod causam mortis ejus dederat, et quod cum occiderat. Ibid. p. 468.
page 336 note [e] Lord Lyttelton's Hist. V. p. 127, 8vo. edit.
page 337 note [f] Item, hoc quoque pro miraculo habendum est magno; quod quatuor illi Sathanæ satellitæ cruentissimi, cum totô sequelà suâ ad facinus hoc perpetrandum, sicut et omnes fere martyris persecutores morte in brevi sunt consumpti; et plerique eorum turpi, et tanquam ultione divinâ subitâ passione percussi. Ille vero qui totius facinoris auctor fuisse creditur et machinator non longo post tempore miserum cum dedecore spiritum exhalavit. Giraldus Cambrensis de vitis sex episcoporum coætaneorum. Ang. Sac. II. p. 423.
page 337 note [g] Hist. of Henry II. Vol. IV. p. 360.
page 338 note [h] Iturus ad aram superius ubi missas familiares et horas solebat audire. Jam quatuor gradus ascenderat. Stephan. p. 85.
page 338 note [i] Immolatus itaque coram altari letale vulnus accepit; Diceto, X. Sript. col. 555.
Quis moritur? Præ;ful. Cur? Pro grege. Qualiter? Ense.
Quando? Natali. Quis locus? Ara Dei. Bromton, Ib. col. 1064.
page 338 note [k] In faciem concidit secus aram, quæ ibi erat, Sancti Benedicti. V. Stephan, p. 87.
page 339 note [l] Illic ostenditur altare ligneum, divæ virgini sacrum, et pusillum, nee ulla re visendum nisi monumento vetustatis luxum hisce temporibus exprobrante. Illic vir pius dicitur extremum vale dixissc virgini, cum mors immineret. Peregrinat. Religionis ergo. Erasm. Op. fol. v. col. 783.
page 339 note [m] Bishops carried their crosiers in their left hands; but abbots carried them in their right hands. Tanner, Notit. Monast. Edit. Nasmith. Pref. p. xvi. note 99. There was a crosier in the right hand of the corpse of the abbot not long since discovered in Gloucester cathedral. Archæolog. Vol. IX. Pl. II.
page 339 note [n] Affuit i11i obsequiis abbas Boxlea et prior de Doura, vocati prius ab archiepiscopo, quia eorum consilio priorem, qui in Cantuariensi non erat ecclesia, unum ex monachis voluit facere. Decreverunt ipsum non esse lavandum, aliter quam locus erat in sanguine suo. Stephan. p. 89.
page 339 note [o] Thomas was prior 1152, and received the benediction from archbishop Theobald, as did John from abp. Richard 1173. MS Coll. E. R. Mores. R. G.
page 340 note [p] Post modicum quidem monachus ecclesiæ Arnaldus aurifaber, et aliqui cum eo ad locum martyrii ejus redeunt. Sanguinem ejus et cerebrum per aream ecclesiæ effusum, mundissime in pelvim recolligunt; et ne conculcaretur locus ille pedibus transeuntium, scamna portabilia transponunt. Stephan. p. 89.
page 340 note [q] Gervase, X. Script. col. 1417, 1418.
page 340 note [r] Warton's Hist. of English Poetry, vol. II. p. 431, 432.
page 342 note [s] Dominus vero Cantuariensis sacris canonibus consentiens, in contrarium allegabat; asserens omnino injustum fore, et contra canones, et contra Deum, si ob unius punitionem delicti, duo quis subeat judicia. Si dennatur reus, tum exauctoratur, non debet alium judicium inchoari, ad ejusdem condemnationem peccati. Stephan. p. 29.
page 342 note [t] The variety, uncertainty, and, in one instance the falsity, of the stories told concerning the subsequent fate of the knights countenances a suspicion of their being founded partly on vague reports, partly on imagination, if not on a wilful misrepresentation. In the passage already quoted from Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote at the end of the 12th and beginning of the 13th century, they are said to have died in a short time of natural diseases. He is silent about their supposed pilgrimage to the Holy Land; nor, by what I can collect from Lord Lyttelton's references to the Quadrilogus is this circumstance mentioned in that historical miscellany: he only saying that “all the knights perished “within less than three years after they committed the murder, and that their “premature end was considered as an extraordinary judgment of God and a “divine attestation of the sanctity of Becket, by some of the writers of his “life.” (Hist. Vol. V. p. 132.) Indeed William of Newburgh advances in express terms, that the homicides being stung with remorse, willingly went to Rome, and were sent from thence by the Pope to Jerusalem, where after they had for some years performed, not remissly, the penance enjoined them, they all ended their lives, Hoveden's relation is, that after much time (post multum temporis) they went to Rome, and were enjoined by the Pope to perform their penance upon the black mountain in Judæa, where they died, and were buried before the gate of the temple, with an inscription over the place of burial, denoting that they were the wretched men, who had martyrized the blessed St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury. But Lord Lyttelton has clearly proved that Hugh de Morville was living in the beginning of King John's reign, and has likewise shewed it to be highly probable, that William de Tracy did not die much earlier. There is good reason to suppose be survived Becket fifty-seven years, and died about, or after, 1223. Sepulchral Monuments of Great Britain, p. 40. The rumour therefore of the speedy demise of all the knights was groundless; and with regard to their interment at Jerusalem, the immediately preceding passage in Hoveden's annals has so strong a taint of the bigotry and collusion of a monkish historian, as to corrupt the authenticity of his whole narration; it being seriously averred, that when the fragments of the victuals from the assassins' tables were thrown to the dogs, they no sooner tasted than they refused to eat them: and he urges it as a manifest and deserved sign of the vengeance of God, that those who had contemned the anointed of the Lord were contemned by dogs. “Soli ergo manducabant et soli bibebant, et fragmenta cibariorum suorum projiciebantur canibus, et cum inde gustassent nolebant inde quicquam comedere. Ecce manifesta et digna Dei vindicta ! Ut illi qui contempserunt Christum Domini, a canibus etiam eondemnebantur.” Erasmus has preserved another legendary tale, which he learnt from the mystagogue of Christ-church, who attended him when he visited that cathedral. It was, that the knights after the perpetration of the deed were seized with madness, but restored to sound minds, by the interposition of St. Thomas, whose favour had been implored.
From forgetfulness or inattention, Erasmus repeatedly mentions only three knights. He intimates that their names were subscribed to the figures, lest for glory's sake they should be usurped by any persons; but he has so miscalled the knights, that to decypher their names would require no little sagacity.
“In vestibulo templi, quod est ad austrum, stant saxo sculpti tres armati, qui manibus impiis fanctissimum trucidarunt: addita sunt gentis cognomina, Tusci, Fusci, Berri. Me. Cur tantum honoris habetur impiis? Og. Videlicet, idem honoris habetur iis, quod habetur Judæ, Pilato, Caiphæ, cohorti militum sceleratorum, quos operose sculptos vides in auratis altaribus. Adduntur cognomina, ne quis posthac usurpet gloriæ causa. Ingeruntur oculis ne quis aulicus posthac injiciat manus in episcopos, vel in possessiones ecclesiæ. Nam tres illi sateliites, peracto facinore, versi sunt in rabiem, nec reddita mens est, nisi implorato Thomæ Sanctissimi favore. Me. O perpetuam martyrum clementiam! Erasm. Op. I. c. 683.