VITA ET PASSIO S. THOMAE CANTUARIENSIS

• 345A

The professors of the arts, etc. ( Vide Vitam S. Thomae auctore Edwardo Grim, col. 1 usque ad Pie igitur etc. col., 2.)

Wishing therefore dutifully to comply with the devotion of certain persons who are anxious to know more fully the deeds of the precious martyr, we have taken pains to weave together as a single continuous narrative, in the manner of history, the labors and studies of four historians — namely of the great Herbert of Bosham, John of Chartres, William of Canterbury, and Alan, abbot of Tewkesbury — who had depicted the whole story of the precious martyr in a brilliant style, inasmuch as they clung to the saint quite intimately throughout the whole time both of his commanding nobility and of his 345Babject humility. And in this we took the greatest precaution that nothing of the substance of the matter, or of the truth of the whole course of events, from the first beginning of his full manhood down to the day when for his God and for the liberty of the Church he completed the course of his life by martyrdom, should perish through silence. To be sure, as it seems to very many, Herbert, who was able to tell each detail from knowledge — inasmuch as he bears witness to the things he saw and heard — was longer than was right out of love for his master, and overstepped the bounds of a compendium. John, on the other hand, when the storm of the public power was stirred up, employing a compressed truth, wrenched away his pen short of completion. The remaining two also, because they did not fully satisfy those who thirsted to know the sum of the matter, served up a queasiness at study and no less bred distaste in the studious. Undertaking 345Ctherefore this work, the Lord being bountiful — a difficult one, but, as we believe, acceptable to posterity — we have striven to consult with fitting brevity for the deficatis, and to satisfy the studious with the full truth. Nor yet have we so cut back on length for the sake of pleasing that we omit anything of what bears upon necessity; not that we wish to defraud those who desire the full history, even in a small point of the truth. For it is exceedingly absurd that anyone should say that something is to be passed over among the praises of a man whose character and works he sets forth for imitation. Exceedingly absurd, I say, it is to pull down a part of the building whose finished consummation one intends magnificently to display. With the merits and the prayer of the glorious martyr as our patronage, therefore, to the praise and glory of him who grants strength to his saints on the way and lavishes rewards 346Ain the fatherland, we have given ourselves to the present work for a time, so that a compendious length may both take away distaste from the weary and provoke a greater appetite in studious readers. May the Spirit of truth, then, through the glorious merits of our blessed father, so breathe upon our devotion that it nowhere strays from the line of rectitude, so that what we undertake with a dutiful intention a prayer full of pure faith may carry through.

Here ends the prologue to the Life and passion of Saint Thomas the martyr; and here begins the fourfold account of the Life, passion, and proceedings of the same martyr.

Chosen therefore before the world, etc., as far as to the truth [ the same as the things found in Edward Grim, above, 346Bcol. 3.]

But now, that we may take up the thread of the history from a little further back, we have judged it not beside the purpose to insert at the beginning an account of the marriage of his father and mother — a truth altogether marvelous, at any rate, to those who ponder the course of events — so that from it, namely, it may easily be observed with what great care and mercy the wondrous predestination of the Savior gathered into one two persons so different in origin and condition, from the rising of the sun and from its setting, from whose offspring indeed he purposed that his bride the Church should be triumphantly exalted and adorned throughout the whole world.

The aforesaid Gilbert, then, being a young man in years, took up the Lord's cross 346Cfor the sake of a penance he had vowed, intending to go to Jerusalem, taking with him one of his household, Richard by name, and content with him alone for a servant. And when at length they had arrived prosperously, ambushes having been laid between the Christians and the heathen, he entered the holy places with others for the sake of prayer. But when it was permitted to return, all the visitors alike were taken and put in chains and held in the prison of a certain Emir, a distinguished prince of the pagans, so that each day they might in a fashion procure themselves such food as they could by the labors imposed upon them. This Gilbert, for a whole year and a half in the captivity of the Slavs, serving after the manner of a slave, since he was held to be more honorable and more excellent than the rest, found grace and favor in the Emir's eyes above all others, so far that he frequently came before him 347Ato table — though still in chains — and would visit those reclining there, and they would duly confer with one another about the knowledge of lands and the customs of various peoples. Many benefits also were conferred on his fellow captives on account of his favor, procured at the same time privately, so far as was permitted, by the daughter of that same Emir — a girl altogether courtly and comely, the only child of her father — who indeed loved this Gilbert with a wonderful affection, as will appear below. Now on a certain day, having got the opportunity of speaking with him more freely, the girl inquired of him from what land and city he came, and about the faith and the religion and the manner of life of Christians, and what might be the hope of believers and the rewards of the ages to come. And when he answered that he was an Englishman and a dweller in the city of London, and had set forth what she asked about the faith 347Bof Christ as best he knew, she thereupon scistitavit of him, saying: « Would you undauntedly meet death gladly for your God and for keeping the faith of Christ which you profess? » — « Most gladly, he said, would I die for our God. » Hearing this, the girl, at once wholly changed as it were by the power of the word, declares that she will become a Christian for his sake, provided only that he would pledge to take her as his wife in her new faith. He, however, kept silent, deliberating with himself, and fearing of course some deceit, was unwilling to consent at once by making a promise to her as she pressed him with entreaties; rather, shuffling, he put it off from day to day, unwilling to grant his consent quickly. And when the girl was vehemently afflicted, and day by day, on account of the delay, grew more anxious, as is the way of women, Gilbert meanwhile, taking thought with his fellow captives about flight, 347Cafter a year and a half, on a certain night, broke their chains and their prison and fled; and at speed they covered the whole remainder of the night until they had reached the borders of the Christians. But when morning came, and the overseer of the works, coming as usual to send them to their accustomed labors, did not find them, the prison being broken open, he pursued them with a strong hand, until, the borders of the Christians standing in the way and every hope now baffled, they turned back, not a little angered. And the aforesaid girl, hearing this, from that hour thought at once, she also, about her own setting out and flight after them. And when over this matter she became wonderfully full of thought by day and by night, and burned in the deliberation how she might get away more safely, on a certain night, when all were sunk in sleep, alone and with no one knowing, taking with her a small 347Dprovision necessary for the journey, so that she might travel the more unencumbered on a road that had to be attempted with much difficulty, she gave herself over to the manifold peril of flight, caring nothing for all the things belonging to her by hereditary right, and reckoning it a sufficiency of riches to have fulfilled her longing according to her wish. O the exceedingly marvelous daring, and no less the love, of this woman, who took upon herself things so difficult and steep! She did not hesitate, though she was to be ennobled with the glory of so vast a paternal estate, to be irrecoverably deprived of it; frail and delicate as she was, she did not tremble to undergo punishing poverty; nor did she shrink from traversing alone such spaces of lands and the countless kinds of perils of a shipwrecking sea, while she sought the love of one man so far off and unknown — since she had not even any assurance of his life or of finding him, 348Anay, was not yet even assured of the marriage, even if she should find the man she sought. Setting out, therefore, she passed prosperously through the pagan lands, and sailed toward England with certain pilgrims and merchants who were returning home and who knew her tongue. And when, all the perils that met her on the way being got through, she had landed in England, and had now been parted from her companions, she knew how to ask nothing else for her journey but only this: London, London. And when at length she arrived there, walking through the squares of the city like a straying beast and looking about at all who met her after the manner of one searching, she was held in derision by all, and most of all by the boys who stared at her and walked along through the streets, marveling alike at her strange dress and speech. 348BBut it happened that, walking thus through the squares and streets, she came by mere chance opposite the house of the aforesaid Gilbert, where he was living — namely in the more notable and more frequented market of the city, where now a hospital house has been built in honor of Saint Thomas. And there it was noised abroad that a certain young woman, as it were witless, was wandering about with boys and others following her and mocking her. Now Richard, Gilbert's servant mentioned above, hearing it, ran up himself along with the rest as if to a show. And when, drawing nearer, he recognized her, he at once ran back with the utmost haste to his master, telling him privately that this was the Emir's daughter, to gaze upon whom a crowd of men was streaming together out of wonder. Hearing this, and marveling beyond measure, and not 348Cable to believe it — since it seemed altogether impossible that it should have so fallen out — the master could not give credence to Richard, until, as Richard persisted for a long while in his oath, he was rendered somewhat less incredulous. Considering at length the reason for her coming, he judged nevertheless that it was more prudent to provide for her elsewhere than by keeping her with him in his own house, and ordered Richard to bring her to a certain widowed matron who was his neighbor, who should treat her in all things as her own daughter. And when the girl saw him and recognized him, straightway she fell as though dead, lying on her back in a trance. And when, roused from that alienation of mind and come to herself, she sat up, Richard brought her to the said matron as his master had commanded. 348DBut Gilbert, turning over within himself the girl's arrival, began to waver in mind among various courses; and, conceiving thoughts that fought against one another, it came into his mind to go and consult the bishop of London at Saint Paul's, where on a certain day six bishops were present to treat of the difficult affairs of the kingdom or of the Church. And when he was set before them, and was expounding in order the truth of the events recounted above, straightway the bishop of Chichester, breaking out before the rest into a prophetic utterance, asserted without hesitation that this calling was not human but rather divine, and that of necessity she would bring forth offspring of a magnificent work, by whose holiness and labor the universal Church was to be exalted to the glory of Christ. And when the other bishops who were present 349Aagreed in this judgment, and that the same Gilbert should take the girl to wife, provided only that she were willing to be baptized, she was brought on the appointed day, on the morrow, into the Church of Blessed Paul in the presence of the said bishops, where a baptistery had also been suitably prepared in which she was to be baptized, And when, set in the midst, she was asked — as the custom of the Church requires — through the oft-mentioned Richard, their common interpreter, whether she wished to be baptized, she answered: « For the sake of this thing I have come hither from very far off, provided only that Gilbert be willing to be joined to me in marriage. » The girl is therefore baptized, the six bishops performing the sacrament of baptism with great solemnity, because she was a woman of distinguished blood — nay, far more distinguished by her calling, and that a divine one. She is straightway given by 349Bthe bishops to Gilbert in marriage with festivity, having first been briefly instructed as a wife concerning the Catholic faith. And when he was leading her home, on the first night of their concord together they begot Saint Thomas, the future archbishop of Canterbury and martyr. But on the morrow Gilbert was seized with so great a longing to return to the Holy Land that, agitated by sighs, he wore an unwonted look of sadness more constantly than merely often. He considers meanwhile his young wife's tender and frail sex, her slippery age, and her ignorance too of the tongue of the country, and that on account of these things no small dangers could easily come upon her through his absence. But his wife, when she noticed that his face was changed to something quite other than yesterday and the day before, was vehemently afraid 349Cand kept thinking that perhaps she herself was the cause. She pressed him therefore with entreaties by day and by night, asking the truth of so great a sadness, nor did she ever leave off until what lay hidden had been plainly disclosed. Gilbert therefore, worn out by the insistence of her prayers, when he had unlocked his longing to his wife — she indeed, as a woman of great hope and strengthened in the faith of Christ, not only assented to her husband's vow, but even asked and exhorted him that whatever he had conceived in mind, by which he believed he might please his Creator, he should carry out as promptly as devoutly, taking no account of her. And she added: « I hope, she said, firmly, and trust so much in my God who called me to the knowledge of his name, that even in your absence he will not forsake me, but 349Djust as, even before I knew him, he kept me untouched by every danger, so he will keep me still. Only this I ask for my comfort, that you leave me Richard, because, being better taught in my tongue, he will know how to minister to my needs better than the rest. » Hearing these things, Gilbert, made exceedingly glad, prepares what he needs. And when he had set in order what was fitting for his wife and household, he set out as quickly as he could for Jerusalem, where, making a stay of three years and a half, he afterward returned home. And he found his son Thomas exceedingly comely in form and gracious in the eyes of all who beheld him.

• 350A

After a short interval, then, etc., as far as he prefigured [ these also are the same as what you may find in Edward Grim, above, col. 3-4.]

Now that the years of boyhood had rolled by, he began to be strong in the best of characters: bright in intelligence, welcome in speech, cheerful of face in a way consistent with gravity, charming in appearance, altogether elegant in form, he showed himself pleasing and lovable to all. And in respect of both the inward and the outward man 350Bthe divine goodness enriched him with a manifold grace of natural gifts, so that he seemed a vessel hewn out for a great mystery, and from the benefits of nature was foretold as a bishop to come — even as a heavenly vision more fully made known while he was still a boy.

For once, when he was seized by a fever, and, as it grew stronger, a burning sweat was already breaking out little by little from within over his whole small body, a certain lady seemed to have stood by him as he lay in bed — tall of stature, calm of face and comely of aspect — and, when the boy had been comforted by her promise of health, to have handed him two golden keys into his hand with these words: « Thomas, » she said, « these are the keys of paradise, the keeping of which you are yet to have; » and, when she had said this, she vanished.

350CNow at the time when his father had handed him over to prior Robert in the religious house of Merton to be brought up for a while, the father came one day to see his son; and when the boy had been brought in before the prior, the father fell forward and did reverence to him. But the prior, indignant, said to him: « What are you doing? Do you fall at the feet of your son? What you are doing to him, he ought to be doing to you. » To whom the father said in private: « My lord, do not wonder; I know what I am doing to him: this boy will indeed be great before the Lord. » The father was of course in awe at things so marvelous divinely revealed to him about his son, which nevertheless, out of wonder, he judged should be hidden under the seal of silence. And after he had been handed over to the study of letters and had taken up the liberal arts, he made progress in them so far as the wantonness of his age and the shortness of the time allowed.

350DAnd from his earliest years, as he was accustomed to relate, he learned from his mother the fear of Dimini, and to call more sweetly upon the blessed Mother of God as the guide of his ways and the patroness of his life, and, after Christ, to cast his whole trust upon her.

But when his mother had died, left to himself and to his father, he was spending his twenty-second year in idleness. Then, after studying for some time at Paris, he returned and was received into a share of the care of the commonwealth of London, where, conducting himself in a praiseworthy manner, he learned the prudence of this world, by which afterward he well knew how to handle openly the common affairs of the Church of the English and the public affairs of the whole kingdom. And he came to a certain man in the city, distinguished in family and foremost in many possessions, 351Ato whom he attached himself firmly, following the various curiosities of the world, now in hunting, now in the taking of birds, on which a young man's spirit is chiefly fed. At his pleasure he stayed now at home with his father, now in the country with the rich man. And it came about that, left to himself in this fashion, he prematurely renounced the studies of the schools. But one day it happened that, as Thomas was going along the riverbanks together with the rich man, a hawk pursued a duck it had started up from the river, and, following it as it turned aside into the river, was plunged under the water along with it. Seeing this, the young man, pitying the hawk that was now about to perish, leapt down from his horse and flung himself into the eddy to rescue the bird; but before he could reach the bird he was himself swept away within the channel of the river, and, now sunk beneath the water, now lifted by the driving force of the waves, he began to be in peril, 351Band was thought by those looking on to have utterly perished, since no one could be at hand to stretch out a hand to him as he was dying. At last, carried by the pull of the water to a mill which happened at that time to be grinding, as soon as he came near the outflows of the water, the wheel stood still and did not move once, until the young man was drawn out — alive indeed, but grievously distressed. But the healing hand of the Savior cherished the afflicted man, whom it protected amid the waves when he was despaired of, lest the lamp that was to be in Israel should be put out — by whose precious death we see that such great benefits have come to pass.

Betaking himself, therefore, to the occupations of the court, he began to come to the flower of worldly prudence, and 352Ato be strong in the fruit of discretion. For he flourished with so keen an edge of reason that he prudently resolved unheard-of and difficult questions; and he rejoiced in so happy a memory that whatever he had once learned, in judgments or in words, he could bring forth almost as often as he wished without difficulty — a thing which many more lettered men, unable to attain it, ascribed to a miracle, so great a clearness of mind, especially in a man given over to various occupations. Doubtless the divine dispensation was in this way training and exercising in lesser things one whom it was calling to greater, as in certain preparations for what was to come, so that in conferences or in sermons (as the saying goes) he might have what was necessary ready to hand. As a presage too of his constancy to come, they report that the love of truth clung so tenaciously to the young man's mind, although he followed worldly pursuits, 352Bthat scarcely ever, or never, in jest or in earnest did he utter anything contrary to the truth; and how perfectly he fulfilled this very thing after he became a man, what follows will declare.

( After this point the earlier quadrilogus agrees almost word for word with the second quadrilogus, of which we shall speak hereafter. But in place of three it comprises five books, of which the fourth is De Gestis post martyrium; the fifth contains some seventy letters. Let this suffice to have been said of this compilation. The book itself in which these things are contained, having now become rare, is valued and sold at a considerable price. There is in the library of Saint-Omer a manuscript book on the Life of St Thomas, which is nearly the same as the first quadrilogus as published, and which besides has those few things about the siege of Toulouse excerpted from the work of William fitz Stephen. )