§ 34. THE EFFECTS OF BECKET's MURDER. 145
claim to the worship of a saint and martyr. "The blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the devils are cast out, even the dead are raised to life." Thus wrote John of Salisbury, his friend.1 Remark able cures, no doubt, took place ; credulity and fraud exag gerated and multiplied them. Within a few years after the murder, two collections of his miracles were published, one by Benedict, prior of Canterbury (afterwards abbot of Peter borough), and one by William, monk of Canterbury.2 Ac cording to these reports, the miracles began to occur the very night of the archbishop's death. His blood had miraculous efficacy for those who drank it.3
Two years after his death, Feb. 21, 1173, Becket was
1 See his Vita 8. Th. in the " Materials," etc., II. 322 : In loco passionis eius . . . paralytici curantur, cceci vident, surdi audiunt, loquuntur muti, claudi ambulant, leprosi mundantur . . . et quod a diebus patrum nostrorum non est auditum, mortui resurgunt.
2 William's long Vita et Passio S. Th. is printed in the " Materials," vol. I. 173-546. The credulous Alban Butler, in his Lives of the Saints, quotes from an old English MS. of a pretended eye-witness, who records two hundred and sixty-three miracles wrought by the intercession of St. Thomas, — many more than are found in the whole Bible.
3 Dr. Abbott devotes the main part of his work, I: 224 sqq. , II. to a de tailed description and discussion of the miracles. His closing chapter, II. 307-314, draws a parallel between these miracles and the miraculous works of Christ. He makes a distinction between mighty works wrought on human nature, such as the cure of diseases and the mighty works wrought on " nonhuman nature," as on bread, water, trees. The reality of the former he ac cepts, though he denies their supernatural character. The latter " are not to be accepted as historical, but as legends explicable from poetry taken as prose or from linguistic error or from these two combined." He goes on to say the distinction between Christ and Thomas is that " the spirit of St. Thomas had no power to pass into the hearts of men with a permanent vivifying mes sage of its own. The Spirit of him whom we worship has both that power and that message." This is not the place to make an argument for the mira cles of the New Testament, but two considerations place them and the mira cles of Thomas of Canterbury in different categories. Christ's miracles had the purpose and worth of attesting his mission as the Saviour of the world, and they were original. It was quite easy for the mediaeval mind in its fear and love of the wonderful to associate miracles with its saints, Christ's example being before them ; but whore it was original, the miracles it believed were for the most part grotesque.
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146 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1123-1198.
solemnly canonized by Alexander III., who had given him only a lukewarm support in his contest with the king. There is scarcely another example of such an early recognition of saintship ; but public sentiment had anticipated it. At a council in Westminster the papal letters of canonization were read. All the bishops who had opposed Becket were present, begged pardon for their offence, and acquiesced in the pope's decision. The 29th of December was set apart as the feast of "St. Thomas of Canterbuiy."
King Henry II., as the supposed author of the monstrous crime, was branded with a popular excommunication. On the first news, he shut himself up for three days in his cham ber, rolled himself in sackcloth and ashes, and obstinately re fused food and comfort. He lived secluded for five weeks, exclaiming again and again, " Alas, alas that it ever hap pened ! " He issued orders for the apprehension of the murderers, and despatched envoys to the pope to exculpate himself and to avert the calamity of excommunication and an interdict. After long delay a reconciliation took place in the cathedral of Avranches in Normandy, before the papal legates, the archbishop of Rouen, and many bishops and noblemen, May 22, 1172. J Henry swore on the holy Gospels that he had neither commanded nor desired the death of Becket, that it caused him more grief than the death of his father or his mother, and that he was ready to make full sat isfaction. He pledged himself to abrogate the Statutes of Clarendon; to restore the church of Canterbury to all its rights and possessions ; to undertake, if the pope should require it, a three years' crusade to Jerusalem or Spain, and to support two hundred knights in the Holy Land. After these pledges he said aloud : " Behold, my lord legates, my body is in your hands ; be assured that whatever you order, whether to go to Jerusalem or to Rome or to St. James
1 A granite pillar in the Norman cathedral at Avranches bears an inscrip tion in memory of the event. It is given by Stanley, p. 136.