In the West Country

by Francis A. Knight

The pavement was in fact still sprinkled with his blood when those supernatural manifestations began, which were to make the martyr's shrine the richest in the world. On the very day of the murder, a blind man on his way to seek aid at the church of St. Nicholas, was accosted by "an appearance in the form of a man, who warned him to betake himself to the new martyr of Christ." He groped his way to Becket's body. He touched his own sightless eyes with the sacred blood, and his vision was immediately restored. This was the first of many miracles. The pious chroniclers record how men, women, and children flocked to the shrine from every corner of the Kingdom, some to ask aid, others to return thanks for favours granted: as Chaucer puts it:

"The holy, blisful martyr for to seke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke."

Captives, who had been taken by the Saracens, travelled all the way from Damascus, to return thanks at the shrine of Canterbury, because St. Thomas had appeared to them in the visions of the night and helped them to escape.

Five writers of the time did their best to record for the benefit of future ages the miracles of the blessed martyr. These were Benedict, sometime Prior of Christchurch, Canterbury, and afterwards Abbot of Peterborough; William of Canterbury, who, perhaps, held office at the shrine after Benedict; Alan, Abbot of Tewkesbury; John of Salisbury, who witnessed the murder, and whom de Traci thought was the man he had wounded; and Grim of Cambridge,—not a monk, in all probability, nor really connected in any way with Becket, but his great admirer. It was Grim, it will be remembered, who was wounded in the vain attempt to save the Archbishop. The minutest particulars are given in these chronicles. The names and professions, the counties, the native towns of many of the pilgrims are recorded.

There are exceptions. In the case of a man who came from "the province of Surrey," Benedict says "the barbarous name of the town has not stuck in my memory." The miracles were of every imaginable description. A sick monk, near Sedan, too ill to leave his cell, was touched with a mere list of the Saint's achievements, and in a short time he was able to resume his duties. A monk of Byland was dying. He had already received the Viaticum, when the Abbot, having made the sign of the Cross in water upon a piece of Becket's hair-shirt, caused the dying man's mouth to be opened, and the water administered. Instantly, we are told, the sick man recovered speech and appetite. It was a common thing to promise a candle to the Saint. There were men who were too ill to go in person to Canterbury, and who dated their recovery from the instant that the candle was lighted for them at the shrine.

There is a description of five widows who tried in vain to restore life to a child who had been three hours under water. They held him up by the feet; they repeated nine Paternosters over him in the name of the blessed St. Thomas, but all with no effect. Then one of them said to the child's mother: "Run and fetch a piece of string and measure the child, and promise to the martyr a candle of the same length." It was done, and the boy at once recovered.

The smallest offerings were not disdained. A Flemish bird-catcher, having tried in vain for some days to trap a certain falcon, cried out, "O Blessed Thomas, glorious martyr, I will give thee a penny if thou wilt give me the falcon." Benedict tells us that "it came instantly to the bird-catcher, as if used to his hand. We both saw the falcon," he goes on, "and received the money."

Even more marvellous still are the legends that passed current as to the wonders wrought by the martyr's blood, which in quantities about the bulk of a hazel nut, and largely diluted, were sold to pilgrims under the name of Canterbury Water. A man, journeying home after visiting the shrine, was belated at Rochester. In vain he sought shelter for the night. At door after door he was refused admittance. At last, "for the sake of the blessed martyr," he was taken in. In the night the town caught fire. When the citizens were fleeing, panic-stricken, "the pilgrim, whose faith was more fervent than the material flame, remaining boldly on the roof, called for a spear, or something long. A fork (hayfork, perhaps) was handed up to him. Then, taking the reliquary (containing Canterbury Water) from his neck … he fastened it to the fork, held it out towards the fire," and thus kept the flames at bay. For "the fire, as if fearing a contrary element, turned aside." Finally the whole town was burnt, with the single exception of its one hospitable house.

A few drops of Canterbury Water swallowed or administered externally sufficed to cure the most desperate diseases, and were quite as efficacious as the pilgrimage itself. By its use the blind, the deaf, the lame, the palsied, were cured, and even the dead brought back to life.