As those authors report, which chiefly wrote Thomas Becket's life—whose names are Herbert Boseham, John Salisbury, William of Canterbury, Alen of Tewkesbury, Benet of Peterborough, Stephen Langton, and Richard Croyland—he bestoyed his youth in all kinds of lascivious lightness, and lecherous wantonness. After certain robberies, rapes, and murders, committed in the king's wars at the siege of Toulouse in Languedoc, and in other places else, as he was come home again into England, he gave himself to great study, not of the holy scriptures, but of the bishop of Rome's lousy laws, whereby he first of all obtained to be archdeacon of Canterbury, under Theobald the archbishop; then high chancellor of England; metropolitan, archbishop, primate; pope of England, and great legate from antichrist's own right side. In the time of his high-chancellorship, being but an ale-brewer's son of London, John Capgrave saith that he took upon him as he had been a prince. He played the courtier altogether, and fashioned himself wholly to the king's delights. He ruffled it out in the whole cloth with a mighty rabble of disguised ruffians at his tail. He sought the worldly honour with him that sought it most. He thought it a pleasant thing to have the flattering praises of the multitude. His bridle was of silver, his saddle of velvet, his stirrups, spurs, and bosses double gilt; his expenses far passing the expenses of an earl. That delight was not on the earth that he had not plenty of. He fed with the fattest, was clad with the softest, and kept company with the plesantest. Was not this (think you) a good mean to live chaste? I trow it was. Englyshe Votaryes, pt. ii., sign. P. vi. rect. Printed by Tisdale, 8vo. The orthography is modernized, but the words are faithfully Balëan! Thus writes Tyndale: and the king made him (Becket) his chancellor, in which office he passed the pomp and pride of Thomas (Wolsey) cardinal, as far as the ones shrine passeth the others tomb in glory and riches. And after that, he was a man of war, and captain of five or six thousand men in full harness, as bright as St. George, and his spear in his hand; and encountered whatsoever came against him, and overthrew the jollyest rutter that was in the host of France. And out of the field, hot from bloodshedding, was he made bishop of Canterbury; and did put off his helm, and put on his mitre; put off his harness, and on with his robes; and laid down his spear, and took his cross ere his hands were cold; and so came, with a lusty courage of a man of war, to fight an other while against his prince for the pope; when his prince's cause were with the law of God, and the pope's clean contrary. Practise of Popish Prelates. Tyndale's Works, edit. 1572, p. 361. The curious bibliographer, or collector of ancient books of biography, will find a very different character of Becket in a scarce Latin life of him, printed at Paris in the black letter, in the fifteenth century. His archiepiscopal table is described as being distinguished for great temperance and propriety: "In ejus mensa non audiebantur tibicines non cornicines, non lira, non fiala, non karola: nulla quidem præterquam mundam splendidam et inundantem epularum opulentiam. Nulla gule, nulla lascivie, nulla penitus luxurie, videbantur incitamenta. Revera inter tot et tantas delicias quæ ei apponebantur, in nullo penitus sardanapalum sed solum episcopum sapiebat," &c. Vita et processus sancti Thome Cantuariensis martyris super libertate ecclesiastica; Paris, 1495, sign. b. ij. rect. From a yet earlier, and perhaps the first printed, mention of Becket—and from a volume of which no perfect copy has yet been found—the reader is presented with a very curious account of the murder of the Archbishop, in its original dress. "Than were there iiij. cursed knyghtes of leuyng yt thoughte to haue had a grete thanke of the kyng and mad her a vowe to gedir to sle thomas. And so on childremasse day all moste at nyghte they come to caunterbury into thomas hall Sire Reynolde beriston, Sire william tracy, Sire Richard breton, and sire hewe morley. Thanne Sire Reynolde beriston for he was bitter of kynde a none he seyde to thomas the king that is be yonde the see sente us to the and bad that thou shuldst asoyle the bishoppe that thou cursiddiste than seyde thomas seris they be not acursed by me but by the Pope and I may not asoyle that he hathe cursid well seyde Reynolde than we see thou wolte not do the kynges byddynge and swore a grete othe by the eyon of God thou shalt be dede. than cryde the othir knyghtes sle sle and they wente downe to the courte and armyd hem. Than prestis and clerkis drowe hem to the church to thomas and spered the dores to hem. But whan thomas herde the knyghtes armed and wold come into the churche and myghte not he wente to the dore and un barred it and toke one of the knyghtes by the honde and seyde hit be semyth not to make a castell of holy churche, and toke hem by the honde and seyde come ynne my children in goddis name Thanne for it was myrke that they myghte not see nor knowe thomas they seyde where is the traytour nay seyde thomas no traytour but Archebishoppe. Than one seyde to hym fle fore thou arte but dede. Nay seyde thomas y come not to fle but to a byde Ego pro deo mori paratus sum et pro defensione iusticie et ecclesie libertate I am redy to dye for the loue of God and for the fredomme and righte of holy churche Than reynold with his swerdes poynte put off thomas cappe and smote at his hede and cutte of his crowne that it honge by like a dysche Than smote anothir at him and smote hit all of than fill he downe to the grounde on his knees and elbowes and seyde god into thy hondes I putte my cause and the righte of holy churche and so deyde Than the iij knyghte smote and his halfe stroke fell upon his clerkis arme that helde thomas cross be fore him and so his swerde fill down to the grounde and brake of the poynte and he seyde go we hens he is dede. And when they were all at the dore goyng robert broke wente a geyne and sette his fote to thomas necke and thruste out the brayne upon the pauement Thus for righte of holoye churche and the lawe of the londe thomas toke his dethe." The boke that is callid Festiuall; 1486, fol. sign. m. iij. These anecdotes, which are not to be found in Lyttleton or Berrington, may probably be gratifying to the curious.
Although I wish to be as laconic as possible in my Catalogue Raisonné of libraries and of book-collectors, during the earlier periods of our history, yet I must beg to remind you that some of the nunneries and monasteries, about these times, contained rather valuable collections of books: and indeed those of Glasgow, Peterborough, and Glastonbury,[254] deserve to be particularly noticed and commended. But I will push on with the personal history of literature, or rather of the Bibliomania.
[254] "I shall retire back to Godstowe, and, for the farther reputation of the nunns there, shall observe that they spent a great part of their time in reading good books. There was a common library for their use well furnished with books, many of which were English, and divers of them historical. The lives of the holy men and women, especially of the latter, were curiously written on vellum, and many illuminations appeared throughout, so as to draw the nunns the more easily to follow their examples." Hearne's edit. Guil. Neubrig., vol. ii., p. 768. Again he says, "It is probable they (certain sentences) were written in large letters, equal to the writing that we have in the finest books of offices, the best of which were for the use of the nunns, and for persons of distinction, and such as had weak eyes; and many of them were finely covered, not unlike the Kiver for the Gospell book, given to the chapell of Glastonbury by king Ina." p. 773. Can the enlightened reader want further proof of the existence of the Bibliomania in the nunnery of Godstow? As to Peterborough abbey, Gunston, in his history of the same place, has copied the catalogue of the different libraries belonging to the abbots. Benedict, who became abbot in 1177, had a collection of no less than fifty-seven volumes. But alas! the book reputation of this monastery soon fell away: for master Robert, who died abbot in 1222, left but seven books behind him; and Geoffrey de Croyland, who was abbot in 1290, had only that dreary old gentleman, Avicenna, to keep him company! At its dissolution, however, it contained 1700 volumes in MSS. Gunton's Peterborough, p. 173. Glastonbury seems to have long maintained its reputation for a fine library; and even as late as the year 1248 it could boast of several classical authors, although the English books were only four in number; the rest being considered as "vetustas et inutilia." The classical authors were Livy, Sallust, Tully, Seneca, Virgil, and Persius. See Joh. Confrat. Glaston., vol. ii., p. 423, 435: Hearne's edit. "Leland," says Warton, "who visited all the monasteries just before their dissolution, seems to have been struck with the venerable air and amplitude of this library." Hist. Engl. Poetry, Diss. ii.
I should be wanting in proper respect to the gentlemanly and scholar-like editor of his works, if I omitted the mention of that celebrated tourist and topographer, Girald Barri, or Giraldus Cambrensis; whose Irish and Welch itinerary has been recently so beautifully and successfully put forth in our own language.[255] Giraldus, long before and after he was bishop of St. David's, seems to have had the most enthusiastic admiration of British antiquities; and I confess it would have been among the keenest delights of my existence (had I lived at the period) to have been among his auditors when he read aloud (perhaps from a stone pulpit) his three books of the Topography of Ireland.[256] How many choice volumes, written and emblazoned upon snow-white vellum, and containing many a curious and precious genealogy, must this observing traveller and curious investigator have examined, when he was making the tour of Ireland in the suite of Prince, afterwards King, John! Judge of the anxiety of certain antiquated families, especially of the Welch nation, which stimulated them to open their choicest treasures, in the book way, to gratify the genealogical ardour of our tourist!
[255] There is a supplemental volume to the two English ones, containing the only complete Latin edition extant of the Welsh Itinerary. Of this impression there are but 200 copies printed on small, and 50 on large, paper. The whole work is most creditably executed, and does great honour to the taste and erudition of its editor, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, bart.
[256] "Having finished his topography of Ireland, which consisted of three books, he published it at Oxford, A.D. 1187, in the following manner, in three days. On the first day he read the first book to a great concourse of people, and afterwards entertained all the poor of the town. On the second day he read the second book, and entertained all the Doctors and chief scholars: and on the third day he read the third book, and entertained the younger scholars, soldiers, and burgesses."—"A most glorious spectacle (says he), which revived the ancient times of the poets, and of which no example had been seen in England." This is given by Dr. Henry (b. iii., ch. 4, § 2), on the authority of Giraldus's own book, De rebus a se gestis, lib. i. c. 16. Twyne, in his arid little quarto Latin volume of the Antiquities of Oxford, says not a word about it; and, what is more extraordinary, it is barely alluded to by Antony Wood! See Mr. Gutch's genuine edition of Wood's Annals of the University of Oxford, vol. i., pp. 60, 166. Warton, in his History of English Poetry, vol. i., Diss. ii., notices Giraldus's work with his usual taste and interest.
Lis. I wish from my heart that Girald Barri had been somewhat more communicative on this head!
Loren. Of what do you suppose he would have informed us, had he indulged this bibliographical gossipping?
Lis. Of many a grand and many a curious volume.
Lysand. Not exactly so, Lisardo. The art of book-illumination in this country was then sufficiently barbarous, if at all known.