431 “Libellus vere aureus . . . de optimo reipublicæ statu deque noua Insula Vtopia . . . cura P. Ægidii . . . nunc primum . . . editus,” Louvain, 1516, lib. i.
432 Hardy, “Registrum palatinum Dunelmense,” vol. iii. p. cxxxiv.
433 “Theodori archiepiscopi Cantuariensis pœnitentiale,” in Migne’s “Patrologia,” vol. xcix. col. 938 and 940.
434 “Halitgarii episcopi Cameracensis liber pœnitentialis,” in Migne’s “Patrologia,” vol. cv. col. 706.
436 The two words were used as interchangeable. Du Cange quotes a text of 1389, reading: “Come il fust venu en la ville de Necie près Faloise un questeur ou porteur de pardons.” Sub verbo “Perdonantia.”
437 In England as elsewhere forgers were busy. One is captured at great expense in the year 51 Ed. III: “To John Compton, one of the king’s archers of his crown. In money paid to him for the expenses of himself and other archers in his retinue, coming from Gloucester to London, to conduct and deliver up Thomas Pardoner and Reginald Clerc, forgers of the seal of the Lord the Pope . . . also for hire of horses for the same Thomas and Reginald and for divers other costs occurred in their safe conduct, £6.” Devon, “Issues of the Exchequer,” 1837, p. 203.
439 Prologue to the “Canterbury Tales,” and Prologue to the “Pardoner’s Tale.”
440 “The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio” . . . done into English . . . by John Payne, London, 1886, vol. ii. p. 278, tenth Tale, sixth Day.
442 Same Appendix.
443 “Excommunicatis gratiam absolutionis impendit. Vota peregrinationis ad apostolorum limina, ad Terram Sanctam, ad Sanctum Jacobum non prius remisit quam tantam pecuniam recepisset, quantam, juxta veram æstimationem, in eisdem peregrinationibus expendere debuissent, et ut cuncta concludam brevibus, nihil omnino petendum erat, quod non censuit, intercedente pecunia, concedendum.” “Historia Anglicana”; Rolls Series, vol. i. p. 452.
445 Lyndsay, “Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaits” performed at Linlithgow, 1540; Early English Text Society, 1869; John Heywood, “The Pardoner and the Frere, the Curate and Neybour Pratte,” 1533; “The foure Ps,” 1545.
446 Payne’s “Boccaccio,” vol. ii. pp. 280, 287.
447 “The Leofric Missal” (1050–1072), edited by F. E. Warren, 1883, Clarendon Press, pp. lxi, 3, 4.
448 “Historia Anglorum” (Historia minor), ed. Sir F. Madden, London, 1866; vol. iii. p. 60, Rolls Series.
449 Devon’s “Issues of the Exchequer,” 1837, p. 176.
450 “Le livre des fais et bonnes mœurs du sage roy Charles,” by Christine de Pisan, chap. xxxiii. vol. i. p. 633; “Nouvelle Collection de Mémoires,” ed. Michaud and Poujoulat, Paris, 1836.
451 “Pantagruel,” book ii. chap. xvii., “Comment Panurge gagnoit les pardons.”
452 “Farce d’un pardonneur, d’un triacleur et d’une tavernière,” Viollet le Duc, “Ancien théâtre français,” Paris, 1854–57, vol. ii. p. 50.
453 “The Pleasaunt Historie of Lazarillo de Tormes, . . . drawen out of Spanish by David Rouland, of Angelsey.” London, 1586, Sig. G. iii.
454 A favourite subject among miniaturists, and to be found in several manuscripts (2 B. vii; 10 E. IV) in the British Museum. See the headpiece of the present chapter.
455 Labbe, “Sacrosancta concilia,” Florence edition, vol. xxv. col. 1177, and vol. xxvi. col. 462. In 1419, Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury, ordered public prayers, litanies, and processions, to protect the King of England and his army against the wicked operations of magicians. Wilkins, “Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ,” vol. iii. p. 392.
456 “Si vero masculus quisquam voluerit, ut est moris, ejusdem defuncti vel defuncte nocturnis vigiliis interesse, hoc fieri permittatur, dumtamen nec monstra larvarum inducere, nec corporis vel fame sue ludibria, nec ludos alios inhonestos, presumat aliqualiter attemptare.” Toulmin Smith, “English Gilds,” p. 194.
457 “Araneis et aliis vermibus nigris ad modum scorpionum, cum quadam herba quæ dicitur millefolium et aliis herbis et vermibus detestabilibus.” Thos. Wright, “Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, 1324,” Camden Society, 1843, p. 32.
458 “The Canons Yeomans Tale.”
459 The whole of book vii of his “Confessio Amantis” is devoted to the exposition of a system of the world and to the description of the inner nature of beings and substances. The “Roman de la Rose” is not less explicit on these matters (confession of Nature to Genius).
460 “De Proprietatibus Rerum,” lib. xvi, a work of immense repute, translated into English by Trevisa in 1398, into French, Spanish, Dutch.
461 “Les Amants magnifiques.”
462 “Conciliorum generalium Ecclesiæ Catholicæ,” vol. iv. p. 261, “Pauli V. Pont. max. auctoritate editus,” Rome, 1623. See Appendix XV, p. 444.
463 Winter of 1435; he was coming on a mission to James I of Scotland. “Romance of a King’s Life,” pp. 52, 97.
464 First cousin to Edward II, executed in 1322. Froissart had no doubt as to the authenticity of his miracles. “Thomas erle of Lancastre, who was a noble and a wyse holy knyght, and hath done syth many fayre myracles in Pomfret, where he was beheeded” (vol. i. chap. vi. in Lord Berners’ translation). The body of Charles de Blois, killed at the battle of Auray in 1364, but this one an undoubtedly pious warrior, also worked miracles, and Froissart imagined that Urban V had canonized him: “His body [was] after sanctifyed by the grace of God and called Saynt Charles, and canonized by Pope Urban the V; for he dyde, and yet dothe many fayre miracles dayly.” Vol. i. cap. 226 of Lord Berners’ translation.
465 “Non absque homicidiis aliisque lætalibus verberibus . . . et de majoribus periculis verisimiliter imminentibus multipliciter formidatur . . .” A.D. 1323, “Historical Papers from the Northern Registers,” ed. Raine, 1873, p. 324, Rolls Series.
466 The archbishop did write to this effect to the Pope (John XXII) on February 24, 1327, asking him to make inquiry with a view to canonization. “Historical Papers from the Northern Registers,” p. 340.
467 Petition to Parliament, 1 Ed. III, 1326–7. “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 7.
468 “Memorials of London,” Riley, 1868, p. 203. The miracles worked by the same are also noted in the contemporary “Croniques de London” (Camden Society, ed. G. J. Aungier, p. 46), and by many others.
469 J. Nichol’s “Wills of the Kings and Queens of England,” 1780, p. 54. A chapel had been built on the hill where the earl had been beheaded. The offerings brought there by the pilgrims were, in 1334, the subject of a curious debate between the prior and the convent of Pontefract on the one hand, and the Lord of Wake on the other; this lord had “taken possession of the said chapel and the offerings brought there, and had taken the keys with him.” The prior and the convent in a petition to Parliament requested to have the “administration of these offerings,” as “spiritual things within their parish and belonging to their church,” “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 84.
470 “Ne . . . pro sancto vel justo reputetur, cum in excommunicatione sit defunctus, sicut sancta tenet Ecclesia.” “Dictum de Kenilworth,” § viii., in “Select Charters,” ed. Stubbs, 1870, p. 410.
“Ora pro nobis, beate Symon, ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.” Hymn composed shortly after the death of Simon; Warton, “History of English Poetry,” ed. Hazlitt, 1871, vol. ii. p. 48.
472 Rymer’s “Fœdera,” edit. 1704, vol. iv. p. 20.
473 Ibid., vol. iii. p. 1033.
475 On the advertising of certain pilgrimages by means, sometimes, of the most famous of mediæval romances, see the capital work of Joseph Bédier, “Les Légendes épiques, Recherches sur la formation des Chansons de Geste,” Paris, 1908, 4 vols. On the especial veneration of saints who had been road and bridge builders, see III, p. 72, where, speaking of the immense popularity of the pilgrimage to Saint James of Compostela in the eleventh century, Bédier says: “Ce fut l’époque héroïque du pèlerinage. C’est alors que la route romaine commence à se peupler d’asiles pour les voyageurs; c’est alors qu’exercent leur activité les saints que l’Eglise vénère parce qu’ils furent de bons ingénieurs, réparant les chaussées, desséchant les marécages, jetant des ponts sur les rivières et les torrents, saint Dominique de la Calzada, et ce Français, saint Aleaume de Burgos, ancien moine de la Chaise-Dieu.”
476 “Sane nuper ad aures nostras pervenit quod ad quandam imaginem beatæ Virginis in ecclesia parochiali de Foston noviter collocatam magnus simplicium est concursus, acsi in eadem plus quam in aliis similibus imaginibus aliquid numinis appareret.” Year 1313, Wilkins’ “Concilia,” vol. ii. p. 423.
477 See e.g. MS. 2 B. vii. in the British Museum, fol. 211, and 10 E. IV., fol. 209. The story of this miracle has been told by numberless authors in the Middle Ages; the text of one version of the tale, with references to the others, will be found in G. F. Warner, “Miracles de Nostre Dame,” Roxburghe Club, 1885, pp. xxxiv and 63.
478 “Loci e libro veritatum, passages selected from Gascoigne’s Theological Dictionary” (1403–1458), edit. Thorold Rogers, Oxford, 1881, p. 206. This Fullar is known to have come to England, where he saw Gascoigne. Eugene IV was Pope during the second quarter of the fifteenth century.
479 “No fewer than thirty-eight of these pilgrims’ Meccas in the County of Norfolk alone.” Sidney Heath, “Pilgrim Life in the Middle Ages,” London, 1911, p. 30.
480 To Edw. Raven, Jan. 20, 1551. “Whole Works,” Giles, 1865, p. 252.
481 “Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, David Bruce, Q. Catherine after Flodden, Henry VII and Henry VIII visited the famous shrine.” Walcott, “English Minsters,” 1879, II, 229.
482 The “Image of Darvell Gathern,” greatly venerated by the Welsh, was burnt with him. Ellis, “Original Letters,” 1st series, II, 82 ff.
483 Ellis, ibid., pp. 79, 80, Sept. 1537 (?).
484 Patent of 19 Richard II in the appendix to Mr. Karkeek’s essay, “Chaucer’s Schipman and his Barge, ‘The Maudelayne,’” Chaucer Society “Essays,” 1884.
485 Becquet or Becchet, of Norman blood, both on his father’s side, who was from Thierceville, as on his mother’s, who was from Caen.
A real Turpin, but who long survived the event, was Archbishop of Reims at the time of the Roncevaux disaster.
487 Moved in July, 1220 to Trinity Chapel, behind the high altar.
488 A beautifully illustrated fragment of a life of the saint, in French verse of the thirteenth century, has been published with facsimiles by Paul Meyer: “Fragments d’une vie de saint Thomas de Cantorbéry,” Paris, 1885. A remarkable thirteenth-century picture of the murder, with obvious attention to historical exactitude, is in one of the MSS. of the Yates Thompson Collection, reproduced in the Catalogue of the sale (March 23, 1920), lot xxxiv.
489 Something yet remains of the bas relief representing his life above the portal of the southern transept of the cathedral at Bayeux.
490 “Historical Memorials of Canterbury,” chap. iv.
492 “La vie de Saint Thomas le Martyr, par Garnier de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, poète du XIIe siècle,” ed. C. Hippeau, Paris, 1859.
493 Epilogue, p. 205.
494 On which see, e.g. “The Old Road,” by H. Belloc, London, 1904; Sidney Heath, “Pilgrim Life in the Middle Ages,” London, 1911, chap. viii. A characteristic decree of the Venetian Senate, showing the popularity of this pilgrimage abroad, authorizes on Aug. 3, 1402, Lorenzo Contarini, captain of the Venetian galleys setting sail for Flanders, to visit St. Thomas’s shrine, in accomplishment of a vow, to go thither and return in one day while the galleys would be at Sandwich, but not to sleep away from his vessel. “Calendar of Venetian State papers relating to English Affairs,” ed. Rawdon Brown, Rolls series, 1864, I, 42.
495 Garnier, ibid. pp. 210 ff.
496 The original charter of Louis VII has disappeared, but the confirmation by his son still exists. It reads: “Noverint igitur universi, presentes pariter et futuri, quod intuitu beati martiris quondam Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi, ad cujus tumulum pro salute anime et sanitate corporis impetranda, pater noster in multa devotione fuerat profectus, conventui monachorum Sancte Trinitatis ibidem Deo servientium centum modios vini, ad mensuram Parisiensem, singulis annis tempore vendemiarum, in castellaria Pissiaci accipiendos, in elemosynam concessit . . . quod factum patris nostri ne aliqua possit oblivione deleri et aliqua malignantium invidia violari, manu nostre confirmationis apposita, precipimus immutabiliter custodiri.” Given at Nantes, year 1180. Text, facsimile and comment in “Archæologia Cantiana,” vol. IV, 1861, p. 127.
“Muids” (modii) were of a different sort, according to places; those “of the Paris measurement” contained 270 of our litres and were therefore quite goodly casks.
497 Berners’ Froissart, ed. Ker, I, p. 393.
498 On the extraordinary voyage of the “basileus and autocrator” and his stay of four years away from his besieged capital, see Schlumberger, “Un Empereur de Byzance à Paris et à Londres,” “Revue des Deux Mondes,” Dec. 15, 1915.
499 Wilkins, “Concilia Magnæ Britanniæ,” vol. iii, 1737, p. 847. On the discovery in 1888 of bones supposed to be those of the archbishop, see Canon A. J. Mason’s “What became of the Bones of St. Thomas? A contribution to his fifteenth Jubilee,” London, 1920.
500 2 Ed. VI, “Miscellaneous Writings of Thomas Cranmer,” Parker Society, Cambridge, 1846, p. 147.
501 “Piers Plowman,” ed. Skeat, Text C, pass. 1, l. 51.
502 Printed in “The Academy,” Nov. 17, 1883, p. 331.
503 “The Examination of Master William Thorpe,” 1407, Arber’s “Engl. Garner,” vi, 84. Cf. “Anecdotes . . . tirées . . . d’Etienne de Bourbon, XIIIe siècle,” ed. Lecoy de la Marche, “Sextus titulus, De Peregrinatione.”
504 See Appendix XVII, p. 446. On Reynard, the date, composition and sources of this work, see Léon Foulet, “Le Roman de Renard,” Paris, 1914.
505 “A Dialoge or communication of two persons, deuysyd and set forthe in the laten tonge, by the noble and famose clarke, Desiderius Erasmus, intituled ye pylgremage of pure deuotyon. Newly translatyd into Englishe.” London (1540?), 16º.
506 “A Dyaloge of syr Thomas More knyghte . . . wherin be treatyd dyuers maters, as of the veneration and worshyp of ymagys and relyques, praying to sayntys, and goyng on pylgrymage, wyth many othere thyngys touchyng the pestylent sect of Luther and Tyndale.” London, 1529, 4º.
507 “The sermon . . . made . . . to the conuocation of the clergy” (28 Henry VIII), in “Frutefvll sermons preached by the right reverend father and constant martyr of Jesus Christ, M. Hugh Latymer.” London, 1571, p. 10.
508 Ordinance for the state of the wardrobe and the account of the household, June, 1323. “King Edward II’s Household and Wardrobe Ordinances,” ed. Furnivall, Chaucer Society, 1876, p. 62.
509 In the continuation of Chaucer’s tales, the Knight is represented interpreting to his son the strong and weak points in the continuous wall at Canterbury, and discussing whether it was proof against gunshot:
“The Tale of Beryn,” ed. Furnivall and Stone, E.E.T.S., 1909, p. 9.
510 C. Roach Smith has described a number of them in his “Collectanea Antiqua,” London, 1848, vol. i. p. 81, and vol. ii. p. 43. He has given drawings of many which had been “discovered chiefly in the bed of the Thames, and in making the approaches to new London Bridge.” See also “Guide to mediæval room, British Museum,” 1907, p. 69; Heath, “Pilgrim Life,” 1911, ch. VI. A specimen is given below, p. 418.
511 “Tale of Beryn,” ibid. p. 7.
512 Among the ornaments worn by Chaucer’s pardoner was a “vernicle” on his cap, as may be seen above in the plate, p. 336. Sir Thomas More, in his “Dialogue,” describes as follows the vernicle represented on pilgrims’ medals: How, says he, can it be maintained that Christ blames images, “where he lykyd to leve the holy vernacle, thexpresse ymage also of hys blessid vysage, as a token to remain in honour among such as lovyd hym from ye tyme of hys bytter passyon hytherto, whych as it was by the myracle of hys blessid holy hand expressed and lefte in ye sudari: so hath yt bene by lyke myracle in that thyn corruptyble cloth kepte and preservyd uncorrupted thys xv. C. yere freshe and well perceyved, to ye inwarde cumforte, spyrytuall reioysyng and grete encreace of fervoure and devocyon in the harts of good crysten people” (Sig. B. iii.).
513 Most of them mentioned by Garnier in his “Vie de Saint Thomas,” where, after stating that men of all sorts flocked to Canterbury, he adds (ed. Hippeau, p. 205):
514 “Guide du pélerin à Rocamadour,” by M. le Chanoine Laporte, Rocamadour, 1862, chap. viii.
515 “Les louenges du roy Louys xije. de ce nom, nouvellement composées par maistre Claude de Seyssel, docteur en tous droits.” Paris, 1508, sign. f. iii.
516 Skeat’s edition, Text C, pass. i. l. 47.
517 See the drawing of this ring in vol. viii. of the “Archæological Journal,” p. 360. The long stick, or pilgrim’s staff, and the bag or “scrip” were the characteristic signs of pilgrims. In the romance of King Horn, the hero meets on his road a palmer, and to disguise himself changes clothes with him; in this transformation the author only points out the chief particulars, that is to say, the staff and the bag. “Horn took burdon and scrippe.” (“King Horn, with fragments of Floris and Blauncheflur,” ed. by J. H. Lumby, Early English Text Society, 1866.) We have seen above, p. 362, that Reynard on his way to Rome took just the same implements.
518 Statute 12 Rich. II, cap 7.
519 Statute 5 Rich. II, st. 1, c. 2. Restrictions on pilgrimage-making existed also in France. See an ordinance of Charles VI, February 27, 1399, prohibiting pilgrimages to Rome. “Recueil d’Isambert,” vol. vi. p. 843.
520 “Rolls of Parliament,” 13 Rich. II, vol. iii. p. 275, and statute 1, cap. 20 of 13 Rich. II.
521 As to the number of pilgrimages, their origin, and history, see the “Dictionnaire géographique, historique, descriptif, archéologique des pélerinages anciens et modernes,” by L. de Sivry and M. de Champagnac, Paris, 1850, 2 vols. 8vo, forming vols. xliii. and xliv. of Migne’s “Encyclopédie théologique.”
522 Ripert-Monclar, “Bullaire du Pont d’Avignon,” 1912.
523 Statute 4 Ed. III, c. 8.
524 Petition of the Calais burgesses, “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. iii. p. 500, 4 Henry IV, A.D. 1402. In Dover too, on the opposite shore, there was such a house, the inventory of which has been printed: Walcott, “Inventories of St. Mary’s Hospital or Maison-Dieu, Dover,” London, 1869. In the diary of his travels, during the sixteenth century, the Greek Nicander Nucius observes that the town of Dover seemed to be made almost entirely of inns and hotels. “The Travels of Nicander Nucius of Corcyra,” Camden Society, 1841.
525 See Prof. J. W. Hales’ letter to The Academy of April 22, 1882, p. 287. A view of the old church, of which very little now remains, could be seen, Mr. Enlart writes me, in a picture by Van der Meulen, but it was destroyed by the Germans in one of their air raids during the late Great War, when they shelled the Museum.
526 This relic so greatly attracted the English that they had founded in the cathedral a chapel of “Notre Dame Englesque” (Sancta Maria Anglica), and the leopards of England, writes Prof. Enlart, are still to be seen in the stained glass.
527 Halliwell’s edition, 1866, p. 108.
528 See the remarkable articles by Emile Male, on “L’Art du Moyen Age et les Pélerinages,” in the “Revue de Paris,” 1920; in the number of Feb. 15, an article on “Les Routes de France et d’Espagne.”
529 Text B, p. xii. l. 37.
530 A. B. Caillau, “Histoire critique et religieuse de Notre Dame de Roc-Amadour,” Paris, 1834, pp. 73 ff.
531 Berners’ Froissart, vol. i. ch. cclviii.
532 William Wey, in the fifteenth century, notices the large number of English ships at “Grwne” (Coruña), the usual port of landing for Compostela: “In porto Grwne erant de Anglicis, Wallicis, Hibernicis, Normannis, Francis, Britonnibus et aliis LXXXta naves cum topcastellis et quatuor sine topcastellis; numerus navium Anglicarum erat XXXij.” He notes the words and music of a song sung by little Spanish boys, dancing before pilgrims and offering good wishes, in exchange for which they hoped to get some small coin. “Itineraries,” Roxburghe Club, 1857, pp. 154, 156.
533 “Fœdera,” ed. 1704, vol. vii. p. 468, 17 Rich. II.
534 “Fœdera,” 12 Hen. VI, 1434, vol. x. pp. 567–569.
535 “The Stacions of Rome and the Pilgrim’s Sea Voyage,” ed. Furnivall, Early English Text Society, 1867, p. 47. This complaint on the Compostela pilgrimage is of the fifteenth century. On the Compostela sanctuary and on the propagation of certain artistic notions through the influx of pilgrims, see the before quoted article by E. Male, “Revue de Paris,” Feb. 1920.
536 “The Paston Letters,” ed. Jas. Gairdner, vol. i. p. 48. Letter of Margaret Paston of September 28, 1443.
537 Especially noteworthy in this respect at the present day is the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, near Mantua (in which the famous author of the “Cortegiano,” Baldassare Castiglione, is buried), where life-size, realistic wax figures, wearing real garments or armour, form a continuous series above the arches on both sides of the nave. Each scene commemorates a miraculous intervention of the Virgin: innocents saved at the moment of their execution, the halter breaking, the axe stopped, etc. The “custode” also directs attention to a stuffed animal, dangling from the roof, and which he describes as a “crocodilo” which used to desolate the country.
538 “The Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry,” translated from the French, ed. Thomas Wright, Early English Text Society, 1868, p. 70. The original French is of the fourteenth century.
539 “Miracles de Nostre Dame,” collected by Jean Miélot, ed. G. F. Warner, Roxburghe Club, 1885, p. 58. This version of the tale is of the fifteenth century, but the story itself is much older.
540 i.e. St. Catherine of Mount Sinai.
541 William Wey, in the fifteenth century, thus mentions the catacombs: “Item ibi est una spelunca nuncupata Sancti Kalixti cimiterium, et qui eam pertransit cum devocione, illi indulgentur omnia sua peccata. Et ibi multa corpora sanctorum sunt, que nullus hominum numerare nequit nisi solus Deus,” “The Itineraries of William Wey,” Roxburghe Club, 1857, p. 146. Wey, like the author of the poem, sometimes mentions prodigious numbers of bodies of martyrs; at the church called Scala Celi, “sunt ossa sanctorum decem millia militum;” in one single part of St. Peter’s at Rome, are “Petronella et xiii millia sanctorum martyrum.”
542 William Wey said of the church of the Holy Cross: “Item, ibi sunt duo ciphi, unus plenus sanguine Ihesu Cristi, and alter plenus lacte beate Marie Virginis,” “Itineraries,” p. 146. Those who drink at the three fountains which gushed out at the death of St. Paul are cured of all maladies; those who visit the church of St. Mary of the Annunciation will never be struck by lightning; at the church of St. Vivian there is “herba crescens quam ipsa plantavit et valet contra caducum morbum.” At the church of St. Sebastian is shown a foot-print of Jesus; and it is, in fact, still to be seen there at the present day. Ibid. pp. 143–148.