It was queer to find himself performing the actions he had seen done every day of his life. He had thought of priests as a class apart, saved from many of the temptations of secular life by the grace of their orders. An Archbishop was nothing extraordinary; in the Chancery he often had dealings with the Archbishops of Rouen and Bordeaux, and as archdeacon he had pleaded before a whole bench of Cardinals. Archbishops were magnates, independent and wilful and always seeking to defy their temporal lords; you might not make war on them, and you had to be especially careful of their dignity, but otherwise they behaved very much like Counts. But a priest – a priest could bring down God’s body to the altar.
As he genuflected and moved his arms in the ritual gestures his mind could dwell on the significance of what he did; he, Thomas, was an intermediary between God in Heaven and man on fallen earth. At each pace he took to right or left the pricking of the hair shirt reminded him that he was entering on a new manner of life.
The altar at which he celebrated was the easternmost in the lengthy Cathedral, in the apse behind the High Altar; he had chosen it because it was dedicated to the Blessed Trinity, whose feast was kept today in Canterbury. An odd feast, typical of the queer English customs that sensible Normans had been unable to root out from this insular Church; every Christian prayer was addressed to the Trinity, and to celebrate this special feast seemed to argue that on other days you might worship some other god. But perhaps it was not a bad idea that a clerk should once a year fix his thoughts on God alone, without seeking the intercession of the Saints. Thomas was now set apart to serve God alone, without seeking the favour of any earthly power. Henry had been his lord, now he was God’s knight only. This was really a very helpful and timely feast; he would order it to be celebrated throughout the Province of Canterbury.
The Mass was quickly over. He had arranged with Prior Robert, who knew his way through all the complicated maze of the Missal, that he should always say the shortest Mass liturgically permissible. At his age he could not keep his thoughts fixed on heavenly things for more than half an hour, and he was determined that while he said Mass he would think of nothing else. On this first occasion his thoughts did not wander, and yet when he made his reverence and left the altar he found that a great decision was fixed in his mind. Henceforth he would be a priest first and all the time. If he had the leisure he would also be a business-like Archbishop; it would leave him no time to serve his friend Henry fitzEmpress.
For the rest of that day nothing was demanded of him beyond the ceremonious manners which cost him no effort. He sat through a long banquet, remembering not to squirm as the hair drawers pricked his flesh; he replied politely to the polite speeches of Bishops, and accepted their homage with grace. The only unpleasant note was struck by Gilbert of Hereford. When it was his turn to render homage he pointed out that he had sworn an oath of obedience to Archbishop Theobald; since that oath must endure for life there was no need to renew it. The instinct of the trained politician made Thomas agree at once, without argument. Gilbert escaped a ceremony he disliked – and all the other Bishops went home remembering him as a cantankerous bad-tempered man, who could not stop struggling when he was beaten. That would be valuable the next time he tried to oppose his Archbishop.
In the morning Thomas said Mass again, as would be the unvarying ritual of every morning for the rest of his life. After he had broken his fast he sent for the Prior of Christ Church, Prior Robert of Merton, and Herbert of Bosham, who seemed the most intelligent and sympathetic of the clerks he had inherited from Theobald. He conferred with them at one end of the long hall which housed his business administration; at the other end lesser clerks were already bent over their desks, drawing up the first of the mass of documents that must be read and approved every day by an Archbishop of Canterbury.
‘I know something of the work in an Archbishop’s household,’ he began. ‘After a vacancy of more than a year there must be thousands of cases, matrimonial or probate, awaiting my decision. We can begin to decide them now, and publish the decisions after I have received my pallium. There is also the ordinary work of the Diocese, Confirmation and visiting. I am newly a priest, and I need some time daily for meditation and spiritual reading. Then as Abbot of Christ Church I ought to attend part of the daily office. Let us draw up a time-table.’
Prior Walter of Christ Church looked up in wonder. He had heard the usual stories of this new Archbishop, that he was more knight than clerk, a jouster and a chessplayer, who kept higher state than the King. Now he proposed to live even more seriously than the holy Theobald. But his Abbot had ordered him to relate the daily time-table of his monastery, and he plunged into it, thinking only of holy obedience.
After hearing Walter, Robert and Herbert on the claims of their respective departments Thomas announced his first decision.
‘Draft a civil letter to King Henry, explaining that I haven’t time to be his Chancellor. When he pressed the monks of Christ Church to elect me he knew that the rule of the Church in England was a full day’s work. He cannot complain that I refuse to hold another great office in addition.’
They all knew King Henry would complain; but they did as their lord had ordered.
For the rest of that summer and autumn Archbishop Thomas followed a regular routine. He rose at dawn, though there was nothing odd in that; so did King Henry and every other busy man. His day opened with an hour of spiritual reading and discussion with Herbert of Bosham. Then came his Mass, the shortest Mass Robert of Merton could extract from the ordo; for above all things he feared distraction at the holy sacrifice, and he knew that if he lingered at the altar distraction would come. After breakfast the rest of the morning was filled with work in the office, deciding every disputed testament and doubtful marriage in the south of England.
He dined shortly after midday. This was the time when the Archbishop of Canterbury chose to remind the world in general that he was the greatest magnate in England, second only to the King. He no longer paid wages to seven hundred knights, but the military tenants of Canterbury made up a powerful mesnie, and every day a number of them dined in their lord’s hall. There were more than two hundred servants and chamberlains, clothed in scarlet. The numerous clerks of the household, with visiting clerks who came on business or happened to be passing through, dined at the clerks’ table, with the Archbishop at their head. Here conversation was discreet, and a monk read from a holy book; though the food was as lavish and as exquisite as at the knights’ table, where a trouvere recited some epic of love or war, and men of the world might laugh over worldly stories without interrupting the serious discourse of the clerks. Every day the floor was covered with fresh rushes, and the wine was the best in England.
Thomas loved neatness as much as splendour, though he was indifferent to comfort; nowadays he was never comfortable, under his hair shirt. He loved to sit in his high chair, watching poor clerks take their fill of Gascon wine, while himself he sipped the teetotal brew which a puzzled cook described as ‘water in which hay has been boiled’. He ate very little, but that little must be of the best. He had tried the Benedictine diet of Christ Church, and almost at once suffered the ill effects in fainting fits and violent internal pain. He could not get through his work in those conditions, and soon he went back to roast pheasant and the best cuts of venison.
One day a boorish monk, invited to dine at his table, thought fit to rebuke his Archbishop for gluttony. Thomas was reminded by the pricking of his hair shirt that he must set a good example; he mastered his rage with an effort, looking hard at his ill-mannered counsellor. He noticed that the man was ladling down good wheaten porridge as hard as he could, using a sliver of bread to assist his capacious wooden spoon. The effective answer came quickly to a clerk trained in the debates of Paris.
‘The sin of gluttony, my son, consists in desiring food inordinately; not in eating good food honestly come by. I eat pheasant from my own coverts, which the physicians recommend for my weak stomach; and I eat very littl
e of it. You choose wheaten porridge, out of all the good things set before you; and your self-control does you credit. But you are eating it very greedily. You are the glutton, not I.’
The monk was abashed, for he had been eating too fast for good manners, and knew it; and when he looked ashamed the rest of the table laughed at him. That night, when Thomas came to examine his conscience, he felt he had done well to keep his temper, though not quite so well in scoring off a subordinate who was too frightened to answer back.
After dinner every clerk rested; as did most laymen of the upper class, since even the rich rose at dawn. Thomas went properly to bed, since his health was beginning to worry him. He never felt warm, and his hands and feet were usually covered with chilblains; his stomach was easily upset, and if he missed a meal he felt worse than if he had eaten too much. It must be part of the temperament with which he had been endowed at birth, for he noticed the same weaknesses in other very tall thin men. Of course he did not know that the cause was the weak circulation of a man grown too tall for his heart; for not even the wisest physician could tell him that his blood circulated.
In the afternoon, for exercise, Thomas would ride out on a tall destrier. That was the outcome of a compromise with Robert of Merton, reached after considerable argument. His confessor maintained that it was sinful for a Bishop to spend the afternoon hawking; Thomas replied that nearly every Bishop of his acquaintance hawked regularly; Robert turned up the relevant Canon, which laid down that the clergy might not hunt for pleasure, though in an emergency they might hunt to get food. Thomas then admitted himself beaten, and dispersed his splendid mews of falcons in presents to all his lay friends. But when Robert went further, claiming that it was unseemly in a Bishop to ride any mount more warlike than a mule, Thomas challenged him to find the Canon forbidding horses. Since one could not be found Thomas, deprived of his favourite sport, consoled himself by riding the hottest and fiercest destriers he could find.
Even on these rides, his sole recreation, spiritual business intruded. When his habit became known the priests of the countryside marshalled their parishioners to meet him for Confirmation. It was only if they happened to live near a Bishop that poor Englishmen could hope to be confirmed; which did not necessarily mean if they lived near a Cathedral, for some Bishops rarely visited their Sees; the Bishop of Ely, for example, had been for many years Treasurer to old King Henry, and after that in prison under King Stephen. It was a happy chance to find an Archbishop who resided in his own city, and was accessible every afternoon.
The little groups would wait at some crossroad, the parish priest in front to assure his lord they had been adequately instructed. There was no time for individual questioning, but Thomas always dismounted and put on his stole. He was the more punctilious over this when he heard that Gilbert of Hereford, who could never conceal his impatience with any function that took him away from his prayers, was accustomed to ride his mule through the crowds, tapping any head within reach.
(All the same, something should be done for poor Gilbert. It was absurd to leave the best Bishop in England stuck in that unimportant western See; the ignorant might attribute his lack of promotion to personal spite. He had persuaded Henry to promise that Gilbert should have London, with its full endowment, as soon as senile Richard ceased to cumber the earth.)
When the Archbishop came back from his ride he would sup and converse with his household clerks, the most intelligent talkers in England. But he went to bed early, for his nights were broken. Nocturn and Matins, beginning at midnight, was the only office he had time to attend, in his capacity as Abbot of Christ Church. It was a wrench for one who felt the cold as he did to leave a warm bed in the middle of the night; but once in the choir of the great, empty, echoing Cathedral he appreciated the beauty of the service. Seventy monks, huddled in black cowls, carried each a candle that made a little island of light and peace in the darkness of the long building, as in the wickedness of the surrounding world. When they chanted the psalms the Archbishop could join in, remembering the lessons of Merton. This was the good life, as every wise man knew; he was not worthy to live it, but for an hour or so every night he might join those who did. The cares of the day fell away, and he felt a foretaste of the timelessness of Heaven.
When he left the Cathedral there was one more ceremony before he went back to bed. He washed the feet of twelve poor men, and fed them with his own hands. This was the Mandatum performed by every great lord on Maundy Thursday, and it caused no surprise that a conscientious Archbishop should perform it every day. Thomas would have liked to do the thing in earnest, really cleansing the filthy scarred feet of the poor, really carrying stew from the pot until his guests were satisfied. His stewards would not permit it. By the time he reached them, towel in hand, the twelve pairs of feet were clean and scented; and the portions of food were already prepared in wooden bowls, each with its horn spoon, so that he could do no more than carry them from the serving table. Even that was better than nothing, for it served to remind him of an important duty.
By tradition the Archbishop of Canterbury was the spokesman of the humble and oppressed. St. Anselm had faced even William Rufus to plead the cause of the poor against the royal tax gatherers; Theobald had defied King Stephen to defend the peasantry from the ravages of civil war. It was fitting that Thomas should come of a humble family. Among the great he was the champion of the humble.
After he had followed this model regime for a few weeks he was surprised to find his clerk, Herbert of Bosham, himself a monk of Christ Church, wait on him with a tentative and cautiously worded complaint from the Prior. The brethren, instead of being edified by the sight of their Abbot sharing the most inconvenient of their daily offices, were distracted at his appearance. It had not occurred to Thomas to alter his dress; when he rose in the middle of the night to hurry down to the cold Cathedral he put on his thickest mantle over a warm tunic; the tunic was scarlet and the mantle of bearskin turned up with ermine. These, with his ring, his soft shoes, and the long gold chain over his shoulders, made him a greater figure of pride and luxury even than the picture of Dives on the wall of the refectory. The more frivolous members of the community were laying bets on what he would wear next.
He dressed splendidly, because he considered splendid dress to be part of the expected state of an Archbishop. He was quite willing to make a change if his brethren preferred it. The trouble was that he lacked suitable garb, because he was the first Archbishop of Canterbury for many generations who was not himself a monk. It would be absurd if he took Benedictine vows when he was in no position to live the Benedictine life; and it would be equally absurd to wear his Abbot’s cowl as a kind of fancy dress. Then Robert of Merton reminded him that once he had been a child of the cloister; by the letter of ecclesiastical law he had never ceased to be a student of Merton. For office in the Cathedral he took to wearing the dress he had worn at school, the black gown and white surplice of an Augustinian Canon.
That solved another problem, that of keeping warm in the midnight chill of the unheated church. He put on gown and surplice over his everyday tunic. Since he was so very thin even two complete sets of clothing did not make him look bulky.
He remained at Canterbury throughout that summer and autumn, giving all his attention to his See. It was many years since an Archbishop had devoted all his time to episcopal work, and the laymen who brought suit before his ecclesiastical court found it an amazing improvement. But he could only do this because it happened that England was being governed from Normandy, and the Archbishop of Rouen represented the Church at the court of King Henry. When the King crossed the Channel to keep Christmas in England Thomas was reminded that it was the privilege of his office to act as chief adviser to the crown.
At Southampton he awaited the landing of his old friend, in some doubt of his reception. Henry had advanced him to be head of the English Church because he was a faithful royal servant, and he had expected him to retain the Chancellorship. It would be no use t
elling a busy ruler that he had dreamed of ten talents, or that Prior Robert of Merton had given him excellent spiritual advice. His resignation of office, and his long absence from court, must look like desertion. If Henry chose to indulge his Angevin rage there would be an unpleasant scene.
But all passed off happily. The King was delighted to see his friend again, and they chatted about old times. At twenty-nine Henry was on the whole pleased to be finished with his mentor; he felt himself capable of ruling without advice, and it was a great weight on the right side of the balance that he could count on the friendship of the head of the Church in his realm. For the moment he was not at war with anyone, and he had come to England principally to hunt and amuse himself. He had left the Queen in her favourite castle of Poitiers, and a great part of his amusement would be in toying with the more broad-minded ladies of his court, so he could get on without an Archbishop who seemed to be setting a record for a holy ecclesiastical way of life. After two days the friends found they had nothing to talk about except the past, but they parted in all friendship.
Thomas returned to Canterbury, to keep Christmas in greater state than had ever been seen by the oldest inhabitant.
It was a decorous, clerkly state, of costly incense in the Cathedral and delicate wine served in moderation to sober guests. In many monasteries the annalists, filling the short space devoted to the events of each year, wrote that on the Octave of Pentecost Thomas of London was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, and then turned to the calendar for 1163; nothing had happened after.
Every morning at Mass Thomas tried to recapture the spirit of devotion that had filled his mind at the first Mass he had celebrated. As a memorial, he planned a special feast for the following Trinity Sunday; but when the anniversary came round he was in France. It was one of the most embarrassing days of his life, one of the very few occasions when he felt unequal to his responsibilities.
God and My Right Page 20
