Baring-Gould’s sources: Canonized in 1320 by John XXII., who fixed his festival for the sixth of the Nones of October (Oct. 2). Roman Martyrology, Lubeck-Cologne edition of Usuardus, Greven, and Molanus; Sarum, York, and Hereford Kalendars. Galesinius on April 1 7 and Oct. 2. The process of canonization was begun by Clement V. in 1307, but was interrupted by his death in 1 3 14. The bull of John XXII. is dated from Avignon,* April 17, 1320. King Edward II.’s letter to the Pope requesting the canonization is dated 17th Jan., 1319, and is to be seen in the second volume of Rymer’s “ Foedera,” p. 385 (Record Com. edition). Authorities: — A compendium of the Life of the Saint, from the Process of Canonization; his miracles from the same. Mention by Matthew Paris, John of Brompton, &c. The Process of Canonization is of peculiar interest, as it contains the testimony of numerous persons who had known S. Thomas more or less intimately.] Thomas Cantilupe was the son of Baron William Cantilupe and Melisent de Goumay, widow of the Count of Evreux. 1 William Cantilupe was seneschal of Henry III. By his wife Melisent the Baron de Cantilupe had five sons: William, the eldest, seneschal of Aquitain, Hugh, Archdeacon of Gloucester, Thomas, Bishop of Hereford, John 1 Robert of Gloucester, in his examination at the canonization, says: “After the English fashion, his mother retained the title of Countess after she had married again."
Land Nicolas, barons. One of the witnesses in the canonization, Richard Kimberly, thought the rental of William, the eldest son, was £ 2,000 sterling. Hugh, the archdeacon, is described by another as “ clericus et dives.” There were three daughters: Juliana, married to John, Baron Tregoz; Agnes, the wife of Robert St. John, baron, whose son was John St. John, seneschal of Aquitain in the reign ol Edward I. Another daughter was married to Robert Gregonet, baron, in England.
S. Thomas Cantilupe was born in 1218, at Hambledene or Hambleden, not far from the Thames, near Marlow, in Buckinghamshire, and was there baptized in the parish church. Baron Cantilupe had a manor at Hambledene. The child was entrusted to be nursed by a “ devout, noble, and holy matron,” and at the age of seven was given, along with his brother Hugh, good masters, and taught to hear mass and the canonical hours every day. The director ol the boys’ studies was their uncle, Walter, Bishop of Worcester. Thus the two brothers were trained from infancy for the ecclesiastical state. Thomas was not, however, quite disposed to renounce a more active career, for when Bishop Walter asked the boys one day what profession they should prefer, “ I want to be a soldier,” said Thomas. “ Ah ! a soldier thou shalt be, indeed,” said the bishop; “but a soldier of Christ, and thy harness shall be the cassock ol the priest.”
From Worcester the youths were sent to Paris to study in the arts. They kept house in noble style, with many servants. In 1245, when Thomas was aged twenty-seven, Innocent IV. summoned a council at Lyons, and the two Cantilupes hasted thither. The relations of the Pope with England were far from satisfactory. Crowds of Italian priests had been intruded into English benefices, and this, together with heavy taxation for the Papal necessities, had S. Thomas de Cantilupe.
kindled such violent resentment alike among the barons and the prelates, as almost to threaten that the realm would altogether throw off the papal yoke. It was tauntingly said that England was the Pope's farm. At this time the collector of the papal revenues, Master Martin, was driven ignominiously, and in peril of his life, from the shores of the ' kingdom. “Master Martin,” says Matthew Paris, “had j been laying his hooked fingers on the revenues of the Church for the use and benefit of the Pope.”... “ For his infamous rapacity, many called him Master Mattin (pirate). He extended his hands to exact contributions, to make provision for unknown purposes, in accordance with the impulse of his own mind, without any regard to reason; and being armed with cruel authority by the Pope, from whom he showed new charters every day, adapted to any sudden case of emergency, he forcibly extorted revenues, to be conferred on the Pope’s relations. Hence many said that he had a number of parchments not written, but sealed with the papal bull, so that he might write on them whatever he pleased.” Martin had taken up his residence in the house of the Templars in London. 1 Fulk Fitzwarenne suddenly appeared before him, and with a stem look said: “Arise, get thee forth! depart out of England!” “In whose name speakest thou?” “ In the name of the barons of England assembled at Luton and Dunstable. If thou art not gone in three days, thou and thine shall be cut to pieces.” Martin sought the king. “ Is this done by your command, or by the insolence of your subjects?” “It is tions, to such and such an abbot, such and such a prior, ordering them to send him costly presents of handsome palfreys, meats, drinks, and ornamental dresses, and if not good enough he ordered them to send more, under penalty of suspension and anathema. He suspended all from bestowal of benefices worth thirty marks and upwards till his cupidity should be satisfied. Hence the wretched English suffered worse than the sons of Israel of old, and were obliged to endure the slavery of Egypt in England.** VOL. XL 3 [Oct a.
not by my command; but my barons will no longer endure your depredations and iniquities. They will rise in insurrection, and I have no power to save you from being tom to pieces/* The trembling priest implored a safe-conduct “ The devil take thee away to hell ! ” said the indignant king, ashamed of his own impotence.
All the ports of England were guarded against the entrance of papal legates. England was in such a state of exasperation, that Pope Innocent felt the necessity of allaying the irritation. The Bishop of Worcester, the uncle of the two young Cantilupes, was one of the malcontents. When Hugh and Thomas appeared at Lyons, the pope conferred on them the honour of papal chaplaincies, and Thomas was provided with four bulls, granting him permission to hold any number of benefices in England simultaneously. On his way back, Thomas halted at Orleans to study canon law, and after having taken a degree of licentiate at Paris, returned to England. At Paris the brothers had lived in great magnificence, many needy scholars had been fed from their table with the scraps that remained; so had also daily from five to thirteen paupers. In their hotel the brothers received a visit from the king, S. Louis. On the return of Thomas Cantilupe to England, he went to Oxford, and was elected Chancellor of the University (a.d. 1262). As chancellor he was remarkable for his strictness. The north country and south country scholars were at that time accustomed to fight. Thomas interfered in these disturbances, and carried off the bows and swords and daggers of the most riotously inclined of the students. Hugh le Barber, one of the witnesses at his canonization, said that he had at one time in his possession as many as twenty confiscated bows and other weapons, and that he only restored them when convinced that their owners were sincere in their promises to keep the peace. One turbulent young fellow, Roger Horn, who had fallen on twenty scholars and held Oct. a.] S. Thomas de Cantilupe.
them at bay, had his sword confiscated in perpetuity, and the chancellor made a present of it to John Kensey, afterwards canon of Hereford. In one of the periodical quarrels between North and South, S. Thomas dashed with his bedells into the midst of the disputants, and received a blow which cut through his mantle. He made no inquiries whose knife had lacerated his cloak and endangered his life, and his forbearance created astonishment. S. Thomas was appointed Chancellor of England under Henry III. in 1265; but in 1268 he returned to Paris, and applied himself to the study of theology. How long he remained there does not appear; it was “ several years.” His studies were in the canonical Epistles and the Apocalypse. He then returned to Oxford, became again chancellor in 1274, and afterwards for a year and four months lectured in theology, till Gregory X. summoned a council at Lyons, and Thomas Cantilupe went to Lyons to attend it He was there made chaplain of Pope Gregory, as he had been before of Innocent.
S. Thomas held many benefices simultaneously, “ ex dispensatione Sedis Apostolicae; ” he was precentor and canon of York, archdeacon of Stafford, and canon of Lichfield, canon of London, canon of Hereford, and held the livings of Doderholt, Hampton, Aston, Wintringham, Deighton, Rippel, Sunterfield, and apparently also that of Prestbury. He was speedily engaged in litigation with the Bishop of Worcester about a cow. There was a widow at Rippel who died; whereupon the bishop, claiming heriot, seized one of her cows. S. Thomas, as rector of the parish, insisted that the cow was his, as lord of the manor, and went to law about it, and carried his point The Dean of Warwick claimed the small tithes of the parish of Sunterfield, worth two marks. S. Thomas refused to admit the claim, went to law about it, and gained the two marks.
On the death of his father, he was constituted executor. His mother demanded the horses and part of the harness ( volebat habere equos, et aliqua hamesia), but there was no specification in the will that she was to have them, so Thomas refused to surrender them; they went by right to his brother, but he generously gave to his mothei from his own stables sufficient horses and harness to satisfy her.
Robert of Gloucester, one of the witnesses at the process of canonization, was asked, not unreasonably, how the saint managed with such a multitude of benefices, to execute the duties incumbent on him in each ? He answered that he conducted himself “ very well, curiously, and diligently; he frequently paid a flying visit (frequenter discurrebat ) to his benefices, and celebrated and preached devoutly in them, and kept open house to great and small, and gave away large alms to the poor.” He also provided the churches with respectable curates, and kept the chancels and parsonage houses in good repair. His bailiffs at Doderholt, Hampton, Aston, Wintringham, and Deighton, had orders to look after and relieve the sick and poor, and give them peas, beans, and com ( bladas ).
He supplied the curates of his churches with his old suits of clothes, 1 and accompanied the present with an injunction to be solicitous for the souls in their charge. John Bruton, or le Breton, Bishop of Hereford, died in 1275, and Thomas Cantilupe was elected in his room, and consecrated on Sunday, the 8th September, at the age of fifty-six or fifty-seven.
He is described as having an angelic face, very white and pink, with long nose, and thick beard, reddish, but then patched with grey. He always wore his cloak, even at meals; his tunic was dressed with miniver, and he had a miniver coverlet to his bed.
Oct. a.] •S'. Thomas de Cantilupe. He was so very modest, that he never would allow his sisters to kiss him; and when Juliana, Baroness Tregoz, came to pay him a visit one day, and he saw that she had made up her mind for a sisterly visitation of some considerable duration, he requested her, after she had spent one night in his house, to pack up her trunks and be off with her maids elsewhere, for he only allowed old and ugly women to lodge in his house.
His sisters persisted in coming to see him every year, but he would scarcely speak to them, saying, not very politely, that it was no use conversing with women, they twaddled, and did not talk. “ When Lady Juliana, wife of Baron John Tregoz, his own sister, a very pretty lady, came to visit the Lord Thomas, after he had been made bishop, at his manoi of Bosebury, she wanted to kiss him on the mouth; but Thomas drew himself up, and extended his hand for her to kiss. Then the lady began to cry, being much troubled. And those who stood by remonstrated, and urged Thomas to let his sister kiss him, as was only honest and right, but he would not suffer it.”
S. Thomas did not approve of jokes, especially such as were not very refined. He was dining one day with his brother in-law, Robert, Baron Gregonet, when a young lady at table sighed. “ Ha, ha ! ” laughed the baron, “ Folks say, when girls sigh, that they are looking out for husbands.” Thomas reproved him peremptorily. The bishop had a nephew of whom he was very fond, and whom he maintained at Oxford and Paris. The young fellow was often with his uncle. But when S. Thomas went to the Council of Lyons, under Gregory X., he did not take his nephew with him. Some one expressed his surprise, and asked the reason. “ Because he is impudent,” said Thomas. “ When I was a young man, if a girl looked at me I blushed scarlet, and pulled my hood over my face; but that young cub looks about him, and right into the eyes of the girls, without any colour rising to his cheek.” S. Thomas was a very moderate eater, astonishing his servants by his small appetite. “ I never eat to satiety,” he told Master William Daubeny. When dainty dishes were served up, he would smell them and say, “Shall I eat them? No, I won’t ! ” send them away, and content himself with pottage of vegetables. Sometimes, when there were various soups and salt meats, he would mix several of them together, that the taste might not be so delicious. He doted on Severn lampreys, and he confided on more than one occasion to Nicolas, Earl of Warwick, justiciary and counsellor of Edward I., that he “ liked lampreys.” Nevertheless, as the J Earl of Warwick testified on oath before the papal commissioners, he had several times dined with the Bishop of Hereford when there were lampreys on the table, and the bishop did not touch them. i On Wednesday he ate no meat, and on Friday only bread and soup. On Saturday he ate fish; on the Vigils of Our Lady, bread and water. Great uncertainty reigns as to his drink. The witnesses were doubtful whether he took wine or beer on Fridays. John Bute declared that he was “ most vehemently sober in his food and drink;” that he had white wine set before him, and a bottle of water, and that often when people thought he was taking wine, he was drinking water. “ His goblet, from which he drank wine,” says the same witness, “ was small, of silver, and only as big as a saltcellar; and he did not empty it at one draught. He commonly took only two cups of wine, and a little beer. He rarely supped, and then only took one or two toasts, very diluted.” 1 But the medical men interfered. “On the vigils of the B. Virgin, and on Good Friday, the doctors would not ' “ Vipa.” Du Cange, quoting Hermolaus, says: “ Erat veteribus jentaculum buccea ex vino, quod genus barbari a vtno et fa**, viffam vocant.” 61 Thomas de Cantilupe.
suffer him to fast on bread and water only, but made him eat bread and pottage, in small quantity, and drink diluted wine or very small beer.” Robert of Gloucester, being ordered by the apostolic commissioners to declare what he knew of the virtues and abstinence of the saint, said: “ I came once with my lord to Hurley (Arlee), near Reading (Radinga), in the diocese of Salisbury (Sarr), I said to him, 1 My lord, you have not eaten and drunk enough, you cannot hold out/ Then the Lord Thomas answered nothing. So I repeated what I had said, and he replied, 1 Eat and drink what thou likest, but prithee hold thy tongue, and leave me in peace/ Then I urged, * No, I will not leave off, for I am afraid of your dying of exhaustion, and so that I should lose the promotion I expect of you/ Then Thomas said, ‘ What a flatterer thou art ! * " Hugh Barber, being questioned, said that Thomas de Cantilupe was a peacemaker. Being asked how he knew that, he replied, that Thomas had reconciled two priests at Hampton who were at variance, Master Peter and Master Robert. When asked how he knew that the reconciliation was complete, he replied that he had seen them dine together at the table of Thomas de Cantilupe. On another occasion he restored amity between John de Ludham and the relatives of John de Cantilupe, his brother; for Mathilda de Valois, daughter of the said John de Cantilupe, had privately married John Ludham, a gentleman in waiting on the family, and had set all the Cantilupes in a blaze of indignation. The parents, the relatives, would have nothing to say to Mathilda and her husband. The married couple appealed to Thomas, and he patched up a reconciliation. S. Thomas interfered, for the sake of peace, between husband and wife; for it is recorded that on finding that Hugh, Baron de la Zouche, and his wife did not agree together, he laboured effectually to pour oil on the troubled waters of the domestic broil.
He was charitable to the poor, and gave away annually among them cloth of all colours, 1 for making into stout warm winter jackets and petticoats. These benefactions he made before he was bishop, in the parishes of Hampton and Sunterfield, after he was bishop at Bosebury. He once gave a blue mantle, trimmed with miniver, 2 to a vicar not in one of his parishes. To a certain William Plantfolie, a muffin man, 3 who used to play dice in public-houses, he gave a cloak and hood of Ypres blue; and William vowed, by all that was sacred, he would never play dice in taverns any more.
He visited the sick poor, and any of his servants who were confined to their beds, and gave them delicacies that had been prepared for his own table.
His charity, however, did not extend to the Jews. He obtained from the king an order that, unless they should be converted, they should be turned out of the kingdom. Forty Jews waited on Thomas Cantilupe, and endeavoured to bribe him from persecuting them, 4 but he coldly refused their offers and petition, telling them that they were rebels and enemies against God.
One day a baron saw him talking to several poor folk, and rebuked him. “ I have to give account of the souls of poor as well as rich,* said Thomas. At times he suffered from lumbago and was obliged to walk with the assistance of two sticks.
When bishop he rode with his stole on under his cloak, and whenever he saw a child along the road, if he ascertained it was unconfirmed he jumped off his horse and administered the Sacrament on the spot.
He looked sharply after the morals of his diocese. A 1 ** De grosso panno et de diversis coloribus." 4 “ Pecuniam offerentes, ut desist eret a persecutions eorum." Oct. a.] S. Thomas de Cantilupe.
citizen of Hereford, who had deserted his wife for another woman, he excommunicated; and when the man remained indifferent, he obtained his incarceration. Reginald FitzPeter, a knight and baron of his diocese, was excommunicated by him for incontinence. Baron Roger de Clifford he subjugated to humiliating, insulting penance, for having wronged the diocese in the time of the War of the Barons. De Clifford offered thp bishop a hundred pounds sterling as compensation. S. Thomas refused, and obliged the haughty baron to do public penance before a crowd of the citizens of Hereford, in the Cathedral. He was made to walk in his tunic, with bare feet, round the church, Thomas following with a switch, and lashing into his back till he reached the high altar.
The offence of the proud baron was that, in the war against Henry III. he had dared to lay hands on Peter de Aquablanca, a foreigner, who had been intruded on the diocese as bishop, and had imprisoned him.
Thomas could not forgive Baron Clifford. On another occasion he excommunicated him for having detained a priest, probably for some crime, in his castle. He refused to listen to any other terms save that the baron should again do penance publicly in his shirt. The bishop seems to have delighted in thus humbling the great, for one of the witnesses at his canonization says that these unseemly exhibitions were frequent. 1 S. Thomas, though he held along with his bishopric an archdeaconry, a precentorship, four canonries, and at least seven livings, was filled, we are informed, with holy zeal against pluralists unprovided with papal dispensations. Hervey de Borham, dean of S. Paul’s, and precentor of Hereford, had been the rival aspirant to the see of Hereford [a bishop’s “see” is his diocese, named from his seat (Latin sedes)]. Shortly after Thomas had succeeded in obtaining the [Oct. a.
see, he detected that De Borham was without papal dispensation permitting him to be a pluralist, and he turned him out of the precentorship — his motive, “ zeal for justice,” we are gravely informed.
Richard of Gravesend, archdeacon of Northampton, obtained the parish of Ross, in the diocese of Hereford, without dispensation. Thomas was down on him like a thunder-bolt, and deprived him. 1 James de Vitri, archdeacon of Shropshire, was collated to one of the canonries of Ledbury, that church being served by two canons. Thomas, in his righteous zeal, deprived him of archdeaconry and canonry.
Brother Nicolas de Wych, on being questioned at the process, said: “ The Lord Thomas was naturally discreet and prudent in things pertaining to this world, and more so in those that pertained to God. For he had with him good and prudent counsellors, and by their counsel he acted in matters pertaining to this world, whilst he watched in those things which pertained to God; and when anything went wrong, he laid the fault on the consciences of his counsellors.”
He was mightily fond of law, apparently, for he was always involved in suits, from that about the widow’s cow to that with the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The bishop had a castle at Ledbury, and the Malvern Hills he claimed as his chase. But the Earl of Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare, the most powerful baron in England, hunted there; his father had done so before him, and he assumed that the right was his.
One day Bishop Thomas de Cantilupe heard the winding of the earl’s horns on the hills. He rode to meet him, met him in a wood, and ordered him off his lands. The earl, one of the haughtiest men in England, answered scom1 He became in a.d. 2280 Bishop of London. Oct. a.] •S'. Thomas de Cantilupe.
fully, that he was not going to be driven out of his ancestral rights by a “ clergiaster,” and that he would chastise him as he had chastised other “ clergiasters.” Thomas, incensed j beyond measure, galloped back to his people, vested himself in mitre, stole, and cope, ordered his clerks to light candles and follow him, and hasted to the spot where the earl and his huntsmen, weary with the chase, were resting. The bishop ordered the candles to be solemnly extinguished, as he poured forth over his head the awful curse of the Church; and the great earl rode home, very much surprised and indignant at being excommunicated and anathematized, cut off from the grace of God, the sacraments, and Christian burial, should he die, because of the hares and wild-deer of the Malvern Hills.
Then S. Thomas summoned all his friends, and for three days defiantly, insultingly, with bray of horn and shout of derision, hunted over the hills. The hunting party was composed of John Tregoz, his brother-in-law, Nicolas Seagrave, Geoffry and Fulk de Lucy.
The earl, disliking his excommunication, and wishing to compromise matters, offered the bishop a large sum of money, but S. Thomas could not forgive being called a “ clergiaster,” and being threatened with chastisement He rejected the offer contemptuously, and brought an action against the earl, which dragged its wear}" length through the courts for four or five years, and though finally given in favour of the bishop, he was never able to recover damages from the proud earL He had another action going on at the same time with Baron Corbet, Lord de Caus, about some pastures near Ledbury. If any of the bishop’s cattle strayed on to them the baron impounded them, and would not let them out without a fine. S. Thomas claimed a right to turn his cows on to these meadows, and therefore threw the matter into court. When the verdict was given in his favour, Baron Corbet turned to him and said angrily: “You are either full of devils or in God’s privy counsels.” “ I do not use diabolical arts,” answered the triumphant bishop; “ but trusting in divine assistance I maintain the rights of the Church.” S. Thomas had another contest with Llewellyn of Wales, about three estates in Montgomery which he claimed, Aston, Multon, and Churchstoke, belonging to his possessions round Bishop’s Castle. As it was in vain to try conclusions at law with Llewellyn, he got the Archbishop of Canterbury to excommunicate him. He then hastened to Bishop’s Castle, made his clergy light a great many candles, and whilst he hurled an anathema at Llewellyn and all Welshmen, great and small, the candles were flung into the moat, and went out fizzing in the slimy water.
He quarrelled also with Anian II., Bishop of S. Asaph, touching their respective rights of jurisdiction. The Abbey of S. Mary at Dore was the bone of contest between him and the Bishop of S. David’s. The new church had to be consecrated; S. Thomas claimed to exercise jurisdiction there, but the Bishop of S. David’s stole a march on him, and with the connivance of John de Tregoz, nephew of the Bishop of Hereford, dedicated the church. Thereupon S. Thomas brought an action against the bishop and his own nephew.
Robert Burnel having been elected to the see of Canterbury, on the death of Robert Kilwardby, a.d. 1279, the Pope quashed the election, and appointed to the archbishopric a Minorite friar, John de Peckham. Peckham summoned a council at Reading, and advanced claims whici were resented by the bishops, by none more so than by the bishop of Hereford. It was not long before peace was broken between them.
A certain Petronilla Bebler, and one Richard Bramford, Oct. a.] S. Thomas de Cantilupe. in the diocese of Hereford, had a contention before the court of the sub-dean, who gave judgment against Richard Bramford. Instead of appealing to the bishop’s court, Bramford appealed direct to that of the archbishop. This so incensed the bishop’s commissary, that he excommunicated Richard Bramford, who appealed against this sentence also to Canterbury.
Thereupon Richard Bramford’s father, also called Richard, was excommunicated by the commissary of the Bishop of Hereford, and when Allan de Lichfield, bearer of a mandate from the archbishop to assert the excommunication, entered the diocese, he was thrown into prison. The subdean, who had been served with letters from the court of the archbishop, contemptuously flung them into the mud. Thereupon Archbishop Peckham sent a mandate to the Bishop of Hereford, ordering him to pronounce the excommunication of his own commissary and sub-dean, and to remove the excommunication launched against Richard Bramford, senior and junior, and citing the sub-dean and commissary on a fixed day to appear at the church of S. Mary Arches, in London, to answer for contempt of the court of Canterbury. And should the bishop refuse thus to act, he was threatened with suspension from officiating, and interdict wheresoever he might be, except when the king, the queen, or the princes, or the archbishop might be present How the affair ended does not transpire; but it is certain that S. Thomas left Hereford, and for a year and a half remained concealed in Normandy. He had privately made an appeal to the Pope, but he did not wish the Archbishop of Canterbury to be aware of the fact, and so to prepare his procurators in the Roman curia against his machinations. The affair of the Bramford s was somehow settled; and S. Thomas suddenly returned to England, and with smiles and affected cordiality appeared before Peckham, who was tOct completely in the dark as to any appeal against his authority being made in the court of Rome.
Almost directly after he came back the quarrel broke out afresh, on an equally insignificant question. A priest named Master Henry Havekly, canon of Lincoln, a pluralist holding many livings, died, and left the parson of Ross his executor. Ross was in the diocese of Hereford. As the archbishop claimed the right of proving wills, he sent to the commissary of Hereford an order that an injunction should be served on the vicar of Ross to attend the archbishop’s court. The commissary of the Bishop of Hereford regarded this as an infringement of prerogative, and took no notice of the mandate. Thereupon the commissary, Robert le Wyse, was served with a sentence of major excommunication, and an order was sent to S. Thomas to summon the vicar of Ross before the archbishop’s court, and to publicly excommunicate his commissary. Robert fe Wyse, by the bishop’s advice, appealed to Rome, but apparently without giving notice to the archbishop that he had done so. Then the archbishop excommunicated, and placed under an interdict, the Bishop of Hereford. S. Thomas, who was at thesame time in the midst of his squabble with the Bishop of Asaph, determined to appeal in person at Rome against both the archbishop and the Bishop of S. Asaph, and left secretly for France.
We have several letters of Archbishop Peckham relative to the matter. The first is to this effect: — “ Brother John, &c. (/. e. Peckham), to his procurators in the Roman curia, health, grace and benediction. There has suddenly burst on us a tempest from the Bishop of Hereford, whom, verily, we believed to be the most obedient and specious of all our suffragans, and one whom we have heard most highly spoken of. But we have been warned by Pona 3 5. Thomas de Cantilupe. 47 tisar, archdeacon of Exeter, that while secretary himself abroad, he has been endeavouring by his procurators to extort apostolic letters against us, touching certain exactions not due, and other matters. The result appeared in the sequence; but God overthrew his endeavours in this affair. “And Robert of Gloucester, sumamed le Wyse, the commissary of the said bishop, on account of his disobedience, contempt and offence offered, both to our own commissary and to ourselves, has been sentenced to excommunication, no legal form having been omitted in the transaction. This was after the bishop, being on his way back from abroad, had returned to England, and waiting on us at Canterbury, had kissed us, putting on a sheep's skin to deceive me, and blind me to his intrigues, so that we trusted him as a most devoted and constant brother. “ Nevertheless, his officer has persisted in his contumacy and dogged opposition, and the bishop has 4 aimed a deaf ear to our injunctions, and has neglected and despised them. He therefore, from whom we expected consolation, having flung aside his obedience,.which he swore to our Church and to us, declares our sentence against his commissary to be invalid, and has incited him to appeal to Rome, asserting that we have no jurisdiction, except on appeal, over his flock; he inserts many other astute and shifty reasons in his letters, by which he seeks to justify his disobedience and refusal, point blank, to obey our orders. Understanding which, and lamenting his damnation, and desiring to restore him by salutary exhortations to a right obedience, we wrote to him again and again, warning him not to force us to punish such defiance with canonical severity.
“ At last, a meeting having been convened at Lambeth, and we had, on our part, treated him in an amicable manner, we asked him vivd voce to do for us what he and [Oct a.
his predecessors had done hitherto for us and our predecessors, and having laid aside the vice of disobedience, to return to firm charity and submission; and this he promised to do.
“ But at length, when our monitions and amicable conferences availed nothing, but this bishop, putting on a dovelike appearance, armed himself with trickery and crafty imaginations against us, we again warned him by mouth and in writing. And as he persists in his rebellion and malice and contempt, we have been forced to launch the sentenc e of excommunication against him, by writing, as justice requires. Thereupon he appealed away to the Roman Curia, and that after we had ordered all our suffragan [a bishop under the authority of an archbishop] bishops throughout the province to publish the sentence pronounced against him.
“ And now he feigns frivolous excuses, and mixing blasphemy with lies in his appeal, going forward in all subtlety and falsehood, he defames us publicly and solemnly throughout England, and dares, peijurously, to publish things tending to the subversion of our Church. It is reported that this bishop is already on his way to Rome; we can hardly believe it, for the report is not certain; but should it be true that he has crossed the Channel, he has not done it openly, but secretly, and when he is thought to be here, to ! he is hidden somewhere else, sneaking away in his fox-skin. Now should he chance to appear in the Court of Rome, be on your guard, and let no letters be given at his request without being checked and questioned by you; and be very watchful and solicitous, as our adversary is subtle, walking in all guile. Given at Clist, at the Bishop of Exeter's, the 2nd of the Calends of April, in the 4th yea* of our consecration (1282)/'* Thomas Cantilupe had crossed over; the archbishop learned the fact later, and wrote again to warn his agents at S. Thomas de Cantilupe.
the Court of Rome, bidding them spare no money in their attempts to obtain a judgment against him. The Bishop of Hereford was well received by Pope Martin IV., who communicated with him, ignoring the sentence of excommunication launched against him by the Archbishop of Canterbury, which, however, could only have effect within the province of the archbishop.
The prosecution of his appeals was interrupted by mortal sickness. Finding his end approach, he drew up his will, made his confession to the grand penitentiary of the Pope. On the night of the 25 th of August, as he was held up in bed, he recited the hymn, “ Veni Creator Spiritus;” then he said: “ By the sign of the holy Cross deliver us from our enemies, O God ! and by this sign of the Cross drive away every evil, and by the same sign preserve all that is good.” Then he murmured, “ Into Thy Hands, O Lord 1 ” and “I commend my spirit to Thee, O God of Truth 1” He raised his joined hands to heaven and repeated, “ I commend my spirit,” and breathed his last.
His attendants separated the flesh from the bones, buried the flesh with pomp at Monte Fiascone, and brought back the bones to England. They were laid in Hereford Cathedral. Since the reign of S. Thomas, the arms of the see of Hereford have been those of the Cantilupes, adopted in honour of the saint. He died in 1282, and his bones were translated to a more magnificent tomb in 1287. Numerous miracles having been wrought at it, Clement V. began the process of his canonization in 1305, at the request of King Edward I. In the process sixty-six witnesses were examined before the apostolic commissioners, in S. Paul’s Cathedral, London, in July, *307. The canonization took place in 1330, by Pope John XXII.
It is asserted by the Jesuits of S. Omer that they are in possession of an arm of S. Thomas. VOL. xi. 4 [Oct. j.