Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/57

THE CHURCH OF CUTHBERT

the Court House there, which had formerly been the Nunnery, known as St. Mildred's, so called after the second Abbess, who had been buried in the Church there dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, which Archbishop Cuthbert had consecrated. Thorne was possibly a relative of Abbot Nicholas Thorne (1278-1283), and he had acted as Attorney for the Abbot-Elect, William Welde, at the Papal Court in 1389.^[1]

Though Thorne wrote six and a half centuries after the event, his indignation is so great in relating the circumstances that one might think that the calamity occurred in his own day.^[2]

"In the year 743 Archbishop Cuthbert grieved over the destitute condition of the Church over which he ruled, for it had no great men interred within its walls, inasmuch as when an Archbishop died the body was carried to the Monastery for burial according to the decrees of the Popes. Therefore conceiving sorrow and bringing forth ungodliness, he in his wickedness carefully thought out a plan for the changing of this custom; and repairing to Eadbert, who was then King of the land, with tears streaming down his face, he with the subtlety of the serpent, laid his case before the Dove-like and harmless King, earnestly imploring him to alter the aforesaid custom of burial and to confirm the alteration by his own Royal Command. With much difficulty, and more by the aid of money than by the power of his prayers, he at length gained his desire.

"Thus it came to pass in the year of Our Lord 758 the aforesaid Archbishop Cuthbert, being attacked with heart disease, and feeling that he was about to die, realized that the time had now arrived when the trick that he had planned might at length be played off against the Church of St. Austin; and that the serpent-like birth which had been so long in the womb, might now at last be produced, even though the birth pangs brought death in their train; he was lying by himself in his own Church as the end drew near, and summoning his whole household and the monks—who were nothing loth to obey—he bound them by a solemn oath not to divulge his illness or his death, nor to give any signal thereof by the ringing of bells, nor to perform any funeral services for him, until he should have been buried several days.

"All these commands were dutifully obeyed, for not till he had been three days in the grave were the bells rung for him or tidings of his death published. On receiving the news Aldhun, Abbot of St. Austin's (748-760), came with the monks intending to convey away the Archbishop's body according to the usual custom; but when he found that he was already buried, and that the ancient custom of burial

1. Thorne's Chron., 2184.
2. Thorne's Chron., 1772.

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