Anselm pleads for Rufus.
The cope of Beneventum.
Dealings between Canterbury and Beneventum. creed of the East which changeth not. The Pope harangues on the sufferings of the Church in various lands, and, above all, on the evil deeds of the tyrant of England. The assembled fathers agree with one voice that the sword of Peter must be drawn, and that such a sinner must be smitten in the face of the whole world. Then Anselm kneels at the feet of Urban, and craves that no such blow may be dealt on the man who had so deeply wronged him.[1] But, while these high debates were going on, the curious eye of Eadmer had lighted on an object which spoke straight to his heart as an Englishman and a monk of Christ Church. Among the assembled prelates the Archbishop of Beneventum appeared clad in a cope of surpassing richness. Eadmer knew at once whence it came; he knew that it had once been one of the glories of Canterbury, worn by Primates of England before England had bowed either to the Norman or to the Dane. Eadmer, brought up from his childhood in the cloister of Christ Church, had been taught as a boy by aged monks who could remember the days of Cnut and Emma. Those elders of the house, Eadwig and Blæcman and Farman, had told him how in those days there had been a mighty famine in the land of Apulia, how the then Archbishop of Beneventum had travelled through foreign lands to seek help for his starving flock, how he brought with him a precious relic, the arm of the apostle Bartholomew, and how, having passed through Italy and Gaul, he was led to cross the sea by the fame of the wealth of
- ↑ The whole story is charmingly told by Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 50. His picture of himself and his curiosity in the new world which is opened to him is delightful. So is his joy when he sees the cope of which he has so often heard and shows it to Anselm; "Cum, ut dixi, concilio præsens antistitem Beneventanum, cappa reliquis præstante ornatum, viderem, et eam ex his quæ olim audieram optime nossem, non modice lætatus et cappam et verba mihi puero ex inde dicta patri Anselmo ostendi."
