their parishioners to battle, said that he hoped himself to be in the fight, and gave the coming campaign the character of a crusade. In obedience to his counsel the forces of the shire gathered at York, where, after a three days' fast, he gave them absolution and his benediction. He wished to be carried in his litter with the host, for he was too weak to ride, but the lords persuaded him to stay at home and pray for their success, so he gave them his cross and the banner of St. Peter of York to carry with them, sent his men with the army along with Ralph (d. 1144?) [q. v.], bishop of Orkney, and remained at York, while the army that he had gathered routed the Scots at the battle of the Standard on 22 Aug. 1138.
Anselm, abbot of St. Edmunds, having been elected to the see of London, Thurstan upheld the party among the canons opposed to him, and, being requested by the pope to say what he thought of him, wrote that he was more fit to be deprived of his abbacy than promoted to a see (Diceto, i. 250). He was prevented by infirmity from attending the council held by the legate Alberic on 6 Dec., and sent the dean of York to represent him. He desired in 1139 to resign his see, and, it is said, to secure his brother Audoen as his successor, and for this purpose, as well as to excuse his non-attendance at the pope's council, sent Richard, abbot of Fountains, to Rome. Audoen, however, died in this year at Merton priory in Surrey, where he had assumed the habit of a canon. St. Bernard wrote to Thurstan dissuading him from his idea of resignation, and advising him while retaining his see to live an ascetic life (Opera, i. 297). A compiled account of him records that he made a pilgrimage to Palestine, but the assertion lacks confirmation, is probably based on a misreading, and cannot in any case be true of a time when he was worn out by age (Vita apud Historians of York, ii. 267). Finding that his end was near, Thurstan called to remembrance a vow that he had made in his youth at Cluny to enter the Cluniac order; having called the clergy of his church together into his chapel, he made solemn confession before them, and received the discipline from them, and after this set out, in company with the elder clergy and many laymen, for the Cluniac priory at Pontefract, where, on 26 Jan. 1140, he was admitted into the convent and received the monastic habit. On 6 Feb. he felt himself dying, and, in the presence of the elder clergy, who seem to have remained with him, and the monks, he caused the vigils for the dead to be performed, as though he already lay dead, himself taking the ninth lectio, and reciting the versicle ‘Dies iræ, dies illa.’ When lauds were ended he died while the assembled monks were praying (John of Hexham). He was buried before the high altar of the priory church. Some days afterwards Geoffrey Turcople or Trocope, archdeacon of Nottingham, beheld him in a vision, and received from him the assurance of his well-being. A year later his body was found undecayed.
Thurstan was a man of deep piety and of monastic aceticism, being extremely sparing in eating and drinking, wearing a hair-shirt, and otherwise mortifying his flesh. His character was probably emotional, for he was endowed with ‘the grace of tears’ specially when celebrating the mass, and he exercised a strong influence on ladies, many of high rank, as the Countess of Blois, being his affectionate and obedient disciples (John of Hexham). To the poor he was pitiful and liberal. That he was remarkably courageous and persevering is shown in his long conflict with the see of Canterbury, supported by the royal authority. The independence of his see was an object worthy of the sacrifices he made to gain it, specially if the struggle is regarded in the light of the time; the exile, loss of wealth, and other troubles that he manfully endured in the cause, and the success that crowned his efforts, as well as his personal character, justly endeared him to the people of the north, and gave him a position of extraordinary influence among them. He used that influence on a memorable occasion to arouse a patriotic sentiment and deliver the north from a cruel invasion. Yet in the progress of his struggle with Canterbury he certainly did not scruple to ally himself with the enemies of his own king, and he was guilty of a breach of faith in receiving consecration from Calixtus. He was a generous benefactor to the churches and clergy of his diocese, to York, Hexham, Ripon, Beverley, and Southwell, and founded new prebends in the last-named three churches, and he was careful in the selection of his clergy (ib.) and in the promotion of their interests (Historians of York, ii. 386). In the troubles that soon followed his death men looked back with regret to the peace and prosperity enjoyed by the clergy and tenants of the see during his episcopate. For the clergy were not the only recipients of privileges from him; his charter to the rising town of Beverley was based on that granted by Henry to York; it confirmed the customs of the burghers and granted them a hans-house and exemption from toll (Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 105). He was largely concerned in the growth of monasticism in the north during his episcopate, and is said to have founded eight reli-
