The Financial aspect of the Cult of St Thomas of Canterbury

13 ) THE FINANCIAL ASPECT OF THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY . .AS REVEALED BY A STUDY OF THE MONASTIC RECORDS. BY 0. EVELEIGH WOODRUFF, M.A. A FEW years ago l\iir. Elliston Erwood contributed to Arclu;eologia Gantiana, Vol. XXXVII, an able and interesting article on the so-called Pilgrims' Way in which-as I thinkhe produces conclusive evidence to show that, contrary to the general belief, this ancient track-way could never have been used extensively by pilgrjms to the shrine of St. Thomas. Towards the end of hls article, however, Mr. Erwood makes a general statement, to the effect that mediaeval pilgrimage has been grossly exaggerated in the past, to substantiate which he quotes certain :figures, taken-for the most part-from an article published by Scott Robertson in Archr.eologia Gantiana, -Vol. XIII, and from Sheppard's Preface to Literae Gantuarienses ; but here he is less successful, and indeed seems to be conscious that the material at hls disposal is insufficient to en􀂥ble him to prove his point, since he concludes by expressing the hope that at some future time the gifts and offerings at the shrine and other centres of devotion in the Cathedral church may be fully published in tabular form. The present article is an attempt to supply this want by publishing the result of a careful examination of the monastic records, and especially of the Treasurers' books, in whlch, year by year, the'exaot sum received in offerings is methodically entered. Considerations of space make it impossible, or at any rate undesirable, to give particulars of the amount received 14 THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. every year at each altar, or holy place at which offerings were wont to be made ; generally averages must suffice, though, of course, to obtain these it has been necessary to note every entry relating to the offerings ; but full details are given in certain years, and especially in those which marked the fiftieth amriversaries of the martyrdom and were called the years of jubilee. Before giving particulars relating to the offerings, some account must be given of the sources from which our inf ormation is drawn. Only a few of the original Treasurers' rolls are preserved at Canterbury, but contemporary, though somewhat abbreviated, copies in book form are extant-­ covering a long series of years. For the following periods the Treasurers' accounts are more or less complete : 1198-1206. In the latter year the monks were expelled from their Priory by King John and took refuge in France, where they remained in exile until 1213, when the king was constrained to reinstate them. 1213-1337. (With the exception of the account for 1269, which is missing.) After 1337 there is a gap of thirty-three years, with the exception that the account for the year 1350 is preserved. 1370-1383. During Thomas Chillenden's priorate (1391- 1411), the offerings (oblaciones) were transferred from the Treasurers' office to that of the Prior. Only a few of the Prior's rolls are extant; but from this source some further details of the offerings in the :fifteenth century are recoverable. For the sixteenth century we are dependent on a single note made by the Sacrist in the year 1532. From 1198 to 1383 the Treasurers received all offerings made at the following altars, or holy places : (1) The Tomb of St. Thomas, in the crypt. (2) The Altar of the Martyrdom, in the NW. transept. THE OULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. 15 (3) The Corona at the eastern extremity of the church.l (4) The Shrine of St. Thomas (after 1220). (5) The High Altar. (6) The Altar of St. Mary, in the nave.2 (7) The Altar of the Holy Cross, in the nave.2 (8) The Altar of St. Michael, in the SW. transept. To these were added later : (9) The Altar of St. Mary, in the crypt (1262), and (10) The Tomb of Archbishop Winchelsey (1313). The earliest account relating to the Treasurers' office, now extant at Canterbury, is headed: "Receptus Thesaurariorum in anno quo Gaufridus prior perrexit ad curiam Romanam," or, in English, "The receipts of the Treasurers in the year in which Prior Geoffrey went to the court of Rome." This was in the year 1198, as we learn from Gervase, who tells us that the Prior's object in going was to appeal against the demand of King Richard that the treasure of the church of Canterbury should be inspected, and inventoried, by his commissioners, and placed in safe custody,8 precautions which the monks interpreted, and probably correctly, to be merely preliminary steps to confiscation. The Prior remained in Rome until the death of King Richard (April 6th, 1199) when he returned to Canterbury. He was destined, however, to endure a much longer exile, from which he did not return, since, in 1206, King John, in revenge for the opposition that the monks had offered to his wishes in the matter of the primacy, expelled them from their convent and compelled them to take refuge in France. 1 Willia inclined to the belief that the round chapel a.t the eastern end of the church was called the Oorona because it formed the Crown of the edifice ; but Boniface IX in his bull of Indulgence granted in 1395 mentions expressly the Chapel called the Orown "in whioh ie preserved a. part of the head of St. Thomas the martyr." 1 After 1255 the offerings from these altars were transferred to the Sacrist's Office. 3 Ohron. Gerva8ii in Decem Scriptores, c. 1615. 16 THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. Seven years later (1213), under pressure from Rome, the king was constrained to reinstate them, but Prior Geoffrey died on the journey to England. During the pre-exile years {1198-1213) the offerings average £426 3s. 7d. per annum, of which the Tomb contributed £309 5s. Od., Corona £39 17s. 6d., High Altar £39 19s. IOd., St. Mary's Altar £8 9s. Od., Holy Cross Altar £1 2s. Od., St. Michael's Altar 16s. 3d. During the same period the Treasurers' receipts from all sources average £1,406 Is. 8d., and their expenditure £1,314 19s. 2d. The offerings were highest in the year 1200-1, when they amounted to £620 4s. Od. Probably the yield was affected by the fact that in this year King John and Queen Isabella were crowned in Canterbury Cathedral by Archbishop Hubert. The offerings were lowest in the year 1203, viz. £248 18s. Od. It may be of interest to record here that in 1204, John, a nephew of St. Thomas, received from the prior and convent a pension of ten mares. He was a son of Agnes, a sister of the murdered archbishop, by her husband Theobald de Relles, and later was vicar of Lower Halstow, Kent. The first year after the exile (1213) was naturally a lean one. But, though the offerings amounted to only £76, the Prior of Dover, who, in the absence of the Christ Church monks had been appointed sequestrator of the receipts from the altars, was able to hand over to the Treasurers a sum of £245 lOs. Od. as the proceeds of offerings made during the years of exile. In the following year there was a marked improvement in the financial position of the Priory : the offerings rose to £380 19s. 2d. Moreover, King John paid to the Christ Church monks £1,000 as compensation for the losses they had sustained by his high-handed action.1 But the political ferment in which the country was now plunged caused the tide of pilgrimage to slacken. Thus in 1215 (Magna Carta year) the offerings amounted to no more than £123 12s. Od., and in the following year to only about half that sum. 1 The entry in the original i.a De restituti-One ablator,um MU. THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. 17 Two entries in the account for the year 1216 are of special interest, viz. one relating to the sale of a gold chalice in aid of funds for. the construction of the splendid shrine to · which the saint's relics were to be translated four years later.1 And a payment to Elias of Dereham. who (with Walter of Colchester) was one of the two artists, or craftsmen, who were employed upon the work. The payment, however, was not for work done in connection with the shrine, but merely the repayment of a loan (Magi8tro Helie de Deram X marCa8 q.uas nobi8 commodaverat); but it is of interest as showing that at least one of the designers of the shrine was already in Canterbury, and probably engaged upon his task. When we examine the account for the year 1220 (the fiftieth anniversary of the murder of the archbishop, and the year in which his relics were translated to the shrine) it is disappointing to find no entry which can be connected directly with the construction of the shrine. Possibly some part of the cost may be included in a sum of £465 2s. 8d., which is set down under the unsatisfactory heading ad diver8a negocia, though more probably this represents money spent in the papal curia for the bull of indulgence which the prior and convent obtained from Pope Honorius III.2 Perhaps the greater part of the cost was defrayed by the archbishop, since Matthew Paris states that Stephen Langton, deeming the tomb in the crypt too lowly a resting place for the body of so great a saint, provided a coffer (theca) covered with gold and adorned with jewels, within which it might repose more honourably.8 The offerings at this first Jubilee amounted to no less than £1,142 5s. 0d., the receipts of the individual altars being as follows : High Altar £54 15s. 8d., St. Mary £13 4:s. 9d., St. Cross £2 9s. 8d., St. Michael 14s. 5d., Shrine £702 lls. 4d., 1 De cal.ice aureo vendito ad, je,retrum S. Thome xvu ee dim Maro'. (£15.6.8.) i The bull is printed by Sheppard in Christ Church Letter,; XL V, VI. It is worthy of note that the indulgence extended only over fifteen days. a HiBt. Ang., R.S. ii, 242. 0 18 THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. Martyrdom £93 Os. 2d. It is remarkable that nothing was received this year from the Corona. In the following year, however, the Corona contributed £71 10s.. Od. and the next year £80 10s. Od., both of which sums were specially ear- . marked for expenditure on the shrine, from which we may infer that it was not altogether complete at the time of the translation. But although the offerings were so large, it would be a mistake to imagine that the money received wa.s all net profit, since the monastic expenditure on entertainment this year was abnormally high. Thus the allowance made to the cellarer (the officer responsible for the entertainment of pilgrims) which in the previous year was no more than £442 8s. Od. was raised in the Jubilee year to £1,154 16s. 5d. ! Resuming the ten-yearly averages we get the figures tabulated on the opposite page. In 1314, £115 12s. Od. was spent on gold and precious stones for adorning the Crown of St. Thomas. This seems to mean that some portion of the saint's skull was now enclosed in a reliquary shaped like a human head, and became an additional object of devotion, since the royal wardrobe accounts mention occasionally offerings ad caput Thomae, as well as ad Oororuum. It is remarkable that in the year 1318, when the offerings amounted to £577, the Treasurers enter amongst their receipts a further sum of £432 I ls. I Id. which is described as the proceeds of certain testamentary bequests made by pilgrims, and collected by the shrine-keepers.1 Why this should be placed under the heading obvenciones, and not under oblaciones, is difficult to explain, especially as no similar entry occurs in any previous or subsequent account. In 1320, the year of the third Jubilee, £670 13s. 4d. was received in offerings, viz. Shrine £500, Corona £50, Martyrdom £9, Tomb £12 5s. Od., St. Mary in the Crypt £6 13s. 4d., High Altar £3, Winchelsey's Tomb £90. At the end of the year, however, there was an adverse balance of £83 for 1 " Item de obvencionibus peregrinorum provenientibus de testa... mantis et votis fidelium collectis per diversos ferete.rios ccccxxxijllxj• :xjd." Years. Offerings. YBeseatr . Amount. WYeoarrs.t .Amount. AllRe Sceoipurtsce s. Expenditure. £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. £ s. d. 1213-1222 383 5 0 1220 1142 5 0 1216 88 14 8 2604 I 0 2492 14 2 1223-1232 372 14 9 1223 626 I 10 1231 276 18 2 1830 18 0 1617 5 7 1233-1242 2H 10 3 1236 312 17 0 1240 156 18 10 2009 5 1 2058 6 3 1243-1252 160 14 3 1246 211 13 8 1250 109 0 0 1841 13 10 1743 15 0 1253-1262 102 14 7 1255 155 2 10 1258 72 14 10 2129 9 8 2117 10 8 1263-1273 127 3 5 1270 204 2 10 1264 95 11 3 1948 2 5 1919 1 9 [mThoree atchcaonu n£t2 f0o4r 122s6. 96 ids. m ; isasnindg, . inIn 12 16257, 0w, htheen s ethcoen Kind Jugb,i lQeeu Yeeenar, ,P thrine coeff eEringsdwar adm aonund theids two infeo, wPreirnece osnsl yE l£e1an04o r, 5wse. r6ed i.n] Canterbury and were entertained by Archbishop Boniface, the offerings 1274-1283 177 17 s I 1279 235 19 6 1283 150 14 o 2606 14 u 2323 9 3 1284-1293 257 4 5 I 1289 313 17 8 1284 185 6 0 2153 5 10 2126 14 II [1284 was the first year of Henry of Eastry's long priorate. In the followmg year £10 was spent ptoro b ne olveat ca;upp saor Jde-orwetnri ,b wy hciocrhd sp rpoabsasibnlgy omveear nspu tllheayts .a] new cover was provided for the shrine, 1294-1303 1304-1313 1314-1323 281 11 0 359 13 0 462 17 3 1298 1312 1319 340 5 0 489 IO 0 670 13 4 1294 1304 1315 203 12 0 274 6 0 241 0 0 2265 10 6 2317 16 10 2419 2 3 2153 19 8 2588 12 6 2651 17 2 20 THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. which, no doubt, the entertainment of pilgrims was responsible, since the cellarer's expenditure this year amounted to no less than £996. After 1337 a wide gap exists in the Treasurers' accounts. It will be convenient, therefore, to give the average sum received in offerings during the fourteen years which lie between 1324 to 1337. The figures are as follows: Offerings £407 12s. 3d.-highest year 1335, viz. £461; lowest year 1329, viz. £351. Receipts, total £2,188 18s. 0d. Expenditure, total £2,158 18s. 0d. As a regular series the accounts do not recommence until 1370, with the exception that the account for the year 1350 is preserved. It was the year following that in which the Black Death had attained its greatest virulence, and it may be that an exceptional number of pilgrims made their way to Canterbury, either to return thanks for their deliverance from the scourge, or to invoke the aid of St. Thomas to protect them from it. At any rate the offerings were exceptionally large. Thus £667 was received at the Shrine, £55 at the Corona, £10 at the Martyrdom, and £14 at the Tomb. Moreover, the offerings at the altar of St. Mary in the crypt show an extraordinary increase ; in 1336 they were no more than £5, in 1350 they amounted to £60. On the other hand the offerings at the tomb of Archbishop Winchelsey had dwindled to !ls., and those at the High Altar to nil. But although the offerings came to no less than £801 lls. Od., there was an adverse balance at the end of the year of £256 8s. 3d. The Treasurers' accounts recommence in 1370 and run on in a regular series until 1383, after which we get no more information about the offerings from this source. In 1370, which was the year of the fourth Jubilee, the offerings amounted to £643-made up by the following figures : High Altar £7, St. Mary in the Crypt £50, Tomb £20, Martyrdom £5, Corona £73, Shrine £466, Tomb of Archbishop Winchelsey nil ; but again at the end of the year there was a heavy adverse balance of £990 18s. 4d. THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. 21 For the fourteen years which lie between 1370 to 1383 the average of the offerings is £545 8s. 10d.; they were highest in 1376 (the year of the funeral of the Black Prince) viz. £692 4s. 7d.,1 and lowest in 1381, viz. £362 I0s. 0d. It was at this period-the era of Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales-that the cult of St. Thomas seems to have attained to its apogee; later, as we shall see presently, there was an extraordinary decline. In view of the large sums of money received in these years from the offerings of pilgrims, it is strange to find evidence that the prior and chapter were often in want of money and that they resorted to extraordinary methods in order to raise it. Prior Gillingham (1370-1376) even went to the length of passing through the fire a cope and two chasubles which had once belonged to Archbishop Lanfranc, for the sake of the bullion recoverable from their gold thread ; nor did he scruple to melt down images and plate taken from the shrine of the holy martyr himself, and sell the precious metal to a London goldsmith tz The wanton destruction of vestments which had come down to them from the venerable reviver of their Order shows how completely devoid the monks were of sentiment in regard to such things ; but that they should have ventured to despoil the shrine of their most notable saint is astounding. The only excuse which can be found for this gross vandalism is that already the prior and convent were conscious that a vast sum of money would shortly have to be raised for the 1 Notwithstanding the large a.mount received this year in offerings there was an adverse balance at the end of the year of £486 18s. 9d. 2 1371-2. De una. ea.pa Venerabilis Laniranci oremata et diversis jocalibus fucis (sic) venditis cxvj11 vj• viijd. 1372-3. De duobus casulis Ven. Lanfra.nci crematis cum a.liis diversis jocalibua fucis cxxxviij11 xij•. Item recept' per manus Ricardi prioris ell de diversis ymaginibus feretri bea.ti Thome martyris fucis venditia. Item de R. Lyonis in pa.rte solucionis diversarum petrarum et jocaliwn feretri beati Thome martyris sibi venditis iiijll=£80. 1373-4. !ten de Stephano Monyngham pro solucione diversa.rum petrarum feretri beate Thome Martyris venditis Richardo, Lyonis xx11• Item de parvis annulis venditis London' per dom. Stephanuro Monyngha.m VU. Treasure-re' Accounts. 22 THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. rebuilding of the nave of their church. Indeed, as early as 1369 a subscription list had been opened for this purpose, though the work was not actually commenced until eight years later.1 Although, as has been already stated, the Treasurers' account books are no longer extant after the year 1383, some of the original rolls of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are preserved both at Canterbury and at Lambeth, but they make no mention of the oblac,iones, which, as has been stated already, were transferred during Chillenden's priorate (1391-1411) from the Treasurers' office to that of the Prior. Fortunately a few of the prior's rolls are extant, and from this source we are able to follow, more or less, the decline of the cult as the fifteenth century advanced. PRroR's AocouNT RoLLs : 1396. Shrine £393 2s. l0d., Corona £75 13s. 0d., Tomb £6, Martyrdom £13, High Altar £11, St. Mary £2 5s. 0d., Money box (pix) in nave £2. Total £503 0s. l0d. 1410. Shrine £255 ls. 8d., Corona nil, Tomb £2, Martyrdom 10s., High Altar nil, St. Mary £8 6s. 8d. Total £265 18s. 4d. 1420. (The year of the fifth Jubilee.) Shrine £360, Corona £151, Martyrdom £35, Tomb £23, St. Mary £55, Keeper of the Relics £20. Total £644. Of which sum £100 was allotted to the cellarer in compensation, no doubt, for · extra expenditure on hospitality ; £60 2s. 0d. was set aside for providing lights at the shrine ; £200 for repairs to the fabric of the church ; and £224 12s. 0d. was left in the prior's hands. That this Jubilee attracted to Canterbury an enormous number of pilgrims is definitely stated in a certificatepreserved amongst the city archives-in which the bailiffs testify that 100,000 persons assembled to take advantage of 1 The list contains thirty-four names, and the subscriptions range from £20 to 2s. THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. 23 the privileges accorded to the faithful, and that this great multitude by the foresight of the magistrates and the generosity of the citizens was lodged and fed at a reasonable cost to themselves.I The number of the pilgrims, of course, is a mere guess and probably an exaggeration, but the very fact that the bailiffs put it so high is evidence of the abnormal -0haracter of the gathering. But though the Jubilee of 1420 was largely attended .and was entirely successful from the financial point of view, by some strange oversight the arrangements for holding it had been made without any reference to the Pope. When at length it came to the ears of Martin V that Archbishop Chicheley and Prior John of Wodensburg had presumed to proclaim indulgences and appoint penitencers on their own :initiative his indignation was unbounded. Their action, he alleged, was a gross infringement of the privileges of the Apostolic See, concerning which instant enquiry must be made. Accordingly the Pope appointed Jacobus de Balardi, Bishop of Trieste, and Simon de Teremo, the papal receiver in England, to enquire into the facts, and if need be pronounce ecclesiastical censure on the offenders. The result was a humiliating snub to the archbishop ; but since Prior John was not called upon to remit to the papal treasury any part -0£ the money which had flowed into the coffers of the monastery through his irregular action he may not have been ,greatly disturbed by the :fulminations of his Holiness.2 Reverting now to the prior's rolls we get the following figures: 1436. Shrine £30 15s. Od., Tomb £2, Corona £20, High Altar £14, St. Mary in Crypt nil, Great Pix nil. Total £66 15s. Od. 1444. (Particulars not given.) .Total £25 6s. 8d. 1458. Shrine £10, Tomb nil, Corona £20, High Altar nil, St. Mary in Crypt £1, Great Pix ls. Total £31 ls. Od. 1 The certificate is printed in full in Somner's Antiquities of Canter. bury, Appenclh, No. XLII. 2 Raynaldus, Annale8 Eccle8., viii. 578. A summary of the incident is given in Creighton's History of the Papacy, vol. ii. 24 THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. 1455. Shrine £7 6s. 8d., Tomb nil, Corona £18, High Altar nil, St. Mary in Crypt nil, Great Pix nil. Total £25 6s. 8d. 1467. The only sum entered is 23s. from the Corona; there was an adverse balance this year of upwards of £600. 1469. This year brothers William Selling and Reginald Goldstone were sent to Rome to obtain from Pope Paul II the bull of plenary remission which they duly received. 1470. The year of the sixth Jubilee; no roll for this year is extant. 1472. (Prior Selling's first year.) Only £1 6s. 8d. was received at the Shrine, and £6 13s. 4d. at the Corona. The prior, however, enters amongst his receipts a sum of £85 8s. ld. which is described as " part of the offerings made in the year of indulgence." 14 7 3. The only sum set down is £7 r.,eceived from the Corona ; but the prior still has in his hands £13 6s. 8d. remaining over from the offerings made at the Jubilee of 1470. No more Priors' rolls a,re exta,nt after 1473. It is doubtful whether the seventh Jubilee, which was due in 1520, was celebrated. The only information the monastic records afford is that there was much difficulty in getting the pardon from Rome. Leo X, who wanted money for rebuilding St. Peter's, demanded a moiety of all offerings made during the festival, a price which the prior and convent of Canterbury considered too high. There was much correspondence on the matter, and this is printed in Battely's edition of Somner's Antiquities, Appendix XXI. If the Jubilee was held, any revival it may have brought of the cult of St. Thomas was short lived, for twelve years later, that is to say in 1532, a note in one of the Sacrists' books records that the offerings at all the altars (excluding those made at the High Altar and at that of the Holy Cross, which THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. 25 were paid into a separate account), amounted to no more than £13 13s. 3d.1 This note-made within six years of the destruction of the shrine of St. Thomas-is of great importance as a testimony to the waning popularity of the cult before Henry VIII's attempt to stamp it out entirely. To what causes, then, is the decline to be attributed ? The primary ea.use, probably, was the disturbed state of the country during the Wars of the Roses, which made pilgrimage difficult i£ not impossible. But other influences were at work ; Lollard-teaching, though driven underground by persecution, was undermining the whole fabric of church authority, and the New Learning was producing in men's minds doubts as to the religious value of relics and pilgrimage- as exemplified in the attitude of Erasmus and Colet towards the cult of St. Thomas.2 It has often been asserted that no attempt was made to revive the cult during the Marian reaction but this is not altogether correct ; the office was restored to the servicebooks of the Cathedral church in 1555-6.8 It is true that no attempt was made to re-erect the shrine of the saint, and this is not without significance with reference to the vexed question, "What became of the bones of St. Thomas? " Were they burned or were they buried? The discovery, in 1888, of a stone coffin containing bones near the site of St. Thomas' tomb inclined some people to the latter alternative, and to the belief that the bones were the veritable relics of the murdered archbishop. On the other hand, since the discovery was made in that part of the crypt which 1 The entry in the original is as follows : Et de obla.tis ad diversa a.lta.ria in eoolisa., videlz. ad a.lta.re feretri, ooronam soi Thome, in privata oapella ex pa.rte boria.li, ad a.ltare beate Marie in oriptis, ad tumbam. soi Thome, ad ma.rtyrium soi Thome, et ibidem in oapella beate Marie, et in omnibus alliia altaribus in eoolesia. preter summum a.ltare, et in altari see oruois in navi eoolesie que pertinent ad oustodem summi altaris, suroma xiijll xiij• iijd, 2 Pereqrinatio Religionis ergo. Nicholls' ed. 3 "To Sir George Frevell for wtiting St. Thomas Legends ::icij4." "Item to Jo. Marden for pricking of St. Thomas storye, and for mendyng of dyvers other books in the quere ::iciij• ilijd,"-Treasurer's Accounts sub anno. 26 THE CULT OF ST. THOM.AS OF CANTERBURY. in 1546 was alloted as a cellar to the house of the first prebendary-one Richard Thornden, who had held high office in the monastery-it is inconceivable that the bones could have been placed where they were found without his knowledge, or that, if he knew of their hiding place, he should have refrained from any endeavour to get them restored to a more honourable resting place when, as we have seen, a definite attempt was being made to revive the cult. Therefore it seems more reasonable to believe that no such relics were in existence. Our review of the cult in the light of the monastic accounts leads, I think, to the conclusion that, although for the first two hundred years or so vast numbers of pilgrims were attracted to the shrine of St. Thomas, it would be easy to exaggerate the pecuniary advantage which the monks enjoyed thereby. The offerings certainly were large, but so, too, was the expenditure, especially in the Jubilee years, on hospitality, so that even in a year when the offerings were exceptionally good there was not infrequently an adverse balance at the end of the year, e.g. in 1376, when the offerings amounted to no less than £692 4s. 7d., expenditure exceeded income by £486 18s. 0d., a result which was largely due to the abnormal demands made upon the cellarer's office. The statement has often been made that Canterbury Cathedral was built by the offerings of pilgrims to the shrine of St. Thomas, but there is little evidence that this was so. Certainly Laniranc's great Norman church, together with its eastward extension carried out by Priors Ernulf and Conrad, was erected without any subsidy from this source. Nor is it reasonable to suppose that the rebuilding of the Choir after the great :fire of 117 4 could have received much assistance from the offerings of pilgrims, s􀂭ing that the work was practically finished by the year 1185, at which date it is unlikely that pilgrimage to the saint's tomb can have become fashionable, though we know that almost immediately after the murder sick folk made their way thither. THE CULT OF ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY. 27 With regard to the rebuilding, of the nave in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, the case is somewhat different. The monastic accounts inform us that between the years 1377 to 1383 the Treasurers paid to the overseers of the work £386 3s. 4d., and during the first five years of Thomas Chillenden's priora.te {1391-1396) £2,384 7s. 6d. more ; but even if we credit the whole amount to the offerings it was less than that received from subscriptions, since it is recorded that Archbishop Simon of Sudbury gave 3,000 mares ( =£2,250) to the work during his lifetime, and his executors, after his death, paid in a further sum of 130 mares ( =£97 10s. Od.).1 Sudbury's successor-William Courtenay-also was a generous contributor to the building fu.nd2; so that between them the two archbishops subscribed nearly £3,000, without taking into account the gifts of humbler folk, some of which are set down in the list to which reference has been made above. Another misconception which a careful examination of the monastic accounts dissipates is that the visits of royal persons brought much pecuniary profit to the monks of Canterbury; on the contrary, the Treasurers' books show that they were very expensive luxuries. The actual sum offered by king or prince is not stated in the above books ; but occasionally it can be ascertained from the accounts of the Royal Wardrobe. Thus, when King Edward I with Queen Margaret and Prince Edward came to Canterbury on February 23rd, 1300-1, their offerings-as we learn from the Wardrobe accounts-were as follows : The King gave 7s. at the altar o􀃘 St. Mary in the crypt, and a like sum at the Corona, the Martyrdom (here called the Sword Point), the Cloak of