London - Walter Besant

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goes on to say that, being penitent, Rahere went on a pilgrimage. Nothing more likely. At this time, going on pilgrimage offered attractions irresistible to many men. It was a most agreeable way of proving one's repentance, showing a contrite heart, and procuring absolution. It also enabled the penitent to see the world, and to get a beneficial change of air, food, and friends. There were dangers on the way: they lent excitement to the journey; robbers waylaid those of the pilgrims who had any money; fevers struck them low; if they marched through the lands of the infidel, they were often attacked and stripped, if not slain; the plains of Asia Minor were white with the bones of those cut off on their way to the Holy Land. But think of the joy, to one of an inquiring and curious mind who had never before been beyond sight of the gray old London walls, to be travelling in a country where everything was new – the speech, the food, the wine, the customs, the dress – with a goodly company, the length of the road beguiled by pleasant talk! Everybody pilgrimized who could, even the poorest and the lowest. The poorest could go as well as the richest, because the pilgrim wanted no money – he would start upon his tramp with an empty scrip. Such an one had naught to lose, and feared no robbers; he received bed and supper every night at some monastery, and was despatched in the morning after a solid breakfast. When he at length arrived at the shrine for which he was bound, he repeated the prayers ordered, performed the necessary crawlings, and heard the necessary masses; he then returned home, his soul purified, his sins forgiven, his salvation assured, and his memory charged with good stories for the rest of his life. The English pilgrim fared sometimes to Walsingham, sometimes to Canterbury, sometimes farther afield. He journeyed on foot through France and Italy to Rome; he even tramped all across Europe and Asia Minor, if he could be received in some great company guarded by the knights of St. John to the Holy Land. The roads in the eleventh and twelfth centuries were covered with pilgrims; the Mediterranean was black with ships going from Marseilles, from Genoa, from Naples, to the port of St. Jean d'Acre. Even the rustic, discovering that he, too, simple and unlettered as he was, had a soul to be saved, and that it would be better not to trust altogether to the last offices of the parish priest, threw down his spade, deserted his wife and his children, and went off on pilgrimage. At last the bishops interfered, and enjoined that no one should be considered and received as a pilgrim who could not produce an episcopal license. It was no longer enough for a man to get repentance in order to get the run of the road and of his teeth; and, since the episcopal license was not granted to everybody, the rustics had to fall back on what the parish church afforded, and have ever since been contented with her advice and authority.

      There was an Office of Pilgrims, which was to be rendered in the following fashion:

      Two of the second stall, who may be put in the table at the pleasure of the writer, shall be clothed in a Tunic, with copes above, carrying staves across, and scrips in the manner of Pilgrims; and they shall have cappelli3 over their heads, and be bearded. Let them go from the Vestiary, singing a hymn, "Jesus, our redemption," advancing with a slow step, through the right aisle of the Church, as far as the Western gates, and there stopping, sing a hymn as far as that place, "You shall be satisfied with my likeness." Then a certain Priest of the higher stall, written in the table, clothed in an Alb and Amess, barefooted, carrying a cross upon his right shoulder, with a look cast downward, coming to them through the right aisle of the Church, shall suddenly stand between them, and say, "What are these discourses?" The Pilgrims, as it were, admiring and looking upon him, shall say, "Are you a stranger?" etc. The Priest shall answer, "In what city?" The Pilgrims shall answer, "Of Jesus of Nazareth." The Priest, looking upon both of them, shall say, "O fools, and slow of heart," which being said, the Priest immediately shall retire, and pretend to be going farther; but the Pilgrims hurrying up, and following him, shall detain him, as it were, inviting him to their inn, and drawing him with their staves, shall show him a castle and say, "Stay with us." And so singing they shall lead him as far as a tent in the middle of the nave of the Church, made in the resemblance of the Castle Emmaus. When they have ascended thither, and sat at a table ready prepared, the Lord sitting between them shall break the bread; and being discovered by this means, shall suddenly retire, and vanish from their sight. But they, amazed as it were, rising, with their countenances turned to each other, shall sing lamentably "Alleluia," with the verse, "Did not our heart burn," etc., which being renewed, turning themselves towards the stall, they shall sing this verse, "Tell us, Mary." Then a certain person of the higher stall, clothed in a Dalmatick and Amess, and bound round in the manner of a woman, shall answer, "The Sepulchre of Christ; the Angels are witnesses." Then he shall extend and unfold a cloth from one part, instead of clothes, and throw it before the great gate of the Choir. Afterwards he shall say, "Christ is risen." The Choir shall sing two other verses, following, and then the Master shall go within; a procession be made; and Vespers be ended.4

      There was also a Consecration of Pilgrims, as follows:

      The Pilgrims first confessed all their sins, after which they lay prostrate before the Altar. Particular prayers and psalms were then said over them, and after every psalm (with manifest skilful appropriation) the Gloria Patri; the Psalm, Ad te, Domine, levavi; and the Miserere. At the end of these, the Pilgrims arose from their prostrate position, and the Priest consecrated their scrips and staves, saying, "The Lord be with you," and "let us pray," etc. He next sprinkled holy water upon their scrips and staves, and placed the scrip around the neck of each pilgrim, with other religious services. Afterwards he delivered to them the staff with similar prayers. If any of the Pilgrims were going to Jerusalem, their garments were in readiness, marked with the cross, and the crosses were consecrated, and holy water sprinkled over them. The garments and crosses were then delivered to the Pilgrims, accompanied by appropriate prayers. The service concluded with the Mass De Iter Agentibus.5

      Rahere, therefore, among the rest, pilgrimized to Rome. Now it happened that on the way, either going or returning, he fell grievously sick and was like to die. As medical science in those days commanded but small confidence, men naturally turned to the saints, and besieged them with petitions for renewed health. Rahere betook himself to St. Bartholomew, to whom he promised a hospital for poor men should he recover. Most fortunately for London, St. Bartholomew graciously accepted the proposal, and cured the pilgrim. Rahere therefore returned: he chose the site, and was about to build the hospital, when the saint appeared to him and ordered him to found, as well, a church. Rahere promised. He even went beyond his promise: he founded his hospital of St. Bartholomew, which still exists, a perennial fountain of life and health, and, besides this, a priory for canons regular, and a church for the priory. The church still stands, one of the most noble monuments in London. One Alfune, who had founded the church of St. Giles Cripplegate, became the first Hospitaller, going every day to the shambles to beg for meat for the sick poor. Rahere became the first prior of his own foundation, and now lies buried in his church within a splendid tomb called after his name, but of fifteenth-century work.

      The mysterious part of the story is how Rahere, a simple gentleman, if not a jester, was able to raise this splendid structure and to found so noble a hospital. For, even supposing the hospital and priory to have been at first small and insignificant, the church itself remains, a monument of lavish and pious beneficence. The story, in order to account for the building of so great a church, goes off into a drivelling account of how Rahere feigned to be a simple idiot.

      A great many people every year visit this noble church, now partly restored. Very few of them take the trouble to step round to the back of the church. Yet there are one or two things worth noting in that nest of low courts and squalid streets. Cloth Fair, for instance, still possesses a few of its old timbered and gabled houses. But on the other side a small portion of the old monastery church-yard yet remains, and, in a row of two or three cottages, each with a tiny garden in front: a cottage-garden close to Smithfield – survives a memory of the garden which once stretched over this monastery court.

      Some of the other foundations enumerated were only recently founded when Fitz Stephen wrote, and rightly belong to Plantagenet London. But the noble foundation of the Holy Trinity, Aldgate, was due to Matilda, queen of Henry I., who also founded St. Giles's Hospital, beside St. Giles-in-the-Fields. And the priory of St. John of Jerusalem, the chief seat in England of the Knights Hospitallers, was founded in the year 1100, by Jordan

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<p>3</p>

A hat or bonnet. Du Cange.

<p>4</p>

Fosbrooke's Monachism.

<p>5</p>

Fosbrooke.