Book Two - Prologue

As we confess to the Lord and we undertake to narrate His marvels in so far as He shall grant that we finish (who granted that we should begin), there cometh to our mind one practice to be told of which took the place of many, so that, this being established, both by ocular demonstration and the evidence of all men, we may pass more freely to other things done with like virtue and equal power. For hitherto we have written examples of miracles which were done in the days of Rahere of good memory, founder of this place, to the praise of God and the stimulation of holiness. We have now to deal with those also which we have seen and heard of, which were done in the times of the said prior's successors. While the said thankfully remembered prior still survived, who built up the fabric of this precious work on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, because the beginnings of great things need greater help, a frequent supply of ministering grace was then especially ready at hand. Thence it happened that from those whom the heavenly Father attracted, as they consecrated their courses to the odour of his ointments, by the freshening devotion of those that came together, there was a new festival also of offerings and gifts in money, in household goods, in corn also and movables, besides a great multitude of men that were sick, withered, blind, dumb, and deaf, who continually grew well in this place, a pleasant feast. For this reason, the day of his nativity in heaven being known, was celebrated on earth with great dancing, and hence as the crowds thronged for various causes those of them who remain at the present day tell us that the sick also thrust together, as if awaiting the moving of the water that they might be the first to take the grace that was wont to be bestowed on them at a fixed place and time. And this is, as we said above, the one festival which took the place of many, or the many things which made the one festival; for as the blessed Kingdom of Israel was all, as it were, one prophecy concerning Christ and His Church, so all these things which have been told, or should be told, relate to the accumulation of the proof of this, that the Lord is verily in that place. And, although there is no place without Him, who is not confined by space, and is not anywhere for the sake of the place but for the sake of a man -- wherefore it should be attributed both to the man and the place -- yet no one is so privy to the secrets of Christ that he can belittle the reverence due to the holy place which has been consecrated to godly exercises for the healing of souls; where is the keeping of the holy things, the dispensation of the Sacraments, and -- greatest thing of all -- the presence of the Body of Christ, together also with experience of His virtues, with the great office of the English service and devotion to the attentive worship of all saints. Awful, therefore, is this place to him that understands, here is nothing else but the house of God and the gate of heaven to him that believes.

For those who understand not these things by faith, or believe them not by charity, scoff at our sabbaths and pollute the sacred things which cleanse others, so that they think our piety is complaining, transfiguring themselves into an angel of light; until the consummation of sins, antichrist shall have come, by whom the earth shall be given over to the wicked and holy things be trodden under foot, that those things may be open which are now in a hidden den of thieves. Moreover, the spiritual sanctuary which in like manner is constructed here of living stones shall be transferred to a building to remain unimpaired to the Kingdom everlasting. And as in an earthly empire it is unseemly and suspected for any except a single person to make war in his own name, so we have one of those whom the Lord has appointed princes over all the earth; we have, I say, the doer of marvels, our patron and leader Saint Bartholomew whom, by the grace which he received abundantly from Christ, we beseech that with his mighty authority which commends His Master's virtue, he may not only lead us to follow him, but also draw us and even hedge our paths with thorns lest we go after the lusts of the flesh, and that he compel us by the whip. of his fatherly chastisement to enter the Supper of the Lamb and His eternal marriage, who takes away the sins of the world. \Vhich thing may He vouchsafe to grant us who liveth and reigneth for ever and ever. Amen.

Also Another

As we learn from worldly writings -- as it were from the spoils of the Egyptians -- that the part of a heedless man is to be ignorant of the beginnings of his affairs and to be careless of their conclusions, it appears exceedingly blameworthy in us, whose special business is that of words, not to know the foundations and the reason of those things which we worship. For Moses, who first taught us to spoil the Egyptians, taught how, when those who come after us ask about the meaning of our sacred things, we ought to explain to them their religion.

So then, after twenty-two years and six months of his priorate, on the twentieth day of September, the seventh month, he who founded this house (Rahere) to the praise and honour of the Name of Christ, left this habitation of clay and entered the home everlasting, that in his Father's house he might be crowned in His mercy and compassion. And as eternal salvation cannot come from works without charity without which other good things profit nothing -- and as charity cannot be had without the other good things by which a man is made good, we rightly have this hope concerning him, who lacked nothing of the things that belong to grace which we especially seek in those who are departing this life, such as the communion of the faith of Christ and the partaking of His Sacraments, and especially the visible penitence of a contrite heart. For in these surroundings we believe he died, and concerning him we trust and hope for the help, beyond our deserts, of our powerful patron, to whom he left a little flock of thirteen canons, as it were a handful of sheep, with a few lands and very slender rents, yet with plentiful oblations of the altar and the support of the neighbouring populous city. Moreover, they flourish even now with less fruit than at that time, and so also do the aforesaid workings of miracles, in like manner as frequent watering is withdrawn from a plant which has struck root.

So when the space of a year had rolled by, there followed in the priorate of this new foundation -- through Robert, Bishop of London -- Thomas, one of the canons of the church of St. Osyth, in the year of our Lord 1144 in the seventh indiction, in the reign of Stephen, son of Stephen Earl of Blois, who promoted Theobald of Bec to be Archbishop of Canterbury. This Thomas, as we have proved for all, was good company, of social cheeriness, of great eloquence and varied knowledge, learned in philosophy and in sacred books; whence also he had the power of readily uttering metrically whatsoever he attempted, and his practice was on every solemnity, as occasion demanded, to dispense the Word of God to the people, and as crowds collected for that purpose He that gave him this inward grace added to him outward glory. He was our prior with humility for about thirty years, and being about a hundred years old, with his senses unimpaired, he was laid beside his fathers with all Christian solemnity belonging to the grace of Christ, in the year of our Lord one thousand one hundred and seventy-four, the fifteenth year of the papacy of the blessed Alexander the Third, the twentieth year of the coronation of the most invincible king of the English Henry the Second, on the seventeenth day of the month of January, in the very year of the election of our lord Richard Archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of the brethren set there and praying, whom the grace of God had increased from the aforesaid small number to thirty-five, with a corresponding increase of temporal possessions, which the Giver of all good things promised should be added to those who seek the Kingdom of God. In his time also the plant of this apostolic vine grew in glory and grace before God and before men, and the curtains of our tabernacles were extended with more ample buildings to the praise and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

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