THOMAS A BECKET 207 



the city of Limoges liaviiio" revolted, he ordered a 

 general massacre of the inhabitants and was carried 

 through the streets in a litter, to see his bidding done, 

 dims the glory of his arms. Men, women, and children 

 were alike butchered in those streets, and when, 

 crying for mercy, they were hewed in pieces before 

 his eyes, their fate left him unmoved. It was only 

 when he saw three French knights fighting valiantly in 

 the market-place against overwhelming odds, that the 

 chivalry of the Black Prince was touched. That 

 hundreds or thousands of the citizens should be slain 

 was nothing to him, for theij Avere nothing, but to see 

 gentlemen of rank and birth fighting a hopeless fight 

 was too much. He ordered the massacre to be stayed. 



xxxvn 



When in the last days of 1170 Becket was murdered in 

 his own Cathedral, no one could have foreseen how 

 fertilizing would be the blood of the martyr to religious 

 faith ; and not only to faith but also to English thought, 

 trades, and professions. No sinner could be considered 

 safe for Paradise unless he had made pilgrimage to 

 Canterbury, and this pilgrimage became one of the 

 chief features of English life during four hundred years. 

 We owe directly to it the inspiration which has given 

 Chaucer, our earliest j^oet, an immortal fame ; from it 

 comes the verb " to canter " — originally describing the 

 ambling pace at which the pilgrims urged their horses 

 on this road, and now common in modern English 

 speech ; while the great bulk of the Cathedral would 

 never have loomed so largely across the Stour meads 

 to-day had it not been for the fervent ])iety that, 

 centuries ago, heaped gold and jewels here for the 

 expiation of sins. Pilgrimage was a blessed thing 

 indeed for the keepers of inns and for a multitude of 

 other trades ; and mendicants liad but to take stall' 



