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XXIV. Observations on the Monument in Canterbury Cathedral, called the Tomb of Theobald, and an Account of two ancient Inscriptions on Lead, discovered in Canterbury Cathedral, by Henry Boys, Esq. in a Letter to John Latham, M.D. F.R.S. and F.A.S.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

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Extract

The essay I have before mentioned accompanies this letter. Allow me to thank you for your offer to do or say any thing I may wish respecting it, but you alone must decide whether its merits be sufficient to claim any other attention than the perusal of a friend. In drawing up this essay, I have endeavoured as much as possible to use my father's own words, yet had he lived to complete it himself, we may suppose he would have substituted something very different from the words of his rough notes, and that probably he would have given the whole a more perspicuous arrangement than I have done. In considering its merits, you must not permit it to go before the public if it appear to you trifling, or at all unworthy the high opinion you have ever so kindly expressed of my father: but should you think it worthy public notice, you are at liberty to present it to the Society of Antiquaries, with the accompanying plates of lead: which will be more usefully preserved in their collection, than in the cabinet of any private person.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1806

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References

page 292 note [a] Second Edit. p. 268.

page 292 note [b] Vol. I. p. 25.

page 293 note [b] Godwin de Præsulibus. p. 71.

page 293 note [c] Page 402.

page 293 note [d] Gervas 1301, 55. Tumba tabulis compacta marmoreis.

page 293 note [e] In capella S. Trinitatisad austrum juxta parictem jacebat venerabilis Lanfrancus archiepiscopus ad aquilonem Theodbaldus.” Gervas de combust. Dorob. eccles. X. Script. Col. 1296, 34.

page 293 note [f] Gervas, 1302, 5.

page 293 note [g] Gervas, 1301, 55.

page 295 note [h] Britanie primas. The primacy of the church of Canterbury, was granted by Gregory [a] to Augustine, and confirmed to that see by many kings and popes afterwards, though not without question and opposition from the archbishops of York. The contest for superiority continued even to the time of Lanfranc, when it was finally determined at the council of Windsor, that the archbishop of Canterbury should enjoy the title of Primate of all England, and the archbishop of York, that of Primate of England; a distinction that has continued to the present time. To mark this distinction in the most impressive manner, we find our archbishop here called Primate of Britain, and the same phrase is used on the plate of lead mentioned by Leland [b] to have been inscribed to the memory of Theobald's successor, Thomas Becket, and which was probably found in Becket's tomb [c] “when his body was taken up for the translation;” it runs thus: “Hic requiescit Thomas Dorobernensis Archicpiscopus, Britannie primas et apostolice sedis legatus,” &c.

page 295 note [i] Apostolicæ sedis legatus. Theobald was the first [d] archbishop of Canterbury who had this title conferred upon him; his successors, to Cranmer, adopted the same: as legati nati, or legates ex officio, when by the Pope's authority it was laid aside. There were besides these, legati a latere, cardinal legates, and legati de latere; such as not being cardinals, were intrusted with a special apostolical legation.

page 296 note [k] Diepeham. In the account of donations to Christ church, in the Monasticon, [e] and in Sommer's Canterbury, by Batteley, [f] Henry de Rya is said to have given in 1146 to Christ Church, his manor of Diepeham in Norfolk, by placing his knife on Christ's altar, in the presence of archbishop Theobald, prior Walter, and others: and that king Henry II. confirmed the grant: but it appears from this plate, that the above was descriptive only of the ceremony of conveying the estate, and that Theobald purchased it for the convent with his own money. Pope Gregory IX, in the first year of his pontificate, with consent of the bishop of Norwich and his chapter, confirmed the church of Diepeham, to Christ Church, Canterbury, by his bull.

page 296 note [l] Sepultus……IIII Kal. A numeral letter is here evidently wanting before the four units, which was probably a V, as Theobald is said to have died on the XIV Kal. May (18 April) and in that case may be supposed to have been buried on the IX Kal. May (23d April,) five days after his death.

page 296 note [m] Theobald, who, from prior of Bec, was chosen abbot on the death of Boson, was no less distinguished for his knowledge and the candour of his manners, than for his birth; he was the 5th abbot of that house. Bourget's Hist. of the Abbey of Bec, translated 1779, p. 24 and 135.

page 296 note [n] Gervas, X. Script. 1668, 34.

page 296 note [o] Proximo sabbato ante natales 1138. Chron. Gervas X. Script. Col. 1348, 56.

page 297 note [p] Gervas, X. Script. Col. 1665, 11.

page 297 note [q] Gervas, X. Script. Col. 1668, 28. Weever says he died in 1160.

page 297 note [r] Gervas de combust. Dorob. Eccl. X. Script. Col. 1296, 34.

page 297 note [s] Gervas, 1301, 55.

page 297 note [t] Ibid, 1302, 4.

page 297 note [u] Ibid, 1302, 6.

page 297 note [x] Ibid, 1302, 5.

page 297 note [y] Page 123.

page 297 note [z] Page 268.

page 297 note [aa] Sepul. Mon. by Gough, p. 25.

page 298 note [bb] Page 217, Edit. 1631.

page 298 note [cc] It may be met with, copied from Weever, in Somner's Cant. by Batteley, p. 123, and in Dart's Hist. of the Cathedral, p. 125.

page 298 note [dd] Such a plate was found in the year 1508, in the cossin of Arch. Dunstan, [a] who died XIIII Kal. June 988, and in that of Richard, [b] the immediate successor of Becket, and in the marble tomb of St. Alban, opened in the year 1257, “in quo, (says Mat. Paris, [c] inventa est lamina plumbea in qua, sccundum antiquorum consuetudinem, scriptus est bic titulus,” &c.

page 299 note [dd] See Pl. XI.

page 299 note [ee] Gervas, X. Script. Coll. 1342, 33.

page 299 note [ff] Gervas, X. Script. Coll. 1343, 33. Obiit hoc anno (1137) venerandæ memoriæ, Elmerus Prior. Batteley's Somner, p. 140. Dart, p. 180.

page 295 note [a] Spelman's Concilia, Vol. I. p. 389, and p. 5.

page 295 note [b] Leland Collect. Vol. IV. edit. alt. 1774, p. 11.

page 295 note [c] Gostling's Walk, 2d edit. p. 307.

page 295 note [d] Battely's Somner, p. 123.

page 296 note [e] Edit. alt. 1682, Vol. I. p. 22.

page 296 note [f] Page 40. Appendix.

page 298 note [a] Batteley's Somner, App. p. 42.

page 298 note [b] Somner's Cant. 2d Edit. p. 123.

page 298 note [c] Editore Watts, p. 942.