Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/318

 376 NOTES AND QUERIES. m» a. iv. Nov. 4.-w. land, Vriesland, and Holland, while travelling in Germany in 1270. As it had, by report at least, been duly authenticated by rope Urban IV, himself a Cistercian, twenty years before, it carried a certain renown with it. It probably pretended to trace back to Charlemagne and the town of Mantua. Hailes, however, was given one-third of it only, and the other two-thirds were given in 1297 to the Augustinian Bons Homines at Ashridge,* in Hertfordshire. The relic is said to have been brought to Hailes in harvest time, and on Holy-Rood day, by the prince himself, with great ceremonial, and miracles presently became of frequent occur- rence, to the enrichment of the abbey, as well as profit of the believer. Blauuw thought that its presence there may have given rise to the old saying " As sure as God is in Gloucestershire," though he likewise suggested that the unusual richness of Glou- cestershire in ecclesiastical edifices may have been the real origin.t At any rate, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, consigned the chief portion of this relic to Hailes, and himself, together with the abbots of Winchcombe and Hailes, and their respective convents, attended its inauguration there. One may easily believe, then, that as Hailes was burnt down in September of the following year, 1271, and rebuilt and rededicated five years later, the precious relic may have had no small influence in raising the funds for its rebuild- ing. For it had evidently been preserved in its phial, and was now placed within a golden cross, having a richly enamelled base. This was shown (to those who paid for the sight) as the blood which had flowed from the side of Christ at Calvary.J We do not hear much of the " Blood of Hailes," however, until the fifteenth century, when Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, uttered his indignant protest against many monkish fictions and pious frauds. He included in his indictment the reputed nails from the cross, pieces of it, and the " Blood of Hailes," and as is well known, he paid the price of his honest independence and clear- sightedness at the stake. A few years later Pope John XXIII. permitted the Abbot of Hailes to grant absolution for all but certain reserved sins, after two confessions. We tCf. the ' Hiat. of Barons' War,' W. H. Blauuw, pp. 353 5. X It 18 worth recording that St. Thomas Aquinas, a contemporary authority of the first order, declares that such relics wore not obtained from the eroas at Calvary, but from crucifixes and wafers which had miraculously bled, like that at Bolsena. may picture the mediaeval pilgrims toiling along the Foss Itoad, or crossing the Severn from Wales, and threading their way along the wooded Cotswold, and then suddenly descrying the splendid abbey, with its towered church and conventual buildings spread out in the rich green valley of Winch- combe below. There is, however, it seems to ine, ground for believing, though the fact is not re- corded, that Hailes suffered from another fire during the first half, or perhaps second quarter, of the fifteenth century ; for according to Leland ('Collectanea, vol. vi. p. 283), Pope Eugenius IV. (1431) granted absolution for four confessions at Corpus Christi, and seven years and three Lents to all who give "anything to the worship of God and that precious Blood. But little later his successor, Calixtus III. (1455), although absorbed in his struggles against the Ottoman Turk under Moham- med II., granted full remission "at Corpus Christi and at Holy-Rood, in May and Harvest" ; also fifteen cardinals, each by himself, gave one hundred days' pardon to those who "put their helpynge hondes to the wellfare of that forsayde monastery of Hayles." The phrase "to put their helpynge hondes to the wellfare," <fcc, makes one not un- naturally ask, For what cause had the royal monastery suffered? Was it simply from decay through neglect? Was it owing, perhaps, to the Wars of York and Lancaster, which raged so fiercely in the environs ; or was it the result of another conflagration, "cause unknown"? The remains of the cloisters and refectory show abundantly two facts, namely, that the monastery suffered drastic, I may say even "cruel," restoration during the fifteenth century, and, secondly, these fifteenth-century restorations them- selves show unmistakable signs of having undergone the action of fire. It is therefore upon such reasoning that ray colleague in the excavations, the Rev. Wm. Bazeley, and myself are inclined to believe that besides the destruction of many of the buildings by the fire of 1271, Hailes again suffered from a great fire in the fifteenth century, and still a third one after the Dissolution. In 1508 - 9 the charge of heresy was formulated against Roger Brown, of Coventry, for uttering the notion that it was foolish for any man to worship the " Blood of Hailes." Nine years later proceedings were instituted against Sir John Drury, vicar of Windrish, on the evidence upon oath of a servant, to the effect that he had called the " Blood at
 * Founded by him in 1283.