Page:The Saxon Cathedral at Canterbury and The Saxon Saints Buried Therein.djvu/49

THE ROMANO-BRITISH AND SAXON CHURCH

The crypt chapel contained towards the east an altar, in which was afterwards enclosed as a relic the head of the blessed Furseus. The relic was, of course, not deposited there during St. Austin's archiepiscopate, as the saint did not die till nearly fifty years after the death of St. Austin, viz. in A.D. 650. It is indeed rather surprising to find any relic of such an one as Furseus, venerated in the Metropolitical Church of Canterbury, as during his life he was rather a thorn in the flesh of the Saxon Hierarchy in Kent, he being an Irishman and deriving his orders from the despised British Church, whose members still followed the primitive tradition as to the computation of Easter, the method of making the tonsure, and the use of chrism in baptism. It was Furseus, however, and his companions who converted East Anglia to the Faith. He was of royal Irish stock, being a son of King FINTAN and had been Abbot of Tuam; he had travelled in England and France and in both countries had founded monasteries. He died in A.D. 650 and was buried in the Great Church of Peronne, where his relics have since been famous for miracles. His festival is kept on January 16. A very ancient Life of the Saint, of the time of Bede, exists, and Bede himself, in giving the principal events of his life, quotes it in Book III, chapter 19. Amongst his miracles was that of a most remarkable vision, which appears to have been the original of Dante's Divina Commedia.

There is no record of how his head came to Canterbury, or by whom,

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