Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/672

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England and of the piety and bounty of Emma its Lady. She gave him plenteous gifts for his people, and he asked whether she would not give yet more as the price of the precious relic. The genuineness of the treasure was solemnly sworn to; a great price was paid for it by the Lady, and, by the special order of King Cnut, it was added as a precious gift to the treasures of the metropolitan church. For in those days, says Eadmer, it was the manner of the English to set the patronage of the saints before all the wealth of this world. The Archbishop of Beneventum went back, loaded with the alms of England, and bearing with him, among other gifts from his brother Primate Æthelnoth, this very cope richly embroidered with gold with all the skill of English hands. Eadmer, taught by the tradition of his elders, knew the vestment as he saw it in that far land on the shoulders of the successor of the prelate who had come to our island for help in his day of need. He saw it with joy; he pointed it out to Father Anselm, and, feigning ignorance, he asked the Beneventan Archbishop the history of the splendid cope which he wore. He was pleased to find that the tradition of Beneventum was the same as the tradition of Canterbury. Now that we have made our way into other times and other lands, it is pleasing to look back for a moment, with our faithful Eadmer, to days when England still was England, even though she had already learned to bow to a foreign King and a foreign Lady.

More important in a general view than the details of