Extract II

Some of the monks left vespers, ran to their pastor, and brought him in, though he resisted. They hurried to close the doors of the church to keep out the enemy. However, turning back immediately, the holy father rebuked them, saying, “Allow my people to enter.” He ran to the door and opened it, moving both them and others away from the doorway. With his most holy hands, he pulled into the church those who had been left outside to the bites of the wolves, saying, “Come in, come in quickly.” And so he could say with the Lord, “of them whom you have given me, I have not lost any one” [Jn 18:9]. Finally the importunate demands of his own sons wrenched him away, and with the enemies already coming near, he left the doors open, not wishing to hinder their path nor his martyrdom, which he had known and predicted as his future blessing. While he was still across the sea, he had clearly foretold to two abbots, namely of Pontigny and Vauluisant, of whom we wrote above,1 Pontigny and Vauluisant Abbeys were Cistercian monasteries located 120–60 kilometers southeast of Paris. Becket spent nearly two years of his exile in France at Pontigny Abbey (December 1164–November 1166) and would have known these abbots well. The phrase “of whom we wrote above” was likely added by the Quadrilogus II editor, who here included a lengthy passage from the Life of Herbert of Bosham describing the conversation between Becket and these two abbots at length: see Bosham, Vita, pp. 405–6, and Quadrilogus II, MTB, vol. 4, pp. 352–3. that he would undergo martyrdom and be killed in a church. To both, he had foretold that he would go to England not on the pope’s order, but rather for the revelation of his martyrdom.