The shepherd slain in the midst of the flock, Purchased peace at the price of his blood. O joyous grief, in mournful gladness! The flock breathes when the shepherd is dead; The mother wailing, sings for joy in her son, Because he lives under the sword a conqueror. The solemnities of Thomas the Martyr are come. Let the Virgin Mother, the Church, rejoice; Thomas being raised to the highest priesthood, Is suddenly changed into another man. A monk, under [the garb of?] a clerk, secretly clothed with haircloth, More strong than the flesh subdues the attempts of the flesh; Whilst the tiller of the Lord's field pulls up the thistles, And drives away and banishes the foxes from the vineyard. _The First Lesson._ Dearest Brethren, celebrating now the birth-day of the martyr Thomas, because we have not power to recount his whole life and conversation, let our brief discourse run through the manner and cause of his passion. The blessed Thomas, therefore, as in the office of Chancellor, or Archdeacon, he proved incomparably strenuous {204} in the conduct of affairs, so after he had undertaken the office of pastor, he became devoted to God beyond man's estimation. For, when consecrated, he suddenly is changed into another man: he secretly put on the hair shirt, and wore also hair drawers down to the knee. And under the respectable appearance of the clerical garb, concealing the monk's dress, he entirely compelled the flesh to obey the spirit; studying by the exercise of every virtue without intermission to please God. Knowing, therefore, that he was placed a husbandman in the field of the Lord, a shepherd in the fold, he carefully discharged the ministry entrusted to him. The rights and dignities of the Church, which the public authority had usurped, he deemed it right to restore, and to recall to their proper state. Whence a grave question on the ecclesiastical law and the customs of the realm, having arisen between him and the king of the English, a council being convened, those customs were proposed which the king pertinaciously required to be confirmed by the signatures as well of the archbishop as of his suffragans. The archbishop with constancy refused, asserting that in them was manifest the subversion of the freedom of the Church. He was in consequence treated with immense insults, oppressed with severe losses, and provoked with innumerable injuries. At length, being threatened with death, (because the case of the Church had not yet become fully known, and the persecution seemed to be personal,) he determined that he ought to give place to malice. Being driven, therefore, into exile, he was honourably received by our lord the pope Alexander[72] at Senon, and recommended {205} with especial care to the Monastery of Pontinea (Pontigny). [Footnote 72: Pope Alexander III. was at this time residing as a refugee at Sens, having been driven from Italy a few years before by Frederick Barbarossa.]