1066 - Andrew Bridgeford [125]
Everywhere the lordly Normans were tearing down old Anglo-Saxon churches and abbeys and rebuilding them in the grander continental style known as Romanesque. The new Norman abbott regarded the existing English buildings at St Augustine's as clumsy and inadequate. He journeyed to Rome in late 1071 and obtained Pope Alexander IPs approval for his plans to rebuild St Augustine's. On his return, these plans were put into practice. The master mason was called Blitherus. Nothing is known of Blitherus (though the name suggests that he came from continental Europe and was perhaps Flemish or Lotharingian).14 Goscelin describes Blitherus as 'the most eminent master of the craftsmen, the remarkable inaugurator of the church'. Large supplies of building material were, of course, required. The Normans favoured the malleable white limestone from the region of Caen, which is evident to this day in the White Tower at the Tower of London. Goscelin informs us that one Vital, who is surely the same man as the knight in the Bayeux Tapestry, was acting as King William's superintendent for the shipping of Caen stone to Westminster where the king's palace was being rebuilt. We also learn from Goscelin that this Vital's piety and efficiency were well known to Abbot Scolland and the monks of St Augustine's at Canterbury. What is more, at some stage, possibly later, Vital took the bold step of joining the confraternity of the abbey as a lay brother. At any rate, when Scolland needed to employ someone to arrange the shipment of Caen stone required at St Augustine's, he turned to Vital.
Goscelin records that Vital was particularly efficient in organising this task. A fleet of fifteen merchant ships had been requisitioned by him in Caen; these would have been ships not unlike the troop ships we see in the Bayeux Tapestry. Fourteen were destined for Westminster, but Vital employed the master of the fifteenth ship to carry a load of stone to Canterbury. The master agreed, and Vital handed him 'sealed letters' recording what was to be done.15
Goscelin's story of what happened next vividly illustrates the perils of cross-Channel shipping in the eleventh century, though his principal purpose was to relate what he perceived to be a miraculous event.16 It was a fair dawn when the convoy of fifteen ships set sail. Vital must have watched from the shore as the ships departed into the distance with the cargo of stone he had consigned to them. All went well until the flotilla reached about a third of the way across the Channel. Then there was a change of wind; a violent gale blew up. The ships, overladen with their heavy cargoes, were tossed this way and that; great waves broke over the bows; and soon fourteen of them foundered and sank quickly in the deep sea, with the loss of many lives. Only one was left afloat and that was the ship destined for St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. Seeing the plight of their fellows, the desperate crew prepared to throw the stone overboard in order to save the vessel. But the master stopped them. He declared that their only hope was 'God and St Augustine', in whose service they could now claim to be sailing. It was their duty, he said, to carry the stone to Canterbury. The whole crew agreed and offered up suitable prayers. In addition, of course, they desperately bailed out; they stuffed tow into places where the seams had started; and where the gaps in the side of the ship had grown wide they packed them with cloth. It was a fearful struggle, but in the end the little ship lamely managed to reach the Sussex port of Bramber. Here, under unbearable strain, it finally broke up, splitting in half from end to end and disgorging its cargo of stone on to the sand.
To the master this appeared like a miraculous deliverance, caused by the intervention of St Augustine himself, and he was now more determined than ever to complete his mission. He managed to obtain a new ship, reloaded the stone and sailed round the coast and upriver to Canterbury. At