successor Richard had allowed them to control the new wealth which poured in from the offerings of pilgrims, and had yielded other points out of a weak benevolence which secured peace in his time.
Baldwin was a Cistercian monk, accustomed to a stricter interpretation of the monastic rule than he found at Canterbury, and accustomed as an abbot to be obeyed. He set himself at once to recover some of the property rights of his see which his predecessor had alienated; and he obtained sanction for his acts from Lucius III. He then initiated a scheme which, as he claimed, and doubtless with some justice, had been contemplated by St Thomas and even long ago by St Anselm—the erection of a collegiate church in the suburbs of Canterbury. It was to be dedicated not only (as they had intended) to St Stephen, but now also to St Thomas as well; for the English martyr had as yet no church of his own in his native land. For this design Baldwin obtained the sanction of the new pope, Urban III, who however soon repented of his consent and became the archbishop's bitter enemy.
The monks were quick to see that this new church would be their ruin. It was to be a college of canons of no ordinary eminence. A number of bishops would receive stalls; it was even whispered that one would be assigned to the king himself: others would be given to the most learned clerks of the kingdom. What would this mean but a college of cardinals, with the archbishop sitting as a kind of pope? A new patriarchate would be formed: all causes ecclesiastical would be heard in this court, and none would henceforth cross the sea: England would be to all intents and purposes severed from Rome. The monks, of course, would cease to be 'the church of Canterbury': the new cathedral would supersede the old by sheer force of wealth and influence: it might even claim the body of the martyr in whose name it was dedicated. These were the terrors of their mind as the project advanced: these at any rate were the*fatal consequences which they assured the pope must inevitably follow, if he did not crush the scheme at the very outset.
It may be that the archbishop entered on the undertaking with a much more modest intention. He wished to surround himself with learned clerks, he wished to be able to reward meritorious services; he wished also to create a counterpoise to the excessive influence of the monks. In a letter written by the abbot of St Denys on behalf of the convent of Christ Church to Pope Clement III we find it stated that the archbishop's simplicity had been imposed
