Chapter 8
What was revealed to King Edward (the Confessor) concerning this place.
HERE we ought by no means to keep silent that by the relation of our elders we find this place divinely shown as a place of prayer long before that time to the glorious King Edward the Confessor, son of King Ethelred, brother of Saint Edward the Martyr, of whom they say they had heard many good things to be declared in their own times. For this most blessed king, when he shone in the Church of God with manifold beauty of virtues and-as the book of his deeds says-when he was conspicuous as a religious and full of the spirit of prophecy, being illumined by the Holy Spirit, looked with the eyes of his mind upon things remote as being present, and future things as existing. And he, on a certain night, while his eyes were taking sleep-his heart awake to God-was forewarned of this place by a divine oracle given to him that God had chosen it to place His Name there, and to show it renowned and venerable to Christian people. Whereupon the same most holy king, rising in the morning, came to the place which God had shown him, and to those standing by explained the vision made to him at night, and foretold that that place should be great before God and all people. And with how great strength of truth his remarkable prophecies were supported, the issue of affairs has for ever proved, and every faithful man shall be able to see here more clearly than the day.
The Book of the Foundation of St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield Rendered into Modern English from the original Latin version preserved in the British Museum, numbered Vespasian B. IX, by Mr. Humphrey H. King and Mr. William Barnard for use in the Records of St. Bartholomew's Priory by E.A. Webb. |
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