Canterbury. Within a few hours of the tragic scene, when, night having
fallen and the great church being closed and deserted, Osbert, the
Archbishop's chamberlain, entering with a light in his hand, found his
master's body lying on its face, with the frightful wound exposed, the
monks had kissed the hands and feet of the corpse and called him by
the name of Saint Thomas. What appears to have raised the fraternity
to this enthusiastic anticipation of the canonization, officially
announced at Westminster in 1173, was the discovery that Becket had on
beneath his outer robes, and the many other garments he wore, the
black cowled cloak of the Benedictines, and next to his skin a
hair-cloth shirt of unusual roughness. When the body was being
prepared for the tomb this shirt was found to be easily removable for
the daily scourging Becket had been in the habit of enduring, the
marks of the stripes administered on the previous day being plainly
visible. Dean Stanley adds another fact not easy to be believed by
those who have never become intimate with the practices of medieval
monasticism:

Such austerity had hitherto been unknown to English saints,
and the marvel was increased by the sight--to our notions so
revolting--of the innumerable vermin with which the hair-cloth
abounded--boiling over with them, as one account describes it,
like water in a simmering cauldron. At the dreadful sight all
the enthusiasm of the previous night revived with double
ardour. They looked at one another in silent wonder, then
exclaimed, "See, see what a true monk he was, and we knew it
not!" and burst into alternate fits of weeping and laughter,
between the sorrow at having lost such a head and the joy of
having found such a saint.