and especially from every shire’s end of England they make their way to Canterbury, to seek the holy blessed martyr who helped them when they were sick.

The martyr is Thomas Becket. He was archbishop of Canterbury, killed in his own cathedral by four of Henry II’s knights in December 1170 and made a saint within three years. Skeat names the other great English shrines, Durham, St Albans, Bury, Glastonbury, York, Walsingham and more, and adds that “the chief were Canterbury and Walsingham.” Becket’s tomb was known for cures, which is why the line ends on the sick. The last two lines rhyme seke with seke: “to seek” and “sick.” Skeat explains that rhyming a word with itself “is only allowed when the repeated word is used in two different senses.” The same sound does both jobs: they seek the saint who healed them when they were sick. Wende, “go,” survives only in “wend your way,” but its past tense is everywhere: Skeat notes that wente is our “went,” borrowed to serve as the past of “go.”