That's the thing you need to know about Saint Bregwine -- he was of Canterbury. Archbishop of Canterbury, in fact. Sure, he might have been born somewhere over in Saxony. He was friends with Lull, the archbishop of Mainz. And he even sent a reliquary to Mainz, but his loyalty was still to Canterbury, his adopted home.
This is important to understand because after his death and burial in the baptistery of Canterbury Cathedral, a few issues rose. First, the good monks at Saint Augustine's claimed the privilege of planting him in their ground, as they had for many of his predecessors. They got no satisfaction, but the objection was duly noted. Three hundred years later, the baptistery burned down, leaving the ground above him (and a whole bunch of other dead archbishops) uncovered. By this time, the monks must have forgotten their claim as the decedents were given new berths in the north transept vault.
Sixty years after that, a German monk named Lambert shows up, putting forward a claim on the relics of Bregwine. He's planning a new monastery back in the old country, and he figures a box of bones would be just the thing to impress the visitors at the annual harvest fair. Good for the bottom line, right? And he's got a bag full of letters from influential men ("Who?" "Top. Men.") to support his case.
The poor Archbishop of Canterbury at the time -- a hapless fella named Ralph -- is too busy dying to put up much of a fight, so Bregwine does the fighting himself. Instead of Bregwine being boxed up and fed-exed to Germany, Lambert suffers an unexpected death and winds up being buried in Canterbury. I don't imagine his monastery ever got built, but if it did, the brothers did not send for Lambert, probably because he never wound up being canonized for he wouldn't have been worth dragging out on market days and holy days.
If you happen to find yourself in Canterbury, stop by the north transept and pay your respects. Just don't threaten to move him anywhere unless you fancy a spot beside Lambert.
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