The second panel of Eilward’s story, with its image of Becket coming out of a shrine in the background and a sleeping man in the foreground, has long enthralled and exasperated viewers. In his sole venture into print, the glazier George Austin Jr claimed that this panel pictures THE shrine, the one that held Becket’s relics in the cathedral from 1220 to 1539, and that the man in the foreground is Benedict the miracle collector (see Arthur J. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Canterbury, note by “G.A.”). In time, serious problems with Austin’s interpretation became apparent: why does this shrine look so humble? And why would the glaziers picture Becket in a shrine when, at the time they were working, Becket’s relics were in a tomb in the crypt, not in a shrine at all?

In the 2020-23 investigations, new evidence emerged. First, the man who is asleep cannot be a monk. He is bearded, has no tonsure, and has a head injury. There is a bandage around his head. Second, a large section of the left side of the panel has been lost. What is there now is made up of Austin’s replacement pieces.

Eilward of Westoning had a head injury. When he was in prison awaiting trial, ordeal, and punishment, he was visited by a local priest named Paganus, who urged him to appeal to Becket for help. Paganus sent a man to look through a window and secretly urge Eilward on to more effort. The space that Austin stuffed with replacement pieces can be filled very neatly with a figure leaning in to encourage Eilward to greater effort. Perhaps Austin did not understand what he saw there and cut such a figure out in order to put more emphasis on the shrine.

In this panel, the imprisoned Eilward is being urged to devote himself to the magnificent saint who appears in the background.