THOMAS BECKER

Early Life And Career

Thomas was born to Norman parents of the merchant class. His father was called Gilbert and his
mother was called Matilda.

He was educated first at the Augustinian Merton Priory, then in a London school, and finally at
Paris. Deeply influenced in childhood by a devout mother who died when he was 21

His contemporaries described Thomas as a tall and spare figure with dark hair and a pale face that
flushed in excitement.

His memory was extraordinarily tenacious and, though neither a scholar nor a stylist, he excelled
in argument and repartee. He made himself agreeable to all around him, and his biographers
attest that he led a chaste life—in this respect uninfluenced by the king.

As Chancellor

In 1154 Theobald, as a reward of his services, appointed Thomas archdeacon of Canterbury, an

important and lucrative post, and less than three months later recommended him to Henry as
chancellor. Here Thomas showed to the full his brilliant abilities, razing castles, repairing the
Tower of London, conducting embassies, and raising and leading troops in war. Trusted completely
by the king, Thomas was compared by a biographer to Joseph under Pharaoh. To Henry himself
Thomas was a welcome companion and intimate friend, both at court and in the chase, aiding the
king in his policy of gathering all power into the hands of the monarchy, even when that policy
went against claims of the church. Thomas, older than Henry by 15 years and celibate, may well
have felt, at least initially, a quasi-paternal or elder-brother affection, mingled with admiration for
Henry’s talents and charm. He must also have enjoyed the satisfaction of moving in a rank of
society to which he had not been born. Henry’s attitude is less easy to identify, but the efficiency
and intelligence of Thomas must have recommended him to a king surrounded by uneducated and
at times truculent barons.

Whether Becket was fully satisfied with his life as chancellor is another matter. Throughout his life
Thomas gave with prodigality and acted with panache. The description of the procession of men,
beasts, and carriages laden with objects of luxury that accompanied him as envoy to Paris in 1158
is one of the highlights of William FitzStephen’s Life of Saint Thomas (c. 1170). This, and his
customary splendour of clothing and furnishings, suited ill with his status as archdeacon. More
serious in the eyes of contemporaries was his refusal to surrender his archdeaconry while
neglecting its duties, and his extraction of scutage (payment in lieu of military service) at a high
rate from ecclesiastical fiefs. Most serious to modern minds is his failure to visit the disapproving
and dying Theobald when summoned. In general, there can be no doubt that in public affairs he
was the king’s man, even when Henry endeavoured to reassert what he claimed to be his ancestral
rights.

Meanwhile, the great movement known as the Gregorian Reform had spread from Italy to France
and the Holy Roman Empire and had begun to influence English churchmen. In its program, free
elections to clerical posts, inviolability of church property, freedom of appeal to Rome, and clerical
immunity from lay tribunals were leading points. Under Henry I and Stephen, the archbishops had
stood out for these reforms, sometimes with partial success. Henry II, however, undoubtedly
aimed at a complete return to the practice of Henry I, who had strict control over the church. He
had begun to press his claims, and his chancellor had aided him. With the death of Theobald in
1161, Henry hoped to appoint Thomas as archbishop and thus complete his program.

As Archbishop

For almost a year after the death of Theobald, the see of Canterbury was vacant. Thomas was
aware of the king’s intention and tried to dissuade him by warnings of what would happen. Henry
persisted and Thomas was elected. Once consecrated, Thomas changed both his outlook and his
way of life. He became devout and austere and embraced the integral program of the papacy and
its canon law. This spectacular change has baffled historians, and several explanations have been
attempted: that Thomas was intoxicated by his ambition to dominate or that he threw himself, as
before, into a part he had agreed to play. It is simpler to suppose that he accepted at last the
spiritual obligations he had ignored as chancellor and turned into a new channel his mingled
energy, force of character, impetuosity, and ostentation. Greatly to Henry’s displeasure, he
immediately resigned the chancellorship but clung to the archdeaconry until forced by the king to
resign.

Henry had been in Normandy since August 1158, and on his return in January 1163 Thomas began
the struggle by opposing a tax proposal and excommunicating a leading baron. More serious was
his attitude in the matter of “criminous clerks.” In western Europe, accused clerics for long had
enjoyed the privilege of standing trial before the bishop rather than secular courts and usually
received milder punishments than lay courts would assess. In England before the Norman
Conquest this was still the custom. If found guilty in an ecclesiastical court, clerics could be
degraded or exiled but were not liable to death or mutilation. For 60 years after the Norman
Conquest, little is heard of clerical crime or its punishment, while on the Continent Gregorian
reformers were tending to emphasize the sole right of the church to try and punish clerks in major
orders. The position of Thomas, that a guilty clerk could be degraded and punished by the bishop
but should not be punished again by lay authority—“not twice for the same fault”—was
canonically arguable and ultimately prevailed. Henry’s contention that clerical crime was rife and
that it was encouraged by the absence of drastic penalties commends itself to modern readers as
a fair one. But it must be remembered that the king’s motives were authoritarian and
administrative rather than enlightened. Nevertheless, it may be thought that Thomas was ill-
advised in his rigid stand on this point.

The issue was joined in a council at Westminster (October 1163), but the crisis came at Clarendon
(Wiltshire, January 1164), when the king demanded a global assent to all traditional royal rights,
reduced to writing under 16 heads and known as the Constitutions of Clarendon. These asserted
the king’s right to punish criminous clerks, forbade excommunication of royal officials and appeals
to Rome, and gave the king the revenues of vacant sees and the power to influence episcopal
elections. Henry was justified in saying that these rights had been exercised by Henry I, but
Thomas also was justified in maintaining that they contravened church law. Thomas, after verbally
accepting the Constitutions of Clarendon, revoked his assent and appealed to the pope, then in
France, who supported him while deprecating precipitate action.

Quarrel With Henry

Good relations between Thomas and Henry were now at an end; the archbishop was summoned
to trial by the king on a point of feudal obligation. At the Council of Northampton (October 6–13,
1164), it was clear that Henry intended to ruin and imprison or to force the resignation of the
archbishop. In this he was encouraged by some of the bishops, among them Gilbert Foliot, bishop
of London. Thomas fled in disguise and took refuge with Louis VII of France. Pope Alexander III
received him with honour but hesitated to act decisively in his favour in fear that he might throw
Henry into the arms of the Holy Roman emperor Frederick I and his antipope, Paschal III.

By permission of the British Library

Thomas’s exile lasted for six years (November 2, 1164–December 2, 1170). He was joined by many
of his distinguished household and lived ascetically, first at Pontigny Abbey and then, when Henry
threatened the monks, at an abbey near Sens. Henry meanwhile had seized the properties of the
archbishop and his supporters and had exiled all Thomas’s close relatives. In the following years
several abortive attempts were made at reconciliation, but new acts of hostility by the king and
declarations of excommunication hurled by Thomas at his opponents embittered the struggles.

The bishops were divided, but a majority of them, led by Foliot, were either hostile to Thomas or
hesitant in supporting him. Papal legates more than once endeavoured to mediate, and the king
and the archbishop came together at Montmirail in 1169, only to part in anger. Thomas distrusted
the king and was, in turn, hated by him. In the same year, Henry put out additions to the
Constitutions of Clarendon, virtually withdrawing England from papal obedience. Finally, in 1170,
he had his eldest son crowned as co-king by the archbishop of York, Becket’s old rival.
This was a flagrant breach of papal prohibition and of the immemorial right of Canterbury to
crown the king. Thomas, followed by the pope, excommunicated all responsible. Henry, fearing an
interdict for England, met Thomas at Fréteval (July 22), and it was agreed that Thomas should
return to Canterbury and receive back all the possessions of his see. Neither party withdrew from
his position regarding the Constitutions of Clarendon, which on this occasion were not mentioned.
This “open-ended” concordat has remained an inexplicable event. Thomas returned to Canterbury
(December 2) and was received with enthusiasm, but further excommunications of the hostile
royal servants, refusal to lift the excommunication of Roger of York and Foliot, and his ready
acceptance of tumultuous acclaim by the crowds infuriated Henry in Normandy.

Martyrdom

Some violent words of Henry were taken literally by four leading knights of the court, who
proceeded swiftly to Canterbury on December 29. They forced themselves into the archbishop’s
presence, and, on his refusal to absolve the bishops, followed him into the cathedral. There, at
twilight, after further altercation, they cut him down with their swords. His last words were an
acceptance of death in defense of the church of Christ.

Murder of Thomas Becket

Thomas Becket being murdered by four knights in Canterbury Cathedral on December 29, 1170.
Image from Liber Chronicarum (Nuremberg Chronicle) by Hartmann Schedel, Nuremberg, 1493.

Within a few days after Thomas’s death, his tomb became a goal of pilgrimage, and he was
canonized by Pope Alexander III in 1173. In 1174 Henry did penance at Canterbury and was
absolved. For almost four centuries, Becket’s shrine was one of the most famous in Europe.
Thomas was portrayed in illuminations and sculpture, and churches were dedicated to him
throughout Western Christendom.

Judgment on the character and actions of St. Thomas has been varied. From his martyrdom until
the reign of Henry VIII, he was the “blisful martir” of Chaucer’s pilgrims, who had heroically defied
a tyrant. Henry VIII despoiled his shrine, burned his bones, and erased his name from all service
books. Thenceforth, Thomas was a hero to Catholics and a traitor to Protestants.

Many recent historians, impressed by the legal and administrative reforms of Henry II, have seen
Thomas as an ambitious and fanatical nuisance. Certainly there is room for debate, for both
Thomas and his king were remarkable men with complex characters. If Henry had moral failings
and made private and political miscalculations, Thomas can rightly be accused, at various
moments of his life, of worldly behaviour, ostentation, impetuosity, weakness, and violent
language. If Henry was ill-advised in committing his claims to writing at Clarendon and in crowning
his son, Thomas was equally ill-advised in needlessly opposing the king in 1163 and in wavering
between compliance and intransigence when careful diplomacy might have won out. But his
courage and sincerity cannot be doubted, and in the quarrel between church and state he gave his
life for what he took to be a vital issue.

After Becket's death

St Thomas Becket's consecration, death and burial, at wall paintings in Santa Maria de Terrassa
(Terrassa, Catalonia, Spain), romanesque frescoes, c. 1200

Following Becket's death, the monks prepared his body for burial.[1] According to some accounts,
it was discovered that Becket had worn a hairshirt under his archbishop's garments—a sign of
penance.[18] Soon after, the faithful throughout Europe began venerating Becket as a martyr, and
on 21 February 1173—little more than two years after his death—he was canonised by Pope
Alexander III in St Peter's Church in Segni.[1] In 1173, Becket's sister Mary was appointed Abbess
of Barking as reparation for the murder of her brother.[19] On 12 July 1174, in the midst of the
Revolt of 1173–74, Henry humbled himself with public penance at Becket's tomb as well as at the
church of St. Dunstan's, which became one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in England.

Cult in the Middle Ages

Candle marking the former spot of the shrine of Thomas Becket, at Canterbury Cathedral
In Scotland, King William the Lion ordered the building of Arbroath Abbey in 1178. On completion
in 1197 the new foundation was dedicated to Becket, whom the king had known personally while
at the English court as a young man.