Thomas A' Becket

Thomas a' Becket

Thomas a' Becket was a chancellor of England and archbishop of Canterbury, who became a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. He was made archbishop of Canterbury by King Henry II of England in 1162. Becket resisted Henry’s attempts to control the affairs of the Catholic Church. Over time their conflicts grew bitter. Four of Henry’s knights, acting on their own, murdered Becket. Shortly thereafter the Catholic Church in Rome declared Becket a saint.

Thomas was destined by his parents for the church and was educated at Merton Priory in Surrey, then one of the leading schools of London, and later in Paris. On his return to England he served as secretary to the lord of Pevensey, who inducted him into the life of a gentleman, hunting with hawk and hounds. Because his father had suffered financial reverses, Thomas worked for three years as a clerk and auditor in the City. Then, when he was 25 years old, he determined to apply for a place in the household of the archbishop of Canterbury, Theobald of Bec, a distant relative. There he entered the world of power and policy. He accompanied the archbishop to the papal council held at Reims in 1148, made several trips to Rome, and was sent to study law at Bologna, Italy.

Thomas’s life changed again in 1154, when the new king, Henry II, appointed him his chancellor. Theobald and other bishops had recommended him, hoping that the church would find in him a protector and defender at the king’s right hand. The eight years of his office as the king’s principal minister were a time of unstinting service. In return, Thomas was rewarded with great wealth, which he displayed in unprecedented magnificence of ceremony. Churchmen grumbled that the chancellor gave little heed to the interests of the church. Yet his biographers say that he preserved his chastity amid the promiscuous court; that he was personally sparing of food and drink despite the plenitude of his official hospitality; that he prayed often at night and attended masses at dawn; and that he employed clerks to scourge him as penance for his sins. When Theobald died in 1161, the king decided to make his chancellor the archbishop of Canterbury, the most important ecclesiastical officer in England. Much to Henry’s surprise and annoyance, Thomas resigned the chancellorship almost as soon as he was consecrated archbishop in 1162. No open break between the king and the archbishop occurred, however, until 1163, when they quarreled over the relations of church and realm. Then, at a council at Clarendon on January 13, 1164, Henry set forth 16 written articles of law, the so-called Constitutions of Clarendon, which he claimed represented the customs of the realm in relation to the church in the days of his grandfather, Henry I. The king wanted Thomas and his fellow bishops to accept these articles, but Thomas, although he at first acquiesced, later repudiated them as contrary to canon law as it had developed. See Clarendon, Constitutions of.

Deeply angered, the king determined to break Thomas and charged him with various offenses. Thomas fled the court and, disguised, made his way circuitously to France, to begin an exile of six years, while the conflict between archbishop and king divided more and more of the Western world. At last, under threat of papal sanctions, Henry and Thomas agreed to a reconciliation of sorts, and on November 3, 1170, Thomas returned to England. When, however, he excommunicated some of the king’s bishops and barons, Henry raged against this “lowborn clerk.” Four of the king’s men, acting on their own accord, crossed over from France to Canterbury and, in the archbishop’s own cathedral, murdered Thomas on December 29, 1170. Thus, Thomas Ð" Becket became a martyr, and after miracles were said to have been worked at his tomb, he was canonized in February 1173. Pilgrims then began to visit Canterbury in such numbers that it became one of the three most popular shrines in Europe. Only the Reformation, when Becket’s shrine was destroyed and all its treasures confiscated by Henry VIII, brought the pilgrimages to an end.

Not even Henry VIII, however, ended the “benefit of clergy,” which Henry II had to accept after Becket’s death. The pope and king compromised: The pontiff allowed most of the English customs, but Henry had to bow to canon law and the jurisdiction of church courts over accused clergy. As historians have attempted to understand people in the context of the times, the whole controversy has come to seem tragicвЂ"a conflict between the growing self-consciousness of church and realm personified in the heroic figures of Henry and Thomas.

Canterbury Cathedral, in Canterbury, Kent, one of the most splendid and earliest examples of Gothic architecture in England. It is also the administrative center of the Church of England, and its archbishop holds the title of Primate of All England. During the Middle Ages it was an important place of pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Ð" Becket, chancellor of England and archbishop of Canterbury, who in 1170 was murdered in the cathedral on the orders of Henry II, King