The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography through Eight Centuries 9781315102870, 9781351593397, 9781351593380, 9781351593373, 9781138103283

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The Cult of Thomas Becket

On December 29, 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was brutally murdered in his own cathedral. News of the event was rapidly disseminated throughout Europe, generating a widespread cult which endured until the reign of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century, and engendering a fascination which has lasted until the present day. The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography through Eight Centuries contributes to the lengthy debate surrounding the saint by providing a historiographical analysis of the major themes in Becket scholarship, tracing the development of Becket studies from the writings of the twelfth-century biographers to those of scholars of the twenty-first century. The book offers a thorough commentary and analysis which demonstrates how the Canterbury martyr was viewed by writers of previous generations as well as our own, showing how they were influenced by the intellectual trends and political concerns of their eras, and indicating how perceptions of Thomas Becket have changed over time. In addition, several chapters are devoted a discussion of artworks in various media devoted to the saint, as well as liturgies and sermons composed in his honor. Combining a wide historical scope with detailed textual analysis, this book will be of great interest to scholars of medieval religious history, art history, liturgy, sanctity, and hagiography. Kay Brainerd Slocum is Professor Emerita at Capital University, USA, where she was previously the Gerhold Professor of Humanities. She is the author of three books and multiple journal articles on music and medieval and religious history.

Sanctity in Global Perspective Series Editors:

Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, University of Pittsburgh, USA Alison Frazier, University of Texas at Austin, USA Phyllis Granoff, Yale University, USA Richard McGregor, Vanderbilt University, USA

Published under the aegis of The Hagiography Society, this series is dedicated to exploring the concept of sanctity in literary, artistic, ideational, and sociohistorical dimensions. ‘Sanctity in Global Perspective’ publishes monographs and edited volumes that illuminate the lives of saintly figures, the communities dedicated to those figures, and the material evidence of their cults. Our aim is to foster critical scholarship that offers novel conceptualizations and the possibility of crosspollination of ideas across traditions, geographical regions, and academic disciplines. The series is open to all areas of scholarship, without restriction as to religious traditions or time periods. The Cult of St. Anne in Medieval and Early Modern Europe Jennifer Welsh Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Hagiographical Strategies A Comparative Study of the ‘Standard Lives’ of St. Francis and Milarepa Massimo A. Rondolino Peter Paul Rubens and the Counter-Reformation Crisis of the Beati moderni Ruth S. Noyes The Cult of Thomas Becket History and Historiography through Eight Centuries Kay Brainerd Slocum For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Sanctity-in-Global-Perspective/book-series/SANCGLBPER

The Cult of Thomas Becket History and Historiography through Eight Centuries Kay Brainerd Slocum

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Kay Brainerd Slocum The right of Kay Brainerd Slocum to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Slocum, Kay Brainerd, author. Title: The cult of Thomas Becket : history and historiography through eight centuries / Kay Brainerd Slocum. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, [2019] | Series: Sanctity in global perspective | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018034968 (print) | LCCN 2018035485 (ebook) | ISBN 9781315102870 (e-book) | ISBN 9781351593397 (PDF) | ISBN 9781351593380 ( ePub) | ISBN 9781351593373 (Mobi) | ISBN 9781138103283 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Thomas, à Becket, Saint, 1118?–1170. | Christian martyrs—Cult—History of doctrines—Middle Ages, 600–1500. | Great Britain—History—Henry II, 1154–1189—Historiography. | Christian martyrs—England—Canterbury—Historiography. | Christian saints—England—Canterbury—Historiography. | Christian hagiography—History—To 1500. Classification: LCC DA209.T4 (ebook) | LCC DA209.T4 S56 2019 (print) | DDC 942.03/1092 [B]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018034968 ISBN: 978-1-138-10328-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-10287-0 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For my granddaughters Sonora, Orla and Finja Slocum

Contents

List of figuresix Preface and acknowledgmentsx Introduction

1

PART I

Saint and cult15   1 The creation of St Thomas of Canterbury

17

  2 Thirteenth-century translations

43

  3 “Hooly blisful martir”: the development of the Becket cult

67

  4 Liturgies, sermons, and the translation of 1220

89

  5 Becket and iconography

110

PART II

Becket and the Reformation141   6 Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket

143

  7 Becket as a symbol for the Catholic opposition

170

PART III

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century views of Becket193   8 Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr

195

  9 Victorian biographers and antiquarians

216

viii  Contents PART IV

Becket in the modern and postmodern world243 10 Becket in legal and intellectual history

245

11 Biographies of the Canterbury martyr in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries

265

12 Becket scholarship in the postmodern world and beyond

289

Conclusion

307

Selected Bibliography310 Index330

Figures

2.1 Henry II exiles Becket’s kin/Becket lies ill at Pontigny Abbey. Becket Leaves, British Library Loan MS 88, f. 1r. PBL Collection/Alamy Stock Photo 5.1 Martyrdom of Becket, Cotton, Claudius B II, f. 341. © The British Library Board 5.2 Martyrdom of Becket, British Library, Harley 5102, f. 32. © The British Library Board 5.3 Reliquary, French (Limoges), c. 1180. M.66–1997. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London 5.4 Ampulla, lead alloy, 1170–1200. 1921, 0216.62. © The Trustees of the British Museum 5.5 Pilgrim Badge: Head of St Thomas Becket, lead alloy, thirteenth century. Photograph by the author – collection of the author 5.6 Pilgrim Badge: Shrine of St Thomas Becket, lead alloy, thirteenth century. 1921, 0216.64. © The Trustees of the British Museum 5.7 Seal of Archbishop Thomas Arundel (1397–1414). By kind permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London 7.1 Giovanni Battista de Cavalleriis, “The martyrdom of St Thomas Becket,” from Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophaea, Rome, n.d. (1584), 25. Collection of the author

45 111 113 114 118 119 121 123 183

Preface and acknowledgments

When I was accepted into the seminar “Liturgy and Hagiography in the High Middle Ages,” sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and held at the Catholic University of America, a colleague remarked to me that I could anticipate two outcomes: The first was the pleasure of working intensively on a fascinating project, and the second was the possibility of forming lifelong friendships. The project, begun under the guidance of Ruth Steiner and Daniel Sheerin, introduced me to the liturgies composed for Thomas Becket – work which developed very gradually over a period of 15 years into my first book, Liturgies in Honour of Thomas Becket, published by the University of Toronto Press in 2004. As I worked on the liturgies I discovered the multifaceted interpretations of the Canterbury martyr offered in history, literature, and the many genres of artistic representation, and I found that establishing connections between these diverse avenues of expression became an enduring preoccupation. The second prediction also proved to be prophetic. At the seminar, I met Dr. Leslie Ross, Professor of Art History at Dominican University in San Rafael, California. Our friendship has now encompassed some 30 years, during which Thomas Becket has been the topic of numerous discussions as we participated in conferences and undertook research trips to England. This book is the result of Leslie’s suggestion that it would be “really interesting” to trace the changing perceptions of the Canterbury martyr over time. I am grateful to her for providing the seed for this study, and for her help and encouragement as I pursued the topic. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the many friends and colleagues who have shared my interest in Becket and have provided assistance with this project. The late Andrew Hughes was a source of inspiration and advice as I began my study of the liturgies, and I regret that he will not see the completion of this current work. Sherry Reames and the late Phyllis Roberts joined me in the early stages of this journey, and I am grateful for their help and support in our collaborative presentations and publications. Sarah Blick, Karen Bollermann, Katherine Handel, Alyce Jordan, Rachel Koopmans, and Cary J. Nederman have generously shared their work, as have Nicholas Vincent and Paul Webster. I am grateful for the suggestions

Preface and acknowledgments xi of James P. Carley, John Cherry, James Robinson, and Susan Solway, and I thank John V. Fleming for his continuing interest in my work. Brigitte Arnaud was most helpful in photographing and sending images of the Sens manuscript; I would not have had access to this material without her generous assistance. Gregg Silvis has been a source of support for decades, and I am especially appreciative of his help in obtaining the illustration in Chapter 7 of this volume. The comments of the editors of the series ‘Sanctity in Global Perspective’ have been most helpful in focusing the direction of this book, and my editors at Routledge, Joshua Wells and Jack Boothroyd, have proved to be invaluable sources of information and assistance. The British Library, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Society of Antiquaries have granted permission to use photographs of the objects in their collections, and the University of Toronto Press and the journal Hagiographica have generously allowed the inclusion of parts of my previous work. Once again, I am grateful to my husband, Dieter Droste, for his support and encouragement, for reading and commenting on parts of the manuscript, and for his patience as he was forced to compete with Thomas Becket for my attention over the course of several decades.

Introduction

On December 29, 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was brutally murdered in his own cathedral. News of the event was rapidly disseminated throughout Europe, generating a widespread cult which endured until the reign of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century, and engendering a fascination which has lasted until the present day. What accounts for the neverending appeal of a man who would have been, if not for his martyrdom, simply a prominent cleric, and not a person known far and wide through the subsequent centuries? What sort of man was he? Should he be viewed as a symbol of Church versus State? Was he a potent exemplar for the priesthood? Can he be regarded as a true saint or was he merely an egotistical, rebellious, and treasonous prelate? During the more than 800 years that have elapsed since the murder in the cathedral, the life and image of Thomas Becket have been analyzed by historians, dramatized by playwrights and novelists, and made subjects of music and art in countless ways. Underlying this continuing interest in the Canterbury martyr is a basic search for an understanding of his personality and motivations. Questions have been debated concerning his “conversion” from courtier to monastic archbishop, his friendship and subsequent quarrel with Henry II, his sainthood, and his charisma. However, as David Knowles expressed the problem, “for all that historians and hagiographers and poets have written and sung, the character and personality of St Thomas elude us like a wraith each time that we start forward to grasp them.”1 The truth of Knowles’s observation notwithstanding, various answers to the questions and solutions to the problems surrounding Becket have been given during each era, colored by the context of prevailing trends of historical scholarship and political inclination. The early biographers were motivated to create a saint, whereas the scholars and politicians of the Reformation era were determined to destroy his reputation and end his veneration. The negative image constructed during the Reformation endured through several centuries, although changing trends in scholarship moderated these views. Eighteenth-century historians analyzed Becket’s life within a framework of rationalistic thought, whereas those of the nineteenth century were influenced by nationalism and the scientific method. In the

2  Introduction twentieth century, Becket’s life and personality were again subjected to current preoccupations: first psychoanalysis, later social history, then interest in the pilgrimage experience, and most recently a search for new meaning in various aspects of his persona. This book contributes to the lengthy debate surrounding the Canterbury martyr by providing an historiographical analysis of the major themes in Becket scholarship. Rather than adding new insights and interpretations to the extensive trove of writing concerning the Canterbury martyr, this investigation traces the development of Becket studies from the works of twelfth-century biographers to those of scholars of the twenty-first century. Three earlier works have dealt with the historiography of the Becket literature. Emanuel Walberg discussed the writings of the first biographers of the Canterbury martyr and the connections between them in La tradition hagiographique de saint Thomas Becket avant la fin du XIIe siècle (published in 1929),2 limiting his parameters to the late twelfth century. In 1970, the 800th anniversary of the martyrdom, two studies appeared: a collection of primary sources with brief commentary titled The Becket Controversy, edited by Thomas M. Jones,3 and an article by J.W. Alexander, “The Becket Controversy in Recent Historiography,”4 which offered an analysis of scholarship about the legal questions central to the quarrel between the king and his archbishop. None of these studies analyzed the immense corpus of writings about Becket, and, as Timothy Reuter recently pointed out, “A detailed and up-to-date appraisal of the voluminous historiography on Becket is still lacking.”5 This book remedies this situation by providing a thorough commentary and analysis of the most important works written about the Canterbury martyr during the past eight centuries, demonstrating how scholars of previous generations have viewed Becket, and showing how perceptions of the martyr have changed over time. The discussion provides an historical framework which demonstrates how the biographers and writers were influenced by the intellectual trends and political concerns of their eras, and explores the ways in which the saint and his history remain relevant in the twenty-first century. As may be seen in the Bibliography, the analysis presented in this book examines materials, both primary and secondary, which were written in Latin or English, although several works by French and German scholars from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are included. This essentially Anglo-centric focus of the survey is a natural outgrowth of the subject. Since Becket was an English saint who became an English hero in the eyes of many prior to the Reformation era, most of the early works about his life and career, such as the biographies, chronicles, and miracle collections, were written by Englishmen composing in Latin or their native language. The earliest works dealing with the Canterbury martyr were written in Latin by Becket’s ecclesiastical associates; however, by the thirteenth century biographies appeared in vernacular languages, including English, Anglo-­Norman, and Icelandic6; these are discussed in Chapter 2, along with

Introduction 3 pertinent current scholarship. English was also the vehicle of the polemical discourse surrounding the revisionist history constructed by Thomas Cromwell and his associates during the Reformation. The seventeenth-century Counter-Reformation materials included in this study were written either in Latin or English, with English translations of biographies such as the Life by Caesar Baronius made readily available in England. The works generated by scholars at the continental English colleges were also in Latin or English, since these institutions were founded to train priests whose mission was to return to their native land to proselytize for a return to Catholicism. In the eighteenth century, the legend of the Canterbury martyr was included in the work of the French historian Paul Rapin de Thoyras, whose History of England was translated and published in England in 1743; his interpretation had significant influence on British historians such as George, Lord Lyttelton, and David Hume. This tradition continued in the nineteenth century with Augustin Thierry’s Histoire de la conquête de l’Angleterre, which offered a view of Becket that also had a powerful effect on British historians, who framed the martyr’s life and career within the context of their own historical perspective. As will be seen in the discussion, twentieth-century scholarship crossed the borders of the British Isles to include studies by French and German scholars, as well as some Spanish and Italian writers – a trend which is also evident in the present era. The interest of these continental historians has focused primarily on materials related to the growth and development of the cult of Becket. The amount that has been written about Thomas Becket is voluminous, and it has been necessary to make choices about the material to be included in this study. Hence, there are several major areas of focus that unite the commentary as it moves through time. The first deals with the character of the Canterbury martyr and his “conversion” when elected Archbishop of Canterbury. The second is his quarrel with Henry II, which has been a central problem for scholars in many disciplines of historical study; they have offered numerous interpretations of the struggle. In addition, Becket’s martyrdom and ensuing canonization, together with reports of miracles and the development of his cult, have provided an opportunity for much spilling of scholarly ink. Thus, the organizing principle for this book is tracing of the ways in which these primary issues have been perceived by generations of historians, biographers, and scholars of art and religious studies. Each writer studied in this volume has brought to the central questions the insights of his or her own historical milieu, intending to shed light on the enigmatic Canterbury martyr. It is my hope that this analysis of the trajectory of scholarship over the centuries will make that light more clear, and will, in addition, lead to an enhanced understanding of the life and character of Thomas Becket. In order to systematically explore and analyze the extensive trove of scholarship dealing with the Canterbury martyr, the book is divided into four sections that proceed chronologically in the following sequence: Part I surveys

4  Introduction the hagiographical, liturgical, and iconographical materials created during the first three centuries following the murder, and traces the development of Becket’s cult. Part II deals with the negative image of the saint created during the Reformation era, and the response of Counter-Reformation writers. Part III analyzes the works of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century historians, and Part IV presents the interpretations of twentieth- and twenty-first-­ century biographers and scholars.

Part I: Saint and cult The initial chapter examines materials about the life, personality and martyrdom of the archbishop as viewed by his contemporaries, who wrote soon after the murder in 1170. Most of these early biographers were close associates of the archbishop, and in presenting the details of his life and violent death, they were almost unanimously dedicated to the creation of Becket as martyr and saint. The earliest documents consisted of reports of miracles recorded at the tomb and elsewhere, compiled initially by the Canterbury monk Benedict of Peterborough, and then by his colleague, William of Canterbury. There were also numerous contemporaneous Vitae written by Becket’s circle of intellectuals, and his eruditi began to assemble collections of letters which recorded the details of the archbishop’s life, martyrdom, and canonization in 1173. Information pertaining to the life of Becket and his quarrel with Henry II may also be found in historical chronicles, such as those of Roger of Hoveden, Ralph of Diceto, and Gervase of Canterbury. These works constitute a substantial body of information unparalleled in medieval source materials, and they have provided the basis for Becket studies since their creation. The commentary in Chapter 1 analyzes the connections between the various biographies, letters, and miracle collections, and speculates as to the methods and motivations of the writers. This discussion provides the framework essential for the analysis of the scholarly interpretations of these sources in the later chapters of the book, demonstrating the ways in which the original materials have been used by subsequent scholars to create and establish their individual perceptions of the Canterbury martyr. Chapter 2 analyzes three important vernacular biographies of Becket written in the thirteenth century. These, all translations of earlier Latin works, are the South English Legendary, the Icelandic Thómas Saga Erkibyskups, and the illustrated Anglo-Norman Life by Matthew Paris, now known as the Becket Leaves because of its fragmentary condition. The discussion traces the origins of the materials and explores the opinions and analyses of recent historians concerning their content. These vernacular biographies are a testament to the growing popularity of the Canterbury martyr in the thirteenth century, and also provide evidence of societal and religious change. They demonstrate a new concern with “nationalism,” and present Becket as a “man of the people,” rather than simply an icon of the Church. As the

Introduction 5 commentary demonstrates, the vernacular works also encourage empathy and emulation on the part of the readers and listeners, especially among the audience of laywomen. Chapter 3 explores the development of the cult that focused on the veneration of Becket, which grew exponentially during the last part of the twelfth century. The movement had begun spontaneously among the sick and indigent pilgrims at Canterbury who came to his tomb in the crypt in search of cures for their illnesses. As word of numerous healing miracles spread, the number of pilgrims increased dramatically. This burgeoning popularity was formalized when the martyr was canonized in 1173. By the thirteenth century, the cult had spread throughout the European continent and as far away as Iceland, as documented in various written, liturgical, and iconographical sources. These materials have been the focus of much recent scholarship, as the study of both miracles and pilgrimage in the past several decades has brought new interest to analyzing the cult of Becket and its manifestations in countries throughout Europe. This chapter examines the evidence regarding the development of the cult provided by the primary sources and offers an analysis of new interpretations. Chapter 4 describes scholarship devoted to the study of the liturgies composed for Becket’s feast day and the feast of the translation, as well as sermons on his life and martyrdom. Liturgical celebrations and sermons were an essential component of medieval life, and those devoted to transmitting the details and interpretations of the vita and character of Becket are of fundamental importance in understanding the perceptions of the martyr during the centuries following his death. This chapter analyzes the ways in which these studies have impacted the understanding of Becket and his cult, and demonstrates how the image presented in the liturgies composed for his feast days and the sermons that took his life and martyrdom as a text added a new dimension to the enigma surrounding the saint’s character. Chapter 5 analyzes the artistic representations of the archbishop and his martyrdom that began to appear as the cult of the Canterbury martyr spread throughout England and the continent. Imagery focusing on Becket took form in various genres, including manuscript illumination, sculpture, stained-glass windows, wall paintings, mosaics, and enamel work from Limoges. Pilgrim badges and ampullae which depicted the martyrdom and Becket’s persona also contributed to the dissemination of the martyr’s fame and reputation. This chapter explores interpretations of the iconography related to Becket’s life, martyrdom and miracles, and speculates as to the ways in which the imagery influenced the veneration of the saint and the growth and direction of his cult.

Part II: Becket and the Reformation In November 1538, Henry VIII issued a decree7 stating that “Thomas Becket shall not be esteemed and reputed a saint,” thereby initiating not only the

6  Introduction destruction of visual and liturgical evidence of the Canterbury martyr, but also a complete revision of the history of the saint and his cult. The king’s agent, Thomas Cromwell, promulgated a new version of the Becket story that laid the blame for the murder not on the shoulders of Henry II, but rather on the martyr himself. The motivation for this revision is obvious: Henry VIII viewed continuing veneration of Becket as a threat to his religious and political program. His break with the papacy and the Catholic Church necessitated the eradication of the cult of saints, especially devotion to the adored Canterbury martyr. Further, his destruction of the shrine in Canterbury Cathedral greatly enhanced the royal treasury. Chapter 6 examines the negative view of the martyr promulgated by Cromwell and Henry VIII, and the echoes found in the works of other writers of the period, analyzing the scholarly and dramatic opinions about the archbishop during the Reformation era, as well as the motivations underlying this sixteenth-century assault on Becket’s character. Chapter 7 analyzes the role of Becket in the Catholic response to the actions generated by Henry’s religious reform – a movement generally known as the Counter Reformation. As Catholics sought to establish and maintain an identity, continuing devotion to the Canterbury martyr was encouraged through the circulation of various publications and biographies, such as those by Thomas Stapleton and Caesar Baronius. In addition, English Catholic recusants established seminaries on the continent for the training of priests who would return to England to proselytize for their faith. The focus of their training aroused the desire for martyrdom, and Becket was a natural symbol for their ideology. He also became a powerful icon of adherence to papal authority, providing a potent focus for empathy and identification by Catholic believers.

Part III: Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century views of Becket Chapter 8 surveys the dramatic shift which had occurred in intellectual, political, and religious attitudes by the eighteenth century. A general spirit of rationalism characterized historical thought during this era, influencing perceptions of Thomas Becket in significant ways and bringing forth new views and new controversies. At this time, historians sought to contextualize the struggle between Henry II and Becket within a more general view of the ideal society envisioned in the intellectual trends of the Enlightenment. Their writings about the archbishop reflected the prevalent anti-clericalism, expressing an extremely negative view of a man who opposed the necessary course of public justice, and acted in defiance of the laws of the country. By contrast, for Catholic writers, the historical sources proved that the archbishop was an honest man whose devotion to the Church was sincere. He was a great hero, sadly misjudged, who, if he had lived, would have been able to influence the future events of England (such as the struggle surrounding Magna Carta), in a positive way.

Introduction 7 The differing opinions of various eighteenth-century historians, including George, Lord Lyttelton, David Hume, Edmund Burke, and Joseph Berington, are explored in this chapter, focusing on their treatment of Becket’s character, his “conversion” when elected Archbishop of Canterbury, the controversy surrounding the Council of Clarendon, and the role of Henry II in the struggle and martyrdom. Chapter 9 deals with nineteenth-century historical writing on Becket, which was influenced by two chief preoccupations and methodologies: Nationalism and a reverence for science and the scientific method. During this era, historians undertook the daunting task of collecting, editing and publishing vast quantities of source material, including an extensive number of manuscripts documenting Becket’s life and martyrdom. They made use of these materials in a variety of ways, using the symbol of Becket to support their views regarding both religion and the political environment of Victorian England. Further, the growing professionalization of historical study resulted in several scholarly disputes, and some of these focused on the varying interpretations of Becket’s life. The discussion in this chapter analyzes these threads of discourse, presenting a plethora of views about the Canterbury martyr.

Part IV: Becket in the modern and postmodern world Chapter 10 analyzes a fresh direction in scholarship about Becket which began at the turn of the twentieth century, when the legal issues and ramifications surrounding Becket’s quarrel with Henry II were newly contextualized by Frederick William Maitland in an important essay, “Henry II and the Criminous Clerks.”8 Maitland analyzed and explained the areas of conflict that existed in the twelfth century between the jurisdiction of royal and ecclesiastical courts, thereby addressing a primary source of contention in the dispute between Becket and Henry II. His scholarship provided a foundation for the burgeoning interest in the legal aspects of the Becket controversy, which was a prominent feature of Becket studies in the midtwentieth century. Until the 1960s, scholars almost unanimously agreed that Maitland’s views regarding the legal issues involved in the Becket controversy were correct. His interpretation was challenged in 1960s by Charles Duggan, and a further correction was offered by Richard Fraher. Their work, together with that of other scholars, was part of a general trend toward intellectual history which became characteristic of the modern era, discussed in this chapter. Chapter 11 turns to twentieth-century biographies of Becket, beginning with the work of W.H. Hutton (1860–1930), which exemplified the continuing role of nationalism in scholarship. Further studies were written by several mid-century scholars, including Austin Lane Poole, who inherited the primarily negative view of the archbishop from nineteenth-century historians. A more positive interpretation of Becket’s life and career, proposed

8  Introduction by Raymonde Foreville, contributed an important correction to the negative view of Becket so prevalent in the previous century. By analyzing Becket’s thinking about the principles at issue in his quarrel with the king, she provided a carefully considered conclusion which balanced the opinions favoring Henry II. Her contemporary, David Knowles, concurred in presenting a positive, even laudatory analysis of the archbishop’s life. Another significant addition to the Becket literature was a biography published in 1986 by Frank Barlow.9 Thomas Becket has become the standard work on the life of the saint. Barlow’s avowed purpose was to “establish the facts and produce an account of Thomas’s life as historically true as possible,”10 and he succeeded admirably. With regard to an assessment of the archbishop’s character, Barlow adopted the historical ideal of the late twentieth century, remaining objective throughout. One of the era’s most important scholars is Anne J. Duggan, who has devoted her life to Becket studies. Her publications since the 1980s are numerous, and she recently (2004) produced a biography of the archbishop based upon her immersion in the sources, which is a sympathetic portrait of the martyr – a true “man of faith.”11 The views of Duggan and other ­twentieth-century historians concerning the Canterbury martyr are explored in the chapter; the discussion connects their views with nineteenth-century historical writing, and offers comparisons between their opinions. Chapter 12 investigates postmodern attitudes toward study of the past, surveying the work of twenty-first-century scholars, who have viewed the life and actions of Becket from new perspectives, including gender and sexuality, friendship, and anger and conflict studies. Other recent historians and artists, working within the new field of medievalism, have appropriated the history of the Canterbury martyr to express contemporary concerns and to reflect on the congruities between twenty-first-century and twelfth-century experience. The discussion in this chapter surveys these new directions in Becket studies, summarizing the content and tracing the connections between the contemporary visions of the Canterbury martyr and those presented by earlier scholars. An analysis of the latest works dealing with Becket demonstrates how gender studies, theories of identity, analyses of literary techniques, and postmodern attitudes toward historical study have influenced current perceptions of the Canterbury martyr. The historiographical analysis presented in this book, by virtue of its interdisciplinary nature, will be of interest to scholars in a variety of disciplines. It has obvious value for students of medieval history and medieval literature, as well as scholars interested in the religious history of the Middle Ages and the Reformation, and historians of liturgy and sermon studies. Additionally, the survey of iconographical sources connected with the development of the cult provides a vital source of information on Becket for art historians. Writers working in the sub-discipline of medievalism will find the Canterbury martyr a fascinating subject for study, as the commentary makes evident the ways in which his history was utilized through

Introduction 9 the centuries to reflect specialized interests and concerns. For readers interested in the current topics of gender, friendship, or anger and conflict studies, the final chapter points to new directions for further research. In addition, scholars in the sister discipline of political science will observe the continuing relevance of Thomas Becket in the world of contemporary politics. The book will also be of interest to scholars who have heretofore focused their attention on specific aspects of Becket’s life and career, such as his sanctity, the development of his cult, or the destruction of his reputation during the Reformation era. For these writers, the information presented about the afterlives of the Canterbury martyr, especially in the scholarship of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, will broaden their perspectives and enhance their knowledge of the saint’s life and career.

Biographical sketch The following biographical introduction briefly describes the life of Thomas Becket for those readers unfamiliar with his history. Thomas Becket12 was born on December 21, 1120, the son of Norman immigrants who were members of the merchant class. Very little information is available about his early life, but we do know that his schooling included periods between 1130 and 1141 in which he was first a boarder at the Augustinian priory at Merton in Surrey, then a pupil at one or more of the London grammar schools, and finally a student at Paris. By 1146, Thomas was established as an archiepiscopal clerk in the household of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury. The duties he performed there provided him with a breadth of ecclesiastical experience. He was introduced to the intricate functioning of Canterbury and the English Church, and, through his diplomatic missions to the papal curia, the Western Church at large. He was also sent to study canon law at Bologna and Auxerre, and was then appointed archdeacon of Canterbury (1154). Thus, when he became Archbishop of Canterbury some seven years later, he was not lacking in knowledge about the responsibilities of his position. The appointment of Thomas as royal chancellor in 1155 was generally regarded to be a result of the influence of Archbishop Theobald, since the English prelate wanted one of his own men close to the king. As chancellor, Thomas traveled in the royal ambulatory court, and was in frequent contact with the king. The influence and importance which the office assumed under Thomas was, in fact, a direct result of the friendship which developed between him and Henry II; no previous chancellor had been anything more than a trusted servant. In 1161, Archbishop Theobald died, creating a vacancy at Canterbury, and it was rumored that Theobald had hoped that Thomas would succeed him. Obviously, Theobald was convinced that the chancellor’s influence with the king would be utilized by the benefit of the Church; Thomas would

10  Introduction be in a position to preserve the interests of the English Church in potential conflicts with a reformed papacy. After a brief period of indecision, Henry appointed Thomas, and it was generally believed that the king expected that his faithful chancellor would become his faithful archbishop. Following Henry’s decision, the monks at Canterbury were persuaded to make the formal election of their archdeacon. There seems to have been widespread dismay at the choice; no one doubted that the king’s wishes had been forced upon the Church. The new prelate, according to his biographers, “put off the chancellor and put on the archbishop.” He became a novus homo, and his transformation was symbolized by his clothing: next to his skin he wore a hairshirt and hair breeches, followed by monastic garb, both of which were concealed by the robes of his office. The biographers also stressed the change in Thomas’s inner life, and emphasized his zeal in adapting himself to the requirements of his new position. They saw the archbishop’s quarrel with the king as a direct result of his change in lifestyle, as well as his resignation of the chancellorship in 1162. When he began to observe the laws of God in a strict manner, he was compelled to challenge the laws of the king. The ultimate clash between Thomas and Henry was generated by the archbishop’s unwillingness to conform to the expectations which the king held when he named Thomas to the see of Canterbury. Henry had anticipated support from his new appointee concerning the reform of certain abuses which he saw as prevalent in the English Church, most particularly the question of ecclesiastical justice. The growing alienation centered upon three main grievances; the protection of clerical criminals from proper trial and punishment, inordinate ecclesiastical oppression of the laity for moral offenses, and usurpation of the ancient customs which governed interactions between the royal and the ecclesiastical authorities. These issues were exacerbated by Thomas’s supposed betrayal and lack of gratitude toward the king, who felt that he had been deceived. The archbishop believed, however, that he was defending the rights of the Church against evil customs and the abuse, violence, and injustice of secular power. In October of 1163, Henry called a council of the Church at Westminster. He aired his grievances, which were heard with a notable lack of sympathy. The king then inquired as to whether the bishops would observe the ancient customs of the land. The bishops stood solidly behind Thomas, and only agreed to such customs which were coherent with canon law. Henry immediately retaliated by publicly depriving Thomas of all the offices and benefices he had held as chancellor. In early 1164, Henry summoned a council at Clarendon. He demanded that all of the bishops give their assent to the ancient customs which Henry I  and his barons had observed. This uncompromising demand was met with resistance, and the king, enraged, made threatening remarks. The archbishop lacked active support from many of the bishops, and ultimately yielded,

Introduction 11 perhaps because he feared imprisonment or death. He later retracted his assent when the king insisted that he put his seal to the document. The king then began to harass Thomas in every way available to him, using a feudal case and then a financial suit to totally discredit him. Called to a council at Northampton, the archbishop was found to be guilty and his penalty was the forfeiture of all of his moveable possessions. It was obvious that the king, by this time, intended to humiliate and ruin the archbishop; many believed that Henry was aiming at Thomas’s arrest, and there were rumors of penalties of greater severity. Warned that the king was contemplating either imprisonment or death, Thomas embarked for France and an exile which was to last for more than six years, during which time he established vital European connections. The French King Louis VII assured Thomas of his support and offered him financial aid during his exile; the archbishop also secured the favor of the pope and curia, which he received personally upon his arrival at Sens. Thomas had expressed his desire to go to Pontigny, a Cistercian monastery some 55 kilometers southeast of Sens, and the pope persuaded the monks to accept Thomas and a small household. At Pontigny, where he remained for almost two years, the archbishop settled into a life of ascetic religious observance, study, and the furtherance of his cause through diplomacy. In 1166, King Henry complained to the Cistercian general council at Citeaux, threatening to banish the monks from his realm unless the archbishop was expelled from Pontigny. Thomas agreed to leave, not wishing to bring harm to the order which had supported him; he accepted King Louis’s offer of hospitality at St Columba’s Abbey, which was located a short distance from Sens. During the remaining four years of the archbishop’s exile, there were various attempts to achieve a solution to the conflict, including diplomatic negotiations and peace parleys involving Pope Alexander III and Louis VII. In early 1170, the situation was exacerbated by Henry’s decision to have his son crowned. The right of coronation was traditionally held by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but since Becket was in exile, the king arranged for the bishops of York and London to perform the ceremony. Becket and his supporters viewed this act as a direct infringement on the rights of the see of Canterbury, and Becket retaliated by excommunicating the bishops who had performed the ceremony. By autumn of 1170, the pressure on the king for settlement had become intense, and a fragile reconciliation was achieved during a peace parley held at Fréteval. Thomas returned to England, although he had been advised that he was courting danger by doing so. The king promised that all of Thomas’s former possessions and those of his associates would be restored in peace and security. All he required in return was that Thomas render to him every service that an archbishop should, by rights, perform for a king. The imminent arrival of the archbishop did not engender universal support, and Thomas had received reports that the opposition to his return

12  Introduction was being organized by the alienated prelates and royal officials and courtiers. These men would undoubtedly arrest him; he told the pope that they intended to cut off his head. Thomas’s return to Canterbury, on the first of December 1170, was one of triumph. In each village on the route from the coast, the archbishop’s party was met with a festive procession led by the priest and greeted by crowds of joyous townspeople. When he arrived at Christ Church, he prostrated himself and then greeted each of his monks with the kiss of peace. Several days later, when Thomas had traveled to Winchester in an attempt to see Young King Henry, he was informed by the king’s men that he must go back to Canterbury and remain there. Thomas obeyed, returning to his see and attempting to carry out his spiritual duties as best he could under the circumstances. The city was blockaded, with troops stationed at bridges and crossroads. The dispute continued, with letters of negotiation being sent between the parties and to the pope, although little hope of settlement remained. Following Becket’s return and his excommunications of the bishops, the archbishops of York, London and Salisbury traveled to the court of the king in Normandy to inform him of Becket’s actions. Incited by the reports of the clergy, the king uttered the fatal words to his companions reported by Edward Grim: “What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and promoted in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born clerk!” The king’s harangue provided the impetus for a secret plot to be initiated by four of his knights, William de Tracy, Reginald fitzUrse, Hugh de Morville, and Richard le Bret. They returned to Canterbury, where, on December 29, they approached the archbishop in his apartments. Following a heated argument with the king’s men, Thomas entered Canterbury Cathedral at approximately four o’clock in the afternoon, during the singing of the monastic vespers. He began to mount the staircase in the north aisle which led to the choir, but he had not proceeded very far when the first of his pursuers, probably Reginald fitzUrse, entered that north transept by the same door. Upon entering the church, the assailants shouted, “Where is the traitor? Where is the archbishop?” The archbishop started back down the steps and turned right to stand by a pillar in the center of the opening to the transept, calling out to the knights, “Here I am. No traitor to the king, but a priest of God. What do you want of me?” Thomas, according to his biographers, was prepared, even anxious, for martyrdom. His wished to give an example to his flock; he intended to follow in the footsteps of his Lord Jesus Christ. When he realized that he was near to death, he adopted a submissive pose, as in prayer, saying “I commend myself to God, the Blessed Mary, St Denis, and the patron saints of this church.” There are some discrepancies in the accounts of the matrydom by the earliest biographers, but it seems most probable that the baron whom Thomas

Introduction 13 addressed as Reginald delivered the first blow. Edward Grim, close beside his master, thrust out his arm to ward off the attack, but the sword sliced off the top of the archbishop’s head and cut through the clerk’s arm to the bone. Either this, or the second blow, forced the archbishop to his knees and then to his hands; he died flat on his face, with his head to the north and the altar of St Benedict to his right. While he lay there another baron, identified by FitzStephen and Guernes as Richard le Bret, delivered such a fierce blow to the archbishop’s head that he completed the severance of the crown and also broke his sword in two on the pavement. Finally, Hugh of Horsea, known as Mauclerc, put his foot on the victim’s neck, thrust the point of his sword into the open skull and scattered blood and brains on the floor. “Let’s be off, knights,” he shouted. “This fellow won’t get up again!” The crowd in the cathedral was thrown into a general state of confusion, and the monks, stunned by the events, were unsure as to how to proceed. Initially, Thomas’s body was left virtually unattended and without a light. Some of the observers “smeared their eyes with blood; others brought little vessels and took by stealth what they could; others dipped strips from their garments in it.” The monks took care to preserve the remaining blood and garments, realizing almost immediately the precious qualities likely to be associated with the remains of the martyr. The following morning, the body was dressed for burial and placed in a marble sarcophagus in the crypt of the cathedral. There was no funeral Mass, or any other public religious service because of the pollution of the church. The cathedral, although reopened to the public in Easter week 1171, remained out of liturgical use until the festival of St Thomas the Apostle (December 21), which was the martyr’s secular birthday, when it was reconciled and reconsecrated. At first it had been desolate and deserted, with the crosses veiled, the altars bare, and the bells silent; and then, no doubt to the initial consternation of the monks and the amazement of all authorities, it became the goal for pilgrims from all levels of society.

Notes 1 D. Knowles, “Archbishop Thomas Becket: A Character Study,” in D. Knowles, ed., The Historian and Character (Cambridge, 1963), 98. 2 E. Walberg, La Tradition hagiographique de Saint Thomas Becket avant la fin du XIIe siècle (Paris, 1929). 3 Thomas M. Jones, ed., The Becket Controversy (New York, 1970). 4 J.W. Alexander, “The Becket Controversy in Recent Historiography,” The Journal of British Studies 9 (1970): 1–25. 5 T. Reuter, “Velle sibi fieri in forma hoc: Symbolic Acts in the Becket Dispute,” in Janet L. Nelson, ed., Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities (Cambridge, 2006), 168, ft. 5. 6 The Icelandic Thómas Saga was translated into English by E. Magnússen and published in the Rolls Series in the nineteenth century. 7 P.L. Hughes and J.F. Larkin, eds., Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3 vols. (New Haven, 1964–1969), i, 270–76.

14  Introduction 8 F.W. Maitland, “Henry II and the Criminous Clerks,” in Roman Canon Law in the Church of England: Six Essays (London, 1898), 132–47. 9 F. Barlow, Thomas Becket (Berkeley, 1986). 10 Barlow, Thomas Becket, xi. 11 A. Duggan, Thomas Becket (London, 2004), 264. 12 According to J.C. Robertson, the editor of the Becket volumes in the Rolls Seris, the often-heard form à Becket was not used by the original biographers, and “appears to have originated in vulgar colloquial usage” (J.C. Robertson, Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury: A Biography (London, 1859), 14, ft. a.). W.H. Hutton found the use of the “barbarism” à Becket “as ugly as it is useless.” (W.H. Hutton, Thomas Becket: Archbishop of Canterbury (Cambridge, 1910, revised ed. 1926), vii).

Part I

Saint and cult

1 The creation of St Thomas of Canterbury

The original literary sources for a study of the life of Thomas Becket are vast, and begin with reports of miracles recorded at the tomb and elsewhere, biographies by his close associates, correspondence to and from the archbishop, and descriptions by chroniclers.1 Generally speaking, the biographers followed the common exegetical pattern established in the early Lives of the saints; their subject was modeled according to the acknowledged conventions of sacred biography.2 On a literal level, the writers reported the details concerning events in the life of the Canterbury martyr, whereas on an allegorical plane, they sought to establish and emphasize the connections between Becket and earlier saints, especially those whose biographical circumstances were shown to imitate the life of Christ. The writers were also intent on providing a well-documented historical account of the struggle between Becket and Henry II which must have been, to their knowledge, the most significant event in the relationship of Church and State that had ever occurred in England.3 Indeed, discussion of these issues, which were of national and even international importance, was inevitable,4 and the writers incorporated much detail concerning the historical, non-hagiographical aspects of Becket’s life.5 Fortunately, these men constituted, in the words of R.B. Dobson, “a positive galaxy of contemporary hagiographers and chroniclers not at all unworthy of the occasion and often capable of reflecting upon that conflict in all its complexity.”6 In spite of their interest in the political aspects of Becket’s life, the biographers were devoted to their primary task of sacred biography, which was to authenticate and celebrate the saint by demonstrating his qualities of holiness. Since the writers were all clerks or monks professionally devoted to the archbishop and his cause, they were, as David Knowles observed, “in every way, and above all in their analysis of character, committed to the ultimate sanctity of their subject.”7 As many scholars have observed, “Becket’s only claim to sanctity was his martyrdom,”8 and thus the biographers were faced with the task of presenting the events of his life in such a way as to demonstrate his saintly qualities: Purity of morals, works of piety during life, intensity of penitential practices such as fasting and abstinence, wearing a hairshirt, mortification, austerity

18  Saint and cult in dress and conduct, and courageous acts. Moreover, as Andre Vauchez wrote in his magisterial analysis of sanctity, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, “one of the principal criteria of sainthood was perseverance to the end,”9 a characteristic exemplified by the Canterbury martyr. All of the biographers claimed that Becket’s piety and holiness were evident from his birth, and that these qualities were inherent in his personality; indeed, they were present throughout his career. For example, several of the writers, most notably Edward Grim and the author of the Icelandic Saga, pointed to heavenly signs evident at his birth,10 followed by a brief account of a childhood in which Thomas was shown to be unusually devout, having been taught pious devotion to the Virgin Mary by his mother. The writers, who were determined to explain the seeming incongruity of Becket’s career as chancellor and his close friendship with Henry, emphasized the continuous nature of his internal piety. They were careful to point out that underneath the well-known pomp and display of his wealth and office, he privately devoted many hours to prayer, eschewing the temptations of the court; further, he never exceeded the bounds of chastity and honor. Edward Grim wrote, for example, that “he retained a chaste body and a humble heart, hidden to the powerful.”11 In essence, the biographers claimed that Thomas, innately pious, experienced a gradual progression of spiritual growth which led purposefully to his life as archbishop. Henry’s court was replete with intrigue, and the king’s close relationship with his chancellor created much jealousy among the powerful nobles. According to most of the biographers, Becket had to constantly fight the “beasts of the court,” protecting the king’s interests above all other considerations. It was evident that he was devoted to the service of his monarch, at some points even slighting the interests of the Church – a stance which created animosity among the bishops. Thus, when Henry appointed Becket to the archbishopric of Canterbury, in addition to his own internal struggle with the decision, he lacked the support of the men who would become his episcopal colleagues.12 For his biographers, Becket’s conversion to the ecclesiastical life – his transformation into a “new man” – was, with the exception of the martyrdom itself, the most important aspect of his career. It was given prominent discussion by all of the writers, who demonstrated that his fidelity to the honor of God against his royal and ecclesiastical opponents was shown by his steadfast devotion to the cause of the Church. His transformation from royal secular official, beloved by the king, to staunch defender of the rights of the ecclesiastical realm, was a preoccupation of the contemporaneous biographers as well as generations of writers and scholars extending from Becket’s own era to the present day.13 For the twelfth-century authors, the theme of conversion was fully consistent with the narrative of Becket’s entire life, and provided further evidence of the underlying sanctity and purity of his inner being.14 As Michael Staunton has observed, Becket’s transformation was “a central aspect in the depiction of Becket’s life and death, his

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 19 character and his cause, featuring not only in the accounts of his election and consecration but interwoven throughout the narrative.”15 To one degree or another, the salient events in the dispute between Becket and the king were described in all of the vitae. Some of the biographers, most notably John of Salisbury and Herbert of Bosham, were directly involved in this struggle, though all of them were concerned to present the principal issues. Several, especially William FitzStephen, included much specific information about the Council at Northampton,16 and all of them examined the disagreement over the Constitutions of Clarendon, inserting parts of the text of the Constitutions to substantiate their claims. The writers viewed the Constitutions as a source of clear demarcation identifying the issues between archbishop and king – between crown and crozier. Indeed, Herbert of Bosham called the provisions of the Constitutions “the full cause of dissension . . . the reason for exile and martyrdom.”17 An especially contentious issue in the Constitutions was the question of “criminous clerks” – whether clergymen should be tried in ecclesiastical or secular courts. The fullest and most complete analysis of this issue was given by Herbert of Bosham and William of Canterbury, though all of the other biographers dealt with the question to some extent. Certainly, the issue was a vital concern to all of the writers, and was to become a focus of interest for legal historians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The sequence of events leading up to Thomas’s exile was presented in the Lives as a prelude to his martyrdom, in which his circumstances were compared to those of Christ before his crucifixion.18 The biographers were compelled to explain and justify the archbishop’s voluntary exile, during which he, as pastor, had abandoned his flock. His actions had been widely criticized by his ecclesiastical colleagues, who saw them as “a cowardly and damaging dereliction of duty.”19 In order to address these criticisms, Michael Staunton has pointed out that William of Canterbury and Becket’s other biographers viewed the exile “through the prism of Thomas’s death and posthumous acclaim.”20 They characterized the archbishop’s flight as a “justifiable escape from physical persecution, a fruitful and brave endeavor on behalf of the Church,” and a necessary part of his journey toward martyrdom, using references to the works of Augustine to support their views.21 The occasion of Becket’s return to Canterbury following his exile offered another opportunity for Christological comparisons. The biographers established elaborate parallels between Thomas’s return to his see and Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, pointing to the adoring crowds of worshippers and the emotional welcome of his colleagues as the archbishop approached and entered his cathedral. Descriptions of his dramatic death allowed the writers to compare Thomas to the early Christian martyrs, whose violent murders were viewed as the most potent expression of the imitation of Christ.22 This Christological similarity was reinforced by the reports of miracles at the site of the martyrdom and elsewhere, which firmly established his sainthood.

20  Saint and cult In addition to the Christological associations, several major themes may be discerned in the works of the biographers. The first is that of the bonus pastor. Becket’s life was presented as a pattern to be emulated by his successors in the clergy; they should be dedicated to the care of those who were dependent upon them, and should not shirk from the ultimate sacrifice, the pattern of goodness in which “the Good Shepherd laid down his life for his sheep.” Another crucial image was that of Becket as Defender of the Church. Thomas demonstrated strength and heroic courage in the struggle between the Church and the encroaching demands of secular authority. All of the biographers stressed this aspect of Thomas’s personality, and the concept was to prove immensely influential in subsequent centuries; it became a clarion call to action for churchmen throughout England and Europe who found themselves in similar circumstances. For laypeople as well as clergy, the vision of Becket as Martyr engendered veneration; they recognized his identification with Christ, and contemplation of his life offered an example of spiritual renewal and salvation to be worshiped and emulated. An even more potent force was the belief in Thomas as a miracle worker; this image provided the most powerful impetus to the growth of his cult. Moreover, the accounts of the miraculous events established the criteria for sainthood. As Ben Nilson has remarked: The recognition of a saint required two things: sanctity of life and posthumous miracles. The latter eventually became the more important of the two, since a virtuous life did not guarantee that the prospective saint had not fallen from grace soon before his death, while miracles proved that the candidate was with God.23

The twelfth-century biographers The initial account of the martyrdom, as many previous scholars have noted, was the letter, Ex insperato, by John of Salisbury, probably written in early 1171, soon after the murder. As may be seen in the list ahead, the works of most of the other early biographers were completed during the decade following Becket’s death. Although there has been scholarly debate through the centuries concerning the order in which the biographies were written,24 there is now general agreement as to the chronology. The following list is based on the work of Frank Barlow25 and Michael Staunton:26 John of Salisbury Edward Grim Anonymous II (Lambeth) Benedict of Peterborough William of Canterbury William FitzStephen

1171–1172 1171–1172 1172–1173 1173–1174 1173–1174 1173–1174

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 21 Guernes of Ponte-Sainte-Maxence Robert of Cricklade Anonymous I Alan of Tewkesbury Lansdowne Anonymous (III) Benet of St Albans Herbert of Bosham Quadrilogus II Quadrilogus I

1174 1172–1174 1176–1177 1176 117727 1184 1184–1186 1189 1212–1213

George Greenaway, writing some decades ago, observed that the “measure of agreement between the various narratives is remarkable and impressive,” although there is “a great deal of discrepancy on various details.”28 There are often areas of verbal coincidence in the accounts of the various authors, indicating a common source or suggesting that they copied from one another.29 Although the works are interrelated, each contains information not presented in the others; hence, as Antonia Gransden has remarked, they supplement and complement one another.30 The differences are generally confined to details concerning the sequence of events or the identities of the speakers at the various councils and conferences, and since the commonalities far outweigh the discrepancies, the Lives, generally speaking, achieve a high level of veracity.31 The following discussion provides a brief summary of the works of each of these writers, emphasizing their individual views of the character of the Canterbury Saint. John of Salisbury (1120–1180) As Michael Staunton has observed, John of Salisbury was “ideally suited as a biographer of Thomas Becket.”32 By the time of Becket’s murder, he was already an established scholar and author, whose best known treatises, the Policraticus and the Metalogicon, were both dedicated to his friend Thomas. John and Becket had been fellow clerks in Archbishop Theobald’s household, and he served Becket when he became archbishop. As one of Becket’s eruditi, he was a close associate and, along with Herbert of Bosham, the archbishop’s most influential advisor. He wrote numerous letters advocating support of the archbishop, and utilized his important connections with prominent and influential members of the clergy to further Becket’s cause.33 The two men were in exile in France during the same period, and John, like Thomas, returned to Canterbury in late December 1170.34 He was present in the cathedral at the time of the murder, although he fled from the immediate scene when the murderous intent of the knights became evident. John’s famous letter, Ex insperato,35 is the earliest account of the martyrdom of Becket, and the first example of commemorative writing concerning the archbishop. Composed within several weeks of the murder in the cathedral (December 29, 1170),36 it was soon expanded into a brief Vita.

22  Saint and cult The Vita was originally designed as a prologue to a collection of Becket’s letters, begun by John but completed in 1176 by Alan of Tewkesbury.37 Both Ex insperato and the Life were widely circulated in Europe, providing circumstantial evidence which helped to form a powerful and enduring image of the martyr. The Vita was sometimes divided into lections for liturgical use, occurring in martyrologies, lectionaries, and breviaries, most often in France.38 As John himself wrote in his Vita, his account is a “concise and quite brief discourse,” reviewing the sum of Becket’s life and setting forth the reason for his martyrdom.39 It is succinct in comparison to the other Lives of Becket, and has been generally evaluated as a disappointment, being considered, even by most of his contemporaries, to be too brief a summation.40 Barlow, for example, characterized the Vita as “a short, cool and careful account which from the start was considered inadequate,”41 and Beryl Smalley viewed it as “derivative and impersonal.”42 There has also been scholarly debate comparing John’s Vita to that by William of Canterbury. Since these Lives have so much in common, it has been argued that John copied William, or the other way around; however, there is no consensus concerning this view. As Hanna Vollrath has remarked, it seems most likely that one of the writers had access to the work of the other, although it is impossible to know the exact derivation.43 John was not only the first to express the events of the martyrdom in writing, but also the first to discuss Becket as a martyr, and to compare his actions and sufferings with those of Christ.44 Several scholars have observed that the message of the letter and Vita was aimed at the papal curia, and Anne Duggan sees the Life as the “unabashed hagiography of a saint,” rather than a biography of the archbishop. Certainly, however, the work has an important place among the materials for the study of Becket’s life: The letter which formed the basis of the biography is the earliest known literary account of the martyrdom, and it may be viewed as the earliest posthumous assessment of the archbishop’s life. Further, as Michael Staunton has pointed out, it is the “closest we have to a dossier submitted to support his canonization.”45 Edward Grim (fl. 1170–1177) The clerk Edward Grim was visiting Canterbury in December 1170 when he became an unwitting participant in Becket’s murder. Nearly all of the archbishop’s monks and clerks, including John of Salisbury, abandoned him as the knights approached, seeking refuge in the dark recesses of the cathedral. Grim stood steadfastly by Thomas, attempting to protect the archbishop by shielding him with his arm, which was almost severed during the attack.46 Grim’s presence at the scene gives his description of the murder special credence, establishing the importance of his version. Although it is the shortest of the major biographies, his work has significance because it was one of

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 23 the earliest accounts, the first recension being 1171 or 1172. Further, since Grim’s only association with Becket took place at the very end of his life, it was necessary for him to gather information about the circumstances of the archbishop’s life from others when writing his biography. Hence, his Life bears witness to the ways in which the archbishop’s life and murder were being viewed immediately after the slaughter. Although Grim’s work has chronological priority, it lacks the detail and accuracy of the Vitae by William of Canterbury or William FitzStephen. However, as Anne Duggan has pointed out, Grim was the first biographer to use specific items of correspondence in his account, thereby establishing an important precedent that was followed by later writers.47 Moreover, Grim’s Vita provided a model and chronological framework for other Lives, although each author emphasized and expanded upon the information according to his own vision and personal knowledge of Thomas. In some cases, the biographers incorporated new research, and in others they improved upon the narrative style;48 however, Grim’s work is basic to an understanding of how the legend of Thomas Becket developed over time, and how the conventions of sacred biography were applied to the details of the archbishop’s life in order to establish his sainthood. Anonymous II The writer known as Anonymous II, sometimes called “of Lambeth” after the provenance of the only known manuscript of his entire Vita,49 is thought, by some scholars, to have been connected with the diocese of London. Others have debated this, believing instead that he was a monk at Canterbury and a witness to the murder of the archbishop. However, some historians have cast doubt on this conclusion, writing that there is no evidence other than his remarks in the Prologue that he was an eyewitness.50 The work follows the customary chronological pattern and shows the influence of the Vita of John of Salisbury, but it includes very little circumstantial detail, concentrating instead on the quarrel between Thomas and the king. The author may have chosen this focus in order to provide a defense against the criticism of the archbishop which lingered following the martyrdom. Anonymous II declared that his purpose was to “edify,” and in constructing his defense of the archbishop he drew upon biblical references as well as the writings of Augustine and Gregory the Great. His work was a response to critics such as Thomas’s enemy Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, and others who questioned the archbishop’s motivation and actions – attacks which continued after his death, especially prior to his canonization. In analyzing the archbishop’s life, the writer concluded: Since nothing evil was evident around him, surely the things which appeared good should be given a better construction; certainly his

24  Saint and cult commendable cause, his praiseworthy life and his marvelous end. And if there was blame in his entrance to honour, clearly nevertheless the glory of so singular an exit excused it and should have been considered to have atoned for it.51 Benedict of Peterborough (d. 1193) Benedict of Peterborough was a monk at Christ Church, Canterbury, who became prior in 1175 and abbot of Peterborough in 1177.52 He is best known for his collection of the miracles of Thomas, begun following a vision in which the saint instructed him to record the miraculous events as pilgrims visited his tomb.53 Benedict was an eyewitness to the murder of the archbishop, and his Passio, written at the request of the community, is an account of the martyrdom, rather than a complete Vita. It no longer exists in its entirety; the portions incorporated into the Quadrilogus54 provide our only access to his work, although it is thought that most of it has been preserved in the compilation. Benedict was also the author of the rhymed office for Thomas’s feast day, drawing from his Passio to create the texts for the antiphons, responsories, and lessons.55 The Passio was probably completed in 1173, following the third book of miracles. His account of the martyrdom begins with the interview between Thomas and the knights and traces the events of the murder in vivid detail. His work has close connections with Ex insperato, the letter of John of Salisbury, and also shows the influence of Grim’s Life, although there are some details not found in these works. Most striking is Benedict’s extensive use of biblical parallelism – a feature which lends credence to the claim that he also composed the office for Thomas’s feast day. For example, Benedict’s description of the Canterbury martyr’s final moments is compared more directly to the suffering of Christ than those found in the accounts of the other biographers. William of Canterbury (fl. 1170–1180) William of Canterbury was also a monk at Christ Church, Canterbury. A relative newcomer, he had been vested and ordained by Thomas upon his return from exile in December 1170. Like Benedict, he was present when Becket was murdered, but fled to the recesses of the cathedral when the knights became violent. Some months following the martyrdom, he was inspired to write down Thomas’s miracles as a result of three visions of the archbishop in which he saw Becket holding out a book to him as he lay sleeping.56 Realizing the meaning of the apparitions, and strongly encouraged by his brethren, he joined Benedict in collecting the miracles (probably by mid-1172); his work continued after Benedict left Canterbury for Peterborough.57 As Rachel Koopmans makes clear, the two monks worked “in tandem rather than in parallel,” and each conceived of his collection as

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 25 being fully independent of the other.58 For example, rather than assembling the miracles chronologically as Benedict did, William grouped his accounts thematically.59 Further, as Michael Staunton has remarked, whereas Benedict’s account is “a relatively unadorned reflection of the popular cult,” William demonstrates that the community of Christ Church “took the initiative in shaping the cult.”60 William’s Life was probably written after the miracle collection.61 Like the Passio of Benedict, it formed part of the Quadrilogus, and is contained in full in only one manuscript.62 The work is divided into two parts; the first concerns Thomas’s life from childhood to the end of his exile, and the second provides information concerning the events following his return to England. The circumstances of his early career are presented with less detail than the material following his election as archbishop, possibly because of William’s late entry into the archbishop’s circle. Not surprisingly, William made use of biblical parallels and quotations, beginning his work with a lengthy comparison between Thomas and Christ.63 Further, his Vita is notable for the inclusion of passages from canon law and Becket letters.64 Indeed, his narrative is “closely dependent” on letters dealing with the controversy, and he refers to the most important canonical sources of the time, Gratian and Rufinus.65 He obviously had access to all the records available after the archbishop’s death, and his biography was one of the most instrumental in creating the legend of the martyr. William FitzStephen (d. 1191) William FitzStephen was, according to his own account, a “fellow-citizen” of Thomas, serving as his chaplain and functioning as a member of his household.66 In the Prologue to his biography of Becket, he claimed to have been the archbishop’s subdeacon, and said that he read letters and documents put forward in Thomas’s court, sometimes serving as his advocate in specific cases. His interest in legal matters, as well as royal administration and finance, is clearly indicated in his Vita of Becket. FitzStephen was present with the archbishop at Northampton, and his account of the actions of the council and Becket’s response is the most detailed and complete of all the biographers. He was a witness to the martyrdom, and his description of the brutal murder is colorful and heartfelt. Strangely, he was not mentioned by any of his contemporaries, nor was he included in Herbert of Bosham’s list of Thomas’s eruditi. Various explanations have been given for this omission; some scholars have observed that it is evident from William’s Life that he maintained relatively close contact with Henry II and the royal court, having made his peace with the king by presenting him with a prayer at his court at Brill.67 This connection may have alienated him from those in Becket’s intimate circle of associates. Further, FitzStephen was perhaps associated with Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, since his biography appears as an introduction to a collection

26  Saint and cult of correspondence from the bishop’s archives. Because Foliot was one of Becket’s most implacable enemies and a leader of the episcopal opposition, FitzStephen’s connection with him may have also made him persona non grata among the archbishop’s close circle.68 As Mary Cheney has remarked, FitzStephen “stands apart from the rest of the biographers.”69 The early Lives written by Becket’s associates may be considered as a “Canterbury group,” and as Walberg and several other scholars have pointed out, there are close links between them.70 FitzStephen, by contrast, relied on his memory and documents available to him in the archbishop’s archives, as well as those of the Bishop of London. Scholars have widely regarded Fitzstephen’s biography as the best of the Becket Lives. It is not only written in lively and colorful prose, but it is generally full and accurate, including details not found in the works of the other biographers.71 Further, Fitzstephen’s Life is based upon his own observations, rather than the accounts of others. Although he uses the Becket correspondence more sparingly than several of the other biographers, he includes references to letters whenever his information is not from firsthand observation.72 His work is most informative about Thomas’s career as chancellor, providing much information not included by other writers. Since he did not accompany Becket into exile, his work is sparse concerning this period of the archbishop’s life. However, he supplies interesting details concerning activities in England and the royal court during this period. Not surprisingly, his work includes biblical references and allusions to Christian writers, but he also uses copious classical references. As Michael Staunton has remarked, he was an acute observer of everyday life and he seems to be “less of a hagiographer than a biographer or historian.”73 Guernes of Pont-Sainte-Maxence (fl. 1170–1180) The biography by Guernes of Pont-Sainte-Maxence was begun in 1171 and completed in 1174. It was the earliest Vita of Becket in Anglo-Norman, or “insular,” French, the vernacular tongue of the Anglo-Norman ruling elite in England.74 His work shows, as Ian Short has observed, the dedication of a conscientious historian, revealed in the author’s mention of his technique.75 Guernes tells his readers and listeners that he abandoned his first version of the martyr’s life because he had used only written sources.76 Preferring to base his biography on oral testimony from Becket’s friends and acquaintances, he traveled from France to England in order to collect information from those close to the archbishop.77 During his trip, he visited Barking Abbey, among other places, where Becket’s sister, Mary, was abbess.78 Guernes labored patiently over his revision, “inserting some things and removing others.”79 He claimed that his work, which was often read publicly at the saint’s tomb Canterbury,80 “is both truthful and complete. Even at the risk of death or perdition, I [did] not stray from the path of truth.”81 While his biography shows the influence of Edward Grim and William of Canterbury, he also

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 27 consulted Benedict of Peterborough and William FitzStephen.82 However, his synthesis of these sources coupled with his own opinions, especially his views on clerical immunity and King Henry’s defects as a monarch, indicates original work, rather than slavish dependence on the other biographers.83 Scholars have also noted Guernes’s use of the decretals of Gratian, evidently drawn from Becket’s correspondence.84 Guernes was ostensibly writing an account of Becket’s entire life, but the completed work focusses primarily on his time as archbishop and the events which led to his martyrdom. As Ian Short, the most recent translator of Guernes’s work, has pointed out, more than nine-tenths of the poem (lines 741–6180) concerns this period of the archbishop’s history; his early life is given short shrift.85 Despite its limited focus, Guernes’s text is important because of its popular reception. Since it was read publicly at the saint’s tomb in Canterbury, it provides close evidence of the ways in which enthusiastic pious emotion was roused, and how literary compositions contributed to the development of the martyr’s cult. Guernes’s text offers an understanding of how and why the murder in the cathedral engendered widespread popular piety, both in Anglo-Norman England and on the European continent.86 Robert of Cricklade (d. in or after 1174) Robert of Cricklade was prior of the Augustinian house of St Frideswide’s, Oxford, from 1141 until his death in 1174.87 In about 1160, while walking on a beach during a journey in Sicily, he suffered an injury to his legs which resulted in chronic pain and disability. As Benedict of Peterborough tells us in his collection of miracles, Robert, hearing of the healing power of St Thomas, traveled to Canterbury, where he visited the saint’s tomb and bathed his legs in the healing water.88 His condition improved rapidly, and he ultimately achieved full recovery.89 His cure made him a devoted supporter of the cult of Becket, and he was inspired to create a Vita et miracula of the saint, which he completed in 1173–1174.90 Although his work no longer exists in its entirety, it formed the basis for the Life of Becket by the monk Beneit of St Albans, described ahead.91 Parts of Robert’s Life were also incorporated into the Icelandic Thomas saga II, to be discussed in Chapter 2.92 Anonymous I (Roger of Pontigny) The nineteenth-century historian J.A. Giles identified the author known as Anonymous I as “Roger of Pontigny,” a monk who may have been Thomas’s servant while he was at Pontigny, and he has often been given this name in the scholarly literature.93 Roger claimed that he was consecrated by the archbishop himself and wrote that he was with “the blessed man” at the time of his exile.94 His avowed purpose was to correct the opinions of those

28  Saint and cult who believe contrary things about Thomas “due to their ignorance.”95 Writing that John of Salisbury’s Life was too brief, he proposed to include facts that he had personally “seen and heard,” or gleaned from the testimony of the “most certain and faithful report of those who were present.”96 His work is valuable because it preserves some of Becket’s own memories and reflects his views and opinions.97 Surprisingly, the anonymous writer has little to say about the archbishop’s experiences while at Pontigny, but, since he wrote primarily to provide information for the monks, he may have felt it unnecessary to include details which would have been familiar to them.98 The Vita of Anonymous I follows the basic pattern set out by John of Salisbury and Edward Grim, but as Michael Staunton has observed, his work “tells the story with a pithiness and precision not found in any of the other Lives.”99 For example, he included details in the narrative which provide insight into the developing conflict between Thomas and Henry II, thus helping the reader to understand the issues involved more thoroughly. The clarity of his account may be a result of his inclination to omit biblical exegesis and Christological parallelism, for the most part. He also tended to dismiss the prophetic and miraculous elements, devoting only one sentence of his final paragraph to a description of the miracles following Becket’s martyrdom.100 Alan of Tewkesbury (c. 1150–1202) Alan of Tewkesbury was an Englishman who studied in continental schools before becoming a canon at Benevento. In 1174, he returned to his native country and entered the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, as a novice. In 1179, he was chosen to be prior, when he was “almost forced” on Archbishop Richard by his fellow monks, who held a “high opinion of his character.”101 During his tenure as prior, he strenuously protected the interests of his convent against powerful adversaries, including the king and the archbishop. Following a dispute with Archbishop Baldwin, he was elected Abbot of St Mary’s, Tewkesbury.102 He died in 1202, having held his office for about 14 years. As mentioned earlier, Alan was instrumental in bringing to completion the collection of Becket correspondence begun by John of Salisbury.103 It is the largest and most comprehensive compilation of letters assembled by contemporaries, including correspondence that relates to Becket’s life, his dispute with the king, and his martyrdom. It was clearly intended as a tribute to the martyr, encapsulating a justification of his cause and providing a monument to his steadfastness in the face of royal authority.104 Alan’s collection was carefully arranged, beginning with a prologue which set forth the purpose and design of the collection, followed by another prologue by John of Salisbury, then the Vita by John of Salisbury, and finally Alan’s explanatory material.105 These supplements to John’s work are of primary interest in our discussion.

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 29 In his Prologus, in addition to providing information about the organization of the letter collection, Alan wrote that John’s Vita left out much essential information, since it was “brief and succinct.”106 Although John’s work was “elegant,” more details were necessary to fully comprehend Thomas’s life. Alan proposed to add this missing information, especially concerning Thomas’s dispute with Henry, and his Explanatio,107 which appears after John’s Vita, was written to provide a more complete description of the circumstances. Hence, his work sets out details concerning the Council of Clarendon in January 1164, and extends the discussion to the time of the pope’s departure from France in April 1165. The most important areas of focus in Alan’s account are Thomas’s trial at the Council of Northampton in October 1164 and his audience with the pope at Sens the next month. He ends his account with the peace conference at Montmirail in January 1169. His account is careful to present varying points of view, exploring, for example, the differing opinions of Becket’s household during the councils. He also includes details of the attitudes of the bishops, including those of Gilbert of London, Henry of Winchester, Roger of Worcester, Hilary of Chichester, Robert of Lincoln, Bartholomew of Exeter and Gilbert Foliot. As Michael Staunton has observed, the theme which is evident throughout Alan’s work is clear. Although there were blemishes on Thomas’s record, the letters in the collection demonstrate that the critical voices were blind to his sanctity. The case against the archbishop, succinctly expressed in Gilbert Foliot’s hostile letter Multiplicem nobis, could not be erased; it required answers. The letter collection was assembled during the time that the cult was being built, and the various Lives were written during a time when criticism of Becket was still in memory. The critical and hostile views could not be ignored; indeed, they could be of benefit to Thomas’s legacy, bringing the issues concerning the martyr’s sanctity into clear focus. For Alan, the letters spoke for themselves, addressing the negative views clearly and directly, and demonstrating that the man who had risen from the royal court to become archbishop had died for ecclesiastical liberty, and had laid down his life for his sheep.108 Beneit of St Albans (fl. 1170–1190) Apart from the work of Guernes, the earliest Life of Becket in the vernacular (Anglo-Norman, or “insular” French) was written at St Albans monastery, where the monk Beneit produced a Life of Thomas Becket which had evidently been commissioned by a nobleman – Simon fitz Simon – for his wife, Isabel.109 The source for Beneit’s Vie de Thomas Becket has been traced to the missing Life by Robert of Cricklade, prior of St Frideswide’s, Oxford (discussed earlier), which Beneit may have discovered in the library of St Albans.110 His work, probably composed in 1184,111 has been judged as mediocre;112 however, it is important as an early representative of a vernacular literary tradition at the monastery where Matthew Paris was to

30  Saint and cult become an important author and artist some 35 years later.113 Further, as Ian Short has remarked, Beneit’s work offers a “small but significant” illustration of the interplay between monastic and lay cultures during the late twelfth century.114 It is interesting to note that, although Beneit concludes his Life with a prayer for the king, his wife and children, he makes clear that the argument between royal and ecclesiastical forces is, in reality, one between ordained power and private caprice: Holy Church has its high office Which is completely verified by the truth Which is God. And the king has a power Which is wielded according to his will And as it pleases him.115 Herbert of Bosham (fl. 1162–1189) The Life by Herbert of Bosham is the last and the longest of the independent Becket biographies.116 It was written between 1184 and 1186, and relies primarily upon the personal memories of the author, rather than documentary evidence such as letters.117 Herbert entered Becket’s service during the archbishop’s tenure as chancellor, and he may have been in royal service prior to that time.118 When Becket was elected to the archbishopric, Herbert remained among his group of clerks. He was present at the councils of Westminster and Northampton and witnessed the dramatic events at Vézelay and Fréteval. He was also the only one of the biographers who was with Becket during the period of the archbishop’s exile, assisting his master by drafting letters and engaging in theological study.119 He was Thomas’s closest associate, and claimed to have listened to Becket’s thoughts; he also wrote that he provided the archbishop with advice at crucial moments, an assertion substantiated in the other Lives.120 In 1170. Herbert returned to England with Becket, but was sent by the archbishop on a mission to France several days before the martyrdom; thus, to his regret, he did not witness the murder in the cathedral. Although the Life by Herbert of Bosham is the longest and most ambitious of the Becket biographies, it has not been universally appreciated. Many scholars have criticized his work for its prolixity and the frequent addition of theological discourse and dispute. In the nineteenth century, for example, Eiríkr Magnússon, editor of the Icelandic Thomas Saga for the Rolls Series, wrote that the Vita by Herbert of Bosham “for bad literary taste, irrelevancy and vanity, stands perhaps unrivalled in English literature.”121 His opinion was echoed by Robertson, who edited and printed Herbert’s entire Life, including parts of his addendum, the Liber Melorum, in the Rolls Series.122 Robertson observed that:

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 31 Herbert is, indeed, one of the most provoking of authors . . . [who tries] the patience with tedious superfluities . . . [and] often spends a further space in vindicating his diffuseness, and in telling us that we ought to be thankful for it.123 Further, “the author’s love of irrelevant and unreadable discourse is indulged to a degree almost inconceivable.”124 Radford also viewed Herbert’s Life in a negative light, writing that his biography was “painfully tedious . . . and prolonged to an unconscionable extent by ponderous reflections on almost every other incident.”125 Nonetheless, Magnússon and Radford did see some value in Herbert’s work. Magnússon viewed the biography as “a very valuable contribution to the Thomas cycle of writings for the historical matter it contains, the author having had all through exceptional facilities for knowing the truth.”126 Radford also pointed to the merits of Herbert’s lengthy and close association with Becket; he was privy to details of the archbishop’s life unknown to any of his other biographers. Herbert’s work has been viewed more favorably by twentieth-century scholars. Beryl Smalley, for example, called him “a gifted writer, an original thinker, an artist and the best Hebraist of his century.”127 Further, she wrote that his work is valuable for three reasons: he acted as a channel through with Becket exposed himself to the teaching of the schools; second, he presented his hero to the reading public through a scholar’s eyes in his Vita; third, since “a man is known by his friends,” his friendship with Becket should tell us something of a man who had few intimates.128 Anne Duggan believes that Herbert’s Life is “one of the most important accounts of the controversy,”129 because his record of the discussions and arguments within Becket’s household provides information vital to a thorough understanding of the issues involved in the conflict. The most valuable part of Herbert’s biography is his detailed account of the period of exile. Whereas the other biographers treated this period scantily, Herbert devoted more than half of his work to this part of Becket’s life. Hence, it is a significant addition to the historical record. In this section of the biography, as in the whole, Herbert includes substantial passages of exegesis and theological debate. Although he admitted that he might be “too tedious a wordsmith,” and remarked that he may seem to be “too much of a theologian and too little of a historian,” he justified his method by explaining that he sought “not only to explain the archbishop’s deeds but the reason for them, not only what was done but the mind of the doer . . . [which] without theology, without the language of God, the quality of God’s works” cannot be understood.130 Michael Staunton has provided the most recent assessment of Herbert’s work. In his opinion, “[Herbert’s] Life stands not only as a memorial to

32  Saint and cult Thomas, but, more than any of the other Lives, to his cause as well.”131 Further, as Herbert tells us in a letter to Becket’s successor, Baldwin of Canterbury (1184–1191), he intended for his Life, which he dedicated to Baldwin, to be “an immortal literary monument to Thomas as a model to Thomas’s successors, ‘For this man most certainly provides an example of a model, so that whatever he did, you ought to do the same.’ ”132 Quadrilogus I and II The Quadrilogus is a conflation of the Lives of Thomas by four of his associates.133 The initial Quadrilogus manuscript was completed in 1199 by E. (probably Elias), a monk of the Benedictine monastery of Evesham, and exists in two recensions, known as Quadrilogus I and II. Taking the gospels as a model, Elias skillfully wove together extracts from the biographies of John of Salisbury, William of Canterbury, Allan of Tewkesbury, and Herbert of Bosham, adding material from the Passio of Benedict of Peterborough to describe the murder and the events immediately following.134 The first version of the Quadrilogus was expanded by Roger, a monk of Crowland, who took on the task of inserting the relevant correspondence into the narrative of the Becket controversy written by Elias. Roger’s work was completed in 1212–1213.135 The numbering of the two versions is based upon the dates of the printed editions (1495 and 1682), and Quadrilogus II is actually the first of the manuscripts; it is considered to be the more authentic text of the two,136 although some scholars think that the conflated version by Roger of Crowland is even more useful because it contains vital correspondence concerning the dispute, thus amplifying the narrative with primary source materials.137 The composite Life became quite popular. In the thirteenth century it was translated into English,138 and into Anglo-Norman (insular French) by Matthew Paris for use in his illustrated Life of Becket, now extant only in a fragment known as the Becket Leaves.139 Twelfth-century chroniclers In addition to the works of the numerous biographers, the contemporary chronicles also provide lengthy accounts of the life of Becket and his struggle with Henry II. These include the writings of Gervase of Canterbury,140 Robert of Torigni,141 Roger of Howden (or Hoveden),142 William of Newburgh,143 Ralph of Diceto,144 Gerald of Wales,145 and several others. Like most medieval works of this type, the information presented is often based on other chronicles, and in writing about Becket the chroniclers also relied on the early biographies, although the material was recast according to the style and sentiments of the individual authors. Their works have provided useful supplements to the Becket Lives, offering subsequent scholars the opportunity to refine issues of chronology often blurred or omitted by the

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 33 writers of the vitae. Further, since their purpose was to document events, rather than to establish Becket’s sanctity, the chronicles are less hagiographical and more historically oriented. In creating the image of Thomas Becket as saint, the biographers and chroniclers emphasized the qualities of his personality and habits that established his sanctity – piety, chastity, personal mortifications, and persistence in the face of mortal danger. Indeed, his martyrdom became the ultimate expression of sainthood. In addition to establishing Christological parallels, their accounts also offered various themes, such as that of bonus pastor and Defender of the Church versus secular authority, which would be of significant influence in the work of generations of scholars. Becket became an icon to be emulated by the clergy and revered by the laity which endured for almost three hundred years, until the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Following that era, scholars in various traditions looked back to the works of Becket’s contemporaries to seek aspects of his personality which would enhance and support their own particular views and concerns. As we shall see in the remaining chapters, the foundation provided by the biographers and chroniclers, together with the archbishop’s correspondence, offered writers of the following centuries a vast trove of material from which to fashion their own biographies of the Canterbury martyr, or for use in examining specific aspects of his struggle with Henry II.

Notes 1 The biographies and correspondence were published in the nineteenth century in J.C. Robertson, ed., Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, 7 vols. (Rolls Series, London, 1875–9). This publication will be cited as Mats. in the following references. 2 For a discussion of the general content and organization of saints’ lives, see H. Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints, trans. D. Attwater (London, 1962) and T. Heffernan, Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988). See also J. O’Reilly, “The Double Martyrdom of Thomas Becket: Hagiography or History,” in J.A.S. Evans and R.W. Unger, eds., Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, vol. VII (New York, 1985), 183–247. 3 A. Gransden, Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307, 2 vols. (Ithaca, NY, 1974), i, 297. 4 O’Reilly, “Double Martyrdom,” 186. 5 Gransden, Historical Writing, 297. 6 R.B. Dobson, review of Thomas Becket by Frank Barlow, The English Historical Review 102, no. 404 (July 1987): 651–4–54, at 651. 7 D. Knowles, “Archbishop Thomas Becket: A Character Study,” in The Historian and Character, and Other Essays (Cambridge, 1963), 98–128, at 99. 8 Grandsen, Historical Writing, 297. Knowles, “Character Study,” 100. 9 A. Vauzhez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1997), 36, 513. 10 Mats. ii, 356–7. 11 Mats. ii, 363–5. Quoted M. Staunton, Thomas Becket and His Biographers (Woodbridge, 2006), 79.

34  Saint and cult 12 See the discussion of the attitude of Gilbert of Foliot, in particular, in D. Knowles, The Episcopal Colleagues of Thomas Becket (Cambridge, 1951), 44–9. 13 For a discussion of “Conversion” which analyzes the attitudes of the contemporaneous biographers, see M. Staunton, “Thomas Becket’s Conversion,” Anglo-Norman Studies 21 (1999): 193–211 and Chapter 8 in Staunton, Biographers, 75–96. 14 Staunton also analyzes Becket’s “conversion” within the theme of conversion, broadly defined. 15 Staunton, Biographers, 96. 16 This was, according to Staunton, the best-documented event of Thomas’s life, aside from his murder. Although Herbert of Bosham and William FitzStephen were eyewitnesses, the meeting is also fully described by William of Canterbury, Alan of Tewkesbury, Edward Grim, Anonymous I and Guernes (Staunton, Biographers, 132). 17 Staunton, Biographers, 98. 18 See the discussion in O’Reilly, “Double Martyrdom,” 195. 19 M. Staunton, “Exile in the Lives of Anselm and Thomas Becket,” in L. Napram and E. van Houts, eds., Exile in the Middle Ages: Selected Proceeding from the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 8–11 July 2002 (Belgium, 2004), 159–80, esp. 164–5. See also the comments of H. Antonsson, St. Magnús of Orkney: A Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in Context (Leiden, 2007), 62. 20 Staunton, “Exile,” 161. 21 Staunton, “Exile,” 161, 170–1. See also Staunton’s discussion of Herbert of Bosham’s views concerning Becket’s exile, 175–8. O’Reilly has pointed out that several of the biographers compared Becket’s exile to Christian pilgrimage, “Double Martyrdom,” 202. 22 O’Reilly, “Double Martyrdom,” 194. 23 B. Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 1998), 13. 24 For early twentieth-century scholarship concerning the chronological order, see E. Walberg, La Tradition hagiographique de Saint Thomas Becket avant la fin du XIIe siècle (Paris, 1929), and L. Halphen, “Les Biographes de Thomas Becket,” in Revue Historique 102/1 (1909): 35–45. 25 F. Barlow, Thomas Becket (Berkeley, 1986), 4–9. Barlow includes a chart demonstrating possible filiations between the works of the biographers. (5). 26 Staunton, Biographers, 4. 27 Based on internal evidence, Robertson wrote that the manuscript must have been completed by 1177. Mats. iv, xv. 28 G. Greenaway, ed. and trans., The Life and Death of Thomas Becket, Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury Based on the Account of William FitzStephen His Clerk with Additions from Other Contemporary Sources (London, 1961), 33. Michael Staunton agreed: “Though there is some error and deliberate distortion [in the Lives] and more exaggeration and biased interpretation, the Lives are broadly accurate and trustworthy testimonies.” Staunton, Biographers, 2. 29 See, for example Walberg, La Tradition hagiographique, Chapter 6, 173–85, “Jean de Salisbury: Biographe de Thomas Becket Modèle ou Copie?” 30 Gransden, Historical Writing, 298. 31 Greenaway, Life and Death, 33. 32 Staunton, Biographers, 19. 33 See the discussion of John of Salisbury’s letters while in exile in B. Smalley, The Becket Conflict and the Schools: A Study of Intellectuals in Politics (Oxford, 1973), 102–7. 34 Herbert of Bosham remained in Sens until 1184. See A. Duggan, “The Price of Loyalty: The Fate of Thomas Becket’s Learned Household,” in A. Duggan, ed., Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cults (Aldershot, 2007), 11–12.

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 35 35 W.J. Millor and C.N.L. Brooke, The Letters of John of Salisbury, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1979), ii, Ep. 305, 724–38. 36 There has been scholarly debate as to just how soon after the murder John wrote his letter. Frank Barlow, thought that it was composed “immediately after” (Barlow, Becket, 2). Anne Duggan wrote that it was written “probably after Easter 1171.” A. Duggan, Thomas Becket (London, 2004), 228. Some scholars have asserted that the Vita was not written until 1173–1176, and that it was derived from the writings of other biographers of the archbishop. See the discussion in Staunton, Biographers, 26. A recent re-evaluation of the date of the letter is in K. Bollermann and C. Nederman, “John of Salisbury and Thomas Becket,” in C. Grellard and F. Lauchaud, eds., A Companion to John of Salisbury (Leiden, 2014). The authors suggest that Ex insperato was written between October 1171 and April 1172. 37 John’s Vita of Becket has been translated recently by R. Pepin, Anselm & Becket: Two Canterbury Saints’ Lives by John of Salisbury (Toronto, 2009). The letter collection and John’s role in the compilation are discussed in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: A Textual History of His Letters (Oxford, 1980), 94–8. See also Duggan’s remarks in the Introduction to her edition and translation of the letters, The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury 1162–1170, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2000). D. Luscombe, “John of Salisbury in Recent Scholarship,” in M. Wilks, ed., The World of John of Salisbury (Oxford, 1984), posited that John abandoned the project when he became Bishop of Chartres and left Alan of Tewkesbury to complete the collection (35). See also the remarks of A. Duggan, “John of Salisbury and Becket,” in M. Wilks, ed., The World of John of Salisbury (Oxford, 1984). Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult (Aldershot, 2007), II, 428, fn. 5. Sir Richard Southern pointed out in his Urry lecture, that the letter collection was “a brilliant idea,” because in that era, the letters were the only way Becket’s aims and struggle could be told. “Between them, John of Salisbury and Alan created a form of historical literature for which there are some precedents but none which equaled the Becket collection in bulk or richness of detail.” R.W. Southern, The Monks of Canterbury and the Murder of Archbishop Becket (Canterbury, 1985), 15. 38 For example, a thirteenth-century breviary from Sens Cathedral, MS 140 has verbatim passages from John’s letter in the office for Becket. Anne Duggan has listed other occurrences in her article “John of Salisbury and Becket,” 427, ft. 3, and in her recent publication, “Becket Is Dead! Long Live St Thomas,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220 (Woodbridge, 2016), 25–52, at 27, ft. 15 and 16. 39 Pepin, Anselm and Becket, 76. 40 There is, however, evidence of a different view from a close contemporary, Petri Blesensis, who declined to write a biography of Becket because he felt that John of Salisbury’s Vita was so elegant he could not compete. (Mats. vii, 579). 41 Barlow, Becket, 3. 42 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 107. 43 Emmanuel Walberg argued long ago that John copied William in his La Tradition hagiographique de Saint Thomas Becket (Paris, 1929), 173–85. See Vollrath’s view in “Was Thomas Becket Chaste?” in Anglo-Norman Studies XXVII (Woodbridge, 2005), 201. It is evident that such “borrowing” on the part of John or William, or by additional biographers of Becket, does point to a community of texts in circulation. See the discussion in A. Harris, “Pilgrimage, Performance, and Stained Glass at Canterbury Cathedral,” in S. Blick and R. Tekippe, eds., Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles (Leiden, 2005), 243–81.

36  Saint and cult 44 Duggan, “John of Salisbury and Thomas Becket,” 427. The comparison of Becket and Christ appears in Millor and Brooke, Letters, 726–31. 45 Staunton, Biographers, 20. See the discussion on 21 in which Staunton points out that the purpose of the letter was to state why Thomas ought to be venerated as a saint. John Guy disagrees with this view in his biography of Becket, writing that “John would have considered utterly absurd the whole idea of Becket’s future canonization by the pope.” J. Guy, Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel (New York, 2012), 172. 46 Guernes de Pont Saint Maxence reported that William de Tracy, the knight who struck the blow, mistook Grim for John of Salisbury. I. Short, trans., A Life of Thomas Becket in Verse (La Vie de Saint Thomas Becket by Guernes de pontSainte-Maxence (Toronto, 2013), 162. Guernes’s Life has also been trans. J. Shirley, Garniier’s Becket [trans. from the 12th-Century Vie Saint Thomas le Martyr de Cantorbire] (Sussex, UK, 1975). The relevant passage appears on 148. 47 See, for example, the inclusion of letters from Pope Alexander to the Archbishop of York and other prelates, from Gilbert Foliot to Thomas, and from the archbishop to Foliot. Grim’s Life, Mats. ii, 406, 408–12. A. Duggan has discussed Grim’s Life and letters in Textual History, 176–82. 48 Staunton, Biographers, 28, 31. 49 London, Lambeth Palace, MS 135, fols. 1r-26r. Another manuscript, containing only the Prologue, is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 114. 50 See the discussions in Barlow, Becket, 4, L. Radford, Thomas of London Before His Consecration (Cambridge, 1894), 253, and Staunton, Biographers, 38–42. 51 Mats. iv, 139. Quoted in Staunton, Biographers, 43. 52 Aspects of Benedict’s life and work have been studied by various scholars, including J. C. Robertson, Mats. ii, xi–xl; Staunton, Biographers, 49–51; A. Duggan “The Lorvão transcription of Benedict of Peterborough’s Liber miraculorum beati Thome: Lisbon, cod. Alcobaça ccxc/ 143,” in Scriptorium 51 (Lisbon, 1997), 51–68. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult (Aldershot, 2007), XII; and A. Duggan, “The Santa Cruz Transcription of Benedict of Peterborough’s Liber Miraculorum Beati Thome: Porto, BPM, cod. Santa Cruz 60,” Medievalia. Textos e estudos 20 (2001): 27–55. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult (Aldershot, 2007), XIII. 53 A two-volume translation of the miracles was written in the late nineteenthcentury by E. A. Abbot, St. Thomas of Canterbury: His Death and Miracles, 2 vols. (London, 1898). It includes an account of the martyrdom which synthesizes the works of Grim, FitzStephen, John of Salisbury, William of Canterbury, Benedict, and Herbert of Bosham. (See the discussion in Chapter 9). Two recent evaluation of the miracle collections are R. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England (Philadelphia, 2011), and N. Vincent, “William of Canterbury and Benedict of Peterborough: the Manuscripts, Date and Context of the Becket Miracle Collections,” in E. Bozoky, ed., Hagiographie, Idéologie et Politique au Moyen Âge en Occident (Turnhout, 2012), 347–88. 54 The section of the Quadrilogus drawn from Benedict’s work is in Mats. ii, 386– 408. See ahead for a description of Quadrilogus I and II. 55 Benedict’s office for the feast day is described in Chapter 4. It is analyzed in K.B. Slocum, Liturgies in Honour of Thomas Becket (Toronto, 2004), 136–46. 56 The account of the visions is contained in a letter which prefaces William’s miracle collection. It was added to a presentation copy of the collection requested by Henry II in 1175. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 147.

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 37 57 Koopmans provides two clear and concise charts comparing the collections of Benedict and William in Wonderful to Relate, 140 (Fig. 8) and 150 (Fig. 9). She discusses the two collections in detail, 139–80. 58 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 139. 59 Koopmans offered a different opinion about Benedict’s method of organization, seeing “doublings, harmonies, and resonances” in the way he presented the miracle stories, rather than strictly chronological order. Wonderful to Relate, 147. 60 Staunton, Biographers, 52. 61 William presented his Life to Henry II at some point between 1177 and 1189, at the king’s request. (Mats. i, 137–8). 62 Winchester College, Warden and Fellows’ Library, Medieval MS 4 (s. xii–xiii), fols. 1r-52r. It was published in the Rolls Series along with the miracle collection, Mats. i, 1–136. 63 Mats. i, 1–2. 64 Anne Duggan has remarked that three of the early biographers made extensive use of the epistolary sources, namely Edward Grim and William FitzStephen, in addition to William of Canterbury. Duggan, Textual History, 176. For William of Canterbury, see 182–7. 65 Duggan, Textual History, 183–7. For William’s use of canon law in his description of the issues of the Council of Clarendon, see C. Duggan, “The Reception of Canon Law in England in the Later-Twelfth Century,” in Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C; Subsidia, I (Vatican City, 1965), 359–90. 66 FitzStephen used the term “fellow-citizen” because he and Becket were both born in London. FitzStephen’s Prologue contains a lengthy and colorful description of the city of London during Becket’s lifetime. A readily available translation of this portion of FitzStephen’s Life may be found in D. Douglas and G. Greenaway, eds., English Historical Documents, 1042–1189, 2nd ed. (London, 1981), 1024–30. As A. Gransden has pointed out, this famous description of the city provides “a remarkable local touch.” Gransden, Historical Writing, I, 307. An excellent translation of large portions of FitzStephen’s Life, supplemented with additional materials, is Greenaway, Life and Death, which includes a clear and helpful introduction tracing the roots of the conflict between Becket and Henry II by analyzing the relations between Church and State after the conquest of Britain by William the Conqueror. 67 Staunton, Biographers, 57. See also Duggan, Textual History, 188. 68 Duggan, Textual History, 189. See also Duggan’s discussion of two extant versions of FitzStephen’s Life (190–200). 69 M. Cheney, “William FitzStephen and his Life of Archbishop Thomas,” in C.N.L. Brooke, D.E. Luscombe, G.H. Martin and D. Owen, eds., Church and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to C.R. Cheney on His 70th Birthday (Cambridge, 1976), 139–56, at 139. Her conclusions have been slightly corrected by A. Duggan, “The Salem FitzStephen, Heidelberg Universitäts Bibliothek Cod. Salem IX.30,” in C. Viola, ed., Mediaevalia Christiana, XIe-XIIIe siècle: Hommage à Raymonde Foreville de ses amis, ses collègues et ses anciens élèves (Belgium, 1989), 51–86. 70 Walberg, La Tradition, 173–85. 71 Mary Cheney discusses in detail the interrelationships between the various extant manuscripts of FitzStephen’s work in “FitzStephen,” 147–53, pointing to details which were provided only in his Life of the archbishop. 72 Duggan, Textual History, 200. 73 Staunton, Biographers, 56.

38  Saint and cult 74 E. Walberg, ed., La Vie de Saint Thomas le martyr par Guernes de Pont-SainteMaxence, poèm historique du XIIe siècle (Lund, 1922), text reissued in 1936 (Paris, 1936, reprint., 1964). See also E. Walberg, La Tradition hagiographique de Saint Thomas Becket avant la fin du XIIe siècle (Paris, 1929), 75–172. Guernes is also discussed in Halphen, “Les Biographes de Thomas Becket,” 35–45. Halphen wrote that Guernes’s work was not only an historical document, but also a literary monument of the highest order (at 37). A recent translation of Guernes’s work is I. Short, A Life of Thomas Becket in Verse [La Vie de Saint Thomas Becket by Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence] (Toronto, 2013). Short’s translation presents the poem in prose form. An earlier translation is J. Shirley, ed. and trans., Garnier’s Becket [trans. from the 12th-Century Vie Saint Thomas le Martyr de Cantorbire] (Chichester, 1975). The author called himself both Guernes and Garnier, which are the nominative and oblique forms of his name. Walberg preferred to call him Guernes, though at the time Shirley was writing she claimed that the form Garnier was more usual (Shirley, Garnier’s Becket, 185, n. 2). Current scholars generally use the form Guernes. See also I. Short, “An Early Draft of Guernes Vie de Saint Thomas Becket,” Medium Aevum 46 (1977): 20–34; L. Löfstedt, “Guernes et son reportage sur la vie de S. Thomas Becket,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 93 (1992): 359–62; T. Peters, “An Ecclesiastical Epic: Garnier de Pont-Ste-Maxence’s Vie de Saint Thomas le Martyr,” Mediaevistik 7 (1996): 181–202; T. Peters, “Elements of the Chanson de Geste in an Old French Life of Becket” Guernes’s “Vie de Saint Thomas le Martyr,” Olifant 18 (1994): 278–88. 75 Short, Life, 7. 76 There is some evidence that the first version of his biography was stolen from him. See the unpublished dissertation by K. Handel, “French Writing in the Cloister: Four Texts from St Albans Abbey Featuring Thomas Becket and Alexander the Great, c. 1184–c. 1275,” PhD thesis, University of York, 2015 http:// etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/is/eprint/11350. 77 Short, Life, 26. 78 For information about Guernes’s experience at Barking Abbey, see T. O’Donnell, “ ‘The Ladies Have Made Me Quite Fat’: Authors and Patrons at Barking Abbey,” in J. Brown and D. Bussell, eds., Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture: Authorship and Authority in a Female Community (York, 2012), 94–114. 79 Short, Life, 26. In his article “Early Draft of Guernes’s Vie,” Short observed that the first version was considerably less critical of the king than the second, perhaps as a result of Guernes’s new research. 80 Short, Life, 175. 81 Short, Life, 27. 82 Walberg, Tradition, 102–19. 83 Walberg, Tradition, 102–19. See also the remarks of Staunton in Biographers, 32–3. 84 L. Löfstedt, “La loi canonique, les Plantagenêt et S. Thomas Becket,” Medioevo Romanzo 15 (1990): 3–16. 85 Short, Life, 11. 86 Short, Life, 18–19. 87 M. Orme, “A Reconstruction of Robert of Cricklade’s Vita et Miracula S. Thomae Cantuariensis,” Analecta Bollandiana 84 (1966): 379–98, at 379. 88 Benedict’s account of Robert’s cure is published in Mats. ii, 97–101. Robert’s Life is the only source which describes the appearance of a spring of water in which the body could be washed following the martyrdom. Orme, “Robert of Cricklade,” 395.

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 39 89 H. Antonsson, “Two Twelfth-Century Martyrs: St Thomas of Canterbury and St Magnus of Orkney,” in G. Williams and P. Bibire, eds., Sagas, Saints and Settlements (Leiden, 2004), 41–64, at 41. See also Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 176. The miracle of Robert’s healing is memorialized in stained glass in the ambulatory of Trinity Chapel, Canterbury (Window n.4). This portrayal of Robert’s cure is discussed in M. Caviness, The Windows of Christ Church Canterbury, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Great Britain, Vol. II (London, 1981), 182–3. See also M.H. Caviness, The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral (Princeton, 1977), Bernard Rackham, The Ancient Glass of Canterbury Cathedral (Lund Humphries, 1949), and B. Rackham, The Stained Glass Windows of Canterbury Cathedral (Canterbury, 1957). 90 Antonsson, “Twelfth-Century Martyrs,” 42. Antonsson also provides information about Robert’s life and additional literary works. (42–4). 91 E. Walberg, “Date et source de la vie de Saint Thomas de Cantobéry par Beneit, moine de Saint-Alban,” Romania: Recueil Trimestriel 44 (1915–17): 407–26. Reprinted in Walberg, La Tradition hagiographique, 9–33. 92 The translator of Robert’s Life into Icelandic was probably the priest Bergr Gunnsteinsson (d. 1211), and the composition of the saga has been attributed to either Arngrímr Brandsson or Bergr Snorrason. See the discussion in Antonsson, “Twelfth-Century Martyrs,” 47. 93 The nineteenth-century historian E.A. Freeman accepted the identification of the author as Roger of Pontigny in “Saint Thomas of Canterbury and his Biographers,” 90. Robertson disagreed (Mats. iv, xii–xiii) and published the author as Anonymous I in Mats. iv, 1–79. Staunton explores the controversy surrounding this identification in Biographers, 34. 94 Mats. iv, 2. 95 Mats. iv, 1. 96 Mats. iv, 2. “sed veritate plenissima, adnotare curavimus, nihil omnino inserentes nisi quod vel ipsi vidimus et audivimus, vel certissima ac fidelissima eorum qui interfuerent relatione cognovimus.” 97 Robertson, Mats. iv, xii. See also Greenaway, Life and Death, 31. 98 Douglas and Greenaway, English Historical Documents, 632. 99 Staunton, Biographers, 35. 100 Staunton, Biographers, 79. 101 Robertson, Mats. ii, xliii, quoting the chronicler Gervase of Canterbury, Chronica, ed., William Stubbs, RS 73 (London, 1879). From 1174 Alan had access to Thomas’s own letters. Richard of Canterbury was archbishop from 1171 to 1184. See D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A History of Its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council, 940–1216, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1966), 651. 102 According to Gervase, this appointment was contrived by Archbishop Baldwin as a “punishment” for his firmness. Robertson, Mats. ii, xliii. 103 See the discussion in Staunton, Biographers, 44–8; Duggan, Textual History, 85–94; and A. Duggan, ed. and trans., The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury 1162–1170, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2000), i, lxxx–lxxxiv. 104 Duggan, Textual History, 87. 105 The collection survives in three manuscripts, discussed by Anne Duggan in Textual History, 87–94, and more fully in Volume I of Duggan’s Correspondence, lxxx–cx. 106 Alan of Tewkesbury, Mats. ii, 300. 107 Alan’s Explanatio is in Mats. ii, 323–52. 108 Staunton, Biographers, 47–8.

40  Saint and cult 109 The most complete manuscript of Beneit’s Life of Becket is BL Add. 59616, ff. 12–26. It has been edited by Börje Schlyter, La Vie de Thomas Becket par Beneit (Lund, 1941). For an examination of Beneit’s source and the date of composition, see E. Walberg, La Tradition hagiographique de Saint Thomas Becket avant la fin du XIIe siècle (Paris, 1929). Beneit’s work is discussed briefly in M. Legge, Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters: The Influence of the Orders upon Anglo-Norman Literature (Edinbugh, 1950), 19. See also the remarks of Legge in “La Précocité de la literature Anglo-Normande,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médievalé 8 (1965): 327–49. See also I. Short, “The Patronage of Beneit’s Vie de Thomas Becket,” Medium Aevum 56 (1987): 239–56, at 245, and Short’s remarks in “Patrons and Polyglots: French Literature in TwelfthCentury England,” Anglo-Norman Studies 14, ed. M. Chibnall (Woodbridge, UK, 1992), 229–49, at 235. K. Handel’s dissertation, French Writing in the Cloister, provides a thorough analysis of Beneit’s work and its context, 46–107. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/is/eprint/11350. 110 Short, “Beneit’s Vie,” 246. For Robert of Cricklade’s Life, see discussion above. 111 Barlow dates the work to 1184 (Becket, 7) and Walberg wrote that it was composed after 1183, but prior to 1189 (La Tradition, 17). 112 Walberg, for example, remarked, “La valeur historique et littéraire du poème de Benet est médiocre,” Walberg, La Tradition, 13. 113 See Chapter 2 for a discussion of Matthew’s Life of Becket (the Becket Leaves). 114 Short, “Beneit’s Vie,” 239, 247. 115 Quoted in J. Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture c. 1150–1300. Virginity and Its Authorizations (Oxford, 2001, reprint 2004), 180. 116 Herbert’s work is discussed by Robertson, Mats.iii, xvii–xxviii; Staunton, Biographers, 63–73; Duggan, Letters, 200–3; Smalley, Becket Conflict, 59–86. For an overview of his work and methodology see D.L. Goodwin, “Herbert of Bosham and the Horizons of Twelfth-Century Exegesis,” Traditio 58 (2003): 133–73. N. Vincent has discussed the publication of Herbert’s work in a forthcoming article, “John Allen Giles and Herbert of Bosham,” in M. Staunton, ed., The World of Herbert of Bosham (Woodbridge, forthcoming). Vincent points out that Giles’s edition of Herbert is more useful, in many ways, than that of Robertson. I am grateful to Professor Vincent for sharing his unpublished work with me. 117 Anne Duggan traces the 16 letters referred to in Herbert’s Life, pointing out that Herbert used many fewer epistolary sources than that other biographers. Duggan, Letters, 202–3. 118 For Herbert’s early career, see Smalley, Becket Conflict, 59–62. 119 William FitzStephen referred to Herbert as Becket’s “master in the Sacred Page.” Mats. iii, 58 (“suus in divina pagina magister Herbertus.”). 120 This is corroborated in the works of the other biographers, such as FitzStephen. Often Herbert urged Thomas to resist the king, and to be ever more confrontational, since he held extreme views concerning the relations between Church and State. 121 E. Magnússen, Thómas Saga Erkibyskups, 2 vols, Rolls Series. (London, 1875– 1883) ii, xci. 122 Herbert’s Liber melorum was an addition to his Life of Becket. It is an expansion of many of the themes presented in the biography, employing even more flowery imagery. Mats.iii, 535–54. 123 Mats. iii, xxiv. 124 Mats. iii, xxv–xxvi. 125 L.B. Radford, Thomas of London Before His Consecration (Cambridge, 1894), 254. 126 Magnússon, Saga, xci. See also his comments on the Liber Melorum.

The creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury 41 127 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 59. 128 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 59. Smalley remarks, however, that Thomas’s selection of Herbert as “theologian and publicist,” was a “fatal choice.” (62). 129 Duggan, Letters, 202. 130 Mats. iii, 247–8. Translation in Staunton, Biographers, 71. 131 Staunton, Biographers, 65. 132 Staunton, Biographers, 66. 133 Quadrilogus II is printed in Mats. iv, 266–424. 134 P. Meyer, Fragments d’une Vie de Saint Thomas de Cantorbery (Paris, 1885), viii–xxvi. P.A. Brown, “The Development of the Legend of Thomas Becket,” PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1930, 11. See also Staunton, Biographers, 6–7. As mentioned earlier, the Quadrilogus is the only extant source for the Passio of Benedict. 135 Mats. iv, xx. 136 See the discussion in Duggan, Textual History, 205–26. 137 Duggan, Textual History, 208. For a detailed analysis of another version of the Quadrilogus, see A. Duggan, “The Lyell Version of the Quadrilogus Life of St Thomas of Canterbury,” Analecta Bollandia 12 (1994): 105–38. Reprinted in Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cults (Aldershot, 2007), XV. 138 C. Horstmann, ed., The Early English South-English Legendary, Early English Text Society 87 (London, 1887), 106–77. This work is discussed below, Chapter 2. 139 The Leaves are on loan from the Getty Foundation to the British Library [BL Loan MS 88]. For a description of the manuscript, see J. Backhouse and C. de Hamel, The Becket Leaves (London, 1988), 13, and C. de Hamel, Sotheby’s catalogue for the sale, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures (London, 1986), 32–48. The manuscript is discussed further in Chapter 2. 140 Gervase was the author of seven historical works, published in the nineteenth century in the Rolls Series: W. Stubbs, ed., The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, 2 vols. RS 73 (London, 1879–80). See also Gransden, Historical Writing i, 251–7. For recent scholarship concerning Gervase see M-P. Gelin, “Gervase of Canterbury, Christ Church and the Archbishops,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 60, no. 3 (July 2009): 449–63. Gervase’s work includes details about the reconstruction of the choir at Canterbury Cathedral, justifiably famous for its information about medieval building techniques. See P. Kidson, “Gervase, Becket, and William of Sens,” Speculum 68, no. 4 (October 1993): 969–91. For an important new analysis of the works of the twelfthcentury chroniclers, see M. Staunton, “Thomas Becket in the Chronicles,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. (Woodbridge, 2016), 95–112. 141 Robert’s Chronica was published in L. Delisle, ed., Chronique de Robert de Torigni, 2 vols. (Rouen, 1872–3); R. Howlett, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, RS 82 (London, 1889). An English translation is in J. Stevenson, ed. and trans., The Chronicles of Robert de Monte, in Church Historians of England, vol. 4, Part II (London, 1856). A recent edition of Robert’s work is E. Houts, ed., The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis, and Robert of Torigni, Oxford Medieval Texts, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1992–5), vol. i. See also Gransden, Historical Writing, 262; E. Van Houts, “Le roi et son historien: Henry II Plantagenêt et Robert de Torigni, abbé du Mont-Saint-Michel,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 37, no. 145 (1994): 115–18; B. Pohl, “Abbas Qui et Scriptor? The Handwriting of Robert of Torigni and His Scribal Activity as Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel (1154–1186),” Traditio 69 (2014): 45–86.

42  Saint and cult 142 This chronicle was long attributed to Benedict of Peterborough, but is now known to have been written by Roger of Howden. It was published in the nineteenth century as part of the Rolls Series: W. Stubbs, ed., The Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II and Richard I, A.D. 1169–1192, Known Commonly Under the Name of Benedict of Peterborough (London, 1867). See Gransden, Historical Writing, 222–3; D. Stenton, “Roger of Howden and Benedict,” The English Historical Review 68, no. 269 (October 1953): 574–82; F. Barlow, “Roger of Howden,” The English Historical Review 65, no. 256 (July 1950): 353–60; D. Corner, “The Earliest Surviving Manuscripts of Roger of Howden’s ‘Chronica,’ ” The English Historical Review 98, no. 387 (April 1983): 297–310. 143 William of Newburgh’s Historia Rerum Anglicarum is printed in R. Howlett, ed., Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 2 vols. (Rolls Series, London, 1884–9), i, 11–408; ii, 416–583. Parts of his work have been translated. See J. Stevenson, The Church Historians of England: Translated from the Original Latin with a Pref and Notes (London: Beeleys, 1856), vol. iv, Part II; P.G. Walsh and M.J. Kennedy, eds. and trans., William of Newburgh: The History of English Affairs, Book I (Warminster, 1988), and D. Douglas and G. Greenaway, eds., English Historical Documents, 1042–1189, 2nd ed. (London, 1981), 347–404. See also Gransden, Historical Writing, 264; N. Partner, Serious Entertainments: The Writing of History in TwelfthCentury England (Chicago, 1977), 51–2; J. Gillingham, “The Historian as Judge: William of Newburgh and Hubert Walter,” English Historical Review 119 (November 2004): 1275–1287. The enduring fascination with William’s work is evident on the Internet (William was the first “vampirologist”), as well as in scholarly articles such as S. Gordon’s “Social Monsters and the Walking Dead in William of Newburgh’s Historia rerum Anglicarum,” Journal of Medieval History 4 (2015): 446–65. 144 Diceto’s works were published in the Rolls Series in W. Stubbs, ed., The Historical Works of Master Ralph de Diceto, Dean of London, 2 vols. (London, 1876). The material concerning Becket in the Ymagines is in vol. i, 306–71, and the abridgement (Series causae) may be found in vol. ii, 279–85. See also Gransden, Historical Writing, 230; Staunton, “Becket in the Chronicles,” 99; C. Duggan and A. Duggan, “Ralph de Diceto, Henry II and Becket with an Appendix on Decretal Letters,” in B. Tierney and P. Linehan, eds., Authority and Power: Studies on Medieval Law and Government Presented to Walter Ullmann on His Seventieth Birthday (Cambridge, 1980), 59–81; Smalley, Becket Conflict, 230–3. 145 R. Bartlett, Gerald of Wales, 1146–1223 (Oxford, 1982); B. Roberts, Gerald of Wales (Wales, 1982). See the remarks in Staunton, “Chronicles,” 102.

2 Thirteenth-century translations

During the thirteenth century, biographers and poets sought to bring the legend of the Canterbury martyr to a wider audience by translating his biography into vernacular languages and by emphasizing specific aspects of his character. No longer confined to those who could read and understand Latin, the Life of Becket was translated into Norman-French, which was the language of the aristocracy, and into English and Icelandic – the spoken vernaculars of the people. The translations were faithful to the originals in their presentation of the central issues and themes of Becket’s life, but they showed the influence of contemporary currents of thought by adapting the personality of their subject to changing circumstances and fresh concerns. These translations bear witness to the continuing popularity of his story, offering an example of the ways in which the image of the martyr was altered to reflect the preoccupations of a changing society.

The Becket Leaves The folios known as the Becket Leaves are the remaining vestiges of the only known illustrated Life of Thomas Becket.1 The images and texts contained therein, long attributed to Matthew Paris,2 have been studied by various scholars, who have concentrated on the artistic aspects of the Leaves. Especially since the manuscript folios became available for study following their sale to John Paul Getty in 1986, the images in the Lives have been analyzed by many writers, including Nigel Morgan,3 Richard Vaughan,4 George Henderson,5 Christopher De Hamel,6 Janet Backhouse,7 and Cynthia Hahn,8 and most recently by Katherine Handel in an unpublished PhD dissertation.9 Their general conclusion is that the manuscript was created between 1220 and 1240, and that Matthew Paris may have designed the program for the illustrations, in addition to translating the Latin biography into AngloNorman, or “insular” French. Since the figures in the images are much too angular to be his work, it has been suggested that Matthew’s exemplum may have been reproduced by a colleague or assistant in the monastic workshop in either St Albans or London.10

44  Saint and cult The texts of the Becket Leaves, also composed by Matthew Paris, were, like Beneit’s work discussed in Chapter 1,11 a translation of an earlier Latin life. The source of Matthew’s vita was analyzed in the late nineteenth century by Paul Meyer, who identified it as the Quadrilogus, a conflation of the Lives of Thomas by four of his associates: John of Salisbury, William of Canterbury, Allan of Tewkesbury, and Herbert of Bosham, with additions from the work of Benedict of Peterborough.12 As we will see in the following discussion, the extant folios of the Becket Leaves offer a window into the ways in which the image of the Canterbury martyr was altered and developed in the thirteenth century to reflect contemporary practices and concerns, accommodating new audiences and new interests. Matthew’s text was written in octosyllabic rhyming couplets, imitating chansons de geste or romances,13 and his language and versification are typical of thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman poetry.14 It reflected a trend in which “hagiographic texts and pictures had fully converted to ‘romance.’ They shifted to the vernacular and appeared in poetic formats more typical of secular literature.”15 In illuminated manuscripts, the relationship of text to image is governed by the process of the artist’s choice of material; this is particularly significant in the work of Matthew Paris, since he selected both the text to be translated from the Quadrilogus and the events of Becket’s life to be brought to life through illustration.16 In many ways, Matthew’s choices continued the traditions of the twelfth-century biographers, but his work also introduced and portrayed new currents of thought present in thirteenth-century culture. Several of the images, which portray Becket as the Defender of the Church against secular authority, carried forward and emphasized a major theme in the works of the earlier writers. Folio 2r., for example, illustrates Thomas’s excommunication of his enemies at Vezelay in 1166 and his meeting with Henry II and the French king Louis VII at Montmirail in 1169. On the left side, the archbishop is in the act of anathematizing the people who have committed offenses against his relatives and his property in England, as well as the bishops of London and Salisbury. Thomas’s allegiance to the Church is even more evident on the right side of the folio, which pictorializes the saint in consultation with Henry II and Louis VII. The kings are stipulating their demands by counting on their fingers, and the archbishop holds a scroll in his hand with the following words, indicating the actual dialogue: “I accede to the demands you have put forward, saving the honor of God.” The final clause negates his acquiescence, destroying all hope of conciliation.17 By contrast, several other images in the Leaves reflect new currents of thought and new perceptions of the Canterbury martyr, ideas that were not emphasized by the twelfth-century biographers. In Folio 2v., Matthew portrayed Becket as a popular hero – a man of the people. As Thomas and the kings ride away from Montmorail in opposite directions, the men accompanying the kings point derisively at Becket, with jeering expressions on their

Thirteenth-century translations 45 faces. One holds a spear, and the most prominent figure carries a hatchet, with a sword dangling from his belt ominously. Thomas is turning to face the monarchs with his index finger pointing heavenward. He is being greeted enthusiastically by a crowd identified as vulgus (the common people). Their faces express joy, and one seems to be applauding. In this image it is possible to see the emergence of a trend viewing Becket as an icon of English nationalism, which will come to fruition in the writings of later historians. Another important aspect of the Leaves, not prominent in the twelfth century, is the portrayal of Becket’s identification with human suffering. By directing attention to this theme, Matthew may have wished to emphasize the saint’s appeal to women, in particular. On the left side of the image in Folio 1r. [Figure 2.1], King Henry is in the act of banishing Thomas’s relatives from England. The force of the king’s decree is emphasized in a scroll held in the king’s hand announcing that all of Thomas’s kinfolk are to be exiled. The image clearly portrays the text: The cruel agents of the king’s proclamation are in the act of brutalizing Thomas’s kinsmen, as a woman holding a swaddled babe reclines in the foreground.18 On the right side of Folio 1r., Thomas languishes in exile at Pontigny, weakened by excessive fasting. Here Matthew has chosen to portray the figure of the martyr reclining in order to indicate the saint’s vulnerability and isolation. Further, his position reinforces the connection between the suffering saint and his suffering relatives portrayed in the adjacent image. Thus, by dramatizing Becket’s intense physical anguish through word and pictorial means, the viewer is encouraged to relate to the holy archbishop. In particular, the parallel between the reclining saint and the nursing mother

Figure 2.1 Henry II exiles Becket’s kin/Becket lies ill at Pontigny Abbey. Becket Leaves, British Library Loan MS 88, f. 1r. PBL Collection/Alamy Stock Photo

46  Saint and cult offers a visual link through which a female reader could identify with the martyr. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne has observed that the image of the gravely ill saint emphasizes the ascetic devotional practices common to male ascetics and chaste widows, and provides an important vehicle for sympathetic empathy with the holy martyr.19 She has pointed out, moreover, that Becket’s illness from excessive fasting at Pontigny became a “model instance of asceticism.” 20 The other Becket Leaves continue the story of the saint’s exile and struggle with Henry II. Throughout, the contrast between the martyr and the king is emphasized. Henry is portrayed as greedy, shallow and cruel; he is devoted to the material world. His attitudes indicate that he is consumed by anger, whereas Becket is thoughtful, pious, and spiritual, aside from one scene which pictures his justifiable wrath (Left side of Folio 2r). Some years ago, Sandra Hindman posed a provocative question about the saints’ Lives attributed to Matthew Paris: “What did these manuscripts . . . convey in word and image to their [women] readers?”21 As we have seen, albeit entertaining, the works had a didactic as well as a moral purpose. The Becket Leaves presented aspects of the life of Thomas Becket which were carefully chosen to emphasize Becket’s courage and steadfast dedication to “the honor of God,” as well as his sympathetic identification with human suffering. Further, the images point to the parallels between his life and the life of Christ, producing biblical resonances in the minds of the readers. The folio in which Henry II banished Thomas’s kinfolk may have been designed to evoke echoes of Herod and the Massacre of the Innocents,22 and the illustration featuring Becket and the kings is reminiscent of Christ’s audience before Pilate.23 The speech scroll proclaims the archbishop’s devotion to God. In the next image, Becket is greeted with enthusiasm by the welcoming crowd – another Christological reference. The remaining scenes in the Becket Leaves continue the story to the point of his return to England, and we can assume, based upon a comparison with other early examples of Becket iconography found in stained-glass programs and on Limoges reliquaries, that the lost images portrayed his triumphal return to Canterbury, which all of the early biographers liken to Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, followed by his martyrdom, and finally his burial and assumption into heaven – all significant Christological parallels. Although the text of the Becket Life probably took the medieval romance as its model, the message that the poetry and the images projected was one of piety, Christian loyalty, and devotion to God. Thus, in the work of Matthew Paris, the Canterbury martyr became an exemplar to be imitated, not only by the priesthood who followed in his footsteps, but also by the laypeople of the medieval world.

The South English Legendary and the Legenda Aurea The Becket Leaves offer an important example of literature composed in Norman, or insular, French – the prestige vernacular of thirteenth-century

Thirteenth-century translations 47 England. English, however, was increasingly used for literary and other purposes during the course of the century, and the South English Legendary offers an excellent example of this trend. The SEL is the largest thirteenth-century collection of metrical saints’ legends, existing in various recensions in more than 60 manuscripts which date from the late thirteenth to the late fifteenth centuries. The date of composition of the earliest collection has long been debated, but recent scholars generally agree that 1270–1290, seems most likely.24 The work is based on the fixed saints’ festivals in the Church calendar, and includes, as well, narratives for use in the moveable feasts relating to the life of Christ, such as Advent, Christmas, and Easter.25 Here, too, as we have seen in the Becket Leaves, the style of the poetry exhibits a “mood of compassion and warm human empathy” for the lives and martyrdoms of the saintly heroes and heroines.26 In addition, the language of the SEL gives evidence of pastoral concern for its intended audience, which included women.27 As Diane Speed has remarked, “it should be remembered that the saints of the Church calendar were the lifelong companions of most people, and their legends may be seen from one point of view as a series of mirrors for humanity.”28 The SEL also contains much historical information, especially about English and Irish saints. This is most obvious in the legends of Thomas Becket and Edmund of Abingdon, but other tales also provide opportunities for the identification of historical locale and circumstance.29 Thomas Heffernan observed that the SEL was “perfectly suited for political commentary,”30 and Klaus Janofsky agreed, writing: “[t]he deaths of the English saints are put into a more concrete historical framework, often with reference to political struggles in which the saints took part or to social injustices and ills that they tried to redress.”31 This aspect is particularly evident in the discourse set out in the life of Becket. Annie Samson has emphasized this view, writing that “The [Becket] work is primarily political history, its bias against the Crown buttressed by its hagiographical cast and framework.”32 She has asserted, further, that “its blow by blow account of the conflict between church and state seems likely, despite all Becket’s undoubted popularity, to appeal primarily to those with a fairly active interest in political machinations.”33 Her narrow view seems to ignore the reality that the lay audiences of thirteenth-century England, both men and women, were accustomed to exciting stories of romance heroes, and Becket’s legend conforms to this taste. Although the SEL uses the same dramatic strategy as the thirteenthcentury romance tales, the legends underscore the point that the protagonists battled for Christianity, directing their courage to conversion, rather than conquest.34 The popularity of the work can be ascribed, as Thorlac Turville-Petre has remarked, to “its lively presentation of extraordinary and moving events – grisly martyrdoms, astonishing miracles, travels and adventures as incredible as those of any Arthurian knight,” as well as to “the

48  Saint and cult encyclopedic range of information some of the legends provide.”35 “This is hagiography rubbing shoulders with romance for most of the time, and occasionally with history and science,”36 as Samson has noted. Indeed, the SEL is “non-devotional,” its primary focus being narrative and event. The content, structure and language offer a potent indication that in the thirteenth century there was a much less rigid division between sacred and secular literature than scholarly categorizations have heretofore established.37 Nonetheless, although the narratives of the SEL were designed to keep the interest of the reader or listener, the moral of each legend emphasizes the Christian message and provides an example of a life to be emulated.38 Like romances, the legends of saints generally presented a series of episodes in which the protagonist is pitted against some opposition, generating action and response. These contests, exemplified by the struggle between Thomas Becket and Henry II, often generated graphic and lurid detail, as in the gruesome account of Becket’s martyrdom. The legend of Thomas Becket is by far the longest hagiographic account in the SEL, numbering almost 2,500 lines, whereas the average length is 100– 300 lines. In analyzing its placement within the collection, Renee Hamelinck has asserted that because the compiler decided to organize the tales according to the distribution of the saints’ feast days over the year, the Becket legend was “clearly intended to be its highlight.”39 This may be attributing too much importance to placement, since not all of the manuscripts follow the secular organization. It is important to remember also that the earliest manuscript is in disarray, and, as Liszka has remarked, “unless new materials are discovered, not even the most optimistic recensionist could ever hope to recreate the original state of the text.”40 The most detailed examination of the sources of the SEL was undertaken by Hermann Thiemke, who wrote that the Becket legend in the collection was a free translation of the Quadrilogus.41 The closest agreement is with the so-called First Quadrilogus, which is the only version to include the tale of Becket’s Saracen mother.42 Görlach agreed with this analysis, although he believed that the comprehensive account of the Council at Clarendon was probably taken from another source.43 Romance elements are clearly present in the account of Becket’s life presented in the SEL, which bridges the generic overlap between hagiography and romance.44 As Julia Boffey has observed: Latent in both romances and in saints’ lives is the opportunity to explore fantasies relating to familial roles and, by extension, to ­marriage – romances generally working towards suitable marriage and the prospect of some dynastic confirmation, saints’ lives towards martyrdom and assimilation into the greater family of heaven.45 Further, “Such emphasis on the rupture or confirmation of family relationships, and the foregrounding of wives, mothers and daughters which

Thirteenth-century translations 49 goes with it, offers some support for the view that saints’ lives, like pious romances, might have been essentially a women’s genre.”46 Exotic romance fantasy in the SEL account of Becket’s life is most evident in the introductory legend of the Saracen princess, which identifies the saint’s mother as the daughter of “a very famous chief of the pagans.”47 The tale recounts that Becket’s father, a London burgess named Gilbert, set out on a journey to the Holy Land as an act of penance.48 He was captured and imprisoned by the local “amiral,” or emir, and remained in custody for some two and a half years. During this time, he not only gained the confidence and respect of the amiral, but the affection of the amiral’s daughter, who visited him secretly in his prison cell. She was inspired by his Christian faith and his willingness to die for his belief, and promised, in exchange for his marrying her, to convert to Christianity.49 Fearing treachery on her part, Gilbert and his companions fled their prison and made their way back to England. The amiral’s daughter followed, and was able, miraculously, to get to London, although she spoke no English.50 As she wandered the streets, she was recognized by one of Gilbert’s companions, and was reunited with her lover. The couple met with the Bishop of London and five other prelates, who gave permission for them to marry, provided that she convert and be baptized in the Christian faith.51 Accordingly, the baptism took place, followed by the wedding ceremony. According to the SEL, Thomas (who was to become “pris-martyr of engelonde”)52 was conceived on their wedding night. The following day, Gilbert traveled again to the Holy Land, returning to London three and a half years later and finding his son “whole and sound” (“hole and sounde”). As the saint’s biography in the SEL progresses, Thomas’s mother Aulisandre (variously identified as Matilda, Maude, or Maild) becomes the “archetypal Christian mother” by functioning as Thomas’s educator and moral guardian. 53 This topos had been presented in the works of two of the twelfthcentury biographers of Becket, John of Salisbury and Anonymous I (Roger of Pontigny),54 but the intent of the authors to present Becket’s mother as a model and pattern for Christian women to follow in raising their children is even more evident in the South English Legendary and another thirteenthcentury translation of the Becket Life, the Icelandic Saga. As the SEL has it, “His Moder him wolde al day rede.”55 And the Saga expanded upon the theme of Thomas’s tutelage by his mother: And now since this is the first season of learning in the growing up of man, that a good and loving mother spoke Christian words to him, made known unto him the fear of God, and taught him holy lore, so young Thomas had even such a school to begin with, for his mother Maild was both wise, and willing to give good counsels to him. Concerning these counsels there is this, among other matters, to be read, that she taught him to adore and revere the blessed Maiden, God’s mother Mary, beyond all other saints, and to select her as the wisest guide of

50  Saint and cult his life and of all his ways; and without doubt the blessed Thomas took this good counsel readily to his heart, to love our Lady, for in her he had, next indeed to Christ himself, all his trust and faith, and in return therefore the Virgin Mary set such a loving heart on him, that already when he was still in the years of youth she herself chose him to be the highest among teachers.56 The inclusion of romance elements, as well as didactic instruction concerning Christian motherhood, represents two of the notable and novel qualities evident in the thirteenth-century translations of the Becket biography. Another prominent theme brought into the foreground in the South English Legendary, also evident in the Becket Leaves, is Becket as a “Man of the People.” The author(s) of the SEL were determined to emphasize that, in addition to upholding the rights of the Church in his struggle with the king, Thomas was a supporter of the common people against the power of the Crown and court. Throughout the legend, Becket’s relationship with ordinary people is “an important motif.”57 The poet stresses his sympathy for and generosity to the poor, with the implication that Becket, the Church and the poor are all linked together.58 “Always he was for Holy Church, and for poor men as well.”59 For example, the first issue of contention between Thomas and King Henry as presented by the SEL concerned the unfair demand by the Crown for the payment of tallage – an unjust tax. In this situation, the archbishop stood for “poor man’s rights” (lines 380–402). Further, following the Council of Clarendon, when Thomas had lost the support of his fellow bishops, the common people continued to follow him. As he left the court to shouts of abuse by Henry and his courtiers, the people welcomed him with rejoicing. The commoners were even named as his “knights” (“kniztes”) by the archbishop (lines 892–898), saying he has no other friends (l. 1066). They remained his staunch supporters, following him with “joy and bliss” (l. 1060). Their devotion is perhaps most evident upon his return to England following his six-year exile in France, when he was greeted with great rejoicing, an event akin to Christ’s procession into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, as the author reminds us (lines 1844–1856). The twelfth-century biographers had stressed Thomas’s staunch defense of the rights of the Church against the encroachments of the Crown, and although they mentioned the saint’s devotion to the poor, this aspect of his personality and biography was not highlighted. The SEL, by contrast, reflects the changing conditions of politics and society by reframing the account of Becket’s life to align the saint with emerging national consciousness. Becket has become more than a Defender of the Church; his opposition to the demands of the king and his defense of popular rights “symbolize a growing self-awareness among the English people who are becoming increasingly discontented with the foreign rulers.”60 Becket’s stance was not a subversion of national sovereignty, as the king represented it, but a defense

Thirteenth-century translations 51 of the nation’s ancient rights threatened by royal despotism.61 The saint had become a standard-bearer for English nationhood, and the SEL poet constructed Thomas as a kind of de facto Englishman who fought not just on behalf of the Church, but for the “folk” as a whole.62 Further, when Thomas returned to England following his years of exile, “men,” as well as “folk” ran to meet him. Here, the author of the SEL joins the upper class to the poor, and Thomas moves beyond his role as champion of the poor. As Anne Thompson has pointed out, “In broadly political terms he is also now the true representative of England and Englishness.”63 The text of the thirteenth-century Icelandic Saga also emphasized Thomas’s support for the common people, pointing out his egalitarian nature, and stressing that he was a supporter of the poor against proud courtiers.64 The narrator points out that: “Oftentimes Thomas had about him a number of people both clerks and lay-folk . . . [and] he never held in lesser worth a good man because of his poverty, nor honoured an evil man more because of his riches,”65 and “the poor loved him”66 . . . “to the poor and afflicted he was the most exalted comforter.”67 As we have seen, the most famous demonstration of the people’s affection for Thomas occurred upon his return to England following his six-year exile. The author of the Icelandic Saga was no less enthusiastic than the SEL or the Becket Leaves: “at the tidings of the return of the archbishop all good people, and the poor especially, were filled with such gladness, as if the very blessing of God had befallen them.”68 The text later continues: of poor people such multitude, as might scarce be told, streamed on to the road to meet him doing homage to him; for many of them threw their clothes on the road before him, but both conditions of men, rich and poor, called out, as with one voice, saying: Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord.69 There has been speculation as to the relationship between the SEL and James of Voragine’s late thirteenth-century Legenda Aurea, with Eamon Duffy seeing “a shaping influence” on the English work, while David Wallace pointed to the use of the same framing device – the narration of the Christian year.70 Duffy placed the date of the Legenda Aurea in the 1260s,71 and long ago, Minnie E. Wells studied the two works, asserting that the Legenda was probably completed around 1255; thus, it would have been known to the Dominicans in England as early as 1260,72 and there would have been adequate time for a similar composition in the vernacular to have been produced by 1280. A more recent opinion was offered by Manfred Görlach, who observed that the influence of the Legenda Aurea on the vernacular literatures of Europe was “quick and thorough,” and wrote that in England this was evident in the SEL, which he dated to c. 1270–1290. He also remarked that the translation of saints’ lives into the English language was an indication of

52  Saint and cult growing national awareness.73 With regard to the legend of Thomas Becket, specifically, there is little similarity between the Legenda Aurea and the SEL. Although Jacobus did include the life of the Canterbury martyr,74 the version in the SEL is much more extensive75 and utilizes material drawn from English sources. The Legenda Aurea condenses the evidence concerning Thomas as Chancellor and his subsequent appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, emphasizing from the beginning his dedication to the Church. Jacobus made much, as did all of the biographers, of Thomas’s transformation into a “new and different man” – one who mortified his flesh by fasting and wearing a hairshirt and hair breeches.76 The Golden Legend summarizes the items of contention between Becket and Henry, in contrast to the SEL, which includes much detail, even describing the individual provisions of the Council of Clarendon. Becket was forced into exile, having “refused manfully” to confirm in writing his acceptance of the demands of the king. Jacobus included reference to the king’s seizure of Becket’s property and the condemnation of his kinfolk to exile, as did the authors of the numerous biographies and the Becket Leaves.77 The period of exile was likewise condensed, with minimal reference to Pope Alexander III and none at all of Louis VII, king of France, or Becket’s supporter, William of Sens. Interestingly, Jacobus presented two miracles which preceded Becket’s martyrdom, and which are not included in the miracle collections compiled by Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury.78 The first deals with a young man who had died and miraculously returned to life, reporting that he had been taken to the highest realm of saints, and he had seen one empty throne among those of the apostles. Asking whose throne it was, he was told by an angel that it was reserved for “a great priest from England.”79 Another legend, also not mentioned in the accounts of miracles by the biographers, is the mending of Becket’s hairshirt by the Virgin Mary. Jacobus tells of a priest who celebrated the Mass every day in honor of the Virgin Mary. Becket suspended him from his office, thinking that he was “simpleminded and unlearned.” At the same time, the archbishop needed to mend his hairshirt, which he had hidden under his bed until he had time to complete the task. The Virgin Mary visited the priest and said: Go to the archbishop and tell him that she, for love of whom you said those masses, has mended his hair shirt, which is under his bed, and has left there the red silk she used in the sewing. Tell him also that she sent you to him, and that he is to lift the suspension he imposed on you. Thomas was astonished to find that his shirt had been mended, and repealed the priest’s suspension, telling him “to keep the matter secret.”80 The Legenda Aurea provided a brief description of the martyrdom, followed by the account of several more miracles. In the first, as the clergy was about to sing the Requem aeternam (Mass of the Dead), choirs of angels

Thirteenth-century translations 53 interrupted them and began to chant the Mass of the Martyrs, Laetabitur Justus in Domino. The clergy joined in, changing “a chant of sorrow into a canticle of praise.” What had begun as prayers for the dead became a hymn of praise for the new martyr – a change which was “certainly the work of the right hand of the Most High.”81 Jacobus closed his account of the Canterbury martyr with the descriptions of more miracles. One must have been designed as a cautionary tale for the ears of women: An English lady, who was eager to attract men’s attention and therefore to be more beautiful, wanted her eyes to change color, so she made a vow and walked barefoot to the tomb of Saint Thomas. There she knelt in prayer but, when she stood up, found that she was blind. Repentant, she began to pray to the saint that her eyes, even if their color was unchanged, be restored as they had been before – a favor that was granted her, but not before she had been at great pains to obtain it.82 Three more unique miracles were included in the Legenda Aurea, which closed with a description of the fate of the saint’s murderers. Jacobus reported that “the wrath of God dealt with them severely. Some of them gnawed their fingers to bits, others became slavering idiots; some were stricken with paralysis, still others went mad and perished miserably.”83

The Icelandic Thomas Saga (Thómas Saga Erkibyskups) Much has been written about the dissemination of the Cult of Thomas Becket beyond England, primarily in the countries of France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. However, until recently, little attention has been given to the existence of Becket’s veneration in Iceland.84 Somewhat surprisingly, the Canterbury martyr was commemorated on the island soon after his death by the establishment of churches and chapels.85 Even more important was the creation of the Thómas Saga Erkibyskups, a fourteenth-century compilation of late twelfth-century accounts of Becket’s martyrdom, translated into Old Norse-Icelandic.86 The legend, or saga, provides evidence of Thomas Becket’s significant influence in the religious culture of the island. The initial version of the Thómas Saga appeared a relatively short time following the archbishop’s murder.87 This was a translation of Robert of Cricklade’s Vita into Old-Norse Icelandic, written around 1220, probably by the priest Bergr Gunnsteinsson.88 Although his work no longer exists in its entirety, it also formed the basis for a Life of Becket by the monk Beneit of St Albans.89 As Peter Foote has shown, the so-called D-fragment of the Saga, which consists of four leaves from a fourteenth-century codex, was probably derived from Robert’s work, and a fragment in the codex Stockholm Perg. Fol. Nr. 2 has been identified as being drawn from a translation of Robert’s Life.90

54  Saint and cult A detailed reconstruction of Robert’s Vita was published by Margaret Orme, who analyzed the Saga, comparing it to the relevant twelfth-century biographies. Her work identified the sections of the Saga which were probably drawn from Robert’s work,91 and speculated as to Robert’s sources and the original structure of his Life. She pointed out, for example, that Robert’s account of the martyrdom is closely based on John of Salisbury’s letter Ex insperato, and his miracle accounts replicate, for the most part, Benedict’s Miracula, although there are details not present in the other biographies.92 Later Icelandic versions added material from other sources, including a Norwegian translation of Quadrilogus II and the Speculum historiale of Vincent of Beauvais.93 The only extant complete version was written in the fourteenth century (c. 1320–1350), and is known as Thomas Saga II or Tomasskinna. The composition of that version of the saga has been attributed to Arngrimr Brandsson.94 The saga became extremely popular, and exerted a profound influence on the relations of Church and State in Iceland. Further, Becket became a revered saint, second only to the Virgin Mary in public religious expression.95 The Becket biographies held great appeal for Icelanders because they dealt with events from the recent past, and because they encapsulated a tale of struggle between Church and State – secular and religious authority.96 As Stefan Karlsson has pointed out: The accounts of Thomas Becket were a source of inspiration and a weapon for the warriors of the Icelandic church; and they served as models not only for the careers of these Icelandic bishops but also for the works of those who wrote their sagas.97 The Icelandic conflict was not, however, between regnum and sacerdotium. The religious-political system differed from the Western European pattern in that powerful chieftains, rather than kings, controlled the government. These men were also invested, in many cases, with religious responsibilities, and were themselves priests. They had functioned as such in the pagan tradition, and when Iceland was Christianized around the year 1000, they continued their religious roles.98 Churches were founded by individual chieftains and farmers, who endowed the establishments with property to meet their expenses. These men typically occupied the farm where the church was located. They were most often called keepers, but for most practical purposes they functioned as owners, and the church property contributed to the economic base of the chieftain group.99 If the owners were not chieftain-priests themselves, they hired a priest. Often the keeping of a church was inherited like personal property. The chieftain-priests were a common feature of the religious structure. The early sagas report that “most respectable men were educated and ordained as priests, even those who were chieftains.”100 As one scholar noted, “At the time of Christianization they [the chieftains] just changed gods but went

Thirteenth-century translations 55 on with their social roles as far as they possibly could.”101 Some historians have suggested that this close association between the lay aristocracy and the Church provided an environment which fostered the extraordinary literary achievement of medieval Iceland. Certainly, the value placed on learning coupled with national traditions played an important role in creating a flourishing literature in the vernacular.102 From the time of conversion (c. 1000) until the beginning of the twelfth century, Iceland was technically contained within the archiepiscopal see of Hamburg-Bremen. In 1104, Iceland was placed under the jurisdiction of the new archbishopric established at Lund, in Denmark, and from 1153 was part of the see centered at Trondheim, in Norway. The Scandinavian prelates, preoccupied much of the time with their own struggles with secular authority, were generally unconcerned with religious matters in the island nation; hence, the chieftains, many of whom were ordained as priests, exercised direct control over the church, regulating almost all dealings between the church and lay society. Eventually, the Church authorities began to feel that it was not in the best interests of the establishment to have such independent clergy. They naturally would prefer to have priests who would be more closely tied to the Church, possessing no wealth or power other than what they received from higher Church authority. However, since the priestchieftains did not form a united religious caste, they were a major impediment to reform.103 During the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Scandinavian prelates, notably the archbishops of Trondheim, who were the ecclesiastical governors of Iceland, became more interested in the adherence of the Icelanders to strict religious observance; they objected to the ordination of the chieftains and their control of church property. Thus, the Becket controversy had a particularly appropriate theme within the context of the Icelandic politico-religious situation. Indeed, the translation and compilation of the Becket corpus was doubtlessly inspired, at least partially, by the cause of ecclesiastical liberty.104 Further, the creators of the Saga recognized the dramatic qualities of the confrontation between two extraordinary characters, which ended with the brutal murder of one and the ritual humiliation of the other.105 Two Icelandic bishops, in particular, began to contest the rights of the chieftains. The first was Thorlakr Thorhallsson, later St Thorlakr, who was elected bishop of the southern see of Skalholt in 1174, four years after Becket’s murder. His struggle for the rights and authority of the Church was seen as akin to that of the Canterbury martyr, and his situation may have been a contributing factor to the initial creation of the Icelandic Thomas Saga.106 As Stefan Karlsson has pointed out, it is likely that Bergr Gunnsteinsson was already at work on his translation during Thorlakr’s episcopacy.107 An account of Thorlakr’s life is preserved in Thorlakr’s Saga, which reports that the saint was of poor parentage, but was brought up and educated at Oddi (an important center of scholarship) by one of the most

56  Saint and cult influential chieftain families in Iceland. He studied in Paris and at Lincoln, returning to Iceland in 1161. His time in England coincided with Becket’s career as Chancellor, and he must have heard of the splendor of his lifestyle and his close friendship with Henry II. Thorlakr no doubt continued to correspond with friends in England,108 and would certainly have been aware of the struggle of Becket against the king concerning liberty of the church, and the archbishop’s murder. His own dealings with a prominent chieftainpriest, Jon Loftsson, are reminiscent of the Becket controversy.109 Thorlakr was elected bishop at Skalholt in 1174, four years after the murder in Canterbury Cathedral, remaining in that position until his death in 1193. Supported by the archbishop at Trondheim, he demanded that the churches and their properties be relinquished to the bishopric. He met with success in the Eastern Quarter, where the farms were handed over, but afterwards he invested the former “keepers” with the patronage of the churches; he was evidently satisfied to have the formal authority of the episcopacy recognized.110 Eventually, however, he came into conflict with Jón Loftsson, a powerful chieftain who refused to respect the archbishop’s wishes. As Jón remarked when addressing his fellow chieftains: I am able to understand the archbishop’s message, but I am resolved to hold it worthless. I do not think he is abler or wiser than my ancestors, Saemund the Learned and his sons. Nor will I condemn the example of our native bishops who respected the custom of the land that laymen should control the churches their forefathers gave to God with the reservation that they and their descendants should have control of them.111 Following this eloquent speech to his colleagues, which is reminiscent of Henry II’s claims of “ancient customs,” the keepers of the churches followed Jón’s lead, and Thorlakr’s message concerning church property was ignored for the rest of his life.112 Another issue which arose during Thorlakr’s episcopacy concerned the important tie between the lay aristocracy and the Church, the ordination of chieftains. In about 1190, a letter was sent from the archbishop in Trondheim, forbidding the Icelandic bishops to ordain the chiefs. Whether this measure was effective is debatable; perhaps the chieftains were losing interest in the priesthood, but the influence of the chieftain-priests seems to have lessened in the thirteenth century; only a few major chiefs took minor orders during that period.113 Following Thorlakr’s death in 1193, the chieftains of the southern see of Skalholt were careful to choose a bishop without strong ties to the Church. The bishop-elect was Pall Jónsson, a chieftain who had not even been ordained as a priest, though he had taken minor orders as a deacon. He exemplified the Icelandic scholar-aristocrat par excellence, and was reportedly one of the best-educated men of his day, known to be a fine singer and composer of Latin verse. Groomed to be a chieftain, Pall had studied

Thirteenth-century translations 57 in England, probably in 1178 and for a few years afterward. This period, shortly after the canonization of Becket, was a time of great enthusiasm concerning the martyr, whose miracles were no doubt widely discussed. Further, the earliest biographies were newly available, and it is more than likely that Pall secured records of the life and miracles of the saint to take with him when he returned to his homeland.114 Pall may have commissioned the saga celebrating his uncle Thorlakr, since one of his first actions as bishop was to grant permission that Thorlakr be invoked as a saint.115 His episcopacy is generally regarded as successful, although he returned the diocese of Skalholt to the older insular traditions of the Icelandic church. The northern chieftains in the see of Holar, by contrast, elected a Beckettype bishop in 1201 – Guthmundr Arason (1161–1237), popularly called “the Good.” It is in the Gudmundr saga that the influence of the Lives of Thomas Becket is seen most clearly.116 This is not surprising, since Guthmundr’s episcopacy was marked by his struggle against secular men of power as he attempted to defend and advance the cause of the Church.117 Indeed, during his tenure the fragile unity of clerical and secular authority was shattered. According to the contemporary saga,118 Guthmundr was elected at the behest of a powerful chieftain, Kolbeinn Tumason, whom he served as house priest. During his tenure as Kolbeinn’s priest, he did not undertake any actions which would strengthen the Church as an institution. Further, the chieftain probably thought he could, in effect, rule the bishopric alone if he orchestrated the appointment of this weak relative of his wife, who was an illegitimate son from a minor chieftain’s family. At the time of his election, Guthmund had acquired a reputation as a pious and devout man, and was well known for his various miracles, but he had no experience administering a large institution such as the bishopric of Holar. However, just as Henry II was surprised and appalled by the ecclesiastical stance of Becket, Kolbeinn was bitterly disappointed in Guthmundr’s actions as bishop.119 Two issues were at stake. The first was the administration of the see, where Guthmundr wished to be more generous to the poor than Kolbeinn thought advisable. The second, and a more potent source of conflict, was the exercise of judicial power in cases brought against clergymen; this was, of course, one of the central points of contention between Thomas and Henry II. Interestingly, whereas Henry invoked the “ancient customs” of his predecessor to support his case, in Iceland the chieftains pointed to the national law of the country – an early example of nationalism. The struggle between Gudmundr and Kolbeinn over the issue of “criminous clerks” escalated over the years, with sentences passed by each party which were generally ignored. When Kolbeinn sentenced priests for criminal activity, they found refuge at the see at Holar. On the other side, Kolbeinn and his men entered churches after Gudmundr had excommunicated them. In 1208, a battle broke out between the two groups, and Kolbeinn died from a wound caused by a stone thrown at his head.

58  Saint and cult Following Kolbeinn’s death, the chieftains of Iceland viewed Gudmundr as a threat to their authority, and his efforts were continually blocked by various coalitions. He was actually expelled from his see on numerous occasions. Gudmundr lived according to his ideal of poverty, often wandering around with a large group of followers, which comprised a motley crew of men and women, vagrants, beggars, and thieves.120 When he was able to control the treasury of his see, he allowed most of the revenues to be distributed to charitable causes. Needless to say, the chieftains saw this depletion of the episcopal treasury as evidence of the bishop’s irresponsibility. The leaders repeatedly dispersed his following, and at times he was held in confinement. Twice he was summoned to Norway by the archbishop, remaining in exile there for four years each time, though he seems to have received little support. Finally, in 1234, after he had become infirm and almost blind, he was allowed to stay at Holar undisturbed. He died three years later. There can be little doubt that Gudmundr was inspired by the example of Thomas Becket. In the saga devoted to his life Becket is mentioned twice – the first time in the description of a vision which revealed that in the future life, Gudmund would rank as high in Iceland as Becket in England. In another chapter a skaldic poem composed by his enemy Kolbein reads in part: Gudmund the heir of Ari’s valor keeps firm his wish to wield such power as Thomas a Becket. This bodes danger. Of radiant mind and mighty heart, on men he lays the law of the Church. Alone it is God that Gudmund fears.121 Gudmundr’s saga demonstrates the typical Icelandic combination of hagiography and political conflict played out against a relatively recent historical background – features that are also present in the Thomas Saga, and which undoubtedly fostered the fascination with the Canterbury martyr. As Timothy Reuter and Haki Antonsson have pointed out, such saga accounts of struggle between Church and State focused on “conflict resolution, ritualized set-pieces, and the notion of not losing face in the political game.”122 The exciting dramatic actions, which held great appeal for laypeople as well as clergymen, are set against a realistic background, and in the sagas of the Icelandic bishops as well as Becket, these elements combine to produce a “narrative mode of surface realism.”123 Moreover, according to Stefan Karlsson: The accounts of Thomas Becket were a source of inspiration and a weapon for the warriors of the Icelandic church; and they served as models not only for the careers of these Icelandic bishops but also for the works of those who wrote their sagas.124

Thirteenth-century translations 59 The Thomas Saga enjoyed great popularity in Iceland due to various factors, including the contemporary relations between Church and State. It presented Becket as a literary motif which provided a model of behavior for the clergy, emphasizing Thomas’s steadfast determination to uphold the rights of the church against encroachments by the state. Further, the accounts of Thomas’s miracles stimulated admiration and provided hope to the people of Iceland, as they did for pilgrims throughout England and Europe. As we have seen, thirteenth-century translations of the biographies of Becket written by his contemporaries transmitted the legend of the Canterbury martyr to a new generation of believers. Although these works continued to present the prominent themes of the early biographers emphasizing his piety, his change of lifestyle when he became archbishop, his defense of the Church, and the miracles following his martyrdom, the authors responded to new currents of thought and expression then prevalent in society. Thomas was shown to be more compassionate, and more attentive to the needs of the common people and the poor, and these qualities offered a more direct opportunity for empathy and personal identification by the worshippers, especially women. In part, these changes may be a result of the efforts by the thirteenth-century Church to promote a more active religious engagement among parish clergy and laypeople. As these vernacular biographies demonstrate, with the passage of time the image of the Canterbury martyr was altered to address the needs and concerns of those who venerated the saint and his memory.

Notes 1 The four leaves which constitute a fragment of the Life of Thomas Becket were in the possession of the family of the collector Jacques Goethals-Vercruysse from the era of the French Revolution until 1986, when they were offered for sale at Sotheby’s. At that time, they were purchased by J. Paul Getty, who generously placed them on loan to the British Library [BL Loan MS 88]. For full details concerning the provenance of the manuscript, see J. Backhouse and C. de Hamel, The Becket Leaves (London, 1988), 13, and C. de Hamel, Sotheby’s catalogue for the sale, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures (London, 1986), 32–48. 2 Montagu Rhodes James identified Paris as the author when he was studying other illustrated saints’ lives he also attributed to Paris. The works were “a Matthew Paris production in the sense that he directed it, and designed it to some extent.” From private correspondence quoted in R. Pfaff, Montagu Rhodes James (London, 1980), 295. 3 N. Morgan, “Matthew Paris, St Albans, London, and the Leaves of the ‘Life of St Thomas Becket’,” The Burlington Magazine 130/1019 (1988): 85–96. See also Morgan’s comments in Early Gothic Manuscripts (1): 1190–1250 (Oxford, 1982), 107–8. 4 R. Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958), MS cited on 168–79, 207 and 221–2. See the discussion of the literary culture at St Albans in K. Handel, “French Writing in the Cloister: Four Texts from St Albans Abbey Featuring Thomas Becket and Alexander the Great, c. 1184–c. 1275,” PhD thesis, University of York, 2015, 21–9.

60  Saint and cult 5 G. Henderson, “Studies in English Manuscript Illumination,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 30 (1967), MS cited on 76, 79–80 and 83. 6 C. De Hamel, Sotheby Sale Catalogue, 24 June, 1986, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures (London, 1986), 33–48. 7 Backhouse and De Hamel, Becket Leaves. 8 C. Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart (Berkeley, 2001), 284–7. 9 K. Handel, “French Writing in the Cloister: Four Texts from St Albans Abbey Featuring Thomas Becket and Alexander the Great, c. 1184–c. 1275,” PhD thesis, University of York, 2015. 10 C.H. Lawrence agreed that the Becket Leaves were the product of the workshop of Matthew Paris. Lawrence, St. Edmund of Abingdon: A Study in Hagiography and History (Oxford, 1960), 71. 11 See Chapter 1. 12 P. Meyer, Fragments d’une Vie de Saint Thomas de Cantorbery (Paris, 1885), viii–xxvi. Robertson justified the identification of the work as Quadrilogus (four authors), but pointing out that “there are never more than four contributors to the story, as Alan’s narrative ends before that of Benedict begins.” Mats. iv, xix, ft. 2. The Quadrilogus is discussed above, Chapter 1. 13 Legge, Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters, 123. Cynthia Hahn has pointed out that Matthew himself referred to his saints’ lives as “romances,” although she suggests that his use of the term may refer to the Romance language. Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, 392, ft. 17. 14 Vaughan, Matthew Paris, 180. 15 Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, 28. The amalgamation of romance and hagiography is also evident in the South English Legendary, to be discussed ahead. 16 Hahn, Portrayed on the Heart, 46. 17 The conference at Montmirail is discussed by Barlow, Becket, 179–81. 18 The banishment of Thomas’s relatives is also emphasized in the liturgy, the South English Legendary, and the Icelandic Saga. 19 J. Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture, c. 1150–1300 (Oxford, 2001), 158. 20 Wogan-Browne, Saints’ Lives, 187. 21 S. Hindman, “The Illustrated Book: An Addendum to the State of Research in Northern European Art,” Art Bulletin 68 (1986), 536–542, at 539. 22 Holy Bible, Matthew 2:16. 23 Holy Bible, Matthew 27. 24 H. Blurton and J. Wogan-Browne, eds., Rethinking the South English Legendaries (Manchester, 2011), 8. Their conclusions are based on the fundamental study of Manfred Görlach, The Textual Tradition of the South English Legendary, Leeds Texts and Monographs NS 6 (Leeds, 1974), as well as T. Liszka, “The South English Legendaries,” in T. Liszka and L. Walker, eds., The North Sea World in the Middle Ages: Studies in the Cultural History of North-Western Europe (Dublin, 2001), 243–80. Reprinted in Blurton and Wogan-Browne, Rethinking, 23–65. Annie Samson has remarked that the original SEL manuscript “has been dated with varying degrees of assurance between 1260 and 1288.” The earliest is BL MS Laud 108, which Samson believes “was copied before 1300 in a west Oxfordshire dialect.” A. Samson, “The South English Legendary: Constructing a Context,” in P.R. Cross and S.D. Lloyd, eds., Thirteenth Century England (Woodbridge, 1985), 185–95, at 186. 25 T. Liszka has analyzed the structure of several Legendary manuscripts in his article “The South English Legendaries,” in Blurton and Wogan-Browne, Rethinking, 23–65. The appendices to the article provide charts listing the contents and the arrangement of various manuscripts.

Thirteenth-century translations 61 26 K.P. Jankofsky, “National Characteristics in the Portrayal of English Saints in the South English Legendary,” in R. Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell, eds., Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe (Ithaca, 1991), 81–93, at 83. 27 Jankofsky, “National Characteristics,” 83. 28 D. Speed, “The Construction of the Nation in Medieval English Romance,” in C. Meale, ed., Readings in Medieval English Romance (Cambridge, 1994), 135– 57, at 142. 29 Jankofsky, “National Characteristics,” 84. 30 T. Heffernan, “Dangerous Sympathies: Political Commentary in the South English Legendary,” in K. Janofsky, ed., The South English Legendary: A Critical Assessment (Tübingen, 1992), 1–17, at 3. 31 Jankofsky, “National Characteristics,” 89. 32 Samson, “South English Legendary,” 191. Samson points out that the recounting of Becket’s life in the SEL “illuminates nicely the necessity for Henry VIII’s Act in Council of 1537 by which Becket was condemned as ‘a rebel and a traitor,’ and his image and story systematically erased from church and book.” (See the discussion in Chapter 6). 33 Samson, “Constructing a Context,” 191. 34 T. Turville-Petre, England the Nation: Language, Literature, and National Identity, 1290–1340 (Oxford, 1996), 60. 35 Turville-Petre, England the Nation, 60. 36 Samson, “Constructing a Context,” 192. 37 Samson, “Constructing a Context,” 192. The Becket Leaves provide additional evidence of this view. 38 D. Pearsall, Studies in the Vernon Manuscript (Cambridge, 1990). 39 R. Hamelinck, “St Kenelm and the Legends of the English Saints in the SEL,” in N.H.G.E. Veldhoen and H. Aertsen, eds., Companion to Early Middle English Literature, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 1995), 19–28, at 22. 40 Liszka, “South English Legendaries,” 41. 41 See Chapter 1 for the discussion of the translation of the Quadrilogus by Matthew Paris. 42 H. Thiemke, Die M.E. Thomas Beket-legende des Gloucesterlegendars, kritisch herausgegeben mit Einleitung, Palaestra, CXXXI (Berlin, 1919). According to Paul Alonzo Brown, the earliest version of the tale is found in five manuscripts, with no substantial difference between them. These are the First Quadrilogus Q1 (Brown identifies this as “the Later Quadrilogus,” which is the first version. See above, Chapter 1), the Chronicle of John Brompton, some manuscripts of the Vita by Grim, Harleian MS. 987, and Cotton MS. Julius D6. P. Brown, “The Development of the Legend of Thomas Becket,” PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1930, 28. 43 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 215. 44 See the remarks concerning this point by Mills in “Translation,” 134. 45 J. Boffey, “Middle English Lives,” in D. Wallace, ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature (Cambridge, 2002), 621. 46 Boffey, “Lives,” 622. See also See also J. Wogan-Browne, “ ‘Bet . . . to . . . rede on holy seyntes lyves. . . ’: Romance and Hagiography Again,” in C. Meale, ed., Readings in Medieval English Romance (Cambridge, 1994), 83–97. 47 The legend in the SEL comprises lines 3–202. It is printed as an appendix to Grim’s Life in Mats. ii, 451–8. Grim’s original text, completed in the 1170s, contained a preface naming Becket’s mother as Matilda. The “more exotic version” was included as an interpolation in the First Quadrilogus. See R. Mills, “Becket’s Heathen Mother,” in H. Blurton and J. Wogen-Browne, eds., Rethinking (Manchester, 2011), 395, and R. Mills, “Invisible Translation, Language

62  Saint and cult Difference and the Scandal of Becket’s Mother,” in E. Campbell and R. Mills, eds., Rethinking Medieval Translation: Ethics, Politics, Theory (Cambridge, 2012), 125–46. 48 For a discussion of penance in romance tales, see A. Hopkins, The Sinful Knights: A Study of Middle English Penitential Romance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), esp. 198. Note, also, that Gilbert’s journey conforms to the “most common narrative base of medieval romance, the exile and return.” For a discussion of this theme, see D. Speed, “The Construction of the Nation in Medieval English Romance,” in C. Meale, ed., Readings in Medieval English Romance (Cambridge, 1994), 135–57, at 146. 49 Brown, Legend of Becket, 29. The tale of the daughter of a Saracen emir who falls in love with a Christian knight and subsequently converts is relatively common in the Romance literature, as Sarah Kay has shown by tracing the theme in more than 20 chansons de geste. S. Kay, The Chansons de Geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions (Oxford, 1995), 30–48. 50 Mills has explored her linguistic situation in “Translation,” 128–33. 51 Mills has pointed out that her religious conversion is a cultural trope that serves to promote the idea that spiritual conversion is a “fully realizable activity” (“Translation,” 132). 52 SEL, l. 142. This identification is in keeping with the “political fantasies of ‘Englishness’ ” evident in a number of the saints’ lives in the SEL. (Mills, “Translation,” 134). 53 Mills, “Becket’s ‘Heathen’ Mother,” 390. See the remarks of H. Vollrath concerning the common topos in the twelfth century of the mother as the person responsible for the religious training in “Was Thomas Becket Chaste? Understanding Episodes in the Becket Lives,” in J. Gillingham, ed., Anglo-Norman Studies, XXVII (Woodbridge, 2005), 199–209, at 201. 54 Anonymous I (Roger of Pontigny), Mats. iv, 5, 7–8. An image of Thomas being taught to read in the presence of his mother is found in the stained glass of the chapter house at York Minster, discussed in Mills, “Translation,” 143–4. The glass cycle commemorating Becket at St Michael-le-Belfrey, York, and the chapter house is analyzed more broadly in R. Koopmans, “Early Sixteenth-­Century Stained Glass at St. Michael-le-Belfry and the Commemoration of Thomas Becket in Late Medieval York,” Speculum 89/4 (October, 2014), 1040–1100, esp. 1058–81. A photograph of the glass portraying Becket’s education is Fig. 19, 1074. 55 SEL, l. 211. 56 Magnússon, Saga ii, 19. Translation modernized. 57 Turville-Petre, “England the Nation,” 63. 58 A. Thompson, Everyday Saints and the Art of Narrative in the South English Legendary (Aldershot, 2003), 50 ff. 59 Thompson, Everyday Saints, 50. 60 Hamelinck, “Legends of the English Saints,” 22. 61 Turville-Petre, “England the Nation,” 63. 62 Thompson, Everyday Saints, 50. 63 Thompson, Everyday Saints, 51. 64 SEL, lines 195–6. 65 Magnússon, Saga i, 49. 66 Magnússon, Saga i, 57. 67 Magnússon, Saga ii, 3. 68 Magnússon, Saga i, 483. 69 Magnússon, Saga i, 495. 70 E. Duffy, Introduction to the 2012 edition of the Legenda Aurea (Prince ton, 2012), xi. D. Wallace, ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval English

Thirteenth-century translations 63 Literature (Cambridge, 2002), 106. See also S. Reames, The Legenda Aurea: A Reexamination of Its Paradoxical History (Madison, 1985). 71 Duffy, “Introduction,” xi. 72 M. Wells, “The South English Legendary in Its Relation to the Legenda Aurea,” PMLA 51, no. 2 (June 1936): 337–60, at 339. 73 Quoted by K. Olsen, “Women and Englishness,” 3. 74 E. Duffy remarks that it is “fairly unsurprising” that Jacobus included a life of Becket, since the Canterbury martyr was “an icon for the authority and independence of the Church whose shrine was one of the great pilgrimage venues of Europe” (“Introduction,” xv). The version of the Becket legend he refers to is in Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, 2 vols, trans. W.G. Ryan (Princeton, 2012). 75 Sherry Reames has pointed out the degree to which Jacobus condensed the legends he used in the Legenda Aurea, remarking that “in some ways the narratives in the Legenda are vastly more elementary than the sources from which they descend.” Reames, Legenda Aurea, 85. Her point is made through an analysis of the life of Benedict as presented by Gregory the Great in comparison with the account in the Legenda (Chapters 4 and 5, 73–100). 76 Ryan, Golden Legend, 60. 77 See above for a discussion of this material in the Becket Leaves. 78 See Chapter 1. 79 Ryan, Golden Legend, 60. See also Mats. ii, 298. 80 Ryan, Golden Legend, 61. The tale appears, in a slightly different form, in the work of Thomas Cantimpratensis as early as 1255. (Bonum Universale, seu Miraculorum et Exemplorum Memorabilium sui Temporis Libres; ed. G. Colvenerius, Duaci, 1605). In this version, the Virgin Mary sees Becket’s distress over the torn breeches and his inability to mend them, and takes the garment from his hands, sits by his side, and repairs the tear. See the discussion by E. A. Abbott, St. Thomas of Canterbury: His Death and Miracles, 2 vols. (London, 1898), ii, 291–2. The miracle is also mentioned in Mats. ii, 292–3. 81 Ryan, Golden Legend, 61. 82 Ryan, Golden Legend, 61–2. I am not aware of any other source for this miracle tale. 83 Ryan, Golden Legend, 62. See the remarks of E. Abbot concerning the development of legends surrounding the fates of the murderers in Miracles, ii., 294–5; and more recently, N. Vincent, “The Murderers of Thomas Becket,” in Natalie Fryde and Dirk Reitz, eds., Bischofsmord im Mittelalter: Murder of Bishops (Göttingen, 2003), 211–72. 84 A recent article addresses this lack of substantial scholarship. See H. Antonsson, “The Lives of St Thomas Becket and Early Scandinavian Literature,” SMSR 81 (2015), 394–413. 85 The development of Becket’s cult in Iceland is discussed in Chapter 3. 86 The early translation of the Becket biography into Old-Norse Icelandic is not as surprising as it might seem. As Jonas Wellendorf has pointed out when considering the earliest phase of Old Norse literature, translations of Latin hagiographic narratives and sermons dominated vernacular literature during the period from 1150 to 1250. J. Wellendorf, “The Attraction of the Earliest Old Norse Vernacular Hagiography,” in H. Antonsson and I. Garipzanov, eds., Saints and Their Lives on the Periphery: Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c. 1000–1200) (Belgium, 2010), 241–58, at 241. 87 See the discussion in Antonsson, “The Lives of St Thomas Becket and Early Scandinavian Literature,” 394–413. The term “saga” refers to prose narratives, written in Iceland in Old Norse-Icelandic in the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries. The earliest examples, known as historical sagas, deal with the

64  Saint and cult settlement of Iceland and the early development of government. There are also family sagas and works which deal with the lives and deeds of the Icelandic chieftains. More essential, however, were the sagas based on the lives of saints, known as holy people’s sagas, which were probably the most popular. For a discussion of saga genres, see L. Lönnroth, European Sources of Icelandic SagaWriting: An Essay Based on Previous Studies (Stockholm, 1965), 6–7. 88 Barlow, Becket, 8. The case for identifying Bergr as the translator is presented by P. Foote in “On the Fragmentary Text Concerning St Thomas Becket in Stock. Perg. Fol. Nr. 2,” Saga Book of the Viking Society xv (1957–61): 403– 46, at 443–5. The attribution is also discussed in S. Karlsson, “Icelandic Lives of Thomas á Becket: Questions of Authorship,” in P.G. Foote, H. Palsson and D. Slay, eds., Proceedings of the First International Saga Conference: University of Edinburgh 1971 (London, 1973), 212–43, at 220. 89 E. Walberg, “Date et source de la vie de Saint Thomas de Cantobéry par Beneit, moine de Saint-Alban,” Romania. Recueil Trimestriel 44 (1915–17): 407–26. Reprinted in Walberg, La Tradition hagiographique, 9–33. See the discussion of Beneit’s work in Chapter 1. 90 Foote, “Fragmentary Text,” The fragment has been edited by C.R. Unger, Heilagra manna søgur ii (Christiania, 1877), 315–20. 91 M. Orme, “A Reconstruction of Robert of Cricklade’s Vita et Miracula S. Thomae Cantuariensis,” Analecta Bollandiana 84 (1966): 379–98. 92 Robert’s work, for example, analyzes the character of Thomas’s master and predecessor, Archbishop Theobald, his associations at court, and his physical attributes in more detail than the other biographers. Orme, “Robert of Cricklade,” 385–6. Other instances are noted on 387–9. 93 The complicated Becket corpus in Old Norse is discussed in A. Jakobsen, “Thomas Saga Erkibiskups,” in P. Pulsiano, ed., Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia (New York, 1993), 643–4. See also the remarks of Karlsson, “Icelandic Lives.” Karlsson cites an early Icelandic tale which refers to the authors of the Thomas Saga, identifying them as Bergr Gunnsteinsson and Jon Hestr (Holt). The tale also supplies information about the use of the work of Vincent of Beauvais (213–14, 224–5). In addition, Karlsson’s article traces the possible authorship of Jon Holt (220–7, 240), concluding that Jon’s contribution to the Thomas saga corpus must have been the translation of Quadrilogus. Karlsson provides a stemma on 243. As Haki Antonsson has observed, both Gunnsteinsson and Holt were members of the clergy connected with bishops strongly dedicated to the cause of ecclesiastical freedom. Antonsson, “Lives,” 397. 94 Karlsson, “Icelandic Lives,” 227–39. 95 M. Cormack has documented the dedication of 12 churches to Becket in The Saints in Iceland: Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400 (Brussels, 1994), 174, 181, 190, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 213, 214, 225, 229. 96 For example, see the remarks of Margaret Cormack in “Sagas of Saints,” in M. Ross, ed., Old Icelandic Literature and Society (Cambridge, 2000), 302–25, at 308. Haki Antonsson has pointed out that the Becket biographies appealed to writers of other Icelandic sagas who wished to portray feuds or disputes within the parameters of hagiography, such as the author of Hrafns saga and the biographer of St Magnus. (Antonsson, “Lives,” 401). 97 Karlsson, “Questions of Authorship,” 242. 98 Jón Vi(d)ar Sigur(d)sson’s article “Kings, Earls and Chieftains. Rulers in Norway, Orkney and Iceland, c. 900–1300,” (posted on Academia.com): 69–108, provides a succinct summary of the religious history of Iceland and the role of the go(d)i. (89–94). See also J. Byock, Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power (Berkeley, 1988), and G. Karlsson, The History of Iceland (Minneapolis, 2000).

Thirteenth-century translations 65 99 Karlsson, History, 39. 100 Karlsson, History, 40. 101 Karlsson, History, 40. 102 Karlsson, History, 40. 103 R. Boyer discusses this point in ‘ “L’eveque Gudmundr Arason temoin de son Temps,” Etudes Gemaniques 3 (1967): 427–44, at 438. 104 Antonsson, “Lives,” 397. 105 Antonsson, “Lives,” 397. The popularity of the Becket life is demonstrated in another saga, that of Thorgil, which is one of the so-called Sturlunga sagas. The action takes place at the Hrafnagil farm in Northern Iceland on January 21, 1257. Thorgil, the main character, comes to the farm on horseback, and is received with hospitality: Thorgil was asked to choose what kind of entertainment they should have in the evening, saga reading or dance. He asked which sagas were available. He was told that they had the saga of Thomas the archbishop, and he chose that one because he loved him more than other saints. Then the saga was read all the way to the point where the archbishop was attacked in the church and the crown was chopped off him. People say that Thorgil stopped at this point and said: “This would be a most beautiful death.” Shortly thereafter, he fell asleep. As Wellendorf assessed the passage: This description is not to be taken as a historical account of what happened that winter evening of 1257, for the whole passages anticipates Thorgils’s own death, which takes place a few pages later in a manner corresponding to that of St Thomas of Canterbury. The anonymous saga author even takes care to spell out the parallels between the two historical scenes. But even if this passage is mainly to be seen as a literary device of prefiguration, it is not unreasonable to suppose that there were people [not only clerics] at the time of this saga being written who had saints’ lives as their preferred reading matter. Wellendorf, “Vernacular Hagiography,” 243–4 106 See the remarks of K. Wolf in “Pride and Politics in Late-Twelfth-Century Iceland: The Sanctity of Bishop Thorlakr Thorhallsson,” in T. DuBois, ed., Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia (Toronto, 2008), 241–70. 107 Karlsson, “Questions of Authorship,” 241. 108 The memory of Thorlakr in England was evidenced by a sculpture of the bishop placed in the Priory of Kyme in Lincolnshire. Magnússon, Saga, ii, x. 109 The conflict with secular chieftains was emphasized in the B version of Thorlakr’s saga, composed during the episcopacy of Arni Thorlaksson (1269–1298), who struggled for the control of Church holdings in Iceland. His situation paralleled that of Thorlakr, and he may have chosen to have the account of Church vs. secular authority given prominence in the new version of the saga. Cormack, “Sagas of Saints,” 308. Version C of Thorlakr’s saga, by contrast, emphasizes the saint’s relationship with the lower orders of society. He heals, for example, a single mother-to-be, a poor working woman and a shepherd. See the discussion in Á. Jakobsson, “The Friend of the Meek: The Late Medieval Miracles of a Twelfth-century Icelandic Saint,” academia.edu. 110 Karlsson, History, 42. 111 Quoted in W.I. Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago, 1990), 38.

66  Saint and cult 112 Karlsson, History, 42. 113 According to Miller in Bloodtaking and Peacemaking, “there is no evidence that chieftains were admitted to clerical orders after 1190,” 39, quoting Johannesson, 1974. 114 Another traveler to England who probably brought literature concerning Becket back to Iceland was the pious Icelandic chieftain Rafn (or Hrafn) Sveinbjarnarson of Eyrr. A contemporary of Thorlakr and Paul, he is known to have made a vow to St Thomas in about 1195. The saint had aided him in the capturing and beaching of a walrus, and he promised the teeth of the animal to the saint – a pledge which he fulfilled by taking the teeth to Thomas’s tomb-shrine at Canterbury. (Magnússon, Saga ii, xii). See Chapter 3. 115 Magnússon, Saga, 158. 116 Margaret Cormack has observed that the authors of the sagas present Guthmundr as another Becket, instead of concentrating solely on his miracles as was the case in Thorlakr’s saga. Cormack, “Sagas of Saints,” 310. Further, one of the four sagas about Guthmundr describes a vision that took place just before his election as bishop. The visionary is shown the mansions of heaven and reports that Guthmundr has a place “no lower than that of Archbishop Thomas of England.” Quoted in M. Cormack, “Holy Wells and National Identity in Iceland,” in M. Cormack, ed., Saints and Their Cults in the Atlantic World (Columbia, SC, 2007), 229–47, at 235. See also Cormack’s remarks about the importance of Guthmundr, 236. The vision is discussed in R. Boyer, “L’eveque Gudmundr Arason temoin de son temps,” Etudes Gemaniques 3 (1967): 427–44, at 430. Stefan Karlsson, in “Questions of Authorship,” points to similarities between the earliest Thomas saga and that of Guthmundr, suggesting that they may be the work of a single author (231), and that author is Abbot Arngrimr Brandsson of Thingeyrar (238, 242). 117 Antonsson, “Lives of Becket,” 399. See also the remarks of W. Miller in Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago, 1990), 38–9. 118 There are four versions of Guthmundr’s saga. All were completed in the first part of the fourteenth century, but all are based on thirteenth-century works. The fourth recension is the only complete extant version. See the discussion in S. Karlsson, “ ‘Boklausir Menn’, a Note on Two Versions of Guthmundar Saga,” in R. Simek, J. Kristjansson and H. Bekker-Nielsen, eds., Sagnaskemmtun: Studies in Honour of Hermann Palsson (Wien, Koln, Graz, 1986), 277–86 at 277. The article compares and discusses the various versions. There are several translations into English, including G. Turville-Petre and E.S. Olszewska, trans., The Life of Gudmund the Good, Bishop of Holar (Coventry, 1942) and J.H. McGrew and R.G. Thomas, trans., Sturlunga Saga, 2 vols. (New York, 1972), 91–144. 119 Karlsson, History, 42. See also Boyer, “L’eveque,” 431 ff. 120 Byock, Medieval Iceland, 161. 121 Turville-Petre and Olszewska, Gudmund, 61. 122 Antonsson, “Lives,” 411. 123 Antonsson, “Lives,” 411. 124 Karlsson, “Questions of Authorship,” 242. Further, as Antonsson has observed, “the overall trajectory of the Becket story was [also] adapted to the careers of Earl Magnus and Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson: the rift between former allies leads to a betrayal and an unjust death.” (“Lives,” 402).

3 “Hooly blisful martir” The development of the Becket cult

The cult of Becket began spontaneously among the sick and indigent pilgrims at Canterbury who came to his tomb in the crypt, and later to his shrine in Trinity Chapel, in search of cures for their illnesses. The numerous miracles which occurred as a result of the saint’s intervention were initially recorded by two monks, Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury, who were also among his biographers. As word of the miracles spread, the number of pilgrims grew dramatically. This burgeoning popularity was formalized when the martyr was canonized in 1173. By the thirteenth century, the cult had developed significantly and had spread throughout the European continent, as documented in various primary sources, written, liturgical, and iconographical. As Richard Eales has remarked: The fame of St Thomas was diffused through almost every means known to the age: personal networks of family and locality; organizations within the Church, especially the Cistercian Order; liturgy, letters, lives and miracle collections, sermons, Latin and vernacular poetry; music; painting, sculpture, and stained glass; cult objects, ranging from elaborately decorated chasses to badges and vials of water.1 These materials have been the focus of recent scholarship, as the study of both miracles and pilgrimage in the past several decades has brought new interest to analyzing the cult of Becket and its manifestations in countries throughout Europe. This chapter examines the evidence provided by the primary sources and provides an analysis of new interpretations.

Canterbury and the first miracles Immediately following the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral the evening of December 29, 1170, the martyr’s body was taken by the monks from the site of the martyrdom to the front of the High Altar,2 where a vigil was kept during the night. Within 12 hours, the monks, fearing royal retaliation, carried his body down into the undercroft so as to avoid possible desecration. The martyr’s remains were placed in a new marble sarcophagus that was, almost miraculously, found there; the coffin, according to Becket’s

68  Saint and cult biographer Herbert of Bosham, had been “prepared by God.”3 Becket’s body was prepared for entombment by the monks, who unexpectedly discovered the hairshirt and drawers under his clothing.4 The sight of these monastic instruments of self-mortification provoked instant recognition of the holiness of the martyr, and they left them in place next to his skin.5 “See, see” they cried, “he was indeed a monk, and we knew it not.” There was no longer any doubt among the monks that he deserved to be called a martyr: he endured torments in life, as well as in death. Over the hairshirt and breaches they placed the vestments he had worn on the day of his consecration, and on top of the body, the insignia of his office – his tunic, dalmatic, chasuble, and pallium, together with the chalice, gloves, ring, sandals and pastoral staff.6 The tomb was initially situated behind the shrine of the Virgin, between the altars of St Augustine of Canterbury and St John the Baptist – an area that soon became the most holy site in the cathedral. Even after the translation of the relics, in 1220, the sepulcher was always regarded with reverence, since the grave had assumed the sanctity of its original occupant. Until the time of the Reformation it was known as “Becket’s Tomb,” and was tended by a special keeper.7 Almost immediately following the burial, miracles began to take place at the site, and the cult of Becket began spontaneously among the sick and indigent, initially inspired by the accounts of the miraculous healing power of the martyr.8 William FitzStephen described the first miracle, which occurred soon after the burial: A citizen of Canterbury who had been present at the martyrdom returned home to his paralytic wife with a garment dipped in the blood of the martyr. Hearing about the events in the cathedral, she asked that the blood be rinsed from the clothing and mixed with water so that she might drink its healing substance. Upon imbibing the miraculous liquid, she was immediately cured. This was the first of the signs, according to FitzStephen, that “God wrought for his Martyr the same night.”9 It was also the first demonstration of the healing power of the “water of St Thomas,” a mixture of the martyr’s blood and water, which became a central feature of the cult of Becket.10 As Benedict of Peterborough proclaimed, just as Thomas had been a perfect imitator of Christ in his life and martyrdom, his blood provided healing of the body, in the same way as the blood of Christ nourished souls.11 John of Salisbury corroborated the wondrous events: And there . . . great miracles are wrought. . . . For in the place where he lay before the great altar previous to burial, and in the place where he was at last buried, paralytics are cured, the blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, and lame walk, lepers are cured . . . and (a thing unheard of from the days of our fathers) the dead are raised.12 Word of these miracles spread rapidly, and soon crowds of pilgrims besieged the Canterbury monks for access to Becket’s tomb and his miraculous, healing blood.13

“Hooly blisful martir” 69 As the wondrous occurrences multiplied, the monks appointed Benedict of Peterborough to record the events and collect offerings.14 In addition to the miracles that took place at the martyr’s tomb, he included those which were reported elsewhere by pilgrims who traveled to Canterbury. The accounts of the martyrdom and the news of the miracles in other locations inspired many who were ill or afflicted to seek aid from Thomas; if their health improved, they often embarked on a pilgrimage to Canterbury to venerate the murdered archbishop. In 1172, a monk named William began to collaborate with Benedict in recording the miracles. Although the two men often reported the same miracles, William did not regard his collection as an addendum to that of Benedict. As mentioned in Chapter 1, his collection is much longer than Benedict’s, and is quite different in form and organization. Both of the monks recounted miracles that involved the use of Becket’s blood mixed in water, a practice that required the solution to both doctrinal and practical problems. Physical issues, such as limited supply and means of preservation, were solved by diluting the blood with water, as the woman in the initial miracle had done. This practice guaranteed a virtually endless supply of the healing elixir, in addition to eliminating the unpleasant aspects of drinking undiluted blood. However, no hagiographic precedent existed for the imbibing of a martyr’s blood; indeed, the only person whose blood was used in Christian doctrine and ritual was Christ himself. As Benedict observed, there had not been “any previous case . . . in which God allowed this prerogative; thus alone in the whole world the blood of the Lamb of Bethlehem and the blood of the Lamb of Canterbury were chosen to be imbibed.”15 Benedict’s opinion reinforced the view of John of Salisbury concerning the exceptional nature of Becket’s sanctity, which established significant parallels between the Passion of Christ and the Canterbury martyr.16 The Christological aspects of the use of the water of Becket were amplified as reports of numerous miracles were received.17 Significantly, these included accounts of resuscitation of the dead, miracles which had heretofore been attributed to Christ alone. The powerful effect of the water, together with the Christological associations, became a feature of the liturgies composed for Becket’s feast day and the translation of his remains on July 7, 1220, when his bones were moved from the crypt to a splendid shrine in the newly-constructed apse of Canterbury Cathedral.18 The annual performance of these liturgical ceremonies reinforced the associations surrounding the miracles and the use of the Canterbury water in the minds of the listeners, adding to the developing popularity of the martyr’s cult. The number of pilgrims who approached Canterbury in hopes of a cure must have been extraordinary. Benedict describes them as “spreading themselves over the pavement, falling into contortions and convulsions, weeping, groaning, howling, and foaming at the mouth.”19 Hearing reports of the remarkable cures, people crowded in from the town, eager to see the

70  Saint and cult persons who had received special favor from the saint, and to learn the details of the miracles. According to Gervase of Canterbury, the miracles became numerous and very frequent, occurring first “about his tomb, then Canterbury, then England, then France, Normandy, Germany, then over the whole world. The famous cult attracted the interest of all ranks of society, from Canterbury street urchins who sang songs about the martyr, to the pope himself.”20 The enthusiastic veneration by the laity provided the conditions within which the Cult of Thomas Becket flourished and spread throughout Christendom during the 50-year period immediately following the martyrdom. Perhaps ironically, a further impetus to the development was the “appropriation” of the cult of the Canterbury martyr by his former enemy, Henry II. By 1172, as reports of miracles and assertions of Becket’s sanctity began to circulate widely, the king sought a public reconciliation with the pope. This occurred on May 21 at the cathedral in Avranches, when Henry took an oath to undertake various acts of penance; these, as Anne Duggan has pointed out, were partly an acknowledgment of his complicity in Becket’s murder, and partly an attempt to put to rest the issues which were central to the initial conflict.21 The public action was repeated on May 30 at Caen, and was then formally enumerated in Ne in dubium, a document in the form of a letter sent to the king by the cardinals in charge of the negotiations. In July 1174, Henry made his famous penitential pilgrimage at Canterbury, during the course of the great rebellion of 1173–1174.22 The earliest account is in William of Canterbury’s collection of miracles,23 which describes the king’s approach to Becket’s tomb. William reported that Henry walked the last part of the journey on foot, proceeding with bare feet as he approached the cathedral. Kneeling in front of the tomb in the crypt, he publicly confessed his culpability and asked the monks’ pardon. Then, removing his outer garments, the king bent toward one of the openings in the tomb to receive blows from the presiding bishops and the monks. After being absolved, he remained naked in front of the tomb for the remainder of the night. As part of his penance, Henry placed offerings on Becket’s tomb and granted land to Christ Church in perpetuity, thus increasing his original grant offered in at the time of Becket’s canonization in 1173.24 Several of his contemporaries, as well as some modern historians, have dismissed his action as lacking in true repentance, and have analyzed the king’s actions as the result of political exigency.25 Frank Barlow, for example, viewed the royal pilgrimage as a mere performance designed to align the new English martyr with the monarchy.26 By contrast, Anne Duggan, placing the penance within the context of the king’s actions, has asserted that “the king did indeed perform a princely penance for the murder of his former friend,” although “political calculation and concession to external circumstances only gradually gave way to conscientious acknowledgement of guilt.”27 Further, Henry repeated his pilgrimage to Canterbury on nine or ten further occasions, making it a point to visit the martyr’s tomb whenever

“Hooly blisful martir” 71 he returned to England from his continental holdings, thus demonstrating his continuing devotion to Thomas.28 In any case, Henry’s “reward” for his initial self-abasement at the tomb was the capture of William the Lion, king of the Scots, at Alnwick on the very day he had completed his penance – a symbol of acceptance by God and his new saint. As most of the chroniclers agreed, Henry’s fortunes were significantly improved following his penitential pilgrimage. The king was now able to claim that Becket was the guardian of his realm and the protector of the Angevin dynasty; he was ruling with the support, not only of God, but with the favor or a powerful saint with a burgeoning cult. As Simon Walker has observed, “The historical Becket had already given way to the emblematic episcopal martyr, dying for the good of the church, but, at the same time, extending his patronage and favour to the whole English people.”29 This image of the Canterbury martyr was promulgated not only by Henry, but also by three of his daughters and one former daughter-in-law,30 who were instrumental in establishing and fostering the martyr’s cult in several European countries. These were Matilda (b. 1156), who married the Saxon Duke Henry the Lion in 1168; Eleanor, or Leonor (b. 1161), who became the wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile in 1170; Joanna (b. 1165), who was married to William II of Sicily in 1177; and Margaret Capet, the widow of Young King Henry, who married Bela III of Hungary in 1186.

Angevin marriage alliances and the early dissemination of the cult As I have discussed elsewhere,31 the daughters of Henry II wished to proclaim that the Angevin dynasty was securely under the protection of the Canterbury martyr, and they sought to demonstrate to the world that the archbishop had forgiven his old enemy Henry II.32 Further, as Sara LutanHassner has pointed out, they wished to establish an awareness of the Plantagenet dynasty and its “preservation, consolidation of authority and political goals.”33 They accomplished these objectives in their adopted countries through various forms of patronage and support, including the foundation of chapels and churches, as well as the commissioning of artworks and manuscripts. In Saxony, Matilda and her husband, Henry the Lion, were patrons of art, architecture and literature,34 and according to Henry’s biographer, Karl Jordan, their marriage inspired the development of intellectual and artistic life in their entourage.35 Direct evidence of the dissemination and influence of the Becket cult may be seen in a miniature from the Gospels of Henry the Lion, also known as the Gmunden Evangeliarium, which was commissioned in the 1170s and presented to the church of St Blaise (Brunswick Cathedral) by Matilda and her husband.36 A well-known illumination in the volume represents their coronation, which portrays the royal couple kneeling in the center of the lower register, receiving two crowns from the crossed hands of

72  Saint and cult Christ. The figures surrounding the couple signify the temporal world, with the ancestors of the duke and duchess on either side, names inscribed. Next to Matilda are Henry II of England, and Henry’s mother, Matilda (daughter of Henry I). The upper register contains images representing the heavenly realm. Christ is shown with the apostles, angels, and saints, especially those which were revered by Henry himself or who were particularly honored in England. The portrait of Thomas Becket appears above the figures of Henry II and Matilda, signifying his recently obtained protection and support of the Angevin rulers.37 The image is, as Sara Lutan-Hassner has remarked, “an outstanding example of the way a work of art, following its commissioner’s wishes and intentions, can serve as a complementary factor to the ideology and political and dynastic aspirations of its patron.”38 Matilda and Henry were also patrons of architecture, most notably the rebuilding of St Blaise’s church (Brunswick Cathedral), begun during their reign and dedicated in 1226 on December 29, the feast day of Thomas Becket. The ceremony was performed by Henry of Brunswick (1173/4–1227), the son of Matilda and Henry the Lion, who named St Thomas of Canterbury as patron of the Church, together with John the Baptist and St Blaise. The cathedral contains a much-restored series of wall paintings (from c. 1200) that depict the life of St Thomas.39 The religious support of the royal couple extended beyond St Blaise’s. As Colette Bowie has recently shown, Matilda and her husband were also donors to the cathedral at Hildesheim.40 The patronage of the royal couple also included gold and silver work. The duke commissioned containers for the numerous relics he had obtained during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, several of which form a collection known today as the “Welf Treasury.”41 Among other objects is a book-shaped reliquary with a silver gilt engraved image of saints Blaise, John the Baptist and Thomas of Canterbury.42 Evidence of the dissemination of Becket’s cult in the lands of Henry the Lion is also substantiated by Church calendars and breviaries, which demonstrate that by the mid-thirteenth century, his feast was included from Ratzeburg in the east to Münster in the west.43 By the fifteenth century, the Office of St Thomas was celebrated throughout Germany. The marriage of Leonor (Eleanor) to Alfonso VIII in 1170 brought the cult of the Canterbury martyr to Castile, and established close ties between the Angevin dynasty and Castilian royalty. Their union, as José Manuel Cerda has pointed out, was “the very first alliance formally established between rulers of England and Spain in the Middle Ages.”44 From Leonor’s reign, there is direct evidence of her patronage of Becket’s cult in the form of a charter of protection issued on April 30, 1179, under her seal, for the altar of St Thomas in the Church of the Blessed Mary at Toledo (Toledo Cathedral). It provided a chaplain in perpetuity, together with lands that would support the altar. The chaplain, William, who was an Englishman, was protected against violence and theft, and he and his successors were declared exempt from all taxes.45 The charter was made and signed by

“Hooly blisful martir” 73 Leonor herself, “together with her husband, King Alfonso.”46 This was a reversal of the usual practice, in which the king’s name appeared first in a joint commission.47 Thus, it seems clear that the issuing of the charter was the direct result of Leonor’s own actions, and that she wished to establish her own very close connection, and that of her natal family, to Thomas Becket.48 There were several other foundations for veneration of the Canterbury martyr in Spain, including a chapel in the cathedral of Sigüenza established by Bishop Jocelyn, who had accompanied Leonor to her new country.49 In Salamanca, there is a church dedicated to Becket, and there is an altar to St Thomas dating from 1186 in Barcelona Cathedral.50 A series of wall paintings from about 1200 is located in the church of S. Maria at Tarrasa, about 15 miles north of Barcelona,51 and by 1208, there was a church dedicated to San Tomas Cantuariense in Toro in the province of Zamora.52 Devotion to the Canterbury martyr was already well established in Sicily by the time of the marriage of Henry II’s daughter Joanna to William II (the Good) in 1177.53 Becket’s feast day was widely celebrated on the island, and it may be significant that among all the letters from Pope Alexander III announcing the canonization, only those to England and the Archbishop of Sens and the Bishop of Aversa have survived.54 There were several early dedications to the martyr, including the figure of St Thomas prominently placed in the mosaic program in the cathedral at Monreale, near Palermo, which was founded by William II.55 This image, commissioned about 1178,56 has long been regarded as the first iconographical image of the new martyr. Borenius viewed the inclusion of Becket as a direct result of the marriage of Henry’s daughter Joanna to the builder of the church,57 and Otto Demus remarked that Joanna seems to have been genuinely devoted to the veneration of her father’s former enemy.58 Evelyn Jamison has suggested, in contrast, that the inclusion of Thomas in the mosaic program may have reflected the political situation of the time and the state of the contest between the pope and the German emperor, Frederick Barbarossa. Pope Alexander was working for the extinction of the schism in the papacy and for the pacification of Italy, and in order to bring pressure to bear on Frederick he made full use of his allies in England and Sicily, including William II and the Lombard League. Further, Henry II, as father-in-law of Henry the Lion, had significant influence in Germany. In fact, the emissaries of William approached the English king to ask for the hand of Joanna at the suggestion of Pope Alexander. The marriage was instrumental in isolating Emperor Frederick, who had recently been defeated by the Lombard League.59 Jamison remarks that the emperor agreed to the Peace of Venice with Pope Alexander largely through the intervention of Sicilian diplomats; the triumph of the pope and his English and Sicilian allies was complete.60 Otto Demus arrived at a similar conclusion, but his research focused on the central role played by Becket in the mosaic program of the cathedral. The recently canonized English saint was featured as prominent image

74  Saint and cult because he was an icon of the resistance of the Church against the aims of secular power. For Demus, the inclusion of his portrait as the advocate of the Church against temporal authority can be understood only in light of the close diplomatic ties between Pope Alexander and his allies in Sicily and England in the late twelfth century.61 The mosaic portrait of Becket seems to have inspired other images and endowments for the Canterbury martyr in Italy, as well as Sicily. At Spoleto, there is a mosaic which echoes the style of the image at Monreale, and a repetition of the portrait was created in S. Martino ai Monti in Rome in the early thirteenth century. The Monreale mosaic, or its Roman version, was also the prototype of the earliest English representations of the saint, one of which is preserved in St Mary’s Church at Stow, Lincolnshire.62 Additional early dedications to St Thomas in Sicily included the endowment of a priory of Augustinian canons at Raia by Count William of Marsico in January 1179, and the conversion of a mosque in Catania, which became the Church of St Thomas of Canterbury in the same month.63 Like the Angevin princesses, Margaret Capet, the widow of Young King Henry who married Bela III of Hungary,64 was instrumental in the development of the cult of Becket in her new domain. Margaret had close ties to Thomas because, as chancellor of England, he had conducted negotiations for her marriage to young Henry in 1158, and was part of the entourage that accompanied her to England. Margaret was married to Henry at the age of 2, and spent her formative years at the Angevin court. It is probable that she would have had frequent contact with Thomas, since he was tutor to the young king. Becket’s interest in the young woman continued, as demonstrated by a letter of 1164 in which John of Salisbury remarked that he had recently seen her in good health.65 Additionally, the close ties to France that resulted from the archbishop’s exile and the posthumous growth of his cult in Margaret’s native land must have strengthened her attachment to him. Further, as Colette Bowie has observed, her father, Louis VII, was a devoted friend and supporter of Thomas, and had made a pilgrimage to Canterbury in 1179 to pray at Becket’s shrine for the health of his son. Margaret’s encouragement of the martyr’s cult in Hungary might be viewed as an act of filial devotion.66 A religious chapter dedicated to Becket was established toward the end of the twelfth century at the Hungarian royal and ecclesiastical seat of Esztergom. The chapter building was located on a small hill dedicated to Thomas (Szent Tamas-hegy) that rises behind the site of Bela’s castle. A record from 1291 indicates that King Imre (1196–1204) donated half the Pest Fair tax to the Provostal Church of St Thomas the Martyr at Esztergom. Since this gift was bestowed after the dedication of the church, the building must have been begun during the time of Bela III and his wife Margaret (1186–1196), and because the church was under royal patronage, they were undoubtedly the founders.67 In addition, a collegiate church of St Thomas was established in Pest under the direction of Archbishop Lukácsz, offering evidence that

“Hooly blisful martir” 75 the cult of Becket was promoted in a kingdom which not only had political ties to the martyr’s native country, but also a primate who was sympathetic to his cause.68 Indeed, Archbishop Lukácsz was considered to be another Becket because of his defense of ecclesiastical rights in Hungary.69 Further indication of the growth of the cult in that country may be established by the fact that the office for Thomas’s feast day was celebrated relatively soon after his canonization, as indicated in a manuscript from the monastery of Somogyvar, completed in 1192–1195, and in two breviaries from the thirteenth century.70 There are many more examples from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Another important force in the widespread establishment of Becket’s cult was the Cistercian order. In the close-knit organization, the chapter general of abbots legislated for all houses, and a common policy was mandated. The Cistercians had strong reasons for fostering the cult of Becket: they had supported the archbishop during his exile in France, and they resented the interference of Henry II, who threatened to confiscate their lands in retaliation. The adoption of the Becket liturgy into their calendar as soon as he was canonized demonstrates their devotion to the martyr’s memory. The order was instrumental in disseminating the cult in eastern Europe, where they proselytized in the border areas of Poland, Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary. Wherever they had a settlement, Becket was included in the calendar of saints.

The development of the cult in Europe and Scandinavia France There were several reasons for the rapid dissemination of the cult of Becket in France: These included Becket’s Norman ancestry (both of his parents were from the area around Rouen);71 the memory of his student days at the University of Paris; his close associations with the French king, Louis VII, and Archbishop William (“of the White Hands”) of Sens; and his connections with several monastic establishments where he had stayed during his six years of exile in France. His initial residence was the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, where he remained for two years, until November 1166. As a result of threats against the Cistercian order by Henry II, Becket and his household then moved to the abbey of St Columba near Sens, where he remained until his return to England, and to martyrdom, in December, 1170. During his exile, he visited or stayed briefly in several other French communities, including Meaux, Chartres, Clairvaux, Vezelay, Bourges, Orleans, Saint-Benoit, and Rouen. Many of these places were eventually favored with miracles – occurrences which stimulated the devotion to the martyr. The miracle collection of William of Canterbury includes as many miracles performed by St Thomas in France as in England,72 and in 1172 the Archbishop of Sens wrote to John of Salisbury that the French miracles

76  Saint and cult occurred so frequently that it was difficult to record all of them.73 Several of the locations became sites of chapels and churches dedicated to St Thomas, and some of these contain significant artworks depicting his life and martyrdom. The diffusion of Limoges reliquaries that portrayed the murder also contributed to the enthusiasm.74 In addition, Becket’s feast day was added to the calendars of many religious establishments in the decades following his martyrdom. Further information about the development of Becket’s cult in France is included in Chapter 5 as part of the analysis of the stained-glass windows at Sens, Chartres, Coutances, and Angers. Normandy The cult of Becket in Normandy has been studied by several scholars, including Raymonde Foreville,75 Jean Fournee,76 Ursula Nilgen,77 and most recently, Elma Brenner.78 They have pointed out that Normandy’s significance as part of the Angevin realm (until 1204), coupled with Thomas’s Norman parentage, established the area as fertile place for institutionalized veneration of the Canterbury martyr. By the beginning of the thirteenth century, there were many foundations and dedications to St Thomas in the archdiocese of Rouen, numbering as many as 60 by the end of the fourteenth century.79 These included chapels within cathedrals and castles, parish churches, hospitals, and leper houses. Henry II rededicated the leper house of Mon-aux-Malades to Becket (c. 1174), and placed the church of Saint-Thomas du Mont-de-Rouen under his protection in 1176; these actions may have inspired the aristocracy to emulate their king in establishing foundations in honor of the Canterbury martyr.80 The cult was also well-represented by establishments in the dioceses of Coutances, Bayeux, Lisieux, and Sées, as documented by the work of Raymonde Foreville.81 The development of the cult in other areas of France, such as Tours and Limoges, may also be traced through the evidence of foundations and liturgies. In Tours, for example, Henri Martin documented the establishment of 35 dedications, and pointed out that the liturgical calendar at the priory of Saint-Come contained the feast of Becket.82 In Limoges, there were nine churches dedicated to the Canterbury martyr.83 There are several reasons for this intense veneration. First, the Aquitainians had always been hostile to Henry II, and probably welcomed the opportunity to institutionalize reverence for Henry’s enemy. Secondly, there was great support for the position of the Church against secular power in the area, and Thomas provided a potent symbol for that attitude. Further, there was a general desire for a heavenly patron for newly dedicated churches and it was appropriate to venerate a recently canonized saint. Devotion to Becket was also strong in Paris, as indicated by the choice of the Canterbury martyr as patron and protector by the “French nation” at the University of Paris. He was honored in this way for a variety of reasons, including his Norman descent, his period of exile in France, the support

“Hooly blisful martir” 77 offered to him by Louis VII, and the fact that he had commended his soul to St Denis, the patron saint of France, at the moment of his death. Further, accounts of many miracles occurring on French soil had become part of popular culture. Many sites in Paris were dedicated or rededicated to Thomas, such as the chapel of St Lawrence in the abbey of St-Victor, where he had celebrated Mass. In addition, there were royal establishments of churches and hospices dedicated to his memory. There were also various foundations in Rheims, Sens, Quimper, Troyes, and Meaux.84 In all, the total number of dedications in France was approximately 132. In many cases, the foundations were made by Becket’s contemporaries – princes, bishops, leaders of religious communities, personal friends, and people he had encountered during his exile. Devotion to the Canterbury martyr also extended to more humble people, who venerated the saint for his miracles and sought his intercession, contributing to the burgeoning enthusiasm for the cult. Germany The earliest evidence of systematic veneration of Becket in German-­speaking areas of Europe is found in a liturgical calendar of Strassburg Cathedral, which was written in 1175, a mere five years after the martyrdom. The Becket Office also appears in a manuscript copied at Klosterneuberg, perhaps as early as 1190.85 By the early thirteenth century his feast was listed in the service books of many other institutions, including the Cistercian abbey at Pairis, the Dominican monastery at Colmar, and the Benedictine abbeys at Münster in northern Germany, and Benediktbeuren, in southern Bavaria. Becket’s feast also appears in service books of convents in Freiburg, St Gall Swette, and in the Benedictine abbey of St Peter in Salzburg, where a chapel had been dedicated to the saint in 1178. He was also strongly represented in the diocese of Cologne, where seven calendars include his feast.86 The extensive evidence of the various service books demonstrates the wide acceptance of the cult of Becket in German-speaking areas in the decades following the martyrdom. For example, the manuscript from Klosterneuberg (1190) contains the entire lesson texts, in contrast to many liturgies which include only truncated versions. The lessons, which appear to reflect the original texts, present the vita of the saint in chronological order, emphasizing in dramatic fashion his struggle with Henry II, his role as miracle worker, and his staunch dedication to ecclesiastical rights. This was the image the Church wished to promulgate, and it was instrumental in the widespread development of the cult. Poland The struggle between sacerdotium and imperium was a vital issue in several Eastern European countries during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and

78  Saint and cult Poland was no exception. It is possible to see the influence of Western European ideas in the actions of the Polish church, which sought legal and economic emancipation from the state by the end of the twelfth century. Thus, it is not surprising that Becket was viewed as a symbol of this independence, and that there was support for his cult. Mention of the Canterbury martyr was included in the Annales polonaises from the era of the martyrdom, and his feast day was celebrated by the end of the twelfth century, and documented by a notation in a lectionary now in the library of the cathedral chapter at Kraków (MS 20).87 In the same library there is a manuscript containing a segment of the Miracula of Benedict of Peterborough, which may have been brought to Poland by Ivo, Bishop of Kraków, about 1222.88 Various documents provide evidence of additions of Becket’s feast to calendars and lectionaries, and the foundations and rededications of churches and chapels demonstrate that he martyr’s cult was fostered in Poland as early as the thirteenth century. In 1288, he was named patron of a collegiate church at Raciborz, founded by the Bishop of Wroclaw, Thomas II, and the prince of Wroclaw, Henri IV. The action commemorated the accord between the bishop and the prince. Bishop Thomas identified with Becket not only because of his name, but also because of his personality. Like Becket, he was a staunch supporter of the rights of the Church regarding immunity and privileges that had been acquired during the reign of his predecessor, Thomas I (1232–1268), which had been restrained in the subsequent years.89 There are several other Polish churchmen who followed the “Becket model” in their relationships with secular authority. One such prelate was Paul of Przemankow, the bishop of Kraków (1266–1292). He was a staunch defender of ecclesiastical rights against two consecutive Kracovian princes, and was imprisoned three times. Paul was probably responsible for the foundation of the altar to Becket at Kraków, although it may have been established earlier than his tenure.90 Archbishop Stanislaus provides a further parallel with Becket. A Defender of the Church versus the state, he was martyred at the order of the king in 1079. He was not canonized, however, until 1253. When his feast was entered into the calendars of the Cistercians, the following statute was enacted at the request of Bishop Prandota of Kraków: “[T]he feast [of St Stanislaus] is done in all ways as that of Thomas of Canterbury is wont to be said, except for the collects, which are those appointed by the pope.”91 It is evident that the legend of the Canterbury martyr, the growth of his cult in Poland, and the celebration of his feast day served to provide impetus of the canonization of the native bishop, so long delayed.92 Italy As mentioned earlier, the first representation of Becket in Italy was the mosaic in the cathedral at Monreale commissioned by William II, the husband of

“Hooly blisful martir” 79 Joanna, daughter of Henry II. An almost contemporaneous image of the Canterbury martyr was a fresco in the crypt of the cathedral at Anagni con­ secrated by Pope Alexander III about 1173. Thirteenth-century artworks that venerate the martyr include a fresco in the church of S. Stefano a Subiaco at Rome, and the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo at Spoleto. By the fourteenth century, the chapel of the Bardi at Santa Croce in Florence contained a predella dedicated to Becket, and there was a fresco (now destroyed) in Rome at S. Martino ai Monti.93 There were also foundations of chapels and churches dedicated to the martyr, including those in Padua, Verona, Como, Rome, Parma, Ferrara, and Aosta.94 Indeed, as Tancred Borenius has observed, “you come across the English saint all over the peninsula.”95 Iceland News of the murder in the cathedral reached Iceland more quickly than one would suppose, since the account had to travel across a “gulf of isolation” which separated the island from the outer world.96 Various explanations have been suggested for this rapid transmission of information. Scholars have pointed out that the island had originally been colonized by settlers from Scandinavia and the British Isles, and communication and exchange of goods with England had been maintained without interruption. Further, various individuals, notably prominent clerics, had studied in England, returning afterwards to their homeland. The news of the martyrdom and the subsequent miracles probably entered the island from these sources.97 In any case, it is clear that records relating to the archbishop existed in both the southern and northern sees as early as the end of the twelfth century.98 A prominent example of an Icelander with European connections was Thorlakr, later Bishop of Skálholt (1178–1193), who studied theology at Paris and Lincoln, returning to Iceland about 1161.99 During his time in England, he must have heard anecdotes about the king’s great chancellor, and he no doubt continued to correspond with English friends following his return to his homeland. His nephew and successor in the see of Skálholt also traveled to England to study, probably around 1178. This time period, about five years after the canonization of St Thomas, was an era when storied of his miracles and most of his popular biographies were in public circulation.100 By 1195, there is evidence of a vow to St Thomas sworn by Rafn Svein­ bjarnarson of Eyrr. Rafn made a pilgrimage to Canterbury to take the teeth of a whale to the saint, who had assisted the fisherman in bringing the monster ashore.101 He no doubt came into contact with a Latin life of the saint, and he may have brought back copies from Canterbury.102 Soon after Rafn’s return, an open struggle began between the Church and secular authority, in which the Church wished to assert its complete independence of all secular jurisdiction.103 The principal ecclesiastical leader in the struggle was Gu(d)mundr Arason, Bishop of Hólar, elected

80  Saint and cult in 1201, an avowed disciple and imitator of Thomas Becket. As soon as Gu(d)mundr was installed in his see, he began to assert the principle of the immunity of clerics from secular jurisdiction – the first Icelandic bishop to do so. He implemented his theory with little regard for practical political circumstances, resulting in violent blood feuds. Gu(d)mundr himself was subjected to captivity and exile. The parallels between the Icelandic bishop and Thomas are abundantly clear, and the sagas written about Gu(d)mundr substantiate the idea that the Icelandic bishop was influenced in his actions by the lessons of the Thomas saga. The popularity of the Canterbury martyr in Iceland grew as a result of the circulation of sagas and miracle stories, and also in response to official veneration. Although the records are meager, there is evidence that a Mass for St Thomas was sung every other week at Oddi, and a similar endowment existed at As, in the district of Kelduhverfi. There were also church dedications, such as the church of widely venerated, as at Bassasta(d)ir and Engey.104 Ireland Although Thomas Becket never visited Ireland, nor showed “any discernable interest” in the country, Colman Ó Clabaigh and Michael Staunton have recently shown that the saint “had a multifaceted impact on [Irish] history.”105 They suggest that the cult of Becket took hold quickly, both among the soldiers involved in the campaign of Henry II in Ireland, and the indigenous Irish population.106 Evidence for this view may be found in the miracle collection of William of Canterbury, which records wondrous events that occurred in Ireland, as well as some experienced by Irish people in other locations.107 Several examples of the healing of Irish pilgrims at the tomb of the saint were included by William. In one instance, Thomas addressed a sleeping pilgrim from Ireland in his native tongue – words which William translated as “Surge Hybernensis, sanus est” (Get up, Irishman, you are healed),108 and in another he cured a leper from Dublin.109 The miracles are the earliest indication of the presence of Becket’s cult in Ireland, although there is some tentative documentation of foundations of chapels at Waterford and near Dublin.110 In 1177, the royal abbey of St Thomas the Martyr was established for Augustinian canons in Donore, becoming a house for Victorine canons in 1192.111 Surviving cartularies show that it was one of the wealthiest and best endowed of the Irish religious houses, and extant manuscripts indicate the presence of a fine library.112 Scholars have also traced the development of the cult in Ireland by analyzing liturgical manuscripts. Becket’s canonization in 1173 and the translation of his relics in 1220 meant that the martyr’s feast days entered the calendar of Irish ecclesiastical institutions, and he was represented in Irish martyrologies. As Clabaigh and Staunton have observed, these entries provide a glimpse of the way Thomas was viewed by Irish ecclesiastics.

“Hooly blisful martir” 81 A telling example appears in a late twelfth-century martyrology, where the entry for Becket reads: “Tomas, tenn in Trénfer” (“Thomas, stubborn is the champion.”).113 A study of the texts and music for the office for Becket’s feast days as celebrated in Ireland indicates that the Irish Church used the lections, antiphons and responsories composed by Benedict of Peterborough, to be discussed ahead.114 The appeal of the chant melodies, as well as the popularity of the cult, resulted in a widespread circulation, and the music was eventually adapted for other offices, such as those of St David and Corpus Christi.115 The feast was celebrated with great solemnity at the royal abbey of St Thomas the Martyr, especially in 1240, when Henry III ordered the Archbishop of Dublin to preside at the liturgy and furnished 800 tapers for the ceremonies. As mentioned previously, Becket’s shrine began to attract Irish pilgrims soon after the martyrdom, and Canterbury continued to be a popular goal for Irish people throughout the Middle Ages. In addition to written accounts by pilgrims such as that of Hugh the Illuminator and Simon Fitzsimon, the popularity of the Canterbury journey may be documented by the discovery of ampullae or pilgrim badges in excavations in Dublin and Waterford.116 Tomb effigies of Becket in Ireland also attest to the martyr’s popularity, as do the alabaster images surviving in Ireland.117 As Clabaigh and Staunton observed, there were various reasons for the spread of Becket’s cult to Ireland. These included its proximity to England, the connections between the Irish Church and the see of Canterbury, and the establishment of the Norman colony in Ireland following the invasion of Henry II. Although Becket was initially a controversial figure, his image and cult were embraced widely, serving the interests of both nobles and commoners. Scotland The rapid dissemination of the cult of Becket is also evident in Scotland, where “profound interest” was shown in Becket by the kings of Scotland, important nobles and ecclesiastical prelates during the reigns of William I  (1165–1214), Alexander II (1214–1249), and Alexander III (1249–1286).118 There was also significant devotion by more ordinary folk, as shown by the discovery of pilgrim badges and ampullae discovered in excavations at Perth in central Scotland.119 Scottish veneration of the martyr included periodic pilgrimages to Canterbury, but was also stimulated by the foundation and support of a major monastic house dedicated to Becket at Arbroath in coastal Angus (Forfarshire). Michael Penman has remarked that this foundation might have been viewed as a humiliating act of penance, since the Scottish king, William I, was defeated and captured on the very day that Henry II made his penitential pilgrimage to Canterbury. It was generally believed that the “miraculous”

82  Saint and cult defeat of the Scots was proof that Becket had accepted Henry’s act of selfabasement, and that the saint was now the protector and patron of his former enemy.120 Various theories about the intent of William in founding the abbey have been advanced. The king may have been a schoolboy companion of Becket, although this legend, recorded in the thirteenth-century Chronicle of Melrose, may have been circulated to save face in the Scottish defeat of 1174. But William’s substantial investment in the new foundation at Arbroath indicates deep personal faith in Becket’s powers.121 Arbroath was readily accepted into the Scottish ecclesiastical and secular networks, and quickly became Scotland’s second wealthiest monastic institution. Indeed, it was the single largest new foundation in Becket’s honor throughout Europe, which was a remarkable achievement for a country as relatively poor as Scotland.122 Scottish devotion to Becket and pilgrimages to his tomb continued to be vibrant during the thirteenth century, enhanced by reports of miracles and encouraged by the impetus given to the cult by the celebration of the translation of the saint’s remains into the glittering new shrine in Trinity Chapel, and the promise of indulgences offered there.123 Scottish devotion and pilgrimages to Canterbury may also have been used as a means of ingratiation with the Plantagenet royalty, creating opportunities for the discussion of royal marriages, and questions of overlordship and land issues.124 Evidence for the presence of Becket’s cult exists in other areas of Scotland beyond Forfashire (Abroath Abbey). For example, in Glasgow the cathedral shrine of St Kentigern held parts of the loricae (shirts) of Becket as well as St Kentigern in a “square silver coffer,” in addition to “a precious burse with combs” of both saints.125 These were probably located on an altar dedicated to St Thomas in Glasgow Cathedral’s nave. There were two more chapels dedicated to Becket on Glasgow’s outskirts, both under the aegis of the cathedral.126 As the foregoing discussion has demonstrated, the cult of Becket spread throughout Europe with extraordinary rapidity. The fame of the Canterbury martyr was diffused through the Lives and miracle collections, vernacular translations, personal networks of family and locality, and support by ecclesiastical organizations, especially the Cistercian order. Equally potent were the images of the martyr disseminated through artistic creations, including stained glass, sculpture, and enamel work, as well as cult objects such as badges and ampullae. Liturgical celebrations and sermons were an additional impetus to the growth of cultic expression. The following two chapters discuss these phenomena in detail, emphasizing their influence in the development of widespread veneration of the Canterbury martyr.

Notes 1 R. Eales, “The Political Setting of the Becket Translation of 1220,” in D. Wood, ed., Martyrs and Martyrologies: Papers Read at the 1992 Summer Meeting and

“Hooly blisful martir” 83 the 1993 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (London, 1993), 127–39, at 128. 2 R. Willis, The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral, 1845, reprint ed. (Richmond, KY, 2006), 51. Willis is quoting Gervase of Canterbury. 3 Robertson, Mats. iii, 522. 4 A. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Canterbury (London, 1912), 100. 5 Several of the biographers describe the reactions of the monks, including William Grim, Anonymous I, and William FitzStephen. See E.A. Abbott, St. Thomas of Canterbury: His Death and Miracles, 2 vols. (London, 1898), i, 230–5, and Rachel Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England (Philadelphia, 2011), 141–2. 6 J. Butler, The Quest for Becket’s Bones (New Haven, CT and London, 1995), 14. 7 Stanley, Historical Memorials, 103, 194. See also J. Crook, The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West, c. 300–c. 1200 (Oxford, 2000), 16 and 35. 8 R. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Belief in Medieval England (New York, rpt. 1995), 121–9. See also the pioneering work of B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind (Philadelphia, 1982). 9 William FitzStephen, Mats. iii, 149–50. 10 P-A. Sigal, “Naissance et premier développement d’un vinage exceptionnel: L’eau de Saint Thomas,” Cahiers de Civilization médiévale 44 (2001): 35–44. See also A. Jordan, “The ‘Water of Thomas Becket’: Water as Medium, Metaphor, and Relic,” in Cynthia Kosso and Anne Scott, eds., The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity Through the Renaissance (Leiden, 2009), 479–500, at 481, and R. Koopmans, “Water Mixed with the Blood of Thomas: Contact Relic Manufacture Pictured in Canterbury Cathedral’s Stained Glass,” Journal of Medieval History 42, no. 5 (2016): 535–58. 11 R. Gameson, “The Early Imagery of Thomas Becket,” in C. Morris and P. Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan (Cambridge, 2002), 46–89, at 59. 12 John of Salisbury, Mats. ii, 322. 13 Jordan, “The ‘Water of Thomas Becket’,” 481. See also K.B. Slocum, “The Making, Re-Making and Un-Making of the Cult of Saint Thomas Becket,” Hagiographica VII (2000): 3–16. 14 Benedict’s miracle accounts, as well as those of his colleague William, are analyzed in Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, Chapters 8–10, and Appendices 1–3. See also N. Vincent, “William of Canterbury and Benedict of Peterborough: The Manuscripts, Date and Context of the Becket Miracle Collections,” in E. Bozoky, ed., Hagiographie, Idéologie et Politique au Moyen Âge en Occident (Turnhout, 2012), 349–57. Still valuable, although more than a century old, is the work of Abbott, Death and Miracles. The financial accounts that recorded donations at the shrine are explored in Nilson, Cathedral Shrines, 147–54, esp. 148, which discusses the offerings between 1198 and 1207. 15 Benedict, Mats. ii, 43. Quoted in Jordan, “Water of Thomas Becket,” 482–3. 16 “Water of Thomas Becket,” 482. 17 Jordan discusses miracles effected by the healing water in “Water of Thomas Becket,” 484–5. They are analyzed in Slocum, Liturgies, 86, 166. See also K. Slocum “Optimus egrorum medicus fit Thomas Bonorum: Images of Saint Thomas Becket as Healer,” Sewanee Medieval Studies 10 (2000): 173–80. 18 See the liturgical components in Slocum, Liturgies, and for the Translation Office in particular, Sherry L. Reames, “Reconstructing and Interpreting a ThirteenthCentury Office for the Translation of Thomas Becket,” Speculum 80 (2005): 118–70. These offices are discussed in detail in Chapter 4. 19 Benedict, Mats. ii, 15–16.

84  Saint and cult 0 Quoted in Finucane, Miracles, 103. 2 21 A. Duggan, “Ne in dubium: The Official Record of Henry II’s Reconciliation at Avranches, 21 May 1172,” English Historical Review 115 (2000): 643–58. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult (Aldershot, 2007), VIII, and Duggan, “Diplomacy, Status, and Conscience: Henry II’s Penance for Becket’s Murder,” in K. Borchardt and E. Bünz, eds., Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte. Peter Herde zum 65: Geburtstag von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen dargebracht, 2 vols. (Stuttgart, 1998), 265–90. Reprinted in Duggan, Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult, VII. See also, A. Duggan, “Henry II, the English Church and the Papacy, 1154–76,” in C. Harper-Bill and N. Vincent, eds., Henry II: New Interpretations (Woodbridge, 2007), 154–83, at 176. 22 The rebellion, instigated by Henry’s two eldest sons and the queen, was the most widespread of his reign. His family members were supported by the kings of Scotland and France and the count of Flanders, as well as disaffected barons in all parts of his empire (Duggan,“Diplomacy,” 282, and Barlow, Becket, 269). For the pilgrimages of Henry and his successors, see N. Vincent, “The Pilgrimages of the Angevin Kings of England, 1154–1172,” in C. Morris and P. Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan (Cambridge, 2002), 12–45; P. Webster, “Crown, Cathedral and Conflict: King John and Canterbury,” in P. Dalton, C. Insley and L.J. Wilkinson, eds., Cathedrals, Communities and Conflict in the Anglo-Norman World (Woodbridge 2011), 203–19. 23 Mats. i, 487–9. 24 Mats. i, 280–1. For information about Henry’s patronage following his act of penance, see S. Lutan-Hassler, Thomas Becket and the Plantagenets: Atonement Through Art (Leiden, 2015), 84–6. 25 W.L. Warren, Henry II (Berkeley, 1973), 135; F. Barlow, Thomas Becket (Berkeley, 1986), 269–70; and P. Kidson, “Gervase, Becket, and William of Sens,” Speculum 68 (1993): 969–91 at 975. 26 Observed by Duggan, “Diplomacy,” 282. 27 Duggan, “Diplomacy,” 266, 290. 28 N. Vincent, “The Pilgrimages of the Angevin Kings of England, 1154–1172,” in C. Morris and P. Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan (Cambridge, 2002), 12–45, at 26. 29 S. Walker, “Political Saints in Later Medieval England,” in R.H. Britnell and A.J. Pollard, eds., The McFarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society (New York, 1995), 77–106, at 92. 30 The influence of Henry’s daughters has recently been discussed by Colette Bowie, The Daughters of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine (Brussels, 2014), 151–68. See also the work of Sara Lutan-Hassner, Thomas Becket and the Plantagenets: Atonement Through Art (Leiden, 2015), which discusses the patronage of various members of the Plantagenet dynasty, including Henry’s daughters. (108–29). 31 K. Slocum, “Angevin Mariage Diplomacy and the Early Dissemination of the Cult of Thomas Becket,” Medieval Perspectives 14 (Richmond, KY, 1999), 214– 28, and Slocum, Liturgies, 106–7. 32 Slocum, “Marriage Diplomacy,” 217. 33 Lutan-Hassner, Atonement, 108. 34 Colette Bowie examines the literary influence of Matilda in “Matilda, Duchess of Saxony (1168–89) and the Cult of Thomas Becket: A Legacy of Appropriation,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. (Woodbridge, 2016), 113–32, at 125–8. 35 K. Jordan, Henry the Lion: A Biography, trans. P.S. Falla (Oxford, 1986), 200. 36 The image is discussed in Slocum, Liturgies, 107–9; See also Bowies, Daughters, 157–9, and Bowie, “Matilda,”119–22, as well as Lutan-Hassner, Atonement, 114–17.

“Hooly blisful martir” 85 37 See the discussion in U. Nilgen, “Thomas Becket und Braunschweig,” in J. Ehlers and D. Koetzsche, eds., Der Welfenschatz und sein Umkreis (Mainz, 1998), 219–42, esp. 223–7. 38 Lutan-Hassner, Atonement, 114. 39 For a description of the paintings, see Borenius, Becket in Art, 52–3, and more recently, Lutan-Hassner, Atonement, 117–18. 40 Bowie, “Matilda,” 122–3. 41 U. Nilgen has noted that Becket relics appear in a list of the reliquaries of Bruswick Cathedral written in 1312, speculating that they arrived in Brunswick in 1173, together with relics from the Holy Land brought there by Henry the Lion in that year. (Nilgen, “Thomas Becket und Braunschweig,” 223–7). 42 C. Little, “Again the Cleveland Book-Shaped Reliquary,” in J. Ehlers and D. Koetzsche, eds., Die Welfenschatz und sein Umkreis (Mainz, 1998), 77–92, and P.M. deWinter, “The Sacral Treasure of the Guelfs,” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 1 (1985). 43 M. Barth, “Zum Kult des hl. Thomas Becket im deutschen Sprachgebiet, in Skandinavien und Italien,” Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv 80 (1960): 97–166, at 128–9. 44 J. Cerda, “The Marriage of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Leonor Plantagenet: The First Bond between Spain and England in the Middle Ages,” in M. Aurell, ed., Les Stratégies Matrimoniales (IXe–XIIIe siècle) (Turnhout, 2013), 143–53, at 143. He discusses Leonor’s fostering of the Becket cult at 146–7. 45 The charter is discussed in Slocum, Liturgies, 110–12, and more recently in Bowie, Daughters, 165–6, and J. Cerda, “Leonor Plantagenet and the Cult of Thomas Becket in Castile,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. (Woodbridge, 2016), 133–46, at 137–9, and Cerda, “Marriage of Alfonso and Leonor,” 147. 46 J. Gonzalez, El Reino de Castilla en la Epoca de Alfonso VIII, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1960), 2, 543. 47 Rose Walker has discussed Leonor’s joint patronage with her husband, most famously in the foundation of Las Huelgas, a Cistercian nunnery in Burgos, in 1187 in Walker, “Leonor of England and Eleanor of Castile: Anglo-Iberian Marriage and Cultural Exchange in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in M. Bullón-Fernández, ed., England and Iberia in the Middle Ages, 12th–15th Century (New York, 2007), 67–87, at 68. See also M. Shadis, “Piety, Politics, and Power: The Patronage of Leonor of England and Her Daughters Berenguela of León and Blanche of Castile,” in J. McCash, ed., The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women (Athens, GA, 1996), 202–27. 48 Slocum, Liturgies, 112. Cerda has examined the political circumstances of an earlier dedication of a chapel to Becket in Toledo Cathedral (1177), where the altar was endowed by Count Nuño Perez de Lara. Count Nuño, perhaps at the suggestion of his English chaplain, invoked the intercession of the martyr as the saintly “winner of battles,” while he was fighting in the siege and conquest of the Muslim city of Cuenca, just as Henry II had prayed to Becket in 1174 (“Becket in Castile,” 136). See also the remarks of R. Gameson, “The Early Imagery of Thomas Becket,” in C. Morris and P. Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan (Cambridge, 2002), 46–89, at 51. 49 The foundation is discussed in Cerda, “Becket in Castile,” 140. See also Borenius, Becket in Art, 48, and Gonzalez, El Reino, I, 418. 50 Borenius, Becket in Art, 48. 51 For a description of these paintings, see Borenius, Becket in Art, 48 ff, Borenius, “Addenda,” 20–2; Gameson, “Early Imagery,” 53–4 and Plate I, and more recently the discussion and color plates in G.C. Domínguez, ed., Tomás Becket y la Península Ibérica (1170–1230) (León, 2013), 82–94 and Figs. 5 and 6. See also the description by Lutan-Hassner in Atonement, 122–3.

86  Saint and cult 52 For additional dedications to Becket in Spain, see Cerda, “Becket in Castile,” 142–4. According to Cerda, the evidence for Leonor’s involvement in these dedications is inconclusive. 53 The circumstances surrounding the marriage negotiations have been studied by Colette Bowie in Daughters, 152, and an article, Bowie, “Shifting Patterns in Angevin Marriage Policies: The Political Motivations for Joanna Plantagenet’s Marriages to William II of Sicily and Raymond VI of Toulouse,” in M. Aurell, ed., Les Stratégies Matrimoniales (IXe–XIIIe siècle) (Turnhout, 2013), 155–67, at 155–8. The article also discusses early connections with Becket’s cult and Sicily. 54 Slocum, Liturgies, 112. 55 Bowie cites documentary evidence for the foundation, Daughters, 153–4. 56 Richard Gameson dates this image to 1183–1189. Gameson, “Early Imagery,” at 51. The mosaic portrait of Becket is described in Bowie, Daughters, 156, and Lutan-Hassner, Atonement, 127. 57 Borenius, Becket in Art, 13, and Borenius, “Addenda to the Iconography of St Thomas Becket,” Archaeologia 81 (1931), 20. Larry M. Ayres discusses the stylistic influences in L.M. Ayres, “English Painting and the Continent During the Reign of Henry II and Eleanor,” in W. Kibler, ed., Eleanor of Aquitaine: Patron and Politician (Austin, 1976), 141–2. 58 O. Demus, The Mosaics of Norman Sicily (New York, 1950), 172, n. 492. 59 This offers an excellent example of Georges Duby’s observation that noble wives were the “valuable currency with which to buy friendships and peace” (quoted in Cerda, “Marriage of Alfonso VIII,” 143). 60 E. Jamison, “Alliance of England and Sicily in the Second Half of the 12th Century,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 6 (1943), 20–32. 61 Demus, Mosaics, 129–31. See also the analysis of Lutan-Hassner, Atonement, 127. 62 Demus, Mosaics, 453. 63 Jamison, “Alliance,” 24. 64 Benedict of Peterborough, Gesta Regis, 2 vols, ed. W. Stubbs (London, 1867), i, 346, 360; Annals of Roger of Hoveden, ii, 56. For details of the marriage settlement, see Z.J. Kosztolnyik, From Coloman the Learned to Bela III (1095–1196): Hungarian Domestic Policies and Their Impact upon Foreign Affairs (Boulder, CO, 1987), 212–14. Young King Henry died in 1183. 65 G. Györffy, “Thomas À Becket and Hungary,” Hungarian Studies in English 4 (1969): 45–52, at 49. 66 Bowie, Daughters, 167. 67 Györffy, “Thomas À Becket,” 50. 68 Bowie, Daughters, 168. 69 A. Duggan,“The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Thirteenth Century,” in M. Jancey, ed., St Thomas Cantilupe Bishop of Hereford: Essays in his Honour (Hereford: Friends of Hereford Cathedral, 1982), 21–44, at 27. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), IX. See also Z.J. Kosztolnyik, “The Church and Béla III of Hungary (1172–96): The Role of Archbishop Lukácsz of Estergom,” Church History 49 (1980): 375–86. 70 The manuscript from Somogyvár is Bibl. Nat. Hung. Nyelvemlikek 1 (Rado, no. 2). The breviaries are Breviarium Notatum Stringoniense, MS 294, now in the Prague Library; and Breviarium Stringoniense, MS 260, now in the University Library at Zagreb. 71 R. Foreville, “Les origines normandes de la famille Becket et le culte de Saint Thomas en Normandie,” in Thomas Becket dans La Tradition historique et hagiographique (London, 1981), 444. 72 B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000– 1215 (London, 1982), 98.

“Hooly blisful martir” 87 73 Finucane, Miracles, 123. 74 These works are discussed in Chapter 5. 75 Foreville, “Le culte en Normandie.” 76 J. Fournée, “Les lieux de culte de Saint Thomas Becket en Normandie,” Annales de Normandie 45 (1995): 377–92; and J. Fournée, “Contribution à l’histoire de la lèpre en Normandie: Les maladreries et les vocables de leurs chapelles,” Lèpre et lépreux en Normandie, Cahiers Léopold Delisle 46 (1997): 49–142. 77 U. Nilgen, “Thomas Becket en Normandie,” in Bouet and F. Neveux, eds., Les saints dans la Normandie médiévale (Caen, 2000), 189–204. 78 E. Brenner, “Thomas Becket and Leprosy in Normandy,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. (Woodbridge, 2016), 81–94. Brenner’s article focuses on leper hospitals in Normandy dedicated to Becket. 79 For a summary, see Slocum, Liturgies, 118. 80 Brenner, “Becket and Leptrosy,” 81–2. 81 Foreville, “Le culte en Normandie,” 143–52. 82 H. Martin, “Le culte de Saint Thomas dans la province de Tours,” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque International de Sédières, Août 19–24, 1973 (Paris, 1975), 153–8. 83 For details, see J. Becquet, “Sanctuaires dédiés à Saint Thomas de Cantorbery en Limousin,” in Foreville, Thomas Becket, 159–61. 84 Slocum, Liturgies, 120. 85 Klosterneuberg, Codex 574, fol. 139v–42v. 86 For further information, see Barth, “Kult,”. 87 W. Uruszczak, “Les répercussions de la mort de Thomas Becket en Pologne (XIIe–XIIIe siècles),” in Foreville, Becket, 116–17. 88 A. Hughes, “Chants in the Offices of Thomas of Canterbury and Stanislaus of Poland,” Musica Antiqua Europae Orientalis 6 (1982): 272. 89 Uruszczak, “Les répercussions,” 118. 90 Uruszczak, “Les répercussions,” 118. 91 Hughes, “Chants of Thomas and Stanislaus,” 269. 92 Uruszczak, “Les repercussions,” 124–5. 93 G. Beltrame, S. Tomaso Becket: Nella storia, nel culto, nell’arte, in Europa (Padua, 1989), 40. See also the discussion of representations of Becket in Italy in Borenius, Becket in Art, 13–16. 94 Beltrame, S. Tomaso Becket, 32–5. 95 T. Borenius, “Some Further Aspects of the Iconography of St. Thomas of Canterbury,” Archaeologia 83 (1933): 171–186. 96 E. Magnússen, Thómas Saga Erkibyskups, 2 vols. (Rolls Series, 1875–83), i, vi. 97 An early account of a visit to the British Isles (Orkney Islands) by an Icelandic chieftain is contained in Hrafns saga Sveinbjarsonar. There are many parallels between this saga and that of Thomas, which are described and evaluated in G.P. Helgadottir, ed., Hrafns saga Sveinbjarsonar (Oxford, 1987), lxiv–lxxiv. See also the remarks of Anne Duggan in “Religious Networks in Action: The European Expansion of the Cult of St Thomas of Canterbury,” in J. Gregory and H. McLeod, eds., International Religious Networks (Woodbridge, 2012), 20–43, at 41–2. 98 Magnússen, Thómas Saga, ii, vi. See also M. Cormack, The Saints in Iceland: Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400 (Brussels, 1994). Cormack documents the dedication of twelve churches to Becket in Iceland: 174, 181, 190, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 213, 214, 225, 229. Tancred Borenius remarked that effigies (“likneski”) and pictures (“script”) of St Thomas are mentioned in Icelandic records as having existed in 17 churches. T. Borenius, “Addenda to the Iconography of St. Thomas of Canterbury,” Archaeologia 81 (1931): 19–32, at 19. 99 See Chapter 2 for a discussion of Thorlakr’s career.

88  Saint and cult 100 See the discussion in H. Antonsson, “The Lives of St Thomas Becket and Early Scandinavian Literature,” SMSR 81 (2015): 394–413. 101 Magnússen, Saga, ii, xii. 102 The history of the Becket Saga is discussed in Chapter 2. 103 In Iceland, the struggle was not with a king, but with the powerful chieftains who had controlled ecclesiastical appointments. See Chapter 2. 104 Magnússen, Saga, ii, xxix–xxxii. 105 C.Ó. Clabaigh and M. Staunton,“Thomas Becket and Ireland,” in E. Mullins and D. Scully, eds., Listen, O Isles, Unto Me: Studies in Medieval Word and Image in Honour of Jennifer O’Reilly (Cork, 2011), 87–101, at 87. 106 Clabaigh and Staunton, “Ireland,” 91–2. The authors point out that Henry’s invasion of Ireland took place within a year after the murder of Becket, and their article includes an analysis of reactions to the event by contemporary chroniclers and Becket’s biographers. 107 Marcus Bull has examined the references in William’s miracle collection concerning the Irish expedition of Henry II. He suggests that the monk was offering a subtle critique of the king’s involvement in Becket’s murder. M. Bull, “Criticim of Henry II’s Expedition to Ireland in William of Canterbury’s miracles of St Thomas Becket,” Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007): 107–29. 108 Quoted in Clabaigh and Staunton, “Ireland,” 92. William of Canterbury, Mats. i, 221. 109 Clabaigh and Staunton, “Ireland,” 92. 110 Clabaigh and Staunton, “Ireland,” 92. 111 Clabaigh and Staunton, “Ireland,” 95. 112 Clabaigh and Staunton, “Ireland,” 95. 113 Quoted by Clabaigh and Staunton from P. Ó Riain, Feastdays of the Saints: The Irish Martyrological Tradition, Subsidia Hagiographica 86 (Brussels, 2006), 161. 114 See Chapter 4. 115 O.T. Edwards has shown a similar adaptation for an office celebrated in Wales, in Edwards, Matins, Lauds and Vespers for St David’s Day (Cambridge, 1990). 116 Clabaigh and Staunton, “Ireland,” 97. 117 Clabaigh and Staunton, “Ireland,” 98. 118 M. Penman, “The Bruce Dynasty, Becket and Scottish pilgrimage to Canterbury, c. 1178–c. 1404,” Journal of Medieval History 32 (2006): 346–70, at 347. 119 J. Alexander and P. Binski, eds., The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400 (London, 1987), 220, no. 48. 120 Penman, “Bruce Dynasty,” 347–8. 121 Penman, “Bruce Dynasty,” 349. 122 Penman, “Bruce Dynasty,” 349. 123 See the discussion of the Translation ceremony in Chapter 4. 124 Penman, “Bruce Dynasty,” 352. 125 Penman, “Bruce Dynasty,” 357. 126 Penman, “Bruce Dynasty,” 357.

4 Liturgies, sermons, and the translation of 1220

On March 12, 1173, Pope Alexander III announced the canonization of the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury in a letter to his legates Albert and Theodwin, the papal representatives who had been conducting an inquiry concerning the life, martyrdom, and miracles of Thomas Becket.1 Two days later, the pope wrote to the chapter at Canterbury, confirming the canonization, and declaring that a feast day be celebrated for the saint.2 On the same day the pope sent a letter to Walter, Bishop of Aversa,3 declaring that Thomas had been added to the list of saints, and that the day of his passion ought to be celebrated solemnly each year, in England and throughout Europe. He urged the bishop to “zealously” remind the clergy in his diocese to observe the feast day of the precious martyr annually, with “great zeal, devotion and veneration, because, through Thomas’s blessed intercessions, the parishioners would receive the grace of the Redeemer.”4 As we have seen, the canonization, together with the witnessing of the miracles, inspired several of Becket’s eruditi to write about his life and martyrdom. At least ten of them did so within a decade of the murder, and at least two of them before 1174.5 The papal decree establishing the celebration of Thomas’s feast must have inspired at least one or perhaps two of them – Benedict of Peterborough and John of Salisbury – to create the liturgy that was to form the basis of the most famous and widespread of the Becket Offices.

Liturgical historiography Although the Becket Office was contained in early printed service books,6 systematic collection and publication of the texts of the office antiphons and responsories did not begin until the nineteenth century with the work of Guido Maria Dreves and Clemens Blume, who included these portions of the liturgies for Becket in Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi.7 The complete texts for the office, which included the lessons in addition to the poetic antiphons and responsories, were published in various versions in the Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesiae Sarisburiensis (Sarum Breviary) (1879–1886),8 the Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesie Eboracensis (York Breviary) (1880–1882),9

90  Saint and cult and somewhat later, The Hereford Breviary (1911)10 and The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester (1930–1939).11 However, it was not until the late twentieth century that scholars, notably Andrew Hughes, began to locate, compare, and analyze the copious manuscript sources, numbering more than three hundred. His work identified and codified the Becket Offices, and dealt with musical aspects of the chants, culminating in an electronic resource, Late Medieval Liturgical Offices: Resources for Electronic Research.12 Hughes’s studies laid the foundation for further scholarly work concerning the liturgies for Becket, and provided tools for both textual and musicological research. Subsequent study of the texts of the Becket Offices, including translations, was undertaken by two scholars, Sherry Reames13 and Kay Brainerd Slocum, who also transcribed the original chant melodies into modern notation.14 One manuscript version of the office has also been analyzed by Anne Duggan.15 In addition to the translations and interpretations presented in these works, the authors have speculated as to the authorship and compositional process involved in constructing the Becket Offices, both Studens livor16 and the office for the translation liturgy.17

The shape of the liturgy The office, or historia, for Thomas Becket conformed to the usual pattern for liturgical celebration on the feast days of saints.18 In monastic settings, the office consisted of the Invitatory and 12 lessons, together with versicles, antiphons, and responsories which provided a prelude and a response to the reading of each lesson. These were customarily divided into three sections known as Nocturns. In secular cathedrals and churches, the office was reduced to nine lessons, with antiphons and responsories for each. Sometimes the antiphons and responsories were drawn from the original monastic office, and sometimes these elements were taken from the chants provided in the Common of Martyrs.19 Because of the great variety in the use of the lessons, antiphons and responsories in the various secular rites and the liturgical celebrations of the different monastic orders, it is difficult to discern the original structure of the office. Unfortunately, there is no complete manuscript of the original office composed for Becket, which was probably celebrated for the first time at Canterbury Cathedral on December 29, 1173.20 Only fragments remain in the library of the cathedral (the so-called “Burnt Breviary” – MS 6), providing vestiges of the historia; the manuscript was destroyed almost completely in a fire at the cathedral in 1670.21 Hence, much work has been done to trace and compare the various extant versions, and several reconstructions of the office have been published. Two of these are based on single manuscripts, representing the way the liturgy was celebrated in a given place at a given time, and the Reames translation was based on the widely dispersed printed Sarum Breviary.22

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 91 The most widespread of the Becket Offices was Studens livor, which is identified by the incipit of the first responsory in the first nocturne. As mentioned previously, the monastic form of the office consisted of 12 lections (lessons),23 whereas the secular version, which was adopted into the Sarum Rite, condensed the material to nine lessons. The order of the elements of the office antiphons and responsories was often altered in the various manuscripts and printed versions, and the lessons were not consistent in length.24 Thus, it is essential to realize that the Sarum “pattern” was an imperfect representation of the manuscript tradition, which contains many variations.25 Another version of the Becket Office utilized the Vita by John of Salisbury, which, as mentioned in Chapter 1, was frequently divided into lessons for use in the liturgy; this form was disseminated in many European locations, primarily in France.26 A fine example of the tradition is a thirteenth-century breviary from Sens Cathedral [MS Sens 140], which quotes John’s work virtually verbatim.27 The following discussion offers a comparison between this office liturgy and Studens livor. The lessons of both offices recounted the life and martyrdom of Becket, fulfilling a central purpose of the liturgy, which was the transmission of biographical information. Indeed, liturgical readings are vitas; they were often drawn verbatim, or in abbreviated or rearranged versions, from an independent manuscript of vitas or miracles. Further, these texts were contained in a form that disseminated the account of his life and martyrdom widely. As Andrew Hughes pointed out: [The] liturgical sources of hagiography [such as the Becket Office] may have provided the chief and most frequent “biographical” contact between a saint and the community, lay or ecclesiastical. They should therefore have a status equal to any vita in revealing contemporary attitudes towards particular saints.28 Further, Jennifer O’Reilly has reminded us that, “Certain historical events automatically evoked for eyewitnesses the universal and poetic language of liturgy, nothing more so than Thomas Becket’s death, which was perceived by his supporters, and then revealed to others, as a sacramental sacrifice, effecting what it symbolized.”29 Moreover, the liturgy had the potential to influence political events and contemporary attitudes, as well as personal behavior. Just as the early biographers of Becket were compelled to create a vision of the archbishop as martyr and saint, it was essential that the author of the office for Becket present an image which was fully consonant with the accepted concept of sanctity. As we have seen, this was a difficult task, since Becket’s life prior to his consecration as archbishop did not exemplify constant piety and devotion to the precepts of the Church. The lessons and poetry of the office had to provide an explanation for his association with the king, his extravagant lifestyle, his participation in the courtly pursuits

92  Saint and cult of hunting and hawking, and his military actions in the uprisings of nobles in the Angevin Empire; it was necessary for the texts to demonstrate that underneath the appearances, he was actually a pious and devout man. The two most prominent offices, Studens livor and the office exemplified by the Sens breviary, solved this problem in different ways. Studens livor, with lessons and poetry probably composed by Benedict of Peterborough, ignored the early chapters of the martyr’s life, beginning the first lection with Becket’s “transformation.” The text tells us that Thomas, who had been “incomparably energetic in the role of chancellor and archdeacon, became devoted to God beyond human estimation,” after accepting the pastoral office, secretly wearing a hairshirt under his clerical clothing. The lesson goes on to discuss the struggle between the archbishop and king, making clear that Becket was protecting the rights and interests of the Church against a “clear subversion of ecclesiastical liberty.” The lesson ends with the archbishop’s flight into exile. By contrast, the office derived from the letter Ex insperato and the Vita by John of Salisbury begins with Thomas’s boyhood, in order to demonstrate that saintly qualities and virtues were always an underlying feature of his personality. John recounts that Becket learned “fear of the Lord” from his mother, who taught him to turn to the Virgin as a guide in all his ways, and to revere her as the “patron of his life.”30 John does allude to Thomas’s “youthful inclinations,” but emphasizes that faith and nobility of spirit were “thriving in him,” although he was “immoderately eager for popular attention.” A comparison is made between Thomas and Brictius of Tours, saying that, just like Brictius, Thomas was proud and vain (superbus et vanus) and that sometimes he was foolish enough to show the face and utter the words of lovers, “yet he must be admired and imitated for his bodily chastity.”31 As Hanna Vollrath has remarked, “John implies that there were two sides to Thomas Becket: the one stood for worldly pleasures, the other – his ­chastity – for distancing himself from the enticements of the world.”32 The second lesson in Studens livor recounts the circumstances of Thomas’s exile, pointing to the abuses he experienced as a result of the orders of Henry II. “All the revenues of the archbishop in England were confiscated, all his lands were ravaged, all his possessions pillaged,” and his entire family, friends and companions were sent into exile. But the lesson makes clear that the “man of God” was steadfast, and remained unbroken by any injury. By contrast, the second lesson drawn from the writings of John of Salisbury discusses Thomas’s hesitation in accepting the office of archbishop, viewing the situation in a much more political way than Studens livor: “He [Thomas] pondered danger . . . he had learned from long experience what that office had, both of onus and honor.” The lesson recounts that Henry of Pisa, cardinal and apostolic legate, urged him to accept, and “he acquiesced to the desire of the king and the advice of his friends.” The lesson closes as Thomas “[throws] off the old man with his actions, crucifying his flesh along with his vices and carnal desires.”

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 93 In Lesson Three, Studens livor continues the discussion of Thomas’s exile, pointing out that the king threatened the Cistercian order in order to force the monks at Pontigny to request the saint’s removal from their monastery. The lesson makes clear that Thomas left of his own accord, and that Louis VII, the “most Christian king of the French,” offered his support. Thomas was received at Sens, near the abbey where he spent the remaining years of his exile. The third lesson as drawn from Ex insperato is, again, more concerned with the political events leading up to the exile. The Devil, “seeing that so great a man would very much benefit the Church of God . . . sowed seeds of hatred in the heart of the king and his courtiers.” The lesson provides specific details in regard to the “dispute over the customs of the realm and ecclesiastical authority,” stating that the “lay authority appropriated all [cases] at will,” scorning ecclesiastical law, with the bishops “silent or muttering rather than resisting.” Quoting the gospels of Matthew and Luke, Thomas stood “solid, founded on a rock.” By Lesson Four of Studens livor, peace is being restored between the archbishop and king through the good offices of Pope Alexander and Louis, king of the French. “Some people believed that the matter was really settled, although others were skeptical.” Thomas returned to England, where he was received with “inestimable joy” by the clerics and laypeople. The lesson tells us that after a few days he was again subjected to penalties and injuries, but “his hand still reached toward the liberation of the Church.” Having explored the political circumstances of the quarrel between the archbishop and the king, Thomas is driven into exile in Lesson Four of the Sens version. (The sentence “Actus ergo in exilium” is one of the few common to the Sarum and Sens texts). It is evident that the author of this version of the office was much more interested in discussing Thomas’s youth and the political aspects of the quarrel between the archbishop and king than the composer of Studens livor. Thomas was received by Pope Alexander at Sens, and the pope commended him to the Cistercian monastery at Pontigny. The lesson text is specific with regard to the situation there, again referring to the political machinations of King Henry. Thomas stayed in the monastery, “praying constantly for the Church, and for the king and the kingdom of the English,” until the king threatened to expel the Cistercians from his realms if they did not remove the archbishop from Pontigny.33 By Lesson Five in Studens livor, we have arrived at the interview between Becket and the four knights, with the archbishop responding “moderately and reasonably” to the accusations of the king’s men. The graphic account of the brutal murder follows, as Thomas “imitates Christ in his suffering.” Lesson Five in the Sens Breviary reports that Thomas left the monastery at Pontigny “of his own will,” and sought the help of the “most Christian king of the French,” Louis VII, who “received him with reverence.” Another of Becket’s supporters, Archbishop William of Sens,34 intervened with the

94  Saint and cult pope, and according to the lesson text, he obtained the following directive from the Holy See: that the king of the English should be excommunicated, with every appeal invalid, and the kingdom placed under interdict unless peace was restored to the Church at Canterbury. A day was set for the decision, and [bowing to the pressure], Henry finally gave his assent that peace should be restored to the English Church. The text of much of this lesson is similar to Lesson Three in the Sarum Breviary, although mention of the role of William of Sens in effecting the agreement is unique to the Sens Breviary.35 Lesson Six in the Sens Breviary recounts the return of Thomas to England, again placing the events within a political context. King Henry offered him safe conduct, and he was received by the clergy and the people as if he were “an angel of the lord.” But the situation became more complicated, the text reports, when the pope heard about the coronation of young king Henry by the Archbishop of York, an act which usurped the customary prerogative of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The pope suspended from their episcopal offices the Archbishop of York and the bishops who assisted him in the coronation, and renewed the sentence of excommunication against two other prominent bishops: Gilbert of London and Jocelin of Salisbury.36 These actions angered King Henry even more, and “the poisoned tongues of [Becket’s] detractors were rendered even more efficacious for doing harm.” This led to the king’s decree that Becket could not leave the enclosure of his own church, and “Whoever showed him or any of his men a cheerful countenance was considered a public enemy.” The author of the Sarum version, less concerned with the ramifications of the political actions in the struggle, merely says, “After a few days he was prohibited by public edict from leaving the protection of the church, and anyone who was friendly to him was deemed a public enemy.”37 As mentioned earlier, the account of the martyrdom is similar in both versions, but the Sarum Breviary is much more poetic in its description. (Lesson Six in Sarum, Seven and Eight in Sens). The description of miracles at the site of the martyrdom occurs in both breviaries, but again, the Sarum version is not only more elaborate, it closes with a comparison of Becket with Christ which is not present in the Sens account. Of course, it is not possible to ascertain how and why the composers of the offices chose to include one passage from a Vita rather than another; answers to this question must, of necessity, be speculative. However, an analysis of the two breviaries allows for some conjecture regarding motivation. It cannot be overlooked that the author of the Sens lessons chose to include specific passages from the letter and Vita of John of Salisbury, which emphasize Becket’s connection to Sens and to the archbishop, William of the White Hands. William, as has been observed, was “perhaps the most

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 95 active French proponent of Becket and a key mover in the canonization.” As Frank Barlow remarked, as Thomas was more and more alienated and isolated from any English support, he relied increasingly on William and other French bishops.38 William was certainly well-connected: he was the brother of Henry I  (Count of Champagne), and of Theobald V (Count of Blois), nephew of Henry (Bishop of Winchester), and of the late King Stephen, and brotherin-law of the king of France. He proved to be a valuable ally and patron of Thomas,39 and his support was essential for the exiles’ survival.40 John of Salisbury’s emphasis on Thomas’s connection to William gives evidence that the archbishop’s cause reflected the Angevin-Capetian rivalry, and that the situation was colored by nationalistic feeling.41 A letter of William of the White Hands set the tone: Henry was not only a tyrant and an oppressor of the Church, but also an enemy of France.42 Louis VII, by contrast, was lauded as the most Christian king, protector and Defender of the Church against monarchs who wished to assert their secular authority. While it is interesting to note that the texts of the offices differ in terms of their political emphasis and intention to provide context, they ultimately offer similar images of the archbishop, although Studens livor is the more poetic and expressive of the two. First, they both point to Becket’s “conversion” – the transformation of his character as he became a new man, a novus homo. This concept is an echo of classical references to Cicero, as well as biblical references drawn from the epistles of St Paul to the Ephesians and Colossians, where the recipients are told to “put off the old man . . . and put on the new man,” “stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds.”43 John’s account of the “conversion” of Thomas was followed by most of the biographers, and has been the subject of much scholarly debate. Recent writers have suggested that, rather than a sudden conversion, the experience of Thomas was the product of a gradual and continuous development, culminating in has ordination as archbishop.44 Michael Staunton has shown that the biographers, writing within the context of the twelfth-century ideas of conversion, viewed the “transformation” as a theme which was integrated into the narrative of Becket’s entire life. The lesson texts of the office confirm this view, as the conversion is prepared by Thomas’s constant devotion to the Virgin, and his chaste early life; “zeal for the faith and nobility of spirit were thriving in him.” The image of Thomas as bonus pastor is also prominent in both offices. Especially in Studens livor, many phrases project this concept: he was the noble protector of the flock, the “shepherd in the sheepfold,” zealously carrying out his ministry. This was emphasized by the choice of the scriptural reading for Lesson Seven, taken from John 10 (verses 11–16): “I am the good shepherd.” The scripture was followed by a homily taken from the works of Gregory the Great that expanded on this theme. Obviously, this emphasis on Thomas’s pastoral role was meant to provide a model for the clergy listening to the office; they should emulate him in caring for their own

96  Saint and cult congregations. Further, they should not retreat from the ultimate sacrifice; they should be willing to follow the Good Shepherd who laid down his life for his sheep. One of the primary images presented in both offices is Thomas as the defender of the rights of the Church. The pope’s mandate in establishing a feast which was celebrated throughout Christendom fostered a vision of the strong churchman who devoted his energy and ultimately his life to the cause of the Church. This image had great appeal for the European prelates who faced similar confrontations with their rulers, and was one reason for the spread of Becket’s cult throughout Europe and Scandinavia during the following centuries.45 Thomas’s martyrdom provided the strongest evidence for his canonization. As we have seen, few circumstances in his previous life could be presented as a claim to sanctity; the murder in the cathedral made the saint. The liturgies projected a dramatic image of the martyr giving his life willingly for the liberty of the Church with courage and fortitude, which heightened the emotional experience. Further, the circumstances of his death served to link Becket with the saints of the past, and ultimately with Christ. Indeed, the author of the Sarum office claimed that it would be difficult to find a passion of any other saint that compared so closely to that of the Lord. As Marie-Pierre Gelin recently remarked, Thomas is presented in the office as a type of Christ – not a prefiguration, but a realization, an actualization of the teachings given by Jesus during his time on earth.46 Moreover, the biographers pointed to the fact that Thomas died at the sacred time of the nativity of the Lord, and the description of his death echoes in many ways the biblical account of the death of the Lamb of God – he has become the “Lamb of Canterbury,” in the words of Gelin, quoting Benedict of Peterborough.47 Edward Grim contextualized the liturgy for Becket by pointing out that Becket was born on the feast day of St Thomas, December 21, and further, the murderers approached the innocent prelate on the morrow of the Feast of the Holy Innocents.48 William FitzStephen wrote that by his death, Thomas of Canterbury lit up the West just as his apostolic namesake, Thomas of India, lit up the East; their December feast days balanced either side of the feast of the Incarnation.49 The saint’s intercessory power is emphasized in Jesu bone, the final responsory of the office.50 The text implores Christ to forgive our sins through the merits (merita) of Thomas; by his compassion the faults of sinners are forgiven and petitioners are saved from threefold death. In summary, the liturgical texts for the feast day of Becket describe the slaying of the archbishop, and, in a sense, offer a posthumous assessment of his life. The vision of Thomas that emerges from the office texts of the Sarum Use, as well as the manuscripts of other traditions, establishes the martyr as a defender of the faith, a powerful intercessor, a supporter of the Church against secular authority, a model for pastoral emulation, and a candidate for canonization.

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 97 Sherry Reames has described the office for Becket’s feast day, which was written soon after the martyrdom, as a “fiercely partisan document.”51 In particular, she pointed to the “ferocious” rhetoric about the injustices visited upon Thomas and his familia that describes “the cruelty and wickedness of his persecutors, and the shocking brutality of the murder itself.”52 Simon Walker agreed with Reames’s analysis, writing that the lections for the feast day “emphasize the violence of the act,” but he observed in addition, that the office texts pointed to the political division that Becket’s martyrdom had fostered.53 The Office for the Translation composed for the ceremony in 1220, by contrast, emphasizes peace, harmony, and reconciliation, reflecting the changing historical circumstances.54

The liturgy for the Office of the Translation The year of peace is present, the terror of war is gone. Peace grows in the world and An abundance of things everywhere. V. After the translation of Thomas All prosperity follows.55

As we have seen, in the bull addressed to the chapter at Canterbury of March 14, 1173, Pope Alexander III confirmed Becket’s canonization and declared that a feast day be celebrated in his honor; in addition, the pope stipulated that the saint’s body be translated to a more appropriate ­location56 – a site which Alyce Jordan has called a “customized stage for his veneration.”57 The papal bull stated: We command you by this our apostolic rescript to hold a solemn procession on some high feast day when the clergy and the people are met together, to inter his body devoutly and reverently behind the altar, or to place it in a chest, elevated above the altar, whichever be more convenient.58 Nevertheless, in spite of Becket’s rapid canonization, the papal provision for the translation of his remains, and the rapidly increasing vogue for pilgrimage to Canterbury, the 50 years between the martyrdom and the translation were filled with a variety of obstacles that prevented the ceremony from taking place. Initially these included the fact that the see at Canterbury remained vacant until 1174, since the election of Becket’s successor, Richard of Dover, was contested. Furthermore, the years immediately following the martyrdom were fraught with civil as well as ecclesiastical problems, with feudal warfare in the rebelling provinces of the Angevin Empire a constant aggravation. An even more devastating occurrence was the fire of 1174,

98  Saint and cult which destroyed the timberwork of the choir of the cathedral. Becket’s tomb was not damaged, but the translation had to be postponed until the choir and eastern end of the cathedral could be rebuilt. This misfortune did, however, allow for a brilliant new design to be implemented under the direction of William of Sens, which not only provided a place of honor for St Thomas, but also enhanced solemn processions and contained the crowds of pilgrims streaming to Canterbury. It was adorned, most appropriately, with stainedglass images commemorating the archbishop’s life and many of the miracles that had occurred at the site of his tomb in the crypt. Progress toward completion of the building program was interrupted during the archbishopric of Baldwin (1184–1190), when the importance of the chapter at Canterbury was threatened by the proposed creation of another house of canons at Hackington, one-quarter mile north of the city, to be founded in honor of St Thomas and St Stephen.59 The new establishment was to provide prebendal stalls for the king and all the bishops; they were to endow vicars, and the funds for the enterprise were also to be obtained from the churches of the city and by public subscription. The monks saw this as a powerful wedge by which an important group might gradually supplant the chapter of Christ Church as the electors of the archbishop and as the clergy of the cathedral. It is likely that King Henry was the motivating force behind the scheme, and certainly there is no doubt that he would have gained benefit from a rival house that would have been very much under his control. Whatever the actual involvement of Archbishop Baldwin, his methods remain indefensible. He “imprisoned” the monastic community within the monastic buildings from January 13, 1188 to August 12, 1189, and the liturgical services of the cathedral were suspended during most of this time. As the struggle continued, the monks remained vehemently opposed not only to the archbishop and the officials appointed by him, but also to the king. As David Knowles has remarked, “The spirit of Becket, like that of Caesar, lived on in power.”60 The situation was ameliorated by the death of Henry II, and in November 1189 the monks approached King Richard, who arranged a compromise in their favor whereby Baldwin abandoned the project at Hackington. Although the situation seemed to have been resolved at this time, the plan for the new foundation was revived during the archbishopric of Hubert Walter (1193–1205). The monks continued their adamant opposition, and both parties agreed to appeal to Rome. Pope Innocent III heard the arguments of each, and decided wholly in favor of the monks.61 Thus, the situation was finally resolved in 1200, and the Canterbury chapter could once again initiate planning for the translation of St Thomas’s remains. The see was again plunged into turmoil when Pope Innocent III appointed Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury in June 1207. King John refused to admit him to England, believing that the traditional royal right to consent had been disregarded, and the pope retaliated by placing an interdict on the whole country, which lasted from the spring of 1208 until the late summer of 1213.62 The pope also imposed personal excommunication

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 99 on the king, which extended from 1209 to 1213. John responded by seizing the property of those establishments that submitted to the papal ruling, allowing the dispossessed to redeem their land only by substantial payments to the Crown.63 The considerable financial loss incurred by the chapter at Canterbury, together with the prohibition of public liturgical ceremonies, delayed the completion of the Trinity chapel, and thus the translation of Becket’s remains was once again postponed. It was a time of political unrest, as well.64 As Robert Bartlett has summarized the situation, the opposition to King John was a fusion of two factions, the barons who insisted on their traditional aristocratic rights and the ecclesiastical leadership which continued to resist the assertion of royal powers over the Church.65 In order to suppress rebellion, King John conceded the Magna Carta in 1215, but almost immediately asked the pope to annul it. This was a major cause of the civil war that followed, and in order to win the war and secure the peace, the regents in charge of the government during the minority of Henry III reissued the charter in what approximated its definitive form. On 17 May 1220, shortly before the translation of Becket, the second coronation of King Henry III took place, and the authority of the monarchy was well on the way to being re-established.66 The long-awaited translation of the martyr’s remains occurred on July 7, 1220, and another office in honor of the saint was composed for the celebration, which memorialized the saint and described the circumstances of the translation ceremony.67 It has long been suggested that Archbishop Stephen Langton wrote texts for the Office of the Translation, although Sherry Reames has posited that it should more likely to be attributed to the archbishop’s followers rather than the prelate himself. She believes, nonetheless, that the office texts are “pervaded by [Langton’s] influence.”68 The work that Langton either wrote or approved is represented in the most widely celebrated of the various versions of the office – that of the Sarum Breviary.69 Archbishop Langton identified his own exile with that of his famous predecessor; indeed, as Phyllis Roberts has pointed out, Langton viewed himself as a successor to Becket in the struggle for the liberty of the Church,70 and Nicholas Vincent and Paul Webster have recently shown that “a sense of identification with Becket is crucial to any understanding of Langton’s archiepiscopal career.”71 He was intent upon using Becket’s translation to symbolize the re-establishment of order and prosperity in England, and, as Richard Eales has remarked, he probably had such an event in mind prior to his return to England in 1218.72 Langton devoted himself to the task of creating the office and orchestrating the ceremony, and his triumph and achievement were signified by the fulfillment of the long-postponed translation.73 For the clergy in general, Thomas’s translation provided an occasion for celebrating the victory of the Church over secular tyranny (most recently personified by King John). For the monks at Canterbury, the occasion was particularly meaningful, since they had waited for 50 years to see St Thomas encased in a splendid, permanent shrine in Trinity Chapel.74

100  Saint and cult Langton spared neither money nor effort in accomplishing his task, drawing upon his influence in Rome and England, and using his native abilities as an orator and his intellectual accomplishments as theologian and former professor at the University of Paris in designing the celebration,75 which was one of the most spectacular ceremonies of thirteenth-century England.76 On 7 July, according to the Sarum Breviary, “[a] great multitude of bishops, abbots, and priors, counts and barons, beggars and poor people came together at Canterbury, so that they could be present at the translation. In fact, the city and the surrounding villages were scarcely able to contain the crowds.” The celebration brought together almost all of the important prelates of England, and many from the European continent, symbolically reuniting them with one another, and with the pope.77 The dignitaries present included Pandulphus, the papal legate, the archbishops of Canterbury and Rheims, bishops, and abbots, and the justiciar Hubert de Burgh. These magnates carried the martyr’s coffin on their shoulders, in the presence of the young King Henry III, and “in the sight of the people, with tears of exultation and hymns of jubilation.” The martyr’s body was solemnly elevated and placed in a shrine, “exquisitely covered with gold and precious stones,” which rested on a marble platform in the new Trinity Chapel. The Breviary makes clear that not only important people, but common folk participated in the ceremony, pouring out devotion and praise to the martyr. The text of the office reflects André Vauchez’s observation in discussing translations more generally: the translations of the saints are for the people so many opportunities for direct contact with the supernatural and for rejoicing, in the context of an outburst of collective fervor during which the clashes of factions and clans momentarily fade away.78 As the first responsory in MS Stowe 12 recounts: Now the envy preceding bitter hatred is Engulfed by abundant joy, While the translation of Thomas is being conducted. V. The whole surrounding region rejoices, Every age, rank, gender, status.79 Archbishop Langton made the day especially festive for the crowds of people, giving food to foreign pilgrims and providing “the wine of hospitality” at the entrance gates, as well as at the center of the city. He did not intend, as Sherry Reames has remarked, for the impact of the translation to be restricted to those actually in attendance, and it was not. The liturgy commemorating the translation was important enough to warrant its addition

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 101 to breviaries throughout England and France, with celebrations each July.80 The ceremony also incorporated the concept of the 50-year jubilee, which continued to be celebrated every 50 years until 1470.81 For Archbishop Langton, the translation ceremony – in the presence of Henry III, the papal legate, and almost all of the bishops in England – symbolized the success of his efforts to establish order in the kingdom.82 Langton’s purpose was emphasized in the sermon he preached on the occasion, in which he did not point to the conflict between Henry II and the martyred archbishop. Instead, he extolled the virtues of Becket and emphasized his salvific qualities. His translation would assure forgiveness for sins and perpetual salvation.83 The Sarum liturgy, as Sherry Reames has pointed out, presented several themes.84 As might be expected within the historical context of 1220, the texts of the office underscore “social and political reconciliation” and “spiritual renewal and moral reform,” as well as the religious and cultic value of the new shrine.85 She notes the “inclusive, nonpartisan character” of the Translation Office, and offers the observation that: Instead of dwelling on the lonely righteousness of Thomas the martyr and his loyal companions, and emphasizing their vindication against their enemies, the translation office urges both parties . . . [to] unite in giving thanks for a saint and a God whose mercy has room for them all.86 Although the Office for the Translation did not replace the liturgy for Becket’s feast day, it certainly must have contributed to the success of Becket’s cult, which flourished until the sixteenth century. Constructed as a symbol of national peace and unity, the liturgy for the translation was inclusive of a broad range of the population, and encouraged and fostered the popularity of the martyr who became the most famous English saint.

Sermon studies Sermons about Thomas Becket constitute an important historical source, since they offer succinct interpretations of his life, martyrdom and miracles. They were the mode of transmission through which the Church taught and guided its flock, providing the means of instruction for people gathered together, in both lay and clerical congregations. Further, in a society which was generally unlettered, the oral tradition represented by the sermons assumes great significance in a study of the cult of the Canterbury martyr. As Phyllis Roberts observed, written sources alone cannot account for the rapid growth of cultic veneration. The sermons about Becket provided an important focus for the oral dissemination of the story, and were a vital part of the process. Indeed, the “vigor with which the Becket legend took hold . . . attests to the power of the spoken word.”87 The sermons were preached in a wide variety of European locations,88 including universities, various monastic houses and the papal court at

102  Saint and cult Avignon, as well as parish churches and cathedrals.89 In addition to the texts of full sermons, notes and outlines for preaching provided the preachers with material for addressing audiences which would have included both laity and clergy.90 For a growing secular and lay consciousness in society in general, Becket symbolized a vital issue in medieval life: The ongoing question of ecclesiastical liberties in the face of royal power.91 The sermons for Becket, written to be preached on his feast day (December 29) and the feast of the Translation (July 7), were closely connected to the liturgy.92 The images and themes, which were “drawn initially from the liturgy . . . [became] part of a widespread preaching tradition about Becket.”93 As discussed earlier, the offices transmitted several potent images of the archbishop, including Thomas as novus homo, bonus pastor, Defender of the Church, martyr, miracle worker, and type of Christ. In addition, the portrayal of Thomas as a man who converted to the service of God made him an exemplar of personal piety. The preachers made use of all of these familiar images and themes, both enriching the interpretation of Becket’s life and linking the sermons to the liturgies. One of the most frequent themes in the sermons presented Becket as an exemplar for the clergy – the bonus pastor. Hence, many of the sermons were based on the text from John 10:11, Ego sum bonus pastor. Bonus pastor animam suam dat pro ovibus suis.94 This verse also provided the basis for Lesson Seven in the widely dispersed Sarum rite, where it was followed by a homily of Gregory the Great.95 Preachers drew upon this Johannine theme, thus establishing a connection between the sermon and the liturgy of the feast. In their expositions they elaborated upon the scripture and recounted the legends associated with St Thomas’s pastoral legacy. The sermon thus became an educational device, exhorting the clergy in attendance to emulate the sainted martyr whose feast they were celebrating. Another potent theme exploited by the preachers was that of Becket’s martyrdom, which is frequently connected to the model of the martyrdom of Christ. Many sermons point to the Christological parallel, and go on to cite Thomas as a martyr who died for the cause of the Church and the sake of justice. For example, this was the primary theme of Stephen Langton’s sermon preached at Rome on the anniversary of Becket’s martyrdom, December 29, 1220.96 Further, the preachers emphasized Thomas’s compassion for the poor, providing evidence of his purity of conscience and his humility. His secret wearing of the hairshirt was mentioned frequently as an example of the archbishop’s austerity.97 Other frequent motifs in the sermons recount Becket’s saintly acts and his miracles, presenting indications of saintliness evident before his martyrdom, and describing miraculous events that occurred after his death. Many of the miracles, such as his restoration of sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, healing of paralytics, and raising up of the dead, were also included in the liturgies. However, as Phyllis Roberts has pointed out, the virtues

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 103 of Thomas Becket are a more frequent motif than the miracles in the sermons.98 The preachers pointed to his austerities, his sense of justice, and his generosity to the poor – all qualities which could be emulated by laypeople. In the three centuries following the martyrdom, the sermons often reflected contemporary concerns and provided the preachers with a platform for presenting the position of the Church in its struggle with the encroachments of secular power. As Vauchez observed, the murder of Becket created a model for holy bishops, as well as laity, which was duplicated until the end of the Middle Ages.99 Further, in analyzing the circumstances of subsequent English bishops, he remarked that many of them had to suffer exile or royal hostility, and this was “all that was necessary for them to be identified with the man who had become the prototype and obligatory reference for all sainthood in England, St Thomas Becket.”100 As the cult of the martyr spread, the “Becket model” became a potent factor in the relations of Scandinavian kings and bishops, and prelates in Eastern Europe, as well as those in France and England. The Church celebrated the holy bishops as intrepid defenders of its rights, as well as “pastors concerned scrupulously to perform all the duties of their office,”101 whereas the laity saw them as innocent victims of arbitrary royal power. Roberts points out that Becket’s clash with Henry II was intimately connected with the ongoing arguments concerning the so-called Investiture Controversy, and further, that his martyrdom made him a potent symbol for the Gregorian reform movement. “Thomas Becket had become a vivid and compelling symbol of the Church’s resistance to temporal authority . . . [and] sermons and the medieval Latin preaching tradition were crucial to creating and sustaining that symbol.”102 For laypeople, the sermons were essential in constructing and sustaining the image of Thomas Becket as a vibrant symbol of personal piety; the spoken word served to remind the listeners of Becket’s moral rectitude, as well as the possibility of redemption. Together with the liturgies to which they were closely linked, sermons fostered and encouraged the spread of the cult of the Canterbury martyr throughout Europe and Scandinavia, and continued to promote the concept of holiness exemplified by Becket until the time of the Reformation.

Notes 1 Letter 783, Mats. vii, 544–5. For a discussion of the issues see E.W. Kemp, Canonization and Authority in the Western Church (Oxford, 1948), 86–9. 2 Letter 784, Mats. vii, 545–6. 3 Letter 786, Mats. vii, 547–8. 4 Letter 786. See also the remarks of A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1997), 109. 5 See Chapter 1. 6 See, for example, the recent work of Andrew Hughes concerning an early printed book for the York Use, Cataloguing Discrepancies: The Printed York Breviary

104  Saint and cult of 1493 (Toronto, 2011). Hughes and his collaborators, Matthew Cheung Salisbury and Heather Robbins, examined the variety of ways in which this breviary was described in the various extant catalogs of liturgical books. 7 G. Dreves and C. Blume, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, 55 vols. (Leipzig, 1886–1922; reprint ed., London, 1969). The offices for Becket are in volume xiii, 245–7. 8 F. Proctor and C. Wordsworth, eds., Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesiae Sarisburiensis, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1879–86), repr. Famborough, 1970 (Use of Sarum). 9 S.W. Lawley, ed., Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesie Eboracensis, 2 vols, Surtees Society 71, 75. (Durham, 1880–2) (Use of York Cathedral). 10 W.H. Frere and L.E.G. Brown, eds., The Hereford Breviary, 3 vols. (London, 1911) (Use of Hereford Cathedral). This work, as well as the breviary from Hyde Abbey, was published by the Henry Bradshaw Society, an important publisher of liturgical materials. Founded in 1890 for the purpose of editing “Rare Liturgical texts,” it was named in honor of Cambridge University librarian Henry Bradshaw (1831–1886). 11 J.B.L. Tolhurst, The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester, 6 vols. (London, 1930–9). (Hyde Abbey). 12 The work of Andrew Hughes concerning the Becket Office resulted in many publications, beginning with “Chants in the Offices of Thomas of Canterbury and Stanislas of Poland,” Musica Antiqua Europae Orientalis 6 (1982): 266–77, and continuing with “Modal Order and Disorder in the Rhymed Office,” Musica Disciplina 37 (1983): 29–52; “Late Medieval Rhymed Offices: A Research Report,” Journal of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society 8 (1985); “British Rhymed Offices: A Catalogue,” Journal of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society 10 (1987); “Chants in the Rhymed Office of St Thomas of Canterbury,” Early Music 16, no. 2 (May, 1988): 185–201; “Rhymed Offices,” in J. Strayer, ed., Dictionary of the Middle Ages, 13 vols. (New York, 1988), 10, 366–77; “British Rhymed Offices: A Catalogue and Commentary,” in S. Rankin and D. Hiley, eds., Music in the Medieval English Liturgy (Oxford, 1993), 239–84; “Chantword Indexes: A Tool for Plainsong Research,” Words and Music, Acta 17 (1993): 31–49; Late Medieval Liturgical Offices: Resources for Electronic Research, 2 vols. (Toronto, 1994–6). See also the entry “Rhymed Offices,” in S. Sadie, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 20 vols, 6th ed. (London, 1980), xv, 804. Hughes also discussed the Becket Office in his most recent work, Cataloguing Discrepancies: The Printed York Breviary of 1493 (Toronto, 2011), esp. 59–67. See also A. Hughes, “Defacing Becket: Damaged Books for the Office,” in A. Andrée and E. Kihlman, eds., Hortus troporum: Florilegium in honorem Gunillae Iversen (Stockholm, 2008), 162–75. The work of Hughes has been continued by M. Salisbury, “A ‘Trivial’ Variant: Filled Thirds in the Office for St Thomas Becket,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 16, no. 1 (2007): 1–17. 13 S. Reames, “Liturgical Offices for the Cult of St. Thomas Becket,” in T. Head, ed., Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology (New York, 2000); “The Remaking of a Saint: Stephen Langton and the Liturgical Office for Becket’s Translation,” Hagiographica 7 (2000): 17–34; “Reconstructing and Interpreting a ThirteenthCentury Office for the Translation of Thomas Becket,” Speculum 80, no. 1 (January, 2005): 118–70. 14 K. Slocum, Liturgies in Honour of Thomas Becket (Toronto, 2004); “Prosas for Saint Thomas Becket,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 8, no. 1 (1999): 39–54. 15 A. Duggan, “A Becket Office at Stavelot: London, British Library, Additional MS 16964,” in A. Duggan, J. Greatrex and B. Bolton, eds., Omne disce – Medieval Studies in Memory of Leonard Boyle, O.P. (Aldershot, 2005), 161–82.

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 105 Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult (Aldershot, 2007), XI. See also the recent article by Duggan, “Becket Is Dead: Long Live St Thomas,” in M. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. (Woodbridge, 2016), 25–52, esp. 28–36. Further analysis and examination of musical sources, at Trier in particular, have been published by E. Joubert, “New Music in the Office of Thomas Becket from the Diocese of Trier,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 18, no. 1 (2009): 33–60. 16 The office is known by the first words of the first responsory, Studens livor. 17 See the discussion ahead. 18 However, the Becket Office is one of the first to be composed in rhymed accentual verse, and is thought to have been a model for subsequent rhymed offices. 19 For a description of the configuration of the liturgy, see J. Harper, The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century: A Historical Introduction and Guide for Students and Musicians (Oxford, 1991), 73–102. There is a helpful chart comparing the monastic and secular versions on 93–103. For a general discussion of the history and use of liturgical celebration, see T. Heffernan and E.A. Matter, The Liturgy of the Medieval Church (Kalamazoo, MI, 2001). Also helpful is the study by R.W. Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History (Cambridge, 2009). Pfaff discusses the historiography of general liturgical study in Liturgy, 8–12. 20 Anne Duggan gives this date for the first celebration, although she does not present documentation. Duggan, “Becket Office at Stavelot,” 163. 21 For details, see P. Collinson, N. Ramsey and M. Sparks, eds., A History of Canterbury Cathedral (Oxford, 1995), 383–4. 22 Slocum translated and transcribed the office from CFW 169 (Lewes Cluniac Noted Breviary/Missal) in Liturgies, 187–208, including a transcription of the chants into modern notation; Anne Duggan analyzed and translated an office from the monastery at Stavelot in “A Becket Office at Stavelot.” Reames used the Procter and Wordsworth edition of the Sarum Breviary in her analysis and translation in “Liturgical Offices,” 565–78. 23 The office of 12 lessons was celebrated by the Carthusians and Cistercians, as well as by the English Cluniacs and many Benedictine monasteries. See Duggan, “Becket Office at Stavelot,” 167. 24 The analysis of some manuscripts is hampered by the damage and destruction that occurred in the sixteenth century at the order of Henry VIII. See the discussion in Hughes, “Defacing Becket,” and in Chapter 6. 25 For a chart showing the distribution of antiphons and responsories in various versions of the office, both monastic and secular, see Slocum, Liturgies, 152–4. 26 Duggan, “Becket is Dead!” 27, fts. 15 and 16. 27 My thanks to Brigitte Arnaud, who kindly photographed the manuscript for me. 28 Hughes, Late Medieval Liturgical Offices, vol. ii, 45. 29 J. O’Reilly, “Double Martyrdom,” 236. 30 Hanna Vollrath has pointed out that the reference to Thomas’s mother as the person responsible for his religious training was stereotypical for twelfth-century writing in “Was Thomas Becket Chaste? Understanding Episodes in the Becket Lives,” in J. Gillingham, ed., Anglo-Norman Studies XXVII (Woodbridge, UK, 2005), 199–209, at 201. 31 The comparison with Brictius, also used by William of Canterbury [Mats. i, 5], refers to the following anecdote about the fifth-century bishop, who succeeded Martin as Bishop of Tours in 397. According to Gregory of Tours, Brictius, when he was young and high-spirited, mocked St Martin behind his back. Martin was aware of his jibes, but predicted, accurately, of course, that Brictius would be his successor. Gregory reports that following his election as bishop, Brictius

106  Saint and cult attended to his duties assiduously, and that, although he was “proud and vain, he was known as one who remained chaste in his body” (Vollrath, “Becket,” 203). The comparison with Thomas is obvious. 32 Vollrath, “Becket,” 202. 33 Henry issued the threat in September 1166, at a general council of the Cistercian order. 34 William of Sens was Archbishop of Sens from 1168 to 1176, and then of Rheims from 1176 to 1202. He was a close friend of John of Salisbury, and arranged for his election to the bishopric of Chartres, where he died in 1180. Smalley, Becket Conflict, 107. 35 See Barlow, Becket, for a description of the archbishop’s role in the settlement. 36 Gilbert Foliot of London (in office from 1163 to 87) and Jocelin (1142–84) had been excommunicated by the pope in September 1170. Both were enemies of Becket. 37 Slocum, Liturgies, 216. 38 Barlow, Becket, 130. 39 Barlow, Becket, 158. 40 Duggan, Correspondence, liii. 41 Barlow, Becket, 178. 42 Mats. vii, 441. 43 Ephesians 2:15–16 and 4:22–4, and Colossians 3:9–10. See the discussion in Slocum, Liturgies, 6–7. 44 Staunton discusses the issue in “Conversion,” 193–211. 45 See the discussion in Chapter 3. 46 M-P. Gelin, Lumen ad revelationem gentium: Iconographie et Liturgie Á Christ Church, Canterbury, 1175–1220 (Turnhout, 2006), 262. 47 Gelin, Lumen, 263, and Mats. ii, 43. The liturgical images are discussed in Slocum, Liturgies, 7–8. See also Duggan, “Becket Is Dead!” 28–36. 48 Mats. ii, 430. 49 Mats. iii, 154. See also Jennifer O’Reilly, “The Double Martyrdom of Thomas Becket: Hagiography or History,” in J.A.S. Evans and R.W. Unger, eds., Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, VII (New York, 1985), 185–247. 50 Jesu bone is the final responsory in the manuscript from Lewes (CFW 369), but it appears as Responsory 9 in Sarum Use and in some French sources. (See the chart in Slocum, Liturgies, 152–4). According to Anne Duggan, it is Responsory 2 in BL Add. MS 16964. (Duggan, “Becket Office,” Study XI in Friends, Networks, Texts, 173). This is a good example of the reordering of the chants in various offices. 51 Sherry Reames, “The Remaking of a Saint: Stephen Langton and the Liturgical Office for Becket’s Translation,” Hagiographica VII (2000): 17–33, at 21. 52 Reames, “Remaking” cites the text of the Second Lesson as an example. 53 S. Walker, “Political Saints in Later Medieval England,” in R.H. Britnell and A.J. Pollard, eds., The McFarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society (New York, 1995), 77–106, at 91. 54 There are at least six versions of this office. See the discussion in Slocum, Liturgies, 238, and Reames, “Remaking,” 17–20. 55 Slocum, Liturgies, 242. 56 The sacred remains were then residing in the crypt of the cathedral. 57 Jordan, “Water,” 486. 58 D.C. Douglas and G.W. Greenway, eds., English Historical Documents, vol. 2 (New York, 1953), 774–5; Mats. vii, 545. For interesting details concerning a translation ceremony planned for 1186, see Vincent, “William of Canterbury,” 347–88.

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 107 59 Details of the conflict are discussed in D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England: A History of Its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council: 940–1216 (Cambridge, 1966), 318–22. See also the comments of M. Staunton in “Thomas Becket in the Chronicles,” in M.P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170– c. 1220. (Woodbridge, 2016), 95–111, at 106–8; S. Sweetinburgh, “Caught in the Cross-Fire: Patronage and Institutional Politics in Late Twelfth-Century Canterbury,” in P. Dalton, C. Insley and L. Wilkinson, eds., Cathedrals, Communities and Conflict in the Anglo-Norman World (Woodbridge, 2011), 187–202, and N. Vincent, “William of Canterbury,” 347–88. 60 Knowles, Monastic Order, 322. 61 Gervase of Canterbury, among other chroniclers, saw the persecutions of the monks by Baldwin and Hubert Walter as being a continuation of the earlier struggles of Becket. See the remarks of Michael Staunton in “Becket in the Chronicles,” 106–9. 62 The circumstances surrounding the conflict are presented in P. Webster, “Crown Versus Church After Becket: King John, St Thomas and the Interdict,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. (Woodbridge, 2016), 147–70. Webster traces the ways in which the Becket crisis “loomed over royal relations with the Church . . . during the dispute of King John’s reign.” (“Crown,” 147, 154–5). See also Webster, “Crown, Cathedral and Conflict: King John and Canterbury,” in P. Dalton, C. Insley and L.J. Wilkinson, eds., Cathedrals, Communities and Conflict in the Anglo-Norman World (Woodbridge, 2011), 203–19. 63 For details, see Webster, “King John,” esp. 215–16. 64 R. Eales explores the details of the situation in “The Political Setting of the Becket Translation of 1220,” in D. Wood, ed., Martyrs and Martyrologies: Papers Read at the 1992 Summer Meeting and the 1993 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (London, 1993), 127–39, at 130–31. He also points to the contemporary issue of the crusade, with its questions of practical politics and religious ideals as a contributing factor to the delay (132). 65 R. Bartlett, England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075–1225. (Oxford, 2000), 62–7. 66 Eales, “Becket Translation,” 135. Eales interprets the elaborate ceremony as “a calculated attempt to boost Henry’s prestige, and so to face down the defiance of some magnates and officials who were ignoring the instructions of the minority government” (135). 67 The date of the translation, July 7, became a feast day to be observed each year, and Becket thus came to have two annual liturgical celebrations – a service for his translation in addition to the one that commemorated his martyrdom, December 29. The new office for Becket was rapidly added to calendars throughout the British Isles and the European continent. Much of the music was taken directly from the office for Becket’s feast day, slightly altered in some cases to accommodate the new texts. Slocum, Liturgies, 239–40. 68 Reames, “Remaking,” 21. 69 Foreville believed that Langton was the author of the office, basing her conclusion on an analysis of the themes common to Langton’s sermon at the translation ceremony in relation to the office lessons. Her publication includes fifteenthcentury documents which declare that Langton was the author of the lessons, or that he had endorsed them for general use. Foreville, Le Jubilé de Saint Thomas Becket du XIIIe au XVe siècle (1220–1470) (Paris, 1958), 89–95, 190, 192–3. Foreville thought that the best surviving approximation of the original office was the version published in the nineteenth-century edition of the Sarum Breviary

108  Saint and cult edited by Francis Procter and Christopher Wordsworth. Sherry Reames has written two articles about the Translation Office: “The Remaking of a Saint: Stephen Langton and the Liturgical Office for Becket’s Translation,” Hagiographica VII (2000): 17–33, and “Reconstructing and Interpreting a Thirteenth-Century Office for the Translation of Thomas Becket,” Speculum 80 (2005): 118–70, which includes her reconstruction of the office. In her work, Reames used the Rhyming Office from BL MS Stowe 12, fols. 270r–271v, with Prosa and emendations from BL ADD. 28598, and lessons from BL Cotton Appendix 23, fols. 140r–141r, with emendations from other manuscripts. As Reames points out, Matthew Paris, in his fragmentary life of Stephen Langton, wrote that Langton was the author of the lessons for the translation ceremony. 70 P.B. Roberts, Stephanus de Lingua-Tonante: Studies in the Sermons of Stephen Langton (Toronto, 1968), 135; and Roberts, “Archbishop Stephen Langton and His Preaching on Thomas Becket in 1220,” in T. Amos, et al., eds., De Ora Domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo, MI, 1989), 75–92. Langton’s sermon on the occasion of the translation is discussed ahead. See also A. D’Esneval, “La Survivance de Saint Thomas Becket a Travers son Quartrième Successeur, Étienne Langton,” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque International de Sédières, Août 19–24, 1973 (Paris, 1975), 111–14. 71 N. Vincent, “Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury,” in L.J. Bataillon, N. Béreion, G. Dahan and R. Quinto, eds., Étienne Langton, Prédicateur, Bibliste, Théologien (Turnhout, 2010), 51–123, at 67; P. Webster, “Crown,” 159–60. 72 Eales, “Becket Translation,” 130. 73 The most complete description of the circumstances surrounding the translation and the construction of the ceremony is in Raymonde Foreville, Le Jubilé de Saint Thomas Becket (Paris, 1958). 74 Reames, “Remaking,” 23. 75 Eales points out the theological influences in Langton’s thinking in “Becket Translation,” 131. 76 The translation provided the occasion for the Cistercian monk Thomas of Froidmont (b. Beverley, Yorkshire) to construct his composite Vita et Passio S. Thome at the request of Abbot Giles of Aulne. For a modern edition, see P.G. Schmidt, ed., Thomas von Froidmont: Die Vita des heiligen Thomas Becket (with German translation). Schriften der Wissenschaft. Gesellschaft an der J-W.Goethe-Univ. Frankfurt am Main, Geisteswissenschaftliche. R., 8 (Stuttgart, 1991). 77 Reames, “Remaking,” 23. 78 A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1997), 466. 79 Slocum, Liturgies, 270. The text is a reflection of the thirteenth-century view of Becket as a “man of the people,” discussed in Chapter 2. 80 S. Reames, “Reconstructing and Interpreting a Thirteenth-Century Office for the Translation of Thomas Becket,” Speculum 80 (2005): 118–70, at 119. 81 The origins have been explored in R. Foreville, “L’idée de Jubilé Chez les theologiens et les canonistes,” RHE 56 (1961): 401–23. Reprinted in Foreville, Becket. See also Foreville, Le Jubilé de Saint Thomas Becket (Paris, 1958), 1–11, 21–45, and the discussion in Slocum, Liturgies, 244–7. 82 See the remarks in Eales, “Becket Translation,” 129. 83 Roberts, “Preaching,” 81. 84 The office also incorporates apocalyptic imagery (See Slocum, Liturgies, 247– 55), as well as a discussion of several of Becket’s miracles. (Liturgies, 256–62). Reames also discusses these themes in “Reconstructing,” (155–8) and “Remaking” (32–3).

Liturgies, sermons, the translation of 1220 109 85 Reames, “Reconstructing,” 143. 86 Reames, “Remaking,” 33. Becket was again used as a symbol of unity as recently as 2016, when the Hungarian ambassador visited England, bringing with him a Becket relic which had been in Hungary since the thirteenth century. 87 P. Roberts, Thomas Becket in the Medieval Latin Preaching Tradition: An Inventory of Sermons About St. Thomas Becket c. 1170–c. 1400. (The Hague, 1992), 27. The work of Roberts provides the most complete inventory and analysis of the sermons written and presumably preached for Becket. Her inventory includes manuscripts that contain brief notes and articulated outlines for sermons, as well as “more or less” complete texts of sermons (42). 88 Roberts conveniently lists the national origins of the preachers and the sources of the manuscripts in her appendices. One specific location, Kraków, is discussed by S. Kuzmová in “Preaching on Martyr-Bishops in the Later Middle Ages: Saint Stanislaus of Kraków and Saint Thomas Becket,” in R. Unger and J. Basista, eds., Britain and Poland-Lithuania: Contact and Comparison from the Middle Ages to 1795 (Leiden, 2008), 67–85. See also W. Uruszczak, “Les répercussions de la mort de S. Thomas Becket en Pologne (XIIe–XIIIe siècles),” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket. Actes du colloque International de Sédières, août 19–24, 1973 (Paris, 1975), 115–25. 89 Roberts remarks that the preaching orders were important in the development of the sermon tradition involving Becket; many of the identifiable preachers in her study were mendicants. Roberts, Preaching, 44. 90 Roberts, Preaching, 28. 91 P. Roberts, “Thomas Becket: The Construction and Deconstruction of a Saint from the Middle Ages to the Reformation,” in B. Kienzle, ed., Models of Holiness in Medieval Sermons (Louvain–La-Neuve, 1996): 1–22, at 2. 92 See also P. Roberts, “Langton on Becket: A New Look and A New Text,” Medieval Studies XXXV (1973): 38–48. 93 Roberts, “Construction,” 25. See also the coments of Kuzmová in “Preaching on Martyr Bishops,” 76. 94 Roberts cites several sermons as examples. Preaching, 32–4. 95 Slocum, Liturgies, 219–20. 96 Roberts, “Stephen Langton,” 84. 97 Roberts, Preaching, 32. 98 Roberts, “Construction and Deconstruction,” 11. 99 Vauchez, Sainthood, 168–73. See also Roberts, Preaching, 36–44. 100 Vauchez, Sainthood, 170. 101 Vauchez, Sainthood, 170. 102 Roberts, Preaching, 43. See also Phyllis B. Roberts, “University Masters and Thomas Becket,” Sermons Preached on St Thomas of Canterbury at Paris and Oxford in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in History of Universities 6 (Oxford, 1986), 65–79.

5 Becket and iconography

As the cult of the Canterbury martyr spread throughout the British Isles, Europe and Scandinavia, artistic representations of the archbishop and his martyrdom began to appear. According to Richard Gameson, “the plenitude of early images of Thomas Becket was simultaneously a byproduct of his cult, and a major catalyst for its development.”1 Some of the first works featuring the saint were created in Sicily and France, as discussed in Chapter 3, and took the form of mosaic and wall paintings. During the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, imagery of the martyr began to appear in other genres, including manuscript illuminations, sculpture, stained-glass windows, seals, and enamel work from Limoges. Although a study of the iconography depicting Becket began with the work of Dean Stanley in the nineteenth century,2 Tancred Borenius laid the foundation for further research in 1932 with the publication of St. Thomas Becket in Art.3 His analysis surveyed mosaics, paintings, manuscript illustrations, pilgrim badges, seals and other art forms. As the following discussion will indicate, his work was carried forward by other scholars in the last decades of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first with articles and books relating to specific areas of artistic expression. This chapter explores these interpretations of the iconography related to Becket’s life, martyrdom and miracles, and speculates as to the ways in which the imagery presented in various media influenced veneration of the saint and the growth and direction of his cult. As Martine Yvernault has reminded us, “Iconography should be considered as a real text, having the same function as all the texts written on Becket’s life and focusing on the same episodes.”4

Manuscript illumination The scene that appears in almost every depiction of Becket’s life is the martyrdom [Figure 5.1]. This was, as Richard Gameson and other scholars have observed, “the decisive moment that, alone, defined Becket’s holy status; moreover, there was a very long-standing tradition for depicting martyrs at the moment of, or by allusion to their suffering and death.”5 According to

Figure 5.1 Martyrdom of Becket, Cotton, Claudius B II, f. 341. © The British Library Board

112  Saint and cult C.M. Kaufman, the earliest manuscript illumination portraying the murder dates from about 1180.6 Found immediately preceding a letter from John of Salisbury which describes the event,7 the miniature shows the archbishop dining with his associates and the arrival of the four knights in the upper register; the martyrdom, and finally either pilgrims or the knights doing penance at Becket’s shrine (an event which is not corroborated in any historical account), appear in the lower.8 In the image of the murder, the four knights advance on the archbishop, and the first knight, who can be identified as fitzUrse by the barely visible head of a bear on his shield, wields a blow with his sword directly into Becket’s head. Edward Grim stands behind the archbishop holding a cross. According to the contemporary accounts, Grim, who was attempting to protect the archbishop, was struck in the arm by a sword as the murder took place, with one blow creating both wounds.9 This act is faithfully portrayed in the illumination, although later images show two or three knights brandishing swords. As may be seen in this representation, the archbishop faces the knights, kneeling (or bending his knees as a result of the blow) and holding out his hands as if in prayer. The early accounts of the murder of Becket vary in their descriptions of the position of the martyr in relation to the knights and the altar, and these differing views fostered two (or three) separate iconographical traditions that emerged in various artistic media during the decades following the event. Borenius wrote that the earliest of the illuminations was from a psalter now in the British Library [Figure 5.2].10 This image, which Borenius called the “classic iconography of this subject,” marks the initial departure from the original descriptions of the martyrdom. Here the martyr faces the altar, rather than the knights, who strike him from behind. The artist who created this work departed from the historical detail provided by Becket’s biographers, whereas the earliest illumination and the seals of the archbishops of Canterbury from Hubert Walter to Robert Kilwardby were faithful to the contemporaneous accounts which report that Becket faced his assailants.11 It seems evident that, rather than striving for historical accuracy, the illuminator chose to stress the victim’s proximity to the altar in order to emphasize the piety of the murdered archbishop. Further, as Richard Gameson has observed, the placement of Becket near the altar not only calls attention to the holiness of the saint, it highlights the sacrilege of the murder in the cathedral, and provides a stark contrast between the violent swords of the knights and the archbishop with his “tools of peace” – between the minions of the king and the holy man who serves God alone. Further, the inclusion of the altar establishes a parallel between the sacrifice of Becket and the sacrifice of Christ that was regularly re-enacted at the altar. As John of Salisbury wrote, Becket “had been accustomed to offer Christ’s body and blood upon the altar; and now, prostrate at the altar’s foot, he offered his own blood shed by the hands of evil men.”12

Figure 5.2 Martyrdom of Becket, British Library, Harley 5102, f. 32. © The British Library Board

114  Saint and cult The images emphasize this aspect of the comparison by including a chalice, which is frequently depicted on the altar in Becket iconography,13 most often on the containers designed to hold Becket’s relics.

Limoges reliquaries The wide diffusion of relics of St Thomas inevitably led to a corresponding demand for receptacles to hold them, and these were supplied, in large measure, by the artists working at Limoges, which was a center for manufacturing champlevé enameled objects.14 As Simone Caudron has reminded us, the considerable success of Limoges in the creation of châsses of Thomas Becket was probably the result of the rapid spread of his cult as well as the union of England and Aquitaine under Plantagenet rule.15 Characterized by brilliant shades of blue, stylized rosettes and boldly engraved figures, the enamel work from Limoges is unique in the use of delicately cast features, especially heads; as may be seen in Figure 5.3, these add a sculptural dimension to the image when attached to a flat enamel plate. The structure of the reliquaries attracted the attention of Martine Yvernault, who wrote recently that the shape was reminiscent of a sarcophagus with a lid. For her, “symbolically death was an image of life.”16 Further, she viewed reliquaries as being invested with a “very specific spiritual function,” representing “memory activities” which recall God’s creation. The objects

Figure 5.3 Reliquary, French (Limoges), c. 1180. M.66–1997. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Becket and iconography 115 made by the “human hands” of artists and craftsmen manifest this spiritual quality; in a sense, the enamel workers were offering another text to be read.17 Their creations were meant to stimulate the worshippers’ memories, since they contained relics of the saint and displayed the sacred story on their sides and roofs. Thus, the artists working in enamel and precious stones expressed transfiguration – the passage from life to death and assurance of ultimate immortality.18 The number of surviving châsses created in Limoges that portray the martyrdom of St Thomas, either intact or existing as fragments, is quite extensive, numbering some 52 – more than the reliquaries connected with any other saint – and they are found in museum collections throughout Europe and the United States.19 A particularly fine example is held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London [Figure 5.3]. This reliquary is probably the earliest, the largest and the most distinguished example of the many Limoges enamel châsses showing Becket’s martyrdom. It may have originally been made to contain relics of Becket taken to Peterborough by his biographer Benedict when he became abbot there in 1177.20 As Borenius remarked in his analysis of four reliquaries in Becket in Art, the scene of the martyrdom of Becket “lent itself well to the frieze-like treatment which was the natural one for the shape of the caskets.”21 Expanding on his comment, Martine Yvernault observed, “The small plate is indeed a reduction and reduplication of the space within the holy space where Becket was literally cornered by the murderers.”22 Pointing to the iconographical differences that exist among the châsses, Borenius remarked on the number of variations in the treatment of the scene, including the placement and gestures of the attacking knights, the use of swords or hatchets, and the differences in the blows to the martyr’s head. In the example portrayed in Figure 5.3, for instance, Becket is being decapitated, whereas other reliquaries feature the more historically accurate blow to the crown of the archbishop’s head.23 Building upon the work of Borenius, Simone Caudron began to publish work concerning the Becket châsses in the volume Thomas Becket, a collection of articles edited by Raymonde Foreville (1975).24 In this article, Caudron analyzed iconographical features of the reliquaries in detail, discussing and providing drawings of the various positions, attitudes and clothing of the murderers on five of the containers.25 She noted that there are generally two or three assassins, and there is only one example with the historically accurate number of four, held in the Society of Antiquaries, London. Most of the representations on the various châsses include a fully furnished altar, with chalice, candelabra and cross; on some the hand of God emerges from a cloud, blessing the martyr. Sometimes Grim is portrayed holding the cross, as on a châsse held in the Musée de Cluny, Paris. On others, such as the example in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Becket faces

116  Saint and cult the knights. In another variation, such as that in the Musée de Cluny, he faces the altar, an iconographic pose which became usual in other media, such as manuscript illumination, as we have seen. Martine Yvernault has pointed out that the altar is often on the right, with the murderers approaching from the left. This encourages a “reading” of the image that guides the eye of the viewer through a dynamic, although subtle, staging of the martyrdom.26 Further, as Sara Lutan-Hassner has observed, the confrontation between Thomas and the knights reflects: a personification of the Christian path to salvation, marked by the bitter moral battle between the light and dark forces of human existence, between the pure and the impure, between the sublime spirit and the depraved, between the Virtues and the Vices.27 The iconography generally employed on the roof panels of the châsses was also studied by Caudron in her 1975 article. This analysis identified two basic themes: Becket’s burial and the assumption of his soul into heaven.28 The burial scene portrays the martyr’s entombment in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral the morning after the murder. This image provides a striking contrast with the violence of the knights portrayed on the front of the châsse, demonstrating the care with which the Church handled his dead body. Kneeling attendants lower Becket’s body into the coffin while a bishop holding a crozier stands behind to bless the body. In some examples, only these figures appear, but the Victoria and Albert Reliquary in Figure 5.3 has a more complicated visual program; here, one monk censes the body, another sprinkles holy water, while a bishop holds a service book, performing a requiem Mass. As Richard Gameson observed, the gestures and expressions of the monks clearly demonstrate their grief and attentiveness. In Figure 5.3, the archbishop’s body is buried in full archiepiscopal regalia, whereas on most reliquaries he is depicted in a winding sheet. The example under consideration is probably the most historically accurate version, since Herbert of Bosham, who provided a detailed account of the burial, wrote that Becket was buried in his vestments.29 The martyr’s body has a halo, affirming his sacred status, and again calling to mind the parallel with Christ. In the typical apotheosis image, two angels bear Becket’s soul to heaven in a cloth. In Figure 5.3, it is possible to see Becket’s soul, again haloed, being lifted from the scene of the martyrdom itself, and then transported to heaven on the panel above. Only one scene, either the burial or the transport of the soul, is usual on the reliquaries, although some large examples have both images, placed side by side, such as the Victoria and Albert reliquary. As Gameson has pointed out, this pairing is especially effective, since the reception of the martyr’s soul into heaven is juxtaposed with his continued corporeal presence on earth – “the two essential elements of his cult at Canterbury.”30 Further, on the Victoria and Albert reliquary, the surviving end depicts the enthroned Christ; the action is taking place in his presence.

Becket and iconography 117 An intensified expression of the connection between Becket and Christ appears on a reliquary now in Cleveland, Ohio, of which only the principal face remains. This fragment pairs the Canterbury martyrdom and the crucifixion of Christ in side-by-side narrative images.31 The left side of the panel contains a crucifixion scene displaying Christ’s tortured body, with the Virgin and St John on either side. On the right, the Canterbury martyr peacefully accepts his fate, holding out his hand in a gesture similar to that of Christ, thus fusing the two deaths.32 The obvious intent of the artist was to call attention to the similarities between the sacrifice of the Canterbury martyr and the sacrifice of Christ, using the imagery just as early biographers and liturgists emphasized this theme through words and music.

Pilgrim signs and ampullae Beginning in the twelfth century, pilgrims to European shrines commemorated their journeys by collecting souvenirs, or “signs,” as they were called by contemporaries, in the form of wearable badges cast from lead or lead and tin alloys. The most well known of these signs were the scallop shells worn by pilgrims who visited Santiago da Compostella, but the pilgrimage to Canterbury was also represented by a great variety and number of ampullae and badges. Evidence for this practice is found in the writings of Becket’s biographers, but is also established by the physical remains of the badges themselves; these have been studied as discrete objects, but recent scholars have also analyzed them to discern the spread of the cult of Becket, and to examine popular religious attitudes in the Middle Ages. As Jennifer Lee has remarked, since pilgrimage to Canterbury began in 1171 and continued until the destruction of the shrine in 1538, the sequence of development exhibited by the signs provides an ideal opportunity for observing formal and ideological changes.33 As discussed in Chapter 3, the earliest pilgrims to Becket’s tomb were drawn by the reports of the healing properties of Becket’s blood mixed in water – the so-called “Canterbury water.” The thaumaturgical liquid was contained in ampullae, worn around the necks of the pilgrims, and mention of these objects may be found in the miracle collections of both Benedict and William.34 Accounts of the miracles were often read at the tomb, and would have been shared by an audience who wore or encountered pilgrims wearing signs.35 The invention of the first metal ampulla was described by Benedict and later by Herbert of Bosham.36 Benedict tells us that the pilgrims initially carried the healing water in pyxes made of boxwood, but these were prone to breaking and leakage, resulting in the loss of the magical liquid.37 By divine revelation, it was suggested to a young man that he should make lead and tin ampullae, and this miracle solved the problem of leaks and breaks.38 The account of the miracle also makes clear that the vials should be worn around the neck, outside of the clothing, so that “all the world should recognize his sign in his pilgrims and in his cured ones.”39

118  Saint and cult The miracle account introduces the ampulla form which evolved into a variety of shapes until the introduction of badges in the following century.40 The earliest examples replicated the familiar scallop shell form representative of the pilgrimage to St James at Compostela. On these flasks, the reverse side commemorated Becket’s martyrdom, with Becket being struck by a knight. Some of the flasks were thumbnail size, perhaps produced for very poor pilgrims, while others were much larger and more ostentatious, such as the example in Figure 5.4; these often included more extensive images of St Thomas.41 As Brian Spencer remarked, these differences suggest that “almost from the start, the souvenir trade attempted to cater for all purses.”42

Figure 5.4 Ampulla, lead alloy, 1170–1200. 1921, 0216.62. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Becket and iconography 119 The sizes and shapes of the containers developed over time, sometimes including overlays of figures surrounded by openwork frames, such as the example in Figure 5.4. Ampullae that replicated the shape of Limoges châsses began to appear in the latter part of the thirteenth century, perhaps around the time of the second jubilee in 1270.43 The image of the martyrdom appears on two-thirds of these châsse-like ampullae, most of them with the historically accurate number of four assassins. By the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century the ampullae began to be replaced in favor of badges such as the one in Figure 5.5; these were pinned to the hat or outer garments.44 Jennifer Lee has remarked on this change, suggesting an interpretation of how both pilgrims and monks expected the

Figure 5.5 Pilgrim Badge: Head of St Thomas Becket, lead alloy, thirteenth century. Photograph by the author – Collection of the author

120  Saint and cult signs to function. She observed that ampullae had a dual function, existing simultaneously as portable reliquaries and labels, and that the miracle stories strongly favored the labeling function. Hence, it would have been logical for badges to replace the receptacles over time, indicating that “the primary function of the pilgrims’ signs was to signify the wearer’s relationship with the saint.”45 Some scholars have suggested that the badges may have functioned as touch relics, which pilgrims pressed against the shrine to absorb the supernatural power and thus become more like ampullae.46 There seems to be little concrete evidence for this practice, although it would not have been outside the parameters of medieval tradition. The study of pilgrim badges has many purposes: excavations of these objects may be analyzed to trace the development of the cult of Becket and determine its geographical extent; the objects themselves allow speculation about medieval attitudes and popular culture; and it is possible, through their imagery, to recreate a vision of monuments destroyed during the Reformation. This approach has been especially helpful in unraveling the enigma surrounding the shrine of the Canterbury martyr in Trinity Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral. The circumstances surrounding the destruction of the shrine will be discussed in detail in the next chapter, whereas the analysis provided here demonstrates how current scholars are using the evidence of pilgrim badges to ascertain the nature of the monument. As Sarah Blick has pointed out in an article concerning the shrine, as soon as it “had passed out of living memory,” people began to attempt to reconstruct an image of the structure.47 This has proved over time to be an “exercise in frustration,” since the textual accounts vary significantly in the material conveyed.48 The extant documents have proved unreliable due to several factors, including poor condition and ambiguous dating. Many scholars have made possible comparisons between the shrine and various images in stained glass and altarpieces, though these have tended to be speculative. In order to address this difficulty, and to provide more concrete evidence, Blick studied the pilgrim badges which were produced to commemorate the shrine; these offer an “important, if schematic, record of the shrine of St Thomas in the fourteenth century.”49 Her analysis is set within a survey of surviving material, both textual and iconographic. The badges portray the shrine at its most splendid [Figure 5.6]. The gabled feretory at the summit is covered with a leaden replication of the numerous jewels attached to the shrine, affirming the reports of contemporaneous textual descriptions. More jewels appear massed on the surface of the roof in a trellis pattern, again reflecting documentary evidence. In some examples, a particularly famous donation, the ruby presented by Louis VII, is singled out by the pointing figure of a shrine attendant.50 Other donations, such as model ships, are also portrayed on the badges, and a fragment of a ship can be seen at the top of the example in Figure 5.6, resting on the roof. The effigy of the archbishop presents some problematic issues, since the extant accounts do not mention such a figure. Nonetheless, Blick maintains

Becket and iconography 121

Figure 5.6 Pilgrim Badge: Shrine of St Thomas Becket, lead alloy, thirteenth century. 1921, 0216.64. © The Trustees of the British Museum

that it must have been there, since “The Canterbury badges depict Becket’s shrine as an integral part of the pilgrim’s experience at the shrine.”51 The archbishop is turned on his side, echoing the pilgrim’s experience while standing in front of the effigy, seeing it flat and frontal, rather than in profile. Further, Blick points out that the artist wished to show the entire figure of the martyr, rather than replicating the position inside the bier. The article continues by analyzing the shafts, buttresses, and pinnacles that surround the badge, making it possible to speculate as to the date of the shrine. Thus, by using the image provided by the tiny pilgrim sign, in concert with other forms of evidence – textual, architectural and ­iconographic – Blick’s work presented a convincing portrait of the shrine as it stood in Trinity Chapel. Further, her analysis offers an example of the ways in which

122  Saint and cult art historians are currently crossing traditional boundaries which isolate the various media in order to better understand medieval life, thought, and belief.

Seals The seal is a form akin to the pilgrim badge in terms of size and iconography, and the image of Becket, especially his martyrdom, was an important subject. It was used on the seals of the archbishops of Canterbury, but also on city seals, such as that of Canterbury itself, and abbeys, such as Arbroath in Scotland.52 My own recent work concerning seals has followed the lead of art historians by placing these objects within the historical context of their use, investigating the connections between the images on the seals and the writings of the Lives by Becket’s close associates, as well as sermons and liturgical celebrations.53 Beginning with Hubert Walter, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1193 to 1205, the design on the counter seals of the archbishops featured an image of Becket’s martyrdom.54 It continued to be used on the counter seals of most of his successors during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and although it was discarded by William Courtenay (1381–1396), the design on the archiepiscopal seal of dignity of the next archbishop, Thomas Arundel (1397–1414) again portrayed the martyrdom of Becket. [Figure 5.7]. In the following century, the image of the martyrdom appeared on the seal of the prerogative court of Archbishop William Warham (1504–1523), and on the second seal of Thomas Cranmer (1533–1556) for a time, but was replaced by an image of the crucifixion, reflecting the upheaval in the religious and political life at the time of the Reformation. The scene reappears on the seal of the prerogative court55 of Cardinal Pole (1555–1558), who was, of course, intent upon turning back the tide of religious change. As we have seen, one essential purpose of the various Lives of Becket was to provide a model to be emulated by clerics, and especially by future archbishops of Canterbury. The use of a seal bearing the image of Becket’s martyrdom would have called to mind the archbishop’s sacrifice for the ideals of the Church, shaping, in a sense, the user’s moral life. As Brigette Bedos-Rezak has pointed out, the seal user developed an awareness of himself in relation to the seal: The replica thus promoted a particular notion of personal identity.56 Thus, for the archbishops of Canterbury, the portrayal of Becket’s martyrdom on their seals would have created a mental image which called to mind the life and moral lessons provided by their predecessor. Hence, it is not surprising to find that the image on Walter’s counter seal is surrounded by the rhyming hexameter: Martir quod stillat primatis ab ore sigillat [The Martyr seals what issues from the mouth of the primate.]

Becket and iconography 123

Figure 5.7 Seal of Archbishop Thomas Arundel (1397–1414). By kind permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London

Stained-glass windows The “first generation” of Becket imagery focused on single images of the martyr, and especially the martyrdom itself. This iconography appeared in various forms, including ampullae, pilgrim badges, manuscript illuminations, and seals. A shift to monumental and expanded interpretations of Becket’s life occurred in the imagery designed for stained glass windows, first at Canterbury Cathedral itself. It is not surprising that the earliest elaboration of Becket’s legend should be found in the medium of glass. Indeed,

124  Saint and cult as Madeline Caviness, Wolfgang Kemp, and Alyce Jordan have remarked, “stained-glass windows constituted a primary locus for the elaboration of story in medieval visual narrative.”57 Canterbury The windows that surround the site of Becket’s shrine in Trinity Chapel contain images of various miracles wrought by the Canterbury martyr. This visual program began to be studied in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by various scholars, including W. Gostling58 and W.J. Loftie,59 and their work was carried forward in the twentieth century by A.J. Mason60 and Bernard Rackham,61 and more recently by Madeline Caviness.62 It has generally been thought by scholars that the miracle series was introduced by windows devoted to the life of Becket, destroyed at the time of the Reformation.63 The missing images would have been part of the glazing program which, as Madeline Caviness has observed, may have been designed as early as 1179, after Benedict’s Book Four of the miracle accounts was completed.64 The portrayal of recent miracles makes it probable that the program was planned in detail soon after the text was written,65 and Benedict himself may have contributed to developing the design.66 Since there is no evidence that Stephen Langton, archbishop from 1207 to 1228, influenced the choices, the monks must have had extraordinary tenacity in maintaining the initial design which had been developed by around 1180.67 In addition to advising the monks as to the design and choice of miracles, the tituli in the windows may also have been composed by Benedict, whose poetic facility is shown in the rhymed office for Thomas’s feast day, Studens livor.68 The glazing program was remarkably accurate in transposing the miracle accounts of Benedict, and later William, into visual form, and those who viewed them accepted the images as “eyewitness” accounts as valid and truthful as the written reports.69 The emphasis placed on miracles of healing in the windows was intended to popularize the saint, and to encourage further miracles.70 As Caviness has remarked, the diseases and failings represented in the glass are those of ordinary people, and the necessity of faith is stressed, along with the obligatory offerings of thanks and donation.71 Rachel Koopmans has recently expanded on Caviness’s observations, analyzing one of the windows (nIV) in a recent article.72 She has provided new identifications for some of the subjects by demonstrating that the images portray specific miracles from the first part of Benedict’s collection. All of these miracles involved citizens of Kent who lived in relatively close proximity to the cathedral, and the glazier chose these particular stories, in Koopmans’s view, in order to emphasize the close association between the community and the monks. The work of Marie-Pierre Gelin analyzed the glazing program within a broader context, tracing the meaning in the “intellectual manifestations of the cult,” such as the liturgy, the offices and the Vitae.73 She emphasized

Becket and iconography 125 the use of the martyr’s blood as a healing potion which appears in five panels, remarking that the images provoke a comparison with the blood of Christ, as do the words of the office antiphon, Aqua Thoma quinques.74 The comparison with Christ is further enhanced by the visual portrayals of healing, echoing the words of Studens livor, which recounts the healing of the blind, the lame, the deaf, and the mute – all miracles accomplished by Christ during his time on earth.75 These are merely two examples of the connections between the iconographic program of the miracle windows in Trinity Chapel and the liturgies composed for Thomas. The dense resonance between the two art forms contributed to creating an image of Becket as the archetype of the martyr, uniting the qualities of priest-bishop and hero for the liberty of the Church.76 France As we have seen, the murder of Becket in his cathedral evoked an immediate response throughout England and continental Europe, and the reaction to the tragedy was especially powerful in France. There were various reasons for this, including Thomas’s Norman parentage and the memory of his student days at the University of Paris, as well as his close associations with Louis VII and William (“White Hands”), Archbishop of Sens, and several monastic establishments. During his six-year period of exile in France, he visited or stayed in various locations, including Pontigny, Meaux, Chartres, Clairvaux, Vezelay, Bourges, Orleans, St Benoit, and Rouen. Many of these areas were eventually blessed with miracles, and several of the locations became sites of churches and chapels dedicated to the saint. Some of these contain significant artworks produced in the 50-year period following the murder of the archbishop. In addition, Becket’s feast day was added to the calendars of many ecclesiastical establishments in the decades following his martyrdom, and it is evident that the texts of his office served, in several instances, as inspiration for artworks, including the glazing programs for the stained-glass windows at Sens (1190), Chartres (1206), Coutances (1223), and Angers (1274). Perhaps inspired by the stained-glass ensemble at Canterbury, the windows in these cathedrals are among the earliest works of monumental narrative art representing the life of Becket outside Canterbury. As Alyce Jordan has observed, all four designs expand the visual repertoire devoted to the Canterbury martyr in their depiction of events not directly associated with the martyrdom itself, and they vary significantly from one another in form and content.77 Sens The iconographical program at Sens Cathedral offers an emphasis which differs from the miracle cycle at Canterbury, although, as Madeline Caviness

126  Saint and cult has suggested, the glazing patterns for the windows at Sens may have been brought there by the Canterbury monastic community that accompanied Stephen Langton, another archbishop in exile, who spent the years between 1207 and 1213 living at Pontigny.78 The images begin with the reconciliation between Henry and Thomas in the presence of the French king Louis VII.79 As Alyce Jordan has written in a recent study, Louis occupies the position that a priest would take in a generic medieval marriage scene, suggesting the harmonious relationship between Church and State in Capetian France,80 and reminding the viewers of Louis’s support of Thomas during his exile in France and the role he played in the struggle between Henry and Thomas. Thomas returns to England in the next three windows, which record his crossing of the English Channel, his journey on horseback to Canterbury, and his reception by the monks at the door of the Cathedral. According to Jordan, the next five panels focus on Thomas’s episcopal duty and pastoral mission, providing “an accurate synopsis” of the archbishop’s activities during his final weeks.81 In portraying these ecclesiastical actions, the glass program is also honoring William Archbishop of Sens, who, like Becket, advocated the rights of the Church. He was also known for his protection of virtuous churchmen who had been forced into exile by tyrannical monarchs. Thus, William, too, exemplified the ideals for which Thomas had quickly become the symbol. Although the pastoral acts are generic, as Jordan demonstrates, they provide a visual counterpart to the reassertion of ecclesiastical authority and renewal as propounded in the Lateran Council of 1215. The image of Thomas has transcended the example of the model prelate, and has become the foremost exemplum of the reform ideal of the Church, exempt from secular control and interference and committed to the recreation of the early Christian apostolic mission. Further, by juxtaposing images of Becket’s pastoral duties with that of the martyrdom, the Sens windows call attention to both of these legacies of sainthood. Thomas is the bonus pastor who died in defense of ecclesiastical liberty.82 The uppermost register contains images of the martyrdom and Thomas’s burial, with Christ in majesty at the summit. He is seated on a globe, flanked by two angels, delivering a blessing with his right hand and holding a globe in his left. The martyr’s tomb depicts the original sarcophagus in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, with openings that allow tactile access for the pilgrims. This compositional parallel provides evidence of the close formal relationship between the Canterbury windows and those of Sens.83 The Sens window has unique qualities, as Jordan has observed, since it does not focus primarily on established hagiographic and Christological models. Instead: The Becket window at Sens, in its recursive movement between historical details and universal claims, offers an apt mirror to the archbishop’s

Becket and iconography 127 compelling and capacious place in the theological, political, and popular discourse of the Middle Ages.84 Chartres The Becket liturgy was added to the calendar at Chartres Cathedral during the final quarter of the twelfth century,85 and this relatively rapid adoption is not surprising, since John of Salisbury, Becket’s close associate and biographer, became Bishop of Chartres in 1176. As Margot Fassler has pointed out, he was “responsible for augmenting the saint’s cult in Chartres.”86 Further, as Karen Bollerman and Cary Nederman have observed, John was appointed to establish and develop the Cult of Thomas Becket in in one of the most important bishoprics in Capetian France; he succeeded admirably, and the cathedral itself became a “living monument” to the veneration of the Canterbury martyr.87 Veneration of Becket was also encouraged during the tenure of John’s successor, Pierre de Celle (1181–1183), another friend of Becket. Just as the office liturgy told the story of Becket’s life and martyrdom, it is possible to see Becket’s biography in the stained-glass windows of the cathedral.88 Borenius dated the Chartres window to 1206, and pointed out that it was commissioned by the Corporation of Tanners.89 He identified the lowest four windows, Panels 1–4, as scenes from Becket’s life: two scenes depict the expulsion of St Thomas and his kindred, followed by a panel in which St Thomas appears before a king and then departs on horseback, arriving at a city gate.90 Borenius’s reading of Panels 5–7 interprets the panels as relating to the Corporation of Tanners, and earlier scholars, as well as those working more recently, concur. Panel 8 portrays Thomas’s consecration as archbishop, and Panel 9 depicts the rupture between Becket and Henry II, with a small image of the Devil speaking into the king’s ear. In Panel 10, Becket leaves England, traveling into exile in France, and in the following Panel 11, he meets Pope Alexander III. Panels 12–13 show Thomas departing from Pontigny, and in Panel 14 he speaks with Louis VII. The meaning of the design of Panel 15 is unclear, with Borenius writing that it is “a garbled version of the meeting between the two kings and Thomas at Montmorail.”91 In Panel 16, Becket returns to England, while in Panel 17, Henry II converses with one of the bishops inimical to Thomas. Panel 18 portrays Young King Henry refusing to receive the archbishop, and in Panel 19, Becket meets the emissaries of the king. The next series depicts the events of the martyrdom: In Panels 20–21, Becket enters Canterbury Cathedral, while the knights wait for him on the right (Panels 22–23), committing the murder in Panel 24. In the final Panel 25, St Thomas lies in a sarcophagus as pilgrims approach. In analyzing the meaning of the series, Catherine Brisac remarked that the designs in the windows emphasize Becket’s exile in France, pointing out

128  Saint and cult that the role of the French king as mediator in the dispute is presented in several images. In her opinion, the designer focused on the importance of presenting the French monarchy as a support and reflection of papal authority – exemplary qualities of Capetian royalty.92 More recently, Alyce Jordan has broadened this interpretation, writing that the Chartres windows focus on the ideological conflicts between Church and State which forced Becket into exile, and ultimately to his death. The struggle is portrayed by the series of recurrent encounters between prelates, pontiffs and monarchs.93 Coutances and Angers The Sens window, as the earliest surviving stained-glass example of veneration to Becket in France, might logically be expected to have influenced the design of other French windows dedicated to him. However, as Jordan has written, the glass images at Chartres, Coutances and Angers present versions of Thomas’s life which are quite different from the example at Sens and from one another. The window in Coutances Cathedral dedicated to Becket now consists of six scenes, contained in medallions interspersed with demi-medallions which portray standing figures that turn inward and point toward the narrative panels.94 In the lowest medallion, Henry II converses with Becket before the archbishop departs for England in the image above. The third panel, which, as Jordan points out, must have originally occupied one of the lower registers, portrays Becket kneeling before Pope Alexander III. The narrative moves directly to Becket’s murder, burial and the assumption of his soul into heaven. The meeting between Henry and Becket prior to the archbishop’s departure for England is a standard feature in Becket iconography, appearing in all four Becket windows. In the glass panels of Sens and Chartres, Henry is presented as the evil king who drove Thomas into exile, making a strong contrast with Louis VII, the good king who sheltered the archbishop on French soil. As mentioned earlier, at Chartres, Henry is pictured with the grimacing Devil who whispers into his ear, emphasizing the diabolical plans of the king. At Coutances, although Henry holds a sword, there is no overt indication of evil intent, and Becket bends his head toward the king, raising his hand in benediction. As Jordan has asserted, the relatively benign nature of this panel may reflect the “divergent political allegiances of Normandy itself.”95 The Becket window in the Cathedral of St-Maurice at Angers96 has a design similar to that of Coutances, consisting of quadrilobe medallions placed in a single column. Although only five of the original medieval panels remain, the window provides another distinct version of Becket’s life. Only two panels are similar to those of the other French windows: Thomas and Henry conversing, and the martyr’s burial. Three other scenes appear to be unique to the Angers cycle. The subject matter of the first is somewhat ambiguous, portraying either the coronation of Young King Henry

Becket and iconography 129 in June 1170, or the Young King’s refusal to meet the archbishop when he returned to England.97 Two additional panels portray Becket’s murderers on horseback and in a boat as they cross the English Channel. The glazing program was supervised by Guillaume de Beaumont, Bishop of Angers (1202–1240),98 whose family heraldry appears four times in the borders of the lancets. Alyce Jordan’s analysis of the Angers window focused on the heraldry and history of the Beaumont family, demonstrating various connections between Becket and the Beaumonts – connections that extended as far afield as Scotland and its king, William I. Additionally, her interpretation pointed out the “subversive” nature of the portrayal of the knights crossing the Channel in a boat, since all of the other French cycles contain an image of St Thomas making the journey by boat, and sometimes extending the portrayal of his trip to Canterbury on horseback once he had reached English soil.99 The Angers panels “invert this prevalent Becket imagery, proffering scenes that appropriate totemic iconographies of Thomas’s life in ambiguous, destabilizing, even subversive ways.”100 Jordan speculated that the window offers an ambivalent view of Becket’s life, invoking the Canterbury martyr “primarily as a vehicle to memorialize . . . the Beaumont family’s Scottish and Angevin connections.” Further, as she demonstrated, the designer of the window may have subverted the traditional imagery to celebrate the “fierce loyalty of Henry II’s knights,” and to establish the family’s historic prominence within the Plantagenet court.101 Prior scholarship concerning the French windows dedicated to Becket emphasized the role of Louis VII in protecting the archbishop during his exile. Jordan, by employing concepts of postcolonial theory and frontier studies, offered a different interpretation which identifies the martyred archbishop, in postcolonial terms, as a “resistant site” himself.102 In Jordan’s words, “the life of Thomas Becket composed a capacious discursive field, across which many stories might be told.”103

Architecture and pilgrimage The pilgrimage experience has been of central interest to recent historians, regardless of specialized discipline, and this trend is evident in the work of M.F. Hearn, who explored the relationship between the cult of Becket and the design of the eastern arm of Canterbury Cathedral. Relying on the descriptions of Gervase of Canterbury, together with archeological evidence, Hearn traced the architectural modifications to the original design which depended, to a degree, on liturgical requirements such as a processional path. His evidence demonstrated that provisions were also made for the burgeoning cult of the Canterbury martyr; alterations were necessary to create a pilgrimage route which would include the sites in the church sacred to Becket’s memory. It was recognized by the monks and their designers, especially following the translation of 1220, that the cult of Becket was an “inescapable fact of life.”104 Hearn’s work has been enhanced by Tim

130  Saint and cult Tatton-Brown, who has offered a “contemporary tour” of the eastern arm of Canterbury Cathedral, identifying surviving objects which may relate to the late medieval and early Tudor pilgrims’ path.105 An innovative approach to understanding the meaning and function of architecture is found in the work of Dawn Hayes, who has examined the relationships between body and sacred space in medieval Europe. In her recent book, she chose to devote attention to “Body as Champion of Church Authority and Sacred Place: The Murder of Thomas Becket.”106 In this chapter, she explored Becket’s martyrdom with regard to concepts of the “dynamic relationship between church building and human body, the two facades of sacred space.”107 Within this context, Hayes analyzed the primary sources concerning the sacred nature of the martyr’s head, consecrated to the Church, and his blood, which provided a catalyst to the growth of the cult. For Hayes, the political conflict that led ultimately to Becket’s murder is reflected in the description of his body. “Thomas sacrificed his natural body and offered his blood so that the Church might be free from the power of the English monarchy,”108 affirming the triumph of ecclesiastical power. Carrying her metaphors further, she observed, “The man who was Christ-like and a spiritual king charged the church building with his royal lifeblood,”109 and further, “Becket’s blood reifies his connection to Christ while emphasizing the sacramental quality of his life-giving death.”110 For Hayes, “The attack on Thomas’ body was also an assault on the Church and the tradition it represented, and the accounts of Thomas’ body during the martyrdom are laced with affirmation of ecclesiastical triumph.”111 Drawing together architectural history and conflict studies, Hayes asserted that “Through its association with Thomas’ murdered body the sacred place of Canterbury Cathedral became a site of political and religious reconciliation and, as a national shrine, an architectural expression of twelfth-century conflict resolution.”112

Interdisciplinary studies The most significant development in the scholarship of iconography and architecture in recent years has been the interdisciplinary nature of the research, as historians of the art and architecture associated with the Becket cult have drawn from the sister disciplines of history, liturgy, and literature in order to explore the connections between the various artistic media and deepen our understanding of the multiple forces at play in the portrayal of Becket and his life. A fine example of this trend is Paul Binski’s book, Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England, 1170–1300,113 which is a study of art, architecture, and music in England during the “long” twelfth century. Placing an analysis of the works within the perspective of social and intellectual history, Binski dealt with the cult of Becket in the first part of the book, discussing the typology of sainthood as created following Becket’s

Becket and iconography 131 canonization in 1173. Further chapters demonstrate how artworks in honor of the Canterbury martyr functioned as a model for works created in England, Italy, and Scandinavia. Richard Gameson’s article cited earlier, “The Early Imagery of Thomas Becket,”114 focuses on the images of Becket as portrayed in mosaics, frescoes, Limoges reliquaries, stained glass and sculpture produced prior to the translation in 1220, examining their wide distribution, and emphasizing the international nature of the Becket cult. Gameson also examined the internal iconography of the objects, viewing them within their external contexts. The research fields of David Williams are somewhat more broad, as witnessed in his book Saints Alive: Word, Image, and Enactment in the Lives of the Saints, which traces the images of Becket as presented in words (biographies and plays) and iconography (paintings and stained glass), as well as music and liturgies composed for veneration of the saint.115 Williams points out connections between the various media, demonstrating the interactions between the forms of expression. M.-P. Gelin has published research concerning Becket and Canterbury Cathedral in a chapter of her book, Lumen ad revelationem gentium: Iconographie et liturgie à Christ Church, Canterbury, 1175–1220,116 titled “L’Agneau de Canterbury: La Construction de L’image de Saint Thomas.” In her remarks concerning the liturgy, she summarizes the findings of previous scholars concerning the portrayal of the saint in the lessons and verses, intensifying their general conclusions by remarking that Becket’s portrayal as a type of Christ was not a prefiguration, but a realization, an actualization of the teachings given by Jesus during his time on earth.117 Although Becket was identified as the archetype of the bon pasteur, he was equally cast as a sacrificial victim – the Lamb of God – an image employed by Benedict of Peterborough. He was the innocent victim of the irrational violence of a tyrant king, and a champion of the liberty of the Church.118 Gelin demonstrated that these themes were employed in the iconography of the stained glass at Canterbury and Sens, as well as in the liturgy. Both were designed to create a corporate identity for the community of Christ Church, offering the same aspirations and the same values.119 In several articles which discuss aspects of the cult of Becket, Rachel Koop­ mans has drawn on a wide variety of sources, including miracle accounts, letters, cartularies and annals, and iconographical evidence such as reliquaries and stained glass. In “Thomas Becket and the Royal Abbey of Reading,”120 Koopmans utilized this evidence to discuss the policies and attitudes of the monks of Reading Abbey regarding the struggle between Becket and Henry II, as well as the developing cult of Becket following his martyrdom. She demonstrated that although the man who was abbot at the time of Becket’s murder favored the actions of the king, his successors fostered the veneration of Becket and encouraged the collecting of Becket relics by the abbey.121 In another article,122 Koopmans analyzed forms of devotion to Thomas Becket in York, utilizing documentary evidence such as chantry foundations

132  Saint and cult specified in wills, as well as iconographical information found in the stained glass of St Michael-le-Belfrey and York Minster. She suggested a plan for the original placement of the glass, tracing the imagery to the fanciful tale concerning Becket’s parents, and speculating as to the motivation behind the glazing program. Her work demonstrates that devotion to the Canterbury saint was much more prevalent in Northern England during the late medieval period than had been previously thought. In some of her work, Koopmans has addressed questions focusing directly on images in stained glass. For example, utilizing her expertise concerning the accounts of Becket’s miracles by Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury, together with nineteenth-century archival materials, Koop­ mans has redefined the customary identification of “Becket’s Shrine” as portrayed in the windows of Canterbury Cathedral.123 Concluding that the shrine is not the splendid construction that contained Becket’s bones until 1538, she argues that the images in the windows are portrayals of small, personally owned reliquaries. In another article, Koopmans explored the imagery of cures effected by the “water” of St Thomas found in the Canterbury miracle windows.124 This study compared the miracles portrayed in the stained glass with the miracle accounts in the work of Benedict, and points to the recurring portrayals of monks mixing water with Thomas’s blood. In her interpretation, the glaziers intentionally emphasized the Eucharistic associations by focusing on the preparation of the healing substance. A further objective was the presentation of monastic propaganda concerning the monks’ control and manufacture of the substance, although Koopmans demonstrated that laypersons also had access to the healing potion. Her study provides a window into ritualistic and cultic practice in the central medieval period. The Becket miracle windows at Canterbury are also the topic of a study by Anne Harris, who has argued that the images in the glass of Trinity Chapel were a prime factor in the transformation of the elite monastic culture into popular pilgrimage experience.125 She drew comparisons between the stained glass and architectural decisions, sermons, and liturgical materials in her analysis, concluding that the Chapel can be viewed as the “first theater of memory,” reflecting the popular visual tradition. As discussed earlier, Sarah Blick has contributed significantly to our understanding of pilgrim badges and their function in medieval culture. More recently, she has traced the meaning of votive offerings, emphasizing their magical and interactive qualities.126 Her study includes descriptions of a variety of pilgrims’ gifts made of wax, gold, silver, or precious jewels, and her conclusions are substantiated by images from stained glass, paintings, frescoes, and pilgrim badges, as well as archival and documentary evidence. The article discusses the differences in social status reflected by the intrinsic value of the various donations, and makes clear that the gifts enabled pilgrims to join the community of veneration at the tomb of St Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.

Becket and iconography 133 A fascinating recent study which crosses geographical as well as disciplinary boundaries is a work examining an important silk chasuble that belonged to Becket, now in Fermo, Italy, but created in Islamic Spain. The volume titled The Chasuble of Thomas Becket: A Biography, edited by Avinoam Shalem, includes essays by various experts127 who have analyzed and contextualized the liturgical garment, utilizing not only techniques of textile examination, but also documentary sources. The commentary emphasizes the importance of Islamic textiles in the development of the arts of the West and the stimulation such transmission provided to artisans working in other media. As may be seen in the foregoing discussion, the various disciplines of medieval studies which tended to exist side by side in earlier scholarship have comingled in the last several decades. Rather than focusing on description and categorization, the new interdisciplinary work combines and compares analyses of cross fertilization between media, and provides historical context, demonstrating the influence of social and political factors on artistic expression.

Notes 1 R. Gameson, “The Early Imagery of Thomas Becket,” in Colin Morris and Peter Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan (Cambridge, 2002), 46–89, at 87. 2 A. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Canterbury (London, 1854, reprint, 1912). 3 T. Borenius, St. Thomas Becket in Art (Port Washington, NY and London, 1932). Borenius supplemented this work in various articles, including Borenius, “Addenda to the Iconography of St. Thomas of Canterbury,” Archaeologia 81 (1931): 19–32; T. Borenius, “The Murderers of St. Thomas Becket in Popular Tradition,” Folk-Lore (June 1932): 175–92; T. Borenius, “Some Further Aspects of the Iconography of St. Thomas of Canterbury,” Archaeologia 83 (1933): 171–86. 4 M. Yvernault, “Reading History in Enamel: The Journey of Thomas Becket’s Experience from Canterbury to Limoges,” in C. Royer-Hemet, ed., Canterbury: A Medieval City (Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2010), 136–59, at 146. 5 Gameson, “Early Imagery,” 53. 6 C.M. Kauffmann, Romanesque Manuscripts: 1066–1190 (London, 1975), 116. Some objects which bear the image of the martyrdom may have been influenced by this illumination, including some seals of the archbishops of Canterbury and a liturgical comb in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (inventory no. 1988.279), probably created before the end of the 12th century. For a description and analysis, see C. Little, “The Road to Glory: New Early Images of Thomas Becket’s Life,” in E. Sears and T. Thomas, eds., Reading Medieval Images: The Art Historian and the Object (Ann Arbor, MI, 2002), 201–11. See also the discussion by R. Gameson, “Early Imagery,” 55–6. Fig. 2. Borenius described another illumination from c. 1190–1200 that shows Becket standing, in his vestments, in “Some Further Aspects,” 172 and Fig. 1. 7 London, British Library (hereafter BL), MS Cotton, Claudius B II, fol. 341, a manuscript from Christ Church, Canterbury. 8 See also the description of this and other illuminations of the martyrdom in U. Nilgen, “The Manipulated Memory: Thomas Becket in Legend and Art,” in

134  Saint and cult Wessel Reinink and Jeroen Stumpel, eds., Memory & Oblivion: Proceeding of the XXIXth International Congress of the History of Art Held in Amsterdam, 1–7 September 1996 (Amsterdam, 1999), 765–72. Nilgen cautions historians, remarking that visual evidence may often lead one astray (769). 9 Herbert of Bosham, Mats. iii, 506. 10 BL Harl. 5102, fol. 32. 11 See the discussion in K. B. Slocum, “Martir quod Stillat Primatis ab Ore Sigillat: Sealed with the Blood of Becket,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 165 (2012): 61–88. Gameson has pointed out that images on a small reliquary box and a tiny roundel within an illuminated initial also lack an altar (“Early Imagery,” 53). 12 Quoted in Gameson, “Early Imagery,” 59, citing Millor and Booke, Letters, 728–9. 13 Gameson, “Early Imagery,” 55–6. For further discussion of this point, see S. Lutan-Hassner, Thomas Becket and the Plantagenets: Atonement Through Art (Leiden, 2015), 54–5. 14 Borenius, Becket in Art, 85. See also the comments of S. Caudron, “La diffusion des châsses de Saint Thomas Becket dans l’Europe médiévale,” in D. GaboritChopin and F. Tixier, eds., L’Oeuvre de Limoges et sa Diffusion: Trésors, Objets, Collections (Rennes, 2011), 23–41, at 23. 15 Caudron, Enamels of Limoges, 162. 16 M. Yvernault, “Reading History in Enamel: The Journey of Thomas Becket’s Experience from Canterbury to Limoges,” in C. Royer-Hemet, ed., Canterbury: A Medieval City (Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2010), 136–59, at 143. 17 Yvernault, “Reading History,” 144. Yvernault’s assertions draw upon the work concerning memory developed by Mary Carruthers. 18 Yvernault, “Reading History,” 145. 19 For a recent account of the distribution in medieval Europe, see S. Caudron, “La diffusion,” 23–41. Caudron has identified 24 medieval or “presumed medieval” locations. See also the exhibition catalog, V. Notin, S. Caudron and G. François, eds., Valérie et Thomas Becket: De l’influence des princes Plantagenêt dans l’Oeuvre de Limoges (Limoges, 1999), 100–29, and Caudron’s earlier article, “Les châsses reliquaries de Thomas Becket émaillées à Limoges: leur géographie historique,” Bulletin de la Société archéologique et histoire du Limousin, l. CXXI (1993): 55–82. See also the work of S. Lutan-Hassner, which explores possible reasons for the extensive production and distribution (Atonement, 136– 7). For information concerning the journey of a reliquary now in the collection of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, see L. Ross, “Saint Thomas Becket in San Francisco,” in June-Ann Greeley, ed., Medieval Travel and Travelers (ARC-Humanities Press, forthcoming). 20 Simone Caudron asserts that “Elle est datable de 1185–1190 et fut certainement commandee par l’abbe Benedict de Peterborough,” “La diffusion,” 25. See the description of the Becket reliquary from the Victoria and Albert Museum [Figure 5.3] in P. Williamson, ed., The Medieval Treasury: The Art of the Middle Ages in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1986, new ed., 1998), 178. The reliquary is also given a succinct description in Yvernault, “Reading History,” 152. Another Becket châsse, now in The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, is described in J. Alexander and P. Binski, eds., Age of Chivalry (London, 1987), 225. See also the photographs and descriptions of three more examples in M. Bagnoli, H. Klein, C.G. Mann and J. Robinson, eds., Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe (New Haven, CT, 2010), 187– 8, and Caudron’s essay in Valérie et Thomas Becket, 62–8. 21 Borenius, Becket in Art, 85. 22 Yvernault, “Reading History,” 145.

Becket and iconography 135 23 See, for some examples, the photographs of a châsse in the Musée de Cluny, Paris, inv. CL 23296 in Caudron, “La diffusion,” 33, Figure 6, the reliquary from the Burrell Collection in Alexander and Binski, Age of Chivalry, 225, Fig. 87, and the châsse held in Oberlin, OH, in Bagnoli, Mann, Klein and Robinson, Medieval Treasury, 187, Figure 100. 24 S. Caudron, “Les Châsses de Thomas Becket en Émail de Limoges,” in R. Fore­ ville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque International de Sédières, Août 19–24, 1973 (Paris, 1975), 233–41. Caudron’s work on Becket reliquaries has continued in subsequent decades, most recently in “La diffusion,” 2011. 25 Caudron, “Les Châsses,” 237–8. 26 Yvernault, “Reading History,” 145. 27 Lutan-Hassner, Atonement, 140. 28 Caudron provides a geometric analysis of the images on the lids, “Les Châsses,” 236. 29 Herbert of Bosham, Mats. iii, 522. See also J. Butler, The Quest for Becket’s Bones (New Haven, CT, 1995), 14. Richard Gameson has described a small silver reliquary held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which also shows Becket in full regalia. (Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917, 12.190.520). Gameson, “Early Imagery,” 43–4, Figs. 5 and 6. 30 Gameson, “Early Imagery,” 64. 31 Cleveland Museum of Art, purchase from the J.H. Wade Fund (1951.449). See the discussion of this piece in Bagnoli, Klein, Mann and Robinson, Treasures of Heaven, 188, and Yvernault, “Reading History,” 153–4. 32 Yvernault, “Reading History,” 154. 33 J. Lee, “Searching for Signs: Pilgrims’ Identity and Experience Made Visible in the Miracula Sancti Thomae Cantuariensis,” in S. Blick and Rita Tekippe, eds., Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles (Leiden, 2005), 473–91, at 474. Although Borenius and others had commented briefly on the badges or signs associated with the pilgrimage to Canterbury, intensive work on the topic began with the publications of Brian Spencer, including Spencer, Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum: Medieval Catalogue, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges (Salisbury, 1990); Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges: Medieval Finds From Excavations in London (London, 1998). The Canterbury Pilgrimage is discussed in detail on 37–173, and Spencer’s extensive publications are listed in the Bibliography. 34 See Chapter 1. Lee claims that there are more than 100 references. See her discussion, “Searching for Signs,” 484 ff. 35 Lee, “Searching for Signs,” 476. 36 Mats. iii, 252. Several recent articles focus on the Becket ampullae and the holy water: A.A. Jordan, “The ‘Water of Thomas Becket’: Water as Medium, Metaphor, and Relic,” in C. Kosso and A. Scott, eds., The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity Through the Renaissance (Leiden, 2009), 479–500; P-A. Sigal, “Naissance et premier développement d’un vinage exceptionnel: L’eau de Saint Thomas,” Cahiers de civilization médiévale 44 (2001): 35–44; and R. Koopmans, “Water Mixed with the Blood of Thomas: Contact Relic Manufacture Pictured in Canterbury Cathedral’s Stained Glass,” Journal of Medieval History 42, no. 5 (2016): 535–8. Koopmans examines the images in the Canterbury miracle windows that portray the use of ampullae and the mixing of the blood relic. She points to the associations between the Eucharistic mixture of wine and water, representing Christ’s blood, and that of Becket’s blood mixed with water, speculating as to the importance of the manufacture of the sacred water by the monastic community. The Eucharistic associations have also been discussed by M-P. Gelin, Lumen ad revelationem gentium: Iconographie et liturgie à Christ Church, Canterbury, 1175–1220 (Turnhout, Belgium, 2006), 270–7.

136  Saint and cult 37 Mats. ii, 72. 38 Mats. ii, 134. See the discussion in Lee, “Searching for Signs,” 479. 39 Lee, “Searching for Signs,” 479. 40 Brian Spencer describes the evolution of the ampulla shape in Pilgrim Souvenirs, 38–73. The earliest examples are illustrated on 40. 41 See Lee’s description in “Searching for Signs,” 481–2. 42 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, 41. 43 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, 64–70, with many illustrations of this form. 44 These appeared in a plethora of designs and forms, conveniently described by Spencer in specific categories: Becket returning from exile (including ships and the archbishop on horseback); Becket’s martyrdom; the murder weapon; Becket’s shrine; the Head Reliquary; Becket’s personalia, such as gloves and shoes; the letter T; and Canterbury bells (Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, 78–125). 45 Lee, “Searching for Signs,” 487, 490. 46 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, 16–17, and Lee, “Searching for Signs,” 488. 47 See the discussion in M. Caviness, The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral (Princeton, 1977), 33. 48 S. Blick, “Reconstructing the Shrine of St. Thomas Becket, Canterbury Cathedral,” in S. Blick and R. Tekippe, eds., Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles (Leiden, 2005), 405–41, at 406. A version of this article was published in Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 72, no. 4 (2003): 256–86. 49 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, in Alexander and Binski, Age of Chivalry, 219. 50 Blick describes the circumstances surrounding Louis’s gift in “Reconstructing,” footnotes 54–5. 51 Blick, “Reconstructing,” 435. 52 For a discussion of the seal of Arbroath Abbey see K. Stringer, “Arbroath Abbey in Context: 1178–1320,” in G Barrow, ed., The Declaration of Arbroath: History Significance, Setting (Edinburgh, 2003), 116–41, at 116 and Figure 1. 53 K.B. Slocum, “Martir quod Stillat Primatis ab ore Sigillat: Sealed with the Blood of Becket,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 165 (2012): 61–88. 54 For a brief description of the use of counter seals see Slocum, “Martir,” 61–2. The image on Hubert Walter’s seal was one of the earliest representations of the martyrdom to appear in any medium. 55 The prerogative court dealt with wills, deriving its title from the prerogative of the archbishop to grant probates and administrations. 56 B.M. Bedos-Rezak, “Replica: Images of Identity and the Identity of Images in Prescholastic France,” in J. Hamburger and A. Bouché, eds., The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 2006), 46–64. 57 A.A. Jordan, “Rhetoric and Reform: The St Thomas Becket Window of Sens Cathedral,” in E. Lane, E. Pastan and E Shortell, eds., The Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness (Farnham, UK, 2009), 547–64, at 548; M.H. Caviness, “Biblical Stories in Windows: Were They Bibles for the Poor?” in B. Levy, ed., The Bible in the Middle Ages: Its Influence on Literature and Art, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 89 (Binghamton, NY, 1992), 106; W. Kemp, The Narratives of Gothic Stained Glass, trans. C.D. Saltzwedel (Cambridge, 1997), 1. 58 W. Gostling, A Walk in and About the City of Canterbury, 2nd ed. (Canterbury, 1774, reprint 1777). 59 W. Loftie, “Early Glass in Canterbury Cathedral,” Archaeological Journal xxxiii (1876): 1–14. 60 A. Mason, Guide to the Ancient Glass of Canterbury Cathedral (Canterbury, 1925).

Becket and iconography 137 61 B. Rackham, The Ancient Glass of Canterbury Cathedral (Canterbury, 1949), and B. Rackham, The Stained Glass Windows of Canterbury Cathedral (Canterbury, 1957). 62 Scholarship concerning stained glass dedicated to Becket imagery leapt forward in the twentieth century with the seminal work of Madeline Caviness. Her analysis of the Becket windows in the Trinity Chapel, The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral, circa 1175–1220 (Princeton, 1977), and her volume in the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (The Windows of Christ Church, Canterbury) (London, 1981) examined the imagery within the context of textual materials, pointing to new directions which have been followed by subsequent scholars. Caviness remarked that her study confirmed the chronology of Rackham, with “slight refinements.” Caviness, Early Stained Glass, 47. For a recent survey, see M.A. Michael, Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral (London, 2004), with beautiful images of the windows. Rachel Koopmans is currently at work on a new edition of the volume of Corpus Vitrearum dealing with the windows in Trinity Chapel. Her study will be based on a new examination of the glass sponsored by the Friends of Canterbury Cathedral, utilizing images produced by a specialized high-resolution camera which will allow the condition of each panel to be determined and recorded, thus providing a baseline for future conservation and scholarship. I am grateful to Dr. Koopmans for sharing this information with me. 63 Caviness, Windows, 175, 313–14. This identification was substantiated by Caviness’s recognition of a panel in the Fogg Museum (Cambridge, MA): M.H. Caviness, “A Panel of Thirteenth Century Stained Glass from Canterbury in America,” The Antiquaries Journal xlv (1965): 192–9. 64 Caviness has remarked that the windows portraying Becket’s life would have been prefixed to the miracle cycle in the same way that a literary Life of the saint would have introduced a miracle collection. (Early Stained Glass, 148). 65 M.H. Caviness, Early Stained Glass, 32. In discussing probable funding for the project, Caviness suggested that contributions from individual donors portrayed in the windows of monastic houses may have generated money. 66 Caviness, Early Stained Glass, 147. 67 Caviness, Early Stained Glass, 106. 68 See Chapter 4. Benedict probably composed the music as well, accomplishing a “notable artistic achievement,” as Marie-Pierre Gelin has written in a recent study: M-P. Gelin, Lumen ad revelationem gentium: Iconographie et Liturgie à Christ Church, Canterbury, 1175–1220 (Turnhout, 2006), 251, quoting Sherry Reames “Liturgical Offices,” 251. 69 Caviness, Early Stained Glass, 144. This work contains a table of the textual sources for each of the windows (Appendix, Fig. 1). For a “side-by-side” analysis of the miracles of Benedict and William, see R. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, Chapters 8 and 9 (139–200). 70 Caviness points out that the subject matter of the windows had much greater popular appeal than the esoteric biblical commentaries already present in the glazing of the choir. Early Stained Glass, 144. 71 Caviness, Early Stained Glass, 144, 149. 72 R. Koopmans, “Kentish Pilgrims in Canterbury Cathedral’s Miracle Windows,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes LXXX (2017): 1–27. 73 Gelin, Lumen, 272. 74 Sarah Blick has traced the connections between two Canterbury ampullae and the stained glass windows in Trinity Chapel, demonstrating the iconographical commonalities between the two genres. She has also suggested imagery which may have been the subject of a lost window, probably destroyed at the time of

138  Saint and cult the Reformation. S. Blick, “Comparing Pilgrim Souvenirs and Trinity Chapel Windows at Canterbury Cathedral,” Mirator Syyskuu (September 2001): 1–27. 75 Gelin, Lumen, 274–5. 76 Gelin, Lumen, 276. Gelin has also published an article on the topic of liturgy, emphasizing that the liturgies and the stained-glass windows make direct reference to the cults of Becket’s Anglo-Saxon predecessors, linking them to Thomas in order to establish the basis for the development of the cult. M-P. Gelin, “The Cult of St Thomas in the Liturgy and Iconography of Christ Church, Canterbury,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. (Woodbridge, UK, 2016), 53–80. 77 Jordan, “Rhetoric and Reform,” 548. 78 Madeline Caviness, Early Stained Glass, 10–11, 25, 84–95. The destroyed windows at Canterbury that probably portrayed the life of Becket may have provided the patterns, and Caviness provides evidence of commonalities between the extant images. 79 Borenius, Brisac and others have suggested that there may have been a companion window, since the story begins in media res. Borenius, Becket in Art, 45; M.H. Caviness, Medieval and Renaissance Stained Glass form New England Collections (Medford, MA, 1978), 13. The windows are described in Catherine Brisac, in “Thomas Becket dans le vitrail français,” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque International de Sédières, Août 19–24, 1973 (Paris, 1975), 222–31, at 224–6. 80 Jordan, “Rhetoric and Reform,” 559–60. 81 Jordan, “Rhetoric and Reform,” 549–50. 82 Jordan, “Rhetoric and Reform,” 557, 562. Catherine Brisac wrote that the sources for the cycle at Sens could be found in the hagiographic literature concerning Becket, while Jordan has demonstrated that the Gregorian reform movement and the actions of the Lateran Council of 1215, as well as the influence of Stephen Langton, were significant factors. 83 Brisac, “Vitrail Francais,” 226. 84 Jordan, “Rhetoric and Reform,” 564. 85 M. Fassler, The Virgin of Chartres: Making History Through Liturgy and the Arts (New Haven, CT, 2010). Appendix B describes the contents of Vat. Lat. 4756, a thirteenth-century noted breviary from Chartres, which includes the office for Thomas. The table indicates that it was added to the calendar soon after 1173. (381). 86 Fassler, Virgin, 195, 535, ft. 25. See also the remarks of C. Manhes-Deremble, Les Vitraux Narratifs de la Cathédral de Chartres: Étude Iconographique (Paris, 1993), 249, and the article by K. Bollerman and C.J. Nederman, “John of Salisbury and Thomas Becket,” in C. Grellard and F. Lauchaud, eds., A Companion to John of Salisbury (Leiden, 2014), 1–35. 87 K. Bollermann and C.J. Nederman, “The ‘Sunset Years’: John of Salisbury as Bishop of Chartres and the Emergent Cult of St Thomas Becket in France,” Viator 45, no. 2 (2014): 55–76. 88 The windows are described in Y. Delaporte and É. Houvet, Les Vitraux de la Cathédrale de Chartres (Paris, 1926), 247–254; Borenius, Becket in Art, 46–7; and Catherine Brisac, in “Vitrail français,” 226–8. 89 See also the remarks of Delaporte and Houvet, Les Vitraux, 248. 90 Borenius, Becket in Art, 46. Brisac qualifies this identification, remarking that interpretation of the panels is uncertain, but probably relates to the banishment of Thomas and his kin. “Le vitrail français,” 227. 91 Borenius, Becket in Art, 46.

Becket and iconography 139 92 Brisac, “Vitrail français,” 228. 93 A.A. Jordan, “The Becket Windows at Angers and Coutances,” in P. Webster and M.P. Gelin, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220 (Woodbridge, 2016), 171–207, at 172. 94 The Coutances window is described by Brisac, “Vitrail français,” 229–30. 95 Jordan, “Angers and Coutances,” 178. 96 The window at Angers is discussed by Borenius, Becket in Art, 47, and Brisac, “Le vitrail français,” 230. Their descriptions of the panels differ significantly from those of Jordan. 97 An image of the coronation of Young King Henry is also found in the Becket Leaves. See Chapter 2. Borenius and Brisac identified this panel as the betrothal of Young King Henry and the French princess Margaret. Several scholars have tentatively interpreted one of the panels in the Chartres cycle as the refusal of the Young King to see Becket (Borenius, Becket in Art, 46, and Brisac “Le vitrail français,” 228, although she identifies the king as Henry II). 98 Brisac, “Le vitrail français,” 231; Jordan, “Angers and Coutance,” 179. 99 The image appears in the Chartres cycle, as well as in contemporaneous manuscript illuminations such as the Becket Leaves. 100 Jordan, “Angers and Coutances,” 189. 101 Jordan, “Angers and Coutances,” 198–9. 102 These concepts will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 12. 103 Jordan, “Angers and Coutances,” 207. 104 M.F. Hearn, “Canterbury Cathedral and the Cult of Becket,” Art Bulletin LXXVI, no. 1 (1994): 19–52, at 47. 105 T. Tatton-Brown, “Canterbury and the architecture of pilgrimage shrines in England,” Colin Morris and Peter Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan (Cambridge, 2002), 90–107. 106 D.M. Hayes, Body and Sacred Place in Medieval Europe, 1100–1389 (New York and London, 2003), Chapter 4, 71–93. 107 Hayes, Body, 77. 108 Hayes, Body, 87. 109 Hayes, Body, 87. 110 Hayes, Body, 87. 111 Hayes, Body, 90. 112 Hayes, Body, 93. 113 P. Binski, Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England, 1170–1300 (New Haven, CT, 2004). 114 R. Gameson, “The Early Imagery of Thomas Becket,” in C. Morris and P. Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan (Cambridge, 2002), 46–89. 115 D. Williams, Saints Alive: Word, Image, and Enactment in the Lives of the Saints (Montreal and Kingston, 2010). Becket is the topic of Chapter Three. 116 M-P. Gelin, Lumen ad revelationem gentium: Iconographie et liturgie à Christ Church, Canterbury, 1175–1220 (Turnhout, 2006), Chapter 7, 245–86. 117 Gelin, Lumen, 262. 118 Gelin, Lumen, 270. 119 Gelin, Lumen, 292. 120 R. Koopmans, “Thomas Becket and the Royal Abbey of Reading,” English Historical Review CXXXI, no. 548 (2016): 1–30. 121 See also the article by G. Oppitz-Trotman, “The Emperor’s Robe: Thomas Becket and Angevin Political Culture,” in Anglo-Norman Studies 37 (Woodbridge, 2015), 205–19, esp. 206–8.

140  Saint and cult 122 R. Koopmans, “Early Sixteenth-Century Stained Glass at St. Michael-le-Belfrey and the Commemoration of Thomas Becket in Late Medieval York,” Speculum 89/4 (October 2014): 1040–100. 123 R. Koopmans, “Visions, Reliquaries, and the Image of ‘Becket’s Shrine’ in the Miracle Windows of Canterbury Cathedral,” Gesta 54, no. 1 (2015): 37–57. 124 R. Koopmans, “Water Mixed with the Blood of Thomas: Contact Relic Manufacture Pictured in Canterbury Cathedral’s Stained Glass,” Journal of Medieval History 42, no. 5 (2016): 535–58. 125 A.F. Harris, “Pilgrimage, Performance, and Stained Glass at Canterbury Cathedral,” in S. Blick and R. Tekippe, eds., Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, 2 vols. (Leiden, 2005), i, Texts, 243–81. 126 S. Blick, “Votives, Images, Interaction and Pilgrimage to the Tomb and Shrine of St. Thomas Becket, Canterbury Cathedral,” in S. Blick and L. Gelfand, eds., Push Me, Pull You: Art and Devotional Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art (Leiden, 2011), 21–58, Academia.edu. 127 A. Shalem, The Chasuble of Thomas Becket: A Biography (Munich, 2017).

Part II

Becket and the Reformation

6 Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket

In November 1538, Henry VIII issued a decree stating that “Thomas Becket shall not be esteemed and reputed a saint,” thereby initiating not only the destruction of visual and liturgical evidence of the Canterbury martyr, but also a complete revision of the history of the saint and his cult. As Phyllis Roberts has pointed out, the actions of the Crown in the 1530s purging the name and image of Becket “exemplify a remarkable propaganda effort which supported the goals of the Henrician Reformation and required its thorough and effective enforcement.”1 The king’s agent, Thomas Cromwell, promulgated a new version of the Becket story that laid the blame for the murder not on the shoulders of Henry II, but rather on the martyr himself. According to Cromwell, the dispute was not between king and archbishop, but concerned a quarrel between Becket and the Archbishop of York concerning jurisdiction. An altercation over this issue led to a riot, during which the “quarrelsome” Becket was justly slain. The motivation for this revision is obvious: Henry VIII viewed the continuing veneration of Becket as a threat to his religious and political program. His break with the papacy and the Catholic Church necessitated the eradication of the cult of saints, and especially that of the adored Canterbury martyr. Moreover, Henry was determined to eradicate the memory of a man who had defied his royal predecessor. In addition, his destruction of the shrine in Canterbury Cathedral greatly enhanced his treasury. The negative view of the martyr promulgated by Cromwell and Henry VIII was echoed in the works of other writers of the period, such as Tyndale, Bale, and Foxe, and was maintained to a degree until the twentieth century. This chapter will analyze the scholarly opinions and dramatic portrayals of the archbishop, as well as the motivations underlying this sixteenth-century attack on Becket’s reputation – what Phyllis Roberts has recently called “The Unmaking of a Saint.”2

The Lollards and religious dissent The cult and shrine of Becket remained an integral part of the religious, social, and political life of England until the mid-1530s, and much of the

144  Becket and the Reformation population continued to revere the Canterbury martyr; however, the rewriting of history and reshaping of Becket’s reputation had begun a several generations earlier.3 From the first decades of the fifteenth century, English evangelicals had questioned his sanctity and defamed his character, and pilgrimage to his shrine in Canterbury had long been a target of religious dissent, typified by the Lollards, who followed the teachings of John Wyclif. As J.F. Davis has written, the most characteristic and enduring tenets of Lollardy were the denunciations against pilgrimage to the shrines of the saints and the veneration of relics, and Canterbury and St Thomas were prime targets for their invective.4 Wyclif taught that men could pray to saints, but only insofar as they were regarded as “meenys bytwiste Crist ande hem,” whose function was to inspire a greater love of God.5 Saints could not grant anything themselves, nor could they work any miracles by their images. Persons who worshiped effigies of the Virgin Mary or other saints, as well as those who went on pilgrimages to their shrines, were guilty of idolatry, and were accursed.6 John Purvey applied Wyclif’s teachings in his “Twelve Conclusions,” specifically targeting Becket in the eighth section, wherein he asserted that the matter of St Thomas “were no cause of martyrdom.”7 Other Lollard tracts went beyond criticism of the popular cult of Becket and included opinions regarding the causes of his martyrdom, particularly in relation to Henry II. In 1429, when Margery Backster, a member of the Norfolk sect of Lollards, was questioned about her beliefs, she declared that: Thomas of Canterbury whom the people called St Thomas, was a false traitor and dampned in hel, because he injuriously indowed the churches with possessions, and raised up many heresies in the church, which seduce the simple people and therefore if God be blessed, the said Thomas is accursed. And those false priestes that saie that he suffred his death paciently befor the altare do lie. For as a false cowerdlye traitor he was slaine in the church dore, as he was flying away.8 It is evident that Margery was following Wyclif’s proclamations concerning the cause of the martyrdom, although her primary motivation was undoubtedly the intent to discredit Becket’s cult. As R. Barrie Dobson has argued, it was precisely because of the unrivalled popularity of his shrine that St Thomas was particularly exposed to the denunciations of religious radicals. To many East Anglian Lollards, he was ridiculed as “Thomas of Cankerbury,” and was featured as a central figure in many of the “shows” that offered an important leisure activity in many late medieval English towns.9 In England, the Becket plays were more frequently performed than those featuring any other saint, and perhaps, as Benjamin Griffin has suggested, the “Englishness” of his story was a decisive factor in this frequent dramatization.10 Although not a single text of a play portraying Becket’s life and martyrdom exists, there is a great deal of information concerning the performances

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 145 themselves in the dramatic records. The earliest recorded play took place in 1384–1385 at King’s Lynn, where payments were entered in the chamberlains’ account books for performing an interlude dramatizing his life.11 These performances may have been connected with the Guild of St Thomas, which had been founded at Lynn as early as 1272, and which celebrated the feast of Becket’s translation on July 7. Norwich, in East Anglia, was the site of a fifteenth-century procession on the day of the translation feast, and was associated with the Guild of St Thomas in that town. The celebration included the playing of “Interludes . . . with good Cheer after them.” While no direct mention is made of a Becket play, Clifford Davidson has argued that performances centered on the legend of the Canterbury martyr would have been a distinct possibility.12 There was certainly a play at Mildenhall in Suffolk in 1505, when “a play off Sent Thomas” was staged “in the hall yeard,” as documented by the record books of the churchwardens for the Guild of St Thomas.13 Not surprisingly, the most extensive documentary evidence concerning plays is found at Canterbury, where records indicate performances of a dramatization of Becket’s life from 1504–1505 to about 1537–1538, when the cult was suppressed.14 The surviving evidence indicates that the drama featured boy actors who played the parts of the knights. The saint wore a mask and head-piece, described as “seinte Thomas hede,” which required frequent repainting, and gloves, which were replaced in 1513–1514.15 Provisions were made for further garments in 1519–1520, including a chemise made of white canvas. Mention is made of the washing of Thomas’s alb and the altar cloths used in the presentation of the martyrdom, and a new cross was provided in 1530–1531. The records also offer evidence concerning the stage effects, including payments for leather bags of blood and a mechanical angel.16 There was also a traditional pageant performed by the Muster or Watch of Canterbury, in which the mayor, aldermen, and other officials, together with a number of citizens, would march in harness from the Burgmote Hall. The pageant consisted of a tableau of the martyrdom situated on a wagon, performed by children. The fatal blow was represented by blood spurting from Becket’s head, accompanied by a flash of gunpowder and a “vice” or mechanical device which spun around with flapping wings as the soul of the martyr was transported to heaven.17 Contemporary sermons offered another avenue for portraying Becket’s life to the general population. Although many preachers continued to characterize the saint as an exemplar of piety and devotion to the Church, the sermons of religious dissenters offered a derogatory vision of the Canterbury martyr. Whereas some medieval preachers had compared Becket’s martyrdom with the crucifixion of Christ, the Lollards taught that “unlike the precious death of the Christ, the death of Becket was of no value and ought to be censured by the faithful.”18 They denounced the prodigious wealth of the churches that contained the shrines of saints, and claimed that Becket, in particular, had died in defense of ecclesiastical avarice, rather than ecclesiastical liberty.19 The Lollards considered the offensive Becket to be a political

146  Becket and the Reformation traitor rather than a saint, and, as Peter Roberts has remarked, the English Lutherans added criticism of clerical privilege to complaints about pilgrimage and idol worship.20 The resulting anti-clericalism provided a fine rationale for those who wished to despoil the Church, and Archbishop Warham’s diocesan visitation of Canterbury in 1511 demonstrated that these pressures were fermenting on a parochial level long before the crisis of 1532.21 Under the influence of late medieval theology, humanist writers as well as reformers denounced pilgrimages to the relics of the saints and the veneration of images – attitudes which may have prepared the way for the “reformation” of imagery,22 and lent a measure of popular support to religious change. The views of these early sixteenth-century humanists are cleverly reflected in the writings of Erasmus concerning pilgrimages. As he remarked when discussing pilgrimage in general: [T]he name of religion is given to superstition, love of change, folly, and rashness; and a man who, contrary to the doctrine of Paul, deserts his own, will carry off the credit of sanctity, and flatter himself that he has fulfilled all the requirements of devotion.23 His remarks after visiting Becket’s shrine in the company of John Colet between the years 1513 and 1515 offer even more specific criticisms. Describing his excursion to Canterbury, he wrote: [W]e descended to the crypt. It has its own priests [who explained the history of the relics and offered them to the pilgrims’ lips]. There was first exhibited the perforated skull of the martyr; the forehead is left bare to be kissed, whilst the other parts are covered with silver. At the same time is shown a slip of lead, engraved with his name, THOMAS ACRENSIS. There also hang in the dark the hair shirts, the girdles, and bandages, with which that prelate subdued his flesh; striking horror with their very appearance, and reproaching us for our indulgence and our luxuries. Further, Erasmus offers a deliberate satire on the Canterbury relics, pointing to: some torn fragments of linen . . . with these . . . the holy man used to wipe the perspiration from his face or his neck, the runnings from his nose, or such other superfluities, from which the human frame is not free. When a small piece was offered to his companion, he “drew it together with his fingers, not without some intimation of disgust, and disdainfully replaced it.”24 His reservations concerning the wealth of the Church are typified by his observation: [I]t sometimes seriously occurs to me whether those can be regarded as blameless who consume so much wealth in building, adorning, and

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 147 enriching churches, that they altogether exceed all moderation . . . to what purpose are so many holy water vessels, so many candlesticks, so many golden statues? . . . whilst at the same time our brethren and sisters, the living temples of Christ, perish with thirst and hunger?25 As early as 1464, it was declared that pilgrims to Canterbury had committed their souls to the Devil, and similar sentiments were widely expressed in the late 1520s and early 1530s. The lawyer James Bainham had called Becket a “thief, and a murderer and a devil in Hell,”26 when he was tried before the vicar general of London, and ironically, in the uncertain times of 1532, when he was put to death for heresy, his rantings against Becket were among the various allegations that led to his burning.27 Foxe recorded that on the way to the stake he shouted to the spectators that: Thomas Becket is no saint but dampned in hell . . . he was a wicked man, a traitor to ye crown and Realme of England and enemy to al Chistes religion, and a shedder of innocent bloud, for even for murdering and shedding of bloud was he made a saint.28 William Tyndale, in The Practise of papistical Prelates (1532), blackened the reputation of Becket on two counts: not only was he a traitor who “dyed for the liberties (to do all mischief unpunished) and privileges of the Church,” but he was a violent man who had struck the first blow in the altercation in the church.29 Moreover, according to Tyndale, [H]e was a man of war, and captain over five or six thousand men in full harness as bright as St. George, and his spear in his hand . . . out of the field hot from bloodshedding was he made bishop of Canterbury, and did put off his helmet, and put on his mitre; put off his harness, on with his robes; and laid down his spear and took his cross, ere his hands were cold, and so came with a lusty courage of a man of war to fight another while against his prince for the pope. Where his prince’s causes were with the law of God and the pope’s clean contrary.30 Tyndale also made scathing comparisons between Becket and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, writing that “neither is Thomas Cardinal’s life anything save a counterfaytyng of saint Thomas of Canterbury,” and that “He preached never nor lived any other life than our Cardinall, and for his mischief dyed a mischievious death.”31 Tyndale’s remarks about Becket closed with a charge that Becket was a traitor to his king, who was dedicated to the laws of the pope – a claim which formed the substance of the Council’s sentence of 1538. Further, Tyndale argued that the papacy was a world-wide conspiracy which reduced kings and emperors to names and shadows of power, and he called for the abolition of clerical courts. “The king’s law . . . should be the only law of the land; the common law should supersede the canon law. . . .”32

148  Becket and the Reformation Also writing in the 1530s, the antiquarian John Leland offered comments about Becket that differed dramatically in tone from those of Tyndale, although they were biased toward the king.33 Leland’s entry concerning Becket in his De viris illustribus, probably written in 1535, was suppressed in the editions after 1538, although many aspects of his version of Becket’s biography were taken up by Reformation writers. For example, Leland called attention to Becket’s military exploits in subdued language, writing that Thomas “went beyond his ecclesiastical calling . . . acting as a noble warrior among the rest.”34 Later, Leland continued, Thomas offended the king (“I know not how”), although after Archbishop Theobald’s death, he “was deprived of the rank of chancellor, only to be appointed archbishop by the king’s liberality.” As archbishop, “he began to be more of a burden to the king and excessively to adhere to the bishop of Rome; when Henry refused to tolerate this affront, Thomas went into exile.” After a few years, when he had been “fully reconciled to the prince,” he returned to Canterbury, where he “struck at certain people with the lightening of ecclesiastical censure.” Soon afterwards, “he himself was struck down by some nobles crossing from Normandy, and miserably slain in his own church.” In Leland’s view, although not expressed in polemical terms, the murder was brought on by Thomas himself. He had offended the king and he was too closely aligned with the papacy. Becket’s canonization was mentioned only briefly, “after miracles had occurred,” and the segment devoted to Becket closed with his translation “aloft” by Stephen Langton.35 Leland’s work also included sections that discuss the lives and works of Thomas’s eruditi – John of Salisbury, Herbert of Bosham, William of Canterbury, and Alan of Tewkesbury – all biographers of the martyr.36 Although the rantings of religious radicals and the more thoughtful criticisms of humanist writers called attention to the greed and avarice of the Church and its supposed promotion of saints, cults, and pilgrimages, it was, in reality, much more difficult to promote the spiritual power of St Thomas during the years between 1400 and the Reformation than it had been in the more religious atmosphere of the two or three previous centuries. Dobson characterized the situation as an exercise in “decline management.”37 By the standards of the twelfth century, saints, including St Thomas, performed many fewer and much less spectacular miracles. Further, for many fifteenthand sixteenth-century English churchmen, miracles had become spiritually irrelevant and even suspect.38 The spread of Lollardy also contributed to weakening the practice of Becket’s cult. Hence, the monks of Canterbury Cathedral were hard-pressed to preserve the reputations and status of the Becket cult in a period of deepening crisis of confidence.39 Further, as D.R. Woolf has noted, the growing royal hostility to Becket during the reign of Henry VIII represented a significant departure from the attitudes of his medieval predecessors. Beginning with the public penance of Henry II for Thomas’s murder, English kings had acknowledged the wrongful nature of the crime, and were quick to take advantage of Becket’s

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 149 growing saintly reputation, even making periodic pilgrimages to the shrine of the saint.40 Henry VIII was himself a pious man, and his early devotion to the saints was demonstrated during the visit of the Emperor Charles V to Canterbury in the jubilee year of 1520, when the two monarchs processed into the cathedral to say prayers and make oblations at the shrine of St Thomas.41 In the ensuing decade, under the pressure created by his desire for a divorce from Katherine of Aragon, coupled with the influence of his ministers, Henry’s attitude toward Becket underwent a radical change. In May of 1532, Archbishop Warham drafted a speech for parliament, warning of the decay in religious life that would ensue if the liberties of the Church were undermined. He referred to recent events, but also invoked the past, particularly the life and death of Thomas Becket. Warham believed that the measures being undertaken by Henry VIII were the same as those promulgated by Henry II, and he reminded the monarch of the fate of other English rulers who had encroached upon the authority of the Church. Not only had the articles of the Constitutions of Clarendon led to Becket’s death, but also to the humiliation of the king, who had been compelled to curtail his demands and perform penance at the martyr’s tomb; further, his predecessor’s image had been tarnished by centuries of blame for the murder of Becket.42 Warham’s stance, and no doubt his views concerning Becket, angered the king, who was determined to obliterate all opposition. If his ministers or courtiers showed signs of resistance to the royal will, Henry’s vicar-general Thomas Cromwell would charge them with treason or breach of Praemunire, often searching years in the past for real or fictitious grounds for indictment. The accusation was a convenient weapon for use in enforcing compliance and silencing dissent, and Warham became a victim of the king’s wrath. In 1532, he was threatened with a Praemunire prosecution based upon one of his actions dating from 1518. The accusation was a charge that Warham had consecrated Bishop Henry Standish before the king had been shown the Papal Bulls of appointment and before Standish had sworn his oath of fealty to the king. The “crime” and the charge were unprecedented, and it is evident that King Henry was attempting to force the archbishop to accept his ecclesiastical enactments, as well as his divorce from Katherine of Aragon. Warham considered the consequences of his position carefully. He recorded his thoughts and feelings about the accusations in a document known as the “Defence,” in which he discussed at length his view of the proper relationship between the spiritual and temporal powers, writing that “the archebusshoppes of Cantrebury from tyme oute of mind have be in possession of the right to consecrate at their libertie busshoppes of their province withoute any interruption or impediment or any question made to the contrary hertofor.” Further, Warham pointed out that this case was one of the articles which King Henry II had presented to Thomas Becket for his consent: [A]nd this article was one of the causes of the exile of Sancte Thomas and finally of his deth and marterdom . . . and it is to be thought that

150  Becket and the Reformation who so ever labour to the contrarie that Saint Thomas dyed for shal sor displease God and the said sainte and grievously offende his conscience.’ In addition: this . . . was one of tharticles that Sancte Thomas of Cantrebury dyed for and for his so doing for this Article and others made ayenst the liberties of Goddes Church was rewarded of God with the grete honour of martirdom, which is the best deth that can be. Which thing is thexample and comforte of other to speke and to doo for the defense of the liberties of Goddes Church. . . . Sancte Thomas of Cantrebury dyed and was and is a holy martyr, because he wold not consent nor obey to these Articles and others made ayenst the liberties of the Churche. Warham continued: And ye my lordes seeing that this case that I am put to trouble for is one of the Articles that Saincte Thomas of Cantrebury dyed for, I trust ye wol not drawe yor swords to the displeasur of God and of Sancte Thomas in this behalve, into whose holy hands I recommende this my cause and the cause of the Churche . . . And in case ye shuld be so noted by other folks instigation and ungodly meanes to drawe yor swerds in this case and to hewe me to small peces (which God forbade ye shuld doo) yet I thynke it were better for me to suffer the same than ayenst by conscience to confesse this Article to be a premunire for which Sancte Thomas dyed.43 In the same year, the charges were brought against Warham, Henry’s Lord Chancellor, Thomas More, resigned his office in protest against the growing encroachments on the liberty of the Church as well as the proceedings underway to annul the king’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon; his resistance initiated proceedings which led to his becoming another “martyr,” as he defied the wishes of his monarch.44 In an action that called forth striking parallels with the twelfth century, More resigned his office in protest against the encroachments of royal power on the independence of the Church and unconditional acceptance of the Oath of Supremacy. Like his royal predecessor, Henry VIII had appointed a friend and talented civil servant to high office, expecting his full support. Becket and More each faced a crisis of conscience in which their loyalty was given to God and the Church, rather than the monarch, and the lives of both men ended in violent death. Perceptive contemporaries were aware of the similarities, and some viewed Becket’s imbroglio with Henry II as prefiguring the Henrician Reformation. Thomas More’s devotion to Becket, his name saint along with Thomas the Apostle, was well known. In his relentless pursuit of heretics, he had defended Becket against the irreverent attacks of the reformers, inveighing against the heretical priest, Thomas Hitton, who was burned for heresy at Maidstone in 1530, and his defender, George Joye, for his depiction of Hitton as another “sainted Thomas.”45

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 151 More’s identification with the Canterbury martyr was explicitly defined in his final letter to his daughter Margaret on July 5, 1535, in which he expressed his wish for death on the following day, “a day very mete and conveniente” for him to go to God, “for it is S. Thomas evin [vigil].”46 The king’s execution order did come on that day, and as Peter Roberts has suggested, Henry’s intention in the choice of date may have been to associate his former chancellor with another notorious traitor to a king of England.47 More’s predecessor as chancellor, Thomas Wolsey, had already been linked with Becket by contemporary observers such as Tyndale, who remarked that Cardinal Wolsey’s life was but a counterfeiting of Thomas of Canterbury, who had been “made a saint for his worshipping of the holy seat of St Peter . . . the Cathedra Pestilentiae.”48 However, the names of Becket and More – a more obvious comparison – had not been linked in print until John Bale listed their names in 1544 as false martyrs who had died instead for the “ryches and proude maintenance of theyr holye whorysh churche.”49 The parallel between More and Becket as supporters of papal jurisdiction against the English kings was not specifically discussed at the time, but the theme was taken up by a later generation of Catholic hagiographers.50 When Archbishop Warham died in 1532, the year of his “Defence,” Henry VIII had the opportunity to appoint a primate whom he could completely control. His choice was Thomas Cranmer – a studious man who embraced the humanistic theology of Erasmus and was, at heart, a sympathizer with the continental “heresy.”51 Upon his shoulders fell the task of securing Henry’s separation from Queen Katherine. The well-known story of the “King’s Great Matter” culminated in a series of parliamentary acts and edicts which secured Henry’s position as Supreme Head of the Church of England.

The Henrician Reformation Henry’s somewhat ambivalent attitude toward images in general and Becket in particular crystallized during the mid-1530s, probably under the influence of Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, and on November 16, 1538, he decreed that: [F]rom henceforth the said Thomas Becket shall not be esteemed and reputed a saint . . . the day used to be festival in his name, shall not be observed, nor the service, office, antiphons, collects and prayers in his name read, but rased and put out of all the books.52 This proclamation ended a period of indecision and equivocation on the part of the king, as Peter Roberts has shown. Henry’s reluctance seems to have held him back from authorizing the iconoclasm on doctrinal grounds, and perhaps resulted from his own hesitation to break with traditional religious observances.53 However, once he realized that the political motives for destroying the cult of Becket far outweighed his theological reservations, his

152  Becket and the Reformation attitudes changed. Becket had come to represent the assertion of papal over royal rights, and the cult that commemorated defiance of regal authority was deemed to be politically subversive. It became evident, as Helen Parish has pointed out, that some of the demands of Henry II to which Becket objected were remarkably similar to the official pronouncements of the English, or Henrician, Reformation in the 1530s. Becket had argued that Church lands in possession of the laity should be restored to the Church, and this view was certainly inimical to Henry VIII, a monarch who had recently dissolved the monasteries. Further, several provisions of the Constitutions of Clarendon had a clear resonance in Henrician England. The clauses in the earlier document had allowed recourse from the courts of the archbishop to the king alone, blocking appeal to the papacy. The memory of Becket’s stance against this principle would have inflamed the hostility of a king whose parliament had passed, in March 1533, the Act in Restraint of Appeals to Rome. In addition, since Becket was viewed as an icon of ecclesiastical resistance to the Crown, his actions would have offered an unwelcome contrast to the Submission of the Clergy which had been mandated in May 1532.54 The campaign against Becket was certainly part of the overall attack against saints and images that had been initiated by Thomas Cromwell and aided by Bishop Latimer. Cromwell may have been driven by a desire for the wealth obtained by the appropriation of jewels and gold from the shrine, and Latimer was evidently offended by the superstitions engendered by devotion to images. However, as J.F. Davis observed, an additional explanation involves the “sweeping away [of] the vestiges of papal authority that were implied by popular attachment to a powerful legend of the old order.”55 Henry’s determination is shown by an additional injunction issued to the archbishops in 1541, referring to his directives of 1538, and stipulating that: [Y]ow shall not only cause due searche to be made in your cathedral churches for those thinges, and if any shrine, covering of shrine, table, monument of miracles or other pilgrimage do there contynew, to cause it to be taken away, so as there remayne no memorye of it.56 The king, Cromwell and Cranmer were determined to erase any popular “memorye” of saintly devotion, and by extension, reverence for the pope. The cult of Becket was, in particular, a symbol of the Roman obedience, and its suppression was essential for the consolidation of royal supremacy.57 The propaganda associated with the destruction of the shrine, imagery, and liturgical celebration offered a rewriting of history probably initiated by Cromwell himself. Indeed, as Helen Parish has perceptively observed, the defining characteristics of sainthood – miracles, chastity and defense of the Church – were subject to the same iconoclastic impulse that banned images and liturgical ceremony from churches.58 Henry’s minister worried little about historical validity, as Carole Levin noted in her book on propaganda in

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 153 the English Reformation, since for him, “historical truth was always subservient to political expediency.”59 Moreover, as J.F. Davis pointed out, Cromwell “did not have far to go for ideas, since the Lollard invective expressed at trials and in vernacular manuscripts had laid down the lines of attack for more than a century.”60 Cromwell’s version of the murder of Becket placed the blame squarely on the archbishop himself, claiming that the crime was the result of a quarrel with the Archbishop of York over jurisdiction. The dispute had escalated, erupting into a riot during which the quarrelsome Becket was slain.61 In legend, Thomas had been cast as David to Henry’s Goliath, and if Henry wished to identify himself with King David, history would have to be rewritten and the archbishop portrayed in another guise. As G.R. Elton has reminded us, for the Tudor regime: Becket . . . needed to be exorcised; to represent him as a violent, selfish man, really killed by his own fault, a man whose real record shows him to have been ‘a great warrior, a burner of towns, an encroacher of benefices, a hunter and hawker, proud and seditious,’ and one who by his own confession obtained the archbishopric corruptly, was to do a thorough job of blackwashing on England’s holy blissful martyr.62 Helen Parish has placed the destruction of the Becket cult within a wider context by observing that the assault on the cults of other saints “was a simple assertion of the right of the monarch to expunge idols from his church,” whereas the campaign against Becket implied that “the king could ‘unsaint’ the saints, reverse the judgements of the popes, and reach back into the past and examine the consciences of its heroes.”63 Because the memory of the Canterbury martyr was more powerful and more potent than the reverence devoted to other saints, the measures taken to shatter his image were even more intense. Aside from the general abuses that his sainthood implied, there were particular reasons why Becket was perceived as a threat to the Reformation regime, especially since the saint’s legend might have become a focal point for resistance to the new order.64 As Margaret Aston has asserted, Henry VIII demonstrated how “political spite could dominate the religious agenda.”65 In rewriting the history of the conflict, the memory of his quarrel with the king’s predecessor, Henry II, and his disloyalty to the Crown required allegations that he died a traitor, rather than a saint – a view that permeates most Henrician representations of his life.66 The official proclamation that justified the degradation appeared in November of 1538: His dethe, whiche they vntruely called martyrdome, happened vpon a reskewe by him made, and that, as it is written, he gaue opprobrious words to the gentyll men, whiche then counsayled hym to leaue his subbernesse, and to auoyde the commocion of the people, risen up for that rescue. And he nat onely called the owne of them bawde, but also toke

154  Becket and the Reformation Tracy by the bvsome, and violently shoke and plucked hym in suche maner, that he had almoste ouerthrowen hym to the pauement of the churche, So that vpon this fray one of their company perceiuinge the same, strake ym, and so in the thronge Becket was slayne.67 As Peter Roberts has pointed out, the revision of Becket’s life reflected in this document is essentially the view “refracted through the prism of the Lollard traditions” and the writings of William Tyndale and John Bale.68 Bale had maintained that so-called martyrs, such as Thomas Becket, were lawfully executed by the state for “dysobedyence” or “for manifest treason.” They were the minions of the Antichrist who used miracles to deceive.69 In the proclamation, Henry VIII was referred to as “a godly and a Catholic prince,” but also as “lawfully sovereign, chief, and supreme head in earth immediately under Christ” of the Church of England.”70 The additional provisions established a new interpretation of the life and character of Thomas Becket. According to the document, the archbishop had “stubbornly [withstood] the wholesome laws established against the enormities of the clergy by the king’s highness’ most noble progenitor, King Henry II.” Further, the death of Becket was “untruly called martyrdom”: untruly because it was clear that Becket had antagonized the knights who had approached him and had used violence against them, and also because “his canonization was made only by the bishop of Rome, because he had been a champion to sustain his usurped authority.” The cause, not the penalty, made the martyr. Becket’s name was to be deleted from the liturgical books,71 his images were to be removed from churches, and his feast day was to be expunged “to the intent that his grace’s loving subjects shall no longer be blindly led and abused to commit idolatry.” This proclamation was part of an intense propaganda campaign against Becket and his memory in late 1538 and early 1539. As Helen Parish has pointed out, a comparison between Cromwell’s Injunctions of 1538 and the version which was promulgated demonstrates that the issues surrounding Becket had become increasingly important: the primary alterations and additions relate not only to the destruction of the martyr’s cult, but also to the alteration of his reputation – measures which blackened his memory.72 The destruction of the shrine itself did little more than “scratch the surface” of Becket’s cult. That act needed to be reinforced by “a polemical reconstruction of the past that would vilify the saint and unravel the threads of his reputation in the popular imagination.”73 The injunctions instigated against the cult of Becket in 1538 bear witness to Henry’s detestation of the memory of the Canterbury martyr, who symbolized the triumph of the Church over a king of England. In part, they also represent the intention to “de-papalize” the worship of the Church.74 As mentioned earlier, the injunctions provided justification for the destruction of Becket’s shrine, which was carried out around September 8, 1538, and prohibited the celebration of his feast days.75 The offices were completely excised from many breviaries, while in others there is evidence of a large

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 155 “X” created by a knife slash. Sometimes the king’s men blotted out the folios with “inquisition ink” which rendered the office illegible. In some, such as the 14th-century “Penwortham breviary” (BL, MS Add. 52359, fol. 50v), the king’s inspectors struck through the music and the texts, indicating that performance of the liturgy was forbidden, although it is still possible to read the manuscript. The iconoclasts were remarkably thorough. For example, only about onesixteenth of the paintings of Becket in England and Ireland survived the onslaught decreed in 1538.76 In 1546, the eastern crypt of the cathedral, which had been Becket’s initial burial site, was walled off, thus bringing physical and symbolic closure to Canterbury’s ex-saint. Archbishop Cranmer had instigated the measures which led to the destruction of the shrine when he asked for an inspection of the supposedly miraculous properties of the “Canterbury water” carried away in phials by the pilgrims. He explained his action by writing that “I have in great suspect that St Thomas of Canterbury his blood, in Christ’s church in Canterbury, is but a feigned thing and made of some red ochre or of such like matter.”77 The archbishop made a more personal contribution to this symbolic annihilation of Becket’s memory by commissioning the recutting of the official seals used by the archdiocese and the prerogative court.78 Until this time, he had continued the tradition of most of his predecessors by using a seal with the image of Becket’s martyrdom. His first seal for the archdiocese had simply been recut from that of Warham, with his family coat of arms placed at the bottom and the legend altered to reflect his name.79 Probably in 1538, around the time of the destruction of Becket’s shrine at Canterbury, the central scene featuring the martyrdom was replaced by a depiction of the crucifixion.80 Statutes and proclamations were not the only weapons available to the Henrician regime. John Bale and other early Protestant clerical authors wrote propagandist plays in which they adapted established theatrical conventions to polemical purpose. As Thomas Betteridge has reminded us, literary culture during the Tudor era: permitted a far more diverse set of textual strategies to be used when writing history than are presently allowed; whereas now it is effectively impossible to write academic or ‘serious’ history in the form of a play or a poem, this was not the case during the sixteenth century.81 During the reign of Henry VIII, dramatic works were produced under official patronage, and were especially encouraged by Cromwell himself,82 who was instrumental in organizing state-sanctioned propaganda for the stage. The author John Bale and his troupe of professional acting “felowes,” were caught up in Cromwell’s public relations campaign which was designed to popularize the royal supremacy and to discredit papal authority in England. Bale himself had great animosity toward Catholicism, as is apparent in his

156  Becket and the Reformation various dramas.83 As Paul W. White has written, it would not have been out of character for Bale to have presented one of his plays, The Knaveries of Thomas Becket, no longer extant, during his tour to Canterbury, on the eve of the Translation of St Thomas (July 6, 1538) after the suppression of the Translation feast.84 Further, Bale’s work undoubtedly amplified Cromwell’s systematic attack on images and shrines devoted to saints.85 This speculation is substantiated by the report that at the time Becket’s shrine was destroyed, Bale and his actors were at Archbishop Cranmer’s house in Canterbury performing a drama titled Against the Treasons of Thomas a Becket.86 This was “art imitating life,” as Robert Scully has observed, since the destruction of the shrine and the performance of the drama coincided.87 Toward the end of 1538, there appeared an ex post facto account of a “trial” charging Becket to appear to answer charges of treason.88 When no attorney came forth within 30 days, judgment was passed against him, stipulating the destruction of his shrine and other memorials.89 The account of the fictitious trial was probably produced in late November, and was no doubt invented to provide a basis for Cromwell’s accusation of treason and the subsequent destruction of the shrine, although Peter Roberts has speculated that the “trial” was actually part of the drama by Bale that was being performed as the shrine was destroyed.90 Roberts also suggested that in order to discredit the martyr-saint, the scenes would have been given a “hostile gloss” consistent with the campaign against relics, and that if the murder in the cathedral had been dramatized, the actions would have displayed Becket in the worst possible light. The death scene would have emphasized the culpability of the archbishop, depicting the fatal blow by the knight William de Tracy as an act of self-defense.91 The destruction of the shrine held great significance for the evangelical wing within the Henrician church, and caused an intense reaction in England, which was perhaps even stronger on the continent. A month after the destruction of the shrine, Thomas Knight, an official in Brussels, wrote to Cromwell, reporting that everyone interested in news from England asks “what is become of the saint of Canterbury?”92 Charles V received a letter from Reginald Pole expressing outrage at the: ungodliness Henry has exhibited upon the tomb and body of St Thomas . . . he [Henry] took care so that nothing should be lacking from his hostility for manifesting his rage against the friend of God [and] dispersed the ashes into the wind . . . has anyone ever read of such an example of barbarity?93 Luther’s theological compatriot, Philip Melancthon, reacted quite differently, as might be expected. He wrote to a colleague with approval that, “the monument of Thomas of Canterbury [in England] has been destroyed.”94 Special reference was made to the destruction of the shrine and the callous treatment of Becket’s remains in the Bull of Excommunication against

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 157 Henry, the “Defender of the Faith,” issued on December 17, 1538.95 The king had despoiled the shrine where Becket’s remains had been kept “with utmost reverence,” and had declared him to be a traitor. He “commanded these bones to be exhumed and burned, and the ashes scattered to the wind; thus surpassing the ferocity of any heathen people, who, even when they have conquered their enemies in war, are not accustomed to outrage their dead bodies.”96 It was claimed, and widely believed, that the saint’s ashes had been mingled with earth and fired from a cannon.97 Although the destruction of the monument was documented, mystery has surrounded the true fate of Becket’s bones. Various scholars have been intrigued by this question, beginning in the nineteenth century with H.S. Milman,98 and continuing in the twentieth with the work of Arthur James Mason.99 More recently, John Butler and Thomas F. Mayer have explored various sorts of evidence.100 As Mayer has observed, it will probably never be known what happened to the body of the saint in November 1538. In the sixteenth century, however, the dominant view was that the bones had been burnt, and the spread of this legend was “certainly through Pole’s doing.”101 The king and Cromwell, determined to rid themselves of both Becket and the pope in the light of the newly proclaimed royal supremacy, promoted a revised view of English history.102 As John Bale wrote, the early and “pure” English Church had been corrupted by papal influence. Further, he identified two classes of martyrs: on the one hand were legitimate people who had died for Christ, and on the other were illegitimate ones who had died for the pope, such as Thomas Becket.103 This revisionist view of the past was lamented by Nicholas Harpsfield, archdeacon of Canterbury, who was saddened by the sacrilege: “[W]e have of late . . . unshrined him [Becket] and burned his holy bones, and not only unshrined and unsainted him, but have made him also (after so many hundred years) a traitor to the king that honoured him.”104 There was also an intense effort to promote the cult of monarchy based on biblical models. This was an attempt to strengthen Henry’s image and power, and further, to replace the cult of the saints.105 Scully noted that Henry did not order the destruction of the shrine of Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey, because it was a potent symbol of royal power. Although Henry had the precious stones and gold ornaments removed in order to harvest the potential wealth, he allowed the saintly king’s shrine to stand as a testament to royal authority. Becket’s actions, by contrast, were depicted as having been contrary to both human and divine law; in addition, they constituted a departure from both biblical and historical precedents.106 The destruction of the Becket cult and shrine was at the heart of Henry’s personal, political, and ideological design for the English Reformation. He had triumphed over the pope and asserted his authority as head of the Church of England, and he was determined to triumph over the archbishop who had defied and humbled a king of England.

158  Becket and the Reformation

The reigns of Edward VI (1547–1553) and Mary (1553–1558) The view of Becket as a traitor rather than a saint became an essential component of the historiography of the English Reformation, even after the death of Henry VIII.107 During the reign of Henry’s son, Edward VI, the Protestant cause was advanced by the king’s advisers, especially his uncle Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who was Lord Protector, and Archbishop Cranmer.108 As early as the first year after Edward’s accession, a royal visitation enforced renewed destruction of religious imagery, an official collection of sermons was mandated, and the final dissolution of chantries was enacted.109 The Royal Articles of Edward VI (1547), no. 44, called for strict enforcement of the earlier injunctions against Becket: “Item, whether they have put out of their church books this word papa, and the name and service of Thomas Becket.”110 This prohibition had been issued originally by Cranmer in February of 1543, stipulating that the names of the pope and St Thomas of Canterbury should be erased more carefully from the service books, that all Mass books and breviaries should be examined, and that saints’ names not found in scripture and other authentic doctors should be cut out.111 A primer and catechism were issued which replaced the notation of Becket’s feast day with the words “Becket traitor.”112 The sudden death of Edward in 1553 created the opportunity for a resurgence of Catholicism in England. Mary, who possessed the Tudor family traits of courage and stubbornness, forced the political leadership to accede to her two important goals: a marriage alliance with Catholic royalty and a return to the Catholic faith. In 1554 she achieved both of her objectives, marrying Philip of Spain and forging a reunion with Rome. Soon after her coronation, Mary issued a proclamation that made clear her desire for the restoration of Catholicism, permitting the practice of both religions until such time “as further order by common assent may be taken.”113 Cardinal Reginald Pole was sent by Pope Julius III to resolve the religious difficulties of England, arriving “to reconcile, not to condemn . . . not to compel, but to call again,” as he said in an address to Parliament,114 and England was formally reconciled with the Roman Church on November 30, 1554. Pole was not able to assume his role as Archbishop of Canterbury immediately, however, since Archbishop Cranmer was still alive and it was necessary to remove him from office. Cranmer was imprisoned by Mary for two years, and was tried for heresy and sentenced to burn at the stake.115 He died in the flames in Oxford in 1556, clearing the way for Pole to construct his vision for a revitalized Catholic Church. As Eamon Duffy has remarked, the religious priorities of Pole closely paralleled those of the Counter Reformation, and the Marian officials sought to promote a version of traditional Catholicism that absorbed some of the Henrician and Edwardian reforms they thought valid.116 As archbishop, Pole set about to repair the damage done by 20 years of schism,

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 159 moving quickly in an attempt to reverse the developing Protestant church infrastructure. He issued Articles for Canterbury that mandated the reequipping of sanctuaries with images for devotion and the distribution of vestments and eucharistic vessels for traditional liturgy, and the injunctions of various other English bishops instituted similar measures.117 Pole was dedicated to the resurgence of ceremonial religious activity, since he believed that ordinary Christians were assisted in comprehending their faith by simple visual and ritualistic means;118 his objective was to re-establish the order and beauty of Catholic worship and the regular participation of the people in the sacraments.119 However, his work was hampered by several problems, not the least being inadequate human resources. Even more dire was the monetary situation, since Henry’s depredations had left the Church in a serious financial situation. As Thomas Mayer has pointed out, Pole had only three and a half years left after he assumed the archbishopric, and he achieved only indifferent results; however, with more time and money he might well have restored the Catholic Church altogether.120 In some areas, the ritual and sacramental framework was re-established more quickly and thoroughly than in others, as shown by the records of the visitation of Archdeacon Nicholas Harpsfield in Kent in 1557.121 With regard to Becket, the effectiveness of Pole’s injunctions is shown by the account books of Canterbury Cathedral that contain entries demonstrating a thorough campaign to reinstate the Sarum service and the sacred music for Becket’s feast day. Also, rewards were given to George Frevell in 1555 for “writing of St Thomas Legends,” and to John Marden in the following year “for prickynge of St Thomas storrye.”122 Becket’s “pageant” at Canterbury was officially restored and performed on July 6, 1554, when two “chariots,” equipped with a new stage, accompanied the marching watch through the city streets.123 By royal command, Becket’s image was restored over the gate of Mercer’s chapel, although reformers grumbled that “Thomas à Becket is publicly set up as a saint,” and repeatedly assaulted the statue; these offenders were pursued and punished.124 Other images of the Canterbury martyr appeared, but were soon subjected to Protestant vandalism.125 Mary seems to have been content with these various revivals, and made no move reconstruct Becket’s shrine,126 perhaps because Pole and her other advisors realized that the process of religious change had gone too far for the Church and monuments of Mary’s childhood to be recreated. Also, there is not much evidence of spontaneous popular attempts to revive the cults of the saints.127 Mayer has observed that Pole is often characterized as a spiritual man uninterested in politics. However, there can be no question that he deployed the memory of Becket’s martyrdom as a weapon against the Protestants, building upon the demonization of Henry he had begun earlier. In addition to his polemical writings, he subjected the Protestant martyrs to the same treatment Henry had provided for the bones of Becket, ordering the bones of the reformers Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius to be exhumed and burned.128

160  Becket and the Reformation Pole’s personal identification with the Canterbury martyr and his devotion to Becket is indicated by the stipulation in his will that he be buried “in my church of Canterbury in that chapel in which the head of the most blessed Martyr Thomas, formerly Archbishop of the said church, was kept.”129 As Mayer has remarked, this literal replacement symbolized Pole’s complete identification with Becket and his martyrdom, since he believed that Becket’s head had been interred in the corona of Canterbury Cathedral.130 Pole died the same day as Queen Mary (November 17, 1558), ushering in the reign of Henry VIII’s last surviving child, Elizabeth. With the deaths of Mary and Pole, a phase of the English Reformation had come to an end; the Catholic Reform movement had become the Counter Reformation, and Pole had played a central role in the transition.131

The Elizabethan settlement When Elizabeth I acceded to the throne in 1558, the path was open for a religious solution that would accommodate the changes that had taken place during the reigns of her father and half-brother. In order to regularize protestant religious practice, Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer was made official in 1559 and the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity revived the second Act of Uniformity of Edward VI.132 The liturgy, creed and government of the Church were returned to the Edwardian practice. Matthew Parker, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1559, moved quickly to stifle the restoration of the cult of Becket that had begun during the tenure of Reginald Pole, decreeing in his injunctions for Canterbury in 1560: that all relics of monuments of idolatry be destroyed, as certain imagery in certain places of the church there, and that certain verses, both wicked and slanderous, painted where Thomas Beckitt, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, was wont to be honoured, be defaced and put out.133 Hatred for the Canterbury martyr burgeoned in the intense polemical atmosphere of the later sixteenth century. The most vituperative expression is found in the work of John Foxe.134 As Diarmaid MacCulloch has observed, Foxe’s book, initially titled Acts and Monuments but quickly nicknamed Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, “became one of the cornerstones of English Protestant identity, a potent reminder of the militant character of the English Reformation.”135 Within ten years of its publication, it was chained by order of the government to the pulpit of every cathedral and collegiate church in England,136 and, as Anne Dillon has observed, it took on the aura of a sacred text, equivalent to the Acts of the Apostles.137 Moreover, according to Rosemary O’Day, “for at least 120 years it was Foxe’s conception of the history of the Reformation which was shared by most Englishmen who thought about such matters, high and low, literate and illiterate.”138

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 161 Foxe claimed in the 1570 edition139 of Acts and Monuments that Becket “did not (as some affirm) dye a Martyr, but a stubborn man against his King.” As Foxe wrote: But as touching Thomas Becket, what so euer is to be thought of them, that did the acte: the example therof yet bringeth this profit with it, to teache all Romish prelates not to be so stuborne, in such matters not perteyning to them, against their prince, vnto whom God hath them subiected.140 Foxe devoted much of his account to the theme of the antagonism between popes and princes, between spiritual and temporal authority, and this dominated his treatment of Becket. Becket, he wrote, merited the title of martyr “no more than any other whom the princes sword doth here temporally punish for their temporal desertes.” Whereas it would be a glorious death to die for the faith, the martyrdom of Becket had been a death for “possessions, liberties, exemptions, privileges, dignities, patrimonies and superiorities,” rather than a death in defense of true faith and doctrine. For Foxe, Becket was “a new saint made of an old rebel,” a traitor to his king who was canonized for his false miracles, and the focus of a lucrative cult designed to be a “light sport so impudently to deceave the simple soules of Christes church with trifling lyes and dreaming fables.”141 Foxe characterized the 200 miracles attributed to Becket as ridiculous, monstrous, blasphemous, and some so shameful that the honest writer should not describe them.142 The “Canterbury water” that claimed to cure a wide variety of diseases enriched the wealth of the monastery, but the miracles, by their sheer number alone, called into question their truth. The accounts of the miracles were but “trifling lyes,” and were weak ground upon which to build the reputation of a saint. The writings concerning Becket by Elizabeth’s archbishop, Matthew Parker, were a good deal less vituperative and strident than those of John Bale and John Foxe. Parker’s Life of Becket is part of a large work, De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae (1572), which provided biographies of the archbishops of Canterbury, beginning with Augustine. Helen Parish has observed that the tenor of his history was governed by his goal of establishing a historical continuity that linked the various occupants of the see of Canterbury,143 but his style may also have been influenced by his innate scholarly disposition and the desire to be both thorough and objective. This quality is evident in his extensive use of medieval sources, including the Lives of Becket by William of Canterbury and Herbert of Bosham, as well as the chronicles of Ralph de Diceto and Matthew Paris. For example, he echoed the works of the medieval writers by observing without prejudice that when consecrated, Becket became devoted to God “beyond human estimation,” and turned into another man, wearing a hairshirt under his clerical robes.144

162  Becket and the Reformation In discussing the issues surrounding the quarrel between Becket and Henry, Parker emphasized the intervention of the pope at every turn. He also wrote in detail concerning the dispute over the issue of criminous clerks, claiming that numerous clergymen were guilty of “theft, rape, murder and other crimes against the laity,”145 and should have been tried in secular courts. Parker described the Council of Clarendon, although he did not provide extensive details concerning the various provisions under contention; instead, he pointed to the interference of the papal legates. He also highlighted the issues surrounding the excommunications of various ecclesiastical prelates and the archbishop’s enemies among the laity. Becket’s exile was characterized by Parker as a voluntary abandonment of his see, rather than an action resulting from fear of the king’s reprisal. Again pointing to papal influence, Parker’s discussion of the continuing estrangement of the archbishop and the king is characterized as a struggle between the king and the papacy. Thomas’s frequent repetition of the words “salvo honore Dei” during his meetings with Henry was interpreted by Parker as allegiance to the pope, rather than God Himself.146 Moreover, his intransigence was “arrogant” and an impediment to a peaceful solution to the conflict. Indeed, Becket’s fame derived from his insistence upon the authority of the Church against that of the king and common law.147 The murder in the cathedral was mentioned only briefly in Parker’s work; instead, he focused on the papal canonization of a man who died “for the privileges of the church in Canterbury.” In closing, Parker expressed relief that the passage of time had enabled the truth concerning the martyrdom and the development of the cult to become known, exposing the errors which led to the justifiable destruction of Becket’s shrine. One of the more extensive late sixteenth-century Lives of Becket was written by Bishop Francis Godwin (1562–1633); it was included in his Catalogue of the Bishops of England, published in 1601. Godwin provided various details of Becket’s early life, including the erroneous information about Thomas’s “Syrian” mother, as did Parker and others. In his time at court, Thomas adopted the decadent habits of the king and his courtiers, leading some to say that he had forgotten that he was an archdeacon as well as chancellor. However, when he was consecrated as archbishop, he “altered the whole course of his life; became so graue, so austere, and so deuout in all outward shewe,”148 he virtually turned into another man, declaring to defend and uphold the rights of the Church. Once again, Godwin’s view of the quarrel between king and archbishop began with the issue of criminous clerks, and their trials in secular rather than ecclesiastical courts for offenses against the laity. In his discussion of the provisions of the Constitution of Clarendon, he claimed that the king was in the right, basing his arguments both on historical precedent from the reign of “King Henry the first, his grandfather,” as well as the urgent need to control the abuses rampant in the clergy.

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 163 Godwin also pointed out that as soon as Thomas became archbishop, he began claiming land he deemed to be the property of the see of Canterbury, thereby alienating the lay nobility. Further difficulties were generated by his use of excommunication, which was mandated freely against all those who opposed him. Godwin characterized the archbishop’s actions as both unreasonable and treasonable for a servant of the king. Regarding Thomas’s use of the phrase “saving the honor of God,” Godwin puts words in the mouth of the king, who turns to Louis VII, saying, “See you not how he goeth about to delude me with this clause (sauing the honor of God?). For whatsoeuer shall displease him, he will by and by alleage to be preiudiciall to the honor of Almighty God.”149 Henry expressed regret that he had made Thomas archbishop, and sought to hold him up as an example to others who might be tempted to disobey the king, thereby destroying the peace of the realm. According to Godwin, the king’s outburst in Normandy was justifiable; it was occasioned by the recent excommunications issued by Becket against the English bishops who had presided over the coronation of Young King Henry,150 and the knights reacted as faithful servants of the king. The martyrdom itself and the burial in the crypt were recounted without much detail, and Godwin erred in describing the translation as occurring “shortly” thereafter.151 His account of Becket’s life closed with the penance of the king, and his work offered no comment on the canonization of the martyr, reports of his miracles or the development of the cult. The writings of Parker and Godwin exemplified the new religious atmosphere of Elizabethan England, in which doctrine concerning the image and character of Thomas Becket continued to be altered. During the previous centuries, the Canterbury martyr had been revered as a model – “a miracle of holiness, pattern of justice, incentive to patience, model of virtue, and invincible defender of truth,” in the words of his biographer Edward Grim.152 As a result of his murder, he had become a moral and ethical paragon. In the era following the English Reformation, however, he came to be viewed as an exemplum of popery to be despised and condemned. As Phyllis Roberts has pointed out, countless sermons of the Elizabethan era excoriated him for his resistance to royal power, thus contributing to the destruction of Becket’s image. The Canterbury martyr was denounced again and again for “popery,” and omissions and distortions appeared in the historical record. For example, John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, included the remarkable facts the Thomas Becket’s father was a Jew and a beerbrewer of London, and wrote that “the very true cause of Thomas Becket’s death was his ambition, and vanity, and willful maintenance of manifest wickedness in the clergy, to the great dishonor of God’s holy name.”153 For the reformers, Becket was no longer viewed within the historical context of the twelfth century. Now a traitorous symbol of papal power and greed, his cult must be eradicated and his image perverted to serve the causes of reform. In 1585,

164  Becket and the Reformation Raphael Holinshed celebrated the end of Becket’s cult in his Chronicles, gloating: Notwithstanding all which honour of the pope then exhibited to his saint, what remembrance is there now of Thomas Becket? Where be the shrines that were erected in this church and that chappell for perpetuities of his name and fame? Are they not all defaced? Are they not all ruinated? Are they not all conuerted [sic] to powder and dust?154

Notes 1 P.B. Roberts, “Thomas Becket: The Construction and Deconstruction of a Saint from the Middle Ages to the Reformation,” in B.M. Kienzle, ed., Models of Holiness in Medieval Sermons (Louvain-La-Neuve, 1996), 1–22, at 2. 2 P.B. Roberts, “The Unmaking of a Saint: the Suppression of the Cult of St Thomas of Canterbury,” Hagiographica VII (2000), 35–46. 3 R.E. Scully, “The Unmaking of a Saint: Thomas Becket and the English Reformation,” Catholic Historical Review 86 (2000): 579–602, at 585. 4 J.F. Davis, “Lollards, Reformers and St Thomas of Canterbury,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal 9 (1963): 1–15, at 15. See also C. Cross, “Popular Piety and the Records of the Unestablished Churches, 1460–660,” in The Materials Sources and Methods of Ecclesiastical History (New York, 1975), 269–92. 5 Davis, “Lollards,” 2. 6 Davis, “Lollards,” 2. 7 Davis, “Lollards,” 2. 8 Davis, “Lollards,” 5. 9 R.B. Dobson, “Contrasting Cults: St Cuthbert of Durham and St Thomas of Canterbury in the Fifteenth Century,” in S. Ditchfield, ed., Christiantiy and Community in the West: Essays for John Bossy (Aldershot, UK, 2001), 24–43, at 39–40. 10 B. Griffin, “The Birth of the History Play: Saint, Sacrifice and Reformation,” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 39, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 217–37, at 222–3. It is interesting to note that at least some of the plays included the “romance” of Becket’s parents. (See above, Chapter 2.) 11 C. Davidson, “The Middle English Saint Play and Its Iconography,” in C. Davidson, ed., The Saint Play in Medieval Europe (Kalamazoo, MI, 1986), 31–121, at 53. 12 Davidson, “Saint Play,” 54. 13 Davidson, “Saint Play,” 54. 14 The production was revived in 1554–1555 during the reign of Queen Mary. 15 Davidson, “Saint Play,” 55, and C. Davidson, “Saints in Plays: English Theater and Saints’ Lives,” in S. Sticca, ed., Saints: Studies in Hagiography (Binghamton, NY, 1996), 145–60, at 151. 16 Davidson, “Saint Play,” 56. Davidson makes interesting connections between the plays and the iconography associated with Becket (56–60). 17 J.B. Sheppard, “The Canterbury Marching Watch with its Pageant of St. Thomas,” Archaeologia Cantiana 12 (1878): 27–46; V. Houliston, “Brevis Dialogismus,” English Literary Renaissance 23 (1993): 382–427, at 386. 18 Roberts, “Construction,” quoting J.F. Davis, “Lollards, Reformers and St Thomas of Canterbury,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal 9 (1963): 4.

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 165 19 H.L. Parish, Monks, Miracles and Magic: Reformation Representations of the Medieval Church (London, 2005), 95. 20 Roberts, “Politics,” 201. 21 Davis, “Lollards,” 9. 22 Roberts, “Construction,” 12. 23 D. Erasmus, Peregrinatio religionis ergo (London, 1631). English translation in J.G. Nichols, Desiderius Erasmus, Pilgrimages to Saint Mary of Walsingham and Saint Thomas of Canterbury (Westminster, 1849), xx. See also A. Mason, What Became of the Bones of Saint Thomas? (Cambridge, 1920), 88–9. For an interesting discussion of Erasmus’s reactions to the relics in the crypt, see D. Knapp, “The Relic of a Seint: A Gloss on Chaucer’s Pilgrimage,” ELH 39, no. 1 (March 1972): 1–26. 24 Erasmus, Pilgrimages, 47, 57–8. 25 Erasmus, Pilgrimages, 53. It is likely that Erasmus wrote the work some years after his visit, perhaps in 1524. 26 S. Brigden, London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989), 292. 27 Foxe described Bainham as a gentleman and lawyer who was arrested by Sir Thomas More on suspicion of heretical views (Davis, “Lollards,” 10). 28 Quoted in Davis, “Lollards,” 9. 29 Quoted in Roberts, “Politics,” 202. 30 T. Russell, ed., The Works of the English and Scottish Reformers, 3 vols. (London, 1828), ii, 438. 31 Quoted in Davis, “Lollards,” 10. 32 P. Roberts, “The Politics of Sainthood: Thomas Becket and the Tudors,” unpublished paper, Kalamazoo, 1993, 4, quoting R. Pineas, “William Tyndale’s Use of History as a Weapon of Religious Controversy,” Harvard Theological Review 55 (1962): 121–41, at 136. I am grateful to Dr Roberts for sharing this paper with me. 33 I am grateful to James P. Carley for calling my attention to Leland’s work. 34 J. Leland, De viris illustribus (On Famous Men), ed. and trans. J. Carley (Toronto and Oxford, 2010), 351. 35 Leland, “De viris,” 351. 36 Leland, De illustribus viris: John of Salisbury (351–4), William FitzStephen (354– 560), Benedict of Peterborough (368–9), Herbert of Bosham (368–71), Alan of Tewkesbury (370–1), and Edward Grim (370–1). It is interesting to note that the entries for these men were altered in editions after the first to minimize the influence of Becket. The deleted sections are printed in Carney’s edition, 372–5. 37 Dobson, “Contrasting Cults,” 41. 38 Dobson, “Contrasting Cults,” 42. For a different view, see A. Walsham, “Miracles and the Counter-Reformation Mission to England,” The Historical Journal 46, no. 4 (2003): 779–815, at 784. 39 Ben Nilson has shown, through an analysis of the records of Canterbury Cathedral documenting offerings at the four stations connected with the cult, that the revenues collected in 1220 at the time of Becket’s translation were never equaled in the ensuing 250 years, although there was some upward fluctuation during the jubilee years. B. Nilson, Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England (Woodbridge, 1998), 211–15. 40 D.R. Woolf, “The Power of the Past: History, Ritual and Political Authority in Tudor England,” in P.A. Fideler and T.F. Mayer, eds., Political Thought and the Tudor Commonwealth (London, 1992), 19–49, at 43, ft. 25. 41 P. Roberts, “Politics, Drama and the cult of Thomas Becket in the Sixteenth Century,” in C. Morris and P. Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan (Cambridge, 2002), 199–237, at 203.

166  Becket and the Reformation 42 Parish, Monks, 99. 43 J. Moyes, “Warham, an English Primate on the Eve of the Reformation,” Dublin Review 114 (1894): 390–420, at 406, 410–12. 44 For a succinct discussion of More’s attitudes, see B.S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 256–7. 45 Roberts, “Politics,” 206. 46 Roberts, “Politics,” 206. 47 Roberts, “Politics,” 207. See also G. Marc’Hadour, “La Confrontation Becket– Henri II comme paradigm historique,” Cahiers de civilization médiévale 37, no. 145–146 (Janvier–juin, 1994): 100–10, esp. 103–5. 48 Roberts, “Politics,” 207. 49 Quoted in Roberts, “Politics,” 207. 50 This topic is discussed in Chapter 7. 51 D. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (London, 1996), 32–3. Some historians have called Cranmer “the virtual founder of the Church of England.” See H. Davies, Worship and Theology in England: From Cranmer to Hooker, 1534– 1603 (Princeton, 1970), I, xv, and Robert E. Scully, S.J. 52 P.L. Hughes and J.F. Larkin, eds., Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3 vols. (New Haven, CT, 1964–9), i, 270–6. 53 Roberts, “Politics,” 200. Scully has suggested that Henry may also have delayed the action against Becket’s cult because of the outbreak of the “Pilgrimage of Grace,” which took place in northern England in late 1536, during which the rebellious citizens expressed rage at the policies of evangelical leadership and made known their hatred of religious change (Scully, “Unmaking,” 592). 54 Parish, Monks, 98. 55 Davis, “Lollards,” 13. Quoted in Roberts, “Construction,” 13. 56 Mason, Bones of St Thomas, 124. 57 Roberts, “Politics,” 201. 58 Parish, Monks, 92. 59 C. Levin, Propaganda in the English Reformation: Heroic and Villainous Images of King John (Lewiston, NY, 1988), 72. Quoted in Roberts, “Construction and Deconstruction,” 13. 60 Davis, “Lollards,” 14. 61 G.R. Elton, Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell (Cambridge, 1972). Elton observed that Cromwell’s revision of the Becket story makes an interesting example of his use and abuse of history (257, ft. 1). 62 Elton, Policy, 197. 63 Parish, Monks, 104–5. 64 See also the discussion by M. Aston in Broken Idols of the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2016), esp. Chapter 4, “Saints Popular and unpopular: St Thomas of Canterbury and St George,” 316–401. 65 Aston, Idols, 401. 66 Parish, Monks, 98. 67 Society of Antiquaries, proclamation no. 96. Quoted in Roberts, “Politics,” 226. 68 Roberts, “Politics,” 231. Bale wrote that King Henry had perceived “the sinful shrine of this Becket to be unto his people a most pernicious evil, and therefore in the words of the Lord he utterly . . . destroyed it.” Quoted in Mason, Bones, 163. 69 A. Dillon, The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535–1603 (Aldershot, 2002), 33. 70 “Prohibiting Unlicensed Printing of Scripture, Exiling Anabaptists, Depriving Married Clergy, Removing St Thomas a Becket from Calendar,” in Tudor Royal Proclamations, i, 270–6. Quoted in Scully “Unmaking,” 595.

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 167 71 For a discussion of the desecration of liturgical books, see Andrew Hughes, “Defacing Becket: Damaged Books for the Office,” in Alexander Andrée and Erika Kihlman, eds., Hortus Troporum: Florilegium in Honorem Gunillae Iversen (Stockholm, 2008), 162–75. 72 Parish, Monks, 97–8. 73 Parish, Monks, 98. 74 A. de Mézerac-Zanetti, “Liturgical Changes to the Cult of Saints Under Henry VIII,” in P. Clarke and T. Claydon, eds., Saints and Sanctity (Woodbridge, 2011), 181–91, at 183. 75 See the discussion of Henrician iconoclasm in P. Roberts, “Politics, Drama and the Cult of Thomas Becket,” in D. Wood, ed., Life and Thought in the Northern Church: c. 1100–c. 1700 (Woodbridge, 1999), 199–237. 76 Scully, “Unmaking,” 597–8. For information about the destruction of images in London, see S. Brigden, London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989), 291–2. 77 Quoted in Roberts, “Politics,” 215. 78 MacCulloch, Cranmer, 228. 79 J. Cherry, “Seals and Heraldry, 1400–600: Public Policy and Private Post,” in D. Gaimster and P. Stamper, eds., The Age of Transition: The Archaeology of English Culture, 1400–600 (Oxford, 1997), 256. 80 Slocum, “Sealed,” 77. 81 T. Betteridge, Tudor Histories of the English Reformations, 1530–83 (Aldershot, 1999), 5. 82 P. Collinson, “From Iconoclasm to Iconophobia: The Cultural Impact of the Second English Reformation,” in P. Marshall, ed., The Impact of the English Reformation: 1500–1640 (London, 1997), 278–308, at 284. See also P. Happé, “The Protestant Adaptation of the Saint Play,” in C. Davidson, ed., The Saint Play in Medieval Europe (Kalamazoo, MI, 1986), 205–40, and L. P Fairfield, John Bale: Mythmaker for the English Reformation (West Lafayette, IN, 1976), 48. 83 See the discussion in P.W. White, Theatre and Reformation: Protestantism, Patronage, and Playing in Tudor England (Cambridge, 1993), Chapter 1. 84 White observes that the Becket play may have been written to counter the Catholic plays about Saint Thomas. (Theatre, 197, ft. 60). 85 White, Theatre, 28. 86 The titles also appear as De Traditione Thomae Becketi and De Thomae Becketi Imposturis. The subject matter of the play can be partially traced in some of the lines of Bale’s subsequent drama, King Johan, in which a reference to Becket asserts that Becket “dyed for the churches wanton lyberte.” Griffin, “History Play,” 227. See also the discussions in Roberts, “Politics,” 221–3 and V. Houliston, “St Thomas Becket in the Propaganda of the English Counter-­ Reformation,” Renaissance Studies 7, no. 1 (March 1, 1993): 43–70, at 44. 87 Scully, “Unmaking,” 594. 88 R.C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England, 2nd ed. (New York, 1995), 211–12. See the remarks concerning the trial in T.F. Mayer, “Becket’s Bones Burnt! Cardinal Pole and the Invention and Dissemination of an Atrocity,” in T.F. Freeman and R.F. Mayer, eds., Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, c. 1400–700 (Woodbridge, 2007), 126–43, at 137. D.R. Woolf has marshalled the evidence and provided citations for the arguments in a footnote in “Power of the Past,” 42, ft. 24. See also the remarks of A.J. Mason, What Became of the Bones of St Thomas? (Cambridge, 1920), 164–70. 89 The so-called judgment was “passed” on 19 August and the shrine was destroyed on 8 September. 90 Roberts, “Politics,” 215–16. 91 Roberts, “Politics,” 225–6. 92 Scully, “Unmaking,” 594.

168  Becket and the Reformation 93 Scully, “Unmaking,” 594, and Mayer, “Becket’s Bones Burnt!” Mayer discusses Pole’s letter to Charles, as well as his expanded “Apology” to Charles V, which elaborates on Henry’s monstrous nature (132). 94 Scully, “Unmaking,” 594. 95 The relevant portion of the Bull is published in Mason, Bones, 132–3. 96 Mason, Bones, 133. 97 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 48. 98 H.S. Milman, “The Vanished Memorials of St Thomas of Canterbury,” Archaeologia, 2nd series 53 (1892): 211–28. 99 Mason, Bones of St Thomas? (Cambridge, 1920). 100 J. Butler, The Quest for Becket’s Bones: The Mystery of the Relics of St Thomas Becket of Canterbury (New Haven, CT, 1995); T.F. Mayer, “Becket’s Bones,” 126–7. 101 Mayer, “Becket’s Bones,” 140. 102 Mayer has remarked that Pole’s writings and those of his friends were a deliberate attempt to thwart Henry’s attempt to make Becket’s martyrdom disappear, resulting in political martyrology. “Becket’s Bones,” 141. 103 Scully, “Unmaking,” 596. For a discussion and analysis of Bale’s Image of both Churches, see L.P. Fairfield, John Bale, esp. Chapter 5. 104 Quoted in Mayer, “Becket’s Bones,” 140. 105 Scully, “Unmaking,” 596. 106 Scully, “Unmaking,” 596. 107 Scully, “Unmaking,” 599. 108 D. MacCulloch, The Reformation: A History (London, 2003), 255. 109 MacCulloch, Reformation, 255. 110 Roberts, “Construction,” 16. 111 Roberts, “Construction,” 16–17. 112 D. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (London, 1996), 535. 113 Duffy, “Mary,” reprinted from E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–800 (New Haven, CT, 1992), in P. Marshall, ed., The Impact of the English Reformation: 1500–640 (London, 1997), 192– 229, at 195. 114 MacCulloch, Reformation, 282. 115 It is interesting to note that Cardinal Pole would have been lenient in his treatment of Cranmer, but the queen demanded death. T F. Mayer, A Reluctant Author: Cardinal Pole and His Manuscripts (Philadelphia, 1999), 9. 116 Duffy, “Mary,” 193. For a discussion of the program of reconstruction see 208–15. 117 Roberts, “Construction,” 19. See Pole’s remarks concerning the edicts of Henry VIII in a letter to Emperor Charles V in 1539, published in Mason, Bones, 134–5. 118 D. Loades, Politics, Censorship and the English Reformation (London, 1991), 204. 119 Duffy, “Mary,” 197. For a discussion of Pole’s views concerning ritual, see 198–9. 120 Mayer, Reluctant Author, 8. 121 Duffy, “Mary,” 194. 122 Roberts, “Politics,” 234. 123 Roberts, “Politics,” 234. See also J.B. Sheppard, “The Canterbury Marching Watch with Its Pageant of St. Thomas,” Archaeologia Cantiana 12 (1878): 27–46. 124 Woolf, “Power of the Past,” 24. See also the remarks of V. Houlistan in “CounterReformation Propaganda,” 47. 125 Loades, Politics, 205, and Houliston, “Counter-Reformation Propaganda,” 47. 126 Scully, “Unmaking,” 599. MacCulloch has pointed out that there was little attempt generally to recreate the destroyed monuments (Reformation, 284).

Henry VIII and the specter of Thomas Becket 169 127 Loades, Politics, 206. 128 Mayer, “Becket’s Bones,” 143. 129 Scully, “Unmaking,” 599. 130 Mayer, “Becket’s Bones,” 143. 131 Mayer, Reluctant Author, 11. 132 P. Hughes, The Reformation in England, 3 vols. (New York, 1951–4), iii, 32. 133 Roberts, “Construction,” 19. 134 John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days, Touching Matters of the Church (London, 1563). Foxe’s work appeared in several editions, all of which are available online through TAMO (HRI Online Publications, Sheffield, 2011). www.johnfoxe.org 135 MacCulloch, Reformation, 285. 136 See the comments of D.R. Woolf, “The Rhetoric of Martyrdom: Generic Contradiction and Narrative Strategy in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments,” in T.F. Mayer and D.R. Woolf, eds., The Rhetorics of Life-Writing in Early Modern Europe: Forms of Biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV (Ann Arbor, MI, 1995), 243–82, at 250–2. 137 A. Dillon, The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535–1603 (Aldershot, 2002), 6. 138 R. O’Day, The Debate on the English Reformation (London: Methuen, 1986), 16. 139 It was this edition of Foxe’s work, which enlarged upon earlier printings, that was placed in all cathedrals by order of the bishops and purchased by most parishes (O’Day, Debate, 24). 140 Foxe, Book of Martyrs. www.johnfoxe.org 141 Foxe, Martyrs, Book 4 (1570 ed.), 305. 142 Foxe, Martyrs, Book 4 (1570 ed.), 304. Foxe was probably referring to the miracle in which Becket restored genitalia to the unjustly castrated man, Eilward. Benedict, Mats. ii, 173–82, William, Mats. i, 156–8. 143 Parish, Monks, 102. 144 Matthew Parker, De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae (London, 1572), 199. 145 Parker, De Antiquitate, 199. 146 Parker, De Antiquitate, 206. 147 Parker, De Antiquitate, 209. 148 Francis Godwin, Catalogue of the Bishops of England (London, 1601), 43. 149 Godwin, Catalogue, 48. 150 Godwin, Catalogue, 50. 151 Godwin, Catalogue, 50. 152 A. Duggan, Thomas Becket (London, 2004), 229. 153 Roberts, “Construction,” 20. 154 R. Holinshed, The Third Volume of Chronicles, Beginning at Duke William the Norman (London, 1586), quoted in R. Koopmans, “Early Sixteenth-Century Stained Glass at St. Michael-le-Belfrey and the Commemoration of Thomas Becket in Late Medieval York,” Speculum 89/4 (October 2014): 1040–100, at 1099.

7 Becket as a symbol for the Catholic opposition

Although it the rising tide of religious enthusiasm known as the Catholic Counter Reformation can be traced to ideas of reform preceding the Protestant Reformation, it was primarily formulated in the 1530s and 1540s by idealistic young clerics in Rome. These men had won control of the administrative apparatus of the Roman Catholic Church during the pontificate of Pope Paul III, and they espoused a program of belief and action for the entire Roman Catholic Church. Most of their ideas were enacted during the long and arduous sessions of the ecumenical Council of Trent, which concluded 18 years of periodic deliberations in 1563.1 During this time, new orders of dedicated and determined religious men were created, the most famous of which was the Society of Jesus. The militant new reform movement spread throughout Europe during the 1560s and 1570s, penetrating even Protestant England, which proved to be a fertile ground for reformist ideals. The hostility between Protestants and Catholics that followed Henry VIII’s break with Rome, the more radical Protestant reign of Edward VI, and the accession of Queen Elizabeth I, had been intensified by the Papal Bull of 1570 which excommunicated the queen. Further antagonism developed when the English government promulgated drastic legislation against Catholic practice and recusancy in the 1571 Parliament, requiring the conservative clergy remaining in the Church to subscribe to the Church’s Protestant Thirty-Nine Articles.2 Intense sectarian conflict continued during the following century as England forged a Protestant identity, while a Catholic subculture survived in the religiously divided country and in the communities of exiled Catholics on the continent. Scholars generally agree that, after 1559, there emerged in England a “separated, sacramental ‘Catholic community,’ ” supported largely by members of the gentry and reliant on the services of household and traveling priests;3 their work was enhanced by priests who returned to their native country after training in Italy and other European countries. For Victor Houliston, “St Thomas’s special significance for the CounterReformation in England derived from his ‘decanonization’ by Henry VIII in 1538 and the subsequent spoliation of the shrine at Canterbury.”4

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 171 Moreover, although Henry VIII had discredited Becket by calling him the pope’s champion, by the 1580s this was the martyr’s chief significance for the Catholics; whereas in his own day Becket was involved in the political struggle between the papacy and the empire, now he emerged as a symbol of papal supremacy in a much wider context.5 In various areas of England, devotion to St Thomas continued surreptitiously, despite the coercive measures of the monarchy. For example, the name of Becket was scored through only lightly in the service books, or hidden by placing lightly glued strips of paper over the entries,6 and some images of the Canterbury martyr were altered to represent acceptable saints, rather than being destroyed completely. These infringements on the injunctions of the government offer evidence that the official assault on the cult had difficulty in overcoming the authority of ecclesiastical tradition. As Friar Arthur of Canterbury had argued in a sermon of 1535, “even if Becket were a devil in hell, he was still a canonized saint of the church and therefore deserved the veneration of the faithful.”7 Devotion to the Canterbury martyr was also encouraged and stimulated through the circulation of various publications and biographies, and polemical debate concerning his life and martyrdom became a feature of religious and political discourse during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The following discussion highlights some of the most important biographies and tracts.

Counter-Reformation biography and discourse One of the most influential works was Tres Thomae (1588)8 by Thomas Stapleton (1535–1598), who stressed Becket’s importance by linking the Apostle Thomas, Thomas Becket, and Thomas More, thereby reinforcing the popular appeal of the medieval saint with the heroic status of the Henrician martyr and joining both with the life of the early Christian saint. Although Stapleton’s decision to write the work in Latin may have limited its potential audience among English Catholics, the choice, as Katy Gibbons has pointed out, “gave it a specific advantage in an international market of learned scholars, for whom Latin was the common language.”9 The work, which was ostensibly a devotional exercise, became a significant polemical text; it was clearly intended to address Foxe’s account of Becket’s life as depicted in his Actes and Monuments, especially regarding the charges leveled against the martyr as a false traitor, but it also confronted the contentious issue current among Catholics regarding the making of saints.10 The tension was particularly intense with regard to Thomas More, and Stapleton’s linking of the sixteenth-century martyr with the earlier saints indicates his recognition of the importance of the cult that had grown up around More’s memory and the quest to obtain official canonization.11 Stapleton’s biography of the Apostle Thomas was drawn from a sermon he preached at Douai in 1586. In it, he spoke to the situation of English

172  Becket and the Reformation Catholics by emphasizing the missionary endeavors of the saint, noting that, just as in the era of the apostles, the Church was once again involved in a world-wide missionary effort. He reminded his listeners that missionary success was a sign of the true Church as much as martyrdom.12 By linking the Apostle Thomas and Becket, Stapleton emphasized the continuity of the religious experience, which extended from the early Church to his own era. His account of Becket’s life and his view of Christian history were buttressed with extended transcripts of manuscript sources drawn from papal and monastic archives. In his arguments, he stressed not only the institutional structure of the Church, but also the practice and behavior of early Christians, exemplified by their missionary endeavors. Stapleton’s words, originally part of a sermon, were intended to provide a call to those in training for the English mission, but they also offered a historical and spiritual precedent for the exiled English community.13 The choice of Thomas Becket as a companion subject highlighted another theme directed to the recusant Catholics – that of exile. This topic was emphasized in Stapleton’s biography of the Canterbury martyr by the inclusion of transcripts of letters written by Becket while he was in exile.14 Many of the sixteenth-century recusants found comfort and support in northern France, just as Becket had done four centuries earlier, and his cult continued to thrive in that area, establishing a devotional nucleus for English Catholics abroad.15 Stapleton had been away from England for several years by 1588, as had many of his readers; since they were themselves religious exiles, reading about Becket’s experience led them to derive comfort by seeing parallels with their own situations. Becket, as we have seen, was a highly controversial figure in the early English Reformation, and Stapleton’s description of his martyrdom reflects, to a degree, the success of the reformers in blackening his reputation. As William Sheils has pointed out, the Catholics themselves were conflicted about the proper interpretation of Becket’s life and death,16 and the charge made by John Bale that Becket had died for “manifest treason” complicated the Catholic perception of his martyrdom; in order to counter the claim that Thomas had died for the papacy, Stapleton declared that he was a martyr, not only for the Church, but for faith itself.17 Further, the validity of the saint’s importance as a martyr was established through his miracles; by providing documentation of the wondrous events attributed to Becket, Stapleton was presenting a direct challenge to Protestant historiography, especially to the vituperative writings of John Bale. His response was also a deliberate refutation of Foxe’s claim that the miracles were but “trifling lyes.” In recounting Becket’s life, Stapleton focused on the wonders associated with shrines, especially those linked to the places of his exile. For example, the saint had resided briefly at the Premonstratensian monastery at Hesdin, approximately 60 kilometers from Douai, where a cult had developed. In his biography, Stapleton listed 67 miracle accounts

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 173 recorded in the monastic archives there, and quoted verses left by pilgrims at the shrine.18 In addressing the claims that Becket was an icon of ecclesiastical resistance to the monarchy, and in order to counter the charges of treason, Stapleton asserted that the sixteenth-century Catholics, like Becket and his associates in the 1160s, fostered the best interests of Crown and country in the 1580s. This point was strengthened by his inclusion in Tres Thomae of correspondence between Henry II and Pope Alexander III after Becket’s death, in which the king finally accepted some responsibility for the murder and acknowledged papal authority.19 In Stapleton’s work, resistance to the regime of Queen Elizabeth I was implied rather than advocated; his words were “couched in the language of loyalty to a monarch who had been led astray by evil counsellors.”20 In the account of Becket’s life, Gilbert Foliot and his colleagues had misled Henry II, and similarly, Wolsey was the source of malicious advice that had set Henry VIII on his “fateful path.” The lives of Becket and More were examples of the kind of true loyalty offered to Elizabeth, which she rejected on the advice of bad counsel.21 Stapleton’s work suggested that loyalty, rather than opposition, was the best strategy for convincing Elizabeth to abandon false counsel and return the country to Catholicism. In advocating patient but determined political loyalism to his fellow Catholics, Stapleton’s work reflected the resurgence of Catholicism in years after 1585; however, as Shiels has remarked, “in the febrile political circumstances of the years between 1586 and 1592 his message fell victim to the more aggressive clericalism of his Church.”22 Victor Houliston has called attention to an anonymous metrical narrative that was appended by Stapleton to his account of Becket’s life. Titled De martyrio S. Thomae Cantuar, Archiepiscopi Carmen rythmicum, historicum, allegoricum et morale, ex pervetusto codice, the work allegorizes the life of St Thomas, using numerous biblical parallels.23 The Canterbury martyr is similar to Naboth protecting his vineyard; he possesses the patience of Job; he resembles Jonah emerging from the whale of fury; he suffers the same number of wounds as the Messiah; and when he admonishes the monks not to turn the house of God into an armed camp, he echoes Christ’s words to Peter: “Get thee behind me, Satan.”24 When Becket asks the assassins not to harm any of his flock he replicates the Lord’s warning to the soldiers in the garden. During his exile, his flock is left without a shepherd, defenseless against a new Herod, who is about to become a new Pilate, shifting the responsibility for the murder to others. The murderers are characterized as Stygian hounds and Henry II as Nero. Stapleton, in his account of Becket’s life that precedes the letter, had turned the conventional classical and biblical imagery of the poem into polemic. The poet, by contrast, described the place of martyrdom, which was polluted by the slaughter of the assassins, as being bathed in sunlight, adorned by the saint’s blood – the roses of paradise. In this image, the writer

174  Becket and the Reformation is drawing upon the works of the early biographers, as well as the Icelandic Saga, following an established convention that roses signified the red martyrdom of public persecution to death.25 Stapleton reversed the vision of light, claiming that since Henry VIII and the heretics had withdrawn their allegiance to the papacy, they were compelled to eradicate the light of St Thomas in order to keep England in darkness. The king, as Helen Parrish has observed, was intent upon impressing the reality of his supremacy on his people; hence, he was prepared to do what the pope claimed that he had done, by exerting “his savagery also upon the dead, even upon the saints whom the universal church has revered for many centuries.”26 Thomas More and Becket were also linked by Nicholas Harpsfield (1519–1575) in his biography of More. In this work he compared More’s martyrdom with Becket’s death in order to explore the issue of whether it is possible to combine loyalty to the sovereign with the defense of ecclesiastical freedom – a question of equal relevance in twelfth- and sixteenthcentury political life. For Harpsfield, More was “a martyr in a cause that [came nearer to touching] religion and the whole fayth” than that of the Canterbury martyr. Becket was slain because of the displeasure, “though perchaunce not by his commaundement,” of King Henry II. Moreover: [W]e haue of late (God illuminate our beetle blind heartes to see and repent our folye and impietie) vnshryned him, and burned his holye bones. And not only vnshryned and vnsancted him, but haue made him also, after so manye hundred yeres, a traitour to the King that honoured him, as we have saide, as a Blessed Martyr, As did also his children and all other kinges that afterwarde succeeded him.27 But Becket’s martyrdom was very different from that of the man who shared his name, Thomas More, because in the case of Becket and Henry II, the king did not assume the supremacy, nor did he in his heart dislike the pope’s supremacy; he soon restored the pope to his former authority in England. Hence, for Harpsfield, there was a deeper cause of martyrdom in the death of More. Whereas Becket had died in his own Cathedral Church, without having suffered any official condemnation, More was sentenced in Westminster Hall, where he himself was accustomed to administering judgment. He was executed at the Tower, and his head (for defending the right head of the Churche) by the King’s commandment (who renting the unity of the Church, and taking away St Peter’s prerogative and of his successors, had, as I may say, cutt off St Peter’s head, and put it, an vggly sight to behold, vpon his own shoulders) pitifullye cut off. The head was set on London Bridge, on a high pole, among the heads of traitors, “a rufull and a pitifull spectacle for all good citizens and other good Christians.”28

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 175 Becket and the question of his martyrdom were also prominent issues in the controversy between Sir Francis Hastings and Robert Persons,29 which played out in their polemical writings during the 1590s. Hastings (dubbed the “Foxe-cub” by Persons) practiced an intense anti-Romanist rhetoric, describing Catholic priests and laypeople in exaggerated and frightening terms.30 Basing his views on Foxe’s work, he asserted in A watch-word to all religious, and true hearted English-men that: Wee haue example of Thomas Becket in Henry the thirds31 time, whose treasons to his Prince were apparent and manifest: and yet after his death was he canonized a saint by the Pope, and an holy day was commanded for him. These two irreligious and prophane grounds being layd, they proceed to a third, and set it down for a popish ground that it was a dangerous and deadly sinne for any man to disobey the Pope, and his Cleargie, in any of their orders enjoyned and communded.32 For Hastings, before the Reformation, “a darke mistie clowde of ignorance (which brought in Popish idolatrie, and al maner of superstition) did ouershadow the whole land,”33 and the Cult of Thomas Becket was a result of this clerical exploitation of ignorance.34 The clergy prevented people from reading the “sacred worde of God lest they discover the uigling [sic] and falshood, which in that time of darknes they vsed.” Their one “rule infallible, that Ignorance is the mother of devotion.”35 Becket was no more than “a newe saint made of an olde Rebell,” and the assumption that a death for the liberties of the Church constituted martyrdom was false. Indeed, Hastings claimed, the liberties for which Becket had given his life were not spiritual in nature; they were “of Antichristes devising.” Further, the canonization of the traitorous bishop offered proof that “many are worshipped for saints in heauen, whose soules are burning in Hell.”36 Hastings characterized the miracles performed by Becket as the “shameless inuentions of the Munkes idle braines,” and the claims were of such vast number that it must be clear that they were false.37 Persons, writing under the initials N.D., answered Hastings by devoting two chapters to Becket in A Temperate Ward-word to the turbulent and seditious Wach-word of Sir F. Hastings, knight (Antwerp, 1599).38 His response to Hastings set out the facts calmly, rather than presenting them in the scare-mongering, vituperative style of his opponent; as he wrote, “the wiser sorte of our nation, haue learned euen by the lawes of moral ciuilitie, that a man must speake moderately also of his enemy.”39 He viewed Hastings’s work as seditious and damaging to the realm, since it engendered hatred among the queen’s subjects. Further, although the anti-Romanism of his writings was ostensibly concerned with religious unity, it did nothing to defuse the strife of religious controversy. Countering Hastings’s words about Becket, Persons asserted that the lack of belief in Becket’s sanctity was due to “a dangerous spirit of gratuitous

176  Becket and the Reformation incredulity, motivated by a desire for royal favor.”40 The accusations leveled at the Canterbury martyr were “manifest slaunder.” Becket was no traitor, and his actions in resisting the king echoed the circumstances of John the Baptist against Herod and St Ambrose against Thodosius. The numerous miracles authenticated his sanctity, and his status as a “glorious martir” was confirmed by the centuries of continued veneration and pilgrimages to his shrine.41 The claims of Persons concerning Becket were substantiated by citations from the writings of medieval biographers and chroniclers, including John of Salisbury, Peter of Blois, and Matthew Paris. Persons also responded to negative comments by Sir Edward Coke, who cited the dispute between Henry II and Becket as a precedent for the royal claim to spiritual jurisdiction, exemplified in the title Supreme Head. In his Answere to the Fifth Part of Reportes Lately set forth by Syr Edward Cooke Knight, the Kinges Attorney general (1606), he argued that none of Henry II’s claims presented a fundamental challenge to papal authority. In fact, the king’s usual conduct indicated that he was a loyal and obedient son of the Church, even during his struggle with Becket. The assassination was an extraordinary and exceptional act of vicious passion, for which Henry repented. As Victor Houliston has pointed out, this reading of historical events was strategically skillful, since it challenged the Protestant apologists’ identification of their cause with the murder. It was thus more difficult to exploit the circumstances of Becket’s death to incite feelings against the martyr, and hence the pope, in order to engender support for the royal supremacy.42 Somewhat later, in 1626, Richard Brown published a treatise titled S. Thomae Cantuariensis, et Henricie II illustris. Anglorum regis monomachia, de libertate ecclesiastica cum subiuncto eiusdem argumento dialogo, in which he offered evidence clearing Becket of the specious charges of extravagance and willfulness used as pretexts to excuse the actions of the king. For Brown, the struggle between the peaceful archbishop and the king was instigated by the Devil, who envied mortals their blessing of peace.43 The preoccupations of the Counter Reformation were reflected in the Life of St Thomas by Cardinal Caesar Baronius,44 which was published in English translation in 1639; this work emphasized the advocacy of martyrdom as an expression of ultimate religious belief and dedication.45 The biography was dedicated to Richard Smith, officially Bishop of Chalcedon, who was the Bishop for England, Wales, and Scotland from 1624 to 1631.46 In the “Dedicatory Preface,” Baronius expressed his belief that Smith could identify with Becket’s experience, writing that the bishop could have no patron in heaven “with whom you might have more sympathy, [when you consider that] he [Thomas] lived in this earthly habitation, for Religiousnesse, zeal, country, cause, and constancie.”47 Baronius viewed Thomas as “a most perfect Pattern of a good Pastor, yea and of a good subject too, as one wisely discerning Gods part from Caesars, and giving to either their own, without which there can be no Christian justice.”48 He continued his discourse by quoting Thomas’s letter to King Henry:

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 177 Prepared I am, not only to die, but also to suffer a thousand deaths, and all torments whatsoever for Christ’s sake: Yet whether I die or live, I am and shall ever be yours; and whatever becomes of us and ours, God ever blesse you and your issue.49 Returning to the theme of bonus pastor, Baronius wrote that Becket was worthy of veneration because of his willingness to sacrifice his life for his flock in a time of trial. The martyr was a “confessor of Christ now instantly to be crowned with Martyrdome . . . who had died for the defense of justice and the liberties of the church.”50 His work held up the Canterbury martyr as an exemplar for bishops: [N]ot only they, who for defence of the Catholike faith suffer death, but such also as for conservation of the lawes, rightes, and possessions of the Church, offer themselves to the slaughter doe a work most acceptable in the sight of God and deserving crownes; which occasion of induring Martyrdome is not to bee sought a far of from Infidells, but is allwayes ready at hand to every Bishop, if hee laboreth in all respectes to performe the duty of his charge. . . . Albeit all Martirs in general haue a supereminent prerogative of eternal glory, yet their title is more glorious, and their Crowne more bright, that haue deserued double honor by instructing of others, making themselves an example to their flocke; and laying downe their liues for their sheepe in the time of tryall: for like as one starre exceedeth an other in brightnes, soe in the resurrection the Saintes shall shine like stars, euery one in his proper order, and they that haue instructed many to liue well, shall bee as the brightnes of the Firmament for euer and euer: among which renck Saint Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury may worthily bee placed.51 Baronius drew his Life from the biographies by Becket’s eruditi, including John of Salisbury, Herbert of Bosham, and William of Canterbury, and incorporated letters written by “diverse authors,” especially those of Thomas himself and Pope Alexander, which he thought would “help to beautify this my history.”52 In presenting the reasons for the development of the conflict between Thomas and the king, Baronius pointed to the often-recited issues of usurpation of Church lands by the laity, the disagreement concerning criminous clerks, and Thomas’s resignation of the chancellorship. Further, he painted a vibrant portrait of Henry, citing a letter of Peter of Blois which describes the king’s countenance: His eyes are round, while his minde is appeased, milde as a Doue and simple; but in wrath and the gargoyle of his harte, they are as it were sparkeling with fire, and lightning with fury, and after: whom hee hath once hated, hee scarce euer receiueth into grace and fauour gaine . . .

178  Becket and the Reformation Heereby (reader) I say you may concceiue, with how great a danger these Bishop were now to withstand him.53 The king was influenced by evil councilors, and “through the wicket counsail of the mailicious,” proceeded to divide the thinking of the bishops, “whereby . . . they might bee rent a sunder, and soe dissolued, bee easily vanquished by him.”54 Baronius described in detail the defection of the bishops from the “holy saint,” accusing them of raising: a terrible warre against this holy Saint who defended the Ecclesiasticall liberty, assailing him with the weapons of contentious words, to the open scandal of all Catholike Bishops that euer heard it . . . the poison of Aspes lurked vunder their lippes, whole mouth was full of cursing and bitternes, their feete were swifte for the effusion of blood: while in the meane tyme they would dissembling seeme to bee pious, to bee peace makers, desirous of Charity. . . . Their speeches aremade, softer then oyle, and the same are dartes.55 Providing evidence of his claims, Baronius included letters from the bishops, emphasizing their defection from the holy martyr, and pointing to Thomas’s continuing support by Pope Alexander. The bishops were further excoriated for their role in inciting rage against Thomas when he returned to England following his period of exile, especially the Archbishop of York, who advised the bishops to “flye to our Lord the king.”56 Responding to his urging, “these warring vessels of iniquitey incensed the king against saint Thomas.” According to Baronius, the words of the bishops incited such rage in the king that, “outrageous with fury, hee fell into those most bitter words, whereby they who guarded his person were incited to attempt the murder of this most holy man.”57 Baronius relied on Roger of Hoveden’s account of the murder and burial of the martyr, adding in his own words, Thomas died for “the law of God and the Churches liberty, which in the English Church was almost wholly perished.”58 Implicit in this interpolation is the climax of Baronius’s numerous remarks concerning the culpability of the bishops; they had broken from Becket, they had incited the king and the murderers, and bore, in absentia, a measure of responsibility for the crime. The martyr, “now renowned with the Garland of a most famous Martyrdome, is mounted up to the Courte of heauen, leauing to all posterites an example of singular constance to fight euen to the last gaspe for maintaining the Churches liberty.”59 Baronius’s words advocating martyrdom reflect the preoccupation with death in the service of faith that had become a central focus for the training of priests in the English colleges on the continent.

Martyrdom and the English mission Initially, the “old faith” was sustained in England by the nonconforming priests from Mary’s reign, but in the latter part of the sixteenth century,

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 179 Catholicism was fostered by missionary priests trained in the foreign seminaries that formed the nucleus of a vibrant exile community. Idealistic young men, particularly at Oxford University, had heard whispers of the exciting new ideas spreading from Rome, and some traveled to the Catholic continent to expand their understanding of the movement. Their interest and their yearning for action were soon channeled into a number of new educational institutions created precisely for this purpose. Catholic students who were unable to complete their degrees at Oxford and Cambridge after the Elizabethan settlement frequently chose to attend the seminaries founded by English Catholics on the continent. Pre-eminent among these institutions was the seminary at Douai, in the Spanish Netherlands, only a short distance from the narrow channel which separates England from the continent. The first English College, founded by William Allen at Douai in 1568, was soon joined by others, including the English College in Rome, canonically founded by Gregory XIII (1579), the institutions formed by Robert Persons including colleges at Valladolid (1589) and Seville (1592), and the preseminary school at St Omer (1593).60 The curriculum of these institutions was originally constituted as an academic program, but following the excommunication of Elizabeth in 1570, the primary purpose became the training of missionary priests for their return to England; these efforts were given impetus under the leadership of Allen and Persons when the English mission began in 1580.61 During the 1570s and 1580s, despite the waves of persecution and the penal laws,62 a steady stream of Catholic printed materials had circulated in England, spreading the message among recusant believers.63 Catholic martyrdom was a focus of these texts and manuscripts, which were used for propaganda in continental Europe, and for the training and recruitment of missionary priests, as well as the creation of a separate Catholic identity.64 As Brad S. Gregory has written, “The ethos of martyrdom had been transformed: seminarians and wider circles of the devout extolled it as the perfect culmination of trust in God, love for Christ, and commitment to his embattled Church.”65 One of the most famous martyrs of the early years of the English mission was Edmund Campion, a man who had established a brilliant academic record at Oxford and looked forward to the prospect of an equally glorious career in the established Church.66 He was ordained to the diaconate in 1568, but began to question the dictates of the Anglican Church based on his study of patristic authors. Pressure to openly declare his allegiance to the Catholic Church grew stronger as knowledge of his reservations about the established Church and the suspicion of his Catholic sentiments spread. He left England and joined the Society of Jesus two years later. Initially, he found refuge in the Jesuit College in Prague, but was asked to join the recently formed mission to England by Robert Persons. For thirteen months, he traveled in disguise among English Roman Catholics, and during this time he wrote a pamphlet, “To the Lords of Her Majesty’s Privy Council,” which requested a public debate of religious issues. His words outraged

180  Becket and the Reformation Elizabeth’s government, and the search for the clandestine Campion intensified. In June 1581, an elaboration of the original work was surreptitiously distributed, raising the issues surrounding the controversy to a higher pitch. The following month, Campion was betrayed and captured in Berkshire. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where his call for public debate was finally answered through four carefully designed sessions. In November he was arraigned for treason and found guilty, and on December 1 he was hanged, drawn, and quartered.67 His severed body parts inspired further soldiers for the faith, recalling Pole’s views concerning martyrdom’s singular power in the proclamation of Christian truth: His quarters hung on every gate do show, his doctrine sound through countries far and near, his head set up so high doth call for more to fight the fight which he endured here, the faith thus planted thus restored must be, “Take up thy cross,” sayeth Christ, “and follow me.”68 Campion’s martyrdom became a central issue in the polemic, with Elizabethan writers emphasizing that he was executed for treason against ancient laws and statues of the realm, and not for doctrinal or religious issues.69 The parallels with Thomas Becket are obvious; the Canterbury martyr and Campion were, in actuality, martyrs to the faith, whereas the justification of treason advanced by the governments of the Tudors was false and pernicious. William Allen expanded upon this theme in his True Sincere and Modest Defence of English Catholics, first published in Rouen in 1584,70 in which he responded to a pamphlet written by Queen Elizabeth I’s secretary, William Cecil. In his work, The Execution of Justice in England, Cecil had provided a justification for the government’s anti-Catholic policies, claiming that these were an appropriate response to Catholic subversion and intrigue.71 Allen retaliated by declaring that English Catholics, both at home and on the continent, were not disloyal to the Crown; those who had been executed as traitors were, in fact, martyrs. The Defence was originally written and published in English, but subsequently appeared in Latin, reflecting, as Katy Gibbons has observed, “the efforts made by Catholic propagandists to make their mark on a European stage.”72 Becket was given special importance in Allen’s work, where he was linked to Tudor Catholics such as Thomas More, John Fisher, and Edmund Campion, who had died in defense of their faith. For Allen, the sacrifice of these martyrs, whether it had occurred recently or several hundred years in the past, meant that “fame and felicitie followeth vpon their deathes,” while their enemies would ultimately be overcome: God “giveth the victory of the world by the fortitude of their faith in Him.”73 Allen’s coupling of the Canterbury martyr with recent contemporaries may have been a strategic move; Thomas’s venerable status as a canonized saint was perhaps used to

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 181 reinforce the standing of more recent martyrs. Although More, Campion, and others who had sacrificed their lives for their faith in the sixteenth century were regarded as martyrs by English Catholics, they had not been officially recognized as such by Rome; their association with Thomas may have been one way to reinforce their claims to sainthood.74 Allen also emphasized Becket’s importance as an exemplary defender of the rights of the Church against secular encroachment. Pointing to the example of his struggle with Henry II, Allen asserted that the archbishop, as the highest ecclesiastical dignitary in the country, was right in withstanding the demands of the king, who had exposed himself and his people to perdition by disobeying the Church and failing to yield to the authority of Rome. Furthermore, Becket’s canonization and Henry II’s eventual act of repentance proved the Church’s eventual triumph over its enemies. Allen stressed that the king had come to deeply regret his actions, and implied that Henry VIII must have been brought to a similar realization. The explicit support of the papacy for the actions of English Catholics is evident in a communication of 1570, during the preparations for the revolt of the Northern Earls. The earls of Northumberland and Westmorland had appealed to Pope Pius V for guidance and support, and the pontiff encouraged them “to persevere in their defence of the ancient church in England . . . even if in maintaining the catholic faith and the authority of this Holy See you must needs meet death and pour forth your blood.”75 More specifically, he urged them to follow the example set by St Thomas of Canterbury, and to “be too of brave and constant mind.”76 The pope closed his remarks by promising financial support and diplomatic aid “with such Christian Princes as you choose.”77 During Elizabeth’s reign, the cult of Becket was revived among the Catholic exiles on the continent, where the saint was the subject of iconography and drama. For example, the church dedicated to Becket at Padua was the site of a painting of the Canterbury martyr, and at the English College at Rome, the church dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury78 contains two paintings of the saint.79 The image in the college chapel depicts the Adoration of the Trinity, with the English saints Thomas and Edmund kneeling in the foreground next to the crucified Christ. As Katy Gibbons has observed, the pairing of the martyred Anglo-Saxon king with the martyred Archbishop of Canterbury was especially meaningful for English Catholics abroad, who could relate to the similarities between the earlier martyrs and their own situations. Whenever the community was informed that a former student had died a martyr in England, the college assembled in front of the painting to sing a Te deum.80 Further, as Gibbons pointed out, the image offered a response to the writings of Protestants in England such as Matthew Parker, who sought to establish a link between an Anglo-Saxon Christianity “untainted by the Roman Church” and their own Protestant faith. The Catholic portrayal of Thomas in concert with Edmund, a king who was a figurehead in the pure English Church, was “clearly disruptive of the Protestant narrative.”81

182  Becket and the Reformation Also at the English College, an image of Becket’s murder was included among a series of murals by Circignani, completed in 1584, which depicted a sequence of English martyrs, extending from the early Church to the sixteenth century. The murals were destroyed in the 1780s, but they were recreated in 1893 by Capparoni, using a set of engravings of the originals by J.B. de Cavalleriis, who produced a volume of plates shortly after the murals were completed.82 The engravings were published under the title Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophaea (The Trophies of the English Church), usually referred to as the Trophaea. These images, as Anne Dillon has noted, offer insight into the ways in which visual depictions were used to construct English Catholic martyrdom, and how they were employed to train men for the English mission.83 Further, the publication of the set of engravings meant that the audience extended beyond the immediate viewers of the college chapel, radiating outwards to an international audience, including both clerics and laity.84 The murals portrayed graphic and horrifying images [Figure 7.1], used as visual aids for the purposes of teaching and meditation, according to the rector of the college, Michele Laurentano. He wrote that “the sight of an infinite number of torments and martyrdoms moves one to devotion. And even if the painting is mediocre but very devout, many people cannot see it without being moved to tears and spiritually uplifted.”85 This was clearly a part of the mission of the Counter Reformation Church; the martyr was to be the exemplar of the Church militant, and the emotions aroused by the contemplation of his martyrdom were to be put to use in the needs and intentions of the Church. The murals, intended for the students of the English College, constituted, according to Anne Dillon, “a visual synopsis of the philosophy, the character and the ethos of the English missionary movement.”86 They emphasized that from the earliest days of the Church in England, the martyr had committed himself to a universal Church established by Christ who had vested his authority in Peter; this authority continued in his successors to the papacy. Further, the images promised that the ultimate reward for the missionary vocation was membership in the pantheon of heroic martyrs depicted in the mural sequence.87 Within this context, it is possible to see St Thomas of Canterbury as the ideal type of the martyr – one who served as a model and constant reminder of the nature and rewards of the Jesuit missionary vocation. For the Jesuits, Becket’s death resulted from loyalty to the papacy in the struggle concerning the freedom and autonomy of the Church in England, and the image of his martyrdom was crucial in the collegiate church dedicated to him. As in all of the murals, the image of Becket’s martyrdom [Figure 7.1]88 is didactic, and is accompanied by explanatory texts. As Anne Dillon has observed, these “apparently straightforward images and descriptive texts act as symbols for the complexity of the political and theological argument underpinning the scenes of the familiar and pivotal case of martyrdom.”89 In

Figure 7.1 Giovanni Battista de Cavalleriis, “The martyrdom of St Thomas Becket,” from Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophaea, Rome, n.d. (1584), 25. Collection of the author

184  Becket and the Reformation the Becket engraving, four sentences appear underneath the image, describing the circumstances of his exile and murder:90 A St Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, is unjustly condemned by English King Henry II. He appeals to the pope and takes flight into exile. B He pleads his case before Pope Alexander III at Sens in France. C He is killed in 1171 by the king’s men for religious freedom. D The blood from his head is projected into the corners of the church, and produces a fountain of water which turned once into milk and four times into blood. The descriptive texts and images deliberately emphasize Becket’s close association with the pope, beginning with Scene A in the upper left corner, in which Henry II “condemns” Thomas. This is a rewriting of the historical circumstances for rhetorical purposes, and serves to highlight the saint’s flight into exile, underscored by the image of the boat, presumably sailing to France, in the upper right corner of the scene. In Scene B, Becket presents his case to Pope Alexander III, asking for his support. Scene C covers the largest part of the engraving, presenting the grisly details of the murder. Becket is kneeling in front of the altar, which is another historically inaccurate image, as we have noted in other depictions of the martyrdom,91 but one which points to his piety and devotion to God. The text tells the viewer that the saint was murdered by the king’s men, “For religious freedom,” meaning, in this instance, “For the freedom of the Church.” An interesting interjection into the scene is marked D, and portrays one of the monks gathering up the blood and brains of the martyr. This action had been described in the South English Legendary, as Anne Dillon notes, but the textual caption also alludes directly to one of the antiphons from the liturgy for Becket’s feast day: Aqua Thome quinquies varians colorem In lac semel transit, quater in curorem. [The water of Thomas, varying its colour five times Changed once into milk, four times into blood].92 The use of a text from this antiphon intensified the message of Becket’s sanctity, since the represented action constituted a miracle. Further, with the allusive reference to the blood of the martyrs as the seed of the Church, the emotional call to missionary activity, with all of its potential danger, was reinforced in the minds and hearts of the viewers. The intense, ecstatic emotional quality of the iconography is reflected in the commemorations in liturgy and drama created by the authors of the Society of Jesus, who sought to strengthen and fortify the mission of the English

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 185 priests who became agents for the reconversion of England.93 For example, in the seminary at St Omer, established in 1593 for the training of the sons of English Catholics, martyrology was institutionalized through readings in both Latin and English at mealtimes. The college had its own press, and one of the first publications was the English Martyrologye (1608) by John Wilson. The seminarians at St Omer soon had their own protomartyr in the person of Thomas Garnet, who studied there between 1594 and 1596, and who may have visited the seminary on his journey to England in August of 1599. Garnet wrote to his superior that he felt himself to be under the protection of the Canterbury martyr on his arrival there.94 He was arrested and banished on suspicion of involvement in the Gunpowder Plot, but he returned to England and was arrested again in 1607. The sentence handed down the following year was death by hanging, and, according to reports, he approached the gallows with remarkable readiness and “sweetness of disposition.” He “laid himself down more like one that was going to his marriage-feast than to suffer a cruel and ignominious death,” and “kissed the gallows as the happy instrument which was to send him to heaven.”95 Although the students at the seminary were encouraged to follow the traditional teaching of the Church that martyrs were called by God, and the election of martyrdom was not to be sought by individuals, the heightened emotional identification with martyrs such as Becket encouraged such tendencies.96 It is significant that from 1581, when Robert Persons was appointed spiritual director of the English College in Rome, he urged the rector to “prepare for us men who will face racks fearlessly,” and under his aegis the students were required to take an oath swearing to “abiding readiness to return to England there to preach Catholic doctrine in face of all dangers.” This pledge was in addition to the oath of obedience and loyalty to the pope.97 In the words of Anne Dillon, “These men vowed that they would return home to England to run the risk of capture, torture and possible execution at the hands of their own countrymen.”98 Dramatic productions at the colleges were an additional stimulus for identification with martyrs, including Becket. For example, plays were an integral part of the life of the students at the English College in Rome, where, according to extant records, a play depicting the life of St Thomas of Canterbury was performed five times during carnival time in 1613 and again in 1617.99 There is also evidence that the drama was presented at Becket’s feast on December 29, as John Evelyn recorded in his diary in 1644; he had received an invitation to attend, as did all Englishmen in Rome.100 Persons described a similar play at the English College at Seville in his Newes from Spayne and Holland, which took place on the Feast of St Thomas, a performance that commemorated medieval Catholic England but also presented Becket as a model of political resistance to state power.101 In particular, the seminary at St Omer was famous for its dramatic tradition. Of interest in our study is a dialogue, or interlude, on the theme of the

186  Becket and the Reformation martyrdom of Becket that was performed by the pupils there on the saint’s feast day.102 This allegorical playlet, titled Brevis Dialogismus (1599),103 is “an intriguing witness to the martyrological fervor of the English Counter Reformation,”104 underscoring the significance of St Thomas for the Counter Reformation movement, and demonstrating the way the English Mission was promoted by associating contemporary martyrs with Becket. As Peter Roberts has remarked, by presenting Becket as an exemplar to be emulated in the training of recruits for the “Enterprise of England,” the Jesuits not only defied the iconoclasm of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, they violated the injunction that prohibited the missionary priests from willingly seeking martyrdom. The dialogue of Breuis Dialogismus, which is devotional in nature, would have been performed by the pupils as part of the liturgy. It had an evident moral purpose, as the audience, which probably included seminary priests on their way to the English mission, was exhorted to emulate the sacrifice of St Thomas of Canterbury. The text associated recent martyrs with Becket, including Edmund Campion, as well as such men as Henry Walpole, one of the founders of the school, who had been executed in 1595.105 Further, the dialogue emphasized the determination of the seminarians to rescue England from the oppression of the heretical establishment.106 The nine brief scenes present six characters: Anglia is the personification of the suffering English nation;107 Christianismus, Coronarius, and Lancearius are representatives of the Passion who attempt to comfort her; and Astus (Cunning) and Indignatio portray two villainous persecutors of the faith who assault Anglia with threats and plots against the Catholics. In the dialogue, Christianismus urges the audience to emulate the healing sacrifice of St Thomas on behalf of his nation. The Prologue offers a precis of the play: At the beginning, ANGLIA presents herself with a tearful complaint, now destitute, bereft even of her own protectors. A youth, whom Christ signs with his own name, cheers her with soothing speech. Then ASTUS, deceitful and crafty, and INDIGNATIO, raging with poison that makes your hair stand on end, mark down every Christian for death by his English name, but the English battle-lines, though scattered across the globe, are glowing in opposition, and the followers of Thomas seek to emulate his deeds and for the praise of the faith prepare to risk death. Sad Anglia adds further motivation with her grief, and arouses their manly spirits to re-enact Thomas’ virtue. Keep these things in mind as you watch, and be silent.108 Four scenes represent directly the decision of seminarians at St Omer and Rome to follow the example of the Canterbury martyr. In Scene 2, Christianismus, accompanied by two companions, one of whom carries a spear and the other a crown of thorns, consoles Anglia by reminding her that

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 187 there have been many martyrs who have followed the inspiration of the holy Thomas. “Even now many are to be found who, fired with the same zeal, are being trained in various seminaries to come to the aid of their native land and to seek even death, if need be, for the sake of the faith.”109 Anglia continues her lament, saying that these words are “medicines for my malaise, which may gradually drive my sorrows from my heart. If only there were even more who, inflamed by just such a fire, and holding life cheap, would follow the achievements of Thomas!”110 In Scene 3, Astus and Indignatio express the rage of Protestants against the Catholics: “Our enemies are alive, and confidently offer their poisons for sale; their assemblies operate widely in secret, they celebrate masses, and they exalt the name of Thomas – of, how I hate it! – in commemorations of his death.”111 In the final tableau, the students enact a scene of devotion to Christ through St Thomas, ending with a hymn of praise to the martyr. In the text, which exemplifies both the call to martyrdom and the association of Catholic loyalty and spirituality with English patriotism, the Angel exhorts the seminarians, who have already committed themselves to Christ, saying: Rise up, shining souls, magnified by your purposed virtue thus far; it is indeed a heavenly concern that begins to inflame your spirits; the ardor [for martyrdom] that burns in your mind is not in vain; your offerings of holy prayers have forcibly struck the ears of God and Thomas. The almighty, who lends a ready ear to those who turn back to Him, has decided to reclaim the English nation which, drunk with a thousand poisons, rejoices to oppose the hosts of Christ’s followers – to call them back to the right way and to lead them to heaven, dispelling the darkness by scattering light.112 As Victor Houliston, the editor of a recent edition of the playlet, has pointed out, the purpose of this dramatic martyrology was to inspire imitation as well as veneration, and the text of Breuis dialogus presented Becket as an exemplar to be emulated, thereby investing martyrdom with an “enviable glow”:113 [I]ndeed it was he [St Thomas] who for the sake of the liberty of the faith, despising danger and the likelihood of his own death, as punisher of the wicked deeds of the tyrant of the English, threw himself into dangerous ventures, confirming his words with his very own blood. And who can I find burning so strongly with the fire of faith as to be willing to risk his neck with dangers drawn up around him, to defend the faith and pour out his life for Christ?114 The emotional and institutional pressure on the susceptible students may appear unnatural and dangerous to twenty-first-century readers, but, as Houliston has shown, the system of spiritual exercises decreed by Loyola

188  Becket and the Reformation which was taught at the College and in the future training of those who chose to become Jesuit missionaries placed great emphasis on careful deliberation before choosing a course that would most probably lead to martyrdom.115 Although the Ignatian program of teaching and spirituality in the training of priests formed the “crucial conduit for Jesuit influence upon the English laity,”116 Loyola himself had cautioned against choosing a “way of life” under emotional stress, and had written that: “It is necessary . . . to follow whatever I perceive is more for the glory and praise of God our Lord and for the salvation of my soul.” Nonetheless, the intense allure of martyrdom in the “over-heated atmosphere of the Counter Reformation” presented moral complications.117 Recent research has underlined the continuities between medieval and Counter Reformation piety, and highlights the manner in which the Catholic reformers revived and mobilized rather than simply suppressing older devotional practices.118 Seminary priests and Jesuits sent to England after 1580 “deliberately and skillfully harnessed supernatural power in their attempts to combat heresy . . . reclaim backsliders, and win converts to their cause.”119 They found miracles, visions, and exorcisms very effective as proselytizing tools. Although the Catholic reformers “endorsed and strengthened many characteristic traits of the traditional religion, they readily harnessed preexisting elements of popular culture [such as belief in miracles] in the war against Protestantism.”120 In particular, martyrs became powerful symbols of English Catholic identity; they had willingly subjected themselves to torture and death rather than deny their faith. As Anne Dillon has remarked, the martyrs “became triumphant emblems of Catholicism and the ultimate confirmation of its truth . . . a rallying point of identification for the English Catholics, a symbol of their own adherence to the Catholic faith.”121 Thomas Becket, or “Saint Thomas of Canterbury,” as he was called by the recusants, was the ideal symbol of the martyr and martyrdom; he offered to Catholic believers a potent focus for empathy and identification.

Notes 1 R.M. Kingdon, ed., The Execution of Justice in England by William Cecil and A True, Sincere and Modest Defense of English Catholics (Ithaca, 1965), Introduction, xv. 2 D. MacCulloch, The Reformation (London, 2003), 334. 3 For bibliographical references that substantiate this view, see A. Muldoon, “Recusants, Church-Papists, and ‘Comfortable’ Missionaries: Assessing the PostReformation English Catholic Community,” Catholic Historical Review 86, no. 2 (April 2000): 242–58, n. 5. 4 V. Houliston, “St Thomas Becket in the propaganda of the English CounterReformation,” Renaissance Studies 7, no. 1 (March 1, 1993): 43–70, at 44. 5 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 50. 6 For adherents to the Counter Reformation, the martyr was always St Thomas of Canterbury, since the Protestant propagandists appropriated the name “Becket” to exploit his lowly ancestry. Houliston, “Propaganda,” 49.

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 189 7 Parish, Monks, 100; Davis, “Lollards,” 15. 8 T. Stapleton, Tres Thomae, seu Res Gestae S. Thomae Apostoli, S. Thomae Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis & Martyris, Thomas Mori, Angliae quondam Cancellarii (Douay, 1588). 9 K. Gibbons, “Saints in Exile: The Cult of Saint Thomas of Canterbury and Elizabethan Catholics in France,” Recusant History 29 (2009): 315–40, at 321. 10 Caesar Baronius also addressed this question in his Life of Becket (385–90). Baronius The Life or the Ecclesiasticall Historie of S. Thomas, Archbishope of Canterbury, English Translation, 1639 (London, 1975). 11 W. Sheils, “Polemic as Piety: Thomas Stapleton’s Tres Thomae and Catholic Controversy in the 1580s,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 60, no. 1 (January 2009): 74–94. 12 Sheils, “Polemic,” 78. 13 Sheils, “Polemic,” 78. 14 Stapleton, Tres Thomae, 69–93. The documents appended to Stapleton’s work included a letter sent by Peter of Blois in 1170 to John of Salisbury which contained a “Consolatio in Exilio,” likening the archbishop’s circumstances to those of the Israelites in Egypt. (Tres Thomae, 94–104). See the remarks of K. Gibbons, “Saints in Exile,” 320–1. 15 Sheils, “Polemic,” 78. For an extensive discussion of the recusant community in France, see K. Gibbons, “Saints in Exile.” 16 Sheils, “Polemic,” 78. 17 See also the view of A. Duggan, who states that “Stapleton opposed the counter-image of a courageous defender of ecclesiastical law.” Duggan, Thomas Becket, 241–2. 18 Sheils, “Polemic,” 80. 19 Tres Thomae, 105–16; See also Duggan, Becket, 220–1, 254. The episode is also treated by Baronius in Life, 355–7. 20 Sheils, “Polemic,” 92. D.R. Woolf has remarked when discussing the TudorStuart era that historians often “opted for the convenient whipping-boy of the ‘evil counsellor’,” in “Power of the Past,” 36. 21 Sheils, “Polemic,” 92. 22 Sheils, “Polemic,” 94. 23 Stapleton, Tres Thomae, 159–68. 24 Holy Bible, Matthew 16:23. 25 For a discussion of the origins of this image, see J. O’Reilly, “The Double Martyrdom of Thomas Becket: Hagiography or History,” in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, VII (Old Series VII); 183–247, at 197. 26 Parrish, Monks and Miracles, 105. 27 N. Harpsfield, The Life and Death of Sr Thomas Moore, Knight, Sometimes Lord High Chancellor of England, Written in the Time of Queene Marie, ed. E.V. Hitchcock, Early English Text Society (London, 1932, repr. 1963), 214–15. 28 Harpsfield, Life of More, 216–17. 29 Persons was the superior of the Jesuit English mission of 1580–1581, and one of the most important individuals in the Catholic resistance. He had founded seminaries at Valladolid, Seville, and St Omer – institutions which played a major role in sustaining English Catholicism – and he was a tireless leader of the English Jesuits in exile. As rector of the English College, Rome, he functioned as a consultant to the papacy on English and Northern European affairs. 30 V. Houliston, Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons’s Jesuit Polemic, 1580–610 (Aldershot, 2007). The controversy with Hastings is discussed on 162–8. 31 Hastings has misidentified Henry II. 32 Sir Francis Hastings, A Watch-Word to All Religious, and True Hearted EnglishMen, Early English Books Online, 14.

190  Becket and the Reformation 33 Hastings, Watch-Word, 9. 34 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 51. 35 Hastings, Watch-Word, 11. 36 Quoted in Parrish, Monks, 104. 37 Parrish, Monks, 104. 38 For a discussion of the work, see Houliston, Catholic Resistance, 95–9. 39 Quoted in Houliston, Catholic Resistance, 163. Despite these cautionary terms, Persons does malign Hastings in strong terms elsewhere in his work, calling him “our harebrain and headlong knight,” “a wilde beast withouth a bridle,” and “a foolhardy mariner” among other epithets. Houlistan, Catholic Resistance, 164. 40 Houlistan, “Propaganda,” 52. 41 Quoted in Parrish, Monks, 104. 42 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 52. 43 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 52. 44 C. Baronius, The Life or the Ecclesiasticall Historie of S. Thomas, Archbishope of Canterbury (1639), facsimile edition (London, 1975). 45 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 52. 46 Smith had been educated at Oxford and the English College in Rome, where he was ordained priest in 1592. He joined the English Mission in 1603 and then and served for some years as a chaplain to the Montague family at Battle Abbey in Sussex. In 1631, after a warrant had been posted for his arrest, he fled to Paris, taking refuge with Cardinal Richelieu until the cardinal’s death in 1642; he retired to the convent of the English Augustinian nuns, where he died in 1655. C. Herbermann, ed., Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1913). 47 Baronius, Life, A iv. 48 Baronius, Life, A ii–iii. 49 Baronius, Life, A iii. 50 Baronius, Life, A2. 51 Baronius, Life, 1, 2. 52 Baronius, Life, 45. According to Baronius, these works were housed in the Vatican Library. 53 Baronius, Life, 13. 54 Baronius, Life, 14. 55 Baronius, Life, 128. 56 Baronius, Life, 339. 57 Baronius, Life, 342. 58 Baronius, Life, 346. 59 Baronius, Life, 347. 60 M. Netzloff, “The English Colleges and the English Nation: Allen, Persons, Verstegan, and Diasporic Nationalism,” in R. Corthell, F. Dolan, C. Highley and A. Marotti, eds., Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), 236–60, at 237. It is interesting to note that the Catholic priest Joseph Berington, writing in the late eighteenth century, asserted that the persecutions were a direct result of the foundation of the seminaries, and Robert Persons was personally responsible for the worsening of the situation for Catholics in England (R. O’Day, The Debate on the English Reformation [London, 1986], 59–60). 61 Netzloff, “English Colleges,” 237. 62 It is estimated that 239 Catholics in England were executed for treason between 1535 and 1603 (A. Dillon, The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535–1603 [Aldershot, 2002], 3). 63 R. Corthell, F.E. Dolan, C. Hihley and A.F. Marotti, Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), 1–2.

Becket as a symbol for Catholic opposition 191 64 Dillon, Construction, 4. See also the discussion by A.F. Marotti in Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy: Catholic and Anti-Catholic Discourses in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2005), 66–94. 65 B.S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA, 1999), 274. 66 For a discussion of Campion’s activities in the English mission, see T.M. McCoog, “ ‘The Flower of Oxford’: The Role of Edmund Campion in Early Recusant Polemics,” Sixteenth Century Journal XXIV/4 (1993): 899–913. 67 McCoog, “Flower,” 899–900. 68 Quoted in Gregory, Salvation, 283. 69 For a succinct discussion of the issues involved in Catholic martyrdom, see Gregory, Salvation, 255–6. 70 W. Allen, A True, Sincere and Modest Defence of English Catholiques That Suffer for Their Faith Both at Home and Abrode: Against a False, Seditious and Slanderous Libel Entituled: The Execution of Justice in England (Rouen, 1584). Reprinted in D.M. Rogers, ed., English Recusant Literature 68 (1971). Allen’s work is discussed in Gibbons, “Saints in Exile,” 321. 71 W. Cecil, The Execution of Justice in England for maintenance of Publique and Christian Peace, against certeine stirrers of sedition, and adherents to the traytors and enemies of the realme, without any persecution of them for questions of religion, as is falsely reported and published by the fautors and fosterers of their treasons XVII, December 1583 (London, 1583). 72 W. Allen, Ad Persecutores Anglos pro catholicis domi forisque persecutionem sufferentibus (1584); Gibbons, “Saints in Exile,” 321. 73 Allen, Defence, 47. Partially quoted in Gibbons, “Saints in Exile,” 321. 74 Gibbons, “Saints in Exile,” 321. 75 J.M. Rigg, ed., Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs: Preserved Principally at Rome in the Vatican Archives and Library, 2 vols. (London, 1916– 26), i, 326–7, no. 647. 76 Rigg, Calendar of State Papers, 327. Partially quoted in Gibbons, “Saints in Exile.” 77 Rigg, Calendar of State Papers, 327. 78 The English College in Rome was founded in 1579, and like the hospice that preceded it, it was dedicated to St Thomas the Martyr. 79 Borenius, Becket in Art, 35, 64–5, and Plates 9 and 23. 80 P. Davidson, “Recusant Spaces in Early Modern England,” in R. Corthell, F.E. Dolan, C. Highley and A.F. Marotti, eds., Catholic Culture in Early Modern England (Notre Dame, IN, 2007), 25. 81 Gibbons, Saints in Exile, 323. See also the discussion in Davidson, “Recusant Spaces,” 23–5. 82 Dillon, Construction, 172. 83 Dillon, Construction, 172. 84 Gibbons, “Saints in Exile,” 323–4. 85 Quoted in Dillon, “Construction,” 174. 86 Dillon, Construction, 180. 87 Dillon, Construction, 180. 88 Giovanni Battista de Cavalleriis, “The martyrdom of St Thomas Becket,” from Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophaea, Rome, n.d. (1584), 25. 89 Dillon, Construction, 197. 90 Translation from Dillon, Construction, 211. 91 See the discussion in Chapter 5. 92 Slocum, Liturgies, 205. 93 Roberts, “Politics,” 235.

192  Becket and the Reformation 94 Gibbons, “Saints in Exile,” 319. See also Scully, “Unmaking,” 600. 95 Quoted in Houliston, “Propaganda,” 59. 96 Roberts, “Politics,” 235. 97 Dillon, Construction, 172–3. Victor Houliston has emphasized that Becket’s identity as the pope’s champion was his chief significance for the Catholics by 1580; he had become a “symbol of papal supremacy in a much wider context” (Houliston, “Propaganda,” 50). 98 Dillon, Construction, 169. 99 S. Gossett, “Drama in the English College, Rome, 1591–1660,” English Literary Renaissance 3/1 (1973): 60–93, at 91. Gossett’s article discusses various aspects of the productions at the college, including music, scenic design, and probable audience. 100 Gossett, “Drama in the English College,” 68. 101 Netzloff, “English Colleges,” 245. 102 V. Houliston, “Brevis Dialogismus,” English Literary Renaissance 23 (1993): 382–427, at 383. 103 The manuscript text of this drama survives in the Salisbury Collection at Hatfield House, England. It is probably a copy obtained by informers in the service of Elizabeth’s secretary, Sir Robert Cecil (Cecil Papers, Hatfield, 139/116, cited in Roberts, “Politics,” 234). A modern edition and commentary has been published by V. Houlistan, “Brevis Dialogismus,” See also Houlistan’s remarks in “Propaganda,” 59. 104 Houliston, Brevis Dialogismus, 382. 105 Houliston, Brevis Dialogismus, 427; Roberts, “Politics,” 236. 106 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 43. 107 Mark Netzloff has emphasized the development of the concept of English nationhood among expatriate Catholics in “The English Colleges and the English Nation,” 241. 108 Translation by Houliston, Brevis Dialogismus, 391. 109 Houliston’s translation, Brevis Dialogismus, 393. 110 Houlitson’s translation, Brevis Dialogismus, 401. 111 Houliston’s translation, Brevis Dialogismus, 403. 112 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 59, ft. 48. 113 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 59. 114 Houliston’s translation, Brevis Dialogismus, 393. 115 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 60. 116 Dillon, Construction, 229. 117 Houliston, “Propaganda,” 60. 118 A. Walsham, “Miracles and the Counter-Reformation Mission to England,” The Historical Journal 46, no. 4 (2003): 779–815. 119 Walsham, “Miracles,” 781. 120 Walsham, “Miracles,” 813. 121 Dillon, Martyrdom, 8.

Part III

Eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury views of Becket

8 Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr

By the eighteenth century, a dramatic shift had occurred in political and religious attitudes in England and the European continent. A general spirit of rationalism pervaded historical thought during this era, which is often characterized as the Enlightenment. Writers of this period championed reason and toleration, believing in a judicious Christianity which regulated the state and society through divine providence.1 Hence, historical writing was based on logical and critical methods of scholarship. This new intellectual milieu influenced perceptions of Thomas Becket in significant ways, bringing forth new views and new controversies. The changing attitudes toward the Canterbury martyr are exemplified in the works of five men: Paul de Rapin-Thoyras (1661–1725); George, Lord Lyttelton (1709–1773); David Hume (1711–1776); Edmund Burke (1729–1797); and Joseph Berington (1743–1827). Their contrasting characterizations of Becket are included in their extensive histories of England, in which the life of the Canterbury martyr and his quarrel with Henry II feature prominently. The differing opinions of these historians will be examined in this chapter, focusing on their treatments of Becket’s character, his “conversion” when elected Archbishop of Canterbury, the controversy surrounding the Council of Clarendon, and the role of Henry II in the struggle and martyrdom.

Henry II, Becket and the ideal government During the mid-eighteenth century, historians of England were virtually obliged to define their historical projects and their own identities in relation to the work of Paul de Rapin-Thoyras, a French Huguenot, whose Histoire d’Angleterre was published between 1723 and 1725. His work was translated into English by Nicholas Tindal beginning in the following year, and, as M.G. Sullivan has written, the author became “the most influential and widely read general historian of England in the first half of the eighteenth century,”2 setting the standard for historical writing in the 1730s and 1740s and beyond. His work exhibited a level of scholarship and analysis, coupled with a degree of objectivity, which set it apart from previous histories.3 Moreover, Rapin differed from his predecessors in that he consulted a wider

196  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket range of sources and used them to develop themes, making an effort to interpret the facts, rather than simply listing them. Significantly, the eminent French philosophe, Voltaire, called Rapin’s work the only good history of England,4 and prior to the publication of Hume’s History he continued to be regarded as “the most popular authority.”5 Somewhat ironically, in the contentious and competitive world of eighteenth-century publishing, it was Rapin’s status as an “outsider” that proved his appeal; he was considered to be an impartial observer who could see factional squabbles in England from a more world-wide perspective, and his resulting objectivity was “a guarantee of his trustworthiness.”6 Indeed, the various editions of Rapin’s work that passed through the hands of competing British booksellers, “constructed an ideal of historical writing and an ideal historical writer,” that established a framework within which writers such as Lyttelton, Hume, Burke, and Berington produced their individual histories.7 In his History, Rapin influenced subsequent interpretations of the Becket controversy not only by his thorough scholarship, but also through his contextualization of the struggle between Henry II and Becket within his more general view of the ideal society. He admired the British mixed constitution of king and parliament, which, he wrote, had been imported from Northern Europe by the Saxons, and consisted of the “prerogatives” of a sovereign and the “privileges” of the people. When these components were evenly balanced, “liberty” was maintained and the nation prospered; when they were not, there was turmoil.8 In this way, he defined the monarchy and the establishment of parliament as part of a historical pattern “powered by the desire of the ‘people’ for “liberty.”9 For Rapin and many subsequent eighteenth-century historians, Henry’s actions throughout the imbroglio ­ with Becket were undertaken for the “preservation of good order and tranquility in the kingdom.”10 The archbishop was an icon of clerical resistance to the monarchy and his association with the papacy represented a threat to stable government. As Rapin’s successor Lyttelton warned: [W]here the popish religion remains established, the principles of Becket will remain; and notwithstanding the apparent absurdity of them, will perpetually disturb, and sometimes overpower, the civil authority, even in countries the most enlightened by learning and philosophy, or affecting the greatest latitude or freedom of thought.11 Henry, insisted Rapin, was rightfully determined to establish and preserve a stable government, and he supported his point by tracing the situation he inherited from his predecessor, King Stephen. Of crucial importance was the growing power and authority gained by the clergy during that era, and Lyttelton, echoing the words of Rapin, pointed out that these advances were “abetted and supported by the power of the papacy.” In remarks which prepared the way for his comments about Becket, Lyttelton emphasized the view that the ecclesiastical hierarchy of that era aimed toward total independence

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 197 from secular government. Henry inherited the “pernicious consequences” of this situation and was initially obliged to tolerate many abuses. Moreover, as Lyttelton’s contemporary David Hume remarked, the growing usurpations of the clergy, “which had at first been gradual, were now become so rapid and had mounted to such a height, that the contest between the regale and pontificale was really arrived at a crisis in England, and it became necessary to determine whether the king or the priests, particularly the archbishops of Canterbury, should be sovereign of the Kingdom.”12 Of primary importance to these historians were the issues of “criminous clerks,” and the frequent practice of appeals to Rome in “ecclesiastical causes.” In discussing the matter of clerical criminals, Burke, for example, wrote that many individuals, to protect themselves from the prevailing violence of the time, or to sanctify their own disorders, had taken refuge in the clerical character. The church was never so full of scandalous persons, who being accountable only in the ecclesiastical courts, where no crime is punished with death, were guilty of every crime.13 Further, the bishops “gloried” in this policy; they believed that the immunities of the clergy provided a sure sign of their zeal for religion and the service of God, and all the abuses sprang from this practice. The historians concurred that it was essential for Henry II to “restore order, and to depress the clergy,” by moving to establish a policy that clerical criminals be tried in his own secular court.14 In Lyttelton’s view, Henry, by responding to the “voice of the people calling loudly for a redress of these grievances, especially the issue of foreign jurisdiction over the subjects of England,” was in a favorable position to be the deliverer and restorer of England; however: [H]e met with an obstacle which broke all his measures. The confidante and partner of his most secret counsels, the man whom he loved and trusted above all others, that very Becket whom he had made Archbishop of Canterbury, chiefly with a view of being assisted by him in this design, set himself to oppose it with invincible obstinacy, and seemed all at once to be possessed by the spirit of Gregory the Seventh.15 In addition, Henry had to deal with the shame of “having been duped in his choice [of Becket to be archbishop]; one of the worst mortifications that could happen to a prince renowned for his wisdom.”16 In discussing the alteration in Becket’s character which occurred after his election as archbishop, Lyttelton remarked on the “sudden and violent” change. Thomas’s facial aspect indicated “a grave and religious severity,” and “under his canonical habit he wore the frock of a monk, and under that a rugged haircloth, next to his skin.”17 However, echoing the opinion of Rapin, Lyttelton eschewed a spiritual interpretation of Thomas’s

198  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket actions, asserting that overweening ambition was the motivating factor. Becket would never have resigned the chancellorship if he had not aspired to become Henry’s rival, intending to “exalt the mitre above the crown.” Providing documentation from a letter written by the Bishop of Lizieux, Lyttelton claimed that: His [Becket’s] ambition was much better gratified, by holding that power independently, and through the reverence due to an ecclesiastical dignity, which before he had only enjoyed under that favor and at the will of another. That, being so raised, he was no longer content to sit at the foot, or even by the side, of the throne; but threatened the crown itself: intending to bring it into such a dependence on his authority, that the ability to bestow and to support it should principally belong to the church. That he set out with opposing the king’s commands, in order that all might appear to be absolutely subdued to his government: since no hope or resisting could be left to any others, where the royal authority itself was forced to submit.18 For these reasons, Becket “openly oppos[ed] the laws enacted at Clarendon, protecting churchmen who had offended against them, and expressing by his whole conduct a deliberate purpose to exalt the ecclesiastical above the civil power.”19 As Lyttelton’s predecessor, Rapin, had written, Becket “flattered himself with gaining immortal glory in a vigorous defense of the Cause of the Clergy, which was affectedly called the Cause of God.”20 Agreeing with Rapin and Lyttelton, Hume asserted that Becket’s transformation upon being elected to the see of Canterbury was not a genuine spiritual conversion, but a duplicitous act covering his ambition and his true intention to gain power and glory. Although he affected the greatest austerity and most rigid morification . . . all men of penetration plainly saw, that he was meditating some great design, and that the ambition and ostentation of his character had turned itself towards a new and more dangerous object.21 For Lyttelton, even more alarming than Becket’s overweening ambition was his close relationship with the pope. This suspicion was “increased by the marks of cunning and falseness, which are evidently seen in his conduct of some occasions.” Indeed, he was “the English representative of the cunning policies of the pope.”22 Moreover, “So very dangerous was it, in an age when the church was so extremely corrupted, for princes to suffer those great cabals of ecclesiasticks, that were dignified with the name of general councils!”23 Accordingly, Henry, in dealing with these challenges, “resolved to maintain his royal prerogatives with the necessary spirit and firmness, [proceeding] as one who wished to conquer rather by art than force.”24 The king tried to gain the confidence of the bishops, and indeed, succeeded with

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 199 many of them. Additionally, “he threatened, he entreated, he even prevailed upon himself to flatter the man, whom he once had loved and now hated.”25 Becket, however, continued to be obstinate and unyielding. Hume viewed the quarrel between the king, “a sovereign of the greatest abilities,” and a prelate “of the most inflexible and intrepid character,” as one in which “the contending powers appeared to be armed with their full force, and it was natural to expect some extraordinary event to result from their conflict.”26 The struggle between the two men reflected, as Simon Kow has argued, Hume’s general view of English history as “a narrative of the fluctuating struggles between liberty and authority in England.”27 Tracing the growing tensions between the two, Hume asserted that Becket “was the aggressor in several matters, and [he] endeavored to overawe the king by the intrepidity and boldness of his enterprises.”28 However, although Henry was “grievously mistaken in the character of the person he had promoted to the primacy, [he was] determined not to desist from his former intention of retrenching clerical usurpations.” Henry feared, justifiably, that if he did not undertake strong measures, “the crown must, from the prevalent superstition of the people, be in danger of falling into an entire subordination under the mitre.”29 Here again we see Hume’s portrayal of the situation as a product of superstition and ignorance, which was, in his view, characteristic of the medieval era. Hume wrote that Henry convened the Council of Clarendon for the specific purpose of clarifying the time-honored ancient laws; the successful result would constitute a major advance in his desire to curb the power of the clergy. The claims of the Church were open and visible, since their privileges had been clearly defined by the canons of ecclesiastical councils. Therefore, Henry “deemed it necessary to define with the same precision the limits of the civil power; to oppose his legal customs to their divine ordinances; to determine the exact boundaries of the rival jurisdictions.”30 Hume believed that this was a necessary action for Henry to take: When ecclesiastical usurpations threaten to throw the state into convulsions, “it behooves the prince, both for his own interest, and for that of the public, to provide, in time, sufficient barriers against so dangerous and insidious a rival.”31 The king’s anger at Becket’s appeals to the pope and censures of the king could be excused, since Henry’s actions were undertaken for the benefit of society in general. Further, ecclesiastical interference with civil power was a species of barbarism.32 The provisions of the Constitutions of Clarendon were discussed by all of the Enlightenment authors, although not in the same degree of detail. Each account demonstrates the choice of the individual historian, with the obvious intention of supporting his own assertions. For example, Lyttelton presented ten of the provisions of the Constitutions of Clarendon which were “most contradictory to the pretensions of the clergy and see of Rome,” whereas Rapin and Burke condensed that number. Hume, by contrast, analyzed the 16 clauses in detail, claiming that they “were calculated to prevent

200  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket the chief abuses, which had prevailed in ecclesiastical affairs, and to put an effectual stop to the usurpations of the Church, which, gradually stealing on, had threatened the total destruction of the civil power.”33 He then recounted that Henry “put to them [the prelates of England] this concise and decisive question: whether or not they were willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the kingdom? The bishops unanimously replied, that they were willing, saving their own order.” This response, as Hume wrote, was merely “A device, by which they thought to elude the present urgency of the king’s demand, yet reserve to themselves, on a favourable opportunity, the power of resuming all their pretensions.”34 Rapin and his successors argued that the king was “highly pleased” with the outcome, and sought a confirmation in the form of a papal bull, believing that the pope would consent to laws deemed necessary by the bishops themselves. But the pope refused to sanction the measures, and “even condemned them as very prejudicial to the Church, and destructive of her privileges.”35 Shortly thereafter, Becket repented of signing the Constitutions, requesting papal pardon for the “enormous crime.” Henry sent proposals of accommodation to the pope, but the situation remained at an impasse. When the king saw that Becket, “proud of the pope’s protection,” grew even more obstinate, “he sought means to humble him. To this end, he involved him in troubles, which indeed gave him great vexation, but were incapable of causing him to desist from his pretensions.” These included accusations of embezzlement, which constituted capital crimes. For Rapin, Becket’s unwillingness to answer the charges deemed him “a rebel against the authority of the laws.”36 Further, Becket “refused to wait on the king, who sent for him to try, whether, by discoursing with him in person, he could bring him to some temper.” This insult furnished Henry with additional reasons to accuse him, and to render the sentence which deprived Becket of all his moveable goods, ultimately accusing him of treason. The king was obviously bent upon his ruin, but knowing this served only to confirm the archbishop’s obstinacy. Perhaps, Rapin suggests, this was a result of his “proud and willful spirit,” but Becket may have been determined to become famous as a result of his firm stance, which, “in his [own]opinion, ought to rank him among the most renowned confessors in the church.”37 The charge of treason was confirmed, but Becket, feigning illness, refused to come to hear the sentence, and declining to wait for the outcome, he departed for Flanders in disguise. Rapin observed that the archbishop was welcomed by the French king, who hoped that Henry would become embroiled in the troubles, and that France might obtain an advantage; he offered protection and refuge in French domains for this reason. But he was not content with sheltering the fugitive prelate, appealing to the pope to espouse his cause, and turning against Henry, “whose interest, in good policy, he ought to have maintained.”38 As Rapin remarked, the pope was easily convinced, knowing that his support of Becket and the French monarch offered him a favorable opportunity to enlarge his own authority. Rapin’s

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 201 presentation of the material in this way not only reflects his anti-papal stance, but also his animosity, as a Hugenot, toward the French monarchy. Hume also chastised the French king for his protection of Becket during his exile, which he called “banishment.” In his support of the archbishop, Louis VII was motivated by jealousy of the rising greatness of Henry, which rendered him “well pleased to give him disturbance in his government.” Echoing Rapin, Hume pointed out that Louis forgot that “this was the common cause of princes, [and] affected to pity extremely the condition of the exiled primate.”39 According to Lyttelton, Becket’s exile was a “very high misdemeanor,” specifically forbidden by the Constitutions of Clarendon, although Thomas himself regarded his decision to flee from England as an act of religion. The archbishop did not intend to abandon his cause; he believed that he would be able to accomplish his goals more easily from abroad, and he hoped that by “working on the bigotry and simplicity of the French monarch, and by animating the pope to more vigorous measures,” he would be able to force Henry to give up the Constitutions of Clarendon.40 Again, “his whole conduct expressed a deliberate purpose to exalt the ecclesiastical above the civil power.”41 Lyttleton called special attention to Henry’s proclamation prior to Becket’s departure into exile that forbade any violence against the archbishop, thus preparing a defense for the king’s culpability in his murder. Further, he claimed that reports of a plot against Becket’s life were simply an excuse to justify his flight. In describing the appeals from Becket to the pope, Lyttelton emphasized the illegality of these measures. The archbishop presented the Constitutions of Clarendon for papal opinion, which was “a most insolent violation of the independence, the freedom, and the dignity of the crown; and the abetting of such an act was without question highly criminal in a subject of that kingdom.” Moreover, Becket knew that this crime would be considered a virtue by the papal court, and that “the merit [so engendered] would atone for any failing or offence in other parts of his conduct.”42 Henry sent a legation to the pope, but finding that it was unsuccessful, he enacted further measures against the archbishop, including the banishment of all his relations. Rapin passed over this contentious issue with the phrase, “not sparing even the most distant,”43 but the expulsion of Becket’s kin was analyzed in detail by Lyttelton, who provided a novel interpretation of the events. He asserted that it was common during Henry’s reign for the innocent to be “involved in the punishment of the guilty” for certain offenses; indeed, severities of this nature [Becket’s treason] “were supposed to be due from the justice of the kingdom.”44 Although he allowed that “nothing can justify the proceeding itself,” because “that which is contrary to humanity and natural justice cannot be warranted by any authority of law or custom,” Lyttelton did offer an excuse for Henry’s action, blaming the officers involved. “The cruelty of extending the general sentence of

202  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket banishment against the relations and friends of Becket, even to women and infants at the breast, did not arise from the intention of Henry himself, but from the barbarous zeal of the officer who executed his orders.” Indeed, Henry was induced to depart from “the humanity of his own disposition,” by bad counsel, specifically from Becket’s enemy Ranulph de Broc, who “was a man of a cruel nature.” Nonetheless, “the obstinancy of Becket was not conquered” by this action, “nor his distress much augmented, but his malice was exasperated, and far better justified in the eyes of the world, by the cruelty of this unjust and unprofitable act.”45 In discussing Becket’s exile, Rapin included a “threatening” letter from the archbishop to Henry in order to strengthen his interpretation, asserting that it constituted “a piece very proper to discover the character of that prelate.”46 It is interesting to note that Rapin referred to the letter (Desiderio desideravi) as “threatening,” while Anne Duggan discussed it as “Becket’s appeal to the king,”47 echoing David Knowles, who observed that it had an intimate tone employed to establish a “purely spiritual, personal, and paternal relationship with the king.”48 The letter, which Rapin condensed from the original source,49 begins with almost affectionate terms, and then offers advice for the king. Thomas wrote that he felt compelled to speak for three reasons: The king was his liege-lord, to whom he owed and offered his best advice, and to whom he owed profound respect. The king was also Thomas’s spiritual son, and it was Thomas’s “duty to correct and exhort” him. He then cited various scriptural references regarding kings of the Old Testament, some of whom despised the commandments of the Lord and were deprived of glory, understanding and might. Others, such as David, who humbled himself before God, received a larger measure of grace and greater perfection. Thomas reminded Henry of his coronation vows, “to protect the Church in all her immunities,” and advised him to restore the Church of Canterbury, “from which you received your authority. . . . Otherwise be assured, that you will draw down on your head the wrath and vengeance of God.”50 The letter failed to appease the king, and Rapin remarked that it was difficult to believe that Becket wrote it with that intent. Henry’s response was to form an army, which called forth an aside from Rapin: “Truth is, a prince supported with a strong army has it always in his power to render himself formidable to those who have none but spiritual weapons to brandish.”51 Lyttelton also incorporated material from various letters sent by Becket during his exile, pointing out Becket’s adherence to the principles of Pope Gregory VII, which sought to assert the authority of the Church. In writing to the king, Becket quoted the decretals of Gregory, saying: It is written, that none ought ever to judge a priest but the church; and to pass sentence on such does not belong to human laws: That Christian princes are accustomed to obey the decrees of the church, not to

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 203 set their own power above them; to bow their heads to bishops, not to judge bishops.52 The account of Becket’s exile continues with citations from letters to and from the English bishops, analyzing in detail the conflict among the clergymen themselves concerning Becket’s actions. Rapin proceeded with a discussion of the growing animosity between the parties involved, emphasizing the extreme haughtiness of Pope Alexander. Eventually Henry requested that the king of France arrange a meeting between Becket and the two kings. The archbishop appeared before them, and “very boldly pleaded his cause.” When asked whether he would pledge obedience to his sovereign, he replied that he was ready to pay obedience to him in all things, saving the honour of God.53 Henry interpreted this as an evasion, remarking to Louis that Becket seemed to promise nothing at all. Hume concurred with Rapin’s analysis, claiming that the failure of the parleys was due to the archbishop’s intransigence concerning the inclusion of the phrase “the honour of God, and the liberties of the church.”54 Most scholars agree that the coronation of Young King Henry was a precipitating factor in the final stages of the quarrel, but, again, the eighteenthcentury historians provide a justification for this action of Henry II. Rapin described the event in some detail, claiming that the ceremony was performed “with universal approbation, [which] gave the king a double satisfaction.” He had not only secured the succession to the throne, he had mortified Becket, who “was exceedingly vexed to hear that a ceremony of that importance was solemnized without him; it being, as he pretended, an office annexed to the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury.”55 Hume expanded on Rapin’s account of the coronation, slanting his discussion to imply that the archbishop’s potential actions forced Henry to take this step. The king feared that Becket might lay an interdict on the kingdom and fulminate a sentence of excommunication against his person; hence, he thought it prudent to have his son crowned, thus ensuring the succession of the prince and the preservation of his family on the throne.56 Although the coronation plans were formulated in secret, Hume asserted that Becket was apprised of the intended ceremony. Thomas, however, wished to obstruct all Henry’s measures, and was anxious to prevent this affront to himself, claiming the sole right, as Archbishop of Canterbury, to officiate in the coronation. Hence, the archbishop incited the king of France to protest against the coronation unless his daughter received the royal unction at the same time.57 Both Becket and Louis demanded some reparation from Henry. Henry apologized, explaining that the omission occurred because of the haste of the preparations, and promising the French king that there would be another ceremony in which both Young King Henry and Margaret would

204  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket be crowned. He assured Becket that he would officiate at the coronation. But, according to Hume: The violent spirit of Becket, elated by the power of the church, and by the victory which he had already obtained over his sovereign, was not content with this voluntary compensation, but resolved to make the injury, which he pretended to have suffered, a handle for taking revenge on all his enemies.58 Upon his return to England, he pronounced the sentence of excommunication on the bishops who had participated in the coronation. The matter was submitted to Pope Alexander, who responded by saying that “he could not dispense with granting the archbishop a power to revenge with the sword of excommunication, the injuries done the Church and his own Person.”59 As Rapin described the situation, Becket, “as soon as he received the pope’s leave, . . . thundered anathemas against such numbers of the clergy, that there was scarce enough left unexcommunicated to officiate in the King’s Chapel.”60 Rapin made light of Becket’s return to Canterbury, “where he made his entry with the acclamations of the meaner sort of people, whilst the more considerate were sorry to see him thus triumphant; [the archbishop], far from being humbled by his long exile, was grown more proud and haughty.”61 His action on Christmas Day, when he excommunicated two barons, “both distinguished by their birth and stations,” for trifling offenses, including cutting off the tail of Becket’s horse, indicated plainly that: [H]e was not humbled by his disgrace, but was ready to revive the quarrel whenever he saw occasion. The truth is, had he intended to keep fair with the king, he would not have excommunicated for such trifles, two of the immediate vassals of the crown, since that was one of the articles which occasioned his contest with Henry.62 Lyttelton’s description of Becket’s return from exile clearly demonstrates his propensity for placing the archbishop’s actions in an extremely negative light. He reported that Thomas’s “vanity was much pleased” by the acclamations of the “poor of the country,” and the triumphal nature of the reception. Moreover, “it seems that his piety was not at all offended with this application of Scripture, who so blasphemously equaled him to the Messiah.” This ostentatious display, according to Lyttelton, had been arranged by John of Salisbury, who had written a month before to give notice of the date of Becket’s return, and to exhort them to meet him with all due honors, as their predecessors had met Saint Anselm, when he came back from banishment. Becket was so elated by “these extravagant and impious adulations that he could not help boasting of them in his letter to the pope. ‘I was

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 205 received,’ says he, ‘with great devotion by the clergy and people.’ ” Lord Lyttelton, with aristocratic disdain, observed that Thomas “made a mistake which often proves of pernicious consequence, he mistook the mob for the people. Hence he fondly presumed upon a strength he had not, and nourished that insolence which brought on his destruction.”63 In Hume’s account of the return to Canterbury, Becket was received with acclamations and hymns of joy as the clergy and the laity celebrated his triumphant entrance. [Becket] found that he was not mistaken, when he reckoned upon the highest veneration of the public towards his person and his dignity. He proceeded, therefore, with the more courage to dart his spiritual thunders, hurling the sentence of excommunication against many who had either assisted at the coronation of the prince, or been active in the late persecution of the exiled clergy.64 For Hume, this “violent measure” was tantamount to declaring war against the king himself. Burke wrote that “Becket returned in a sort of triumph to his see.” Absent from his account is any reference to the enthusiastic greeting from laypeople and clerics alike, which was likened to Christ’s return on Palm Sunday by the early biographers. Burke’s history continued with a reminder that many of the dignified clergy and not a few of the barons were still under the sentence of excommunication. But Thomas, “neither broken by adversity, nor softened by good fortune, relented nothing of his severity, but referred them all for their absolution to the Pope.” His intransigence led to additional bitterness, causing, in turn, new affronts to the archbishop, who responded with new excommunications and interdicts. “The contention thickened on all sides, [and] . . . the account of these contests was brought, with much aggravation against Becket, to the ears of the king, then in Normandy.” Henry, foreseeing a new series of troubles, “broke out in a violent passion of grief and anger, ‘I have no friends, or I had not so long been insulted by this haughty priest!’ ” Four knights who were close by, “thinking that the complaints of a king were orders for revenge,” and hoping for a reward “equal to the importance, and even guilt, of the service, silently departed.”65 Rapin had explained Henry’s remarks which led to the murder of the archbishop in much the same way, adding the detail that the Archbishop of York warned the king that “as long as Becket was alive, it was impossible for England to enjoy any repose.” The king, exasperated by these complaints, and tired by being thus incessantly plagued by the insolence of a subject whom he had raised from the dust, could not help uttering these words aloud: I am very unhappy, that among the great numbers I maintain, there’s not a man that dares undertake to revenge the affronts I perpetually receive from the hands

206  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket of a wretched priest. These words were not dropped in vain. Four of the king’s domestics, reflecting on the king’s reproaches, combined together to free him from this enemy.66 For Hume, when the suspended prelates arrived in Normandy to complain of the violent proceedings of Becket, the king “instantly perceived the consequences,” fearing the overthrow of his whole plan of operations; “being vehemently agitated, [he] burst forth into an exclamation against his servants, whose want of zeal, he said, had so long left him exposed to the enterprises of that ungrateful and imperious prelate.”67 Four of his courtiers, ”taking these passionate expressions to be a hint for Becket’s death, immediately communicated their thoughts to each other; and swearing to avenge their prince’s quarrel, secretly withdrew from court.”68 Rapin and his successors believed that the actions of the knights when they encountered Becket in the cathedral were understandable; when they began by “upbraiding him for his pride and ingratitude,” he returned so “resolute an answer” that they were incited to “execute their purpose,” breaking his skull “in so violent a manner that the blood and brains flew all over the altar.”69 Significantly, all of the historians pointed out that the knights left peaceably, with nobody attempting to stop them. Rapin also observed that “the time and manner of his death aggravated the guilt of his murderers, and gained him more friends after he was dead, than ever he had during his life.”70 Discussing the aftermath of the murder, Burke remarked that the “horror of his barbarous action, increased by the sacredness of the person, who suffered, and of the place where it was committed, diffused itself on all sides with incredible rapidity.”71 The clergy equated Becket with the most holy martyrs, and compassion for his fate made all men forget his faults. Further, “the report of frequent miracles at his tomb sanctified his cause and character, and threw a general odium on the king.”72 Henry managed – “with infinite difficulty,” according to Burke – to extricate himself from the consequences of this murder, “which threatened, under the papal banners, to arm all Europe against him.” He renounced the most vital parts of the Constitutions of Clarendon; he purged himself by declaring an oath that he was not responsible for the murder of the archbishop; he undertook a humiliating penance at the martyr’s tomb, and he promised to furnish a large sum of money for relief of the Holy Land, and to make a pilgrimage as soon as his responsibilities would allow the journey. Burke speculated that the king “probably thought his freedom from the haughtiness of Becket cheaply purchased by these condescensions.”73 Rapin closed his discussion by reflecting on a public debate at the University of Paris that occurred some 50 years after the martyrdom. The question for dispute was whether Becket was in heaven or hell, “so ambiguous a point was his sanctity.” Some asserted that for his extreme pride he deserved to be damned. Others maintained that the miracles wrought at his tomb were undoubted proof of his salvation. Rapin’s assessment was that:

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 207 This last argument indeed would have been unanswerable if these miracles were as evidently proved, as [they were] industriously spread. However this be, it is confessed Becket suffered Martyrdom; but it remains to determine, whether it was indeed for the cause of God and Religion, or only for that of the Pope and Clergy.74 For Lyttleton, Becket was “a man of great talents, of elevated thoughts, and of invincible courage,” but he possessed a “most violent and turbulent spirit,” and was “excessively passionate, haughty, and vainglorious.” Moreover, he was inflexible and “implacable in his resentments,” and he was “guilty of a willful and premeditated perjury.” He opposed the “necessary course of public justice, and acted in defiance of the laws of his country.” Throughout the struggle with Henry he was “in the highest degree ungrateful to a very kind master, whose confidence in him had been boundless.” The only possible justification for his actions is that he might have been “misled by the prejudices of a bigoted age, and may have thought he was doing an acceptable service to God, in contending, even to death, for the utmost excess of ecclesiastical and papal authority.”75 Burke elaborated on Lyttelton’s opinions, writing that Becket’s support of the principles undergirding the privileges of the Church were “subversive of all good government.” The archbishop espoused “extravagant ideas of church power [and] the schemes he meditated, even to his death,” sought to extend it further. He was guilty of a “violent and unreserved attachment to the papacy, and that inflexible spirit, which all his virtues rendered the more dangerous, made his death as advantageous at that time, as the means, by which it was effected, were sacrilegious and detestable.”76 The words of Lord Lyttelton offer a succinct summary of the Enlightenment views of Becket: He certainly showed in the latter part of his life a spirit as fervent as the warmest enthusiast’s; such a spirit indeed as constitutes heroism, when it exerts itself in a cause beneficial to mankind. Had he defended the established laws of his country, and the fundamental rules of civil justice, with as much zeal and intrepidity as he opposed them, he would have deserved to be ranked with those great men, whose virtues make one easily forget the allay of some natural imperfections: but, unhappily, his good qualities were so misapplied, that they became no less hurtful to the public weal of the kingdom, than the worst of his vices.77 For Hume, Becket’s fate was tragic; he was a victim of the prejudices of the age: This was the tragical end of Thomas a Becket, a prelate of the most lofty, intrepid, and inflexible spirit, who was able to cover to the world, and probably to himself, the enterprises of pride and ambition under the disguise of sanctity and of zeal for the interests of religion. An

208  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket extraordinary personage, surely, had he been allowed to remain in his first station, and had directed the vehemence of his character to the support of law and justice, instead of being engaged by the prejudices of the times to sacrifice all private duties and public connections to ties which he imagined, or represented, as superior to every civil and political consideration. But no man who enters into the genius of that age can reasonably doubt of Becket’s sincerity.78 In Hume’s view, the twelfth-century interpretation of Becket’s life was a product of the superstition that was prevalent in society, when “every careless reasoner” was inevitably caught up in “the thick cloud of ignorance.” The literature of the era promoted aberrant views, and faint glimmerings of common sense only occasionally pierced through the “illusions of perverted science, which had blotted out the sun, and enveloped the face of nature.”79 For Hume, as Nicholas Vincent has remarked, “Becket’s murder was an inevitable and necessary step if the English were to be freed from monkish superstition and foreign rule.”80

Joseph Berington and the Catholic response The histories of Rapin, Lyttelton, Hume, and Burke typify the anticlerical attitudes held among their literate contemporaries,81 and, as Thomas Jones has pointed out, it was inevitable that their writings should engender an equally passionate response from an historian defending the traditional position of the Church.82 This came from Reverend Joseph Berington (1743–1827), who composed a rebuttal in The History of the Reign of Henry the Second and of Richard and John, His Sons: With the Events of the Period, from 1154 to 1216 in which the Character of Thomas A. Becket is Vindicated from the Attacks of George Lord Lyttleton (1790).83 In the preface to his work, Berington stated that in reading “modern” writers, he noticed with what asperity they spoke of Becket, but he also knew “how highly the character of the prelate was venerated in his own church.” His avowed aim in assessing the history of the conflict between Henry II and the archbishop was “to bring the subject to a fair discussion, and to be just,”84 although he recognized that “by some [he would be] accused of bigotry, and of seeing with popish eyes.”85 Berington turned to a number of medieval sources, including the twelfthcentury biographies, chronicles and numerous letters. However, he remarked, “to the moderns I am not much indebted, for possessing the original writers themselves, I wished to be guided by them alone, and to feel no foreign influence. Occasionally, however, I looked into Rapin, Hume and the History of Henry II, by George Lord Lyttelton.”86 He had especially dismissive words for the work of Rapin, saying that the most valuable part were the notes of his translator, Tindal. “The work itself is a base compilation, which has marred the beauty of English story [sic], and led many writers, who

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 209 have been satisfied to copy him, into an endless maze of errors.” Berington pointed out that Rapin, as a Huguenot, was unhappy about his expulsion from France, and “sought to revenge the injury on all its monarchs, misstating their views and politics: he vilified the religion of Rome and the characters of its ministers, from bigotry and absurd attachment to his new faith.” He was partial and unjust regarding events in England, and presented “loose surmises” as the genuine statements of the ancient chroniclers, “whom he dares to quote.” Unfortunately, “the spirit of this man has been transfused into other pens, through a thousand channels.”87 Lyttelton’s work was a valuable compilation, Berington admitted, but the author’s partiality for Henry permitted him not to see distinctly . . . and the horror of popery, which in some is a real malady, had disordered his judgment. The mind which is oppressed by this disease, should not be allowed to enter on the discussion of ecclesiastical matters. Further, Lyttelton’s ideas about parliamentary representation and limited prerogative “were drawn from a theory which the facts of history did not establish.”88 Berington’s interpretation of the Becket controversy was grounded in the central tenet of his enlightenment philosophy, which maintained that institutions and cultures changed and progressed with the development of society;89 the medieval world was one stage in this inevitable process. As an historian, Berington sought to present an objective view of personalities and events,90 and much of his analysis, rather than reflecting traditional Catholic doctrine, exemplified eighteenth-century thought concerning the operations of the human mind and the potential for spiritual improvement. For example, in his view, when Thomas became archbishop, he experienced a “natural transition,” born of the cooperation of religion and duty, which produced “new features of mind, and a sternness of virtue, whereas no symptoms of these qualities had been evident earlier.” Berington explained that when Becket was the Chancellor of Henry II, “the situation harmonized with his character, and he could be munificent, and ostentatious, and soldier-like as he.” During his tenure the occupations of the busy court absorbed his attention, and they “seem not to have become the clergyman.”91 But when he became archbishop, the “thousand duties” entailed by his office occupied and engrossed his thoughts. “His manners and views would naturally bend to it: and that cast of character which had fortunately carried him to the objects of his ambition,” would now operate in the “new department.” Berington added that Becket may have thought that he had become the servant of a greater potentate than Henry Plantagenet, namely, Pope Alexander, but he observed that “it was the prejudice of the age.” For Berington, “the mind of man is a system of effects,” and to say that Thomas was insincere in his conversion, and “affected new manners from sinister

210  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket and insidious views, is ungenerous and contrary to the declarations of the most contemporary writers.” Indeed, “not to be able to see that the transition was most natural,” and reflected “the ordinary phenomena of human nature, speaks a want of discernment.” Individuals who lack this understanding “should not attempt to relate events in which man is a principal agent; and to be conscious of truth, and to misstate it, from the prejudices of low bigotry, from dislike of characters, or from paltry policy, is of prejudice the basest species, and degrades the historian.”92 Throughout his History, Berington strove to maintain an objective view of Becket. For example, in recounting the archbishop’s return of the chancellor’s seal to Henry, he remarked that the act was too precipitous, and Becket should have recalled “the many favors he had received, and of his master’s unbounded confidence;”93 moreover, he should have discussed the matter with Henry in person, rather than sending a messenger. As Berington observed, “When a favorite begins to fall, nothing is more rapid than his descent.”94 Berington’s account followed the opinions of earlier historians by declaring that the initial impetus for the quarrel arose over the issue of criminous clerics. He described the situation in the following way, maintaining his avowed objectivity. Viewing the king as an enlightened monarch, he wrote: Henry, as became a wise and just governor [my italics], who knew that the strength of his empire depended on the virtue of the community and the observance of the laws, was intent on punishing the refractory, and exterminating the incorrigible violators of the public peace. The judges complained to him that it was in vain they attempted to execute his commands, while thefts, rapines, and murders were with impunity committed by a class of men, to whom their jurisdiction did not reach. A hundred homicides, they said, had been perpetrated by churchmen since his accession to the throne. The king was stricken [upon hearing of the crimes committed by the clergy], and talked of ordinances, in which . . . his zeal for public justice was conspicuous, but it exceeded the bonds of prudence.95 The bishops were blameworthy, observed Berington, because they had not punished the offenders, even by degrading them, and thereby “defied the arm of justice.” Although he cautioned that the reports may be an exaggeration, they “contained much truth, we know from certain documents.”96 The king ordained that ecclesiastics accused of “heinous crimes,” if found guilty in the ecclesiastical court, should be degraded and then delivered by the bishop to the secular tribunal. Unsurprisingly, the bishops opposed this measure, since it was “an infringement of the canons and the privileges of the church.”97 Further, no one should be punished twice for the same crime. As Berington remarked, “the primate stood foremost in this opposition to the royal will.”98

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 211 The Council of Clarendon was assembled in order to ascertain the rival jurisdictions of civil and ecclesiastical power, and to produce a document in which each royal and ancient custom would be exactly defined. “With such evidence of authenticity, cavil and opposition [would] at once be silenced.”99 But: Henry came to Clarendon like a tyrant from the east. . . . It was not to strengthen the arm of justice, to invigorate the laws, to protect the rights of the crown, that he would enforce his royal customs, or he would have come prepared to exhibit them; but to gratify revenge, and to triumph in the humiliation of a man, who had dared to oppose him. It appeared also in his intemperate rage. Henry . . . in many regards was a great prince, great in peace and war . . . but his greatness never once appears in this controversy with Becket.100 Thomas capitulated at Clarendon because he responded to supplication from laity and clergy. Further, “the drawn dagger was even now pointed at his heart. Indeed, some of the king’s guards were seen running through the chambers with naked swords, their garments tucked up, and ready for execution.”101 Berington wrote that when Becket recoiled from “the imprudent mandate of the king, it was what every honest man should have done. . . . As to the members of the meeting, the primate alone excepted, there was not a spark of liberty in their breasts.”102 In discussing Thomas’s actions at the Council of Northampton, “The prelate alone, thus assailed by a vindictive monarch, insulted by his peers and deserted by his brethren, yet boldly standing on his defense, and submitting to each sentence as pronounced against him, calls for our veneration.”103 Berington’s History continued to 1216, enabling him to offer a comparison between Langton and Becket. He suggested that Thomas was “unfortunate in his age,” asserting that he struggled against the king for ecclesiastical liberties that were, at the time, generally accepted as the privileges of the clergy and confirmed by charters. The very liberties that Becket defended were restored, in Berington’s opinion, in the first clause of Magna Carta.104 Indeed: Had providence given Becket to his country, but a few years later, we should have seen him, opposing with main fortitude the wild pretensions of Rome, and at the end of the barons, wresting Magna Charta from the tyrant son of Henry.105 However, as Berington was careful to point out, this was merely a stage in the history of English liberty. Feudalism had confused the authority of royal and ecclesiastical influence, and the whole issue was part of a past era of society.106 Berington’s work is indicative of an awareness of historical change, shared to one degree or another by the other historians discussed in this

212  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket chapter. Eighteenth-century writers framed the conflict between Henry II and Becket within the context of what they regarded as an era of ignorance and groundless superstition. They viewed Henry as an able king who was striving to establish “good government” – a harmonious and lawful state. For Rapin, Lyttelton, Hume, and Burke, the archbishop was a threat to growing national stability. Moreover, he was an ambitious man who craved power and became the English representative of papal authority. Although Joseph Berington, an advocate for moderate Roman Catholicism, admitted that papal supremacy might be inappropriate in England, he strongly asserted that Thomas Becket was a man to be venerated for his unswerving devotion to the rights of the Church. For Berington, Becket was “full as great” as the “greatest heroes, whom ancient times did deify.”107

Notes 1 L. Okie, Augustan Historical Writing: Histories of England in the English Enlightenment (Lanham, MD, 1991), 3. 2 M.G. Sullivan, “Rapin, Hume and the Identity of the Historian in Eighteenth Century England,” History of European Ideas 28 (2002): 145–62, at 147. 3 Okie, Historical Writing, 7. 4 Okie, Historical Writing, 47. 5 Sullivan, “Rapin,” 153. 6 Sullivan, “Rapin,” 154, 155. Rapin was a French intellectual who found refuge from religious persecution for his Protestant belief in the Dutch Republic. He served as a professional solider who fought for William III in Ireland and was subsequently pensioned by the king, serving as tutor to the son of the Duke of Portland. When his services as tutor were no longer needed, he settled in the Hague, where he devoted the rest of his life to writing his history of England (Okie, Historical Writing, 51). 7 Records indicate that no other historical work was as widely advertised as Rapin’s in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Sullivan, “Rapin,” citing R.M. Wiles, Serial Publishing in England Before 1750 (Cambridge, 1957), 151, ft. 20. 8 Sullivan, “Rapin,” 149. 9 Sullivan, “Rapin,” 150. These ideas have generally been categorized as the “Whig” view of history by subsequent scholars. Okie agreed that Rapin’s work has a “clear Whig slant,” but he asserted that “In the end, Rapin was an ancient constitutionalist” (Okie, Historical Writing, 57). 10 Rapin, History, 227. 11 George, Lord Lyttelton, History of the Life of King Henry the Second and of the Age in Which He Lived, 4 vols. (London, 1767), iii, 2. 12 D. Hume, The History of England, 6 vols. (London, 1778), i, 305. Online Library of Liberty. http://oll.libertyfund.org, Liberty Fund, Inc., Indianapolis. Accessed 2/7/2018. R. O’Day has pointed out that although Hume was certainly against Catholicism, “this was coupled with an objection to all religious establishments. For him the word ‘religion’ spelt ‘fanaticism and superstition,’ ” R. O’Day, The Debate on the English Reformation (London, 1986), 56. 13 E. Burke, An Abridgement of English History, 3 vols. (In Volume 10 in The Works of Edmund Burke, 12 vols, London, 1812), 453–4. 14 Burke, History, 454. 15 Lyttelton, History, iii, 4–5.

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 213 16 17 18 19 20 21

Lyttelton, History, iii, 7. Lyttelton, History, iii, 5. Lyttleton, History, iii, 19. Lyttelton, History, iii, 40. Rapin, History, 226. Hume, History, i, 309–10. As D.T. Siebert has written, Hume “was fashioning his moral; he is guiding the reader to see through the saint’s pretensions.” D.T. Siebert, The Moral Animus of David Hume (Newark, DE, 1990), 123. 22 C.A. Simmons, Reversing the Conquest: History and Myth in NineteenthCentury British Literature (New Brunswick, NJ, 1990), 116. 23 Lyttelton, History, iii, 10 (emphasis is in original). 24 Lyttelton, History, iii, 20. 25 Lyttelton, History, iii, 20. 26 Hume, History, i, 312. 27 S. Kow, “Politics and Culture in Hume’s History of England,” in S. Bourgault and R. Sparling, eds., A Companion to Enlightenment Historiography (Leiden, 2013), 61–92, at 64. 28 Hume, History, i, 310. 29 Hume, History, i, 311. 30 Hume, History, i, 314. 31 Hume, History, i, 311–12. 32 Kow, “Politics,” 83. 33 Hume, History, i, 315. 34 Hume, History, i, 313. 35 Rapin, History, 228. 36 Rapin, History, 228. 37 Rapin, History, 228. 38 Rapin, History, 229. 39 Hume, History, i, 322. 40 Lyttelton, History, iii, 39. 41 Lyttelton, History, iii, 40. 42 Lyttelton, History, iii, 84. 43 Rapin, History, 229. 44 Lyttelton, History, iii, 90. 45 Lyttelton, History, iii, 90–2. 46 Rapin, History, 229. 47 A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: A Textual History of His Letters (Oxford, 1980), 197. See also her remarks in A. Duggan, ed. and trans., The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1162–70, 2 vols. (Oxford, 2000), i., 292. Since this is the letter thought to have been received by Henry II at Chinon in May 1166, it may well be that the text was originally intended for oral delivery by Becket if an interview with Henry had been arranged. Duggan, Textual History, 32, note 3. Duggan has identified it in Edward Grim’s Vita, Diceto’s Ymagines Historiarum, Hoveden’s Chronica, William FitzStephen’s Vita, Roger of Crowland’s Quadrilogus, and appended to the 1495 edition of the Quadrilogus. It was also used by Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence (vv. 3048–180). The locations of the letter in various manuscripts and Robertson’s Materials are listed in the various appendices, 229–70, as well as Tables 1 (271), 3 (274), and 5 (277). Rapin utilized the works of Diceto and Hoveden which may have provided him with access to the letter. 48 D. Knowles, The Historian and Character and Other Essays (Cambridge, 1963), 117. 49 The original version is in Duggan, Correspondence, i, 292–9 (Letter 74). 50 Rapin, History, 229. 51 Rapin, History, 230.

214  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

Lyttelton, History, iii, 122. Rapin, History, i, 231. Hume, History, i, 327–8. Rapin, History, i, 231. Hume, History, i, 329. Hume, History, i, 329–30. Hume, History, i, 330. Rapin, History, i, 231. Rapin, History, i, 231. Rapin, History, i, 232. Rapin, History, i, 232. Lyttelton, History, iii, 348 (emphasis is in original). Hume, History, i, 330–1. Burke, History, 468. Rapin, History, i, 232 (emphasis is in original). Hume, History, i, 332–3. Hume, History, i, 333. Rapin, History, i, 232. Hume cites Becket’s “opprobrious language” which enraged the knights, inviting their violence. Hume, History, 333. It is interesting to note that some subsequent editions of Hume’s History turn to other, more comprehensive descriptions of the murder. See for example, The Student’s Hume: A History of England from the Earliest Times to the Revolution in 1688, ed. J.S. Brewer (New York, 1873), in which the editor borrows the account from A. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Canterbury (London, 1854). 70 Rapin, History, i, 232. 71 Burke, History, 468. 72 Burke, History, 468. 73 Burke, History, 469. 74 Rapin, History, i, 232. 75 Lyttleton, History, iii, 361–2. 76 Burke, History, 469. 77 Lyttelton, History, iii, 362–3 (emphasis is in original). 78 Hume, History, i, 333. 79 Hume, History, i, 333. 80 N. Vincent, “Introduction: Henry II and the Historians,” in C. Harper-Bill and N. Vincent, eds., Henry II: New Interpretations (Woodbridge, 2007), 1–23, at 4. 81 During the latter part of the eighteenth century, the intense anti-clericalism gave way to more tolerant attitudes among intellectuals. 82 T.M. Jones, ed., The Becket Controversy (New York, 1970), 59. 83 J. Berington, The History of the Reign of Henry the Second and of Richard and John, His Sons: With the Events of the Period, from 1154 to 1216 in Which the Character of Thomas A. Becket Is Vindicated from the Attacks of George Lord Lyttleton, 2 vols. (London, 1790). Berington was a leader of the liberal Catholics who sought a more tolerant Roman Catholicism. These individuals, known as Cisalpinists, portrayed Catholics as loyal British subjects with no superior allegiance overseas. Their opponents, conservative Catholics known as the Transalpinists, viewed them as believing in a “despicable Catholic form of Protestantism.” (O’Day, Debate, 57). 84 Berington, History, i, x. 85 Berington, History, i, xxx. 86 Berington, History, i, xxv. 87 Berington, History, i, xxv. 88 Berington, History, i, xxv–vi (emphasis is in original).

Rationalism and the Canterbury martyr 215 89 R.J. Smith, The Gothic Bequest: Medieval Institutions in British Thought, 1688–1863 (Cambridge, 1987), 106. 90 Smith remarked that Berington “was capable of balanced historical judgements even of things uncongenial to him” (Gothic Bequest, 107). 91 Berington, History, i, 77. 92 Berington, History, i, 77–8. 93 Berington, History, i, 79. 94 Berington, History, i, 83. 95 Berington, History, i, 84–5. 96 Berington, History, i, 85. 97 See the discussions of this issue by the nineteenth-century legal historian Frederic Maitland and the twentieth-century scholar Charles Duggan, in Chapter 10. 98 Berington, History, i, 86. 99 Berington, History, i, 94. 100 Berington, History, i, 97. 101 Berington, History, i, 95. 102 Berington, History, i, 97. 103 Berington, History, i, 116. 104 Smith, Gothic Bequest, 108–9; Simmons, Reversing the Conquest, 117. 105 Simmons, Reversing the Conquest, 117, quoting Berington. 106 Smith, Gothic Bequest, 130. 107 Berington, History, i, 303.

9 Victorian biographers and antiquarians

Historical writing in the nineteenth century was influenced by several distinct currents of thought, including nationalism and a reverence for science and the scientific method. Interpretations of Becket’s life absorbed these intellectual trends, and opinions concerning the Canterbury martyr were also affected by religious issues within the Anglican Church and the ongoing contentious polemic between Catholic and Protestant believers. During this era, historians undertook the daunting task of collecting, editing, and publishing vast quantities of source material, including an extensive number of manuscripts relative to Becket’s life and martyrdom. Many of these documents were printed, several times in some cases, reaching a much broader audience than in previous centuries, and fostering new attitudes in historical study. The willingness of the British government to allot funding to historical archives, publications and catalogs fostered the emergence of history as an accepted discipline at the universities, and encouraged the development of professional, as opposed to merely antiquarian, historical writing. National histories appeared, especially in England, France, and Germany, and many of these were the result of meticulous scholarship based on newly available documentary evidence. Although some of the analytical historical commentary was written by Roman Catholic scholars, most of the recognized historians were clergymen of the Church of England – dedicated Anglicans whose work was suffused with ideas reflecting their religious positions as well as their English heritage.1 Echoing eighteenth-century scholars, these writers claimed they were creating objective history, but, just as in the previous era, their accounts became vehicles for exploring the rights and wrongs of the struggle between king and archbishop, and they presented the twelfth-century controversy in light of current issues and concerns. Their focus assumed a different form from earlier interpretations, however, and reflected nationalistic preoccupations, as well as the religious disagreements of the era. Hence, much of the debate among historians of the early nineteenth century concerned the national origins of Thomas Becket, and explored the question of whether the Canterbury martyr was a Saxon or a Norman.

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 217

Becket, nationalism, and the “Norman Yoke” In the 1820s, the French historian Augustin Thierry advanced a theory that became a central issue in the scholarship of British historians during the next several decades: In his view, the quarrel between Henry and Thomas was a prime example of the natural opposition between Saxons and Normans.2 Thierry’s interpretation of the struggle was influenced by his reading of Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, a work which Nicholas Vincent has recently called “the foundation charter of Victorian medievalism.”3 Scott based his tale on the idea of the “Norman Yoke,” a term first applied to the Norman Conquest by medieval chroniclers4 who had expressed the view that the Normans had enslaved and impoverished the native Anglo-Saxons with enduring negative effect.5 Borrowing this concept, Thierry raised the issue of Becket’s national heritage, claiming that the struggle between Henry and the archbishop arose from a “mutual hate” that was based on “race.” Henry was a Norman, and Thomas was a Saxon, “the weaker and more unfortunate of the two.” Whereas Becket was able to ingratiate himself with the Anglo-Norman aristocracy during his early career and his years as chancellor, when he became archbishop, he “laid aside his rich apparel, unfurnished his sumptuous house, broke with his noble guests, and made friends with the poor, with beggars, and with Saxons.”6 Becket became “the hero of the low in station, the undignified monks, and the clergy of inferior rank; while the natives, of all conditions, regarded him as a brother and a protector, although he had not yet done anything for their advantage.”7 In Thierry’s view, the Normans now saw Becket as the embodiment of Saxon power: “The sons of the companions of William the Bastard thought the soul of King Harold had descended into the body of him whom they themselves had made primate.”8 Thierry’s interpretation was echoed in subsequent works of nineteenth and twentieth century literature, drama and history, which referred to Becket the Saxon, rather than Becket the Englishman,9 and may be seen, for example, as late as 1960 in Jean Anouilh’s play Becket or the Honor of God, in which Henry addresses Becket as “My little Saxon.”10 The lingering wish to present Becket as a Saxon was a result of the persistent belief that an alien Norman culture had been imposed on England after 1066, masking the antiquity of English institutions and customs. In this sense, Becket became an icon of the native Anglo-Saxon tradition, and his resistance to Henry could be interpreted as a challenge to the conquering regime. Soon after the English translation of Thierry’s work became widely known, there were serious attempts to contest the view that Becket was a Saxon. For example, Francis Palgrave (1788–1861) published an article in 1844 that provided corrections of some of Thierry’s “very doubtful views,” warning readers that the French historian did not “give us English history, but the opinions which he chooses to engraft upon English history.” As

218  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket Simmons has suggested, Thierry’s wish to identify with the Saxons may have come from his sympathy for French republican ideas, and may have expressed his own social malaise. His identification with the Saxons was not shared by his fellow French historian, Michelet, although both men seem to have been espousing an historical perspective that did not center upon a cult of personalities, but rather on a united sense of identity.11 For Thierry, the categorization of Saxons and Normans may have furnished an example of class struggle, in which Becket symbolized the common identity of the underclass. The theory of Thomas’s Saxon birth was also challenged in 1846 in the Church of England’s Church Review by the Anglican clergyman James Craigie Robertson (1813–1882), who pointed out the contradictions in contemporary sources. Although he admitted that, as archbishop, [Becket] was, indeed, soon involved in quarrels with various nobles, . . . [but] this was not from any enmity of Saxons against Norman, or of one class against another; but because individuals interfered with what he regarded as the right of his see.12 In his biography of Becket, Robertson asserted that Thierry’s concept, although novel and bold, was “utterly untenable.”13 He provided evidence of his claim with citations from the early biographers, thoroughly demolishing the claim of Thierry and others that Becket was of Saxon heritage and demonstrating that the archbishop’s parents were Norman.14 Other historians, such as the Anglican moderate Henry Hart Milman, joined in the discussion. As Milman wrote in his History of Latin Christianity, “It was not as a Saxon, but as a Saint, that Becket was the object of unbounded popularity during his life and idolatry after his death.”15 William Stubbs (1825–1901), a Tory and Anglican bishop, entered the debate, asserting that England was a Teutonic nation, and was unaffected by any significant influence from Rome or Latin Europe. The English qualities of self-reliance and self-government were due to their German blood, which led them to national liberty and self-fulfillment.16 His remarks were reflected in a different and more subtle approach to the question of Becket’s national origins and predilections found in works by Robertson and his friend, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815–1881). In writing about Becket, they did not question his integrity or attempt to expose him as a hypocrite, nor did they attempt to furnish documentary evidence pointing to the “Gothic cunning” so often associated by Anglican writers with Roman Catholicism. It was obvious that throughout his life, Becket exhibited the dogged determination and refusal to compromise – a moral earnestness often characterized as a Teutonic trait; hence, these historians sought his “alien qualities” in other aspects of his biography.17 For example, Robertson and Stanley implied that Becket’s penitential practices were not characteristic of the English Church tradition. Indeed,

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 219 Stanley suggested, the penitential garb Becket was wearing under his robes at the time of his murder was decidedly un-English. The haircloth, “which had been made of unusual roughness,” was designed to be easily removed for Becket’s daily scourgings, and the: austerity of the hair drawers, close fitted as they were to the bare flesh, had hitherto been unknown to English saints; and the marvel was increased by the sight – to our notions so revolting – of the innumerable vermin with which the haircloth abounded – boiling over with them . . . like water in a simmering cauldron.18 Simmons has pointed out that the phrase “to our notions” specifically discourages identification with Becket. The archbishop “practiced strange and unhealthy popish rituals and should not be associated with Victorian gentlemen of the present.”19 Robertson’s remarks in his 1859 biography of Becket are even more specific: the archbishop’s penitential acts constituted “a mortification . . . without example among the English saints.”20 Indeed, the “fashion” and habits of the saint described by the early biographers, and which proved their hero’s sanctity, were offensive to Protestant tastes.21 Robertson’s remarks about English saints reveal his anti-Catholic bias by implying that he is relying on a documentary source, when in reality, no mention is made in the biographers’ descriptions of his penitential activities as being particularly un-English. As Simmons observed, Robertson’s phrase “it is said,” relies on no better authority than Stanley’s preconceptions of the English religious tradition, and Robertson is, in fact, quoting his friend. “But Stanley and Robertson are doubtless correct in surmising that references to the haircloth, vermin and scourgings would emphasize the idea that Becket was a man of his time, and not a man of all times.”22 This view is supported by Robertson’s conclusion, which emphasizes his belief that: It is not for one age to make its own principles the rule for judging of persons who belonged to another age; and if there be anything which honourably distinguishes the tone of history in our time from that which prevailed during the eighteenth century, it is most especially the disposition to make allowance for men of earlier times, whose ideas and circumstances were widely different from our own.23

Scholarship and the professionalization of history Thierry’s theory concerning Thomas’s origins was also debunked in the scholarly response to the work of John Allen Giles (1808–1884), whose publication, The Life and Letters of Thomas á Becket, Now First Gathered from the Contemporary Historians,24 appeared in 1846. His volumes represented a return to using manuscript sources for publication, rather than simply reprinting old editions. Although his efforts engendered

220  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket criticism – according to one critic writing in The North American Review in 1865, his publication “bears the character of a compilation or collection, and does not pretend to be a finished work of art,”25 – as an initial attempt to preserve the Becket materials it was generally considered to be a valuable contribution to historical and biographical literature.26 Further, the availability of even badly organized authoritative records enabled scholars to reconsider Becket’s historical position. Giles’s work, although it was flawed and difficult to use, represented a fundamental shift in the definition of historical methodology by establishing the text as the key source of historical investigation.27 As Philippa Levine has pointed out, “Textual authority became the fundamental tenet of Victorian historical writing,” and this new overriding faith in the text resulted in “abundant schemes, both private and public, for publishing editions of manuscripts, early books, catalogues of records and collections.”28 The inaccuracies in Giles’s edition were immediately apparent, and several scholars undertook the task of correcting his errors, including James Craigie Robertson. In 1859, Robertson published a biography of Becket, Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in which, as Nicholas Vincent has observed, he “poured scorn on Giles’s works, edited ‘as you edit wagonloads of rubbish, by turning the wagon upside-down.’ ”29 Partly as a result of this publication, Robertson was chosen as editor for the Becket volumes in the Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores, popularly known as the Rolls Series – a vast collection of materials for the History of England from the invasion of the Romans to the reign of Henry VIII commissioned by the British Parliament.30 The intent of the volumes devoted to Becket was, in Robertson’s words, “to comprise, with the exception of passages from the chroniclers, all such contemporary materials for the history of Archbishop Thomas Becket as may seem important for the understanding of the subject.”31 These sources included the various Lives of Becket written by his contemporaries, as well as correspondence to and from the archbishop, and papal documents pertaining to his canonization. The collection, published in Latin and translated only partially in recent years,32 has formed the basic source for scholarship concerning Becket since its publication. As Nicholas Vincent has recently discussed in detail, partly in order to counter Giles’s charges of copyright infringement, Robertson chose to open his edition with the one major source overlooked by Giles – the collection of miracles by William of Canterbury, “on the ground that his writings were for the most part unpublished.”33 This choice had various consequences, including a new emphasis placed on Becket as miracle worker. In his Introduction to the volumes in the Rolls Series, Robertson emphasized his objectivity in editing the Becket materials. As he wrote: The character and merits of the celebrated man who is the central figure in these volumes have been so much a subject of controversy, that in a work produced with the aid of public money it would be improper

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 221 to obtrude opinions which might offend the convictions either of those who regard him with a religious veneration or of those who estimate him very differently. I therefore feel it my duty to content myself with setting before the reader the materials on which he may form his own judgment, and to confine my prefatory notices to matters which are purely literary.34 Robertson’s personal views, however, may be noted in his biography of Becket, published in 1859. Writing as an anti-Catholic rationalist, he made clear that his opinion about the Canterbury martyr was less than positive.35 Indeed, he even downplayed the martyrdom, asserting that “the murder of a prelate was nothing very uncommon,” and providing several gruesome examples of such crimes in the twelfth century.36 In assessing Henry’s role in the murder, Robertson wrote: The famous saying, “It was worse than a crime – it was a blunder,” conveys, under the form of bitter irony and sarcasm, the truth that a great public crime may be even more impolitic than wicked; and if ever the words were applicable in this sense, they might have been applied to the part which Henry was supposed to have taken in the death of Becket.37 Moreover, “In truth, the crime of his murderers must almost be dismissed from our consideration in endeavoring to form an estimate of his merits.” Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, often referred to as Dean Stanley, was another of the leading liberal theologians of his time. In addition to his sermons and articles concerning theology, he published several important works of history, and his volume Historical Memorials of Canterbury (1854)38 includes two substantial chapters concerning the life and murder of Becket. These represent, for Nicholas Vincent, “the high-water mark of Victorian Becket worship.”39 As Vincent observed further, Stanley’s account can be read as a detective story, featuring a crime, a victim (Becket), a locked crime scene (the cathedral), and a master detective (Stanley himself).40 Moreover, Stanley’s work was “deeply endowed with that sense of place and topography that was the hallmark both of Victorian tourism and of the Victorian pursuit of religious truth.”41 Stanley’s account of the martyrdom42 presented the murder in vivid terms, and his description was paraphrased for use in nineteenth-century editions of Hume’s biography of Becket, evidently to bring color and emotion to a somewhat dry account. Although his words depicting the murder are colorful and emotional, his views concerning the Canterbury martyr, pilgrimage, and relic veneration reflect his belief in rationality and objectivity and his intolerance of “groundless superstition.” It was his hope, he declared, that by scrupulously defining the site and circumstances of the martyrdom, a clearer notion can be formed of that remarkable event than is to be derived from the works either of his professed apologists or professed

222  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket opponents – if the scene can be more fully realized, the localities more accurately identified, the man and his age more clearly understood. If there be any who still regard Becket as an ambitions and unprincipled traitor, plotting for his own aggrandizement against the welfare of the monarchy, they will perhaps be induced, by the accounts of his last moments, to grant to him the honour, if not of a martyr, at least of an honest and courageous man.43 Further, if anyone thinks that attacks against bishops and clergy, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant and “however unmeasured in language or unjust in fact,” may serve to secure the interests of “Christian liberty against priestly tyranny,” they should be aware that the greatest impetus ever given to the cause of sacerdotal independence was the reaction to the murder of Thomas Becket.44 Stanley also entered into the contemporary constitutional debates, pointing out that “the Constitutions of Clarendon, which Becket spent his life in opposing, and of which his death procured the suspension, are now incorporated in the English law, and are regarded, without a dissentient voice, as amongst the wisest and most necessary of English institutions.” Raising once again the old question of ecclesiastical primacy, Stanley asserted that “the especial point for which [Becket] surrendered his life was not the independence of the clergy from the encroachments of the Crown, but the personal and now forgotten question of the superiority of the see of Canterbury to the see of York.” Finally, Stanley cautions: [W]e must all remember that the wretched superstitions which gathered round the shrine of St Thomas, ended by completely alienating the affections of thinking men from his memory, and rendering the name of Becket a by-word of reproach as little proportioned to his real deserts as had been the reckless veneration paid to it by his worshippers in the middle ages.45

Becket and Victorian religious controversy John Lingard’s History of England Nineteenth-century Catholic historians in England faced a potentially hostile audience, since their views ran counter to the prevailing historical discourse, which enshrined Protestantism as an essential element in the formation and expression of English national identity.46 Since the sixteenth century, generations of English Protestants had been indoctrinated from childhood with an exceedingly unfavorable interpretation of the actions of the Catholic Church and English Catholics, most obviously in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, but continuing into the eighteenth century in the writings of such historians as Lord Lyttleton, and in popular as well as scholarly histories of the nineteenth century.47

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 223 As a minority demanding political and religious freedom, nineteenthcentury Catholics sought to claim a place in national life, seeking acceptance and integration into English society. Their writings understated the differences between Catholics and Protestants, urging religious toleration on the grounds of reason and utility. Thus, the prevailing discourse encouraged Catholic historians to present their interpretations of the past from an essentially liberal and reasonable point of view, free of biased hostility.48 John Lingard’s History of England (1819–1830) was one of the earliest examples of this trend.49 It was a discreet and carefully written text, in which objectivity and the “unvarnished presentation of facts” were the guiding principles.50 However, as Sheridan Gilley has pointed out, his work does not entirely reflect the philosophical detachment of the eighteenth-century rationalist historians. Although Lingard claimed to be an impartial historian, his writing necessarily addressed Catholic polemical needs,51 and his History was part of the revival of confidence within the Catholic Church which occurred prior to the 1830s. It is evident that Lingard’s views were closely aligned with those of Berington and other rationalist theologians and philosophical historians who were products of the Enlightenment, and whose emphasis was on the cultivation of a rational faith, based on scripture and Church tradition.52 Lingard, however, regarded the separation of religious and political issues as essential, and throughout his career he stressed the opinion that it was possible to be both Catholic and English, loyal to both Church and Crown.53 Significantly, his work presented Catholicism as the basis of the moral and constitutional development of the nation. He buttressed his views with a detailed and impartial examination of original sources,54 and adopted a style which was more conciliatory than confrontational, wishing to persuade Protestants without offending them. As Gilley has observed, particularly in the medieval portions of his History, Lingard wrote “without uncritical tractarian adulation and without littering his pages with rationalist abuse of barbarism, folly and superstition.”55 This approach is evident throughout his analysis of twelfth-century events, including his presentation and evaluation of the life of Becket. Lingard brings Becket onto the stage in his historical narrative as “a personage . . . who, since his death, has been alternately portrayed as a saint and hero, or as a hypocrite and traitor, according to the religious bias of the historian.”56 Drawing from the early biographers, chroniclers and the archbishop’s correspondence, Lingard presented the story of Becket’s life in generally objective terms, clearly reporting the facts as transmitted in his sources. For example, in discussing Thomas’s conversion when elected as archbishop, he defended the validity of the transformation, remarking that “the total change of conduct has been viewed with admiration or censure according to the candour or prejudices of the beholders.” His contemporaries attributed the conversion to “a conscientious sense of duty,” whereas more modern historians have often described it as a “mere affectation of piety” which masked “immeasurable ambition.” If Becket had been truly

224  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket ambitious, Lingard asserted, he could have achieved greater goals by continuing to flatter the king’s wishes, and further, if he had united in himself the offices of chancellor and archbishop, he might have ruled without control in both Church and State.57 In a final evaluation of Becket’s character, Lingard wrote that: [T]his extraordinary man [was] a martyr to what he deemed to be his duty, the preservation of the immunities of the church. The moment of his death was the triumph of his cause. His personal virtues and exalted station, the dignity and composure with which he met his fate, the sacredness of the place where the murder was perpetrated, all contributed to inspire men with horror for his enemies, and veneration for his character. . . . The cause of the church again flourished; its liberties seemed to derive new life and additional vigour from the blood of their champion.58 Lingard’s work exemplified the early nineteenth-century Catholic revival in its judicious attempt to portray Catholicism as a real and vital part of English society. However, his moderate approach to compromise with the Protestant establishment was subsequently submerged and swept away in the more polemical work of the historians of the Oxford Movement and the scholars known as Tractarians. The Oxford Movement The writers associated with the so-called Oxford Movement59 strongly advocated a renewal of Roman Catholic thought and ritual within the Church of England, arguing that the Anglican Church was by history and identity a truly “catholic” Church, with roots in the apostolic tradition. Their views were supported by many loyal Anglicans who asserted that the Church of England was not dependent on the state; instead, they asserted that its authority derived from the fact that it taught Christian truth and its bishops were in direct apostolic succession. The leaders of the movement were Richard Hurrell Froude (1803–1837), John Henry Newman (1801–1890), John Keble (1792–1866), and Edward Pusey (1800–1882), whose ideas were published in ninety Tracts for the Times (1833–1841); 24 of these were written by Newman, who edited the entire series. Individuals who supported the Tracts were known as Tractarians, indicating their belief in the doctrinal authority of the early and undivided Church. Within this context, the struggle between Henry II and Becket held significant resonance, and the initial claim for the restored status of the former saint was presented in the posthumous publications of Froude.60 Two years after his death in 1837, his friends Newman and Keble edited and published his works, including a volume titled The History of the Contest

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 225 between Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry II, King of England.61 Froude’s work, as Nicholas Vincent has remarked, presented a survey of the archbishop’s experience “via the shifting prismatic of Becket’s letters.”62 Basing his conclusions on correspondence he found in the Vatican Library, Froude offered a view of Becket that was “very different from that commonly adopted either by his panegyrists of calumniators.”63 His analysis of the material led him to see “the extraordinary person” as an essentially good man, whose transformation when he became archbishop did not cause a sudden and drastic change in his behavior: Looking at the external change which actually did take place in his conduct, and the internal change which seems indicated by his professions, neither appear greater in degree, or in any way different from what his previous character would have led us to expect. In short, under each set of circumstances, he exhibits to us the same man.64 Further, Froude emphasized that Becket’s insistence upon separate ecclesiastical courts was, in the twelfth century, highly justified. His remarks spoke directly to the High Church party of the nineteenth century, pointing out that “The high-church party of the twelfth century endeavoured as much as possible to make common cause with the poor and defenceless.”65 Although it is not known how much of the introduction to the work was written by Froude himself, and how much by Newman, the author argued that Becket’s determination to maintain separate ecclesiastical courts represented an “earlier and purer state of things.”66 During the earliest, primitive phase of Christianity, the respective limits of ecclesiastical and civil authority were determined by the New Testament, and “it was impossible for sincere persons ever to be at a loss, respecting the path of duty it marked out for them.” A universal rule was established, “unlimited in its application either as to time, persons, or circumstances,” in which “the Church was an independent court of judicature, supreme as far as Christians were concerned, in all causes and over all persons, civil as well as ecclesiastical.”67 In cases of conflict with the civil magistrate, churchmen were commanded to submit; Christ’s servants were not to fight, because God’s kingdom is not of this world – every soul was subject to the higher power. But the sanctions by which the jurisdictions of civil and ecclesiastical courts were upheld differed from one another and could never interfere. Further: No Churchman could ever by any possibility be placed in circumstances such as to prevent his conforming to both the foregoing rules at one and the same time. It must always have been in his power at once to serve the Church and submit to the State, to obey and be persecuted.68 During the centuries between the apostolic era and the twelfth century, these rules had been corrupted, but an “obscure vestige” of the ancient

226  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket polity remained. The permission which had been gradually assumed by the magistrates to draw the civil sword against their fellow Christians was still subject to an exception in favor of the clerical order, including not merely the clergy, but many other persons of lesser rank, such as parish clerks and sextons, under the general name of clerics. As Froude pointed out, the claims of the Church were founded on a formal grant of William the Conqueror. When Becket insisted on this exemption he was therefore in the right, and had been unfairly judged by Protestant historians.69 Becket emerged from Froude’s analysis as the Defender of the Church who asserted ancient values established in the apostolic era. Indeed, as Nicholas Vincent has observed, “To an extent that has seldom been recognized, Becket, or rather ‘St Thomas,’ became in the mid-nineteenth century a figurehead for the Oxford Movement, for Anglican ritualists, and for the revived English Roman Catholic establishment.”70 Froude’s account of the political and ecclesiastical circumstances faced by Becket conformed to the traditional Anglican stress on the rights of the episcopate. As R.J. Smith has pointed out, Froude’s belief that the Church had retained a right to independent elections and to the independent exercise of spiritual sanctions joined with his admiration of Becket, leading him to advocate an imitation of the behavior of the twelfth-century Canterbury chapter in the face of Whig threats.71 His work was not universally admired, however. E.A. Freeman wrote, for example, that although R.H. Froude was “a man of ability and independent thought,” he was guilty of approaching his subject “from a wholly false point of view. His case was one of the most conspicuous of misconceiving history, in consequence of seeing it through an atmosphere of modern controversy. He was attracted to the subject because he falsely saw analogies between the position of the Church in the twelfth century and the nineteenth.”72 In short, as Nicholas Vincent has pointed out, by the 1840s, the Becket controversy fueled by access to his letters stood at the forefront of contemporary religious and sectarian polemic, with the supporters of St Thomas, the Tractarian man of the people, contending with the Broad Church protestants who portrayed Becket as a weird Romish extremist.73 Froude’s influence on his friend Newman was profound, and, as he wrote in his Apologia, his interest in the early Church and the medieval world was a result of their collegiality.74 Moreover, Newman’s involvement in the publication of Froude’s work suggests that the choice of the Canterbury martyr as a subject was polemical. Since the degradation of Thomas Becket had become symbolic of the Reformation, the History of the Contest might be viewed as an attack on the established Church of England.75 Newman wrote that between 1832 and 1839, he had “set great store by the Middle Ages, and had claimed the medieval English Church for Anglicanism.”76 The implication that subsequent to 1839, he abandoned his conviction of the continuity extending from the medieval Church to the Church of England may be indicative of his future decision to adopt the Roman Catholic faith.

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 227 Keble and Pusey remained leaders of the Oxford Movement, which gradually influenced so-called “High Church” Anglicanism, characterized by increased us of ritual and ceremony in Church worship. As Clare Simmons observed, these ideas presented a threat to many evangelical and Broad Church adherents, who believed that all Church doctrine that was inconsistent with reason and science and should be repudiated;77 their aim was to reconcile Christianity with reason and modern knowledge.78 Other historians contributed to the debate. From J.C. Robertson’s perspective, Becket could have acted as a great reformer of the English Church, correcting such current abuses as clerical morality and plurality, if he had worked with the king to achieve a harmonious balance between ecclesiastical and secular government.79 As his thorough analysis of the sources led him to assert, Becket was unable to see the possibility of the Church and State working together, believing in a false and narrow theory that the crown and crozier were irreconcilably hostile to each other. As both chancellor and archbishop, he proceeded as if one were the enemy of the other. When chancellor, he had taken oppressive measure against the Church, and when archbishop, he advanced only the exclusive claims of the clergy.80 Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to effect good by creating a positive relationship between secular and ecclesiastical authorities, Becket “suffered exile and death for a groundless and mischievous pretension. . . . His efforts were made, not in the general cause of the community, but for the narrowest interests of the clergy as a body separate from other men.”81 Robertson emphasized what he saw as Becket’s intention to “establish for his own class a superiority over all other men,” meaning the superior status of the clergy and ecclesiastical courts.82 Robertson’s view was shared by his somewhat older contemporary Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868), who wrote that “Becket was indeed the martyr of the clergy, not of the Church; of sacerdotal power, not of Christianity; of a caste, not of mankind.”83 From beginning to end, his actions indicated a struggle for the authority, the immunities, and the possessions of the clergy. For Becket, “the liberty of the Church was the exemption of the clergy from law;84 the vindication of their separate, exclusive, distinctive existence from the rest of mankind. His martyrdom was a sacrifice to the deified self; not the individual self, but self as the center and representative of a great corporation.”85 Even more negative opinions were voiced by James A. Froude (1818– 1894), the younger brother of R.H. Froude. An ardent scholar of Tudor England, his History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 12 vol. (1856–1870) changed the direction of Tudor studies, glorifying Henry VIII as the greatest of British monarchs. Froude believed that the Reformation was an era during which the forces of liberty were at war with the forces of darkness, as exemplified by the evil Catholic Church, and that the Anglo-Catholic revival of the nineteenth century raised a similar threat. Hence, his works are severely anticlerical in nature,

228  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket limiting his objectivity as an historian. As Clare Simmons has observed, Froude began his work with what may be the most powerful statement of a conspiracy theory in all Victorian Becket studies: Among the earliest efforts of the modern sacerdotal party in the Church of England was an attempt to reestablish the memory of the martyr of Canterbury. The sacerdotal party, so far as their objects were acknowledged, aspired only to liberate the Church from bondage to the State. The choice of Becket as an object of adoration was a tacit confession of their real ambition.86 In building his case, Froude, although he consulted the available manuscripts, was dismissive of the works of the early biographers, writing that “The accounts vary irreconcilably; and the enthusiasm for their master and his cause infects every line of their narrative;”87 he was obviously unaware that he was guilty of the opposite extreme bias in his own work. For Froude, Becket was “overbearing, violent, ambitious, unscrupulous . . . a gross pluralist,”88 and a symbol of all that was deceitful and mercenary in the Church, which was “saturated with venality.”89 For example, when analyzing his “conversion,” he wrote in The Life and Times of Thomas Becket, that the archbishop was “still the self-willed, violent, unscrupulous chancellor, with the dress of a saint upon him, but not the nature.”90 Whereas the mission of the Church was “to purify and elevate mankind,” Becket’s cause was “the privilege of the Church to control the civil government, and to dictate the law in virtue of magical powers which we now know to have been a dream and a delusion”: His personal religion was not the religion of a regenerated heart, but a religion of self-torturing asceticism, a religion of the courage and the hair shirt, a religion in which the evidences of grace were to be traced not in humbleness and truth, but in the worms and maggots which crawled about his body. He was the impersonation, not of what was highest and best in the Catholic Church, but of what was falsest and worst. The fear which he inspired was not the reverence willingly offered to a superior nature, but a superstitious terror like that felt for witches and enchanters, which brave men at the call of a higher duty could dare to defy.91

Froude, Freeman, and scholarly strife The foregoing quotation exemplifies Froude’s prose style, which was subject to excoriating criticism by contemporary reviewers and his fellow historians. As Goldwin Smith, then Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, wrote, Froude did not live up to the scientific standard demanded by current historical writing. Instead, his style “runs a little wild” in places, forcing unnecessary dramatic meaning where there should have been none.92 Rather

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 229 than merely presenting the facts, Froude “strained his imagination . . . in his attempt to paint vivid pictures of past events.”93 It is evident that Froude’s work ran counter to the view then current that archival research was the sine qua non of the professional historian; for Smith, E.A. Freeman and the professional historical community, literary history was a style of the past, and textually based accounts must take precedence over form.94 Further, in Smith’s view, Froude had succumbed to Carlyle’s historical doctrine of hero worship in his account of the Becket struggle.95 This was evident in his presentation of Henry VIII as “a perfect king,” in direct opposition to “received wisdom and common sense,”96 and this tendency was also obvious in the portrayal of Henry II in his study of Becket. In the course of his biography, Froude justified the actions of Henry II from the beginning of the quarrel with the archbishop to the exoneration of the murderers. For Froude, Henry was: a man whose faults it is easy to blame, whose many excellences it would have been less easy to imitate – a man of whom may be said what can be affirmed but rarely of any mortal, that the more clearly his history is known the more his errors will be forgiven, the more we shall find to honor and admire.97 Moreover, in addition to having been infected by Carlyle’s “dangerous example,” Froude had been influenced by the “muscular Christianity” associated with the novelist Charles Kingsley.98 Smith and other critics and fellow historians viewed him as “an interloper merely attempting to sell books rather than find and disseminate truth about the past.” Although he was sometimes praised for his research in archival sources, his use of the material was always viewed with suspicion, since his stylistic prose and his vivid imagination turned the facts into created fiction.99 The increasingly professionalized historical community saw the writings of Froude as undermining much of their work, in great measure because his publications were very popular with the general public.100 E.A. Freeman wrote, for example, that Froude’s “lack of a proper apprenticeship” was compounded by his “natural” and “incurable defects”: He lacks that calm and judicial intellect . . . that love of truth at all hazards. . . . He has not the stuff in him that could ever guide him to . . . unfailing accuracy and unswerving judgment.101 Froude responded to the criticism of Freeman and others in a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution on the topic “The Science of History.” As Ian Hesketh has observed, Froude’s words served to confirm the worst fears of the historical community. Asserting that facts are not value-neutral nuggets that provide easy access to some long-lost place, he insisted that instead, “They come to us through the minds of those who recorded them,

230  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket neither machines nor angels, but fallible creatures, with human passions and prejudices.”102 The historian cannot let the facts speak for themselves, “given their already subjective nature and that of primary documents in which they are located.”103 Froude’s portrayal of Thomas Becket reflected his historical attitudes as well as his methodology. For example, he asserted that the archbishop’s letters “show conclusively that the Constitutions [of Clarendon] were not the real causes of the dispute with the king.”104 Although Henry was willing to leave the modification of the provisions to the pope, the archbishop’s position, which lay “concealed in his favorite phrases, ‘saving my order,’ [and] ‘saving the honor of God,’ was for the supremacy of the Church over the Crown; for the degradation of the civil power into the position of delegate of the pope and bishops.” All authority was derived from God, and since the clergy were the direct ministers of God, all authority was derived through them. For Froude, “However well the assumption might appear in theory, it would not work in practice.”105 In assessing Henry’s role in the murder of the archbishop, Froude asked, “What could be done with him?” and answered, “No remedy was now available but a violent one. The law could not restrain a man who claimed to be superior to law and whose claims the nation was not prepared directly to deny.”106 Froude’s description of the king’s fatal words that led to Becket’s murder encapsulate his view of the quarrel: With the fierce impatience of a man baffled by a problem which he has done his best to solve, and has failed through no fault of his own, Henry is reported to have exclaimed: “Is this varlet that I loaded with kindness, that came first to court to me on a lame mule, to insult me and my children, and take my crown from me? What cowards have I about me, that no one will deliver me from this lowborn priest!” Froude thought it was very likely that Henry used such words. Moreover, “The greatest prince that ever sat on throne, if tried as Henry had been, would have said the same.”107 Henry’s courtiers responded as would have been expected, since: “Impetuous loyalty to the sovereign was in the spirit of the age.”108 Froude’s extremely negative opinion was countered by an appeal from the Oxford history professor E.A. Freeman, who called for “justice to the chancellor.” Freeman, in a series of articles called “Mr. Froude’s Life and Times of Thomas Becket,” excoriated the work of Froude, claiming that he himself was objective, since he had “nobody to blacken, and indeed nobody to whitewash” in his writings. He continued: Mr. Froude fights against the Archbishop; I fight, not for the Archbishop, but simply for truth. . . . I have neither to defend the cause which the Archbishop maintained, nor the particular way in which he

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 231 maintained it. All that I have to say on behalf of either is that the cause was one which in those days might honestly be maintained, and that the way in which Thomas maintained it was one which was natural in a man of his character placed in his position.109 Indeed, both Thomas and Henry “acted as they could not fail to act.”110 It was impossible for Thomas, “being the man that he was, and in the position in which he found himself,” to do “otherwise than take up that cause with a fervor, with an obstinacy, with a kind of reckless defiance of consequences, which was peculiar to himself.”111 For Freeman, “Saint Thomas of Canterbury was a ‘muscular Christian’ with a vengeance, possessing strength and stature beyond the common lot of men.” As Thomas the Chancellor, he “was foremost in the mimic warfare of the chase and on the actual field of battle,” and “scourge and fast and sackcloth did but little to change the essential character of Thomas the Archbishop. The weapons of his warfare alone are changed.”112 In refuting Froude’s history of Becket, Freeman turned to the biography by Robertson, which he considered to be more accurate. Froude, in Freeman’s view, “Tells the story after his own fashion, confusing every fact and every point of law on which the real story turns.”113 Further, Mr. Froude’s whole narrative of the acts of Thomas is “utterly untrustworthy,” and “the imaginary portrait which he paints by way of inference from a series of imaginary acts” is “utterly groundless.”114 Indeed, “I conceive that, since men began to write history at all, not many so-called historical narratives have been written which have so utterly departed from the truth of fact as Mr. Froude’s ‘Life and Times of Thomas Becket.’ ”115 In his own assessment of the actions of Henry, Freeman echoed the opinions of the eighteenth-century historians. The king did his duty in his attempt to secure the full ecclesiastical independence of England, and to put a stop to all reference to a foreign power; indeed, “as far as dealings with the court of Rome went, what Henry the Eighth did, Henry the Second had tried to do.”116 In Freeman’s view: Henry was a great king, a great lawgiver, a ruler who did much for England, and whose name England ought to hold in honour. . . . Foreigner as he was, careless of special English interest, . . . we have no reason to doubt that he was sincerely desirous for the good government of his kingdom.117 Freeman asserted that all the actions of Thomas betrayed the “artificial character of his saintship.” Although he could not be accused of hypocrisy, “The thing is overdone . . . the fierce fanaticism, the overwrought spiritual excitement, the morbid craving for martyrdom, the evident delight in the mere wielding of his spiritual arms,” were the actions of a man “who, honestly no doubt, but consciously, asked himself at each stage what was

232  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket the right thing for a candidate for saintship to do.”118 This was an essential question for Thomas, since his character was “essentially secular.” The court and the camp were his natural milieu, not the cathedral or the cloister. Indeed, his episcopacy and his saintship were mistakes, and “throughout his life the garb of saintship never fitted him.”119 In closing, Freeman summed up his views: Thomas was a man whose history has been disfigured by three centuries and a half of adoration, followed by three more centuries of obloquy. The almost deified Saint Thomas, the despised Thomas à Becket, appears by that light as a man of great gifts, of high and honest purpose, but whose virtues were disfigured by great defects, and who was placed in a position for which his character was unsuited.120 Nonetheless, “Thomas of Canterbury, with all his faults, is fairly entitled to a place among the worthies of whom England is proud,”121 and is owed enduring respect.122

Miracles and the nineteenth-century mind As mentioned earlier in the chapter, Robertson’s decision to begin his publication in the Rolls Series with the miracle collection by William of Canterbury drew new attention to Becket’s role as a miracle worker, and the topic gathered interest in various historical works concerning Becket and his sanctity. In his introduction, Robertson gave an overview of the miracles, but offered no opinion as to their validity. In his biography of Becket, however, he wrote that Thomas must not be judged by the “miraculous” events that occurred after his murder, but “mainly by his previous acts; and we must confine ourselves strictly to the real facts of the case, since the utter misrepresentations by which the sympathy of his contemporaries was enlisted on his side render their opinion as worthless as that of those who in our own time have allowed themselves to be led by it, without the labour or the desire of acquiring materials for a correct and impartial judgment.”123 For Robertson, “The great fortune of Becket’s reputation was the manner of his end,”124 and the rapid escalation of his fame following the murder was due to the exaggeration and misrepresentation of the circumstances of the martyrdom and the supposed miracles that ensued.125 Further, the escalating displays of Becket’s miraculous power became “continually more remarkable,” because the superstitious attitudes concerning the saints during the Middle Ages “gathered around this new hero.”126 Following the canonization, “Those who opposed him in his life found themselves obliged to give way to the general feeling: they celebrated his sanctity and miracles, founded churches in his honour, and joined the throngs which crowded to his shrine.”127

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 233 Milman and Froude joined Robertson in attributing the miraculous events to superstition and excessive religious belief. For Milman, “the high-strung faith of the people” would have brought miracles about “almost without suggestion or assistance,” even if the clergy had had no interest in the miracles at the tomb of the martyr: Cures would have been made or imagined; the latent powers of diseased or paralyzed bodies would have been quickened into action. Belief, and the fear of disbelieving, would have multiplied one extraordinary event into a hundred; fraud would be outbid by zeal; the invention of the crafty, even if what may seem invention was not more often ignorance and credulity, would be outrun by the demands of superstition. There is no calculating the extent and effects of these epidemic outbursts of passionate religion.128 As might be expected, Froude held a similar view, which he expressed in more colorful language. Following his description of Becket’s murder, he wrote that: Every superstitious mind in Christendom was at work immediately, generating supernatural evidence which should be universal and overwhelming. When once the impression was started that Becket’s relics were working miracles, it spread like an epidemic. Either the laws of nature were suspended, or for the four years which followed his death the power and the wish were gone to distinguish truth from falsehood. The most ordinary events were transfigured. That version of any story was held to be the truest which gave most honor to the martyr. That was the falsest which seemed to detract from his glory. As Becket in his life had represented the ambition and arrogance of the Catholic Church, and not its genuine excellence, so it was his fate in death to represent beyond all others the false side of Catholic teaching, and to gather round himself the most amazing agglomerate of lies. . . . There is no occasion to pursue into further details the history of this extraordinary alliance between religion and lying, which forced on Europe the most extravagant sacerdotalism by evidence as extravagant as itself. . . . Ecclesiastical miracles are not worked in vindication of purity of life or piety of character. . . . They are the spurious offspring of the passion of theologians for their own most extravagant assumptions. They are believed, they become the material of an idolatry, till the awakened conscience of the better part of mankind rises at last in revolt, and the fantastic pretensions and the evidence alleged in support of them depart together and cumber the world no more.129 The contrasting view was presented by the Jesuit historian John Morris, who devoted an entire chapter of his biography of Becket to recounting

234  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket various miracles,130 emphasizing their validity by quoting from the Papal Bull of Canonization: [O]ur Saviour and Redeemer wished to give brilliant proofs of it [his sanctity] by magnificent miracles, that so he, who has borne want and perils for Christ with the constancy of insuperable virtue, may now be known by all to have received the triumph of his labour and of his contest in eternal blessedness.131 The widespread interest in miracles, coupled with the varying accounts in the sources, led Edwin A. Abbott (1838–1926) to undertake the task of organizing, collating and translating into English the various accounts of Becket’s death and the miracle collections compiled by Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury; this copious work was published as St Thomas of Canterbury: His Death and Miracles, 2 vols. (1898).132 Heavily annotated, the volumes remain a basic and convenient source for information drawn collectively from the early biographers, although recent scholars dealing with this material have improved upon the translations and have suggested further connections between the miracle accounts.133 Abbott’s dedication indicates his approach to analyzing the material: To the Memory of THOMAS Once Archbishop of Canterbury Now Venerated by some as Saint and Martyr By some few vilified as a narrow ecclesiastic But deserving to be studied by all Whether friends critics or enemies As a conspicuous proof That the spirit May be then first manifested in its full power When defeat and corruption Have triumphed over the flesh.134 Abbott, headmaster of the City of London School, was a scientific rationalist and broad church Anglican who utilized the same techniques of criticism in his work that had been previously applied to the Gospels by German scholars.135 In his view, the materials in the volumes of the Rolls Series devoted to Thomas Becket presented “parallelisms to problems of New Testament criticism so exact and so helpful” that his extracts and notes grew into a “book of considerable size.”136 Just as in the gospels, the sources for Becket’s death and miracles constituted “a vast superfluity of opinions coexist(ing) with a paucity of arranged materials for forming opinions, and with an almost complete absence of recognized rules of criticism.” His objective was to “supply a store of classified facts,”137 and, indeed, his efforts provided a study of great value to future historians.

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 235 Abbott presented the miracles in several different ways, depending upon the content and whether the tale was recorded by both Benedict and William. The accounts which appear in both collections were published side by side, with Latin citations at the bottom of the page. The volumes also included a section titled “Legendary Accounts of Miracles,” which comprised “Legends Recorded by Authoritative Writers,” and those by “Non-Authoritative Writers,”138 as well as “Poetic Legends” and “Poetry and Romance.”139 In summing up his work, Abbott gave his opinion concerning miracles in a portion titled “Inferences from the Miracles,” beginning with “The Good and Evil of the Miracles.” Abbott recognized that critics might point to mendacity and greed, especially on the part of the clergy, as well as fraud and deceit by pilgrims; however, he pointed out that these moral abuses existed long before the cult of Becket, and the saint could certainly not be held responsible.140 Abbott’s scholarly labors convinced him that almost all of the early miracles were facts, and corresponded directly to the descriptions by Benedict. As he observed: In the books of St. Thomas’s Miracles, several are so circumstantially detailed by chroniclers nearer the time, and so well certified, that a scientific man, while denying their supernatural character, is forced to admit their extraordinary nature, and to regard them as cures wrought through the imagination, far exceeding in rapidity (and sometimes even in completeness and permanence) anything that could be effected by recognized medical means.141 This seems to have been a revision – indeed, a volte face – of Abbott’s earlier belief concerning miracles, as expressed in his work Philomythus: An Antidote Against Credulity, published in 1891. In that work he leveled, in the words of Nicholas Vincent, “a bitter assault” against John Henry Newman’s writings concerning miracles.142 Abbott’s primary complaint against the cardinal was that he lent credence to miraculous occurrences that were “unsupported, rather than [ones] that were supported, by a basis of facts.” Moreover, Newman “hardly conceals his contempt for the Protestant reader who cannot help asking for evidence.”143 It is obvious that, by the end of the decade, Abbott’s sifting of the evidence by means of meticulous research and scientific methodology had led him to a conclusion of belief, at least regarding the early miracles. For Abbott, Becket “caused a religious revival. . . . The miracles brought with them an uprising of moral and religious fervor, and indirectly prove it by multitudinous details recorded without controversial purpose.”144 As we have seen, writing concerning Becket in the nineteenth century had many facets. His portrayal as a Saxon hero reflected nationalistic preoccupations, he was a focus of religious and scholarly debate, and accounts of his miracles were subject to processes of scientific interpretation and meticulous organization. A further avenue of interpretation was pursued at the

236  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket close of the century, when some scholars turned their attention to exploring the legal aspects of the struggle between Henry and Becket, making an effort to establish the truth as to which of the antagonists was more firmly grounded in the tenets of canon law. The next chapter traces the arguments and opinions of these writers.

Notes 1 C.A. Simmons, Reversing the Conquest: History and Myth in Nineteenth-­Century British Literature (New Brunswick, NJ, 1990), 114. See also the comments of J. Kirby, Historians and the Church of England: Religion and Historical Scholarship, 1870–1920 (Oxford, 2016), 1. Kirby points out that Anglican historians were “in the vanguard of European historical scholarship”, 2. For his discussion of “The Learned Church,” see Chapter 3, 41–74. 2 Milman remarked that Lyttelton was the first to assert the Saxon descent of Becket, and speculated that perhaps he “misled” Thierry. H.H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, 9 vols. (London, 1854), iv, 311, ft. 2. 3 N. Vincent, “Thomas Becket,” in G. Atkins, ed., Making and Remaking Saints in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Manchester, 2016), 92–111, at 100. Scott was chastised in the 1870s by E.A. Freeman for the historical inaccuracies of his novel, since his work had been mistaken by Thierry for true English history. See the remarks in M. Alexander, Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England (New Haven, CT, 2007), 132. 4 Orderic Vitalis, for example, wrote: “And so the English groaned aloud for their lost liberty and plotted ceaselessly to find some way of shaking off a yoke that was so intolerable and unaccustomed.” Quoted in S. Brownie, Memory and Myths of the Norman Conquest (Woodbridge, 2013), 111. As Kirby observed, nineteenth-century Anglicans viewed the Norman Conquest as establishing not only civil but also ecclesiastical subjugation to Rome. (Kirby, Historians, 91). 5 It is evident that this belief had a long literary and historical life, appearing in various tracts during the Civil War of the seventeenth century, and as late as the second half of the nineteenth, when Henry Hart Milman wrote in his History of Latin Christianity that England was a newly-conquered country in the twelfth century, “where the kingly and aristocratic power was still foreign” (Milman, History, iv, 423). See the discussions by S. Brownie in Mapping Memory in Translation (London, 2016), 120, and Memory and Myths, 111–30; and the fundamental works of C. Hill, “The Norman Yoke,” in J. Saville, ed., Democracy and the Labor Movement (London, 1954) and M. Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest (Manchester, 1999). J. Kirby has seen the idea of the Norman Conquest as “not only about the freedom of the English constitution, but also the independence of the English nation and its church from foreign, and not least papal, interference” (Historians, 92). 6 A. Thierry, History of the Conquest of England by the Normans, 2 vols. (London, 1907), ii, 67. 7 Thierry, History, ii, 67. 8 Quoted in Simmons, Reversing, 117. For an examination of Thierry’s sources, see Simmons, Reversing, 117–18. 9 See for example, Mrs. Markham’s History of England (London, 1853), 86; and J.A. Froude’s Life and Times of Thomas Becket (New York, 1878), 16. Earlier in the century, R.H. Froude did not identify Becket as a Saxon, but he made a mild reference to Becket’s “Saracen” mother. In describing the archbishop’s appearance,

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 237

10 11 12

13

he quoted Herbert of Bosham, who remarked on “the exquisite delicacy of his hands.” Froude attributed this as “a feature which the Archbishop probably owed to his half Asiatic extraction.” Froude, History, 91. Robertson addressed the “Whiteness of Becket’s Hands,” in answer to Froude in the Appendix, Section xx, published with his biography of the archbishop (Robertson, Becket, 340). J. Anouilh, Becket or the Honor of God (1960; Riverhead ed., New York, 1995), 4. Simmons, Reversing, 120. J.C. Robertson, Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1859), 52. Quoted in Simmons, Reversing, 121–2. Henry Hart Milman concurred with the judgment of Robertson that there was no validity in the assertion of Becket’s Saxon heritage, since “his biographers not merely give no support, but furnish direct contradiction.” (Milman, History, iv, 311). Robertson, Becket, 7. See, however, Robertson’s remarks concerning the fame of Becket following the martyrdom (289–90): [T]here can be no doubt that discontent with the government, the sense of oppression, the pains of distress . . . must have disposed multitudes to follow any one who, whether in the name of the Church or otherwise, rose up in opposition to the King.

14 Robertson, Becket, 14. 15 Milman, History, iv, 311. 16 As E. Jones has remarked, “His blatant nationalist and organizing terminology, and his nationalist interpretation of the English past were to be a powerful influence on later English historians and students.” (English Nation, 104). 17 Simmons, Reversing, 128. For an interpretation of Stubbs, see H. Cam, “Stubbs Seventy Years After,” The Cambridge Historical Journal 9, no. 2 (1948): 129–47 at 130. For the Teutonic Principle, see R.J. Smith, The Gothic Bequest: Medieval Institutions in British Thought, 1688–1863 (Cambridge, 1987), 190, and A. Chandler, who has traced the history of nineteenth-century ideas concerning the Germanic origins of the Anglo-Saxon people in “Carlyle and the Medievalism of the North,” in R. Utz and T. Shippey, eds., Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman (Turnhout, 1998), 173–91, at 174–5. See also E. Jones, The English Nation: The Great Myth (Gloucestershire, UK, 1998), 223–4. Some nineteenth century historians viewed Becket as the exemplar of the Roman clergy, and hence in opposition to the national, Teutonic principle, which had predestined the English to accept Luther’s call in the sixteenth century. 18 Stanley, Memorials, 100. 19 Simmons, Reversing, 128. 20 Simmons, Reversing, 128. 21 Robertson, Becket, 49. 22 Simmons, Reversing, 129. Nicholas Vincent has presented another view of Becket’s penitential austerities, which he sees as exerting “a strong appeal to Victorian sensibilities.” Admittedly, the “oozing, viscous, androgynous aspects of sanctity” were not to all tastes, as Vincent remarks, but there were elements of the medieval cult of relics and associated practices that retained their fascination, satisfying that romantic “gloomth” of the medieval era so beloved by Horace Walpole (1719–1797) and Walter Scott (1771–1832), and their successors. (Vincent, Becket, 94–5). 23 Robertson, Becket, 312. 24 Giles, Life and Letters. For a fascinating discussion of Giles’s career, see N. Vincent, “John Allen Giles and Herbert of Bosham: The Criminous Clerk as Editor,”

238  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket in M. Staunton, ed., The World of Herbert of Bosham (Woodbridge, forthcoming). I am grateful to Professor Vincent for sharing his article with me prior to publication. 25 Nicholas Vincent has recently called Giles’s work “an enterprise of vast proportions, extreme inaccuracy and immediate appeal.” N. Vincent, “Thomas Becket,” in G. Atkins, ed., Making and Remaking Saints in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Manchester, 2016), 92–111, at 105. See also Vincent’s remarks concerning Giles in the Introduction to Henry II, 6, ft. 6. In the nineteenth century, John Morris used Giles’s work for the first edition of His Life and Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1859), but after the Rolls Series became available, he felt that his own work needed revision, and published a second edition in 1885. In the Preface to the new edition, he remarked that he had been forced rely upon “the voluminous but incorrect and confused edition published by Dr. Giles,” in his original work, and he felt grateful that he could now use Robertson’s editions in the Rolls Series (Preface to Morris’s new edition, x). Vincent notes that Morris’s revision was due, in part, to his contacts with the Jesuits and the Bollandists of Brussels (“Becket,” 101). 26 See the extensive discussion in Vincent, “Giles,” (forthcoming). 27 A. Duggan has offered a more positive assessment of Giles in Thomas Becket (London, 2004), 249–50. 28 P. Levine, The Amateur and the Professional: Antiquarians, Historians and Archaeologists in Victorian England, 1838–86 (Cambridge, 1986), 87. 29 J.C. Robertson, Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury: A Biography (London, 1859), 171–2. E.A. Freeman was equally dismissive, writing that Giles’s work was “a heap of confusion” (Historical Essays, 86), but he wrote that “nothing can be more out of place” than Robertson’s elaborate criticism of Giles’s editing, “which is thrust into the middle of the biography” (Historical Essays, 88). See Vincent’s description of the controversy in “William of Canterbury and Benedict of Peterborough: the manuscripts, date and context of the Becket miracle collections,” in E. Bozoky, ed., Hagiographie, Idéologie et Politique au Moyen Âge en Occident (Turnhout, 2012), 347–87, and further discussion in his forthcoming article, “John Allen Giles.” 30 The first volume in the Becket series of seven was published in 1875, and the final volume (1885), which appeared after Robertson’s death, was completed by his co-editor, J. Brigstocke Sheppard. 31 Robertson, Becket, xxv. 32 See the works of A.J. Duggan, M. Staunton, and R.E. Pepin in the bibliography. 33 Robertson, Materials, ii, ix. N. Vincent, “William of Canterbury,” See also the forthcoming article by Vincent, “John Allen Giles and Herbert of Bosham,” in which Vincent states that Giles’s edition is in some ways more useful than that of Robertson. 34 Robertson, Introduction to Mats. i, xxv–xxvi. 35 For Nicholas Vincent, Robertson was “essentially Protestant, skeptical and rationalist” (Vincent, “William of Canterbury,” 347–87. As Clare Simmons has remarked, the title of his Becket biography tellingly omitted any mention of sainthood. (Reversing, 126). 36 Robertson, Becket, 287–8. 37 Robertson, Becket, 295. 38 Stanley, Historical Memorials. In addition to his well-documented survey of Becket’s life and martyrdom, his volume includes studies of the architecture of Canterbury Cathedral, the shrine of the martyr and its surroundings, and the stained-glass windows of Trinity Chapel. Hence, his work is a precursor for iconographical studies of Becket and the cathedral in the twentieth century, as well as recent preoccupations with relic theft and pilgrimage.

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 239 39 Vincent, “Becket,” 96. For Stanley himself, nineteenth-century worshippers of the Canterbury martyr rivaled “the most undoubting devotee that ever knelt at his shrine in the reign of the Plantagenet kings” (Memorials, 60). 40 Vincent, “Becket,” 96. 41 Vincent, “Becket,” 96. 42 Stanley, Memorials, 93–4. 43 Stanley, Memorials, 122–3. 44 Stanley, Memorials, 123. 45 Stanley, Memorials, 123–4. 46 R. Mitchell, Picturing the Past: English History in Text and Image, 1830–70 (Oxford, 2000), 170. 47 This prejudice is evident in histories such as Mrs Markham’s History of England (London, 1823, republished in many editions), Little Arthur’s History of England by Lady Callcott (London, 1866), and Charles Dickens’s A Child’s History of England (London, 1877), which fostered an atmosphere of hostile suspicion. 48 S. Gilley, “John Lingard and the Catholic Revival,” in D. Baker, ed., Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History (Oxford, 1977), 313–27, at 314. 49 J. Lingard, The History of England, from the First Invasion of the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII, 8 vols. (London, 1819–30). For a discussion of the various editions of Lingard’s work and its growing popularization through the use of illustrations, see Mitchell, Picturing, 170–201. 50 Mitchell, Picturing, 170. For an analysis of Lingard’s work, see the chapter, “John Lingard and Modern Historiography,” in E. Jones, ed., The English Nation: The Great Myth (Gloucestershire, UK, 1998), 168–217. In Jones’s view, there is “no other English historian who has achieved so much” (217). 51 Gilley, “Lingard,” 315. 52 E. Duffy points to a clear difference between Berington and Lingard in their attitudes to the papacy in E. Duffy, “Ecclesiastical Democracy Detected, III: 1796–1800,” Recusant History 13 (1975): 143. 53 Mitchell, Picturing, 176. 54 Gilley points out that Lingard was the first British historian to make worthwhile use of the documents in the Vatican collections and other Italian libraries. Gilley, “Lingard,” 319. 55 Gilley, “Lingard,” 323–4. 56 Lingard, History, ii, 108. 57 Lingard, History, ii, 118–19. 58 Lingard, History, ii, 163–4. Lingard encountered severe criticism for his objective portrayal of Becket, primarily from Bishop John Milner, who was horrified by the suggestion that Thomas was capable of a moment of irritation or a precipitate measure. Further, Milner took umbrage to Lingard’s expression that the martyr died in defense of what he thought to be his duty. “If this, Mr. Editor, is not sacrificing the cause of the Church in the person of one of its canonized martyrs, I know not what is.” M. Hale and E. Bonney, eds., Life and Letters of John Lingard 1771–1851 (London, 1912), 168. For Lingard’s response, see 169–72. 59 According to J. Kirby, the Oxford Movement is conventionally dated 1833–1845. 60 Simmons, Reversing the Conquest, 125. 61 R.H. Froude, The History of the Contest Between Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry II, King of England, eds. J.H. Newman and J. Keble (London, 1838–39). Froude’s work was drawn from his publications in successive issues of the British Magazine (1832–34). See the discussion in Vincent, “John Allen Giles,” (forthcoming). 62 Vincent, “Becket,” 103. For information regarding Froude’s research in the Vatican Library, see 103–4.

240  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket 63 Froude, History, i. According to W.H. Hutton, writing in the next century, the “brilliant” Froude rediscovered the “real” Becket. (Hutton, Thomas Becket (Cambridge, 1926), 297. 64 Froude, History, 11. 65 Froude, History, 31. Simmons remarked on the anachronistic nature of the term “high-church,” pointing out that it emphasized the parallel with contemporary debates. 66 Froude, History, 12. 67 Froude, History, 12. 68 Froude, History, 14. 69 Froude, History, 17. 70 Vincent, “Thomas Becket,” 103. 71 Smith, Gothic Bequest, 179. 72 E. A. Freeman, “Saint Thomas of Canterbury and his Biographers,” in Historical Essays (London, 1875), 79–113, at 85. Freeman wrote even more vituperative criticisms of Froude’s younger brother, J.A. Froude. 73 N. Vincent, “Introduction: Henry II and the Historians,” in C. Harper-Brill and N. Vincent, eds., Henry II: New Interpretations (Woodbridge, 2007), 8. 74 Vincent quotes Lytton Strachey (1880–32) as saying: “When Froude succeeded in impregnating Newman with the ideas of Keble, the Oxford Movement began” (“Thomas Becket,” 104). 75 Simmons, Reversing the Conquest, 125. 76 Smith, Gothic Bequest, 183. 77 Simmons, Reversing the Conquest, 125. Stubbs called Broad Church believers “pseudo-rationalists.” (Quoted in Kirby, Historians, 27). For a discussion of Broad Church ideas of history, see Kirby, Historians, 32–9. 78 Kirby, Historians, 32. 79 Robertson is implying that this harmonious balance existed in nineteenth-­ century England. 80 Robertson, Becket, 318. 81 Robertson, Becket, 318, 320. 82 Simmons, Reversing, 122. David Knowles, in The Episcopal Colleagues of Thomas Becket, offered a clear and succinct definition of this outlook, which: has sometimes been called the high Gregorian attitude towards matter of church polity and practice; that is, that the clerical body should form a class apart from the laity, governed by its own laws, amenable only to its own courts, compactly organized upon its pivot, the papacy, when through decrees, legates and judges-delegate it would receive constant direction. (34) 83 Milman, History, iv, 421. 84 Freeman, in “Saint Thomas and his Biographers,” pointed out that in the nineteenth century “no Roman Catholic or High Churchman” would claim freedom from secular jurisdiction in criminal cases, but in the twelfth century the case was much less clear. Freeman, “Saint Thomas”, Historical Essays, 84. 85 Milman, History, iv, 422. 86 J.A. Froude, Life and Times of Thomas Becket (New York, 1878), 1. See Simmons’s comments in Reversing the Conquest, 135. 87 Froude, Life and Times, 48, ft. 1. 88 Froude, Life and Times, 24. 89 Froude, Life and Times, 14. 90 Froude, Life and Times, 99. 91 Froude, Life and Times, 99. 92 I. Hesketh, “Diagnosing Froude’s Disease: Boundary Work and the Discipline of History in Late-Victorian Britain,” History and Theory 47 (October 2008),

Victorian biographers and antiquarians 241 373–95, at 378. Hesketh quotes from Goldwin Smith’s review of Froude’s Life and Times. 93 Hesketh, “Froude’s Disease,” 378. 94 See the discussion in Levine, Amateur, 87. 95 For Carlyle’s historical doctrine of “hero worship,” see Chandler, “Carlyle,” esp. 180–1. 96 Hesketh, “Froude’s Disease,” 378, quoting Goldwin Smith. 97 Froude, Life and Times, 135. 98 The relationship between Kingsley and Froude is analyzed in Hesketh, “Froude’s Disease,” 383. 99 Hesketh, “Froude’s Disease,” 378. 100 Hesketh, “Froude’s Disease,” 379. The case of Froude provides a vivid example of the nineteenth-century controversies surrounding the evolution of historical study from avocational pursuit to recognition as an academic and professional discipline. 101 Quoted in Hesketh, “Froude’s Disease,” 380. 102 Hesketh, “Froudes’ Disease,” quoting Froude’s lecture, 382. 103 Hesketh, “Froude’s Disease,” 382. 104 Froude, Life and Times, 64. 105 Froude, Life and Times, 64. 106 Froude, Life and Times, 97. 107 Froude, Life and Times, 101. 108 Froude, Life and Times, 101. 109 E.A. Freeman, “Mr. Froude’s Life and Times of Thomas Becket,” Contemporary Review 31–3 (1878): 31, 821–2; 32, 116–39, 474–500; 33, 213–41. Quotes from 33, 213–14. 110 Freeman, “Mr. Froude,” 33, 224. 111 Freeman, “Mr. Froude,” 33, 223. 112 Freeman, “Biographers,” 102. 113 Freeman, “Mr. Froude,” 33, 229. 114 Freeman, “Mr. Froude,” 33, 232. 115 Freeman, “Mr. Froude,” 33, 238. 116 Freeman, “Mr. Froude,” 33, 234. 117 Freeman, “Biographers,” 109. 118 Freeman, “Mr. Froude,” 33, 237. 119 Freeman, “Biographers,” 107. 120 Freeman, “Biographers,” 112. 121 Freeman, “Biographers,” 113. 122 Kirby, Historians, 115. 123 Robertson, Becket, 314. 124 Robertson, Becket, 313. 125 Robertson, Becket, 290. 126 Robertson, Becket, 304. 127 Robertson, Becket, 305. 128 Milman, History, iv, 421. 129 Froude, Life and Times, 117, 130–1. 130 J. Morris, The Life and Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, 2nd ed. (London, 1885), 454–66. Dom David Knowles called Morris’s work “the best life of its kind,” although he identified it as hagiography, rather than biography. D. Knowles, Thomas Becket (Stanford, CA, 1970), 176. 131 Morris, Life, 467. As might be expected, Freeman accused Morris of “offensive ostentation of Catholicism” (“Biographers,” 89). John Lingard, another Catholic historian, wrote that following Becket’s canonization, “every part of Europe resounded with the report of miracles wrought at his shrine” (Lingard, History, ii, 200).

242  Eighteenth/nineteenth-century views of Becket 132 Edwin A. Abbott, St Thomas of Canterbury: His Death and Miracles, 2 vols. (London, 1898). 133 See, for example, Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate and Vincent, “William of Canterbury.” Also helpful is the analysis by Benedicta Ward in her chapter on the “Miracles of St Thomas,” in Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000–1215. (Philadelphia, 1982), 89–109. 134 Abbott, Miracles, i, frontispiece. 135 Vincent, “Thomas Becket,” 105–6. 136 Abbot, Miracles, i, viii. 137 Abbot, Miracles, i, viii–ix. 138 For example, the tale of Becket’s Saracen mother was included in this section. Abboot, Miracles, ii, 288. 139 Abbott, Miracles, ii, 274–95. 140 Abbott, Miracles, ii, 296–8. 141 Abbott, Miracles, ii, 299. 142 Vincent describes the controversy in “William of Canterbury,” 347–87. 143 E.A. Abbott, Philomythus: An Antidote Against Credulity (London, 1891), 14. 144 Abbott, Miracles, ii, 301.

Part IV

Becket in the modern and postmodern world

10 Becket in legal and intellectual history

At the end of the nineteenth century, a new direction in medieval studies was initiated by the Cambridge scholar and medievalist F.W. Maitland, who focused on the legal aspects of English life in the Middle Ages. His work emphasized the significance of the Roman legal tradition in England prior to the Reformation, and demonstrated that the English Church, law and institutions were an integral part of the wider community of Western Europe. He maintained an unusually objective view, and his scholarship was quite detached from the contemporary prejudices and vested interests which characterized the writing of many of his contemporaries.1 Maitland’s work continues to be universally admired by legal historians, including those who disagree with his conclusions. In the words of David Raban, “Even scholars who generally deprecate the legal history written in the nineteenth century view Maitland as the exception, the one who met, and even established, modern professional standards for the field.”2

Pollock and Maitland For F.W. Maitland, the reign of Henry II was “of supreme importance in the history of our [English] law, and its importance is due to the action of the central power, to reforms ordained by the king.”3 Ultimately, however, Henry was an organizer and governor, rather than a legislator, and in assessing the legal aspects of the Becket controversy, Maitland observed that the Constitutions of Clarendon were simply an assertion of the king’s rights in written form. These rights were further clarified in various measures, including an assize issued in the first months of 1166, which made significant changes in the administration of criminal law. Maitland and his colleague, Frederick Pollock, explored the legal ramifications surrounding the quarrel between Becket and Henry II in an important work, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I.4 In order to contextualize the dispute, they analyzed and explained the areas of conflict which existed in the twelfth century between the jurisdiction of royal and ecclesiastical courts, thereby addressing an essential problem underlying the quarrel between the king and his archbishop. Their scholarship was

246  Becket in the modern and postmodern world fundamental to the burgeoning interest in the legal aspects of the Becket controversy which was to become a prominent feature of Becket studies in the mid-twentieth century (see ahead). As Maitland and Pollock defined the situation, during the first half of the twelfth century, the claims of the Church concerning the proper locus of authority were growing stronger, and the responsibility of asserting ecclesiastical rights passed from men who were not mere theologians, but accomplished lawyers. The issues at stake were brought prominently to the fore during the quarrel between King Henry II and Becket. Summarizing the conflict, the authors recounted that the king offered a written treaty to the ­prelates – the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) – which he claimed to embody the “customs” of his ancestors, especially of his grandfather. After some hesitation, Becket rejected the Constitutions. “The dispute waxed hot,” and certain of the customs were condemned by the pope. Sharply condensing six years of history, the authors wrote, “The murder followed, and then Henry was compelled to renounce, though in carefully guarded terms, all his innovations.” However, in the view of Pollock and Maitland, the king was essentially the victor, giving in on only two points: A clerk suspected of a felony might be accused in a lay court, but could not be sentenced; and appeals to the pope could not be prohibited, although in practice the king could impede them. Regarding other matters of contention, Henry had triumphed, and in the opinion of the authors, the lay courts, from that time, were the aggressors and victors in almost every area of conflict.5 The primary questions at stake in the quarrel between Henry and Becket, especially the contentious matter concerning the treatment of criminous clerks, were explored in more detail in a significant essay by Maitland,6 who declared at the outset that he did not wish to make himself a judge between either the king or the archbishop, “or Freeman and Froude.”7 Beginning with the clause in the Constitutions of Clarendon which dealt with criminous clerks, he offered the following interpretation: “The scheme was this: accusation and plea in the temporal court; trial, conviction and degradation in the ecclesiastical court; sentence in the temporal court to the layman’s punishment.” Since the guilty clergyman would have been deprived of his orders in the ecclesiastical court, he was now technically a layman, and would be sentenced to the layman’s punishment, probably death or mutilation. Maitland substantiated his argument by exploring various twelfthcentury interpretations of the problem, beginning with a letter to the pope from the bishops and clergy of the province of Canterbury coupled with the words of Ralph de Diceto: “the accused clerk is to be tried by his bishop.” He then turned to the works of various early biographers, including “Anonymous I” and “Anonymous II.” In Maitland’s view, the account of “Anonymous I” was especially significant, since it reported that Henry consented to the principle that criminous clerics should be given up to the bishops; if they were degraded by their superiors, they should then be remanded to the king’s court for condemnation. As Maitland remarked, this represents

Becket in legal and intellectual history 247 Henry “as not venturing to make the claim which he is commonly supposed to have made.”8 Maitland buttressed his argument with remarks by Herbert of Bosham, who reported that the king was told by his legal advisors that his proposed treatment of criminous clerks was in accordance with canon law. To explore Herbert’s assertions, Maitland cited passages from Gratian and Isidore, demonstrating that, based on the text of the Decretum, Henry had an arguable case. “Here . . . are words that are plain enough: . . . the offender, having been deposed by his bishop, is to be handed over to the curia.”9 Significantly, further punishment after degradation did not infringe upon Becket’s sacred maxim Nemo bis in idipsum, or, “if it does, then you are prepared to infringe that maxim yourselves whenever to do so will serve your turn.” As a final argument, Maitland brought forth a decree of Pope Innocent III against the forgers of papal letters, promulgated after Henry’s death, which declared that if the forgers were clerics, they should be degraded and then submitted to the lay courts for punishment. Thus, having marshalled all of his evidence, Maitland concluded that based upon “the stories told by chroniclers and biographers, we should have good reason for holding that Henry II did not demand that a clerk accused of crime should be tried by a temporal court.” For Maitland: [T]he scheme which sends the clerk to and fro between the royal judge and the bishop, had for a long time past been a well-known arrangement, and was one that Henry was likely to regard as ancient and legitimate. Indeed, if I am right about the meaning of the article, then the struggle between the English king and the English prelate will neatly fall into its proper place in the general history of church and state. The dispute will be over a fairly disputable question, though perhaps we shall come to the conclusion that Becket rather than Henry was the innovator.10 In sum, Maitland wrote: “Whatever he [the king] may have wished, I cannot believe that he had any hope of securing the consent of the English bishops to a treatment of accused clerks which was unquestionably condemned by the Decretum.”11

American legal scholarship Maitland’s influence was quickly absorbed into Becket scholarship, and essays on topics such as “Becket and the Law” by the American legal scholar Melville Madison Bigelow (1846–1921) began to be published.12 Like Maitland, and for similar reasons, Bigelow considered the medieval era the most important in the development of English law. In his study of the legal aspects of Becket’s career, Bigelow traced Thomas’s education in canon

248  Becket in the modern and postmodern world law, which provided a foundation for “actual relations with the administration of secular law” when he served as Henry’s chancellor. Further, Bigelow pointed out that Becket never ceased to be devoted to the study of Roman law, even as late as 1166 when he was losing his fight against the Constitutions of Clarendon. Indeed, John of Salisbury chided him for devoting his time to the “laws,” which he said “may profit much, but they are not for us, under our circumstances.”13 In Bigelow’s opinion, Becket’s legal training prepared him for his “special work,” as did his qualities of “indomitable courage and firmness.” The contest with the king both “furnished the decisive evidence of Becket’s character, and attested to his greatness.” As archbishop, he made clear his idea of law. According to Bigelow, Becket believed that: [T]he basis of all law, human and divine, was morality or conscience, as expressed in the canons of the Church; this must control conduct . . . Law which violated morals in that sense was self-seeking individualism, to use the modern word: it was discrimination against the many in favor of the few, and turning that which should be servant into master.14 Becket opposed the Constitutions of Clarendon because they were contrary to canon law in the sense that they were written for the personal aggrandizement of the king or barons, and encroached upon the jurisdiction or rights of the Church. But his stance against the Constitutions represented only a particular instance of Becket’s insistence on “equity and justice.” For Bigelow: [T]he constant and insistent qualification he made in his agreements to the King’s demands, “Saving his own order,” or “Saving God’s honor,” [was] a formula which meant that secular law was right if it did not conflict with canon or divine law; that law was universal. Becket’s position with regard to the Constitutions not only put him to the test; it provided him with the opportunity to state his whole idea. Because of its intensity, the struggle became, for Bigelow, “a portrayal of Becket’s whole mind and self in regard to things secular as well as spiritual.”15 Bigelow’s analysis offered a new way to characterize the quarrel. Borrowing from sociological terminology, he wrote that “Becket by education and qualities of mind was a collectivist,” who insisted upon equity and justice. Undisciplined individualism, such as that exhibited by the king and the barons, was at war with this outlook; moreover, “[individualism] was at war with both the civil and the canon law; it was at war with the laws of God, because it would tear up society.” For Bigelow, the evidence demonstrated that Becket believed that the essential feature or spirit of canon law – equity – should be present everywhere, in the secular as well as in the church courts.16 “The way was partly prepared for Becket . . . since the principle

Becket in legal and intellectual history 249 of jus honorarium – the principle of equity – actually and actively prevailed to considerable extent in the secular courts of the time.” In Bigelow’s view: [T]he old, native secular law was in the melting pot; what was to come of it no one could tell; but the new secular justice was ready for jus honorium or equity, and Becket was the ‘bright candlestick’ to give the light.17 According to Bigelow, the primary question in the quarrel over the Constitutions was the “effect on the purse.” The King wanted money, the “sinews of a soldier,” and he would have had no interest in the matter if no monetary difference had been likely to emerge. The contention on the one side was for morals, conscience, and equity; on the other, it was for military and personal profit. Becket wanted canon law; the king had no quarrel with that in principle – he had acted upon it himself. He only insisted that canon law, or equity, should not be extended into areas which furnished funds for him. “The King did not stand in Becket’s way; Becket stood in the King’s way. It was not Becket’s law, but Henry’s ambition, that defeated and killed him.”18 It was the call for action against the criminous clerks that brought on the disaster, and for Bigelow it was a pity that the great moral idea of establishing the rule of equity in secular affairs was to be caught and broken on the wheel of an issue which did not involve the existence of church authority and should never have arisen – broken beyond prospect of recovery; for after Becket no Englishman appeared or was to appear to champion his related causes of collectivism, morality, and equity.19 No one can say whether Becket’s legal collectivism, his idea of law, would have become permanent if it had been fully adopted, but if it had been made permanent, it would have changed the whole course of legal history in England for the better.20 England might have had jus honorarium as the theoretical basis, “instead of the slough into which she was to slip.”21 Although the Judicature Acts of the nineteenth century (1873, 1875) took a step toward justice and equity, they should have been unnecessary. Indeed, such measures should have been enacted during the reign of Henry Plantagenet. Becket had the mind and the courage to lead the way, but “an untimely issue of jurisdiction turned him away and slew him.” Nonetheless, “he lives, a mighty prophet of the doctrine that law is founded in morals, in the sense that mind, the direct cause of conduct, must be the true measure of responsibility, in secular as well as in religious government.”22 Although it has been claimed that Maitland, and by implication, Bigelow, “did not leave successors who built on [their] work, [and that] legal history waned in England as well as in the United States,”23 there was continuing

250  Becket in the modern and postmodern world interest in examining the Becket controversy from a legal point of view in the writing of scholars such as Z.N. Brooke and C.R. Cheney. Their studies led to a resurgence of interest in the legal issues surrounding the quarrel between Henry and Becket during the middle years of the twentieth century, when scholars such as Charles Duggan, Richard Fraher, and Edward Peters published important work on the topic. For these historians, the events of 1163–1164, particularly the appearance of the Constitutions of Clarendon in written form, quickly eliminated all aspects of the dispute except the juridical and the purely personal, at least for the king and the archbishop. They argued that the supporters of Henry and Thomas were caught up in the growing intensity of legal exchange, and no one involved in the quarrel could escape the law. As Edward Peters remarked, “it is in the various exercises of the law on both sides of the dispute that some of the most interesting polemical literature of the late twelfth century is to be found,”24 and this fascination is evident in the substantial volume of scholarship dealing with the legal issues surrounding the Becket controversy. The degree to which legal history consumed the attention of Becket scholars during the mid-twentieth century is evident in an article by James W. Alexander titled “The Becket Controversy in Recent Historiography” (1970), which is entirely devoted to legal scholarship, and disregards other mid-twentieth-century interpretations of the various aspects of Becket’s career and character.25 For Alexander, this focus is justified, since “important new studies in the history of canon law have altered traditional perspectives on the dramatic confrontation.”26 One of the scholars who devoted much time and effort to analyzing the legal aspects of the Becket controversy was Z.N. Brooke, who turned his attention to the king’s concessions in the quarrel. He wrote that the general scholarly opinion was that although Henry yielded in the question of the criminous clergy, on other questions of principle he was successful in maintaining his position. Brooke argued that the essential importance of the king’s other concessions had been overlooked; Becket’s opposition to Henry’s policies, and still more his death, forced Henry into compromises that made his attempts to restrict papal authority in England impossible.27 The most significant of these concessions allowed freedom of appeal to Rome, and in Brooke’s view, the granting of this right by the king altered the whole character of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, resulting in the introduction of Canon Law almost in its entirety.28 Appeals to the pope became frequent, and papal authority was introduced into England, along with recognition of the validity of ecclesiastical law. The result, as Brooke observed, may be seen in the surrender of King John to the pope in 1213, which was a direct consequence of Henry’s concession in 1172.29 Henry had failed in his main purpose, which was to end papal authority in England. In Brooke’s view, the legislation of the English Church and the jurisdiction of its courts were now subject to Roman, rather than English, Church law.30 As Brooke observed in a footnote, this situation persisted until the Reformation Parliament of Henry VIII.31

Becket in legal and intellectual history 251 Charles Duggan, a mid-century legal scholar, wrote in a seminal article, “The Becket Dispute and the Criminous Clerks,”32 that the underlying causes of the quarrel between the king and his archbishop were obscured by the “spectacular course of the conflict and the dramatic interest of the principal contestants.” For Duggan, the common assumption that the controversy was merely a personal issue between Henry and Becket did not reflect the reality of the situation, nor did the assertion that the archbishop alone was responsible for the formulation of those doctrines in canon law which he defended so vigorously, and for which he finally paid with his life.33 Although the personal factors were undoubtedly important, and indeed “controlled the pattern of the dispute as it developed in England,” Duggan pointed out that the conflict could not have been entirely avoided because the overarching spheres of ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction clashed at many significant and essential points of contact and interlocking interests.34 The ecclesiastical policies of Henry II were designed to “erect a ringfence around his kingdom,” and to restore the traditional Norman barrier against papal influence in England.35 The king intended to strengthen his jurisdictional authority, establishing a “tangible expression” of “his natural ambitions as a strong-minded secular ruler.”36 However, the reformed papacy, imbued with the Gregorian traditions of ecclesiastical superiority and independence, as well as the far-reaching doctrinal, intellectual, legal, and administrative movements which emerged in the aftermath of the Investiture Controversy, had accomplished a remarkable advance of centralized government; these repercussions were evident throughout Christian society, guided by the pope, and made effective by canon law. As Duggan remarked, “Each of these parallel streams reflected something of the creative ferment which distinguished the European intellect at that time.” However, their concurrent development made a conflict of claims and interests between them inevitable,37 and this natural antipathy was intensified in England by insular and personal associations. As many scholars before Duggan had also observed, the circumstances of a weakened secular government during Stephen’s reign fostered the advance of the Church’s interests, and it was Henry II’s goal to restore as far as possible the conditions which prevailed in the reign of Henry I, his grandfather. He wished to re-establish the “ancient customs,” and so to mend “the barrier breached in the reign of his predecessor.” But, as Duggan pointed out, the “status and claims of the Church had been irretrievably altered, in many respects quite independently of Stephen’s weakness, so that it was not merely a defect of Becket’s character, or of ­Henry’s, which produced the dramatic crisis forever associated with them.”38 For Duggan, the dispute concerning clerical immunity was not the crucial issue between Henry and Becket, but it became the focus around which the quarrel was waged most bitterly. Of much more concern to the king were the ever-widening jurisdiction of papal delegate judges, the freedom of appeal from the English ecclesiastical courts to the papal Curia, and the

252  Becket in the modern and postmodern world passage of bishops and papal legates between the island and the continent. In comparison with these obstacles to the realization of Henry’s objectives, the question of the criminous clerks was intrinsically of minor importance. But as a symptom, its significance “can scarcely be exaggerated, for it provided a point d’appui for the controversialists in a wider and more fundamental quarrel.”39 In evaluating other scholarly responses to the issue, Duggan remarked, “even historians most sympathetic to Becket on all other conceivable issues believe that in this single respect he passed beyond the accepted canonical doctrines of his time” Their reasons are clear: The policies which Henry wished to establish were both reasonable and realistic, and his appeal to custom may be defended on the basis of the extant historical evidence. However, for Duggan, “the ultimate triumph of the secularist viewpoint obscures in some instances a retrospective vision.”40 In his article, Duggan advanced a different analysis of the conflict between Henry and Becket, departing from the view of Maitland that had held sway for some 60 years, during which “the domination of Maitland’s brilliant but misconceived thesis has hindered a more just evaluation.”41 Poole, Cheney, and Knowles were typical of the various scholars who agreed with Maitland, viewing Becket’s case as being weaker than the king’s in terms of canon law. Duggan argued against this widespread assessment, claiming that Henry II had little justification for his actions according to the precepts of canon law, and asserting that Becket’s case was canonically better grounded than earlier scholars had believed. Moreover, Becket was “certainly not the inventor of the canonical doctrines so frequently attributed to him.”42 The conventional interpretation, as set forth by Maitland, was summarized by Duggan as follows: Accusation and plea in the secular court; trial, conviction and deposition in the ecclesiastical court; and sentencing to a layman’s punishment in the secular court. Becket’s objections to the measures were categorized by Duggan into three parts: (1) He opposed the summoning of clerks before a secular court in the initial stage of the king’s procedure; this was firmly in line with the precepts of canon law. (2) For Becket, no secular punishment should follow the deposition of a guilty cleric, since secular judges had no jurisdiction over clerics; only if a guilty cleric committed additional felonies in his degraded state, could the secular judge try and punish him. (3) Further, deposition itself was the penalty for the crime in question, and no secular punishment could legitimately be added, for this would involve a double punishment, and “God does not judge twice in the same matter.”43 Becket’s contemporaries and most recent historians denied the validity of his argument, objecting that the words traditio curiae clearly implied the delivery of the accused cleric to secular punishment, and that Becket’s interpretation of the provision was exceptional. Maitland had argued that Henry’s plan was not in conflict with canon law, since the first stage in the king’s procedure merely required the clerk to make his plea, and involved no punishment; the

Becket in legal and intellectual history 253 final stage, when the guilty man was punished after being degraded, involved no clerk. For Duggan, “if the issue could truly be resolved in such a simple fashion, the conflict resulting would certainly be inexplicable.”44 In Duggan’s opinion, two aspects of Henry’s plan were clearly opposed to canon law: The summoning of clerks before a secular magistrate was contrary to canonical precepts, whether or not a trial or judgment was involved in the primary stage, and independent of the eventual secular punishment at a later time; moreover, the jurisdictional immunity of the Church was compromised by the presence of a royal official in the ecclesiastical court during sentence and deposition. For Becket, the trial and punishment of an accused cleric constituted an entity in which the ecclesiastical judgment was itself the penalty. In order to assess the legality of Becket’s case, Duggan explored two questions: “what was the true canonical significance of the tradition curiae; and what was the historical justification of his objection to a double punishment?”45 In examining these queries, Duggan presented an analysis of some relevant canons from Gratian’s Decretum in which Becket’s basic principle was firmly stated, although with some qualification, and there is no mention of the objection to a double punishment. Henry’s procedure was allowed, in part, but it was “subject to a different control and in restricted circumstances.” Although the evidence is somewhat more favorable to Becket than to the king, an exploration of the historical background of the canons is essential to a final verdict.46 Duggan proceeded to marshal sources in the form of decretals and pseudo decretals that supported his contention that Becket had a stronger case than Henry, demonstrating that Becket’s interpretation of the words traditio curiae was more historically accurate.47 In discussing Becket’s claim against double punishment, Duggan again turned to sources other than Gratian, since neither he nor any earlier canonical collection used this specific text and argument. His analysis of the works of various writers culminated in the Policraticus of John of Salisbury. This work, composed and presented to Becket in 1159 when he was still chancellor, “embodied a clear-cut statement of that very principle whose invention is so commonly attributed to Becket himself.” Moreover, Duggan declared that the Policraticus provided an obvious source for the archbishop’s later assertions, and the judgment must be finally abandoned that the argument was his own.48 Summarizing the various opinions, Duggan wrote that Henry’s intention was that clerks should invariably be subject to the control of royal officials, with penalties determined by secular judges, and this plan was “undoubtedly in conflict with the meaning and spirit of the canons.” If his procedure was in reality based on the texts of canon law, it was “certainly a misinterpretation of them.”49 Becket’s arguments, by contrast, were: a faithful index of the true purpose of the canons and of the broad stream of canonical tradition. . . . As far as canonical considerations are

254  Becket in the modern and postmodern world concerned, reversing Maitland’s judgment, the better opinion was not that of King Henry but that of Becket.50 For Richard Fraher, the work of neither Maitland nor Duggan satisfactorily defined Becket’s relationship to the canonical tradition. Seeking a further refinement of the problem, he examined the Bolognese decretists’ writings, together with an analysis of unedited English canonical texts, which led him to present another revisionist view of the Becket controversy.51 Fraher argued that canon law in the twelfth century was “fundamentally inconsistent with a doctrine of absolute clerical immunity from secular jurisdiction,” and that this inconsistency was clarified and resolved only following Becket’s murder.52 Prior to the 1170s, the ambiguities of canon law and the amorphous condition of civil law prevented any clear distinction of the separation between regnum and sacerdotium; hence, Fraher wrote, it is futile to judge the legal dispute between Henry and Becket within the confines of twelfth-century canon law. Further, the doctrine of clerical immunity was not as clearly defined in decretist thought prior to 1170 as Becket claimed, and the question of double punishment in the cases involved felonious clerks was equally ambiguous. As set out earlier, Becket objected to the clause in the Constitutions of Clarendon regarding criminous clerks on three points: He rejected the king’s claim to secular initiative in the initial phases of the procedure; he argued that since secular judges had no authority over clerics, no secular punishment should follow the degrading of a felonious clergyman; and finally, the deposed cleric should face secular punishment only for further felonies. Becket also asserted that the degrading itself was the penalty for crimes committed by a cleric, and any further secular punishment would constitute a double punishment, which was forbidden by scripture.53 In his analysis of the dispute, Fraher turned to a discussion of theories of clerical privilege, pointing out that this issue was not raised for the first time during the controversy between Henry and his archbishop. By comparing dectretist sources written before Becket’s martyrdom with those dating from later that 1170, it is possible to trace the development of the decretist’s thinking concerning the privilegium fori and to determine the effect of the struggle upon that development.54 The decretists writing earlier than 1164 generally supported a “moderately extensive form” of clerical immunity. However, this was understood to pertain to a criminous cleric only until he was deposed by an ecclesiastical court. Further, none of the decretists argued that the theory of double punishment protected a deposed cleric from facing secular punishment for the crimes which led to his deposition.55 The question did, however, emerge in canonical writings during the 1160s. Fraher saw a dramatic shift in the attitudes of the decretists toward the questions of clerical immunity and double punishment following Becket’s murder. Among others, he cited the work of Johannes Faventinus, writing in 1171, who denied the possibility of secular jurisdiction over any cleric

Becket in legal and intellectual history 255 in any type of case, except when the cleric had shown himself to be incorrigible. Significantly, Pope Alexander III promulgated a decree in 1178 that “denied secular jurisdiction over criminous clerks, restricted the ground for accusations against clerics, limited ecclesiastical punishments to suspension and degradation, and prohibited the imposition of secular punishment for any crimes committed by the clergy.”56 It is not surprising that subsequent decretists followed the lead of the pope. Hence, whereas the king’s arguments were generally supported during the earlier phase (c. 1140–1170), Becket’s principles were found to be more canonically authoritative following his death.57 The shift in legal thinking that is clearly defined in the works of the Bolognese decretists is less clearly set out in the writings of the English canon lawyers of the twelfth century, since the paucity of sources restricts the possibility for creating a chronology. Within these limits, however, an analysis of the extant material enabled Fraher to assert some conclusions regarding English decretist thought concerning clerical privilege. In the two decades following the martyrdom, the English canonical writers generally endorsed the position of Henry II on the question of clerical immunity. They seemed unwilling to follow the direction of papal legislation after 1178, although they were closely dependent on the most recent Bolognese commentaries, except in this one area. This dependence was a result of the standardization in the study of canon law, and the centralization of the legal profession. “National” canonical schools of the twelfth century disappeared after 1190, as canonists adhered to close Bolognese models. As Fraher observed, after the 1190s, “Anglo-Norman decretist commentary first fell into line with the Bolognese tradition, and then fell into silence.”58 In summary, Fraher remarked that there were elements of the conservative and the innovator in both Henry and Becket. The king, determined to standardize legal practice through adherence to the “ancestral” customs of England, became an innovator “by the very act of systematizing and standardizing the law.” Becket, who has been called “a theological dinosaur,”59 stubbornly relied upon the concept of regum et sacerdotium which reflected the precepts of the Investiture Controversy; nonetheless, he argued from the latest teachings of the theological schools and offered a new direction in the interpretation of clerical immunity.60 Edward Peters turned to a different source in his analysis of the legal issues central to the struggle between Henry and Becket – the famous letter of Gilbert Foliot, Multiplicem nobis,61 written as a response to Becket’s Fraternitatis vestrae62 in 1166. For Peters, Foliot’s letter “illustrates the narrowing of the dispute down to precise, intractable legal issues better than perhaps any other documents that survive.”63 Becket’s missive to the English higher clergy had drawn upon specific legal issues to build a formidable case in canon law against the prelates who sided with the king or appeared to be indifferent to his cause. Foliot’s answer not only responded to the archbishop’s accusations in kind, but also advanced new charges at Thomas. Both

256  Becket in the modern and postmodern world men increasingly employed the laws and canons in their attack and defense rhetoric, engaging, as Peters pointed out, in “a technical duel.” This mode of discourse was far different from earlier twelfth-century communications, which were full of allegories, as well as scriptural and classical references. The earlier form had provided much latitude for settling disputes, whereas the letters of Becket and Foliot represent an “increasingly popular genre of juridical epistolary invective” which was varied significantly from the humanistic style of John of Salisbury and other twelfth-century scholars.64 This new kind of rhetoric replaced the rhetorical art of the schools, echoing more clearly the exact language of the law.65 In order to substantiate his point, Peters focused on one aspect of Foliot’s letter which clearly demonstrated the “new legalism” – the case of the fugitive priest. In order to place Foliot’s accusations in perspective, he turned to other sources concerning Becket’s exile, including the biographies by William of Canterbury, Herbert of Bosham, and John of Salisbury. These writers generally described Becket’s flight from Northampton as an exile, and set the event in a familiar scriptural context, citing Matthew 10:23: “When they persecute you in one town, take refuge in another.”66 Becket expressed his own view of his exile in Fraternitatis vestrae: “I chose for the time being to turn aside, so that I might live more safely in the house of the Lord than in the tents of sinners until the evil was completed, the hearts of the wicked unveiled, and the secret thought of hearts were revealed.”67 In this letter and others, he presented the themes of persecution, ecclesiastical liberty, the demands of his own conscience, and the fear for his own salvation, mostly expressed in the context of tradition scriptural references. Foliot’s response implicitly rejected these justifications for the absence of the archbishop, framing his remarks within the context of canonical culpability for having deserted his flock – “a legal charge rather than a moral criticism.”68 As Peters observed, Foliot employed his superlative skills as a canonist in several places in Multiplicem, but nowhere more effectively than in his assault on Thomas as a fugitive prelate. The letter advanced severe criticism of Becket’s entire career, in effect indicting all of his actions in the struggle with the Crown, but the episode of his flight reinforced Foliot’s charges of opportunism, vacillation, and imprudence. The archbishop was a man who “built his own power by illegitimately exploiting the temporal power at the expense of the spiritual,” and then alienated the temporal power by his “lack of judgment.” He was weak and rash, obstinate and perverse, and his flight from Northampton was of a piece with the rest of his career. For Foliot, Becket was not a holy exile, but a prelate who had deserted his flock and his responsibilities.69 The arguments against Thomas in Foliot’s letter were built step by step on canon law, culminating in the charge of illegal flight, which was recognized as one of the technical grounds for removing a bishop. Since the development of canon law during the mid-twelfth century had established a

Becket in legal and intellectual history 257 uniform standard of episcopal conduct, Foliot referred to these provisions in order to make a convincing case against Thomas, particularly in his denunciation of him as a fugitive bishop. The primary source for Foliot’s argument was Gratian’s Decretum, which stipulated episcopal stabilitas within the diocese, and considered very few exceptions to the rule that the bishop must remain with his flock as long as he was physically able. Neither natural disasters nor persecution justified a bishop’s flight, except in a very few cases, and Foliot’s assertions were directed toward denying these exceptions to Thomas. Thomas’s previous actions – his “style of being an archbishop” – made him particularly vulnerable to Foliot’s attacks. Foliot presented Henry II as “excessively tranquil,” suggesting that the king offered promises of protection, and pointing out that Becket promised not to leave the kingdom. According to Foliot, Becket fled “without opposition, without persecution by the wicked, without invasion of his see” – in other words, without any of the circumstances under which the firm rule posited by Gratian regarding a bishop’s stabilitas might be abandoned. Becket’s actions were those of a rash and irresponsible prelate – “the pilot who deserted his ship in troubled waters.”70

Becket and twelfth-century intellectual currents The work of Beryl Smalley (1905–1984) centered on medieval thought and learning in general,71 and her study of the Becket controversy provided an ideal opportunity to explore the role of medieval scholars and theologians in the political life of the twelfth century. In The Becket Conflict and the Schools72 she examined the complicated issues presented by the quarrel between Thomas and Henry II within the context of medieval thought. Utilizing the abundant sources concerning Becket collected in the Rolls Series and in editions of letters by scholars such as John of Salisbury and Gilbert Foliot, Smalley analyzed the role of intellectuals in politics, concluding that then as now, the intellectual must accept political realities. Her research led her to present yet another view of the character and experience of the Canterbury martyr. In her assessment, Becket was influenced primarily by his eruditi – theologians such as Herbert of Bosham and John of Salisbury. He translated their theories into action, and pursued his defense of the Church to the climax of martyrdom.73 The conflict marked “high tide” in the medieval claims of sacerdotium against regnum, which, as Smalley asserted, engendered a new kind of political theology.74 Smalley began her study of Becket with a reference to the Vita by William of Canterbury that compares Thomas to a hedgehog, whose refuge in flight was “in the rock,” just as holy men take refuge in Christ.75 Claiming that she could not improve on this image of the “wild, spiky archbishop,” she declared that her intention was to examine the influences that bore on Becket, and his reaction to them.76

258  Becket in the modern and postmodern world In discussing Thomas’s transformation when he became archbishop, Smalley’s research led her to argue that there was continuity in his actions; his “conversion was predictable, given his temperament and circumstances.”77 She observed that he had always been interested in learning and scholarship, although his education had been “patchy” and his experience had led him in a different direction; he learned expertise in secretarial and diplomatic work, “with that knowledge of legal business which all administrators needed.”78 But underlying his everyday life as chancellor there remained a constant interest in religious and scholarly concerns. Smalley remarked that John of Salisbury, in dedicating his books to Becket while he was chancellor, must have seen his friend as “a clever and receptive amateur.”79 It was a natural progression that when elected archbishop, [Thomas] deduced from observation that he could not serve two masters. He chose to serve God and changed his way of life to signify his break with his earthly lord. It was total commitment. He would defend the liberties of the Church, great or small, and the cause of Rome; he would rebuke Henry as John the Baptist rebuked King Herod.80 Henry was infuriated when his former chancellor and crony spoke to him as a spiritual father, and his former friends were taken aback when Thomas was not amused by mealtime jests about St Bernard. But, as Smalley viewed the supposed change in his character, “The blast of Paris teaching drove him forward,”81 and he “drew both his inspiration and his arguments from the schools.”82 Becket surrounded himself with scholars as companions – his eruditi, as Herbert of Bosham was to call them, and Smalley demonstrated their influence in his arguments regarding the contentious issue of criminous clerks and his assertions concerning double punishment. It was “puzzling” that the archbishop should have initially subscribed to the Constitutions of Clarendon, but, as Smalley pointed out, Herbert thought his capitulation could be traced to his curial training: “a qualified theologian or religious would not have buckled under, as the ex-chancellor did.”83 Thomas ultimately saw his weakness as a moral and tactical error, and Smalley suggests that this recognition “added to his obstinacy afterwards.”84 A chapter in Smalley’s work explored in detail the case against Becket prior to the martyrdom, which, as she remarked, “clouded the issue.”85 Utilizing accounts of the king’s actions, she demonstrated that the core of Henry’s case was his insistence upon the customs of his ancestors, and she cited Herbert of Bosham and other intellectuals, including Henry’s bishops, regarding these royal rights. Ultimately, however, as Smalley remarked, the martyrdom “shut the door” on even relatively objective evaluations of regnum vs. sacerdotium.86 For Smalley, the Becket conflict demonstrated the success of the masters on a narrow front. Thomas was suggestible. “He had friends to ‘put ideas

Becket in legal and intellectual history 259 into his head and purpose into his heart’.” The theologians were probably more influential than the canonists in putting forth their claims for privilege of clergy, since they reflected and guided fluctuations in politics. Becket translated their theories into action. The good prelate refused to compromise, pursuing his defense of the Church and his people to the climax of martyrdom. Although his conduct dismayed even John of Salisbury and Herbert of Bosham, they were forced to accept the consequences of what they had taught him.87 As Smalley remarked: After his murder scholars exploited the Becket story for all it was worth. Theologians had influenced him in his life; now his passion added a new page to the expanding Bible of the schools. The process looks like a hall of magnifying glasses. St Thomas’s deeds and martyrdom served two purposes, the narrow one of ecclesiastical freedom and clerical immunities, the wider one of evangelization: his passion brought men closer to Christ’s. . . . The cult of St Thomas spread to distant lands and barbarian peoples.88

Miracles and medieval thought The study of intellectual life in the Middle Ages was continued by Benedicta Ward (b. 1933), who sought to examine the topic of miracles within the context of medieval thought. Her book, Miracles and the Medieval Mind,89 continued the work of Edwin A. Abbot concerning the miracles of Thomas of Canterbury,90 but whereas his volumes presented a comparative study of various accounts, her analysis placed the events within the intellectual milieu of the era. Thus, her approach reflects the wider interest in the intellectual aspects of medieval life prevalent in the later twentieth century. The background for her study was presented in an initial chapter on “The Theory of Miracles,” which was not a component of Abbot’s earlier volumes. Ward traced thought concerning miracles to the writings of Augustine, who regarded them as “wonderful acts of God shown as events in this world, not in opposition to nature but as a drawing out of the hidden workings of God within a nature that was all potentially miraculous.”91 The question was taken up by Anselm of Canterbury, who saw miracles as acts of God, “not subject to the laws of nature or the usual way in which man acts within nature, while nature and mankind are themselves subject to the ‘miraculous’ power of God.”92 In the twelfth century, Peter Abelard,93 like Anselm, tended “to set miracles in a specific category of events in which God acts directly in this world.”94 Tracing the development of medieval thought concerning miracles, Ward cited concepts from the twelfth-century Platonists and the commentaries on Aristotle, as well as the chronicler Gerald of Wales. Ultimately, according to Peter the Chanter,95 miracles were “unusual and uncovenanted events, coming straight from the act of God, usually in connection with sanctity.”96 Within this framework, Ward devoted

260  Becket in the modern and postmodern world a chapter of her book to an examination of the miracles of St Thomas of Canterbury. The huge mass of material concerning Thomas’s miracles was, as we have seen, collected by the monks Benedict and William. Ward viewed these accounts as offering information about “all kinds of matters, social and economic as well as religious.”97 For example, after recounting many of the miracles, she explored the relationship between cures of wealthy pilgrims and those who were poor, observing that the poorest members of society were less frequently recorded as benefiting from the power of the saint; this might have been due to the fact that they were inarticulate and their responses were not recorded, rather than being less frequently subject to cures.98 Ward also pointed to the question of relics, remarking that the proliferation of relics in cults such as that of St Thomas soon required a method of verification, urged by the Fourth Lateran Council, and pointed to a subjective, personal element in their use. This personal devotion “marks a new religious sensibility,” evident in the immensely popular cult centering on the Canterbury martyr.99 For Ward, miracles in the medieval world were not “merely bizarre sidelights to the religion of the period.” Instead, the accounts offer “a way to approach the ordinary day-to-day life of men and women in all kinds of situations and in all ranks of society, and serious historians must take them into consideration.”100 Further, Ward remarks that “the miracles of the saints were simply the ordinary life of heaven made manifest in earthly affairs, chinks in the barriers between heaven and earth, a situation in which not to have miracles was a cause of surprise, terror, and dismay.”101 Ward’s scholarship provided, in many ways, a foundation for the work of subsequent scholars, such as Rachel Koopmans, whose Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England102 examined the miracle material from a broadened perspective. Her chief goal, she wrote, was “to demonstrate that miracle collections can tell us about more than saints, pilgrims, and local politics.”103 They also offer essential sources for our understanding of orality, literacy, and the much heightened concern for written record in the high medieval period. The study of miracles assists in concepts of genre formation, literary Latin, and individual rhetorical ambitions which led to the transformation in learned monastic culture. Further, following the lead of Ward, Koopmans pointed out that miracles indicate “a new and more intimate type of interaction between the religious and laity in the late twelfth century, interactions that foreshadowed major developments within medieval society.”104 In fact, most of the collections created c. 1140–1200 incorporated accounts drawn from outside the monastic circle; the narrators were searching for the stories of lay strangers.105 More than one-third of Koopmans’s book is devoted to the miracles of Thomas Becket. After tracing and analyzing miracle collecting throughout England during the twelfth century, she compared the two major collections

Becket in legal and intellectual history 261 of Becket’s miracles, those of Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury, convincingly demonstrating that the two monks, although they often dealt with the same phenomena, had very different approaches to the material. In a style of analysis quite different from that of either Abbot or Ward,106 she included a graph that shows the “parallel miracles” of Benedict and William.107 Further, the charts in the appendices to her book provide visual evidence of the contrasts between the two miracle collectors. These demonstrate on the one hand how the monks linked their stories together, and, on the other, how their accounts differed from one another. The graphic display leads to the conclusion that Benedict preferred presenting two or three stories together, whereas William generally created longer set of miracles. Koopmans speculated that William did not seem to have consulted Benedict’s work in writing his collection, since he never paraphrased material from Benedict, nor did he arrange the stories in a similar scheme. Although miracle collectors often rewrote the texts of their predecessors, “William was not doing a rewrite; this was a wholly autonomous project.”108 Two chapters are devoted to an analysis of the different styles and specialized interest of the two monks; Koopmans asserted, for example, that William’s work showed him “to be exuberant where Benedict was sober, nonchalant where Benedict was cautious, judgmental where Benedict was forgiving, and excessive where Benedict was restrained.” In many ways, Koopmans posited, William was the “more natural miracle collector.”109 In particular, William differed from Benedict in his intense interest in medical issues. He employed his obvious medical learning by using medical terms and information in his descriptions of Becket’s miracles, since he obviously wanted his readers to fully appreciate the saint’s healing powers. Becket was a bonus medicus,110 but he also was able to cure diseases known to be incurable, and, more importantly, he treated the causes of diseases. As Koopmans remarked, “there was probably no sharper difference between the two collectors than William’s intense interest in the course of a disease.”111 Koopmans closed her discussion with observations about the decline of interest in miracle collecting, suggesting that the speculative nature of ­thirteenth-century discourse found that the oral accounts, with the “complications of the personal, the unpredictability of the divine, and the emotional ramifications of such stories,” were not suitable material for formal academic analysis.112 As we have seen, studies of the legal issues and the influence of intellectual history absorbed the attention of a number of scholars during the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century. Others, working at the same time, eschewed a narrow approach, seeking instead to offer new perceptions and portrayals of the life and martyrdom of Becket. The discussion in the next chapter demonstrates that these interpretations varied dramatically, swinging from the negative to the positive, and finally to those claiming to be objective in their evaluation of the archbishop and his milieu.

262  Becket in the modern and postmodern world

Notes 1 E. Jones, The English Nation: The Great Myth (Gloucestershire, UK, 1998), 237. 2 D. Raban, Law’s History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History (Cambridge, 2013), 383. For a comprehensive reading list of works concerning the Becket Controversy and the law, see A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: A Textual History of His Letters (Oxford, 1980), 311–13. 3 F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, 2 vols, 2nd ed. (Boston, 1899), i, 136. 4 Pollock and Maitland, English Law, i, 124–35. As David Raban has remarked, “From its publication to the present, scholars have regarded it as the best book on legal history ever published in the English language.” (Law’s History, 389). 5 Pollock and Maitland, English Law, i, 124–5. 6 F.W. Maitland, “Henry II and the Criminous Clerks,” in Roman Canon Law in the Church of England: Six Essays (London, 1898), 132–47. 7 Maitland, “Criminous Clerks,” 132. 8 Maitland, “Criminous Clerks,” 139. 9 Maitland, “Criminous Clerks,” 143. 10 Maitland, “Criminous Clerks,” 146. 11 Maitland, “Criminous Clerks,” 147. 12 M.M. Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd series, 52 (October 1918–June 1919): 7–30. Although Bigelow is relatively unknown today, according to David Rabin, he “arguably made the greatest contributions to legal history of any American scholar of his generation” (Raban, Law’s History, 54). See the discussion of Bigelow’s assessment of the Becket controversy by Raban, Law’s History, 212–14. 13 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” 10. 14 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” 11. 15 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” 15. 16 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” 21. 17 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” 16. 18 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” 24. 19 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” Raban, Law’s History, 213. 20 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” 25. 21 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” 28. 22 Bigelow, “Becket and the Law,” 30. 23 Raban, Law’s History, 384–5. 24 E.M. Peters, “The Archbishop and the Hedgehog,” in K. Pennington and R. Somerville, eds., Law, Church, and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner (Philadelphia, 1977), 167–84, at 168–9. 25 J.A. Alexander, “The Becket Controversy in Recent Historiography,” Journal of British Studies 9, no. 2 (May 1970): 1–26. Alexander explained his focus by writing that his article “deliberately omits consideration of subjects which are not matters of present scholarly disagreement or probable future investigation” (8). 26 Alexander, “Becket Controversy,” 1. 27 Z.N.L. Brooke, “The Effect of Becket’s Murder on Papal Authority in England,” Cambridge Historical Journal 2, no. 3 (1928): 213–28, at 213. 28 Brooke, “Effect,” 218. 29 Brooke, “Effect,” 223. 30 Brooke, “Effect,” 225. 31 Brooke, “Effect,” 225, ft. 1. 32 C. Duggan, “The Becket Dispute and the Criminous Clerks,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 35, no. 91 (May 1962): 1–28. Beryl Smalley analyzed Duggan’s views in Becket Conflict, 124–5. 33 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 1.

Becket in legal and intellectual history 263 4 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 1. 3 35 See also the discussion in Brooke, “Effect,” 215. 36 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 1. 37 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 1. See also the remarks of H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, The Governance of Mediaeval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1963), 294. For these scholars, “When driven to their logical extremes, the pretensions of sacerdotium and regnum were irreconcilable.” (294). With regard to the character of Becket, they wrote, “Henry’s greatest mistake was in trusting the flashy, shallow and egotistic Thomas Becket . . . we must regard Becket not as a martyr, but perhaps as the famous fool that Gilbert Foliot in his anger called him.” (267). 38 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 1–2. 39 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 2. 40 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 3. 41 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 3. 42 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 3. In a footnote, Duggan remarks that his conclusions are close to those of Raymonde Foreville that Becket’s case was canonically better than the king’s (3, ft. 2). 43 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 4. 44 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 5. 45 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 6. 46 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 8. 47 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 14–15. 48 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 17–18. 49 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 27. 50 Duggan, “Becket Dispute,” 28. 51 R. Fraher, “The Becket Dispute and Two Decretist Traditions: The Bolognese Masters Revisited and Some New Anglo-Norman Texts,” Journal of Medieval History 4 (1978): 347–68. 52 Fraher, “Becket Dispute,” 348. 53 Fraher, “Becket Dispute,” 349. 54 Fraher, “Becket Dispute,” 350. 55 Fraher, “Becket Dispute,” 354. 56 Fraher, “Becket Dispute,” 355. 57 Fraher, “Becket Dispute,” 356. 58 Fraher, “Becket Dispute,” 361. 59 Fraher, quoting W.I. Warren, 362. 60 Fraher, “Becket Dispute,” 362. 61 Mats. v, 521–44; a more recent edition is A. Morey and C.N.L. Brooke, The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot (Oxford, 1967), 229–43. 62 Mats. v, 490–512; A. Duggan, The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (1162–1170), 2 vols. (Oxford, 2000), i, 389–425. 63 Peters, “Hedgehog,” 169. 64 Peters, “Hedgehog,” 170. 65 Peters, “Hedgehog,” 170. 66 Peters, “Hedgehog,” 171. 67 Duggan, Correspondence, i. 397; Peters, “Hedgehog,” 171, with a slightly different translation. 68 Peters, “Hedgehog,” 172. 69 Peters, “Hedgehog,” 173. 70 Peters, “Hedgehog,” 178–9. 71 In particular, see B. Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1941; 2nd ed., Oxford, 1952; 3rd ed., Notre Dame, 1983). In this work she traced the development of what she identified as “scientific” scriptural exegesis in the Latin West.

264  Becket in the modern and postmodern world 72 B. Smalley, The Becket Conflict and the Schools: A Study of Intellectuals in Politics (Oxford, 1973). 73 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 237. 74 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 239. 75 Peters also used the image in the title of his article, “The Archbishop and the Hedgehog.” 76 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 109. 77 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 115. 78 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 111. 79 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 112. 80 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 120–1. 81 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 121. 82 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 135. 83 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 133. 84 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 133. 85 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 160. 86 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 189. 87 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 237. 88 Smalley, Becket Conflict, 239. 89 B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000– 1215 (Philadelphia, 1982). 90 See Chapter 9. 91 Ward, Miracles, 3. 92 Ward, Miracles, 5. 93 Peter Abelard (1079–1142). 94 Ward, Miracles, 5. 95 Peter the Chanter (d. 1197). 96 Ward, Miracles, 19. 97 Ward, Miracles, 89. 98 Ward, Miracles, 96. 99 Ward, Miracles, 104. 100 Ward, Miracles, 214. 101 Ward, Miracles, 215. 102 R. Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England (Philadelphia, 2011). 103 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 3. 104 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 3. For examples of the ways in which miracle accounts have been recently analyzed, see the work of G. Oppitz-Trotman, “Birds, Beasts and Becket: Falconry and Hawking in the Lives and Miracles of St. Thomas Becket,” in P. Clarke and T. Claydon, eds., God’s Bounty: The Churches of the Natural World (Woodbridge, 2010), 78–88; Oppitz-Trotman, “Penance, Mercy and Saintly Authority in the Miracles of St Thomas Becket,” in P. Clarke and T. Claydon, eds., Saints and Sanctity (Woodbridge, 2011), 136–47. 105 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 4. 106 See also the remarks of R.C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England (New York, 1977, revised ed., 1995), esp. 121–6. 107 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 150. 108 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 151. Koopmans traces the likely dates for both collections, 151–5. 109 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 180. 110 For a discussion of the theme of the good doctor in the liturgies for Becket see K.B. Slocum, “Optimus egrorum medicus fit Thomas bonorum: Images of Saint Thomas Becket as Healer,” Sewanee Medieval Studies 10 (2000): 173–80. 111 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 184. 112 Koopmans, Wonderful to Relate, 203.

11 Biographies of the Canterbury martyr in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries

During the twentieth century, biographies of Becket were characterized by a variety of styles and preoccupations. In the early decades, visions of the Canterbury martyr continued to be imbued with a spirit of nationalism which praised the saint as a popular English hero, although some interpretations bore the stamp of Froude’s negative evaluation. As the century progressed and society emerged from two world wars, many scholars were focused on the legal aspects of the quarrel, as witnessed in the preceding chapter. At the same time, biographical studies continued to be published, and many of the writers focused on providing a psychological interpretation of the archbishop’s motives; their analyses of his character led to a different view of the imbroglio. Late in the century, historians avowedly returned to a more objective approach to the materials, with Frank Barlow, for instance, declaring that he would present the historical facts as accurately and objectively as possible, leaving the reader to draw conclusions. By contrast, the most recent biographers of Becket have, for the most part, offered views sympathetic to the archbishop’s plight and personality. This chapter surveys the twentieth and twenty-first century works dealing with Becket’s life, offering a pastiche of the multiple interpretations.

1900–1950: Continuing nationalism Bridging the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the work of W.H. Hutton (1860–1930) exemplified the continuing nationalistic nature of historical scholarship. Hutton’s biography of Becket was published in 1910 as part of a series called Makers of National History,1 although his work on the Canterbury martyr had begun in 1899 with the publication of a collection of extracts from Becket’s contemporary biographers and chroniclers. The volume in the Makers series conformed to the purpose of the editors and publishers, which was “to illustrate the importance of individual contributions to national development, in action and in thought.”2 For Hutton, “Thomas of Canterbury [was] incomparably the most popular English hero of the Middle Age; and he was a hero because he was regarded as a saint.”3 Indeed, Becket personified the Christian hero – one of those who

266  Becket in the modern and postmodern world “exemplified national characteristics while [elevating] the nations and [inspiring] them with a higher impulse of consecration or sacrifice.”4 The archbishop, from Hutton’s point of view, was a man who, throughout his life, was always faithful to the Church, even during his service as Henry’s chancellor, when he truly wished to give up his office and return to his post in Theobald’s household. As archbishop, his struggle with the king was a result of his devotion to God and the Church. Becket was a “brave strong man . . . who was as sensitive as he was courageous.” He became a “popular English hero, and a maker of national history, because he was believed to have fought a good fight for the right, and to have died rather than yield.”5 In describing Thomas’s new habits as archbishop, Hutton quoted several of the biographers at length, remarking that there is no reason to distrust their evaluation of the transformation, but observing that Herbert of Bosham’s remarks constituted a “strange mingling, this long eulogy of his chaplain’s, of sincerity with the curious, medieval, theological affectation. Thomas could set before his soul a new ideal; but his disciples could only express that ideal in conventional pomposities.”6 In Hutton’s opinion, Becket himself: already had an ideal of what a primate should be, how absolutely he should be devoted to the interests of the Church, how meekly and resolutely he should be set to deny himself and to walk humbly, as monks walked, in the way of the Lord.7 Although he found humility “hard to learn,” he: never dreamed of playing a part as an actor plays one; a character seemed to be set upon him by his consecration, and he yielded – not without hesitations and restlessness – to its impress. He deliberately and painfully set himself, not to assume a part, not to qualify for a position, but to accept what the ecclesiastical theories of his age, exclusive, ascetic, separatist, set up before him.8 Hutton continues: Out of the lives of the saints which he read, and out of the stress of conflict in which he found himself involved, there seemed to rise the vision of a character, determined, ascetic yet humane, gentle towards the weak, but unyielding to the proud, which took Christ for Ruler and Captain, perhaps even more than for Example and Pattern. . . . It was hard for Becket’s own stubborn nature to fit itself into the mould; but he tried with all his might and main to make himself worthy.9 Although his personal charm was such that he attracted friends and developed relationships that eventually became real devotion, he “never

Twentieth-century biographies 267 conquered an abruptness, an impetuosity, a passionate assertiveness which made him bitter enemies. He had a warm and true heart: pity that he wore it on his sleeve.”10 In Hutton’s view, the achievements of personal liberty and constitutional rule as present in early twentieth-century England were the results of the struggle for class privilege that took place during the Middle Ages; this was exemplified in the issues at stake in the quarrel between Henry and Becket. The claims of clerical privilege, the right to be tried in separate courts seemed then not unreasonable, and Hutton asserted that it became a popular issue, “because it was merged in the claim of liberty for each class.” Merchants, lawyers, villeins, and barons felt that they were in danger of being overpowered by an unrestrained and arbitrary king, and each class had to engage in the struggle. The Church alone could fight with any hope of success, and for this reason all classes, especially the poor, looked to it for protection. Here, “men found shelter against oppression under the covering of her wings.”11 The Church ultimately made national liberty possible, and Becket represented to his successors, especially Stephen Langton, a champion of liberty. “Thomas of Canterbury was one of the makers of national history because he had striven . . . for freedom, the freedom which was won so gradually and as the result of so many struggles.”12 Writing from his perspective as a priest of the Church of England, Hutton argued that Becket did not die simply for the rights of the Church against the state. He perished because he refused to rescind a sentence of excommunication at the demand of men who threatened his life. Becket rightly believed that only the Church could settle its issues of communion, and the terms could not be determined by the state – still less by individuals: “The Church must have as much right to fix its own limits as the State has to enforce its own obligations.”13 Becket was right in the contest concerning ecclesiastical censures, and thus, “he took his place, by the insistent approbation of his contemporaries, among the saints of the English Church.”14 Thomas was viewed quite differently by Austin Lane Poole (1889–1963), who inherited the primarily negative view of the archbishop’s character from nineteenth-century historians. As he wrote in From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (1951),15 Becket was a: vain, obstinate and ambitious man . . . above all a man of extremes, a man who knew no half measures. He did everything with exemplary thoroughness . . . as the king’s chancellor, or when fighting at the head of his knights, or conducting delicate diplomatic negotiation; whether at a church council, at Mass, or in suffering martyrdom.16 In analyzing Thomas’s transition from Chancellor to archbishop, Poole countered Hutton’s contention that the archbishop was never play-acting, describing him instead as a “great actor superbly living the parts he was called upon to play.”17 The archbishop had a vision of what a saint ought to

268  Becket in the modern and postmodern world do, and he tried to do it; hence, there was an aura of artificiality in all of his actions. Quoting his nineteenth-century predecessor Freeman, Poole argued that he did not hand down a great legacy to the Church; “if anything, he perpetuated an abuse – the immunity of clerks from secular punishment for their crimes.” Further, “It has been justly said that insistence on his fame as a great churchman, which was partly fictitious, has robbed him of a fame which was truer and better deserved, as the great minister of a great king.”18 As chancellor, he was totally dedicated to his role as the king’s official, and when there was a clash of interests between Church and State, he usually advocated the royal position. There can be no doubt that Henry, in promoting him to the see of Canterbury, believed that if the chancellorship and the primacy were in the same hands, he would be able to control the growth of the Church’s “pretensions,” which, in Poole’s opinion, had “advanced beyond all bounds.”19 The king was rapidly disillusioned, as Becket soon resigned the chancellorship, and devoted himself exclusively to the interests of the Church, rather than instead of supporting the interests of the Crown.20 In his quarrel with Henry II, Becket was “gratuitously aggressive,” and blocked the king’s attempts at reform.21 The archbishop was determined to assert and protect the liberties and rights of the clergy, rather than punishing their crimes and eradicating their vices. Poole did concede, however, that Becket “genuinely, if mistakenly,” believed that he was advocating the best interests of the Church.22 The role of Pope Alexander in the dispute was “halting and uncertain,” since he was not in a strong position as an exile from Rome confronted by a rival. Further, Becket was “a sore embarrassment” to the pope, although he could not completely disregard his appeals. From the outset of the quarrel, he attempted through letters and legates to assist in a compromise, but he did not realize that “he had to deal with men who would have nothing to do with compromise.”23 His attempts to bring about a settlement had the effect of prolonging the quarrel. Poole saw the king as “moderate in his demands.” With regard to the issue of the criminous clerks, Becket stood on shaky ground: “He was taking his stand, not on what was the law, but what should, in his view be the law,” whereas Henry was relying on advisors who were experts in both civil and canon law. Perhaps the king “acted a little arbitrarily . . ., but justly and certainly in the public interest.”24 Henry’s banishment or imprisonment of Becket’s family and friends was “naturally condemned,” but otherwise the king’s actions were approved by both laymen and clerics. Indeed, Becket “found few sympathizers in England.”25 Poole’s account of the archbishop’s exile focused on the political situation faced by the parties involved in the struggle. Writing from a highly prejudiced point of view, he recounted that Becket, seeking to justify his own conduct, engaged in a voluminous correspondence with both his friends and enemies, complaining about his “supposed injuries.” During the years

Twentieth-century biographies 269 in exile, the tone of Becket’s letters became “more and more querulous and acrimonious,” culminating in his announcement of the sentences of excommunication pronounced at Vezelay. Henry himself was threatened with a similar action, but he was saved from “the effects of Becket’s violence” by papal dispensation, which annulled the sentences passed by the archbishop. For the time being, he was inhibited from “further molesting the king.”26 Negotiations between the parties failed, Poole wrote, because Becket insisted on including the “exasperating evasive qualification” salvo honore Dei and salvo ordine suo. It was the archbishop’s insistence on these offending words that “wrecked the chances of reconciliation.”27 According to Poole, the king’s outburst which led to the martyrdom was occasioned by a “paroxysm of rage” which resulted in rash words, and he seems to have absolved Henry of responsibility by including the observation that he had sent a messenger to intercept the knights and prevent possible violence. The circumstances of the murder were not elaborated by Poole, who closed his discussion of Becket with remarks about the spread of the martyr’s cult, Henry’s reconciliation at Avranches, and the effects of the martyrdom on the legal system.

Mid-century and beyond: the turn toward psychological interpretation A more sympathetic view of Becket is found in the work of Raymonde Foreville (1904–2002), which spans the middle years of the twentieth century, and includes major works, L’eglise et la Royauté en Angleterre sous Henry II Plantagenet (1154–1189),28 published in 1943, and Le Jubilé de Saint Thomas Becket du XIIIe au XVe siècle (1220–1470): Etude et documents (1958).29 These offered an important correction to the negative view of Becket so prevalent during the nineteenth century, which, as we have seen, extended into the twentieth in the works of scholars such as Poole. By analyzing Becket’s thinking concerning the principles at issue in his quarrel with the king, she provided a carefully considered conclusion which balanced the opinions favoring Henry II.30 Whereas some scholars had viewed Becket’s actions as hypocritical, and claimed that they masked his true ambition,31 for Foreville, the archbishop’s character demonstrated total sincerity and great steadfastness; he was devoted to the cause of the Church “beyond reason,” and his commitment was founded on love of Christ and renunciation of self.32 Le Jubilé de Saint Thomas Becket33 is a study of a Latin treatise written to justify the celebration of the fifth jubilee of Becket’s martyrdom in 1420. Foreville analyzed this document within the context of the history of the jubilee, which was celebrated every 50 years, beginning in 1220 during the tenure of Stephen Langton as archbishop; it is, in part, the story of the quest of the monks of Canterbury to obtain papal confirmation of their right to grant plenary indulgences to pilgrims during the jubilee years.

270  Becket in the modern and postmodern world The work begins with a thorough and informative examination of the circumstances surrounding the translation of Becket’s body to Trinity Chapel in 1220 and the first jubilee declared in celebration of the event.34 In the following chapter, Foreville explored the jubilee from the perspective of medieval indulgences, tracing its history until the final celebration in 1520, and focusing on the year 1420. The document concerning the celebration that is central to her argument is presented in an appendix, together with a thorough discussion of its possible author (a monk of Canterbury), and its contents and implications. In addition to the analysis of Becket in her major works, Foreville wrote many articles about various aspects of the saint’s cult and personality; these have been gathered in the Variorum series in a volume titled Thomas Becket dans la tradition historique et hagiographique (1981),35 which includes a brief summary of his career.36 Although she followed closely the opinions of the early biographers in examining Thomas’s transformation as archbishop, her analysis emphasized the importance of his newly evident adherence to the ideals of the Gregorian reform and the principles found in the work of Gratian; as primate of the Church in England, he was determined to follow the precepts of Gregory VII in maintaining the distinction between the spiritual and secular worlds, and to resist the encroachments of the Crown.37 In this article, Foreville summarized the conflict between Henry and Thomas, and briefly discussed Thomas’s exile, pointing in particular to the letters he wrote to the king. She offered the bare facts concerning his return to Canterbury and the murder. Foreville’s additional work explored many dimensions of the life and cult of Becket, including his Norman origins38 and the spread of veneration of the saint in France.39 In one article, she analyzed the pilgrimage to Canterbury within the context of social history, one of the first scholars to avowedly view the phenomenon through that lens.40 Her intention was not only to study more precisely pilgrimage and the pilgrims to Canterbury, but also to explore “un ensemble de traits caractéristiques des moers et des mentalités communes au XIIe siècle.”41 Her discussion included speculations about the motives of the pilgrims for undertaking the journey, and provided evidence determining their origins, focusing on England and France (and including excellent graphics). She also categorized the pilgrims mentioned by Benedict according to gender, and identified the number of priests, monks, clerics, and soldiers. Her research led her to observe that the pilgrims came from all classes of society: rich and poor, literate and illiterate, noble people and villains, clerics and laity. The article also explored modes of transport for the pilgrims, and although some were fortunate enough to ride in carts, most walked – the “elemental and primordial form of penitence.”42 Foreville also provided charts for the various miracles recorded by William and Benedict, categorizing them and speculating as to the actual nature of the illnesses the biographers were describing. Her conclusions did not deal with the veracity of the miracles, but rather emerged from an examination

Twentieth-century biographies 271 of all of the circumstances surrounding the miraculous events; by using this methodology, it was possible to shed new light on the people of the Middle Ages, the conditions of their lives, their physical state, their behavior and their mental outlook.43 As we shall see ahead, Foreville’s work in the social history of pilgrimage and the Becket cult proved to be seminal in the proliferation of studies devoted to these topics. The eminent ecclesiastical historian Dom David Knowles (1896–1974) contributed two works important to Becket studies: The Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket (1951)44 and a biography, Thomas Becket (1970).45 In addition, his essay in a volume titled The Historian and Character (1963),46 offered a succinct analysis of Knowles’s view of the Canterbury martyr, and the text of his lecture at Canterbury Cathedral in 1970 further refined his concept of Becket’s sanctity. Although not free from a hint of nationalism (“He [Becket] was a Norman and . . . true to his race”),47 Knowles’s biography presented a positive, even laudatory, view of the archbishop. Unlike previous scholars, he was careful to point out Thomas’s significant accomplishments as chancellor, an aspect of his career often overlooked. In Knowles’s view, this period in his life should be analyzed, since here, for the first time, we see the “stamp of greatness.” He also pointed out Thomas’s “tact, charm and prudence,” as chancellor, character attributes not generally acknowledged.48 Thomas’s actions later in life, which appear to be tactless, stubborn and harsh, were not character flaws, but were a result of the archbishop’s decision to “dismiss conciliation and neglect criticism.”49 Knowles’s interpretation of the archbishop’s character was influenced by the general tendency of mid-twentieth-century biographers to view their subjects in psychological terms. For example, in answering the question of Thomas’s “conversion” upon being elected archbishop, Knowles claimed that Thomas always believed that his life would be devoted to the Church, and during his chancellorship he secretly multiplied his penances and prayers in compensation for his extravagant lifestyle.50 As a young man, he had “dissembled his piety,” and, as Knowles remarked, “as a servant of Theobald he had hidden his ambition.”51 Although he was reluctant to assume the archbishopric, once he had made his decision, he became the servant of the Church, and the austerity of his life as archbishop was a product of his “thorough and drastic nature,”52 conditioned by his “racial character” and his “personal tendency towards the magnificent and the spectacular.” For Knowles, Thomas’s conversion was “dramatic only on the surface.” In fact, it was a spiritual leap forward, and the severe austerities he employed were an overcompensation often seen in the lives of converts.53 During his early archbishopric, Thomas acted in opposition to what he knew to be the king’s policy, and Knowles remarked that he misunderstood the king’s violent anger whenever he was defied; “while he knew there would be strife he [Becket] thought of it as a tournament rather than as an issue that would break the ties that held him to his old brilliant life with the

272  Becket in the modern and postmodern world king.”54 With regard to Thomas’s capitulation at the Council of Clarendon, Knowles wrote that the archbishop had often sought popularity – the favor of others won by compliance – and it may be that he yielded because he was unable to bear the bitterness of the reproaches of the king and his friends.55 “As always, his decision was sudden and uncounselled,”56 and he bitterly regretted his acquiescence. As the quarrel with Henry deepened during his exile, Becket’s actions clearly became a “defense of the rights of God as against Caesar,” and Knowles emphasized a significant alteration in his attitudes during this period. Basing his opinion on the accounts of the biographers, he observed that Thomas had “long yielded to human respect and worldly compliance”; however, these attributes “may easily, from self-distrust or by way of compensation, turn from gentleness to uncompromising rigidity.”57 This change in Thomas led him to be relentless and did not temper his tendency to make his decisions quickly and “without counsel.” Certainly, as Knowles remarked, some of these were unwise, such as the Vezelay excommunications and the sentence against the bishops of York and London. In each case, although Thomas had strict justice on his side, he lost, “externally at least,” more than he gained.58 Indeed, his severity may be justified only if the legality of his case made it necessary for him to employ whatever sanction he could command.59 Certainly, he was within his rights in the censures taken against York and the bishops of London and Salisbury, but his action was probably unadvisable. As Knowles pointed out, these bulls were delivered to the prelates as they were departing to visit the king in Normandy; it was their bitter statement of grievance, as well as the allegation that the archbishop had returned to England to bring, “not peace, but a sword,” that provoked the king into the outburst of passion that gave impetus to the four knights and served as a pretext for the final act of violence. On the other hand, the three prelates were crossing to join the king for the express purpose of taking part in an election to the vacant English sees and abbacies, which was “a flagrant reassertion by Henry of one of the uncanonical decrees of Clarendon and a direct and grave insult to the archbishop on the part of the prelates.”60 Thomas was correct in his assertion to the knights that he could not remove the papal ban from Roger of York, but he was willing to absolve the others if they would sincerely ask him. If they had been reconciled with the archbishop, events might have turned out differently.61 In Knowles’s opinion, Becket willingly accepted martyrdom, since during the last months of 1170, the archbishop became convinced that “only by his death would a solution be found.”62 But the claim advanced by some modern historians that Thomas’s “desire for the glory of martyrdom made him fatalistic or reckless,” and that “he courted death,” was completely erroneous. According to Knowles, this opinion was “beyond the evidence and the bounds of human nature.”63 In Becket’s last conversation with John of Salisbury, the archbishop cautioned:

Twentieth-century biographies 273 [W]e must not let the fear of death make us swerve from justice. I am ready to accept death for the sake of God and of justice and the Church’s freedom – far more ready to accept death than they are to kill me.64 In answer to the often-asked question, “Was Thomas in any sense a saint, apart from his death, which is judged a martyrdom?” Knowles wrote, “If a clear answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ must be given, it must be negative.” During his life, Becket had not shown the virtues of Christ – “lack of self-seeking, gentleness along with fortitude, generosity and love in word and work, equanimity and self-control in every difficulty” – qualities essential for saints who are not martyrs.65 Nor was his death truly that of a martyr. He did not die in defense of any specified article of the creed, point of Christian morality, or as a witness to the Resurrection of Jesus. Instead: Archbishop Thomas, . . . in the largely accidental circumstances that brought about his murder, died for the freedom of the spiritual authority of the Church, and he died declaring that he knew this and was willing to meet death in this cause.66 Within the context of the twelfth-century religious and political situation in England, he was indeed “a martyr, a witness, to the right of the church to spiritual freedom.”67 Was his death inevitable, as many modern historians have claimed? Knowles disagreed, claiming that this interpretation emerged from an anachronistic view of Henry’s reign. Admiration for Henry was derived from the writings of Maitland, who saw Henry as a great statesman who laid the foundations for England’s firm system of law.68 However, for Knowles, the king was not “a paternal monarch nor an enlightened despot.” He was a leader of “real, if erratic, genius, but his ends, as those of medieval monarchs, were personal and dynastic aggrandizement and ease of control.”69 It was not the issues central to the quarrel with Becket that caused the murder; it was the king’s “abandonment of discussion in favour of recourse to violence.”70 Knowles broadened his discussion of Becket in another work, The Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket, which is comprised of slightly revised versions of the Ford Lectures given in 1949. He chose the subject in order to illuminate unexplored facets of the controversy, since up to this time Becket scholarship had been “a straightforward narrative of the life of a single man.”71 Initially offering biographical and professional information about each of the bishops, Knowles discussed the role of each in the councils held at Westminster and Clarendon, demonstrating, in particular, the pernicious influence of Gilbert Foliot and Hilary of Chichester. He described the events of the council at Northampton in detail, drawing distinctions between that assembly and the earlier convocations. His account is thorough and

274  Becket in the modern and postmodern world enlightening, since his discussion of the motives of king and archbishop, as well as those of the episcopal colleagues, is admirably clear and insightful. For Knowles, Henry’s actions requiring accounts generated during Thomas’s tenure as archbishop constituted “a wholly outrageous demand.” By the time of this convocation, Henry’s earlier exactions had rendered Thomas legally penniless, with all his friends deeply engaged on his behalf. If the king had imposed further obligations, the result would have meant imprisonment or the dismemberment of the archbishopric.72 Moreover, the archbishop had lost the confidence of some of his bishops – “the hierarchy as a group had lost solidarity, and would neither give encouragement nor promise support to their chief.”73 Thomas met with the bishops, and shortly afterwards became ill.74 Although Knowles shows that it is not possible to ascertain the exact nature or cause, he remarks that the illness was no doubt caused by the “prolonged psychological and emotional strain of the past few days, by his apprehensions for the future, and by the uncertainty of mind that preceded his great decision.”75 Further, it is fairly certain that the risk of physical danger was considered to be real by archbishop himself, and at least some of his informants.76 Knowles’s study continues with an analysis of the actions of the bishops during Becket’s exile, and provides an evaluation of their policies and principles. As the divisions between them sharpened, six of the bishops continued to support their archbishop, and four opposed his actions and directives. The importance of this work lies in its focus on the various episcopal colleagues, and the analysis of their influence in the struggle between king and archbishop. Knowles’s biography, Thomas Becket, published in the “Leaders of Religion” series, was somewhat restricted by the qualifications of length and the avowed objective of reaching a general audience. Because of these limitations, at least one reviewer remarked that it “falls short of the definitive biography that might have been expected from the pen of this distinguished historian.”77 Further, although Knowles wrote in the Foreward that the work was based on a rereading of the sources, without consulting the works of other modern biographers or his own writings, his conclusions concerning Becket remained essentially unchanged from his earlier writings. Tracing the history of the conflict, Knowles observed that during the latter part of the reign of Henry II, Becket became “a highly controversial figure, a turbulent and fanatical priest to some, an admirable confessor and martyr to others.” In subsequent historiography, the division became an issue between historians; some admired the policies and actions of Henry II, while others saw in Thomas a “defender of spiritual principle against secular tyranny.”78 Knowles believed that current popular favor had “abandoned” the archbishop, and some mid-twentieth-century historians had expressed disapproval of what they regarded as “his violent and ambitious” character. While not denying those aspects of Becket’s personality, Knowles’s biography placed the events and actions of his struggle with the king in a more

Twentieth-century biographies 275 favorable light. For Knowles, the archbishop’s intransigence was born of reactions to his circumstances, and he suggests that at certain points in the quarrel, he would have been willing to make peace with the king – it was Henry who was rigid and inflexible when he sensed opposition to his plans. Additionally, as Knowles remarked in a lecture: It has been fashionable among historians of this century – Lady Stenton, Zachary Brooke and Austin Lane Poole among others – to present Thomas Becket as playing a part, both as chancellor and archbishop. Some of these historians, notably Brooke, disclaim any suggestion of insincerity,79 but if the metaphor means anything, it must at least suggest that in both offices, especially the archbishop’s, Thomas acted, not as his intelligence and conscience suggested in face of the concrete situation, but in harmony with a previously established conception of how a model archbishop should act.80 Zachary Brooke’s son Christopher (1927–2015)81 expressed his thoughts concerning Thomas Becket in a lecture given in Liverpool in December 1956, later published in his Medieval Church and Society: Collected Essays.82 For Brooke, it was “the public nature of the murder, [and] the drama with which the main actors intentionally surrounded it, [that made] it so exciting and so strange.”83 “Why was Thomas Becket murdered?” he asks rhetorically, responding that the answer “lies deep in the social organization of England and Europe in the twelfth century, and more immediately, in the personality of Thomas Becket himself.”84 In explaining his view, Brooke surveyed the religious and educational milieu of the twelfth century, placing Becket within the framework of the tensions between Church and State, which he characterized as “one of the great periods of conflict in the Middle Ages,”85 when the problem of the relationship between the clergy and the laity was of primary importance. For medieval people, God had designed the world with two kinds of authority – temporal and spiritual. “The lay powers ministered to man’s earthly ends, to his mortal life: the ecclesiastical to his spiritual ends, to his immortal life.”86 The temporal dimension was governed by the king and the spiritual by the pope or his representatives in the higher clergy. It was not possible for one man to wield authority in both spheres, and smooth governance depended upon cooperation between the two. As Brooke pointed out, the office of Archbishop of Canterbury was the most crucial in the kingdom, and it was Henry’s fondest hope that whoever held the position be “pliant and obedient.” Hence, he appointed his dear friend and Chancellor, Thomas Becket, assuming that he would be the ideal person to carry out his will. With disastrous results, the king completely misunderstood the character of his minister, whose “deepest thoughts were a mystery.” Although Becket was a “man of charm who pleased and impressed superiors and inferiors alike . . . it was always difficult to penetrate behind his mask.”87 In assessing Thomas’s conversion, Brooke echoed

276  Becket in the modern and postmodern world the biographers: “In a moment of time, he seemed to become a different man – from civil servant to spiritual leader.” But, Brooke cautioned, “We must not think of him as a mere actor. It was conviction and tradition which made him see the part he had to play and made him live that part.”88 There was an added dimension to the origin of the conflict, Brooke suggested. Henry may have suspected during Thomas’s tenure as chancellor that he was, to some degree, a spy for Theobald, and that Thomas may have exaggerated his devoted service to the king in order to prove his wholehearted loyalty. When Becket became archbishop and behaved so differently from the king’s expectations, Henry may have felt that Thomas had deceived him and “played him false when Chancellor.”89 Reflecting the historical fashion of the mid-twentieth century, Brooke explained Thomas’s “sudden” transformation in psychological terms. His extreme piety and penitential practices such as the wearing of a hairshirt derived from a “deep unsureness of himself” which caused him to overcompensate in his actions in order to convince the monks in the Canterbury chapter as well as his fellow bishops that he was worthy to be their spiritual father.90 Further, Thomas may have had a vision of his role as archbishop that was formed earlier, and this provided him with the possibility of seemingly rapid conversion when he was elected.91 When Henry discovered that his archbishop was not willing to endorse his planned reforms in the Church, “his enmity became implacable; he believed Becket to be a traitor, and treachery was the one sin no feudal lord could ever forgive.” The king became determined to destroy him. In answering the question of whether or not Becket foresaw his martyrdom, Brooke pointed out that “It is clear that he had a foreboding of what was coming, and made no attempt to conceal the fact . . . [and] he can hardly be blamed for thinking he was entering a trap.”92 Brooke also raised the issue of class distinction between Becket and the murderers, remarking that the king’s remarks about ridding him of the troublesome priest “stirred above all that sense of social cleavage which made the barons feel that Becket, though an Anglo-Norman like themselves, was somehow an upstart and a foreigner, because although a clerk, he had done things that the King alone should do.”93 If asked, they could not have given a coherent account of their actions except to say that Becket was a traitor, and he had been treated as such.94 The account of the struggle between Henry II and Becket by W.L. Warren (1929–1994) appears in his biography Henry II,95 and hearkens back to J.A. Froude in its negative portrayal of the archbishop. For Warren, Henry’s actions in curbing the supposed rights of the Church were merely one component in a general process of controlling the interplay of ecclesiastical and royal government and the marking out of jurisdictional boundary lines.96 “Even in the most bellicose phases of the struggle to come Henry sought nothing more than safeguards for what he regarded as royal interests, which might be injured by unfettered ecclesiastical jurisdiction.” Becket’s assertion

Twentieth-century biographies 277 that the king was determined to destroy the liberty of the Church was merely his “attempt at self-justification after the breach between them.”97 The archbishop was essentially a “proud, self-centered man,” and his actions were undertaken to prove to himself that “nothing was beyond his competence.”98 The deterioration of the relationship between the king and archbishop was Becket’s fault, since his actions in the early months of his archiepiscopate were “gratuitously offensive” to the monarch. He made no attempt to negotiate, and “it almost seems that he was deliberately picking a quarrel with the king.” On the other hand, perhaps he was simply trying to show the monks of his chapter and the bishops of his province that he could shed his role as royal official and truly become an ecclesiastical leader.99 He undertook “grand gestures,” such as the laying aside of his fine clothing and donning a monk’s habit, in order to prove himself; for Warren, this theatrical act was definitely not an indication of Becket’s humility and spiritual conversion. An even more significant sign was his resignation of the office of chancellor, which Warren interpreted as Becket’s proclamation of independence.100 In other phases of the dispute, Becket was “obtuse and cantankerous,”101 especially concerning the issue of criminous clerks. The king, as Warren saw it, was trying to solve the problem of how to master prevalent crime, and the aspect of criminal behavior among clerics was, for him, a subsidiary concern. For Becket, however, the issue was part of a more fundamental question concerning clerical immunity from secular jurisdiction.102 Warren recounted the meetings at Clarendon and Northampton in detail, justifying the position of the king at every juncture. He gave Becket credit for a “remarkable strength of will” in the face of harassment and threats of violence, but he viewed it as “a strength devoted to preserving his dignity – however much he tried to rationalize it as a defence of the Church.”103 If he had exhibited composure in the face of the king’s persecution and perhaps suffered imprisonment, he would have opted for “true martyrdom,” but, given his personality, Becket would never have been ready for this kind of martyrdom.104 Becket’s intransigence continued during his exile, and although he was given a “rapturous welcome” by the common people upon his return to England, the true hostility of the barons and officials was demonstrated by the Young King’s refusal to receive him. Although it is commonly thought that the bishops who approached Henry in Normandy concerning their excommunications touched off the king’s anger and led to the archbishop’s murder, Warren suggested that this is not entirely true. Becket was behaving in his “same old self-centered, ham-fisted way,” and the remark to Henry that “While Thomas lives you will have neither peace nor quiet nor see good days” was accurate, although provocative.105 The knights who committed the atrocity were “not intelligent,” and probably did not understand the complexity of the issues involved in the dispute. FitzUrse and his companions only knew that Becket had to be forced to

278  Becket in the modern and postmodern world submit to the will of the king, and in Warren’s opinion, they had no clear plan of attack. In their encounters with Becket, first in his apartments and then in the cathedral, they reacted characteristically as men of action. The archbishop could have hidden in the recesses of the cathedral, but he faced his assailants “with a calm dignity, challenging them to do their worst. . . . Thomas Becket did not have to die on 29 December 1170.” Indeed, by not taking the ready means of escape, he chose to do so.106 In assessing the effect of the twelfth-century intellectual milieu on Becket’s thinking – an aspect which historians such as Warren’s contemporary Beryl Smalley107 have viewed as exerting a profound influence – Warren was, characteristically, less than complimentary. Becket was a “theological dinosaur” who relied on the outmoded theology of “Gregorianism” to support and sustain his case. He behaved as if the “Investiture Contest” had never been settled; indeed, Warren suggested, Becket thought of himself as another Gregory VII, and “wanted Henry II on his knees begging forgiveness as Emperor Henry IV had done before Pope Gregory at Canossa.”108 According to Warren, this was an outmoded way of thinking in the twelfth century, when it was clear that problems between the secular and ecclesiastical authorities were necessarily resolved by mutual accommodation. In light of Becket’s theological views, a true reconciliation with Henry was impossible. Moreover, in Warren’s opinion, the king would not be drawn into an ideological debate. For him, the conflict was one of personalities “set on a collision course.” The story of the struggle between Henry II and Thomas Becket is “a classic tragedy – the story of heroic men with remarkable qualities, undone by equally great flaws of character, flaws of passion and of pride.”109 The next major biography to appear in the twentieth century was that of Frank Barlow (1911–2009),110 whose work, meticulously documented using the early Lives and letters concerning Becket, created a standard by which all subsequent biographies have been measured. Full of fascinating detail and written with care and imagination, Barlow’s book provides a wealth of information. Barlow avowedly set out to “establish the facts and produce an account of Thomas’s life as historically true as possible . . . to present the events in their contemporary setting and trace an evolving story, avoiding hindsight to the best of my ability.” Departing from the practice of historians such as Warren, he claimed that he was not “a partisan of ecclesiastical or royal power,” nor of either Henry or Thomas, and that he admired both men. By his neutral approach, he left it to his readers, “to reflect further or to draw the moral” from his telling of the story.111 Barlow’s interpretation of Thomas’s transformation into a “new man” when he became archbishop offers an example of his judicious treatment of the sources. As he remarked, “For most commentators the externals were merely a cloak to hide the secret life.”112 Following the lead of John of Salisbury, several of the biographers identified two layers of concealment, perfectly demonstrated by the clothes he wore: a hairshirt next to the skin,

Twentieth-century biographies 279 followed by a monk’s habit, with both concealed in the garb of a regular canon he presented to the world. But Barlow pointed out that this is probably a projection back of an interpretation of the garments he was supposed to have worn on the day of his martyrdom, and it is undoubtedly open to question, if not completely mistaken. Even Herbert of Bosham had reservations about Becket’s apparel, and Barlow pointed out that “John of Salisbury’s rhetorical claim that Thomas, on becoming archbishop also put on the monk and hair shirt, and variations on this theme by other hands, must be rejected.”113 The analysis of the nature of Thomas’s conversion is expanded by tracing the biographers’ accounts of his behavior and actions during the first two years as archbishop. “Thomas’s progression from chancellor to archbishop, in appearance, conduct and heart, can be elucidated by considering when and in what circumstances he divested himself, or was divested, of his existing offices, benefices and honours.”114 Barlow points out that he retained all the secular honors he had acquired as chancellor until stripped of them by the king in October 1163, and he kept all the ecclesiastical benefices he held in plurality, except one, until he fled the country at the end of 1164. Barlow advanced a novel interpretation of Thomas’s resignation of the chancellorship. He took this action: not because he had been converted to austerity or humility, but because as archbishop he was so grand and so rich that he had no need of that office, which would now bring in little revenue and which he may have considered beneath his dignity. Further, it is likely that he did not want to hold an office of the king. It is evident from the sources that Thomas, as archbishop, was in appearance much more splendid and impressive than ever before: “No wonder that the biographers had to make him hide his changed character from public view.”115 In Barlow’s opinion, Thomas “continued on his predictable worldly path.” He turned his administrative and financial skills from the king’s interest to his own, considering that his primary task at Canterbury was to put the archiepiscopal estates in order.116 Thus, Barlow seems to agree with Becket’s nineteenth-century biographers in asserting that his “conversion” was not a profound spiritual or religious transformation, but the intoxication of achieving a base of independent political power.117 In his work, Barlow brings into question not only some interpretations of the conversion, but also hints that Becket may not always have been chaste, as his biographers asserted. The reports of his perfect chastity raise a problem for Barlow, who explores the issue by considering the general pattern of Thomas’s life.118 Some biographers viewed the penitential lifestyle he assumed during his exile as atonement for past sins; hence, there would have been no need to whitewash his previous life. He could have been compared to St Augustine, and the invention of his chastity would

280  Becket in the modern and postmodern world have proved unnecessary. However, Barlow pointed out that after his death, especially after he had been canonized, there was “a temptation, almost a compulsion,” to reconsider his entire life, and “the theme of the chaste ascetic under the finery could hardly be resisted.”119 The great strength of the book is found in the four chapters devoted to the period of Becket’s exile (1163–1170). Barlow dealt with this period in copious detail, drawing from the Becket correspondence and other contemporary letters to produce a fascinating account of the labyrinthine circumstances involved in the maneuverings of the king, archbishop and pope to resolve the crisis. Regarding the martyrdom, Barlow cited the varying accounts, but concluded that: “The recorders constructed a story out of confused recollections of imperfectly observed events and from what the participants are alleged to have said later. These factors make a completely certain reconstruction of the happenings in every detail impossible.”120 Further, Barlow presented the accounts of miracles dispassionately, demonstrating how they influenced the development of the cult; however, unlike earlier historians, he did not speculate as to veracity or cause. In very real sense, as Fraher remarked in his review, the paucity of conclusions offered by Barlow are “so severely restrained as to leave the reader grasping for larger meanings.”121

Twenty-first century biographies A new biography of Becket was written in the first decade of the twenty-first century by Anne J. Duggan.122 Her work is a product of her deep knowledge of both the Becket correspondence and the legal issues surrounding the struggle with the king, and her research has led her to take a primarily sympathetic view of Thomas. Her writing skillfully blends the reports of the various biographers and chroniclers to provide evidence for her interpretation. In assessing his role as chancellor, for example, she defends the magnificence of his dress and retinue, remarking that, although Knowles thought it unseemly and tasteless for a cleric to adopt such a lavish style, “conspicuous display and the bestowal of valuable gifts was an important part of medieval diplomacy.”123 Further, although Thomas’s manner and actions as chancellor may have made him an inappropriate choice for archbishop, Duggan accepted the testimony of William FitzStephen that his finery was a cloak for personal piety, and she emphasized his reported practice of private mortifications such as penitential whipping “as an antidote to the lavish public style of his office.”124 This evidence, for Duggan, indicates the veracity of the claim that Thomas remained chaste, and did not partake in the promiscuity of court life.125 “Why did Thomas of London accept the poisoned chalice?” Duggan asks. In looking at his appointment as archbishop from Thomas’s own point of view, she suggests that he may have thought that it would have been possible

Twentieth-century biographies 281 to combine the offices of chancellor and archbishop, believing that his earlier relationship with the king would have made compromise and accommodation possible.126 His resignation of the chancellorship occurred when he received the pallium,127 and she provides convincing evidence to support her opinion that it was a conscientious and spiritual choice, rather than a quest for “even greater power.”128 Duggan contests the view of recent historians such as Warren and Barlow that Thomas’s earliest actions as archbishop constituted “a string of needless confrontations” with royal authorities, remarking that he was simply discharging the normal responsibilities of the archbishopric against increasingly difficult opposition; he was not seeking to establish his own base of power vis-à-vis the king. Instead, he was moving to secure the rights of the archbishopric.129 Moreover, for Henry, the former chancellor had “outlived his usefulness” and the king “simply hung Becket out to dry.”130 Duggan sees Thomas’s actions regarding the Constitutions of Clarendon as understandable. In her opinion, Henry’s policies were much more aggressive than simply renewing the customs of his grandfather. Although Becket had reservations about accepting them, he did so verbally, under extreme pressure, without knowing that the provisions would soon be committed to writing, and that his seal, and the seals of the bishops, would be required. Moreover, Thomas’s instruction to the bishops to accept the customs “was a temporary ploy to protect them from the king’s wrath.” For Duggan, the concession was intended to be a “tactical retreat,” but instead, it became a significant “strategic error.”131 Duggan provides a thorough analysis of various clauses, and regarding the issue or “criminous clerks” (Clause 3), she refutes the conclusion of Maitland, asserting that he “ignored the weight of the evidence accumulated by Gratian.”132 Likewise, Fraher was mistaken in his interpretation of the case, having misunderstood the conclusions of the decretist commentators he cited in support of his thesis.133 Instead, the accurate interpretation is the one advanced by Charles Duggan, that the formulation of the clause concerning felonious clerks “was so general as to embrace any kind of action or offence in which the king’s officers chose to claim an interest; and the principle of episcopal approval was entirely swept aside.”134 Duggan also offers a comprehensive analysis of Clause 8 of the Constitutions, which restricted appeal to the authorization of the king. Although, as Duggan remarks, there is no specific mention of the papacy, but by implication the aim was to “restrict, if not prevent, the free flow of appeals to the papal court.”135 As we have seen in previous chapters, this was to become a rallying cry for proponents of the Reformation. This provision, as well as the clause regarding criminous clerks, constituted a “serious threat” to the Church; the king’s court would have been the final court in ecclesiastical cases.136 Becket wavered in his acceptance of the Constitutions. But he was, in fact, “a man assailed by contradictory forces” which “led him down the road of (temporary) concession.”137

282  Becket in the modern and postmodern world Challenging the opinions of Barlow and other scholars concerning Becket’s behavior at the Council of Northampton, Duggan asserts that rather than intentionally provoking the king by his actions, he was “a man with no other recourse than to take steps to protect his person by whatever means available.”138 His celebration of the Mass of St Stephen highlighted his own situation; his taking a consecrated Host with him and his insistence on carrying his own cross into the chamber were acts “not of bravado, but of desperation.”139 For Duggan, the cross functioned “both as a symbol of sacerdotal authority and as a protection to its bearer,” and “the incident may be a measure not of Becket’s ‘arrogance,’ but of his fear of reprisals.”140 For Duggan, Becket emerges from the trial as “a man of principle and courage.”141 The procedures at Northampton demonstrated that the process could be subverted by the king to achieve his own ends. “Becket saw the writing on the wall . . . and so he fled before daybreak.”142 Duggan discusses the period of exile in detail, emphasizing Becket’s courage and honor at every point. He exhibited these characteristics in his confession to the pope, and at Vézelay his sentences of excommunication were courageous, if foolhardy;143 further, his letters, which have been deemed “threatening,” were not unusual if viewed within the context of the contemporary rhetorical framework.144 The peace at Fréteval was conducted in response to the king’s fear of interdict, and “on the face of it, all was sweetness and light; but there had been no kiss of peace,” and “there was a hollowness at the heart of the reconciliation.”145 Following the supposed peace, Henry “moved with leaden steps,” slow to return the archbishop’s properties, as promised, which continued to deprive him of his income. Further, “Not only did Henry keep him hanging on, but he embarrassed and humiliated him at every turn.”146 For example, the king proceeded to mandate episcopal elections without consulting him.147 Although warned, Becket returned to England, where his arrival at Canterbury was greeted with tumultuous rejoicing. Duggan observes that there is no reason to doubt the accounts of the biographers and chroniclers. The people had been under the strict control of the deBroc family, backed by the king, and they would have seen Becket’s return as a delivery.148 Duggan places the murder within the perspective of the circumstances: Thomas was aware of the intense hostility against him, and his actions, which have often been characterized as inflammatory, were merely a response. He had succumbed to the king’s wishes at Clarendon, he had fled from Northampton, and at the final crisis he would neither flee nor willingly surrender.149 For Duggan, he bravely accepted his fate. However it is interpreted, the murder was “terrible and bloody,” but Duggan asks if it was martyrdom. She describes a brief delay in the reaction of the monks and the surrounding citizenry following the slaughter, and then points out that the martyr’s body was almost immediately (slightly more than an hour had elapsed) treated as a relic. With the discovery of the hairshirt

Twentieth-century biographies 283 early the following morning, the monks acclaimed him saint and martyr.150 The response of the people was immediate; his cult began spontaneously, inspired by the belief that his death was indeed a martyrdom, and he had made the supreme sacrifice of his life. “He was now with the great company of the saints and martyrs, and thus a conduit between heaven and earth.”151 The most recent biography of Becket is Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel, by John Guy (b. 1949), published in 2012.152 In this work, Guy fulfills his longing “to blow off the cobwebs from Becket’s story, returning to the original sources to conjure him back to life.”153 His writing is full of vivacity and verve, but the work suffers from the lack of specific notes, which are eschewed in favor of loose citations; these indicate the author’s knowledge of the sources, but provide a cumbersome way for the scholar to follow the author’s research path, and there is no bibliography. Guy’s obvious intent was to provide an exciting narrative of Thomas’s life and martyrdom which would not be encumbered by clear references and would have great appeal for the general reader. In recounting the circumstances of Thomas’s early life and education, Guy writes that Thomas “loved the good things in life”154 and that “he had ambitions to put himself among the ruling class.”155 Guy sees him as being “naturally competitive, flamboyant, and hungry to succeed . . . making up in silver-tongued oratory and deft footwork what he lacked in learning.”156 Stepping into the realm of psycho-history, Guy observes that whereas Henry had the self-confidence of a born aristocrat, Thomas “was always anxious and insecure by temperament.”157 Further, he explores the question of Thomas’s chastity and his possible homosexual attachment to Henry. For Guy, the sources indicate that Thomas was probably chaste, at least after he entered Theobald’s household, and he sees no possibility of homosexual activity, with the king or anyone else. The suddenness of Thomas’s conversion is questioned, as Guy points to the inconsistencies in the reports of the biographers, and analyzes various claims. For example, regarding the archbishop’s newly abstemious dietary habits, he remarks that Thomas was addressing his propensity for colitis, rather than making a spiritually driven choice. Thomas’s intellectual awakening and his new enthusiasm for biblical and canonical study appear to be genuine, however. In the clash with Henry, Becket “began to convince himself” that he must choose between the “values of tyranny and justice.” Henry, for his part, began to question the archbishop’s loyalty, and “would never accept that there might be a code of conduct different from his own.”158 Moreover: [O]nce Thomas understood this, the ascetic, rebel’s impulse in him, always there since his adolescent years, would reassert itself . . . he would struggle as archbishop to become [what] John of Salisbury had once imagined him: the “defender of liberty” and the man “who cancels unjust laws.”159

284  Becket in the modern and postmodern world In Guy’s view, Thomas’s capitulation at Clarendon was a low point in his career, and constituted “a cathartic moment he would never forget and in which he discovered how genuinely ill prepared he had been for the role of a pastoral leader.”160 The saga continues with a discussion of the exile that clearly attributes the difficulties in the peace settlement to Thomas. Guy asserts that Thomas believed the quarrel was really about “Henry’s innate assumption that his will was law,” and he feared that “if the king’s ideas went unopposed, the fruits would be transmitted to his heirs, from whose hands it would be impossible to wrest them.”161 In opposition, “he knew he might go down, but he would go down fighting.”162 Becket bungled the attempts to achieve a peace accord by “quibbling over the small print of the peace agreement like a pettifogging lawyer, acting less good faith than Henry.”163 Ultimately an insecure settlement was achieved at Fréteval, and Thomas returned to Canterbury. Guy recounts the bishop’s interview with Henry in Normandy with customary verve and color, exonerating the king and asserting that the four knights, who were “impetuous, warlike men, reckless of bloodshed,” rode to Canterbury with “violence on their minds.”164 His account of the murder is vivid and picturesque, as the reader has been led to expect: “Richard Brito [le Bret] smote his skull with such force that he lopped off the whole upper portion of his head, causing sparks to flash as his sword struck the paving stones below and shattered into shards.”165 The recent biographies of Duggan and Guy appeared during a time of novel approaches to the study of Becket’s life and character. Late in the twentieth century, scholars began to seek unexplored avenues of investigation, interpreting aspects of the archbishop’s character and experience from the perspectives of contemporary society; their work has dealt with questions of gender and identity, issues of anger and conflict, and the use of the medieval past to illuminate current issues and concerns. The next chapter explores these vital areas of scholarship, pointing to Becket’s continuing presence in the present-day world.

Notes 1 W.H. Hutton, Thomas Becket: Archbishop of Canterbury (Cambridge, 1910, revised ed., 1926). 2 Hutton, Becket, v. 3 Hutton, Becket, 2. 4 Hutton, Becket, 1. 5 Hutton, Becket, 272. 6 Hutton, Becket, 65. 7 Hutton, Becket, 252. 8 Hutton, Becket, 252. 9 Hutton, Becket, 252–3. 10 Hutton, Becket, 253. 11 Hutton, Becket, 273–4.

Twentieth-century biographies 285 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Hutton, Becket, 274. Hutton, Becket, 275. Hutton, Becket, 275. A.L. Poole, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Oxford, 1951). Poole, Domesday, 198. Poole, Domesday, 198. Poole, Domesday, 199, quoting Freeman and L.B. Radford. Poole, Domesday, 200. Poole, Domesday, 202. Poole, Domesday, 202. Poole, Domesday, 204. Poole, Domesday, 204. Poole, Domesday, 206, 207. Poole, Domesday, 209. Poole, Domesday, 211. Poole, Domesday, 212. R. Foreville, L’eglise et la Royauté en Angleterre sous Henry II Plantagenet (1154–89) (Paris, 1943). Anne Duggan has remarked that although “Her monumental study was received coolly in England, [it] remains one of the most scholarly and penetrating analyses of the subject.” (Duggan, Becket, 258) 29 R. Foreville, Le Jubilé de Saint Thomas Becket du XIIIe au XVe siècle (1220– 1470): Etude et documents (Paris, 1958). 30 Foreville, L’eglise, 114–15. 31 Foreville, L’eglise, 111. 32 Foreville, L’eglise, 112. 33 See n. 29. 34 See Chapter 4 for details. 35 R. Foreville, Thomas Becket dans La Tradition historique et hagiographique (London, 1981). 36 R. Foreville, “Thomas Becket” in La Tradition, IV (original pagination 1–4). 37 Foreville, “Becket,” 2. 38 R. Foreville, “Les origins normandes de la famille Becket et le culte de Saint Thomas en Normandie,” Mélange Pierre Andrieu-Guitrancourt. L’Année canonique XVII, 1973 (Reprinted in La Tradition, X, original pagination 433–78). 39 R. Foreville, “Les diffusion du culte de Thomas Becket dans la France de l’Ouest avant la fin du XIIe Siècle,” Cahiers de civilization médiévale XIX, 1976 (Reprinted in La Tradition, IX, original pagination 347–69). 40 R. Foreville, “Les ‘Miracula S. Thomae Cantuariensis’,” Actues du 97e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes, Nantes, 1972: Section de philology et d’histoire jusqu’à 1610 (Paris, 1979). (Reprinted in La Tradition, VII, original pagination 443–68). Foreville’s essay was originally published in 1979, and was drawn from a lecture presented in 1972. Among other scholars who wrote about the Becket cult within the framework of social history was Ronald Finucane, whose Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England was published in 1977. 41 Foreville, “Miracula,” 445. (“a collection of traits characteristic of the customs and ways of thinking common in the twelfth century”) 42 Foreville, “Miracula,” 452. 43 Foreville, “Miracula,” 467. 44 D. Knowles, The Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket (Cambridge, 1951, revised ed., 1970). 45 D. Knowles, Thomas Becket (London, 1970). 46 D. Knowles, The Historian and Character and Other Essays (Cambridge, 1963), 98–128. 47 Knowles, Character, 101.

286  Becket in the modern and postmodern world 48 Knowles, Character, 106. 49 Knowles, Character, 107. 50 See Knowles’s remarks concerning Becket’s hidden piety during his tenure as chancellor in “Archbishop Thomas Becket – The Saint,” Canterbury Cathedral Chronicle 65 (1970): 5–21, at 10. 51 Knowles, “The Saint,” 9. 52 Knowles, Character, 110. 53 Knowles, “The Saint,” 11. As discussed in previous chapters, Thomas subjected himself to austerities, following the coarse dietary regime of the monks, sleeping on a pallet, observing the monastic hours, and also enduring frequent ­scourgings – a lifestyle Knowles viewed as extravagant (Knowles, Character, 125). 54 Knowles, Character, 111. 55 In his lecture given at Canterbury in 1970, Knowles remarked on this tendency, which he saw in accounts of Becket’s adolescence. He remarked that “this extreme desire for popularity . . . led him to hide his real personality.” “The Saint,” 9. 56 Knowles, Character, 111. 57 Knowles, Character, 117. 58 Knowles, Character, 118. 59 Knowles, Character, 119. 60 Knowles, Character, 120. 61 Knowles, Character, 121. 62 Knowles, Character, 122. 63 Knowles, Character, 122. 64 Knowles, Character, 125. 65 Knowles expanded upon this idea in his lecture, “Archbishop Thomas Becket – the Saint,” printed in the Canterbury Cathedral Chronicle 65 (1970): 5–21. 66 D. Knowles, Thomas Becket (London, 1970), 170–1. It is telling to note that the in the titles of Knowles’s books, the appellation “Saint” is not used, nor does he refer to Becket as a saint in the texts; he is always “Thomas,” “Becket,” or “archbishop.” 67 Knowles, “The Saint,” 20. 68 See the discussion in Chapter 10. 69 Knowles, “The Saint,” 18. 70 Knowles, “The Saint,” 18. 71 Knowles, Colleagues, 4. This direction was pursued by Beryl Smalley, as discussed in Chapter 10. 72 Knowles, Colleagues, 70–1. 73 Knowles, Colleagues, 74. 74 In an appendix, Knowles explores the veracity of Thomas’s illness, providing quotations from the twelfth-century biographers. Colleagues, Appendix V, 167–8. 75 Knowles, Colleagues, 74. 76 Knowles, Colleagues, 75. 77 C.R. Young, review of David Knowles, “Thomas Becket,” Speculum 47, no. 4 (October 1972): 779–81, at 779. 78 Knowles, Becket, ix. 79 For Z.N. Brooke, Becket “was one of those men who, exalting to the full the role they have to play, picture themselves as the perfect representatives of their office, visualizing a type and making themselves the living impersonations of it; actors playing a part, but unconscious actors.” C. Brooke, The English Church and the Papacy from the Conquest to the Reign of John (Cambridge, 1931), 193. 80 Knowles, “The Saint,” 10–11.

Twentieth-century biographies 287 81 As the son of an eminent medieval historian and a student of David Knowles, Brooke’s views of Becket were influenced by their opinions and work. 82 C. Brooke, “Thomas Becket,” in Medieval Church and Society: Collected Essays (New York, 1972), 121–38. 83 Brooke, “Becket,” 122. 84 Brooke, “Becket,” 122. 85 Brooke, “Becket,” 125. 86 Brooke, “Becket,” 126. 87 Brooke, “Becket,” 129. 88 Brooke, “Becket,” 129. 89 Brooke, “Becket,” 130. 90 Brooke, “Becket,” 130. 91 Brooke, “Becket,” 132. 92 Brooke, “Becket,” 136. 93 Brooke, “Becket,” 137. 94 Brooke, “Becket,” 137. 95 W.L. Warren, Henry II (Berkeley, CA, 1973), Chapter 13: Archbishop Thomas Becket, 447–517. 96 Warren, Henry II, 447. 97 Warren, Henry II, 448. 98 Warren, Henry II, 451. 99 Warren, Henry II, 453. 100 Warren, Henry II, 455–7. 101 Warren, Henry II, 459. 102 Exploration of the legal ramifications of the issue became a central concern of mid-twentieth century historians, as discussed in Chapter 10. 103 Warren, Henry II, 489. 104 Warren, Henry II, 489. 105 Warren, Henry II, 508. 106 Warren, Henry II, 509–11. 107 Smalley’s work is discussed in Chapter 10. 108 Warren, Henry II, 514. 109 Warren, Henry II, 517. 110 F. Barlow, Thomas Becket (Berkeley, CA, 1986). 111 Barlow, Becket, xi. W.L. Warren brought out a possible deficiency in the book, pointing to the lack of quotations from sources. All of the detail comes from Barlow as intermediary. For Warren, without the actual words the reader cannot “sense the sentiments.” W.L. Warren, review of C. Barlow, “Thomas Becket,” Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies 19, no. 2 (Summer 1987): 214–15, at 215. 112 Barlow, Becket, 75. 113 Barlow, Becket, 75. 114 Barlow, Becket, 82. 115 Barlow, Becket, 83. 116 Barlow, Becket, 83. 117 R.B. Dobson, review of Thomas Becket by Frank Barlow, The English Historical Review 102, no. 404 (July 1987): 651–4, at 653. 118 Norman Cantor joined the discussion in a review of Barlow’s biography, claiming, without documentation, that when Thomas was chancellor, his physician recommended sexual intercourse as a remedy for the strains of overwork, and he may have had a liaison with one of Henry II’s discarded mistresses (Cantor, review of Barlow, American Historical Review 94, no. 2 [April 1989]: 421–2, at 422). 119 Barlow, Becket, 26.

288  Becket in the modern and postmodern world 120 Barlow, Becket, 246. 121 R. Fraher, review of Thomas Becket by Frank Barlow, Speculum 63, no. 3 (July 1988): 618–20, at 619. 122 A. Duggan, Thomas Becket (London, 2004). 123 Duggan, Becket, 19. 124 Duggan, Becket, 21. 125 Duggan, Becket, 22. 126 Duggan, Becket, 25. 127 Duggan, Becket, 26. 128 Duggan, Becket, 30–2. 129 Duggan, Becket, 37. 130 Duggan, Becket, 37. 131 Duggan, Becket, 258. 132 Duggan, Becket, 53. Maitland’s views are discussed in Chapter 10. 133 Duggan, Becket, 54. Fraher’s work is analyzed in Chapter 10. 134 Duggan, Becket, 58. For Charles Duggan’s work see Chapter 10. 135 Duggan, Becket, 58. 136 Duggan, Becket, 59. 137 Duggan, Becket, 60. 138 Duggan, Becket, 73. 139 Duggan, Becket, 73–4. 140 Duggan, Becket, 74. 141 Duggan, Becket, 76–7. 142 Duggan, Becket, 81–2. 143 Duggan, Becket, 114. 144 Duggan, Becket, 116. 145 Duggan, Becket, 186. 146 Duggan, Becket, 188. 147 Duggan, Becket, 191. 148 Duggan, Becket, 198–9. 149 Duggan, Becket, 210. 150 Duggan, Becket, 215. 151 Duggan, Becket, 217. 152 J. Guy, Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel (New York, 2012). 153 J. Guy, “The Book of Becket,” History Today 62, no. 4 (April 2012): 53–5, at 53. 154 Guy, Becket, 42. 155 Guy, Becket, 44. 156 Guy, Becket, 50. 157 Guy, Becket, 125. 158 Guy, Becket, 187. 159 Guy, Becket, 187–8. 160 Guy, Becket, 197–8. 161 Guy, Becket, 255. 162 Guy, Becket, 258. 163 Guy, Becket, 295. 164 Guy, Becket, 313. 165 Guy, Becket, 321.

12 Becket scholarship in the postmodern world and beyond

Frank Barlow declared that his avowed purpose in writing the biography of Becket was to “establish the facts and produce an account of Thomas’s life as historically true as possible,” while maintaining strict objectivity. This neutral approach left it to his readers, “to reflect further or to draw the moral” from his telling of the story.1 His suggestion that the readers draw their own conclusions was taken up by Norman Cantor in a review published in the American Historical Review, where he observed that “Barlow falls short of explaining convincingly what caused Thomas’s erratic and selfdestructive behavior.”2 Whereas, according to Cantor, Barlow seemed to evaluate Thomas’s actions as those of “a typical parvenu” – a merchant’s son who was motivated by a desire for power – Cantor asserted that there are two other possible explanations. He detected a “deep psychosexual tension between Thomas and Henry,” which was evident when Henry refused “to give Thomas a kiss of peace (on the mouth).” Moreover, “Thomas exhibits all the qualities now diagnosed as severe manic-depression or pathological moodswing. If Thomas could have had a dose of lithium each morning, there would have been no Canterbury martyr.”3 Cantor’s remarks, written in 1989, offered a harbinger of the directions that were taken by some twenty-first-century scholars, who began to view the life and actions of Becket from new perspectives, including gender and sexuality, friendship, and anger and conflict studies. Current scholarship in these new fields also reflects, in part, the anthropological explanation of the conflict between Thomas and Henry advanced by Victor Turner in a chapter of his book, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (1974), titled “Religious Paradigms and Political Action: Thomas Becket at the Council of Northampton.”4 For Turner, the sequence of events in the confrontation between the king and his archbishop “unambiguously evince the presence and activity of certain consciously recognized (though not consciously grasped) cultural models in the heads of the main actors which I shall call root paradigms,” and which exerted a profound influence on Becket as the relationship between the two men moved from “amity to conflict.”5 In the course of the dispute, the archbishop became committed to the “Christian root paradigm of martyrdom, of underlining the ultimate

290  Becket in the modern and postmodern world value of a case by laying down one’s life for it.”6 Turner chose to focus on the events of the Council at Northampton since he viewed this “naked confrontation” as lacking “an adequate means of mediation.”7 Further, the paradigms symbolized by the actions claimed Becket’s full attention and dominated his development from that time forth. As the crisis unrolled, Becket became obsessed by the “glorious goal of the martyr’s crown, to be won by a painful death rather [than] by a meritorious life.”8 He had a paradigm “glowing redly in his mind, the via crucis pattern of martyrdom.”9 He ultimately became a powerful, “numinous” symbol because he encapsulated the tension between opposite poles of meaning. He was both “lion and lamb, proud and meek.”10 At Northampton, Becket was beyond all compromise, and insisted on carrying his own cross into the convocation. Turner observed that, “Today, one can hardly avoid the phallic connotations of cross and sword.” Further, “perhaps” at the unconscious level, Becket wished to avoid the connotations common in Africa, where the priests are symbolically known as “the wife” of the most important chief, who represents legal authority. “Both Becket and Henry wished to be ‘husbands’ here; Becket’s heavy wooden cross would confront Henry’s sword and scepter, holy machismo would challenge kingly machismo.”11 Turner’s avowed intent in his analysis of the struggle between the two was to show how symbols are dynamic entities, not static cognitive signs, and that they form clusters of paradigms which mediate for men between ideals and actions in social fields “full of cross-purposes and competing interests.”12 His concepts are evident in the work of a generation of new scholars, who have explored ideas concerning the importance of symbolic acts and the implications of gender issues.13

Gender and sexuality Dom David Knowles opened the door to issues of Becket’s sexuality in a lecture delivered in Canterbury Cathedral on the Feast of the Translation in 1970. It was titled, “Archbishop Thomas Becket – The Saint,” and in the course of his remarks he addressed the issue of Becket’s chastity: Knowles observed that although the biographers were unanimous in asserting that he never lost his chastity, three of them remarked that he “followed the fashions of his companions in the use of emotional language and affectionate caresses.”14 Nonetheless, “All agree that his life remained absolutely chaste despite the attempts of Henry and an ex-mistress of the king to seduce him.”15 Knowles’s assertions were recently explored by Hanna Vollrath, who asked, in light of the burgeoning interest in studies of sexuality, “Was Thomas Becket Chaste?”16 In order to answer her query, she analyzed portions of the Lives of Becket, combing the details for references to Becket’s chastity. In the words of John of Salisbury, “he was praiseworthy and exemplary in his

In the postmodern world and beyond 291 chastity,” and for William of Canterbury, “he was admirable and exemplary in the chastity of his body.” William included the provocative story of the king’s mistress: When Thomas, as chancellor, visited the town of Stafford, the woman sent him so many presents that the chancellor’s host suspected that she wanted to entice him into a sexual relationship.17 Overwhelming curiosity led the man to peep through the keyhole of Thomas’s room, whereupon he saw the bed untouched and empty. For a moment he thought he had trapped the chancellor, but then he saw Thomas lying asleep on the floor, exhausted from vigils of prayer. “And so it happened that he, who was suspected of wantonness, turned out to be a pious ascetic.”18 Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence also included the episode in order to demonstrate the underlying chaste nature of Becket as chancellor, and Thomas’s chastity was mentioned by William FitzStephen, who named Robert of Merton, his confessor and chaplain, as a witness. For Herbert of Bosham, “His juvenile excesses . . . left the integrity and the chastity of his body untouched.” A more explicit discussion of the issue may be found in the biography of Anonymous I, who wrote that whenever the chancellor’s doctors suggested that he pursue an active sex life for the benefit of his health, he replied that “such medicine would not suit him, as it would only cause harm to both his body and his soul.”19 In order to understand the implications of the biographers’ unanimous remarks about Becket’s chastity when chancellor, Vollrath pointed out that the Church had instituted a policy in the late eleventh century that “chastity stood for the true servant of God,” and Becket’s biographers were thus compelled to show that whatever worldly ways he may seem to have adopted, he had, in fact, always remained true to his clerical vocation. Nonetheless, as she was careful to stress, there is one reference, by Edward Grim, which reported that although Becket “kept his body chaste . . . some think differently about that.” Vollrath suggested that the subject was one of public debate, and that Becket was an enigma even to his most devout followers.20 Issues of gender and masculinity have been addressed by Andrew G. Miller, who cited the example of the defamation of Becket’s episcopal park and the docking of his horse’s tail by members of the de Broc family to introduce his study of masculinity and the struggle between secular and ecclesiastical power in medieval England.21 As Miller pointed out, “by entering Becket’s parks with force, killing his deer, seizing his dogs and mutilating his horse, the de Brocs waged a symbolic war within the confines of his private, masculine space.” Private hunting grounds such as those possessed by the archbishop served as an “ideal venue for conflicts over competing definitions of masculinity and power.”22 In Miller’s view, such violent actions were symbolic of the struggle for dominance between Church and State, and they were undertaken by lay aristocrats to publicly shame and emasculate the ecclesiastical authorities, highlighting their inability to protect their households and prized beasts. Generally, as in the case of Becket, the

292  Becket in the modern and postmodern world bishop asserted his own masculinity in response by wielding his sword of anathema. The actions of the de Broc family – threats, the use of force, violent humiliation, and assertion of physical dominance – can be viewed as traditionally “masculine,” whereas Becket displayed another type of masculinity, termed “episcopal masculinity” by Miller – one that “exemplifies the post-Gregorian Reform type of clerical hero.”23 The portrayal of Becket by his biographers offers significant insight into the understanding of clerical masculinity, particularly in his reactions to mortal peril. FitzStephen, for example, “emphasized the archbishop’s calm, stoic reaction to the threats [of Henry’s knights]; Becket took the high road and played the greater man.” He subverted the attempt to render him powerless and vulnerable by refusing to bow in defeat or responding with physical retribution. Instead, Becket “manfully accepted the threat to his own life, steeling himself in the face of looming martyrdom.” Additionally, he showed “paternal” concern for his flock by “mastering his nerve” and silencing reports of the attacks so that the impending violence would not engender panic. Clearly, the violent attacks against the archbishop’s reputation and property, and his reaction to them, encapsulate the competing concepts of masculinity.24 In a further article, Miller explored the historical evidence for the symbolic docking of horse’s tails – a deed which was undertaken to humiliate and emasculate members of the aristocracy and clergy.25 As a prime example, he cited the tail-docking of Becket’s horse, perpetrated by his enemies five days before his martyrdom. Miller contends that the de Broc family used this type of shaming to send a public message of “ridicule, emasculation, and defamation,” in order to emphasize Becket’s “clerical (effeminate) identity” and belittle his “equestrian (manly) past.”26 The recent work of Hugh Thomas has also dealt with questions of gender definition and conflict in the Middle Ages. In “Shame, Masculinity, and the Death of Thomas Becket,”27 he offered a new perspective on the quarrel between Becket and Henry II, placing the dispute within the context of medieval feuding, and demonstrating how the tactics of the king and his followers, as well as the actions of Becket, were based on concepts of honor, shame, and masculinity.28 Henry was utilizing tools of intimidation and harassment which were common aspects of medieval disputes, and Becket responded by remaining brave and stoic – the image of the manly clerical warrior. Thus, for Thomas, the Becket controversy should be analyzed not only within the traditional context of Church and State strife, but also through the very different lenses of conflict and gender studies: Viewing the Becket controversy from the largely overlooked perspectives of disputing, shame, honor, and masculinity does more than just refine our understanding of the mistakes of the two men; it provides useful cultural context to the dispute as a whole.29

In the postmodern world and beyond 293

Anger and conflict studies Thomas’s work combined issues of gender and masculinity with another dimension of current scholarship, anger and conflict studies. Various historians, including W.C. Brown and P. Górecki, have defined conflict as “interpersonal or intergroup tension,” and, as they point out, there are “several modes of managing that tension,” including dispute. Further, dispute itself is the phase of conflict in which two or more parties articulate a claim concerning some specific subject; the focus “may extend beyond disputing, to encompass threats, promises, negotiation, ritual, use of force, and the associated range of emotions, all of which may precede, accompany, follow, or indeed take the place of, disputing.”30 The quarrel between Becket and Henry II provides a natural focus for studying conflict, since all of these components are present, as we have seen, in the confrontation between the king and his archbishop. Two scholars in particular, Martin Aurell and Timothy Reuter, have recently turned their attention to the struggle between Henry and Thomas, offering an analysis of the ritual and symbolic acts of the king and archbishop which they see as central issues in their dispute. Aurell explored the struggle from an anthropological and cultural perspective, analyzing the attitudes and words of the two men in order to understand them within a system. In his view, Thomas and Henry were both sensitive to considerations of honor, reputation, the approval of friends, and the seeking of recognition; these were the elements that best explain their motivations. Had either been willing to compromise, the vicious cycle of violence might have been brought to an end. For Aurell, three episodes in the struggle encapsulated much of the anger and hostility, functioning as “d’un veritable système sémiotique.”31 In support of his analysis, he initially cited the incident at the Council of Northampton when Thomas carried his own cross, characterizing this as a direct affront to royal dignity, which dramatically symbolized the contest between regnum and sacerdotium – the confrontation of the king’s sword and scepter by the archbishop’s cross.32 Through his action, Becket sought to assert the superiority of the Church and his own spiritual power to coerce. The second of the significant gestures was the king’s refusal to give the kiss of peace. Here, the king was the provocateur, and Becket saw his action as an insult. Moreover, as Aurell pointed out, within twelfth-century culture, “the act [of the kiss] was a theatrical manifestation of the love and friendship which . . . often had a political aspect. It ‘re-presented’ an alliance, . . . and was integral to the rite which regulated disputes.”33 For Becket, who understood both the political significance and theological importance of the rite, there would be no true peace without the kiss. Ultimately, he never received the kiss from Henry, which would have symbolized the securitas he wanted, for himself and for the possessions of his church; although

294  Becket in the modern and postmodern world Thomas was advised by the papal emissary, Cardinal Vivian, as well as the French King Louis VII, not to return to England without the kiss of peace, he returned to Canterbury, and to his death.34 Finally, Aurell analyzed the martyrdom itself in terms of ritual behavior, asserting that although it may not have been literally ritual or sacrifice, it was “deeply endowed with meaning for both parties.”35 “Class hatred” permeated the murder, aggravated by Henry’s emphasis on Becket’s “plebian” birth in the remarks that led the knights, members of the warrior and noble class, to seek out the archbishop in his cathedral.36 The assault was one of great brutality, and focused particularly on the head of the martyr. As Becket’s biographers and other scholars have also pointed out, the knights sliced off the crown of the tonsure – the visible symbol of his clerical orders, particularly his juridical status. But the clergy noted the symbolic futility of this act, as voiced by Benedict of Peterborough. When the knight’s sword broke on the pavement of the cathedral floor, it signified the defeat of the hostile power and the triumph of the Church.37 In Aurell’s view, Becket’s death benefitted the clergy in several ways: They could stress the sacrificial role of the eucharist in the life of the faithful, they could emphasize the dignity of the priestly caste that performed the sacrifice during the Mass, they could assert the legal exemption due to the members of their priesthood, and they could point to the central place of the altar, church, and cathedral in medieval Christendom. For Aurell, these interpretations symbolize perfectly the tensions which divided Church and State, ecclesiastical and lay society, at the end of the twelfth century.38 Questions of anger and conflict also captured the attention of Timothy Reuter, who interpreted the symbolic actions of Henry and Becket as the primary catalyst of their imbroglio.39 Turning aside from centuries of historical analysis centered on the quest for an understanding of Becket’s “character” and inner motivations, he examined the conflict between king and archbishop by asking how the dispute could be made intelligible – “how conflict, reconciliation and willingness to be reconciled, or the opposite, could be signaled . . . by moves and strategies.”40 Hence, like Aurell, his discussion was “largely concerned with analyzing the forms of symbolic expression employed during the dispute.”41 In Reuter’s opinion, the most important moments during the six-year struggle between Henry and Becket were those when they actually met, since these public parleys signaled a willingness to reconcile. However, their interactions were continually fraught with problems, especially Becket’s insistence on the clause salvo honore Dei and Henry’s refusal to give the kiss of peace. For Reuter, ritualized forms of public interaction, such as the kiss of peace (and king’s refusal), the archbishop’s carrying of his own cross at Northampton, and the excommunications declared by the archbishop, were tools wielded by the participants to establish their positions. The most important of these was Henry’s refusal to bestow the kiss of peace,

In the postmodern world and beyond 295 which would have publicly signaled the reconciliation of the controversy. In substantial agreement with Aurell’s analysis, Reuter wrote, “Without the kiss of peace, no peace-agreement between contesting parties could ever be concluded.”42 Whereas many historians have viewed the dispute as a conflict over ecclesiastical jurisdiction, Reuter pointed out that this analysis ignores the “basic causes” of the struggle; indeed, “the dispute very rapidly became a dispute about the dispute.” The initial actions of Becket publicly disregarded, or seemed to disregard, the king, and in response, Henry could only insist upon a public hearing and a written version of the ancient rights; such a step had become necessary in light of the character of the debate.43 Likewise, a public demonstration would have been essential to establish that the resolution of the conflict had been genuinely achieved. For Becket, however, Henry’s insistence on his appending the archiepiscopal seal to the provisions of the Council of Clarendon meant that his promises were not trusted. His refusal “put a question mark against the peace that had only just been settled.” Moreover, at the end of the dispute, by excommunicating the bishops who had participated in the coronation of the Young King, Becket foiled another newly arranged peace. In sum, for Reuter, the traditional understanding of the dispute needs to be turned upside-down. In fact, “Henry and Becket were not enemies because they could not agree about principles: they could not agree about principles because [through their ritualized actions] they had become enemies.”44

Friendship Historians have long avoided discussions of friendship, seeing it as extraneous and irrelevant to the “real” work of history, which should properly rely on documentary evidence. Indeed, until relatively recently, personal relationships have been viewed as phenomena that cannot be evaluated, since such emotional bonds are not subject to contractual, numerical, or constitutional analysis. In spite of the difficulty, however, scholars such as Julian Haseldine have argued that friendship has direct and significant impact on social relations and political process. Writers exploring this dimension of human experience “seek to explain the distorting, even corrupting, influence of the personal and internal on the political and external.”45 Moreover, as Haseldine and others have pointed out, in the Middle Ages friendship was viewed as “an institution central to political life and social order and an integral part of political thought.”46 During that era: [F]riendship was cultivated explicitly as a formal bond carrying with it obligations and duties, while the language of friendship was commonly deployed to create networks whose impact can be traced in many areas of life, including political allegiance, dispute resolution, career advancement and literary exchange.47

296  Becket in the modern and postmodern world Within this framework, Becket scholars have taken up the topic to explore the circle of eruditi surrounding the archbishop, as well as his predilection for close personal relationships. Was he warm and appealing? Was he blessed, as Haseldine has queried, with “the gift of friendship?”48 What was the nature of his relationship with his close colleagues? Various answers have been proposed to these provocative questions. As a point of departure for his analysis in “Thomas Becket: Martyr, Saint – and Friend?”, Haseldine cited a remark of Henry Mayr-Harting that “Becket was a truly charismatic man, or else he could hardly have retained the loyalties of so many highly intelligent and able supporters for so long, to the certain detriment of their careers. There was no disguising his distinction.”49 This devotion was most evident during Becket’s period of exile in France, when the archbishop was sustained by the connections of his sympathizers and supporters. Although association with Thomas was neither simple nor easy for these men, they were neither isolated nor without influence, and they brought these qualities to bear in their support of the archbishop. Relying on epistolary sources, Haseldine has suggested that Peter of Celle, John of Salisbury, William, Archbishop of Sens, and others were united in a “friendship circle,” and that their own mutual obligations as friends led them to become involved in the Becket controversy. In sum, Becket was a man with charismatic appeal, but not one “blessed with the gift of friendship.” Rather, Thomas was a man who “felt the loneliness of greatness,” and something of this quality is reflected in the admiration and loyalty of his circle of friends.50 Thus, in Haseldine’s view, Thomas inspired loyalty rather than affection.51 Anne Duggan has contested Haseldine’s assertion that Becket shed friends easily; in fact, she has asserted, “Thomas Becket was far from friendless.”52 To substantiate her observations, she turned to an examination of his “Italian network,” which included the papal Curia itself. Relying on the evidence of the archbishop’s correspondence, she demonstrated that he maintained close and warm personal friendships with several important Italian ecclesiastics; indeed, he was “on terms of considerable intimacy with some of the most influential members of the papal court.”53 Further, he could not have withstood the power and reach of Henry II without the support of the pope, Alexander III.54 Duggan pointed out that some of Becket’s associates in England who abandoned him did so because they feared the ire of Henry II, whose anger cast an “icy shroud” over those who remained in his domain; they could not publicly express support or personal affection for the archbishop. However, the men in Becket’s “Italian network” gave the archbishop willing and enthusiastic service, clearly demonstrating his ability to attract and sustain respect, loyalty, and friendship. Duggan closed her article with some poignant words uttered by Robert, an English canon regular from St Fridewide’s in Oxford: “We have seen and known him, and many of us were his friends.”55 In another study, Duggan discussed the importance of friendship in the growth of Becket’s cult during the twelfth century; her analysis here focused

In the postmodern world and beyond 297 on the saint’s network of contact and influence which included a friendship circle, as well as clerical, curial, and monastic connections.56 Duggan traced these affiliations by utilizing correspondence, artistic creations, church dedications, and literary accounts in the areas of France, Scandinavia, Iceland, Eastern Europe, and Italy. Her research led her to the conclusion that Becket’s survival during his exile, as well as the dramatic growth of his cult throughout Europe, would not have been possible without these friendship associations. In another essay Duggan explored questions concerning “The Price of Loyalty.”57 In order to provide answers, she traced the careers of Becket’s eruditi following the martyrdom, comparing those who abandoned the archbishop with those who remained faithfully in his service. She observed that there was a “disturbing dichotomy” between those men who joined him in exile, bound by a culture of fidelitas and honour, and those who either remained in England or made peace with the king without Becket’s permission. As Duggan’s discussion shows, the men who remained loyal to the archbishop had rather disappointing careers when compared to those who did not join him in exile, or who made their peace with Henry II. Of the nine men who made an early submission to the king, two-thirds became important prelates – four became bishops, and two became deans of cathedral chapters. By contrast, those who maintained their allegiance to Becket failed to achieve prominence.58 As Duggan remarked, “their outstanding loyalty to their lord became a liability. When the shepherd is dead, the sheep are done for.”59

Becket and medievalism During the past several decades, a new approach to studying the varied artifacts of the Middle Ages has emerged, as some historians, working within the new field of medievalism, have moved in another direction, appropriating the history of the Canterbury martyr to express contemporary concerns and to reflect on the congruities between twenty-first-century and twelfth-century experience. Medievalism has been defined by its founding spirit, Leslie Workman, as an analysis of “the ongoing process of recreating, reinventing, and reenacting medieval culture in postmedieval times.”60 For another scholar, medievalism is “the reception, interpretation or recreation of the European Middle Ages in post-medieval cultures,”61 and yet another has called medievalism “the study of responses to the Middle Ages at all periods since a sense of the medieval began to develop.”62 In analyzing the cultural, social, artistic, and political aspects of the new discipline, scholars have asked: When did the practice of “medievalism” begin? According to David Matthews: [T]he moment of retrieval, and the moment of recognition of a middle age, amount to almost the same thing; it is when such people as Bale

298  Becket in the modern and postmodern world and Leland set out to preserve elements of a culture that that culture can be said to belong definitively to the past.”63 For Matthews, “The moment when medieval studies is contaminated by ideology, it becomes medievalism,”64 and his assertion is supported by the fact that John Foxe had referred to the “middle age” of the Church in the revised edition of his Act and Monuments (1570),65 although the term medium aevum was not printed until 1610. Examples of medievalism could be drawn from any of the preceding six chapters, beginning with the vituperative remarks of Bale and Foxe in the sixteenth century. As we have seen, the writers of the Counter Reformation advanced Becket as an icon of martyrdom to the faith, while the writers of the “enlightened” eighteenth century saw him as a hindrance to what they perceived to be “good government.” In the nineteenth century, the men associated with Oxford Movement revered Becket as a martyr, but they also exhibited: an attraction to the past for its own sake, manifested especially in a love of medieval art and architecture. This united antiquarian and Romantic sensibilities – which, left to themselves, had a tendency to ­dilettantism – with a serious desire to understand historically the development of Christian civilization.66 Fascination with the Canterbury martyr continued in the twentieth century, evident not only in scholarly articles, but also in the various novels, plays, films, and musical productions that focus on the life of Becket; all of these may be considered within the general framework of “medievalism.” Several novels were published in the middle of the century, including the works of Robert Speaight, Thomas Becket 67 (1938); Alfred Duggan, My Life for My Sheep68 (1955), God and my Right 69 (1955), The Falcon and the Dove70 (1966), and Thomas Becket of Canterbury71 (1967); Shelley Mydans, Thomas: A Novel of the Life, Passion, and Miracles of Becket 72 (1965); Richard Winston, Thomas Becket 73 (1967); and a recent novel by Sandra Mendyk, The Merchant’s Daughter 74 (2010), which is an imaginative account of the experiences of the nun, Sister Idonea, who once functioned as a letter-carrier for Becket. All of these books offer, to one degree or another, colorful and exciting renditions of Thomas’s life. They were written for the general reader, and the authors’ acknowledgment of sources tends to be minimal, without footnotes or bibliographies. The most accurate and interesting is probably the work by Richard Winston. Although Winston’s biography of Thomas does not present many new scholarly insights, and he has not incorporated the scholarship of the preceding decades in any obvious way, his work offers a vivid and artistic account of the life of the Canterbury martyr, of great appeal to a general audience interested in Becket.

In the postmodern world and beyond 299 As with the novels, an analysis of the numerous plays from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries portraying the life of Becket is beyond this scope of this study, as is the famous film, Becket (1964), starring Richard Burton and Peter O’Toole;75 however, a brief discussion of one twentieth-century work, T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, offers a fine example of the way in which his life and martyrdom have been used in dramatic productions to address contemporary issues, placing it within the genre of “medievalism.” Eliot composed his drama for the Canterbury Festival in 1935, and the premiere was presented in the chapter house of the cathedral. As Helen Garner remarked, “The martyrdom of Becket was an obvious choice for a Canterbury play,” not only because of the association with the cathedral, but also because “The theme of the conflict of the spiritual and the secular powers, the relation of Church and State, was topical.”76 Clifford Davidson concurred, writing that Eliot’s play “was designed to touch on contemporary questions of great interest in the mid-1930s,”77 and in the words of Carol H. Smith, “Eliot saw in the events leading to the martyrdom of Thomas Becket a situation involving the conflict between the church and world analogous to the modern struggle of the church against its enemies.”78 Moreover: On the surface level which has been described, Murder in the Cathedral is a stylized dramatization of the historical situation of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket presented both as a psychological study of the saint and at the same time as a portrayal of the twelfth-century power struggle of church and state made applicable to the modern world.79 For Davidson, the play is “indicative of Eliot’s choice of ‘medievalism’ over ‘modernism,’. . . . In fact, this drama may be seen as a modern example of a genre that we think of as particularly medieval: the saint’s play.”80 Indeed, Murder in the Cathedral “was designed to bring the saint’s play of the past into the present and to make it relevant to the full range of human experience in our time.”81 Eliot was intent on presenting an objective drama – but also one “which would accurately portray the modern dilemma of both religious and nonreligious men and women.”82 His hero, Becket, engendered respect for his resistance to the temptations and his stoic Christian resolution in the face of death. Moreover, in the religious climate of the time, Becket’s cult had been revived in the Church of England through the efforts of the Anglo-Catholic movement that originated with the Oxford Movement and the Cambridge Camden Society; the Canterbury martyr stood in opposition to the state in a way that Anglo-Catholicism had come to appreciate.83 In Eliot’s play, “the hero is a sacrificial victim whose very sacrifice is beneficial to later generations.”84 Eliot’s drama is multi-dimensional in scope, and in addition to its focus on Christian salvation, the playwright added satirical commentary which reflects the political world of England in the 1930s. This intention is made

300  Becket in the modern and postmodern world clear at the close of the play, when the knights step forward to address the audience in the parlance of twentieth-century parliamentary debate. Louis Martz has observed that the first knight expresses himself in the manner of an after-dinner speaker, the second in the style of a parliamentary orator, and the third in words that might be used by a brisk defense attorney.85 Beyond the parody of parliamentary style, the speeches by the knights serve to apprise the audience of various historical interpretations of the motivations for Becket’s murder.86 Eliot’s play may easily be categorized as medievalism, and theoretically, all of the scholarship surveyed in the current study could fit the paradigm, beginning with the polemical discourse of the sixteenth century concerning Becket. As yet, however, limited work has been done by writers who actively identify their work within that specific genre. One such study of Becket is included in Siglind Bruhn’s work, Saints in the Limelight: Representations of the Religious Quest on the Post-1945 Operatic Stage,87 in a chapter titled “St. Thomas, Bishop and Martyr: Tough Politician or Good Shepherd?” Following an initial focus on Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, Bruhn moves to a discussion of two musical works of the twentieth century based on the life of the saint: the first is an opera by Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880–1968), and the second is a musical vigil for Becket by Nils Holger Petersen (b. 1946). Pizzetti’s libretto for Assassinio nella cattedrale was drawn from Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, and closely reflects the words of the play. As Bruhn observed, the composer condensed the text to about 40 percent of the original length, although he was “careful to keep all aspects of the action, all of the memorable lines, and all of the liturgical allusions,”88 thereby “successfully transporting his message to a new medium.”89 Although the music makes use of a rich late nineteenth-century orchestral palette, it never intrudes on the comprehensibility of Eliot’s text; as Bruhn pointed out, the vocal lines maintain undisputed priority at all times.90 In her analysis of the music, Bruhn identified two citations of liturgical music used by both Eliot and Pizzetti, pointing to the ways in which the playwright and composer adapted the original chant to their purpose. She remarked that the opera successfully captures Eliot’s “intentional ambiguity,” and that it “transports his message to a new medium.”91 A more recent opera based on the life of Becket is King, composed by Stephen Barlow with a libretto by Philip Wells, which was first performed in Canterbury Cathedral in April 2006. The text deals with Thomas’s conversion and his struggle with the king, ending with his condemnation at the Council at Northampton. The libretto, which is in the form of a pageant, incorporated the words of children from Kent, who participated in the performance. Although the reviews were mixed, one critic felt the experience was one of “revelation.”92 The work of Nils Holger Peterson, A Vigil for Thomas Becket (1989) differs from the operas of Pizzetti and Barlow in many respects. Rather than utilizing Eliot’s play, the libretto is a creation of the composer himself,

In the postmodern world and beyond 301 as Peterson has revealed in an article concerning his compositional process.93 Remarking that he was inspired as much by his study of the Latin music drama of the medieval Church as by the traditions of opera, Petersen wrote that “the basic idea of A Vigil is to let the dramatic representation of a narrative crystallize certain themes that are used as elements for a contemporary celebration.”94 As he observed, the issues in the Becket story as presented in the plays of Jean Anouilh, Christopher Fry, and T.S. Eliot “are mutually different and altogether different” from his own intentions. Both Anouilh and Fry were concerned with portraying the intense psychological drama between Henry and Becket, whereas Eliot created “a modern liturgical play,” dealing with the question of how “a person can transcend his own self to become a ‘saint.’ ”95 Petersen’s aim, by contrast, was “to highlight the distance between the Middle Ages and our time, although I have not wanted to give up the fascinating psychological elements of the story either.”96 As the narrator and central figure for his Vigil, Petersen created a nonhistorical personage, John of Norwich, characterized as a minor clerk in the archbishop’s household, and a supporter of Thomas. Such a person, as Siglind Bruhn observed, would have been well-placed to observe Thomas’s struggles, or to have heard first-hand accounts of them.97 John was supposedly the composer of a monophonic conductus, In Rama sonit gemitus98 (the “theme” of the work), who gradually becomes aware that the conflict between king and archbishop has moved far beyond the original issues of contention. As Petersen has stated: Most importantly for my dramatic interest, this “authentic” voice put into the voice of a modern, anachronistic figure gave me the opportunity to move between the historical basis for the opera and the modern appropriation thereof. . . . All the figures in the opera are seen through John of Norwich’s eyes. He transcends any realism in belonging to the 12th century as well as to our time, a postulate not accounted for, but crucial to the dramatic construct.99 By utilizing the dramatic device of John of Norwich as narrator, Petersen offers a reading of the Becket story, which he hopes will “provoke and thus help us re-read the medieval events in a new light.”100 Peterson’s “medievalism” has inspired an original and compelling interpretation of the Becket legend.

Becket and twenty-first-century politics Two recent political events reflect the ongoing presence of Becket in the contemporary world. During the first year of the U.S. presidency of Donald Trump, references to Becket and his struggle with the king were features of the testimony of James B. Comey, the former FBI director who was fired by President Trump. Comey appeared before the U.S. Senate Intelligence

302  Becket in the modern and postmodern world Committee on June 8, 2017, as part of the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.101 During their interrogation, the senators explored several issues pertinent to their inquiry, including the content of Comey’s personal interviews with the president, with Sen. Angus King asking at one point: SENATOR KING:  “[W]hen

a president of the United States in the Oval Office says something like, ‘I hope’ or ‘I suggest’ or ‘would you,’ do you take that as a directive?” COMEY:  “Yes. Yes, it rings in my ear as kind of, ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ ” SENATOR KING: “I was just going to quote that. In 1170, December 29, Henry II said, ‘Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ And then, the next day, he was killed – Thomas a Becket. That’s exactly the same situation. You’re – we’re thinking along the same lines.” The citing of Becket’s experience as akin to that of a twenty-first-century struggle between an American president and the leader of an important component of the U.S. government demonstrates unqualifiedly the continuing resonance of the Canterbury martyr in present-day politics and society. Another example of Becket’s relevance in the twenty-first century concerns a relic of the martyr’s body. Sought out less frequently for their curative possibilities than they were in the Middle Ages, relics are now often seen as possessing symbolic meanings with political and/or religious significance, reflecting the values of today’s global society. A tiny fragment of Becket’s elbow had been given to the Archbishop of Hungary by Archbishop Stephen Langton at the time of the martyr’s translation in 1220, and it was taken to Hungary soon thereafter, thus escaping the destruction of the shrine and the burning of the martyr’s remains. Currently it is being revered, not for its curative powers, but for its symbolism. Politically, the relic was seen as an emblem of freedom during the Communist occupation of Hungary in the twentieth century, and in May, 2016, the relic was brought from Hungary to London for a ceremonial occasion honoring his memory, where it was “touted as a symbol of European unity.”102 The many events were attended by Hungarian and British political and ecclesiastical dignitaries, as well as medieval scholars. During a week devoted to the Canterbury martyr, the relic was celebrated in Parliament, as well as services at Westminster Cathedral and Westminster Abbey in London, and Rochester Cathedral. Finally, the relic was taken to Canterbury Cathedral, where pilgrims joined a procession beginning in Harbledown to follow in the footsteps of medieval pilgrims. The relic was accompanied by Hungary’s president, Janos Ader, and blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, as well as the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Vincent Nichols. In a speech delivered at Lambeth Palace during the celebration, the words of the current Archbishop of Canterbury echoed the office composed by his

In the postmodern world and beyond 303 thirteenth-century predecessor, Stephen Langton: Becket is “a figure who brings us together and enables us to reflect on the task and call of the church in the light of the challenges we face in modern Europe . . . he is a sign of eternal hope.”103

Notes 1 F. Barlow, Thomas Becket (Berkeley, CA, 1986), xi. 2 N. Cantor, review of Barlow, American Historical Review 94, no. 2 (April 1989): 421–2. 3 Cantor, Review, 422. 4 V. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca, NY, 1974), Chapter 2, “Religious Paradigms and Political Action: Thomas Becket at the Council of Northampton,” 60–97. 5 Turner, “Paradigms,” 64. 6 Turner, “Paradigms,” 69. 7 Turner, “Paradigms,” 71. 8 Turner, “Paradigms,” 72. 9 Turner, “Paradigms,” 84. 10 Turner, “Paradigms,” 88. 11 Turner, “Paradigms,” 91. 12 Turner, “Paradigms,” 96. 13 To my knowledge, only Martin Aurell has cited Turner’s work in his publications. 14 D. Knowles, “Archbishop Thomas Becket – The Saint,” Canterbury Cathedral Chronicle 65 (1970): 5–21, at 9. 15 Knowles, “Saint,” 10. 16 H. Vollrath, “Was Thomas Becket Chaste? Understanding Episodes in the Becket Lives,” in J. Gillingham, ed., Anglo-Norman Studies XXVII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2004 (Woodbridge, 2005), 198–209. 17 In addressing the issue in 1973, W.L. Warren observed that Becket was “above all, chaste. It was a matter of sport in the young and lusty Henry to tempt him to the pleasures of the flesh, but no one could contradict the biographers’ insistence on his purity.” Warren, Henry II, 449. 18 Quoted in Vollrath, “Chaste,” 205. 19 Vollrath, “Chaste,” 206. 20 Vollrath, “Chaste,” 209. 21 A.G. Miller, “Knights, Bishops and Deer Parks: Episcopal Identity, Emasculation and Clerical Space in Medieval England,” in J.D. Thibodeaux, ed., Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages (Hampshire, UK, 2010), 204–37. 22 Miller, “Knights,” 205. 23 Miller, “Knights,” 207. 24 Miller, “Knights,” 207. 25 A.G. Miller, “ ‘Tails’ of Masculinity: Knights, Clerics, and the Mutilation of Horses in Medieval England,” Speculum 88, no. 4 (October 2013): 958–95. 26 Miller, “Tails,” 995. 27 H. Thomas, “Shame, Masculinity, and the Death of Thomas Becket,” Speculum 87, no. 4 (October 2012): 1050–88. 28 Thomas, “Shame,” 1079. 29 Thomas, “Shame,” 108. 30 W.C. Brown and P. Górecki, eds., Conflict in Medieval Europe: Changing Perspectives on Society and Culture (Aldershot, 2003), 1. See the remarks of the

304  Becket in the modern and postmodern world editors concerning the origins of “Conflict Studies” as an historiographical turn away from institutional legal history (2, 5). 31 M. Aurell, “Le Meurtre de Thomas Becket: Les Gestes d’un Martyre,” in N. Fryde and D. Reitz, eds., Bischofsmord im Mittelalter: Murder of Bishops (Göttingen, 2003), 187–210, at 191. Aurell’s views concerning the conflict are also presented in a chapter, “The Becket Affair,” in his book The Plantagenet Empire: 1154–1224, trans. D. Crouch (Harlow, UK, 2007), 219–62. 32 Aurell, “Meurtre,” 191–6. The episode is also discussed by Aurell in Plantagenet Empire, 244–8, citing the opinions of Becket’s biographers. 33 Aurell, “Meurtre,” 196–200; Empire, 250. For other interpretations of the “Kiss” see H. Thomas, “Shame, Masculinity, and the Death of Thomas Becket,” Speculum 87, no. 4 (October 2012): 1050–88, esp. 1066; H. Vollrath, “The Kiss of Peace,” in R. Lesaffer, ed., Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One (Cambridge, 2004), 162–83; K. Petkov, The Kiss of Peace: Ritual, Self, and Society in the High and Late Medieval West (Leiden, 2003), 64. Petkov calls the kiss of peace “the kisssecuritas,” remarking that it could “refer to fairly complex legal affairs and co-ordinate the relationship between a number of institutions.” 34 Petkov, “Kiss,” 65. 35 Aurell, Empire, 251. 36 Aurell, “Meurtre,” 202–3; Empire, 253. 37 Aurell, Empire, 254–5. 38 Aurell, Empire, 259. 39 T. Reuter, “Velle sibi fieri in forma hoc: Symbolic Acts in the Becket Dispute,” in T. Reuter and J.L. Nelson, eds., Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities (Cambridge, 2006), 167–90. 40 Reuter, “Symbolic Acts,” 168. 41 Reuter, “Symbolic Acts,” 172. 42 Reuter, “Symbolic Acts,” 183. See also the remarks of Hanna Vollrath, “The Kiss of Peace,” in R. Lesaffer, ed., Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One (Cambridge, 2004), 162–83, at 177–83. Vollrath claims that none of the biographers tied the murder to the refusal of the kiss, and that Henry substituted an equal rite for the kiss when he held Becket’s stirrup so he could mount his horse (179–80). 43 For a different view of Becket’s initial actions, see Duggan, Becket, 257. 44 Reuter, “Symbolic Acts,” 188–9. See also the discussion by H. Mayr-Harting, “The Conflict Between Henry II and Thomas Becket,” Chapter 4 in Religion, Politics and Society in Britain: 1066–1272 (Harlow, UK, 2011), 74–94, which interprets the Becket conflict in light of recent scholarship, including Reuter’s thesis. 45 J. Haseldine, ed., Friendship in Medieval Europe (Thrupp, UK, 1999), xvii. 46 Haseldine, Friendship, xviii. 47 Haseldine, Friendship, xviii. 48 J. Haseldine, “Thomas Becket: Martyr, Saint – and Friend?” in R. Gameson and H. Leyser, eds., Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry Mayr-Harting (Oxford, 2001), 305–17. See also Haseldine’s remarks in Friendship, xvii–xxiii. 49 Quoted in Haseldine, “Friend,” 306. 50 Haseldine, “Friend,” 316. 51 Here he is in agreement with Knowles (“Thomas Becket,” 110), and W.L. Warren (Henry II, 451). 52 A. Duggan, “Thomas Becket’s Italian Network,” in Frances Andrews, Christoph Egger and Constance M. Rousseau, eds., Pope, Church and City: Essays in Honour

In the postmodern world and beyond 305 of Brenda M. Bolton (Leiden, 2004), 177–201. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult (Aldershot, 2007), I., 1–21, at 2. 53 Duggan, “Network,” 3–4. 54 See also the remarks of Aurell, Plantagenet Empire, 238. 55 Duggan, “Network,” 21. 56 A. Duggan, “Religious Networks in Action: The European Expansion of the Cult of St Thomas of Canterbury,” in J. Gregory and H. McLeod, eds., International Religious Networks (Woodbridge, UK, 2012), 20–43. Duggan’s article is a splendid example of the way in which “the language of friendship was commonly deployed to crate networks whose impact can be traced in many areas of life, including political allegiance, dispute resolution, career advancement and literary exchange” (Haseldine’s definition in the Introduction to Friendship, xvii). 57 A. Duggan, “The Price of Loyalty: The Fate of Thomas Becket’s Learned Household,” Leeds International Medieval Congress (Leeds, 8–11 July 2002), 1–18. Reprinted in Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Network and Cult, III, 1–18. 58 A helpful chart in the Appendix clarifies her argument. 59 Duggan, “Price,” 16. See also the analysis of Becket’s entourage in M. Aurell, Plantagenet Empire, 222–33. 60 E. Emery and Richard Utz, “Making Medievalism: A Critical Overview,” in E. Emery and R. Utz, eds., Medievalism: Key Critical Terms (Woodbridge, 2014), 2. 61 L. D’Arcens, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism (Cambridge, 2016), 1. 62 Definition attributed to T. A, Shippey, on the website of the journal Studies in Medievalism, quoted in Matthews, Medievalism, 1. 63 Matthews, Medievalism, 2. A discussion of the works of Bale and Leland is in Chapter 6. 64 Matthews, Medievalism, 176. 65 Matthews, Medievalism, 20. 66 J. Kirby, Historians and the Church of England: Religion and Historical Scholarship, 1870–1920 (Oxford, 2016), 23. 67 R. Speaight, Thomas Becket (London, 1938). Speaight was an actor who performed the role of Thomas in Murder in the Cathedral numerous times. His experience inspired him to write a biography of Becket “intended for the ordinary reader . . . I have merely wished to be accurate and readable” (xi). 68 A. Duggan, My Life for My Sheep (New York, 1955). 69 A. Duggan, God and my Right (London, 1955). 70 A. Duggan, The Falcon and the Dove (New York, 1966). This is a somewhat modified version of the previous biographies, published after Duggan’s death. 71 A. Duggan, Thomas Becket of Canterbury (London, 1967). Revised edition by Duggan’s wife, Laura Duggan, which incorporates notes left by Duggan. 72 S. Mydans, Thomas: A Novel of the Life, Passion, and Miracles of Becket (New York, 1965). 73 R. Winston, Thomas Becket (New York, 1967). 74 S. Mendyk, The Merchant’s Daughter (Bloomington, IN, 2010). Mendyk claims that she wrote the novel on the advice of a psychic (272). 75 A study of the literature, poetry, and drama devoted to Becket is in progress, designed as a companion volume to this book. 76 H. Gardner, “The Language of Drama,” in H. Bloom, ed., T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral (New York, 1988), 17–22, at 17. The political ramifications of the play constitute only one aspect of the drama, which centers on the universal human struggle to obtain salvation. 77 C. Davidson, “Murder in the Cathedral and the Saint’s Play Tradition,” in H. Bloom, ed., T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral (New York, 1988), 123–36, at 123.

306  Becket in the modern and postmodern world 78 C.H. Smith, “The New Rhythm,” in H. Bloom, ed., T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral (New York, 1988), 41–53, at 42. 79 Smith, “Rhythm,” 49. 80 Davidson, “Saint’s Play,” 123. 81 Davidson, “Saint’s Play,” 136. 82 Davidson, “Saint’s Play,” 135. 83 Davidson, “Saint’s Play,” 129. 84 Davidson, “Saint’s Play,” 130. 85 L.L. Martz, “The Saint as Tragic Hero: Saint Joan and Murder in the Cathedral,” in H. Bloom, ed., T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral (New York, 1988), 23–39, at 37. 86 A recent play dealing with the knights is Paul Corcoran’s Four Nights in Knaresborough (London, 1999), which places the murderers in a castle in Knaresborough for the year following the crime, analyzing their reactions. As Corcoran remarked, he wrote the play about these men, since they “did the job, after all. It seemed unfair that they had been largely ignored for over 800 years.” (Preface). 87 S. Bruhn, Saints in the Limelight: Representations of the Religious Quest on the Post-1945 Operatic Stage (Hillsdale, NY, 2003), 87–116. 88 Bruhn, Saints, 100. Bruhn’s essay includes an analysis of the music, remarking that “Pizzetti designed the vocal element to ‘present’ rather than to interpret the text” (100). 89 Bruhn, Saints, 103. 90 Bruhn, Saints, 100. Bruhn offers an analysis of the musical components of the opera, 100–3. 91 Bruhn, Saints, 103. 92 C. Howse, “King’s Friend and Victim,” www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/per sonal-view/3624795/Sacred-mysteries.html. See also R. Hugill’s remarks in “A Remarkable Achievement,” www.daily.com/articles/2006/05/king1.htm, and M. Tanner, “Murder in the Cathedral,” www.spectator.co.uk/2006/05/ murder-in-the-cathedral/. 93 N.H. Petersen, “ ‘In Rama Sonat Gemitus . . .’ The Becket Story in a Danish Medievalist Music Drama, A Vigil for Thomas Becket,” in R. Utz and T. Shippey, eds., Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman (Turnhout, 1998), 341–58. 94 Petersen, “Becket Story,” 345. 95 Petersen, “Becket Story,” 346. 96 Petersen, “Becket Story,” 346. 97 Bruhn, Saints, 105. For an analysis of the structure and episodic design of the work, see Bruhn, Saints, 105–16. 98 The song, which was written during Becket’s period of exile, is a complaint concerning his circumstances; the composer is anonymous. It appears in only one manuscript, Guelferbytanus, Helmstedt 628 (f. 168v), held in the HerzogAugust-Bibliothek; it is generally referred to as W1. 99 Petersen, “Becket Story,” 352. 100 Petersen, “Becket Story,” 357. 101 Quoted from the transcript of Comey’s testimony: www.intelligence.senate. gov/hearings/open-hearing-former-fbi-director-james-comey# 102 New York Times, 25 May, 2016. 103 Address by Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace (London, 2016). This event occurred shortly before the Brexit vote, which indicated the lack of efficacy of the Becket relic in the context of “European unity.” Nonetheless, the use of the relic in this context does demonstrate the ongoing belief in the power of the Canterbury martyr.

Conclusion

Our historiographical pilgrimage has taken us through eight centuries of scholarship in search of the essential nature of the enigmatic Thomas Becket. Was he truly a saint, as his biographers claimed? Was he an archetype of the bonus pastor? Did he symbolize a Christ-like martyrdom and the triumph of the Church against encroaching secular authority? Was he a miracle worker? The twelfth-century writers, clergy, and laity believed his life encompassed all of these qualities, and this image endured for more than 300 years. Or was he the demon depicted by Reformation writers – the “new saint made of an old rebel”? During the reign of Henry VIII, the biography of the Canterbury martyr was radically revised, and in the Reformation era and beyond he was viewed as a traitor – a man who had died for manifest treason against his king. For sixteenth-century writers, his death and subsequent canonization had allowed papal control to be more thoroughly established in England, and his memory constituted a threat to a monarchy that had broken with Rome. The Protestant history written by John Foxe that became the sacrosanct version blackened Becket’s personal reputation, presenting the events of his life and martyrdom as a power struggle in which the pope, the archbishop and the king of France had joined in a conspiracy against the English state as symbolized by Henry II. For the writers of the Counter Reformation, the accusations against Becket were slanderous; they claimed that his status as a glorious martyr was confirmed by continued veneration and pilgrimages to his shrine prior to its destruction by Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. But were the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century biographers and theologians correct in seeing Becket as an icon whose martyrdom ought to be emulated? Was his role as a standard-bearer for English recusants a valid one, or did it represent an ongoing challenge to the government? Eighteenth-century historians viewed the conflict between the king and his archbishop within the context of “good government,” and they saw Henry II as an extraordinarily able king striving to establish a harmonious and lawful state; for these scholars, Becket was a potent threat to growing national stability. Hume, Lyttelton, and Burke, all admirers of Henry II to

308  Becket in the modern and postmodern world one degree or another, believed that the archbishop was an ambitious man who craved power and became the English representative of papal authority. In responding to their claims concerning the Canterbury martyr, Joseph Berington, a Roman Catholic, agreed that Henry was a wise and just king, and admitted that papal supremacy might be inappropriate in England; nonetheless, Thomas Becket was due proper veneration as a saint and a man who retained his loyalty to the Church, and his for his stalwart beliefs in the face of drastic opposition by a vindictive monarch. The nineteenth-century answers in the search for truth about Thomas’s character were governed once again by the needs of time and place. Influenced by nationalism, some scholars claimed that Becket was a Saxon, and in the quarrel with the king he was emblematic of the struggle between the Saxons and Normans. These writers saw him as an English hero, upholding the cause of the native population against the Norman invaders in control of the twelfth-century government. Others continued to view him as a representative of the papacy and the Catholic minority; hence, he was not to be revered by true Englishmen. Questions concerning the validity of Thomas’s miracles – the “trifling lyes” of Reformation historians – constituted a source of contention, although Edwin A. Abbott found them fascinating and devoted much effort to analyzing and organizing the accounts of the biographers, utilizing a method akin to that of New Testament codification. The qualities of Thomas’s character were of limited interest to some ­twentieth-century scholars, who focused their attention on the legal aspects of the struggle between king and archbishop. By mid-century, however, a fashion for analyzing historical personalities from a psychological viewpoint became a popular methodology, and influenced some depictions of the Canterbury martyr. Was Thomas an insecure man, determined to overcome his natural inclinations by overreacting to his circumstances, as some writers suggested? By the 1980s, the pendulum had swung toward a more “objective” approach in historical writing. For biographers working during the final decades of the twentieth century, the answers to questions about Thomas’s character were left to the readers, who should analyze the historical descriptions and draw their own conclusions. Moving into the twenty-first century, postmodern analysis of Becket’s life has taken different paths, dealing with questions of his chastity, his sexual orientation, his masculinity, and various aspects of his role in the conflict. As we have seen throughout our discussion, scholars have analyzed the primary materials concerning Becket’s life again and again, refining and polishing their interpretations of his personality and motivations. A significant portion of this scholarship has been devoted to studying the Becket of the pre-Reformation and Reformation eras. Many historians have devoted their efforts to an analysis of sources taken from the three centuries after his canonization, offering interpretations of his character and motivations as defined by the early biographers and chroniclers. Scholars of religious

Conclusion 309 history have investigated his role in the evolution of the medieval Church, while writers interested in social history have traced the development of his cult as it spread throughout the European continent. Art historians have interpreted the imagery related to his life, often combining their research with documentary evidence, while liturgists and historians interested in sermon studies have sought answers to the central questions in materials specific to their disciplines. All of these avenues of inquiry retain their vitality, as a new generation of scholars revisits the early centuries of Becket materials, bringing new insights to old questions and approaching the sources from interdisciplinary perspectives. The Becket of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been less studied, and these eras offer fertile fields for further research. Victorian England, for example, provides rich material to be studied not only by traditional historians, but also by those interested in art history, religious history, social history, and political science. Literary scholars, especially those exploring drama featuring the Canterbury martyr, will find that works concerning Becket abound in the nineteenth century. Recent historians have broadened the geographical base of Becket studies by analyzing the afterlives of the Canterbury martyr in nineteenth-century France, Scandinavia, Spain, and Italy, tracing the evidence of the martyr’s continuing influence in these countries. New pathways have also been indicated by studies which take Becket as the focus of postmodern scholarship concerning gender and sexuality. The insights gleaned from scholars working in these areas offer new approaches to interdisciplinary study, as those in various disciplines cross traditional boundaries to enrich their work. This book, in summarizing the scholarship of many writers working in various disciplines during the last eight centuries, has followed a trajectory that comprises numerous theories, interpretations, and impressions of the Canterbury martyr. Moving through time and across several areas of scholarship, it has revealed Thomas Becket as a kaleidoscopic personality; at every turn, the colors and shapes assigned to his character have shifted, as historians and artists have used the same materials to create new images and new structures. Continuing study of his life and martyrdom in the postpostmodern era will doubtless add new patterns and arrangements of the fascinating details surrounding his enigmatic personality. Saint or traitor? An arrogant and ambitious man, or simply an insecure parvenu who overcompensated for his weaknesses? Did he crave martyrdom and the promise of sainthood? Although this volume has offered myriad opinions in response to these questions, the answers remain elusive, and future interpretations will, no doubt, continue to vary according to historical circumstance, coming forth with novel ways to unravel the Becket enigma.

Selected Bibliography

Primary Sources Allen, W. A True, Sincere and Modest Defence of English Catholiques That Suffer for Their Faith Both at Home and Abrode: Against a False, Seditious and Slanderous Libel Entituled: The Execution of Justice in England. Rouen, 1584. Reprinted in D.M. Rogers, ed. English Recusant Literature 68 (1971). Anouilh, J. Becket or the Honor of God. New York, 1960. Riverhead, ed. New York, 1995. Baronius, C. The Life or the Ecclesiasticall Historie of S. Thomas, Archbishope of Canterbury, English translation, 1639; facsimile ed. London, 1975. Berington, J. The History of the Reign of Henry the Second and of Richard and John, His Sons: With the Events of the Period, from 1154 to 1216 in Which the Character of Thomas A. Becket Is Vindicated from the Attacks of George Lord Lyttleton, 2 vols. London, 1790. Burke, E. An Abridgement of English History, 3 vols [In Volume 10 of The Works of Edmund Burke, 12 vols]. London, 1812. Cecil, W. The Execution of Justice in England for Maintenance of Publique and Christian Peace, Against Certeine Stirrers of Sedition, and Adherents to the Traytors and Enemies of the Realme, Without Any Persecution of Them for Questions of Religion, as Is Falsely Reported and Published by the Fautors and Fosterers of Their Treasons XVII December 1583. London, 1583. Douglas, D.C. and G.W. Greenway, eds. English Historical Documents, vol. 2. New York, 1953. Dreves, G. and C. Blume, eds. Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, 55 vols. Leipzig, 1886–1922; reprint ed. London, 1969. Duggan, A.J. The Correspondence of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury 1162–1170, 2 vols. Oxford, 2000. Eliot, T.S. Murder in the Cathedral. New York, 1935. Erasmus, D. Peregrinatio religionis ergo. London, 1631. English translation in J.G. Nichols, Desiderius Erasmus, Pilgrimages to Saint Mary of Walsingham and Saint Thomas of Canterbury. Westminster, 1849. Foxe, J. Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perilous Days, Touching Matters of the Church. London, 1563. Foxe’s work appeared in several editions, all of which are available online through TAMO. HRI Online Publications, Sheffield, 2011. www.johnfoxe.org. Frere, W.H. and L.E.G. Brown, eds. The Hereford Breviary, 3 vols. London, 1911.

Selected Bibliography 311 Giles, J.A. The Life and Letters of Thomas á Becket, Now First Gathered from the Contemporary Historians, 2 vols. London, 1846. Godwin, F. Catalogue of the Bishops of England. London, 1601. Greenaway, G., ed. and trans. The Life and Death of Thomas Becket, Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury Based on the Account of William FitzStephen His Clerk with Additions from Other Contemporary Sources. London, 1961. Harpsfield, N. The Life and Death of Sr Thomas Moore, Knight, Sometimes Lord High Chancellor of England, Written in the Time of Queene Marie, ed. E.V. Hitchcock. Early English Text Society. London, 1932; reprint ed. 1963. Hastings, F. A Watch-Word to All Religious, and True Hearted English-Men. Early English Books Online [EEBO]. Helgadottir, G.P., ed. Hrafns saga Sveinbjarsonar. Oxford, 1987. Holinshed, R. The Third Volume of Chronicles, Beginning at Duke William the Norman. London, 1586. Howlett, R., ed. Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II, and Richard I, 2 vols, Rolls Series, London, 1884–9. Hughes, P.L. and J.F. Larkin, eds. Tudor Royal Proclamations, 3 vols. New Haven, 1964–69. Hume, D. The History of England, 6 vols. London, 1778. Lawley, S.W., ed. Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesie Eboracensis, 2 vols, Surtees Society 71, 75. Durham, 1880–2. Leland, J. De viris illustribus (On Famous Men), ed. and trans. J. Carley. Toronto and Oxford, 2010. Lyttelton, G. History of the Life of King Henry the Second and of the Age in Which he Lived, 4 vols. London, 1767. Magnússen, E. Thómas Saga Erkibyskups, 2 vols, Rolls Series. London, 1875–83. Millor, W.J. and C.N.L. Brooke, eds. The Letters of John of Salisbury, 2 vols. Oxford, 1979. Parker, M. De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae. London, 1572. Pepin, R. Anselm & Becket: Two Canterbury Saints’ Lives by John of Salisbury. Toronto, 2009. Proctor, F. and C. Wordsworth, eds. Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesiae Sarisburiensis, 3 vols. Cambridge, 1879–86; reprint ed. Famborough, 1970. Rapin de Thoyras, P. The History of England, trans. N. Tindal. London, 1743. Rigg, J.M., ed. Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs: Preserved Principally at Rome in the Vatican Archives and Library, 2 vols. London, 1916–26. Riley, H., trans. The Annals of Roger De Hoveden, 2 vols. London, 1853. Robertson, J.C. Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury: a Biography London, 1859. ———, ed. Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, 7 vols, Rolls Series. London, 1875–9. Ryan, W.G., trans. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, 2 vols. Princeton, 2012. Schlyter, B. La Vie de Thomas Becket par Beneit. Lund, 1941. Schmidt, P.G., ed. Thomas von Froidmont: Die Vita des heiligen Thomas Becket (with German translation) Schriften der Wissenschaft: Gesellschaft an der J-WGoethe-Univ. Frankfurt am Main, Geisteswissenschaftliche R., 8, Stuttgart, 1991. Shirley, J. Garnier’s Becket [trans. from the 12th-Century Vie Saint Thomas le Martyr de Cantorbire]. Chichester, UK, 1975.

312  Selected Bibliography Short, I. trans. A Life of Thomas Becket in Verse [La Vie de Saint Thomas Becket by Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence]. Toronto, 2013. Stapleton, T. Tres Thomae seu Res Gestae S. Thomae Apostoli, S. Thomae Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis & Martyris, Thomas Mori, Angliae quondam Cancellarii. Douay, 1588. Stubbs, W., ed. The Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II and Richard I, A.D. 1169– 1192, Known Commonly Under the Name of Benedict of Peterborough, 2 vols. London, 1867. ———. The Historical Works of Gervase of Canterbury, 2 vols. London, 1879–80. ———. The Historical Works of Master Ralph de Diceto, Dean of London, 2 vols. London, 1876. Thierry, A. Histoire de la conquête de l’Angleterre de ses causes et de ses suites jusqu’à nos jouirs, en Angleterre, en Ecosse, en Irlande et sur le continent, 4 vols. Brussels, 1835. ———. History of the Conquest of England by the Normans, 2 vols. London, 1907. Tolhurst, J.B.L., ed. The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester, 6 vols. London, 1930–9.

Secondary Works Abbott, E.A. Philomythus: An Antidote Against Credulity. London, 1891. ———. St. Thomas of Canterbury: His Death and Miracles, 2 vols. London, 1898. Alexander, J.A. “The Becket Controversy in Recent Historiography,” Journal of British Studies 9, no. 2 (May 1970): 1–26. Alexander, J.A. and P. Binski, eds. Age of Chivalry. London, 1987. Alexander, M. Medievalism: The Middle Ages in Modern England. New Haven, 2007. Antonsson, H. “The Lives of St Thomas Becket and Early Scandinavian Literature,” SMSR 81 (2015): 394–413. ———. St. Magnús of Orkney: A Scandinavian Martyr-Cult in Context. Leiden, 2007. Aston, M. Broken Idols of the English Reformation. Cambridge, 2016. Aurell, M. “Le Meurtre de Thomas Becket: Les Gestes d’un Martyre,” in N. Fryde and D. Reitz, eds., Bischofsmord im Mittelalter: Murder of Bishops. Göttingen, 2003, 187–210. ———. The Plantagenet Empire: 1154–1224, trans. D. Crouch. Harlow, 2007. Ayres, L.M. “English Painting and the Continent During the Reign of Henry II and Eleanor,” in W. Kibler, ed., Eleanor of Aquitaine: Patron and Politician. Austin, 1976, 141–2. Backhouse, J. and C. de Hamel, The Becket Leaves. London, 1988. Bagnoli, M., H. Klein, C.G. Mann and J. Robinson, eds. Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics, and Devotion in Medieval Europe. New Haven, 2010. Barlow, F. “Roger of Howden,” The English Historical Review 65, no. 256 (July 1950): 353–60. ———. Thomas Becket. Berkeley, CA, 1986. Barth, M. “Zum Kult des hl: Thomas Becket im deutschen Sprachgebiet, in Skandinavien und Italien,” Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv 80 (1960): 97–166. Bartlett, R. Gerald of Wales, 1146–1223. Oxford, 1982.

Selected Bibliography 313 Becquet, J. “Sanctuaires dédiés à Saint Thomas de Cantorbery in Limousin,” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque International de Sédières, Août 19–24 1973. Paris, 1975, 159–61. Bedos-Rezak, B.M. “Replica: Images of Identity and the Identity of Images in Prescholastic France,” in J. Hamburger and A. Bouché, eds., The Mind’s Eye: Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages. Princeton, 2006, 46–64. Beltrame, G. S. Tomaso Becket: Nella storia, nel culto, nell’arte, in Europa. Padua, 1989. Betteridge, T. Tudor Histories of the English Reformations, 1530–83. Aldershot, 1999. Bigelow, M.M. “Becket and the Law,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd series 52 (October 1918–June 1919): 7–30. Binski, P. Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England, 1170–1300. New Haven, 2004. Blick, S. “A Canterbury Keepsake: English Medieval Pilgrim Souvenirs and Popular Culture,” PhD thesis, University of Kansas, 1994. ———. “Comparing Pilgrim Souvenirs and Trinity Chapel Windows at Canterbury Cathedral,” Mirator Syyskuu (September 2001): 1–27. ———. “Reconstructing the Shrine of St. Thomas Becket,” in S. Blick and R. Tekippe, eds., Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, 2 vols. Leiden, 2005, 405–41. ———. “Votives, Images, Interaction and Pilgrimage to the Tomb and Shrine of St. Thomas Becket, Canterbury Cathedral,” in S. Blick and L. Gelfand, eds., Push Me, Pull You: Art and Devotional Interaction in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art. Leiden, 2011, 21–58. Blurton, H. and J. Wogan-Browne, eds. Rethinking the South English Legendaries. Manchester, 2011. Boffey, J. “Middle English Lives,” in D. Wallace, ed., The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. Cambridge, 2002. Bollerman, K. and C.J. Nederman. “John of Salisbury and Thomas Becket,” in C. Grellard and F. Lauchaud, eds., A Companion to John of Salisbury. Leiden, 2014, 1–35. ———. “The ‘Sunset Years’: John of Salisbury as Bishop of Chartres and the Emergent Cult of St Thomas Becket in France,” Viator 45, no. 2 (2014): 55–76. Borenius, T. “Addenda to the Iconography of St. Thomas of Canterbury,” Archaeologia 81 (1931): 19–32. ———. “The Murderers of St. Thomas Becket in Popular Tradition,” Folk-Lore (June 1932): 175–92. ———. “Some Further Aspects of the Iconography of St. Thomas of Canterbury,” Archaeologia 83 (1933): 171–86. ———. St. Thomas Becket in Art. Port Washington, NY and London, 1932. Bowie, C. The Daughters of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Brussels, 2014. ———. “Matilda, Duchess of Saxony (1168–89) and the Cult of Thomas Becket: A Legacy of Appropriation,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. Woodbridge, 2016, 113–32. ———. “Shifting Patterns in Angevin Marriage Policies: The Political Motivations for Joanna Plantagenet’s Marriages to William II of Sicily and Raymond VI of Toulouse,” in M. Aurell, ed., Les Stratégies Matrimoniales (IXe–XIIIe siècle). Turnhout, 2013, 155–67.

314  Selected Bibliography Boyer, R. “L’eveque Gudmundr Arason temoin de son temps,” in Etudes Gemaniques 3 (1967): 427–44. Brenner, E. “Thomas Becket and Leprosy in Normandy,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170– c. 1220. Woodbridge, 2016, 81–94. Brigden, S. London and the Reformation. Oxford, 1989. Brisac, C. “Thomas Becket dans le vitrail français,” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque International de Sédières, Août 19–24, 1973. Paris, 1975, 222–31. Brooke, C. “Thomas Becket,” in Medieval Church and Society: Collected Essays. New York, 1972, 121–38. Brooke, Z.N.L. “The Effect of Becket’s Murder on Papal Authority in England,” Cambridge Historical Journal 2, no. 3 (1928): 213–28. Brown, P.A. “The Development of the Legend of Thomas Becket,” PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1930. Brown, W.C. and P. Górecki, eds. Conflict in Medieval Europe: Changing Perspectives on Society and Culture. Aldershot, 2003. Brownie, S. Mapping Memory in Translation. London, 2016. ———. Memory and Myths of the Norman Conquest. Woodbridge, 2013. Bruhn, S. Saints in the Limelight: Representations of the Religious Quest on the Post-1945 Operatic Stage. Hillsdale, NY, 2003. Butler, J. The Quest for Becket’s Bones. New Haven, 1995. Byock, J. Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power. Berkeley, 1988. Caudron, S. “La diffusion des châsses de Saint Thomas Becket dans l’Europe médiévale,” in D. Gaborit-Chopin and F. Tixier, eds., L’Oeuvre de Limoges et sa Diffusion: Trésors, Objets, Collections. Rennes, 2011, 23–41. ———. “Les Châsses de Thomas Becket en Émail de Limoges,” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque International de Sédières, Août 19–24, 1973. Paris, 1975, 233–41. ———. “Les Châsses reliquaries de Thomas Becket émaillées à Limoges: leur géographie historique,” Bulletin de la Société archéologique et histoire du Limousin l, no. CXXI (1993): 55–82. Caviness, M.H. “Biblical Stories in Windows: Were They Bibles for the Poor?” in B. Levy, ed., The Bible in the Middle Ages: Its Influence on Literature and Art, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 89. Binghamton, NY, 1992, 103–47. ———. The Early Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral. Princeton, 1977. ————. Medieval and Renaissance Stained Glass from New England Collections. Medford, MA, 1978. ———. “A Panel of Thirteenth Century Stained Glass from Canterbury in America,” The Antiquaries Journal xlv (1965): 192–9. ———. The Windows of Christ Church Cathedral Canterbury, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Great Britain, vol. ii. London, 1981. Cerda, J. “Leonor Plantagenet and the Cult of Thomas Becket in Castile,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. Woodbridge, 2016, 133–46. ———. “The Marriage of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Leonor Plantagenet: The First Bond Between Spain and England in the Middle Ages,” in M. Aurell, ed., Les Stratégies Matrimoniales (IXe–XIIIe siècle). Turnhout, 2013, 143–53.

Selected Bibliography 315 Chandler, A. “Carlyle and the Medievalism of the North,” in R. Utz and T. Shippey, eds., Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman. Turnhout, 1998, 173–91. Cheney, M. “William FitzStephen and his Life of Archbishop Thomas,” in C.N.L. Brooke, D.E. Luscombe, G.H. Martin and D. Owen, eds., Church and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays Presented to C.R. Cheney on His 70th Birthday. Cambridge, 1976, 139–56. Cherry, J. “Seals and Heraldry, 1400–1600: Public Policy and Private Post,” in D. Gaimster and P. Stamper, eds., The Age of Transition: The Archaeology of English Culture, 1400–1600. Oxford, 1997. Collinson, P. “From Iconoclasm to Iconophobia: The Cultural Impact of the Second English Reformation,” in P. Marshall, ed., The Impact of the English Reformation: 1500–1640. London, 1997, 278–308. Collinson, P., N. Ramsey and M. Sparks, eds. A History of Canterbury Cathedral. Oxford, 1995. Cormack, M. “Holy Wells and National Identity in Iceland,” in M. Cormack, ed., Saints and Their Cults in the Atlantic World. Columbia, SC, 2007, 229–47. ———. “Sagas of Saints,” in M. Ross, ed., Old Icelandic Literature and Society. Cambridge, 2000, 302–25. ———. The Saints in Iceland: Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400. Brussels, 1994. Corner, D. “The Earliest Surviving Manuscripts of Roger of Howden’s ‘Chronica,’ ” The English Historical Review 98, no. 387 (April 1983): 297–310. Crook, J. The Architectural Setting of the Cult of Saints in the Early Christian West, c. 300–c. 1200. Oxford, 2000. D’Arcens, L., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Medievalism. Cambridge, 2016. Davidson, C. “The Middle English Saint Play and Its Iconography,” in C. Davidson, ed., The Saint Play in Medieval Europe. Kalamazoo, MI, 1986, 31–121. ———. “Murder in the Cathedral and the Saint’s Play Tradition,” in H. Bloom, ed., T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. New York, 1988, 123–36. ———. “Saints in Plays: English Theater and Saints’ Lives,” in S. Sticca, ed., Saints: Studies in Hagiography. Binghamton, NY, 1996, 145–60. Davidson, P. “Recusant Spaces in Early Modern England,” in R. Corthell, F.E. Dolan, C. Highley and A.F. Marotti, eds., Catholic Culture in Early Modern England. Notre Dame, IN, 2007. Davies, H. Worship and Theology in England: From Cranmer to Hooker, 1534– 1603. Princeton, 1970. Davis, J.F. “Lollards, Reformers and St Thomas of Canterbury,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal 9 (1963): 1–15. Delaporte, Y. and É. Houvet. Les Vitraux de la Cathédrale de Chartres. Paris, 1926. Delehaye, H. The Legends of the Saints, trans. D. Attwater. London, 1962. Demus, O. The Mosaics of Norman Sicily. New York, 1950. De Mézerac-Zanetti, A. “Liturgical Changes to the Cult of Saints under Henry VIII,” in P. Clarke and T. Claydon, eds., Saints and Sanctity. Woodbridge, 2011, 181–91. D’Esneval, A. “La Survivance de Saint Thomas Becket a Travers son Quartrième Successeur, Étienne Langton,” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque International de Sédières, Août 19–24, 1973. Paris, 1975, 111–14. De Winter, P.M. “The Sacral Treasure of the Guelfs,” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 72, no. 1 (1985).

316  Selected Bibliography Dillon, A. The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535–1603. Aldershot, 2002. Dobson, R.B. “Contrasting Cults: St Cuthbert of Durham and St Thomas of Canterbury in the Fifteenth Century,” in S. Ditchfield, ed., Christiantiy and Community in the West: Essays for John Bossy. Aldershot, UK, 2001, 24–43. Domínguez, G.C., ed. Tomás Becket y la Península Ibérica (1170–1230). León, 2013. Duffy, E. Introduction to the Legenda Aurea, ed. D. Wallace. Princeton, 2012. ———. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1800. New Haven, 1992. Duggan, A. The Falcon and the Dove. New York, 1966. ———. God and My Right. London, 1955. ———. My Life for My Sheep. New York, 1955. ———. Thomas Becket of Canterbury. London, 1967. Duggan, A.J. “Becket Is Dead: Long Live St Thomas,” in M. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. Woodbridge, 2016, 25–52. ———.  “A Becket Office at Stavelot: London, British Library, Additional MS 16964,” in A. Duggan, J. Greatrex and B. Bolton, eds., Omne disce – Medieval Studies in Memory of Leonard Boyle, O.P. Aldershot, 2005, 161–82. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult. Aldershot, 2007, XI. ———. “The Coronation of the Young King in 1170,” in A. Duggan, ed., Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Text and Cult. Aldershot, 2007, VI. ———. “The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Thirteenth Century,” in M. Jancey, ed., St Thomas Cantilupe Bishop of Hereford: Essays in his Honour. Hereford, 1982, 21–44. Reprinted in Duggan, Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult, IX. ———. “Diplomacy, Status, and Conscience: Henry II’s Penance for Becket’s Murder,” in K. Borchardt and E. Bünz, eds., Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte. Peter Herde zum 65. Geburtstag von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen dargebracht, 2 vols, Stuttgart, 1998, 265–90. Reprinted in Duggan, Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult, VII. ———. “Henry II, the English Church and the Papacy, 1154–76,” in C. Harper-Bill and N. Vincent, eds., Henry II: New Interpretations. Woodbridge, 2007, 154–83. ———. “John of Salisbury and Thomas Becket,” in The World of John of Salisbury. Oxford, 1984. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult. Aldershot, 2007, II. ———. “The Lorvão Transcription of Benedict of Peterborough’s Liber miraculorum beati Thome: Lisbon, cod. Alcobaça ccxc/143,” Scriptorium 51. Lisbon, 1997, 51–68. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult. Aldershot, 2007, XII. ———. “The Lyell Version of the Quadrilogus Life of St Thomas of Canterbury,” Analecta Bollandiana 12 (1994): 105–38. Reprinted in Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult. Aldershot, 2007, XV. ———. “Ne in dubium: The Official Record of Henry II’s Reconciliation at Avranches, 21 May 1172,” English Historical Review 115 (2000): 643–58. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult. Aldershot, 2007, VIII. ———. “The Price of Loyalty: The Fate of Thomas Becket’s Learned Household,” Leeds International Medieval Congress (Leeds, 8–11 July 2002): 1–18.

Selected Bibliography 317 ———. “Religious Networks in Action: The European Expansion of the Cult of St Thomas of Canterbury,” in J. Gregory and H. McLeod, eds., International Religious Networks. Woodbridge, UK, 2012, 20–43. ———. “The Salem FitzStephen, Heidelberg Universitäts Bibliothek Cod. Salem IX.30,” in C. Viola, ed., Mediaevalia Christiana, XIe–XIIIe siècle: Hommage à Raymonde Foreville de ses amis, ses collègues et ses anciens élèves. Belgium, 1989, 51–86. ———. “The Santa Cruz Transcription of Benedict of Peterborough’s Liber Miraculorum Beati Thome: Porto, BPM, cod. Santa Cruz 60,” Medievalia. Textos e estudos 20 (2001): 27–55. Reprinted in A. Duggan, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult. Aldershot, 2007, XIII. ———. Thomas Becket. London, 2004. ———. Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult. Aldershot, 2007. ———. “Thomas Becket’s Italian Network,” in Frances Andrews, Christoph Egger and Constance M. Rousseau, eds., Pope, Church and City: Essays in Honour of Brenda M. Bolton. Leiden, 2004, 177–201. ———. Thomas Becket: A Textual History of his Letters. Oxford, 1980. Duggan, C. “The Becket Dispute and the Criminous Clerks,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 35, no. 91 (May 1962): 1–28. ——— and A. Duggan, “Ralph de Diceto, Henry II and Becket with an Appendix on Decretal Letters,” in B. Tierney and P. Linehan, eds., Authority and Power: Studies on Medieval Law and Government Presented to Walter Ullmann on His Seventieth Birthday. Cambridge, 1980, 59–81. ———. “The Reception of Canon Law in England in the Later-Twelfth Century,” in Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C; Subsidia, I. Vatican City, 1965, 359–90. Eales, R. “The Political Setting of the Becket Translation of 1220,” in D. Wood, ed., Martyrs and Martyrologies: Papers Read at the 1992 Summer Meeting and the 1993 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society. London, 1993, 127–39. Edwards, O.T. Matins, Lauds and Vespers for St David’s Day. Cambridge, 1990. Elton, G.R. Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell. Cambridge, 1972. Emery, E. and R. Utz. Medievalism: Key Critical Terms. Woodbridge, 2014. Fairfield, L.P. John Bale: Mythmaker for the English Reformation. West Lafayette, IN, 1976. Fassler, M. The Virgin of Chartres: Making History through Liturgy and the Arts. New Haven, 2010. Finucane, R.C. Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England. New York, 1977, revised ed. 1995. Foote, P. “On the Fragmentary Text Concerning St Thomas Becket in Stock. Perg. Fol. Nr. 2,” Saga Book of the Viking Society xv (1957–61): 403–46. Foreville, R. L’eglise et la Royauté en Angleterre sous Henry II Plantagenet (1154– 1189). Paris, 1943. ———. Le Jubilé de Saint Thomas Becket du XIIIe au XVe siècle (1220–1470): Etude et documents (1958). Paris, 1958. ———. “Les diffusion du culte e Thomas Becket dans la France de l’Ouest avant la fin du XIIe Siècle,” Cahiers de civilization médiévale XIX (1976). Reprinted in La Tradition, IX, original pagination, 347–69.

318  Selected Bibliography ———. “Les ‘Miracula S. Thomae Cantuariensis,’ ” in Actes du 97e Congrès National des Sociétés Savantes, Nantes, 1972: Section de philology et d’histoire jusqu’à 1610. Paris, 1979. Reprinted in La Tradition, VII, original pagination, 443–68. ———. “Les origins normandes de la famille Becket et le culte de Saint Thomas en Normandie,” in Mélange Pierre Andrieu-Guitrancourt. L’Année canonique XVII, 1973. Reprinted in La Tradition, X, original pagination, 433–78. ———. “L’idée de Jubilé chez les theologiens et les canonistes,” RHE 56 (1961): 401–23. Reprinted in La Tradition, XIV, original pagination, 401–23. ———. Thomas Becket dans la tradition historique et hagiographique. London, 1981. Fournée, J. “Contribution à l’histoire de la lèpre en Normandie: Les maladreries et les vocables de leurs chapelles,” in Lèpre et lépreux en Normandie, Cahiers Léopold Delisle 46 (1997): 49–142. ———. “Les lieux de culte de Saint Thomas Becket en Normandie,” Annales de Normandie 45 (1995): 377–92. Fraher, R. “The Becket Dispute and Two Decretist Traditions: The Bolognese Masters Revisited and Some New Anglo-Norman Texts,” Journal of Medieval History 4 (1978): 347–68. Freeman, E.A. Historical Essays, First Series, 3rd ed. London, 1875. ———. “Mr Froude’s Life and Times of Thomas Becket,” Contemporary Review 31–33 (31, 821–42; 32, 116–39, 474–500; 33, 213–41). ———. “Saint Thomas of Canterbury and his Biographers,” in Historical Essays. London, 1875, 79–113. Froude, J.A. Life and Times of Thomas Becket. New York, 1878. Froude, R.H. The History of the Contest Between Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry II, King of England, eds. J.H. Newman and J. Keble. London, 1838–39. Gameson, R. “The Early Imagery of Thomas Becket,” in Colin Morris and Peter Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan. Cambridge, 2002, 46–89. Gardner, H. “The Language of Drama,” in H. Bloom, ed., T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. New York, 1988, 17–22. Gelin, M-P. “The Cult of St Thomas in the Liturgy and Iconography of Christ Church, Canterbury,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c.1220. Woodbridge, UK, 2016, 53–79. ———. “Gervase of Canterbury, Christ Church and the Archbishops,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 60, no. 3 (July 2009): 449–63. ———. Lumen ad revelationem gentium: Iconographie et Liturgie Á Christ Church, Canterbury, 1175–1220. Turnhout, 2006. Gibbons, K. “Saints in Exile: The Cult of Saint Thomas of Canterbury and Elizabethan Catholics in France,” Recusant History 29 (2009): 315–40. Gibson, M. “Normans and Angevins, 1070–1220,” in P. Collinson, N. Ramsay and M. Sparks, eds., A History of Canterbury Cathedral. Oxford, 1995, 38–68. Gilley, S. “John Lingard and the Catholic Revival,” in D. Baker, ed., Renaissance and Renewal in Christian History. Oxford, 1977, 313–27. Gillingham, J. “The Historian as Judge: William of Newburgh and Hubert Walter,” English Historical Review 119 (November 2004): 1275–87. ———. “The Unromantic Death of Richard I,” Speculum 54, no. 1 (January 1979): 18–41.

Selected Bibliography 319 Gonzalez, J. El Reino de Castilla en la Epoca de Alfonso VIII, 3 vols. Madrid, 1960. Goodwin, D.L. “Herbert of Bosham and the Horizons of Twelfth-Century Exegesis,” Traditio 58 (2003): 133–73. Gordon, S. “Social Monsters and the Walking Dead in William of Newburgh’s Historia rerum Anglicarum,” Journal of Medieval History 4 (2015): 446–65. Görlach, M. The South English Legendary, Gilte Legende, and Golden Legend. Braunschweig, 1972. ———. The Textual Tradition of the South English Legendary (Leeds Texts and Monographs), NS 6. Leeds, 1974. Gossett, S. “Drama in the English College, Rome, 1591–1660,” English Literary Renaissance, 3/1 (1973): 60–93. Gostling, W. A Walk in and About the City of Canterbury. Canterbury, 1774, 2nd ed. 1777. Gransden, A. Historical Writing in England c. 550 to c. 1307, 2 vols. Ithaca, NY, 1974. Gregory, B.S. Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge, MA, 1999. Griffin, B. “The Birth of the History Play: Saint, Sacrifice and Reformation,” Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 39, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 217–37. Guy, J. Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel. New York, 2012. Györffy, G. “Thomas À Becket and Hungary,” Hungarian Studies in English 4 (1969): 45–52. Hahn, C. Portrayed on the Heart. Berkeley, 2001. Hale, M. and E. Bonney, eds. Life and Letters of John Lingard 1771–1851. London, 1912. Halphen, L. “Les Biographes de Thomas Becket,” Revue Historique 102/1 (1909): 35–45. Hamelinck, R. “St Kenelm and the Legends of the English Saints in the SEL,” in N.H.G.E. Veldhoen and H. Aertsen, eds., Companion to Early Middle English Literature, 2nd ed. Amsterdam, 1995, 19–28. Handel, K. “French Writing in the Cloister: Four Texts from St Albans Abbey Featuring Thomas Becket and Alexander the Great, c. 1184–c. 1275,” PhD thesis, University of York, 2015. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/is/eprint/11350. Happé, P. “The Protestant Adaptation of the Saint Play,” in C. Davidson, ed., The Saint Play in Medieval Europe. Kalamazoo, MI, 1986, 205–40. Harper, J. The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century: A Historical Introduction and Guide for Students and Musicians. Oxford, 1991. Harper-Bill, C. and N. Vincent, eds. Henry II: New Interpretations. Woodbridge, 2007. Harris, A.F. “Pilgrimage, Performance, and Stained Glass at Canterbury Cathedral,” in S. Blick and R. Tekippe, eds., Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles, 2 vols. Leiden, 2005, 243–81. Haseldine, J., ed. Friendship in Medieval Europe. Thrupp, UK, 1999. ———. “Thomas Becket: Martyr, Saint – and Friend?” in R. Gameson and H. Leyser, eds., Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages: Studies Presented to Henry MayrHarting. Oxford, 2001, 305–17. Hayes, D.M. Body and Sacred Place in Medieval Europe, 1100–1389. New York and London, 2003.

320  Selected Bibliography Hearn, M.F. “Canterbury Cathedral and the Cult of Becket,” Art Bulletin LXXVI, no. 1 (1994): 19–52. Heffernan, T. “Dangerous Sympathies: Political Commentary in the South English Legendary,” in K. Janofsky, ed., The South English Legendary: A Critical Assessment. Tübingen, 1992. ———. and E.A. Matter, eds. The Liturgy of the Medieval Church. Kalamazoo, MI, 2001. ———. Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages. Oxford, 1988. Henderson, G. “Studies in English Manuscript Illumination,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 30 (1967): 71–104. Hesketh, I. “Diagnosing Froude’s Disease: Boundary Work and the Discipline of History in Late-Victorian Britain,” History and Theory 47 (October 2008): 373–95. Hindman, S. “The Illustrated Book: An Addendum to the State of Research in Northern European Art,” Art Bulletin 68 (1986), 536–542. Hopkins, A. The Sinful Knights: A Study of Middle English Penitential Romance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Horstmann, C., ed. The Early English South-English Legendary, Early English Text Society 87. London, 1887. Houliston, V. “Brevis Dialogismus,” English Literary Renaissance 23 (1993): 382–427. ———. Catholic Resistance in Elizabethan England: Robert Persons’s Jesuit Polemic, 1580–1610. Aldershot, 2007. ———. “St Thomas Becket in the Propaganda of the English Counter-Reformation,” Renaissance Studies 7, no. 1 (March 1, 1993): 43–70. Hughes, A. “British Rhymed Offices: A Catalogue and Commentary,” in S. Rankin and D. Hiley, eds., Music in the Medieval English Liturgy: Plainsong and Medieval Music Society Centennial Essays. Oxford, 1993, 239–84. ———. Cataloguing Discrepancies: The Printed York Breviary of 1493. Toronto, 2011. ———. “Chants in the Offices of Thomas of Canterbury and Stanislas of Poland,” Musica Antiqua Europae Orientalis 6 (1982): 266–77. ———. “Chants in the Rhymed Office of St Thomas of Canterbury,” Early Music 16, no. 2 (May 1988): 185–201. ———. “Defacing Becket: Damaged Books for the Office,” in A. Andrée and E. Kihlman, eds., Hortus troporum: Florilegium in honorem Gunillae Iversen. Stockholm, 2008, 162–75. ———. “Late Medieval Rhymed Offices: A Research Report,” Journal of the Plainsong and Medieval Music Society 8 (1985): 33–49. ———. “Modal Order and Disorder in the Rhymed Office,” Musica Disciplina 37 (1983): 29–52. Hughes, P. The Reformation in England, 3 vols. New York, 1951–54. Hutton, W.H. Thomas Becket: Archbishop of Canterbury. Cambridge, 1910, revised ed. 1926. Jakobsson, Á. “The Friend of the Meek: The Late Medieval Miracles of a TwelfthCentury Icelandic Saint,” Accessed on academia.edu, 4/12/2016. Jamison, E. “Alliance of England and Sicily in the Second Half of the 12th Century,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 6 (1943): 20–32. Jankofsky, K.P. “National Characteristics in the Portrayal of English Saints in the South English Legendary,” in R. Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell, eds., Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe. Ithaca, NY, 1991, 81–93. Jones, E. The English Nation: The Great Myth. Gloucestershire, UK, 1998.

Selected Bibliography 321 Jones, T.M., ed. The Becket Controversy. New York, 1970. Jordan, A.A. “The Becket Windows at Angers and Coutances,” in P. Webster and M.P. Gelin, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170– c. 1220. Woodbridge, 2016, 171–207. ———. “Rhetoric and Reform: The St Thomas Becket Window of Sens Cathedral,” in E. Lane, E. Pastan and E Shortell, eds., The Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness. Farnham, UK, 2009, 547–64. ———. “The ‘Water of Thomas Becket’: Water as Medium, Metaphor, and Relic,” in C. Kosso and A. Scott, eds., The Nature and Function of Water, Baths, Bathing, and Hygiene from Antiquity Through the Renaissance. Leiden, 2009, 479–500. Jordan, K. Henry the Lion, trans. P.S. Falla. Oxford, 1986. Karlsson, G. The History of Iceland. Minneapolis, 2000. Karlsson, S. “Icelandic Lives of Thomas á Becket: Questions of Authorship,” in P.G. Foote, H. Palsson and D. Slay, eds., Proceedings of the First International Saga Conference: University of Edinburgh 1971. London, 1973, 212–43. Kauffmann, C.M. Romanesque Manuscripts: 1066–1190. London, 1975. Kay, S. The Chansons de Geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions. Oxford, 1995, 30–48. Kemp, E.W. Canonization and Authority in the Western Church. Oxford, 1948. ———. The Narratives of Gothic Stained Glass, trans. C.D. Saltzwedel. Cambridge, 1997. Kidson, P. “Gervase, Becket, and William of Sens,” Speculum 68, no. 4 (October 1993): 969–91. Kirby, J. Historians and the Church of England: Religion and Historical Scholarship, 1870–1920. Oxford, 2016. Knapp, D. “The Relic of a Seint: A Gloss on Chaucer’s Pilgrimage,” ELH 39, no. 1 (March 1972): 1–26. Knowles, D. “Archbishop Thomas Becket – The Saint,” Canterbury Cathedral Chronicle 65 (1970): 5–21. ———. The Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket. Cambridge, 1951, revised ed. 1970. ———. The Historian and Character and Other Essays. Cambridge, 1963, 98–128. ———. The Monastic Order in England: A History of Its Development from the Times of St Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council: 940–1216. Cambridge, 1966. ———. Thomas Becket. London, 1970. Koopmans, R. “Early Sixteenth-Century Stained Glass at St. Michael-le-Belfrey and the Commemoration of Thomas Becket in Late Medieval York,” Speculum 89/4 (October 2014): 1040–100. ———. “Kentish Pilgrims in Canterbury Cathedral’s Miracle Windows,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes LXXX (2017): 1–27. ———. “Testimonial Letters in the Late Twelfth-Century Collections of Thomas Becket’s Miracles,” in D.C. Mengel and L. Wolverton, eds., Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages: Essays to Honor John Van Engen. Notre Dame, IN, 2014, 168–201. ———. “Thomas Becket and the Royal Abbey of Reading,” English Historical Review CXXXI, no. 548 (2016): 1–30. ———. “Visions, Reliquaries, and the Image of ‘Becket’s Shrine’ in the Miracle Windows of Canterbury Cathedral,” Gesta 54, no. 1 (2015): 37–57.

322  Selected Bibliography ———. “Water Mixed with the Blood of Thomas: Contact Relic Manufacture Pictured in Canterbury Cathedral’s Stained Glass,” Journal of Medieval History 42, no. 5 (2016): 535–58. ———. Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England. Philadelphia, 2011. Kosztolnyik, Z.J. “The Church and Béla III of Hungary (1172–96): The Role of Archbishop Lukácsz of Estergom,” Church History 49 (1980): 375–86. ———. From Coloman the Learned to Bela III (1095–1196): Hungarian Domestic Policies and Their Impact Upon Foreign Affairs. Boulder, CO, 1987. Kow, S. “Politics and Culture in Hume’s History of England,” in S. Bourgault and R. Sparling, eds., A Companion to Enlightenment Historiography. Leiden, 2013, 61–92. Kuzmová, S. “Preaching on Martyr-Bishops in the Later Middle Ages: Saint Stanislaus of Kraków and Saint Thomas Becket,” in R. Unger and J. Basista, eds., Britain and Poland-Lithuania: Contact and Comparison from the Middle Ages to 1795. Leiden, 2008, 67–85. Lee, J. “Searching for Signs: Pilgrims’ Identity and Experience Made Visible in the Miracula Sancti Thomae Cantuariensis,” in S. Blick and Rita Tekippe, eds., Art and Architecture of Late Medieval Pilgrimage in Northern Europe and the British Isles. Leiden, 2005, 473–91. ———. “Signs of Affinity: Canterbury Pilgrims’ Signs Contextualized, 1171–1538,” Unpublished PhD diss., Emory University, 2003. Legge, M. Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters: The Influence of the Orders Upon AngloNorman Literature. Edinbugh, 1950. ———. “La Précocité de la literature Anglo-Normande,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médievalé 8 (1965): 327–49. Levin, C. Propaganda in the English Reformation: Heroic and Villainous Images of King John. Lewiston, NY, 1988. Levine, P. The Amateur and the Professional: Antiquarians, Historians and Archaeologists in Victorian England, 1838–1886. Cambridge, 1986. Lingard, J. The History of England, from the First Invasion of the Romans to the Accession of Henry VIII, 8 vols. London, 1819–30. Liszka, T. “The South English Legendaries,” in T. Liszka and L. Walker, eds., The North Sea World in the Middle Ages: Studies in the Cultural History of NorthWestern Europe. Dublin, 2001, 243–80. Little, C. “Again the Cleveland Book-Shaped Reliquary,” in J. Ehlers and D. Koetzsche, eds., Die Welfenschatz und sein Umkreis. Mainz, 1998, 77–92. ———. “The Road to Glory: New Early Images of Thomas Becket’s Life,” in E. Sears and T. Thomas, eds., Reading Medieval Images: The Art Historian and the Object. Ann Arbor, MI, 2002, 201–11. Loades, D. Politics, Censorship and the English Reformation. London, 1991. Löfstedt, L. “Guernes et son reportage sur la vie de S. Thomas Becket,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 93 (1992): 359–62. ———. “La loi canonique, les Plantagenêt et S. Thomas Becket,” Medioevo Romanzo 15 (1990): 3–16. Loftie, W. “Early Glass in Canterbury Cathedral,” Archaeological Journal xxxiii (1876): 1–14. Lönnroth, L. European Sources of Icelandic Saga-Writing: An Essay Based on Previous Studies. Stockholm, 1965.

Selected Bibliography 323 Luscombe, D. “John of Salisbury in Recent Scholarship,” in M. Wilks, ed., The World of John of Salisbury. Oxford, 1984, 21–37. Lutan-Hassner, S. Thomas Becket and the Plantagenets: Atonement Through Art. Leiden, 2015. MacCulloch, D. Thomas Cranmer: A Life. London, 1996. ———. The Reformation. London, 2003. Maitland, F.W. “Henry II and the Criminous Clerks,” in Roman Canon Law in the Church of England: Six Essays. London, 1898, 132–47. Manhes-Deremble, C. Les Vitraux Narratifs de la Cathédral de Chartres: Étude Iconographique. Paris, 1993. Marc’Hadour, G. “La Confrontation Becket-Henri II comme paradigm historique,” Cahiers de civilization médiévale 37, no. 145–146 (Janvier–Juin 1994): 100–10. Marotti, A.F. Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy: Catholic and Anti-Catholic Discourses in Early Modern England. Notre Dame, IN, 2005. Martin, H. “Le culte de Saint Thomas dans la province de Tours,” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du Colloque International de Sédières, Août 19–24, 1973. Paris, 1975, 153–8. Martz, L.L. “The Saint as Tragic Hero: Saint Joan and Murder in the Cathedral,” in H. Bloom, ed., T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. New York, 1988, 23–39. Mason, A. Guide to the Ancient Glass of Canterbury Cathedral. Canterbury, 1925. ———. What Became of the Bones of St Thomas? Cambridge, 1920. Matthews, D. Medievalism: A Critical History. Woodbridge, 2015. Mayer, T.F. “Becket’s Bones Burnt! Cardinal Pole and the Invention and Dissemination of an Atrocity,” in T.S. Freeman and T.F. Mayer, eds., Martyrs and Martyrdom in England, c. 1400–1700. Woodbridge, 2007, 126–43. ———. A Reluctant Author: Cardinal Pole and His Manuscripts. Philadelphia, 1999. Mayr-Harting, H. “The Conflict Between Henry II and Thomas Becket,” Chapter 4 in Religion, Politics and Society in Britain: 1066–1272. Harlow, UK, 2011, 74–94. McCoog, T.M. “’The Flower of Oxford’: The Role of Edmund Campion in Early Recusant Polemics,” Sixteenth Century Journal XXIV/4 (1993): 899–913. Meyer, P. Fragments d’une Vie de Saint Thomas de Cantorbery. Paris, 1885. Michael, M.A. Stained Glass of Canterbury Cathedral. London, 2004. Miller, A.G. “Knights, Bishops and Deer Parks: Episcopal Identity, Emasculation and Clerical Space in Medieval England,” in J.D. Thibodeaux, ed., Negotiating Clerical Identities: Priests, Monks and Masculinity in the Middle Ages. Hampshire, UK, 2010, 204–37. ———. “ ‘Tails’ of Masculinity: Knights, Clerics, and the Mutilation of Horses in Medieval England,” Speculum 88, no. 4 (October 2013): 958–95. Miller, W.I. Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland. Chicago, 1990. Mills, R. “Becket’s Heathen Mother,” in H. Blurton and J. Wogen-Browne, eds., Rethinking the South English Legendaries. Manchester, 2011, 381–402. ———. “Invisible Translation, Language Difference and the Scandal of Becket’s Mother,” in E. Campbell and R. Mills, eds., Rethinking Medieval Translation: Ethics, Politics, Theory. Cambridge, 2012, 125–46. Milman, H.S. History of Latin Christianity, 9 vols. London, 1854. ———. “The Vanished Memorials of St Thomas of Canterbury,” Archaeologia, 2nd series 53 (1892): 211–28.

324  Selected Bibliography Mitchell, R. Picturing the Past: English History in Text and Image, 1830–1870. Oxford, 2000. Morey, A. and C.N.L. Brooke. The Letters and Charters of Gilbert Foliot. Oxford, 1967. Morgan, N. “Matthew Paris, St Albans, London, and the Leaves of the ‘Life of St Thomas Becket’,” The Burlington Magazine 130/1019 (1988): 85–96. Morris, J. The Life and Martyrdom of Saint Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, 2nd ed. London, 1885. Moyes, J. “Warham, an English Primate on the Eve of the Reformation,” Dublin Review 114 (1894): 390–420. Mydans, S. Thomas: A Novel of the Life, Passion, and Miracles of Becket. New York, 1965. Netzloff, M. “The English Colleges and the English Nation: Allen, Persons, Verstegan, and Diasporic Nationalism,” in R. Corthell, F. Dolan, C. Highley and A. Marotti, eds., Catholic Culture in Early Modern England. Notre Dame, IN, 2007, 236–60. Nilgen, U. “The Manipulated Memory: Thomas Becket in Legend and Art,” in Wessel Reinink and Jeroen Stumpel, eds., Memory & Oblivion: Proceeding of the XXIXth International Congress of the History of Art Held in Amsterdam, 1–7 September 1996. Amsterdam, 1999, 765–72. ———. “Thomas Becket en Normandie,” in P. Bouet and F. Neveux, eds., Les saints dans la Normandie médiévale. Caen, 2000, 189–204. ———. “Thomas Becket und Braunschweig,” in J. Ehlers and D. Koetzsche, eds., Der Welfenschatz und sein Umkreis. Mainz, 1998, 219–42. Nilson, B. Cathedral Shrines of Medieval England. Woodbridge, 1998. Notin, V., S. Caudron and G. François, eds. Valérie et Thomas Becket: De l’influence des princes Plantagenêt dans l’Oeuvre de Limoges. Limoges, 1999. Ó Clabaigh, C. and M. Staunton. “Thomas Becket and Ireland,” in E. Mullins and D. Scully, eds., Listen, O Isles, unto me: Studies in Medieval Word and Image in Honour of Jennifer O’Reilly. Cork, 2011, 87–101. O’Day, R. The Debate on the English Reformation. London, Methuen, 1986. O’Donnell, T. “ ‘The Ladies Have Made Me Quite Fat’: Authors and Patrons at Barking Abbey,” in J. Brown and D. Bussell, eds., Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture: Authorship and Authority in a Female Community. York, 2012, 94–114. Okie, L. Augustan Historical Writing: Histories of England in the English Enlightenment. Lanham, MD, 1991. Oppitz-Trotman, G. “The Emperor’s Robe: Thomas Becket and Angevin Political Culture,” in Anglo-Norman Studies, 37. Woodbridge, 2015, 205–19. O’Reilly, J. “The Double Martyrdom of Thomas Becket: Hagiography or History,” in J.A.S. Evans and R.W. Unger, eds., Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, vol. VII. New York, 1985, 183–247. Orme, M. “A Reconstruction of Robert of Cricklade’s Vita et Miracula S. Thomae Cantuariensis,” Analecta Bollandiana 84 (1966): 379–98. Parish, H.L. Monks, Miracles and Magic: Reformation Representations of the Medieval Church. London, 2005. Partner, N. Serious Entertainments: The Writing of History in Twelfth-Century England. Chicago, 1977. Pearsall, D. Studies in the Vernon Manuscript. Cambridge, 1990.

Selected Bibliography 325 Penman, M. “The Bruce Dynasty, Becket and Scottish Pilgrimage to Canterbury, c. 1178–c. 1404,” Journal of Medieval History 32 (2006): 346–70. Peters, E.M. “The Archbishop and the Hedgehog,” in K. Pennington and R. Somerville, eds., Law, Church, and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner. Philadelphia, 1977, 167–84. Peters, T. “An Ecclesiastical Epic: Garnier de Pont-Ste-Maxence’s Vie de Saint Thomas le Martyr,” Mediaevistik 7 (1996): 181–202. ———. “Elements of the Chanson de Geste in an Old French Life of Becket’ Guernes’s Vie de Saint Thomas le Martyr,” Olifant 18 (1994): 278–88. Petersen, N.H. “’In Rama Sonat Gemitus . . .’ The Becket Story in a Danish Medievalist Music Drama, A Vigil for Thomas Becket,” in R. Utz and T. Shippey, eds., Medievalism in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of Leslie J. Workman. Turnhout, 1998, 341–58. Petkov, K. The Kiss of Peace: Ritual, Self, and Society in the High and Late Medieval West. Leiden, 2003. Pfaff, R.W. The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History. Cambridge, 2009. Pohl, B. “Abbas Qui et Scriptor? The handwriting of Robert of Torigni and His Scribal Activity as Abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel (1154–1186),” Traditio 69 (2014): 45–86. ———. “When Did Robert of Torigni First Receive Henry of Huntingdon’s Historia Anglorum, and Why Does It Matter?” Haskins Society Journal 26 (2015): 143–168. Pollock, F. and F.W. Maitland. The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I, 2 vols, 2nd ed. Boston, 1899. Poole, A.L. From Domesday Book to Magna Carta. Oxford, 1951. Raban, D. Law’s History: American Legal Thought and the Transatlantic Turn to History. Cambridge, 2013. Rackham, B. The Ancient Glass of Canterbury Cathedral. Canterbury, 1949. ———. The Stained Glass Windows of Canterbury Cathedral. Canterbury, 1957. Radford, L.B. Thomas of London Before His Consecration. Cambridge, 1894. Reames, S. The Legenda Aurea: A Reexamination of Its Paradoxical History. Madison, WI, 1985. ———. “Liturgical Offices for the Cult of St. Thomas Becket,” in T. Head, ed., Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology. New York, 2000. ———. “Reconstructing and Interpreting a Thirteenth-Century Office for the Translation of Thomas Becket,” Speculum 80, no. 1 (January 2005): 118–70. ———. “The Remaking of a Saint: Stephen Langton and the Liturgical Office for Becket’s Translation,” Hagiographica 7 (2000): 17–34. Reuter, T. “Velle sibi fieri in forma hoc: Symbolic Acts in the Becket Dispute,” in T. Reuter and J.L. Nelson, eds., Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities. Cambridge, 2006, 167–90. Richardson, H.G. and G.O. Sayles. The Governance of Mediaeval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta. Edinburgh, 1963. Roberts, P.B. “Archbishop Stephen Langton and His Preaching on Thomas Becket in 1220,” in T. Amos, et al., eds., De Ora Domini: Preacher and Word in the Middle Ages. Kalamazoo, MI, 1989, 75–92. ———. “Langton on Becket: A New Look and A New Text,” Medieval Studies XXXV (1973): 38–48.

326  Selected Bibliography ———. “Politics, Drama and the Cult of Thomas Becket,” in D. Wood, ed., Life and Thought in the Northern Church: c. 1100–c. 1700. Woodbridge, 1999, 199–237. ———. Stephanus de Lingua-Tonante: Studies in the Sermons of Stephen Langton. Toronto, 1968. ———. “Thomas Becket: The Construction and Deconstruction of a Saint from the Middle Ages to the Reformation,” in B.M. Kienzle, ed., Models of Holiness in Medieval Sermons. Louvain-La-Neuve, 1996, 1–22. ———. Thomas Becket in the Medieval Latin Preaching Tradition: An Inventory of Sermons About St. Thomas Becket c. 1170–c. 1400. The Hague, 1992. ———. “University Masters and Thomas Becket’ Sermons Preached on St Thomas of Canterbury at Paris and Oxford in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in History of Universities, 6, Oxford, 1986, 65–79. Ross, L. “Saint Thomas Becket in San Francisco,” in June-Ann Greeley, ed., Medieval Travel and Travelers. ARC Humanities Press, forthcoming. Russell, T., ed. The Works of the English and Scottish Reformers, 3 vols. London, 1828. Samson, A. “The South English Legendary: Constructing a Context,” in P.R. Cross and S.D. Lloyd, eds., Thirteenth Century England. Woodbridge, 1985, 185–95. Scully, R.E. “The Unmaking of a Saint: Thomas Becket and the English Reformation,” Catholic Historical Review 86 (2000): 579–602. Shadis, M. “Piety, Politics, and Power: The Patronage of Leonor of England and Her Daughters Berenguela of León and Blanche of Castile,” in J. McCash, ed., The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women. Athens, GA, 1996, 202–27. Shalem, A. The Chasuble of Thomas Becket: A Biography. Munich, 2017. Sheils, W. “Polemic as Piety: Thomas Stapleton’s Tres Thomae and Catholic Controversy in the 1580s,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 60, no. 1 (January 2009): 74–94. Sheppard, J.B. “The Canterbury Marching Watch with Its Pageant of St. Thomas,” Archaeologia Cantiana 12 (1878): 27–46. Short, I. “An Early Draft of Guernes Vie de Saint Thomas Becket,” Medium Aevum 46 (1977): 20–34. ———. “The Patronage of Beneit’s Vie de Thomas Becket,” Medium Aevum 56 (1987): 239–56. ———. “Patrons and Polyglots: French Literature in Twelfth-Century England,” Anglo-Norman Studies, 14, Woodbridge, 1992, 229–49. Siebert, D.T. The Moral Animus of David Hume. Newark, DE, 1990. Sigal, P-A. “Naissance et premier développement d’un exceptionnel: L’eau de Saint Thomas,” Cahiers de civilization médiévale 44 (2001): 35–44. Simmons, C.A. Reversing the Conquest: History and Myth in Nineteenth-Century British Literature. New Brunswick, NJ, 1990. Slocum, K.B. “Angevin Marriage Diplomacy and the Early Dissemination of the Cult of Thomas Becket,” Medieval Perspectives 14(1999): 214–28. ———. Liturgies in Honour of Thomas Becket. Toronto, 2004. ———. “The Making, Re-Making and Un-Making of the Cult of Saint Thomas Becket,” Hagiographica VII (2000): 3–16. ———. “Martir quod Stillat Primatis ab Ore Sigillat: Sealed with the Blood of Becket,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 165 (2012): 61–88. ———. “Optimus egrorum medicus fit Thomas Bonorum: Images of Saint Thomas Becket as Healer,” Sewanee Medieval Studies 10 (2000): 173–80.

Selected Bibliography 327 ———. “Prosas for Saint Thomas Becket,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 8, no. 1 (1999): 39–54. Smalley, B. The Becket Conflict and the Schools: A Study of Intellectuals in Politics. Oxford, 1973. Smith, C.H. “The New Rhythm,” in H. Bloom, ed., T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. New York, 1988, 41–53. Smith, R.J. The Gothic Bequest: Medieval Institutions in British Thought, 1688– 1863. Cambridge, 1987. Southern, R.W. The Monks of Canterbury and the Murder of Archbishop Becket. Canterbury, 1985. Speaight, R. Thomas Becket. London, 1938. Speed, D. “The Construction of the Nation in Medieval English Romance,” in C. Meale, ed., Readings in Medieval English Romance. Cambridge, 1994, 135–57. Spencer, B. “Pilgrim Souvenirs from the Medieval Waterfront Excavations at Trig Lane, London, 1974–76,” Transactions of the London Middlesex Archaeological Society (1982): 304–23. ———. Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges: Medieval Finds from Excavations in London. London, 1998. ———. Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum: Medieval Catalogue, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges. Salisbury, 1990. Stanley, A. Historical Memorials of Canterbury. London, 1854, reprint ed. 1912. Staunton, M. “Exile in the Lives of Anselm and Thomas Becket,” in L. Napram and E. van Houts, eds., Exile in the Middle Ages: Selected Proceedings from the International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, 8–11 July 2002. Turnhout, 2004, 159–80. ———. Thomas Becket and His Biographers. Woodbridge, 2006. ———. “Thomas Becket’s Conversion,” in C. Harper-Bill, ed., Anglo-Norman Studies, XXI. Woodbridge, 1995, 193–211. ———. “Thomas Becket in the Chronicles,” in M.P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. Woodbridge, 2016, 95–111. Stenton, D. “Roger of Howden and Benedict,” The English Historical Review 68, no. 269 (October 1953): 574–82. Stringer, K. “Arbroath Abbey in Context: 1178–1320,” in G Barrow, ed., The Declaration of Arbroath: History Significance, Setting. Edinburgh, 2003, 116–41. Stubbs, W. Constitutional History of England, 3 vols, Oxford, 1874–78. ———. Historical Introductions to the Rolls Series, ed. A. Hassall. London, 1902, 35–43. Sullivan, M.G. “Rapin, Hume and the Identity of the Historian in Eighteenth Century England,” History of European Ideas 28 (2002): 145–62. Sweetinburgh, S. “Caught in the Cross-Fire: Patronage and Institutional Politics in Late Twelfth-Century Canterbury,” in P. Dalton, C. Insley and L. Wilkinson, eds., Cathedrals, Communities and Conflict in the Anglo-Norman World. Woodbridge, 2011, 187–202. Tatton-Brown, T. “Canterbury and the Architecture of Pilgrimage Shrines in England,” in Colin Morris and Peter Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan. Cambridge, 2002, 90–107. Thiemke, H. Die M.E. Thomas Beket-legende des Gloucesterlegendars, kritisch herausgegeben mit Einleitung, Palaestra, CXXXI. Berlin, 1919.

328  Selected Bibliography Thomas, H. “Shame, Masculinity, and the Death of Thomas Becket,” Speculum 87, no. 4 (October 2012): 1050–88. Thompson, A. Everyday Saints and the Art of Narrative in the South English Legendary. Aldershot, 2003. Turner, V. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, NY, 1974. Turville-Petre, T. England the Nation: Language, Literature, and National Identity, 1290–1340. Oxford, 1996. Uruszczak, W. “Les répercussions de la mort de S. Thomas Becket en Pologne, (XIIe– XIIIe siècles),” in R. Foreville, ed., Thomas Becket: Actes du colloque International de Sédières, août 19–24, 1973). Paris, 1975, 115–25. Van Houts, E. “Le roi et son historien: Henry II Plantagenêt et Robert de Torigni, abbé du Mont-Saint-Michel,” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 37, no. 145 (1994): 115–18. Vauchez, A. Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell. Cambridge, 1997. Vaughan, R. Matthew Paris. Cambridge, 1958. Vincent, N. “John Allen Giles and Herbert of Bosham: The Criminous Clerk as Editor,” in M. Staunton, ed., The World of Herbert of Bosham. Woodbridge, forthcoming. ———. “The Murderers of Thomas Becket,” in Natalie Fryde and Dirk Reitz, eds., Bischofsmord im Mittelalter: Murder of Bishops. Göttingen, 2003, 211–72. ———. “The Pilgrimages of the Angevin Kings of England, 1154–1172,” in C. Morris and P. Roberts, eds., Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan. Cambridge, 2002, 12–45. ———. “Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury,” in L.J. Bataillon, N. Béreion, G. Dahan and R. Quinto, eds., Étienne Langton, Prédicateur, Bibliste, Théologien. Turnhout, 2010, 51–123. ———. “Thomas Becket,” in G. Atkins, ed., Making and Remaking Saints in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Manchester, 2016, 92–111. ———. “William of Canterbury and Benedict of Peterborough: The Manuscripts, Date and Context of the Becket Miracle Collections,” in E. Bozoky, ed., Hagiographie, Idéologie et Politique au Moyen Âge en Occident. Turnhout, 2012, 347–87. Vollrath, H. “The Kiss of Peace,” in R. Lesaffer, ed., Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One. Cambridge, 2004, 162–83. ———. “Was Thomas Becket Chaste? Understanding Episodes in the Becket Lives,” in J. Gillingham, ed., Anglo-Norman Studies XXVII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, 2004. Woodbridge, 2005, 198–209. Walberg, E. “Date et source de la vie de Saint Thomas de Cantobéry par Beneit, moine de Saint-Alban,” Romania. Recueil Trimestriel 44 (1915–17): 407–26. Reprinted in Walberg, La Tradition hagiographique. ———. La Tradition hagiographique de Saint Thomas Becket avant la fin du XIIe siècle. Paris, 1929. Walker, R. “Leonor of England and Eleanor of Castile: Anglo-Iberian Marriage and Cultural Exchange in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” in M. BullónFernández, ed., England and Iberia in the Middle Ages, 12th–15th Century. New York, 2007, 67–87. Walker, S. “Political Saints in Later Medieval England,” in R.H. Britnell and A.J. Pollard, eds., The McFarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society. New York, 1995, 77–106.

Selected Bibliography 329 Walsham, A. “Miracles and the Counter-Reformation Mission to England,” The Historical Journal 46, no. 4 (2003): 779–815. Ward, B. Miracles and the Medieval Mind: Theory, Record and Event, 1000–1215. Philadelphia, 1982. Warren, W.L. Henry II. Berkeley, CA, 1973. Webster, P. “Crown, Cathedral and Conflict: King John and Canterbury,” in P. Dalton, C. Insley and L.J. Wilkinson, eds., Cathedrals, Communities and Conflict in the Anglo-Norman World. Woodbridge, 2011, 203–19. ———. “Crown Versus Church After Becket: King John, St Thomas and the Interdict,” in M-P. Gelin and P. Webster, eds., The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c. 1170–c. 1220. Woodbridge, 2016, 147–70. Wellendorf, J. “The Attraction of the Earliest Old Norse Vernacular Hagiography,” in H. Antonsson and I. Garipzanov, eds., Saints and Their Lives on the Periphery: Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c. 1000–1200). Belgium, 2010, 241–58. Wells, M. “The South English Legendary in Its Relation to the Legenda Aurea,” PMLA 51, no. 2 (June 1936): 337–60. White, P.W. Theatre and Reformation: Protestantism, Patronage, and Playing in Tudor England. Cambridge, 1993. Williams, D. Saints Alive: Word, Image, and Enactment in the Lives of the Saints. Montreal & Kingston, 2010. Williamson, P., ed. The Medieval Treasury: The Art of the Middle Ages in the Victoria and Albert Museum. London, 1986, new edition, 1998. Willis, R. The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral, 1845, reprint ed. Richmond, KY, 2006. Winston, R. Thomas Becket. New York, 1967. Wogan-Browne, J. “ ‘Bet . . . to . . . rede on holy seyntes lyves. . . ’: Romance and Hagiography Again,” in C. Meale, ed., Readings in Medieval English Romance. Cambridge, 1994, 83–97. ———. Saints’ Lives and Women’s Literary Culture, c. 1150–1300. Oxford, 2001. Wolf, K. “Pride and Politics in Late-Twelfth-Century Iceland: The Sanctity of Bishop Thorlakr Thorhallsson,” in T. DuBois, ed., Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia. Toronto, 2008, 241–70. Woolf, D.R. “The Power of the Past: History, Ritual and Political Authority in Tudor England,” in P.A. Fideler and T.F. Mayer, eds., Political Thought and the Tudor Commonwealth: Deep Structure, Discourse and Disguise. London, 1992, 19–49. ———. “The Rhetoric of Martyrdom: Generic Contradiction and Narrative Strategy in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments,” in T.F. Mayer and D.R. Woolf, eds., The Rhetorics of Life-Writing in Early Modern Europe: Forms of Biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV. Ann Arbor, MI, 1995, 243–82. Yvernault, M. “Reading History in Enamel: The Journey of Thomas Becket’s Experience from Canterbury to Limoges,” in C. Royer-Hemet, ed., Canterbury: A Medieval City. Newcastle Upon Tyne, 2010, 136–59.

Index

Note: Page numbers in italic indicate figures on the corresponding pages. Abbott, Edwin A. 234 – 235, 308 Abelard, Peter 259 Actes and Monuments (Foxe) 160 – 161, 171, 298 Against the Treasons of Thomas a Becket (Bale) 156 Alan of Tewkesbury 21 – 22, 28 – 29, 32, 44, 148 Alexander, James W. 2, 250 Alexander II, King of Scotland 81 Alexander III, King of Scotland 81 Alexander III, Pope 11, 51, 73 – 74, 79, 173, 177 – 178, 184, 203, 296; Berington on 209 – 210; canonization of Becket and 89, 93, 97; decree of 1178 255 Alfonso VIII 71 – 73 Allen, William 179 – 180 American Historical Review 289 American legal scholarship on Becket 247 – 257 ampullae 117 – 122, 118 Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi (Dreves and Blume) 89 anger and conflict studies 293 – 295 Angers, stained-glass windows of 128 – 129 Angevin marriage alliances 71 – 75 Anonymous I (Roger of Pontigny) 21, 27 – 28 Anonymous II (Lambeth) biographer 20, 23 – 24 Anouilh, Jean 217, 301 Answere to the Fifth Part of Reportes Lately set forth by Syr Edward Cooke Knight, the Kinges Attorney general (Coke) 176 Antonsson, Haki 58

Apologia (Newman) 226 Apostle Thomas 171 – 172 Aqua Thoma quinques 125 Arason, Gu(d)mundr 79 – 80 architecture, iconography of Becket in 129 – 130 aristocracy 43, 55, 56, 217, 292 Arundel, Thomas 122, 123 Assassinio nella cattedrale (Pizzetti) 300 Augustine 23 Aurell, Martin 293 – 294 authority: civil 225; jurisdictional 251; spiritual 273 Backhouse, Janet 43 Backster, Margery 144 Bainham, James 147 Bale, John 154 – 157, 161, 172 Barbarossa, Frederick 73 Barlow, Frank 8, 20, 70, 95, 278 – 280, 281, 289 Barlow, Stephen 300 Baronius, Caesar 3, 115, 176 – 178 Bartlett, Robert 99 Becket (film) 299 Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (Robertson) 220 Becket, Aulisandre 49 – 50 Becket, Gilbert 49 Becket, Thomas: 12th century scholarship on (see twelfth century biographers of Thomas Becket); 13th century scholarship on (see thirteenth-century translations); 18th century scholarship on (see eighteenth-century scholarship on Becket); 19th century scholarship on

Index  331 (see nineteenth-century scholarship on Becket); accounts of youth of 92; appointed by Henry II 10; artistic images of (see iconography of Becket); biographical sketch of 9 – 13; burial of 13, 67 – 68; canonization of 89, 234; Christological parallelism and 19 – 20, 28, 33, 46, 69, 102, 126 – 127; conflict with Henry II 10 – 12; cult of (see cult of Thomas Becket); defense of the rights of the Church against the Crown 50 – 51, 96; dramatic plays about 144 – 145, 155 – 156, 299 – 301; exile of 19, 45 – 46, 92, 280; miracles and cult of (see miracles); modern and postmodern scholarship on (see modern and postmodern scholarship on Becket); in modern politics 301 – 302; murder of 1, 12 – 13, 48, 67 – 68, 93 – 94, 143; nature of scholarship on 1 – 9, 17, 307 – 309; operas about 300 – 301; opposition to return of 11 – 12; parents of 49 – 50; prepared and anxious about his martyrdom 12; romantic accounts of life of 48 – 50; sermons studies about 101 – 103; sexuality of 290 – 292; transformation to ecclesiastical life 18 – 19, 92, 95; twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship on (see twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship on Becket) Becket Conflict and the Schools, The (Smalley) 257 Becket Controversy, The (Jones) 2 “Becket Controversy in Recent Historiography, The” (Alexander) 2, 250 Becket in Art (Borenius) 115 Becket Leaves (Matthew Paris) 43 – 46 Becket Offices: announcement of 89; liturgical historiography 89 – 90; liturgy for the Office of the Translation 97 – 101; sermons studies and 101 – 103; shape of liturgy 90 – 97; see also cult of Thomas Becket Becket Or the Honor of God (Anouilh) 217 Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England, 1170 – 1300 (Binski) 130 – 131

Bela III of Hungary 74 Benedict of Peterborough 4, 20, 24, 27, 32, 44, 51; on ampullae 117; cult in Poland and 78; hostility in 294; image of Lamb of God employed by 131; liturgy created by 89; on miracles related to Becket 67 – 69, 234 – 235; modern scholarship on 260 – 261 Beneit of St Albans 21, 29 – 30 Berington, Joseph 7, 195, 208 – 212, 308 Betteridge, Thomas 155 Bigelow, Melville Madison 247 – 250 Binski, Paul 130 Blick, Sarah 120 – 121, 132 Blume, Clemens 89 Boffey, Julia 48 – 49 Bollerman, Karen 127 Book of Common Prayer (Cranmer) 160 Book of Martyrs (Foxe) 222 Borenius, Tancred 79, 110, 112, 127 Bowie, Colette 72 Brandsson, Arngrimar 54 Brenner, Elma 76 Breuis Dialogismus (Houliston) 186 – 187 Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesiae Sarisburiensis (Sarum Breviary) 89 Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesie Eboracensis (York Breviary) 89 Brictius of Tours 92 Brisac, Catherine 127 – 128 Brooke, Christopher 275 – 276 Brooke, Zachary N. 250, 275 Brown, Richard 176 Brown, W. C. 293 Bruhn, Siglind 300 Bucer, Martin 159 Bull of Excommunication 156 – 157 burial of Thomas Becket 13, 67 – 68 Burke, Edmund 7, 195, 197, 205, 207, 212, 307 – 308 Butler, John 157 Campion, Edmund 179 – 180, 186 canonization of Becket 89, 97, 234; translation after 97 – 101; see also liturgy, Becket Canterbury, Cathedral 90; stained-glass windows of 124 – 125 Canterbury martyr 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 17; Becket 195 – 208; Berington, Joseph 208 – 212; Catholic response

332 Index 208 – 212; continuing nationalism 265 – 269; and first miracles 67 – 71; Henry II 195 – 208; ideal government 195 – 208; mid-century 269 – 280; in twentieth and twenty-first centuries: biographies 280 – 284 Cantor, Norman 289 Capet, Margaret 74 Catalogue of the Bishops of England (Godwin) 162 Catholic Counter Reformation 170 – 171, 307; biography and discourse of 171 – 178; martyrdom and the English mission and 178 – 188, 183 Caudron, Simone 114, 115 Caviness, Madeline 124, 125 – 126 Cecil, William 180 Charles V, Emperor 148, 156 Chartres, stained-glass windows of 127 – 128 Chasuble of Thomas Becket: A Biography, The (Shalem) 133 Cheney, C. R. 250 Cheney, Mary 26 Christianization of Iceland 54 – 59 Christological parallelism 19 – 20, 28, 33, 46, 69, 102, 126 – 127; in imagery 116 – 117; in stained-glass windows 126 – 127 Chronicle of Melrose 82 chroniclers, twelfth-century 32 – 33 Church of St Thomas of Canterbury 74 Church Review (Robertson) 218 Cistercian order 75 class hatred 294 Coke, Edward 176 Colet, John 146 Comey, James B. 301 – 302 Constitutions of Clarendon 7, 19, 162; eighteenth century scholarship on 195, 199, 201, 206, 211; modern scholarship on 245, 248, 254, 258, 281 Council of Northampton 282, 290, 293 Council of Trent 170 Courtenay, William 122 Coutances, stained-glass windows of 128 – 129 Cranmer, Thomas 122 ,  151– 152, 155 – 156, 158, 160 criminous clerks 7, 19, 57 – 58 Cromwell, Thomas 3, 6, 143, 149, 151 – 153, 156, 307

cult of Thomas Becket: Angevin marriage alliances and the early dissemination of 71 – 75; Catholic Counter Revolution and (see Catholic Counter Reformation); development in Europe and Scandinavia 75 – 82; dramatic plays about 144 – 145, 155 – 156; Henrician Reformation and 143, 151 – 157; Henry VIII and 143; iconography of (see iconography of Becket); the Lollards and 143 – 151; miracles and 67 – 71; Reformation writers and 148; sermons studies and 101 – 103; see also Becket, Thomas; Becket Offices Davidson, Clifford 145, 299 Davis, J. F. 144, 152, 153 De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae (Parker) 161 de Beaumont, Guillaume 129 de Broc, Ranulph 202, 292 de Burgh, Hubert 100 de Cavalleriis, J. B. 182, 183 de Celle, Pierre 127 Decretum (Gratian) 247, 253 de Diceto, Ralph 4, 32, 161, 246 de Hamel, Christopher 43 De martyrio S. Thomae Cantuar, Archiepiscopi Carmen rythmicum, historicum, allegoricum et morale, ex pervetusto codice 173 de Morville, Hugh 12 Demus, Otto 73 – 74 de Tracy, William 12 Dillon, Anne 160, 182, 184 – 185 Dobson, R. Barrie 17, 144, 148 Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society (Turner) 289 dramatic plays 144 – 145, 155 – 156 Dreves, Guido Maria 89 Duffy, Eamon 51, 158 Duggan, Alfred 298 Duggan, Anne J. 8, 22, 31, 70, 90, 202, 280 – 282, 284, 296 – 297 Duggan, Charles 7, 250, 251 – 254, 281 Eales, Richard 67, 99 “Early Imagery of Thomas Becket, The” (Gameson) 131 Ecclesiae Anglicanae Trophaea (The Trophies of the English Church) (J. B. de Cavalleriis) 182

Index  333 Edmund of Abingdon 47 Edward VI 158 – 160, 170 eighteenth-century scholarship on Becket 195, 307 – 308, 309; on Henry II, Becket, and the ideal government 195 – 208; Joseph Berington and the Catholic response in 208 – 212 Eliot, T. S. 299 – 300, 301 Elizabethan Act of Uniformity 160 Elizabeth I 160 – 164, 170, 173, 180, 186 Elton, G. R. 153 English Martyrologye (Wilson) 185 English Reformation, the 171 – 172; Elizabeth I and 160 – 164; Henry VIII and 143, 151 – 157; martyrdom and the English mission in 178 – 188, 183; reigns of Edward VI and Mary and 158 – 160; see also Catholic Counter Reformation Episcopal Colleagues of Archbishop Thomas Becket, The (Knowles) 271, 273 Erasmus 146 Evelyn, John 185 Execution of Justice in England, The (Cecil) 180 exile of Becket 19, 45 – 46, 92, 280 Ex insperato (John of Salisbury) 20 – 22, 24, 54, 92, 93 Fagius, Paul 159 Falcon and the Dove, The (Duggan) 298 Faventinus, Johannes 254 – 255 Fisher, John 180 fitz Simon, Simon 29 FitzStephen, William 13, 19 – 20, 23, 25 – 27, 96, 280, 291 fitzUrse, Reginald 12 – 13, 277 – 278 Foliot, Gilbert 23 – 24, 25 – 26, 29, 173, 255 – 257, 273 Foote, Peter 53 Foreville, Raymonde 8, 76, 115, 269 – 271 Fournee, Jean 76 Foxe, John 147, 160 – 161, 171, 175, 222, 307 Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (Foxe) 160 Fraher, Richard 7, 250, 254 France: development of Becket cult in 75 – 76; stained-glass windows of 125 – 129 Fraternitatis vestrae (Becket) 255, 256 Freeman, E. A. 226, 229 – 232 Frevell, George 159

friendship 295 – 297 From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (Poole) 267 Froude, James A. 228 – 233, 276 Froude, Richard Hurrell 224 – 227 Fry, Christopher 301 Gameson, Richard 110, 112, 116, 131 Garner, Helen 299 Garnet, Thomas 185 Gelin, Marie-Pierre 96, 124 – 125, 131 George, Lord Lyttelton 3, 7, 195 – 207, 212, 222, 307 – 308; Berington and 208 – 209 Gerald of Wales 32 Germany, development of Becket cult in 77 Gervase of Canterbury 4, 32, 129 Getty, John Paul 43 Gibbons, Katy 171, 181 Giles, John Allen 27, 219, 220 Gilley, Sheridan 223 God and my Right (Duggan) 298 Godwin, Francis 162 – 163 Górecki, P. 293 Görlach, Manfred 51 Gospels of Henry the Lion 71 Gostling, W. 124 Gransden, Antonia 21 Greenaway, George 21 Gregory, Brad S. 179 Gregory VII, Pope 202 – 203, 270, 278 Gregory XIII, Pope 179 Griffin, Benjamin 144 Grim, Edward 12 – 13, 20, 22 – 23, 26 – 28, 96; on heavenly signs at birth of Becket 18; imagery of 112, 115 – 116; in manuscript illuminations 112 Guernes of Ponte-Sainte-Maxence 21, 26 – 27 Gunnsteinsson, Bergr 53 Gunpowder Plot 185 Guy, John 283 – 284 Hahn, Cynthia 43 Hamelinck, R. 48 Handel, Katherine 43 Harpsfield, Nicholas 157, 159, 174 Haseldine, Julian 295 – 296 Hastings, Francis 175 – 176 Hayes, Dawn 130 Hearn, M. F. 129 – 130 Heffernan, Thomas 47

334 Index Henderson, George 43 Henrician Reformation, the 143, 151 – 157 Henry (Bishop of Winchester) 95 Henry I 251 Henry I (Count of Champagne) 95 Henry II 4, 6, 7, 8, 307; Angevin marriage alliances and family of 71 – 75; appointment of Becket by 10; artistic images of 45 – 46; Brooke on 275 – 276; conflict with Becket 10 – 12; cult of Becket and 70; exile of Becket by 19, 45 – 46; Henry VIII and 148 – 150, 152; Knowles on 274 – 275; modern and postmodern scholarship on 250 – 257, 296 – 297; pilgrimage to Canterbury by 70 – 71, 181; Pollock and Maitland on 245 – 246; Scotland and 81 – 82; in stained-glass windows 127, 128 – 129 Henry II (Warren) 276 “Henry II and the Criminous Clerks” (Maitland) 7, 245 – 247 Henry III 99, 100; coronation of 203 Henry IV, Emperor 278 Henry the Lion 71 – 72 Henry VIII 1, 5 – 6, 170 – 171, 186, 307 – 308; Bull of Excommunication against 156 – 157; decree regarding destruction of evidence of Becket as martyr 143, 151 – 154; divorce of 149, 150; growing hostility toward Becket of 148 – 149; Henrician Reformation under 143, 151 – 157; Lollards and religious dissent and 143 – 151 Herbert of Bosham 19, 21, 25, 30 – 32, 44, 68, 148, 161, 177, 291; on ampullae 117; modern and postmodern scholarship on 256, 259 Hereford Breviary, The 90 Hesketh, Ian 229 High Church Anglicanism 227 Hilary of Chichester 273 Hindman, Sandra 46 Histoire d’Angleterre (de RapinThoyras) 195 Histoire de la conquête de l’Angleterre (Thierry) 3 Historian and Character, The (Knowles) 271 Historical Memorials of Canterbury (Stanley) 221 History (Hume) 196

History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (Froude) 227 History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I (Maitland and Pollock) 245 History of Latin Christianity (Milman) 218 History of the Contest between Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Henry II, King of England (Froude) 224 – 226 History of the Reign of Henry the Second and of Richard and John, His Sons (Berington) 208 Hitton, Thomas 150 Holinshed, Raphael 164 Houliston, Victor 170 – 171, 173, 187 – 188 Hughes, Andrew 90, 91 Hugh of Horsea 13 Hume, David 3, 7, 195 – 208, 212, 307 – 308 Hutton, W. H. 7, 265 – 267 Iceland: Christianization of 54 – 59; development of Becket cult in 79 – 80 Icelandic Saga 4, 51, 53 – 59, 174 iconography of Becket 44 – 46, 73 – 74, 78 – 79; architecture and pilgrimage 129 – 130; at the English College 182; interdisciplinary studies of 130 – 133; Limoges reliquaries 114, 114 – 117; manuscript illumination 110 – 114, 111, 113; pilgrim signs and ampullae 117 – 122, 118, 119, 121, 132; seals 122, 123; stained-glass windows 123 – 129, 132 imagery of Becket see iconography of Becket Imre, King 74 Innocent III, Pope 98 – 99, 247 Ireland, development of Becket cult in 80 – 81 Italy, development of Becket cult in 78 – 79 Ivanhoe (Scott) 217 James of Voragine 51 Jamison, Evelyn 73 Janofsky, Klaus 47 Jesuits 170, 179, 184 – 188 Jewel, John 163 Joanna (daughter of Henry II) 73 John, King 98 – 99

Index  335 John of Salisbury 19 – 23, 28 – 29, 32, 44, 54, 148, 176, 177, 204, 248; Becket Office and 91; Becket’s last conversation with 272 – 273; liturgy created by 89; on manuscript illuminations 112; on Margaret Capet 74; on miracles related to Becket 68; modern and postmodern scholarship on 256, 259; William of Sens and 75 – 76 Jones, Thomas M. 2 Jordan, Alyce 97, 124, 125, 128, 129 Jordan, Karl 71 Joye, George 150 Judicature Acts 249 Karlsson, Stefan 54, 58 Kaufman, C. M. 112 Keble, John 224, 227 Kemp, Wolfgang 124 Kilwardby, Robert 112 King, Angus 302 Kingsley, Charles 229 Knaveries of Thomas Becket, The (Bale) 156 Knight, Thomas 156 Knowles, David 1, 8, 17, 98, 202, 271 – 275; on Becket’s sexuality 290 – 291 Koopmans, Rachel 24 – 25, 124, 131 – 132, 260 – 261 Kow, Simon 199 Langton, Stephen 98 – 101, 124, 126, 148, 267, 303 Lansdowne Anonymous (III) 21 Late Medieval Liturgical Offices: Resources for Electronic Research (Hughes) 90 La tradition hagiographique de saint Thomas Becket avant la fin du XIIe siècle (Walberg) 2 Laurentano, Michele 182 le Bret, Richard 12 – 13 Lee, Jennifer 119 – 120 Legenda Aurea (James of Voragine) 51 – 53 L’eglise et la Royauté en Angleterre sous Henry II Plantagenet (Foreville) 269 Le Jubilé de Saint Thomas Becket du XIIIe au XVe siècle (Foreville) 269 – 270 Leland, John 148 Leonor (wife of Alfonso VIII) 71, 72 – 73

Levin, Carole 152 – 153 Levine, Philippa 220 Life and Letters of Thomas á Becket, Now First Gathered from the Contemporary Historians, The (Giles) 219 Life and Times of Thomas Becket, The (Froude) 228 – 232 Limoges reliquaries 114, 114 – 117 Lingard, John 222 – 224 liturgy, Becket: Catholic Counter Reformation and 186 – 187; historiography of 89 – 90; for Office of the Translation 97 – 101; shape of 90 – 97 Loftie, W. J. 124 Lollards, the 143 – 151 Louis VII, King of France 11, 51, 75, 77, 93, 95, 163; exploration of anger in 294; jealousy of Henry 201; stained-glass windows and 125, 127, 129 Lukácsz, Archbishop 74 – 75 Lumen ad revelationem gentium: Iconographie et liturgie à Christ Church, Canterbury, 1175 – 1220 (Gelin) 131 Lutan-Hassner, Sara 71, 72, 116 MacCulloch, Diarmaid 160 Magna Carta 99, 211 Magnússon, Eiríkr 30 – 31 Maitland, Frederick William 7, 245 – 247, 252, 273, 281 Makers of National History (Hutton) 265 manuscript iconography of Becket 110 – 114, 111, 113 Marden, John 159 Martin, Henri 76 Martz, Louis 300 Mary I 158 – 160, 178 Mason, Arthur James 124, 157 Matilda (mother of Henry II) 72 Matthews, David 297 – 298 Mayer, Thomas F. 157, 159 – 160 Medieval Church and Society: Collected Essays (Brooke) 275 medievalism 297 – 301 Melancthon, Philip 156 Mendyk, Sandra 298 Merchant’s Daughter, The (Mendyk) 298 Metalogicon (John of Salisbury) 21 Meyer, Paul 44

336 Index Miller, Andrew G. 291 – 292 Milman, Henry Hart 157, 218, 227, 233 miracles: modern and postmodern scholarship on 259 – 261; nineteenthcentury views on 232 – 236; pilgrimage of Henry II and 70 – 71; pilgrims to Canterbury seeking 69 – 70; recording of 67 – 69 Miracles and the Medieval Mind (Ward) 259 modern and postmodern scholarship on Becket 245, 289 – 290, 308 – 309; American legal scholarship in 247 – 257; anger and conflict studies in 293 – 295; friendship in 295 – 297; gender and sexuality in 290 – 292; medievalism in 297 – 301; miracles in 259 – 261; Pollock and Maitland in 245 – 247; Smalley in 257 – 259; twelfth-century intellectual currents in 257 – 259; see also twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship on Becket Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester 90 Monreale mosaic of Becket 73 – 74, 78 – 79 More, Thomas 150 – 151, 171, 173 – 174, 180 – 181 Morgan, Nigel 43 Morris, John 233 – 234 mosaic of Becket, Monreale 73 – 74, 78 – 79 Murder in the Cathedral (Eliot) 299 – 300 murder of Thomas Becket 1, 12 – 13, 48, 67 – 68, 93 – 94, 143; in manuscript illuminations 111 – 114; plays about 144 – 145 Mydans, Shelley 298 My Life for My Sheep (Duggan) 298 nationalism 217 – 219, 265 – 269 Nederman, Cary 127 Newes from Spayne and Holland (Persons) 185 Newman, John Henry 224 – 225, 235 Nilgen, Ursula 76 Nilson, Ben 20 nineteenth-century scholarship on Becket 216, 308, 309; Froude, Freeman, and scholarly strife in 228 – 232; miracles and 232 – 236;

nationalism, and the “Norman Yoke” in 217 – 219; Oxford Movement and 224 – 228; scholarship and the professionalization of history in 219 – 222; Victorian religious controversy and 222 – 228 Normandy, development of Becket cult in 76 – 77 Norman vernacular literature see thirteenth-century translations “Norman Yoke” 217 – 219 North American Review 220 Ó Clabaigh, Colman 80 O’Day, Rosemary 160 Office of the Translation 97 – 101 operas 300 – 301 O’Reilly, Jennifer 91 Orme, Margaret 54 Oxford Movement 224 – 228, 298 Palgrave, Francis 217 Paris, Matthew 29 – 30, 43 – 44, 46, 161, 176 Parish, Helen 152 – 153, 161, 174 Parker, Matthew 160 – 162 Passio (Benedict of Peterborough) 24 Paul III, Pope 170 Penman, Michael 81 Persons, Robert 175, 176, 179, 185 Peter of Blois 176, 177 – 178 Peters, Edward 250, 255 – 256 Petersen, Nils Holger 300 – 301 Philomythus: An Antidote Against Credulity (Abbott) 235 pilgrimage experience and architecture 129 – 130 pilgrim signs 117 – 122, 119, 121, 132 Pius V, Pope 181 Pizzetti, Ildebrando 300 plays, dramatic 144 – 145, 155 – 156, 299 – 301 poetry see South English Legendary Poland, development of Becket cult in 77 – 78 Pole, Reginald 156, 158 – 160 Policraticus (John of Salisbury) 21, 253 politics, twenty-first century 301 – 303 Pollock, Frederick 245 – 247 Poole, Austin Lane 7, 267 – 269, 275 Practise of papistical Prelates, The (Tyndale) 147 “Price of Loyalty, The” (Duggan) 297

Index  337 Provostal Church of St Thomas the Martyr, Esztergom 74 psychological interpretations of Becket, mid-century 269 – 280 Purvey, John 144 Pusey, Edward 224, 227 Quadrilogus I 21, 25, 32, 44; South English Legendary and 48 Quadrilogus II 21, 32, 54 Raban, David 245 Rackham, Bernard 124 Radford, L.B. 31 Rafn Sveinbjarnarson of Eyrr 79 – 80 Rapin-Thoyras, Paul de 3, 195 – 206, 212; Berington on 209 Reames, Sherry 90, 97, 100 – 101 Reformation see Henrician Reformation Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores 220 Reuter, Timothy 2, 58, 293, 294 – 295 Robert of Cricklade 21, 27, 29 Robert of Torigni 32 Roberts, Peter 146, 151, 154, 156, 186 Roberts, Phyllis 99, 101, 143, 163 Robertson, James Craiggie 30 – 31, 218 – 219, 220 – 221, 227, 232 Roger of Hoveden 32, 178 Roger of Pontigny 21, 27 – 28 Rolls Series 220 – 221, 232, 234, 257 Roman Catholic Church see Catholic Counter Reformation romance in accounts of Becket’s life 48 – 50 Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Vauchez) 18 Saints Alive: Word, Image, and Enactment in the Lives of the Saints (Williams) 131 Saints in the Limelight: Representations of the Religious Quest on the Post1945 Operatic Stage (Bruhn) 300 Samson, Annie 47 – 48 Sarum Breviary 90, 94, 100 Scotland, development of Becket cult in 81 – 82 Scott, Walter 217 Scully, Robert 156, 157 seals 122, 123 Sens Cathedral 125 – 127 sermons on Becket: the Lollards and 145 – 146; studies of 101 – 103

sexuality of Becket 290 – 292 Seymour, Edward 158 Shalem, Avinoam 133 “Shame, Masculinity, and the Death of Thomas Becket” (Thomas) 292 Sheils, William 172 Short, Ian 26, 27, 30 Simmons, Clare 218, 219, 228 Slocum, Kay Brainerd 90 Smalley, Beryl 31, 257 – 259, 278 Smith, Carol H. 299 Smith, Goldwin 228 Smith, R. J. 226 Society of Jesus 170, 179, 184 – 188 South English Legendary (Görlach) 4, 46 – 53, 184 Speaight, Robert 298 Speculum historiale (Vincent of Beauvais) 54 Speed, Diane 47 Spencer, Brian 118 stained-glass windows 123 – 124; Canterbury 124 – 125; Chartres 127 – 128; Coutances and Angers 128 – 129; France 125; Sens 125 – 127 Standish, Henry 149 Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn 110, 218 – 219, 221 – 222 Stapleton, Thomas 171 – 174 Staunton, Michael 18, 20, 80; on Alan of Tewkesbury 29; on Herbert of Bosham 31 – 32; on John of Salisbury 21, 22; on Roger of Pontigny 28; on William FitzStephen 26; on William of Canterbury 25 Stephen, King 95 S. Thomae Cantuariensis, et Henricie II illustris. Anglorum regis monomachia, de libertate ecclesiastica cum subiuncto eiusdem argumento dialogo (Brown) 176 St Thomas of Canterbury: His Death and Miracles (Abbott) 234 St Thomas the Martyr abbey 80 – 81 Stubbs, William 218 Studens livor 90 – 95, 124, 125 Sullivan, M. G. 195 Tatton-Brown, Tim 129 – 130 Temperate Ward-word to the turbulent and seditious Wach-word of Sir F. Hastings, knight, A (Persons) 175 Theobald of Canterbury 9 Theobald V (Count of Blois) 95

338 Index Thierry, Augustin 3, 217 – 218 Third Volume of Chronicles, Beginning at Duke William the Norman, The (Holinshed) 164 thirteenth-century translations: Becket Leaves (Paris) 4, 43 – 46; Icelandic Saga 51, 53 – 59; South English Legendary and Legenda Aurea (de Voragine) 46 – 53 Thirty-Nine Articles 170 Thomas, Hugh 292 – 293 Thomas Becket (Barlow) 8 Thomas Becket (Caudron) 115 Thomas Becket (Knowles) 271, 274 Thomas Becket (Speaight) 298 Thomas Becket (Winston) 298 “Thomas Becket: Martyr, Saint – and Friend?” (Haseldine) 296 Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel (Guy) 283 “Thomas Becket and the Royal Abbey of Reading” (Koopmans)131 – 132 Thomas Becket dans la tradition historique et hagiographique (Foreville) 270 Thomas Becket of Canterbury (Duggan) 298 Thómas Saga Erkibyskups see Icelandic Saga Thomas Saga II 54 Thorlakr, Bishop of Skálholt 55 – 57, 79 Thorlakr’s Saga 55 – 56 Tindal, Nicholas 195, 208 Tracts for the Times (Pusey) 224 transformation of Becket 18 – 19, 92, 95 translation of Becket 97 – 101 Tres Thomae (Stapleton) 171, 173 True Sincere and Modest Defence of English Catholics (Allen) 180 Trump, Donald 301 – 302 Turner, Victor 289 – 290 Turville-Petre, Thorlac 47 – 48 twelfth century biographers of Thomas Becket 17 – 20; Alan of Tewkesbury 21 – 22, 28 – 29, 32; Anonymous I (Roger of Pontigny) 21, 27; Anonymous II (Lambeth) biographer 20, 23 – 24; Benedict of Peterborough 4, 20, 21, 24, 27, 29 – 30; Edward Grim 12 – 13, 18, 20, 22 – 23; Guernes of Ponte-SainteMaxence 21, 26 – 27; Herbert of Bosham 19, 21, 25, 30 – 32; John of Salisbury 19 – 23, 28 – 29, 32; modern scholarship and 257 – 259;

Quadrilogus I and II 21, 25, 32; Robert of Cricklade 21, 27, 29; William FitzStephen 13, 19 – 20, 23, 25 – 26, 27; William of Canterbury 4, 20, 22 – 25, 32 twelfth-century chroniclers 32 – 33 twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship on Becket 265, 308 – 309; biographies in 280 – 284; continuing nationalism, 1900 – 1950 265 – 269; modern politics and 301 – 303; turn toward psychological interpretation in mid-century and beyond 269 – 280; see also modern and postmodern scholarship on Becket Tyndale, William 147 – 148, 154 Vauchez, Andre 18, 100 Vaughan, Richard 43 Victorian biographers and antiquarians see nineteenth-century scholarship on Becket Vigil for Thomas Becket, A (Peterson) 300 – 301 Vincent, Nicholas 99, 208, 217, 220, 225, 226, 235 Vincent of Beauvais 54 Vita (Anonymous I) 28 Vita (Anonymous II) 23 Vita (Edward Grim) 23 Vita (FitzStephen) 25 Vita (Guernes of Pont-Sainte-Maxence) 26 Vita (Herbert of Bosham) 30 Vita (John of Salisbury) 21 – 23, 28 – 29, 91, 92, 94 Vita (Robert of Cricklade) 53 – 54 Vollrath, Hanna 22, 92, 290 – 291 Voltaire 196 Walberg, Emanuel 2 Walker, Simon 71 Wallace, David 51 Walter, Bishop of Aversa 89 Walter, Hubert 98, 112, 122 Ward, Benedicta 259 – 260 Warham, William 122, 149 – 150, 151, 155 Warren, W. L. 276 – 278, 281 Webster, Paul 99 Welby, Justin 302 Wells, Minnie E. 51 Wells, Philip 300 White, Paul W. 156 William I, King of Scotland 81 – 82, 129

Index  339 William II 73 William of Canterbury 4, 20, 22 – 27, 32, 44, 51, 148, 161, 177, 232, 234, 291; development of Becket cult in Ireland and 80; miracles recorded by 67; modern and postmodern scholarship on 257; modern scholarship on 260 – 261 William of Newburgh 32 William of Sens 98 William (White Hands), Archbishop of Sens 52 , 75 – 76, 93 – 95, 125– 126 Williams, David 131

William the Lion 71 Wilson, John 185 Winston, Richard 298 Wolsey, Thomas 147, 151 Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England (Koopmans) 260 Woolf, D. R. 148 Workman, Leslie 297 Wyclif, John 144 Yvernault, Martine 110, 114 – 116