This biography, an introduction to his life, aims to consider Thomas, his background, his influences, his progress in ambition and office, and his struggle to a new generation of Catholics who may not know him as well as other saints. Thomas’s life and the controversies in which he was immersed are complex. This biography tries to offer to the general reader a sense of what was going on. There are many biographies of the man, and many of them are as complex as the dispute; this aims to offer a simple chronological narrative in as far as it is possible. In this regard, I found John Guy’s chronology, unfolding of events, and discussion of the historical milieu around Thomas in his biography14 the most successful and most accessible, and I have drawn upon this work as a major resource and used his chronological sequence. Other biographies that have proved most beneficial are those by Frank Barlow15 and Anne Duggan.16 In terms of the original medieval biographies, Michael Staunton has provided some excellent translations of extracts from those works, and while I have drawn on the original texts, I also consulted these extracts.17
To understand Thomas and his struggles, one must understand the time he lived in and the people and events that surrounded him. He was no solitary, detached saint; he was a man of his times, and those times formed the man now venerated as a martyr. This author aims to take his readers to meet Thomas by setting them down in the middle of twelfth-century Europe, with all its grandeur and chaos; its complex familial relationships; its political intrigue and instability; and the mischievousness, virtues, and sinfulness of its inhabitants. It is only in the crowded heart of that “chaos” that we can understand the influences that formed Thomas; the people he loved, respected, and struggled with; and the events that raised him to high office, pushed him against a wall, and forced him to fight. His work in defense of the Church was not a simple affair; it was so complex that it divided good people and devout Catho lics. The trouble started with a problem of succession and the need for political reform and stability. It came to its climax as the blood of the primate of England was spilled on the floor of his cathedral.
This is the story of a man who wrapped himself in power and luxury, and then was gradually stripped bare through suffering, betrayal, repentance, and even foolishness — a man who was forced into exile so he could prepare to die in his cathedral, proclaiming to the world that the vision that transformed him is worth dying for, as is the One who confers that vision. He learned, often in great bitterness, that true liberty and freedom can be found only in Christ. In a sense, this is the story of every Christian; though the time and circumstances may differ, the struggle remains the same. For this reason, contemporary Catholics need to rediscover Thomas Becket. He is indeed a man and a saint for our times, someone we modern Christians have much to learn from. It falls to every generation of Catholics to engage with the saints anew, to discover what the saints have to say to them about their own concerns and about the state of the Church and her relationship with the world. Thomas of Canterbury is one whose time has come again, who is emerging from the shadows even as it seems the Church has entered into them. He seeks to engage with us.
Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury was a place of pilgrimage for more than three hundred years before it was destroyed during the English Reformation. In that time, countless men and women came to his tomb, entrusting their concerns and needs to his wisdom and his prayers. In the devotional life of the Church, this should continue unabated. Faithful disciples of Jesus Christ are invited to see in Thomas a companion on the pilgrim path of fidelity, a wise teacher, an ardent intercessor, and a fatherly figure who can help us stand firm amid the storms that all too often assail the Church and her faithful members. In the providence and plan of God, Christians have discovered time and time again that when trouble comes, Saint Thomas Becket can be found standing with us, with the poor and afflicted, with those who may have been led to believe that there is no hope.
There is always hope, even in the greatest crisis, even in the most profound darkness, even when those who were supposed to be faithful have run away. Thomas did not run away. While his exile may have seemed to be his abandoning his see and his cause, in reality it was the means of ensuring he was free to continue his struggle, as previous archbishops of Canterbury had taught him. As he came to discover, he was first and foremost a pastor and shepherd, a father of souls, a faithful and true bishop whose concern was for the flock and their passage in holiness to the fulfillment of God’s promises. This is his story, an introduction to his life that this author hopes will engage, fascinate, and, above all, inspire.
Prologue
The day — July 7, 1220 — promised to be hot. Conscious of this and perhaps surrendering to festivity, given the joy of the occasion, the archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, had barrels of wine placed at each of the city gates to quench the thirst of the crowds of pilgrims making their way to the cathedral for the day’s great events. An act of generosity that may well have led Stephen to turn a blind eye to the archdiocesan bursar’s raised eyebrow, it proved a popular decision. Whether the queues at the barrels surpassed the queues into the cathedral is not recorded by historians, but spirits were high, even riotous, for the solemn translation of the body of the martyred archbishop Saint Thomas Becket.
It had taken two years to prepare for this day. The cathedral was finally restored after a disastrous fire in 1174 — thankfully, the tomb of Saint Thomas in the crypt had escaped the flames. A new, magnificent chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity had been built onto the east side of the cathedral, behind the high altar. Two craftsmen, Walter of Colchester and Elias of Dereham,1 had been working feverishly to construct a magnificent shrine in this new chapel. A great stone plinth with an open arcade rose up from the paved floor of the chapel, its summit empty for the moment but destined to hold an ornate reliquary. Above the plinth hovered a painted wooden canopy, carefully designed to protect — and at various times, to be solemnly raised to reveal — the resting place of the martyred archbishop.
Some days before (the accounts differ — some say the day before, others a week before), Archbishop Stephen, his prior Walter, the monks of the cathedral monastery, and other officials had descended into the crypt, to the tomb covering the stone sarcophagus where Thomas of Canterbury, also known as Becket, had been laid to rest by monks in late December fifty years before. Expecting reprisals from the knights who had killed Thomas, the monks in great fear had quickly cleaned his body, dressed it in pontificals, and interred it. The body had remained undisturbed all those years. Though Thomas had been canonized three years later in 1173, there had been no recognitio,2 no relics taken, just a finer tomb constructed over the original one for the edification of the pilgrims. Now, that tomb was to be taken apart and the body exhumed and made more accessible for the veneration of the faithful. The monks themselves would carry out this solemn task.
Two accounts suggest that the body was found intact and that the monks, with tears in their eyes, lovingly carried it out of the tomb to be placed in a more appropriate casket.3 Another account, with weightier evidence perhaps, differs: It relates that the body had or was decomposing, leaving only frail bones; these had to be handled with great care, as some disintegrated easily.4 Archbishop Stephen took some bones for relics, not only for distribution in England, but to fulfill numerous requests from all over Europe.
In the fifty years since the martyrdom, the cathedral had received numerous gifts and offerings for the shrine, an enormous quantity of precious gems included, and these were employed by craftsmen in the construction of a new casket. Covered in gold plate and trellised, the casket was studded with gems — diamonds, sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other jewels such as cameos, agates, cornelians, and onyx. One of the most spectacular jewels was the great Régale de France, a most extraordinary ruby that King Louis VII of France had given to the shrine during a pilgrimage he made in 1179 — an act of homage from one of Thomas’s most ardent supporters during his exile. What the shrine was to contain, however, was even more precious. Following the recognitio, the skull and bones of Saint Thomas were placed in an iron urn, a “feretory,” which was sealed in the new casket and then taken away to a private place in preparation for the translation.
Bishops, priests, religious, pilgrims, and officials traveled from all over