07-08-2025
‘Thomas Becket and His World' Review: The Road to Martyrdom
On Dec. 29, 1170, the archbishop of Canterbury was cut down in his own cathedral. 'Every attempt to tell the story of Thomas Becket,' writes Michael Staunton in his biography of the martyred archbishop, 'begins under the shadow of his death,' supposedly ordered by Henry II. It is also hard to think about Becket except in the context of a later event: the 1535 execution of Thomas More, orchestrated by Henry VIII during another dispute over the contending claims of church and king.
Two Thomases, two Henrys, two similar outcomes. What was the difference? For one, Henry II was punished for the deed, while Henry VIII wasn't. As part of his penance for instigating the murder—the king's culpability is subject to debate—Henry II was forced to kneel by Becket's tomb in Canterbury and submit to a flogging from the assembled clergy. He got five strokes from each bishop, three from each monk. We don't know how many bishops were present, but there were 80 monks, and they had every motive to lay it on hard, since Becket's main crime was defending their rights.
In 'Thomas Becket and His World,' Mr. Staunton, a professor of medieval history at University College Dublin, aims to set these events 'in their broader landscape, looking at the environment that Thomas inhabited.' Above all, Mr. Staunton is concerned with 'the developments in kingship, government and law that provided the background' to Becket's conflict with Henry II.
Becket was born in London around 1120 to parents originally from Normandy. Though he was no aristocrat, Becket accordingly enjoyed the great advantage, in the ethnic hierarchy of the time, of being Norman on both sides. His first job seems to have been no more than bookkeeper for a moneylender called Osbert Huitdeniers, or 'Eightpence.' But Becket also spent a lot of time on the estates of the wealthy nobleman Richer de l'Aigle, a friend of his father who taught young Thomas courtly manners along with knightly skills such as riding, hunting and using a lance. In later life Becket would even unhorse a famous French knight in battle.
