'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
St. Thomas Becket, 2: the Martyrdom
In this episode my co-host Dr. Jennifer Paxton and I explain the principles and personal grievances that led to the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket and the significance of that event for Church-State relations in medieval England. We also talk about T.S. Eliot’s and Jean Anouilh’s plays about Thomas’ martyrdom, and the movies based on those plays. This is the second of a two part series. If you haven’t already done so, you might want to listen to the first episode in which Jenny and I talk about Becket’s background, his career leading up to his election as archbishop of Canterbury, and his contribution to Henry II’s efforts to restore royal authority in England after a generation of civil war.
This episodes contains audio clips from:
"Becket" (released by Paramount, directed by Peter Glenville, starring Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, and adapted by Edward Anhalt from a play by Jean Anouilh)
The 12th century song lamenting the exile of Thomas Becket, "In Rama sonat gemitus," performed by Lumina Vocal Ensemble (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c30K1rQsaiI)
The Trim Jeans Theater's adaptation of T.S. Eliot's "Murder in the Cathedral" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYvz1-ThCHY)
Listen on Podurama https://podurama.com
Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
Welcome to the podcast 'Tis But a Scratch: Fact and Fiction about the Middle Ages. About three weeks ago, my good friend and colleague, Professor Jennifer Paxton of the Catholic University of America joined me in discussing St. Thomas Becket's background, and his rise from a cleric in the household of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, to be chancellor of England under King Henry II. Today, I'm fortunate to have Jenny back to complete the story of England's most famous Catholic martyr. Welcome back, Jenny.
Jennifer Paxton:Thank you so much for having me back. It's always fun talking with you about our common interest and English medieval history, and especially about complex people and events such as Thomas Becket and his martyrdom. But before we begin, my husband asked me wasn't his name Thomas â Becket? And no, it wasn't, we owe that to a staunch Protestant tuber writer named Thomas Nash. In 1596. He added the rustic "â" to lampoon the saint.
richard abels:To lampoon the saint? Apparently Nash didn't know that Becket derives from the word for "nose," and that he was really Thomas "beaky nose," which should have been lampoon enough. but Thomas a Becket stuck.
Jennifer Paxton:It did everybody seems to know of him as Thomas a Becket. So we left off the last episode with King Henry II appointing his Chancellor Thomas Becket to replace Thomas's first patron, Archbishop Theobald in the see of Canterbury
richard abels:The 1964 film"Becket," which Jenny and I will talk about later in this episode, recreates the moment that King Henry II played here by Peter O'Toole has the brilliant idea to appoint his Chancellor Thomas Becket, played by Richard Burton, to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury,
Clip from "Becket":Thomas, extraordinary ideas creeping into my mind. A master strike. I'm subtle. I'm even profound. Oh, I'm so profound, it's making my head spin. (Thomas laughs) - Are you listening to me, Thomas? - I'm listening, My Prince. We need a new Archbishop of Canterbury. I think there is a man we can rely on. No matter who it is, once the archbishop's miter is on his head, he will not longer be on your side. But if the archbishop is my man, if Canterbury is for the king, how could his power possibly get in my way? My Lord, we know your bishops. Once enthroned at Canterbury, every one of them will grow dizzy with power. Not this man. - Are you listening to me, Thomas? - Mm-hmm. - You're leaving for England tonight. - On what mission, My Prince? You are going to deliver a letter to all the bishops of England. Uh-huh. My royal edict nominating you, Thomas Becket, Primate of England, Archbishop of Canterbury. My Lord, don't do this. You have an odd way of taking good news. I should think you'd be triumphant. But I... I'm not even a priest. You're a deacon. You can be ordained priest and consecrated archbishop the next day. My Lord, this frightens me. I beg of you, do not do this. You've never disappointed me, Thomas, and you're the only man I can trust.
richard abels:I love this scene. I love it when Henry says, Thomas, you have never disappointed me before. And Thomas is thinking, yes, my Prince, but I was never Archbishop of Canterbury before. Cinematically, the scene effectively foreshadows the future conflict between the two men and the sense of betrayal that King Henry II would experience when his once loyal Chancellor became his adversary as Archbishop. It also signals to the movie going audience that Thomas's inner conflict between his loyalty and friendship for the king and his desire to serve God--and both are real--is going to be resolved in favor of God and the church. The audience has already been keyed to Becket's pangs of conscience, although Henry is completely oblivious to them.
Jennifer Paxton:Now, I love the movie "Becket," but historians are always spoilsports when it comes to historical movies.
richard abels:Yeah, they are, aren't they?
Jennifer Paxton:And I have to point out that as effective theater as this is, it's not history. Theobald died on April 18 1161. Becket was elected by the monks of Canterbury to succeed Theolbald, a year later
richard abels:a full year later,
Jennifer Paxton:which is not that atypical. There were often fairly long vacancies in between archbishops and because of the way that the appointments worked and you would the king would get to take the money and see in between. So he's not elected until May of 1162. And he was ordained a priest on June 2. So he was not even actually a priest,
richard abels:No, he wasn't. But he was archdeacon of Canterbury, as well as being Chancellor. But the problem is you can't become a bishop unless you're first a priest. Fortunately, there was no time requirement on how long you had to be a priest.
Jennifer Paxton:No, there were a lot of emergency priestly the consecrations before people became bishops, not a lot, but there certainly were some. So he was ordained a priest on June 2 and consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury by Bishop Henry of Winchester the following day. Now Henry's decision to nominate Thomas was not a spur of the moment thing. The king was not in a rush to fill the archiepiscopal See. It actually could be kind of fun to have no Archbishop for a little bit.
Richard Abels:Yeah, because you don't have to worry about a primate.
Jennifer Paxton:Yeah, yeah. You can kind of free your hand.
richard abels:Yeah,
Jennifer Paxton:so members of the king's court apparently were notified that Henry intended to appoint Thomas before Thomas knew. Becket's biographer William fitzStephen relates that while Becket was recovering from a serious illness in the hospital of the Church of St Gervais, he was visited by the prior of the Augustinian Abbey at Leicester. The prior, who had come from the king's court, teased Thomas about the way he dressed like a noble. So what he said is, "'What's this?' the prior joked. 'So you go in for capes with sleeves now just like fowlers when carrying hawks, and you, a clerk--unique, I know but plural in your benefices
richard abels:Yeah,
Jennifer Paxton:Archdeacon of Canterbury, Dean of Hastings, Provost of York, canon here and canon there, custodian of the archbishopric. And, as court rumor has it, Archbishop to be.'" End of quote. So Becket supposedly responded a lot like he did in the movie by protesting that he knew at least three priests in England, whom he would rather see as Archbishop. Quote, "For if it should come about that I am promoted. I know the King so well, indeed inside out, that I would either have to lose his favor or god forbid, neglect my duty to the Almighty." End of quote.
richard abels:you can never be sure that a story like this is actually true. Willilam fitzStephen, like Becket's other early biographers, wrote after the Archbishop's death. In other words, he wrote with the benefit of hindsight. He knew that Thomas's elevation would bring them into conflict with the king, but that Thomas claimed to know Henry "inside out" sounds to me, like something Becket might well have said and of all of Becket's biographers, William fitzStephen was best positioned to report court gossip. Before Thomas's elevation to the archbishopric, William had been a royal clerk in the king's chancery, and after Becket's death, he appears to have returned to royal service. He had a foot in both camps. What the movie gets right is Henry II's motivation in choosing Becket Becket's main qualification, in Henry's eyes at least, was his loyalty and his devotion, and that loyalty and devotion and service that he had given him as Chancellor. He expected that Becket would continue to promote royal policy as Archbishop and be Henry's partner in administration of the realm, much as Theobald had been, but with greater enthusiasm, and with less resistance, and Becket really wasn't an outrageous choice. He was, after all, Archdeacon of Canterbury. He was, at that point, custodian of lands of the Church of Canterbury, and he was the king's Chancellor. Now the last may not seem to be an obvious qualification for becoming Archbishop. But in this period of time, it wasn't a disqualification. Both King Louis VII of France, and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany had elevated their chancellors to high Episcopal office, and both continued afterwards to hold the office of Chancellor. Service to the crown and service to the church, after all, was not supposed to be in conflict.
Jennifer Paxton:For historians of the medieval church. There was a nice irony about the movie's depiction of Becket's resistance to being named Archbishop by Henry
richard abels:which has historical basis. According to William fitzStephen, Thomas had to be persuaded to accept the office by calling upon Henry of Pavia, the papal legate in Normandy.
Jennifer Paxton:Irony isn't that Thomas expressed reluctance, but why he was reluctant. Medieval clerics in line to be promoted to bishop were expected to declare, "Nolo episcopari."
richard abels:How do you say? I really don't want to become a chairman of the History Department?
Jennifer Paxton:I've coined one. "Nolo decanari."
Richard Abels:I love that. I do not want to be a dean.
Jennifer Paxton:So "nolo episcopari" means "I don't wish to be made a bishop." And this was meant as an expression of humility. To be worthy of the offfice of Bishop, a bishop elect had to declare himself unworthy to assume so great a spiritual office. Becket in the movie expresses his personal feelings of unworthiness, which is of course, an assessment that bishop Gilbert Foliot of London and the other English prelates of the time would have heartily seconded for real, but not because he fears that he actually will be unworthy of that office, and that it'll bring him into conflict with King Henry.
Richard Abels:Yeah. And that turned out to be the case. As soon as Becket was consecrated Archbishop, he seemed to become a completely new person. As Chancellor, he had been accustomed to parading around in rich robes and cloaks. As Archbishop, he wore a hair shirt under his episcopal robes to modify the flesh. As Chancellor, he lavished money on troubadours and courtiers. As Archbishop, he gave money to the poor. Why he changed, and whether that change was genuine, is a matter of historical debate.
Jennifer Paxton:There are a number of ways to explain Thomas's change of heart cynically, one might say that calmness now that he had an independent power base no longer felt that he had to dance to the kings tune. The Church of Canterbury was very powerful and very wealthy in its own right. In order to safeguard that power base, Thomas decided immediately that he was going to draw a firm line in the sand whenever the rights and privileges of the Church of Canterbury are threatened in any way, even by his former best friend King. Less cynically, promises elevation to the Office of Archbishop had inspired an inner conversion that led him to embrace his new responsibility to protect the church with which God had entrusted him. Thomas had fallen seriously ill in the summer of 1161, and he first seems to have heard about his candidacy for the archiepiscopal while convalescing in the hospital of the Church of Sasha have a serious illness was the come to Jesus moment for literally Yeah, exactly for many less than pious medieval people. King William Rufus, who was notoriously lacks when it came to religion, decided to appoint the holiest man that he knew to be his Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Anselm of Beck, because he thought he was dying.
richard abels:Unfortunately for all, William Rufus recovered, and was stuck with ADD zone biz Archbishop, a situation that neither man enjoyed. I'd offer a third possibility for Thomas's transformation. It's possible that Thomas was the consummate actor. I'm not suggesting that he was insincere in authentic, but that he played whatever role he was assigned to the best of his ability. As a cleric in Archbishop theobalds household. He fulfilled his function so well that the archbishop made them Archdeacon as royal Chancellor. He was the King's Man and unreservedly supported Henry's authority and claims as Archbishop. He was now the man of God and the church. In this new role, he supported the church's claims and authority as strongly as he had once supported the case. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Becket was responsible for protecting the liberty of the Church, which by then included free elections of bishops and abbots. I know this sounds ironic, or even hypocritical given the evidence for the almost universal disapproval by the bishops and higher clergy of Henry's choice of Protestants exceed
Jennifer Paxton:Theobald, perhaps ironic, but also instructive of what a free election meant in England and 1162. The Investiture controversy in England had been resolved in 1107, by a compromise hammered out by Archbishop Anselm and King Henry the first and accepted by Pope Pascal II it's sort of the dry run for the encoded avalance. It basically is, bishops would be freely elected by the clergy and invested with the symbols of their spiritual office by the bishop who consecrated them. But the king would continue to receive homage from newly elected bishops in return for the landed fiefs and temporal powers that they received from him. In essence, the English solution of 1107 Recognize the Episcopal sees two bodies. As pastors of the church bishops received their authority and power from God via the church's clergy through apostolic succession. But as magnates of the realm and landholders of fiefs, they received their temporal powers and authority from the camp.
richard abels:The election of Thomas illustrates, I think very well, what a quote unquote free election actually meant in 1162, despite Congress's continued role as Archdeacon of Canterbury Oh, give it how unpopular archdeacons were, perhaps because of it, the cathedral chapter and monks of Canterbury who were charged with freely electing the archbishop needed a lot of persuasion, once the prior of the abbey received the royal licence to proceed with an election, and that a royal license was needed, in order for the clergy of Canterbury to have a quote unquote free election is itself highly revealing. He called on the senior monks to discuss the king's nomination of Thomas. They, in turn, called in the royal justice year, Richard de Luci to discuss with them the kings will Richard deluzy laid out pretty bluntly the benefits to the Abbey and the see of having an archbishop who stood so high in the Kings favor. The consequences of the fIag the kings will was at least implied even after the prior and senior monks recommended Thomas's candidacy to the other monks, there was vocal opposition to the choice, but it was a foregone conclusion that Thomas would be, quote, unquote, freely elected. The
Jennifer Paxton:importance of a bishop having royal favor cannot be overstressed as Archbishop Becket was responsible for the physical welfare of the Church of Canterbury, which entailed safeguarding the church's property against encroachment by knights who held land from the Abbey. One of Becket's first acts as Archbishop was to demand that Roger declare Earl of Hartford, and one of the most powerful laymen in England perform homage to him for the castle of Tonbridge in Kent. It was a grand gesture, and although it proved unsuccessful, it made the point to the monks that the new Archbishop would be zealous and garden Canterbury's lands and claims to land one
richard abels:of Thomas's first clashes with King Henry II came over Thomas's excommunication of a Kentish beret, we're having driven out a priest from a parish church and the lands of the parish church which were claimed by Canterbury, the Baron claimed that he had not the archbishop had the right to presentation that is of choosing the parish priest, Thomas could have and he should have appeal to the king first, and Henry immediately protested that the customs of the realm prohibited that attendant in chief be excommunicated, without the consent of the king. Thomas replied that it was not the Kings placed to give orders to absolve or excommunicate anyone,
Jennifer Paxton:and that was going to be a point of contention. financial demands by the Crown were always a flashpoint in the relationship between medieval kings and bishops, as Archbishop Thomas protected his church by resisting the type of financial demands from the King, that he as Chancellor had enforced upon other problems. Yeah,
richard abels:notably school age, which is the payment of cash in lieu of providing owed night service. Perhaps
Jennifer Paxton:the most important duty that Thomas had as Archbishop was to maintain the ancient rights and privileges of the see of Canterbury against the claims of the other bishops in England, in particular, his old colleague from theobalds household, Archbishop Roger de Coyne evac of York, who have resisted acknowledging the primacy of Canterbury. It's
richard abels:really kind of interesting, old friendships and old rivalries just persist. They really do. Yeah, sort of like graduating together from an English public school, right? Yes. But none of this made Becket's break with the king inevitable. What did was the problem of criminalist allergic? In
Jennifer Paxton:the previous episode, Richard and I discussed Henry II imposition of royal authority over civil law, that is the law of property and dispute settlement. But Henry II was also determined to reform the criminal law. He wanted to crack down not just on recalcitrant barons and lords who were abusing their prerogatives, but also on garden variety criminals. To that end, he said about reforming the royal approach to crime. He sent out roving commissions of judges called Ayers. These IERS were specifically tasked with sweeping up criminals and trying their cases.
richard abels:We live in 66 Henry and his advisors regularized royal oversight of criminal law at the size of Clarendon, quote, on the device of all his barons, and with a goal of preserving peace and maintaining justice, King Henry ordain that inquiries be made throughout each county and each 100 by 12 are the more lawful men of the 100. And by four of the moral lawful men of each fill, these men shall swear an oath to tell the truth concerning whether in their 100 or in their Ville, there is any man cited or charged as a robber, murderer or thief, or whether there is anyone who has abetted any robber, murderer or thief in the time since the law of Kings coronation, and if a robber murderer or thief or the receivers of them shall be arrested by means of the aforesaid oath. At a time when the royal justices are not due to appear anytime soon into the county where the arrests have been made. Let the sheriff said word by some knowledgeable man to one of the near justices, that such criminals have been arrested, and the justices shall send back to the sheriff word of where they wish to have the men brought before them, and the sheriff shall bring them before the justices and they shall also bring with them from the 100 in the Ville, in which the arrests were made to lawful men to carry the record of the county and 100 as to why the men were arrested and let the sheriff's who have arrested these criminals bring them before the justices without requiring any other summons than the one they shall receive from the justice. In other words, while common law was now to embrace criminal as well as civil law,
Jennifer Paxton:these new juries of presentment are often held up as the origins of our grand juries. And in a sense they were since they were responsible for making criminal indictments. But medieval juries did so on the basis of what they personally knew about the offenses. Their primary function was as witnesses, which is why wrong decisions were treated as perjury, right.
richard abels:Henry II went after a group of people whom he considered to be threats to public order, because they tended to escape royal jurisdiction. This class of troublemakers were strangely enough clergymen or clerks to use the contemporary term. That
Jennifer Paxton:doesn't mean that they were necessarily priests. There were many grades in the clerical hierarchy and men could work their way slowly up these grades while still living much like laymen. Those in lower orders like doorkeepers, acolytes, exorcist and readers, there are seven grades were even allowed to marry. Technically, these guys are churchmen, but they aren't really living very church oriented lives. Some of them were really poor scraping by on meager salaries, or none at all. So it's not surprising that a few clearly supplemented their earnings by recourse to crime. And some even in the higher orders of Deacon and priest were just flat out criminals. Before the Norman Conquest. A criminalist. Clerk, as these clerical criminals were called, with just had been tried for his crimes in 100, or Shire court like anybody else. But William the Conqueror had brought in a parallel court system in England that was run by the church. These church courts had jurisdiction over certain cases that involved correction of sinful behavior.
richard abels:As I mentioned in previous episode, this included adultery once marriage became a Catholic sacrament marital disputes, including accusations of adultery, were heard in these ecclesiastical Kabelo courts. But canon law courts also claim jurisdiction, not only over certain kinds of offenses, but also over certain types of people, namely anyone in clerical orders, even the minor clerical orders under William the Conqueror and his sons, William Rufus and Henry the first, the secular courts and the church courts had worked out a modus vivendi by which clerics accused of really serious crimes would first be stripped of their clerical status in the church caught in the cat in local and then handed over to the royal courts for further punishment.
Jennifer Paxton:The reason for this was that church courts were forbidden by Canon Law to impose penalties that involved the shedding of blood. So no executions are mutilations, if you wanted those. You have to go to the royal court.
richard abels:Yes, but this was all a matter of custom. They were weren't any hard and fast written rules about when exactly the church courts were obligated to cough up particular criminals clerks. But in the first half of the 20th century, the Catholic Church had evolved into what some historians like to call a papal monarchy. The church was conceived of as a universal state, with both a heavenly and a temporal component in which all clergy regardless of where they were stationed, were solely under the jurisdiction of the church. As with the baronage, the claims of the church visa vie the authority the crown went unchallenged during the civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda because the royal authority couldn't challenge it.
Jennifer Paxton:Henry II was determined to restore the good legal customs of his grandfather King Henry the first, and this included reestablishing royal authority over criminals, clerics, several big clerical scandals helped push him in this direction. And I'll just tell you about one of them. This is a good one. It is. In 1163, a canon of Bedford named Philip Dubois was accused of murdering a night he was brought before the Archbishop's court and purged himself of the crime. That is He swore an oath that he was innocent, and the oath was accepted. That's all it took in the church court to get off scot free. Later, a royal judge tried to reopen the case, because apparently there were ample grounds to doubt the sincerity of Philips oath. Philip insulted the judge before witnesses. This was if anything a more serious crime in the king's eyes than the alleged murder. But once again, he was hauled up before the Archbishop's court, and this time he was convicted of insulting the judge, but he was again acquitted of the murder. He was sentenced to the loss of revenues from his ecclesiastical office for two years. With the money distributed to the poor, and a public whipping. In the presence of the judge he insulted if he had been found guilty in a royal court, he would have faced execution or mutilation. Henry was utterly fed up with clerks being able literally to Get Away with Murder.
richard abels:As Jenny said, That was only one of several high profile cases of criminals clerks that came to the kings attention. Will you fit Stephen in a power free men to praise Becktt relates how the archbishop refused to turn over to the royal courts, a clerk of Western who had killed the father of a girl that he was attempting to rape that could place the murderer and rapist into the Archbishop's prison, so that the world authorities could not take custody of him. But especially pissed off Henry II was that the man who protected this murderous cleric from Royal justice and presided over the trial of Philip Dubois was the man whom he had made Archbishop in order to support his claims of royal authority by elevating Thomas to be primate, Henry thought he was finally going to have an archbishop he could really deal with who would really support him, who would it would be essentially his man. After all, Thomas owed everything to the king. But
Jennifer Paxton:when Henry went after criminals, clerks, the Archbishop pushed back,
richard abels:W. L. Warren, who's 1973 biography of King Henry II for Yale's English Monarch series, is still in my assessment, the standard biography of that King Warren pointed out that Becket's insistence on the church's sole jurisdiction over criminalist clerks, quote, "called into question the whole of Archbishop theobalds modus vivendi with the state, and that drove the king to an equally dogmatic stance of the Royal prerogative." End quote.
Jennifer Paxton:Those royal prerogatives over the English church were spelled out in detail in a document known as the constitutions of Clarendon. The constitutions of Clarendon were the record of a royal a size that is a meeting of the king with his lay and ecclesiastical advisors, held at the royal hunting lodge at Clarendon in 1164, the constitutions of Clarendon obliged the church to hand criminals clerks over to be tried by the Royal Courts.
richard abels:But it went even further than that. It also deals with the other key points of dispute between the king and the English church. It prohibited archbishops and bishops from excommunicating. tenants and chief without first receiving the approval of the king, and from leaving, even leaving the kingdom are appealing to the papacy without first again, getting permission of the king. The disputes over ecclesiastical property were to be resolved like all other land disputes In a royal court, and church held lands were to owe the same royal dues as lands held by the lady. The constitutions of Clarendon is presented as a restoration of the good customs and royal privileges practiced under King Henry the first, and that probably is true. But times have changed. And the Constitutions were a response, not only to the clergy is claimed to be solely responsible for disciplining itself, but to the papacy is claims to be the supreme head of a universal church. In essence, it was the expression of King Henry II's notion that he was supreme over the church in his kingdom, and his insistence that the clergy of his kingdom from doorkeeper, all the way up to Archbishop were his subjects.
Jennifer Paxton:Becket was summoned before the royal presents and forced probably literally under the threat of violence to accept this renunciation of the church's rites of jurisdiction. But after accepting the constitutions and making all the other bishops accept them, Becket then changed his mind and decided to take a stand. And
richard abels:And that must have gone over really big with Bishop Gilbert Foliot and the other English bishops, who really didn't want him to be Archbishop in the first place.
Jennifer Paxton:This was really a disaster. So he renounces the constitutions of clarinet and after forcing everybody else to accept them, so they were enraged, he had made them go against their consciences because they didn't think that these provisions were a good idea. But he was then going back on his word, trying to have it both ways. So Thomas lost a lot of Episcopal support right there. There was an uneasy truce with the king at this point, but Thomas and Henry could not stop provoking each other. Little disputes over property got magnified out of all proportion. Finally, the king seems to have reached a breaking point and he decided to bring back it down for good. He accused him of financial improprieties while chancellor and summoned him to appear before him at Northampton. Apparently a very large sum of money that the king had given to Thomas as Chancellor 30,000 pounds
richard abels:that was the annual revenues the Crown could expect from all of England,
Jennifer Paxton:it was a huge amount of money could not be accounted for. Nobody knows the truth of what happened with this money. Had it been a gift and was it thus unfair to be asking for an accounting now? Or was Thomas being truthful when he claimed that he had spent all of the money on the Kings affairs? We will never know. And it's very likely that the whole affair was a put up job. This is the sort of thing that the adjuvant kings yeah did. What the charge was serious enough that the archbishop felt he had no option but to flee. He didn't want to be treated publicly like a criminals clerk. So he escaped from Northampton with a few followers. And after a harrowing cross country journey of three weeks, he finally made it to the port of sandwich which was under Canterbury's control, and he embarked for exile on the continent,
richard abels:which I might point out violated the Constitution, so Clarendon did. Becket actually violated the Constitutions twice, first by appealing to the papacy, the judgment of the bishops against him in the civil case of contempt of court. And then by leaving the kingdom, without the king's permission, it Thomas's fellow bishops were upset, King Henry II, was royally pissed. He sent a letter to King Louis VII of France, urging him not to allow Becket to remain in Israel. It's a wonderful letter, and it gives you a sense of the character, the personality of Henry II: Quote. "Know that Thomas, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, and the past tense, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, very significant, yeah, as has been publicly a judged in my court by full counsel of the barons of my realm, to be a wicked and perjured trader, to me, and under the manifest name of traitor, has wickedly departed. Wherefore I earnestly beg you not to permit a man guilty of such infamous crimes, and treasons or his men to remain in your kingdom. Rather, if it pleases you, help me to take vengeance on my great enemy for this affront, and to seek my honor, even as you would wish me to do for you, if you were placed into this situation."
Jennifer Paxton:But Louis VII wasn't moved. Thomas was too valuable a pawn against a king who as duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou was also an overmighty subject. So He wasn't going to throw that away. Yeah, it would be six years before Thomas returned to England, six years of fruitless negotiations involving not just Henry II and Thomas, but also the King of France and Pope Alexander the third, not to mention almost every other Bishop and secular ruler in Western Europe,
richard abels:it had to be really frustrating. You're dealing with two guys who are not going to back down, and a bunch of people around them who want them to just simply get over this.
Jennifer Paxton:This would have been on the crawl on CNN every single day for six years. Yeah,
richard abels:wouldn't get the sense that Pope Alexander the third regarded Becket as an unwelcome problem that he wished would simply go away. When Becket appeared before the Pope, he carried with him a copy of the constitutions of Clarendon, spreading the offending document in front of him. Thomas melodramatically, assumed blame for them. He had failed in his duty as Archbishop to protect the liberty of the church, he had showed himself unworthy to hold the high office in office, he obtained, he confessed, through an uncanonical and illegitimate procedure, killing the pope that he was an equal to the burden. He resigned the archbishopric into the hands of the Pope. Now Alex into the third, this is all theater, right? It really is very performative. It really is. Alexander the third had little recourse, but to reappoint dec, which wiped out any doubt about his legitimacy. To be Archbishop comes right from the bow, it comes right from the Pope. Because how is Alexander the third going to say, Oh, the Constitution is a Clarendon of five, that he can't be stuck with this. So he has to support Becket and whether he wants to or not. But as I said, Becket presented a real political problem for Alexander the third. The Pope was currently engaged in an existential struggle with the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, and the man he had pointed as Pope anti Pope. So here we have Alexander the third, fighting with the emperor of Germany, needing the support of the other kings, not wanting to alienate King Henry II or alienate King Louis VII. So what Pope Alexander's response was to try as best he could to reconcile all the parties. The problem was that neither Henry nor Thomas was willing to admit that he was wrong, or submit to the other. In the case of both of this is a matter of pride. And they're not going to humble this up so you Millie ate themselves. Louis VII, meanwhile, was willing to continue to pay for Thomas's upkeep and give him protection largely to underscore his own piety, in contrast to Henry II.
Jennifer Paxton:We can get a sense of how King Louis VII exploited Thomas's exile from a contemporary song "In Rama Sona gemitus."
richard abels:The sound of weeping is heard in Ramah. The Rachel of England is in tears, a new king Herod has visited upon her this economy. Behind behold the firstborn of the realm, Canterbury's own Joseph now has been sold into slavery and forced to inhabit Egypt of France.
Jennifer Paxton:Wow, that's a that's a pretty powerful statement. It's
richard abels:a pretty powerful statement.
Jennifer Paxton:So the stalemate was broken by new points of contention between Henry II and Thomas. This had to do directly with Henry's dynastic plans. Henry wanted his oldest son also called Henry to be crowned king of England, even while he himself was still alive. This would be a kind of insurance policy that he would succeed peacefully when the time came. Remember the successions of all the other English kings since the Norman Conquest had been dicey affairs. Think of Henry the first sprinting to Winchester to get the royal treasury after his brother is killed in a hunting accident, accidental death accident. Well, yeah, we could. We can debate that. Or Stephen having to hurry across the channel to do likewise, Henry II wanted his son to have an easier path to the throne. And in order to get his son crowned, he needed the Archbishop of Canterbury, or at least custom required that the Archbishop of Canterbury consecrate the kings of England. You really wanted the Archbishop of Canterbury to do it if you possibly could make it happen, because that was going to look the best. Becket refused to do it. There was still stuff he wanted to straighten out with the king before he was willing to help him out in this way. But if you couldn't settle with the Archbishop of Canterbury, there was also another Archbishop in England, the Archbishop of York, you could get the Archbishop of York to do it.
richard abels:This is exactly what William the Conqueror had done, because of doubts to the legitimacy of the then Archbishop of Canterbury sticking to remove any doubt that such a move was kosher, and then sorry, couldn't resist. Henry II obtained approval from Pope Alexander the third. And that approval was probably given either ingratitude or a little bit more cynically, as payment for Henry II's recent formal recognition of the Pope as being the Pope.
Jennifer Paxton:So on June 14 1170, Prince Henry was crowned in Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of York. After that he was usually referred to as Henry the young king. Becket was devastated. This was a blow at one of Canterbury's most cherished prerogatives, the right to consecrate the king. But shortly after this, the king and the archbishop met in France and made up their quarrel. Though they may not have understood each other completely. Becket thought the king was giving him permission to excommunicate the bishops who had been involved in what they could consider to be the illegal consecration of the prince. Henry definitely did not think the same thing. At any rate, it seemed like peace at the time. In the meantime, letters arrived from the pope imposing sentence on the bishops who had helped in the consecration back in forwarded them onto England, as he prepared to cross the channel himself back at excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the bishops of London and Salisbury.
richard abels:Despite Henry II's promise of peace, the situation remains tense. In theory, the king and Archbishop had reconciled. Henry II had renounced the privileges claimed in the constitutions of clarity, and it agreed after extended negotiations to the restoration of all the lands and property that the crown had confiscated from Thomas and those who followed him into exile, that it for his part, promised loyalty to the king and agreed to re consecrate young Henry is king, thus saving both the dignity of Canterbury and confirming the legitimacy of the first coronation, but King Henry II was giving mixed signals, he refused to release any of the revenues of the see until Thomas physically returned to Canterbury that he could do nothing but watch is the man whom the king had appointed custodian of the lands of Canterbury stripped it of its resources. Penniless, Becket awaiting transit to England in Boulogne, was besieged by his creditors. The Archbishop of Juan came to his rescue, providing them sufficient funds to pay off his debts, and to outfit his entourage for return suitable to his rank. Opposition to Becket's return was widespread. This included not only the bishops and clerics who Becktt and excommunicated, but a lot of landowners, who now held the lands that the king had confiscated from Becket's followers, as Frank bolo pointed out, that gets returned was the harbinger of a territorial counter revolution in Kent. Those who supported the king would lose the property they held from the see, while those who had been dispossessed would regain theirs. Most threatening, however, was wild. Henry II had given verbal promises and protestations of goodwill. He had withheld the kiss of peace. And that was ominous to say the least. It did not help his situation by repeating his excommunication of the three bishops, and those who had plugged his see in his absence, this time in his new capacity as people make it. Upon arriving in England, Becket met with royal officials who pleaded the case of the excommunicated previous, that could said that he would grant the Archbishop of York and the bishops of London and Saulsbury conditional absolution, if they showed genuine repentance, promise satisfaction, and took an oath to obey the commands of the Pope, as laid out in the papal letters that he carried and when which they hadn't seen. They refused, citing the Constitution's of quarantines prohibition about contacting the pope without world permission. So Thomas let the excommunication stand. As Becket made his triumphant return to Canterbury, three very unhappy bishops cross the channel in the other direction to seek redress from the King in Normandy. They found Henry II at his court at Bearse. Nearby you, where he planned to hold his Christmas court. The bishops knew the king maybe not as well as Becket did, but well enough to press the right buttons. Becket was persecuting them, they complained for the love they had shown Henry in consecrating his son King of England, as he had ordered them to do. Not only had Becket excommunicated them, he now threatened to depose the young king, Henry OO snapped, which brings us to the famous outbursts that exasperated Henry II was supposed to have shouted to his courtiers
Move "Becket":Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest, a priest who mocks me. Are there no men left in England?
richard abels:I love the scene. And I love the way that Peter O'Toole over acts in the seat, because that's how Henry II is described. But as I mentioned in the previous episode, there really is no contemporary support. Perhaps Henry, having said, Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest, but it's clear that he did say something along those lines. Becket's friend and cleric, the very well informed John of Saulsbury heard that Henry had declared, quote, with tears that the archbishop would take from him both body and soul, and that they were all traders, who would not summon up the zeal and loyalty to freedom of the harassment of one man and quote, now a bit more verbose than the pithy Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest, but essentially, it means the same thing. So four knights of the king's household reginal fixers, Hugh de Morville, Richard labret, and bleep the Tracy, who cat Tracy told me was her ancestor cool, which I played by ancestry to a murder of the state, but you know, hell, I can trace my ancestry all the way back to Brooklyn. Anyway. These four knights took the king's outburst as a command, or at least as an opportunity to win even greater royal favor. They crossed the channel and rode off the Canterbury to create a martyr.
Jennifer Paxton:Oh, they probably didn't intend to kill Becket, but rather to arrest him and bring him before the king. But when he resisted their attempts to coerce him, they cut him down right in his cathedral.
richard abels:I agree with Jenny that the Knights probably intended to take Becket into custody, but that the confrontation got out of hand. It didn't help matters, that three of these four nights owed Becket for pass favors. Thomas his martyrdom was fueled by anger, arising from feelings of betrayal. If Henry II felt aggrieved by Thomas's and gratitude, so now Did Thomas, three of the Knights had been Becket's vassals when he had been chancellor in one year, the Morville had remained in Thomas's service after he became Archbishop, that men who had once pledged to loyalty are now accusing him of treason rankled the archbishop that could singled out reginal fits Earth, the leader of the group, and charged with ingratitude, reminding him that he owed his place in the king's court to Thomas's recommendation.
Jennifer Paxton:When the frightened monks came out of hiding, they found the body of the archbishop lying before the altar. When they stripped the body, they discovered a hair shirt crawling with vermin under the dead Bishop's expensive vestments.
richard abels:I'll add Ellen's commentary on that Ill this
Jennifer Paxton:clinched it. Overnight, Becket went from first class troublemaker to St. King Henry tried in vain to argue that he hadn't ordered the knights to kill Becket. But everyone basically accepted his ultimate responsibility for the deed
richard abels:even he did, which may explain why the Four Knights were never tried or convicted of murder. Rather, they ended up seeking absolution from the Pope, who for their pennants sent them on crusade. Reports
Jennifer Paxton:of miracles at Canterbury started almost immediately and on February 21 1173, less than three years After Thomas's death, he was canonized by Pope Alexander III.
richard abels:Henry II also sought absolution from the Pope, meeting with a papal legation in northern France. Henry admitted indirect responsibility for the death of the archbishop. But he swore in oath on the Gospels, that he had neither ordered nor desired. Thomas's death. For Henry's penance, he agreed to go on crusade for three years to restore all the lands and property to all clerks and lady who had been disloyal because of their support of Thomas. And to fast and give offs. The constitutions of Clarendon were now as dead as Becket. Through his death, Becket had one against the king, game set and match. Henry II and his successors up until King Henry the Eighth, accepted the principle that clergy remained exempt from Royal jurisdiction. In England this was called benefit of clergy, which survived in an attenuated form until abolished by Parliament in 1827. Before then, however, King Henry the Eighth had limited benefit of clergy to minor crimes, reserving murder, rape, poisoning, petty treason, sacrilege, witchcraft, theft and pickpocketing to be adjudicated in the Kings courts.
Jennifer Paxton:I love the fact that witchcraft and pickpocketing belong together on that list
richard abels:I know. Somehow, it seems that you're merging together things as he really serious with meh
Jennifer Paxton:yeah, well, yes, witchcraft seems like a bigger deal to them than it does to us.
Richard Abels:Yeah, pickpocketing too.
Jennifer Paxton:Yeah, really. So in 1174 King Henry II was facing a serious revolt by his eldest son of bettered by his other sons, his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and the king of the Scots. With this war going badly, Henry II undertook to make his final amends to the martyr and Saint. He went on pilgrimage to Canterbury, where he confessed to being the unwitting cause of the death of the saints, and removing his cloak he knelt down to be flogged by the clergy in attendance. And this is actually the beginning of the stuff in the movie The beginning of the movie. He then promised to build a monastery in honor of St. Thomas. This
richard abels:was an act of political theater. By accepting the public humiliation of a flogging. Henry was acknowledging his guilt, and demonstrating his remorse for his complicity, however, unintended in the martyrdom of the saint, given that he was fighting for his crown at this point, it makes sense that he would want to remove the taint of the death of Becket from himself. He wanted to reset and he got it he did. You know, one of the interesting things about this, though, I learned afterwards, is that although Becket one in terms of the principles, Becket's enemies all prospered afterwards, and decades, friends and supporters never got the great ecclesiastical performance, with the exception of John of Salisbury that they all wanted.
Jennifer Paxton:And Donald Salisbury is a political appointment is not an England. Exactly
richard abels:exactly. The popularity of St. Thomas surged in the following centuries, Canterbury became the go to place for pilgrimages. In England, the most famous literary work arising from the martyrdom of Thomas Becket is about one of those pilgrimages. It's Jeffrey choices, late 14th century, the Canterbury Tales, the literary could seat in this work, the framing device, is that you have a group of pilgrims who all want to go to Canterbury, to visit the Shrine of St. Thomas Becket, Becket have become an overnight sensation when he was martyred in 1170. And his two was the most popular domestic pilgrimage destination in England, even two centuries later. So you have 29 pilgrims from all walks of life, and they all happen together added in in Southwark across the river from London on the south bank of the Thames. There's
Jennifer Paxton:some grumbling among these Illa sorted guests until the innkeeper proposes a wager they will all go on pilgrimage together, including the innkeeper himself. So that makes 30 pilgrims. And along the way, each pilgrim will tell two tales on the outward journey and two tales on the way back, and the one who everybody agrees tells the best tale will win a free dinner at the expense of all the rest. Unfortunately, Chaucer have never followed through completely on this scheme. If you do the math, we should have 120 stories, but we only have 24 Not even one for each Milgram, let alone for for each Pilgrim, but we should be very grateful for the ones we have. The reason is that Chaucer uses his pilgrims as a vehicle for social commentary on English men and women from all social classes and walks of life. So that's fantastic for historians, we get a great cross section of English social life. The social status of the pilgrims is reflected very well in the tales they choose to tell. Their characters of very high status like the night tell very elevated, very refined tales about courtly adventures and chivalry. The characters are very low social status, like the Miller and the Reeve tell quite earthy stories with salty language that you might not want to read aloud in mixed company.
richard abels:But you know, what unites them all? Is their veneration for St. Thomas, and their belief that if they go on pilgrimage to the shrine in Canterbury, that Thomas will grant them their prayers. That's right, Josie used a pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. Thomas as a device to tell a variety of stories, representing not only a variety of literary genres, but the full range of England social classes. What made this an effective device is that such pilgrimages were a reality. In the late 14th century, the martyrdom of Thomas Becket was a watershed in the history of Church State relations in medieval England, and the cult of St. Thomas was vitally important to the self competence of the English church. Here was a case where the church had stood up to the secular power, and one the king had had to back off, and while relationship between church and state was by no means trouble free, the church deep preserve more legal autonomy than King Henry II had wanted to the degree that separate church courts and benefit of clergy survived well past the middle ages. Given that it isn't surprising that another royal Henry Henry the Eighth should have viewed Becket and his cult as an obstacle to restoring what he saw as the proper relationship between the Crown and the English church. It's well known that Henry the Eighth suppress the monasteries, including Christchurch Canterbury, what is less well known is that Henry the Eighth harbored particular animus against one English St. Thomas Becket in 1536, Henry the Eighth abolish the feast of Becket's translation, which is on July 7. In the following year, he ordered the image of St. Thomas's martyrdom removed from the seal of the city of Canterbury in 1538. That good shrine and Canterbury was dismantled, and its treasures carted away in 26 wagons that gets bones were either burned, which is what the Pope had been told, or we buried in an unmarked grave. Soon after, King Henry the Eighth and his Chancellor Thomas Cromwell, issued a joint proclamation that completed the de sanctification of Becket, Henry the eighth term in the document, a goodly and a Catholic Prince, quote, lawfully sovereign chief and supreme head on Earth immediately after Christ of the Church of England, he cries the usurped authority claimed by Thomas Becket, and labels Becket, a rebel and traitor to his Prince. Consequently, Henry the Creed, quote, Thomas Becket shall not be esteemed named reputed to have called a saint, and his images and pictures through the whole realm shall be put down and avoided out of all churches, chapels and other places. The days used to be festival in His name shall not be observed, nor the services offices and TBonz collects and prayers in his name read, but erased and put out of all the books and quote, not only was Becket shrine at Canterbury demolished, but following the proclamation so we're images and pictures of him throughout England. The thoroughness of the suppression of Becket's called is physically reflected in the surviving missiles from Henry the Eighth reign, Dr. Outta Naser, X and Eddie discover that in every one of the surviving 200 missiles, the surfaces commemorating decades had been erased, crossed out or covered with a die to make them illegible. But Henry the Eighth was no more successful in erasing the memory of Thomas Becket than he was in erasing the memory of the other Thomas, who we helped to make a St. Thomas More. But we are running out of time as usual. And I would like to chat with Jenny at least a little bit about Thomas Becket in the movies, or in this case movie. The movie is of course, Becket, directed by Peter Glenville, and starring Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole and John Gielgud, Becket did okay financially, ranking 15th in box office receipts Each for films released in 1964. It did better than okay with the critics. After winning the Golden Globes for Best Picture, it garnered 12 Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor. Both Burton and O'Toole got nods, and Best Supporting Actor for John Gielgud. It ended up only winning one Oscar, and that was for Edward and helds adaptation of John Ali's 1959 stageplay. Becket Jenny, I don't know about you. But I've always found it interesting that a movie about England's most famous Barter is based upon a play written by a Frenchman.
Jennifer Paxton:And there's an interesting story with this play. Supposedly, Shona knew, he went on a house party over the weekends, to a place where he found a book about Thomas Becket on the shelf, and he sort of picked it up and started to read it. And he became very fascinated with the story of Becket, and he wrote this play, but the play isn't really if it comes right down to it about the 12th century at all. Yeah, it's about recent French history. Okay, so Well, the play casts Thomas Becket as a Saxon. We mentioned this in the first episode. And so there is a dynamic in the movie and the play, in which Becket is essentially a collaborator. The word collaborators actually been used in the script. So he is cooperating with the Norman oppressor. And so there's even a character a completely invented character in the play in the movie, the Saxon attendant, who helps Becket out with his personal affairs, and he'd shines Becket for having gone over to the enemy, essentially. And this attendant helps Becket as Archbishop to rediscover his inner Saxon so to speak. And he begins to see that he needs to stand up to Norman oppression. Now this dynamic has nothing to do with what was really going on in Becket's actual life, because as we mentioned last time, he's not a Saxon. He's a Norman,
richard abels:and the little tidbit I picked up since our last episode, while Becket was not a Saxon, one of the knights who murdered him was or at least, he was of mixed heritage. William to Tracy's great great grandmother was God Yuval, sister of King Edward the Confessor, and his grandmother was GIFa, daughter of an East Anglian Anglo Danish noble named Osgood clapa.
Jennifer Paxton:But this is really all about collaboration in France with the Vichy Regime in World War Two.
richard abels:Interesting, interesting. How would you compare on wheezed Becket to T. S. Eliot's 1935 play about Thomas's martyrdom? Murder in the cathedral?
Jennifer Paxton:It's completely different. So the movie that well first of all, there's a movie of of the play by Elliot,
richard abels:which you actually saw, and which I saw on the web?
Jennifer Paxton:Yeah, it was shown to me in high school, I think I've mentioned I went to a rather unusual High School. Yeah, fourth grade. You're right. So anyway, so we watched it as part of my medieval England history, yes, that I took in high school. And it's very stagey. very stylized. So the Becket film that's based on the unui play is, is in a very naturalistic side. It's cinematic, it is very cement, cinematic, epic. It is an epic. But the the Elliott play is, instead really, first of all, its inverse. And it's really an exploration of the interior life of Becktt. So it doesn't focus, for example, on a friendship between the king and the archbishop the way you see in the Becket film.
richard abels:Yeah, and in fact, in the Becket film, Henry II and Becket are presented as buddies. They're, they're good friends, they go hunting together. That kid does everything with every second except sharing his sexual escapades. However,
Jennifer Paxton:they work that into the film, because in the film, Becket has a mistress, who was played by the unbelievable Shawn Phillips, who later becomes Livia on on quality. Oh, really? Love that. Yes. Right. So, so she plays a Becket's mistress. And at one point, Henry actually comes along and says, I'll have her please. And then the Shawn Phillips character, who by the way, as well, which is a wonderful little added bonus there. So Shawn Phillips says to Becket, will you take me back afterwards? And he says, No, I won't. Because he knows that to take her back after she's been with the king. It's just not going to happen, doesn't work. And so this is an instance in which a little bit less If the cloak story that you talked about last time, the king is asserting his power over back at so this is not a mutual relationship. So he can even take Becket's woman. Now there's no evidence of the actual backend having a mistress with it Archdeacon have had a mistress. Possibly. I mean, if you think about it, you know, Roger Salisbury, who was a bishop earlier in the 12th century had a wife. That's true. So it wouldn't have been impossible to imagine. Yeah. And, you know, sort of this sort of thing did happen and was discussed. But we don't have any, any reference to it. And given as many enemies as Becket had, you would have thought one would think that if he did have any sort of publicly acknowledged mistress, we would know.
richard abels:Yeah, I think so. I think so. But I think the movie got right about the relationship between Becket and Henry. The second is that Henry II really did feel a sense of personal betrayal. And it may not be a trail because of friendship. It's a betrayal for what he the reasons that he that he wrote to Louis VII, this is the man I made. This was my man. And what did he do? He betrayed me, he committed treason against me. And that is unforgivable. It's one thing to have somebody who was like Theobald, whom he inherited, but to raise up Becket who really was socially a nobody to make it the most powerful churchmen in England, and that to happen turned on him. I
Jennifer Paxton:think that both the character in the film and the character in history, both from their own perspective, had grievances that could justify the ferocity with which this, this conflict was pursued. The movie
richard abels:gives only the slightest nod to the issue that really divided Henry II and Becket. The problem of feminist clerics,
Jennifer Paxton:it does because it really wants to get to the human drama as much as possible and discussing the different provisions of the constitutions of Clarendon would not have made for wonderful cinema. But
richard abels:fortunately, it makes for a fascinating podcast. But all good things must come to an end, even a podcast about the constitutions of Clarendon. But before we go, I'm going to play another short clip, Jenny, I know that you're not a fan of TS Eliot or have his play murder in the cathedral. But I read across your performance that play that is quite simply stunning.
Monty Python:Good evening, this new series of Trim Jeans Theater presents will enable you to enjoy the poetry of TS Eliot whilst losing unsightly tommy bulge. Jean. Well, yes and the inches stay off. Mark. Terrific. Thrill to Thomas Becket's habit of choice, your physique tighter firmer, neater. I am here. No traitor to the king. Absolve all those you have excommunicated. Resign those powers you have arrogated. Renew the obedience you have violated. Lose inches of your hips.
Jennifer Paxton:Richard, I thought I was a Monty Python nerd. I had never heard this before. Thank you for this and notice. They call him Thomas Becket.
richard abels:Well, the podcast is called tis but a scratch. Jenny. It was great having you back as a co host on the podcast. And I hope you'll come back to do an episode with me on the Norman Conquest. It's a subject that I know that we both are really interested in.
Jennifer Paxton:I'm excited for that one.
richard abels:Yeah, yeah. Until then, bye for now.
Jennifer Paxton:Bye, bye.
