Saint Thomas of Canterbury

DESCRIPTION: "Listen, lordings, both great and small" as the singer tells "a wonder tale" of the "clerk... of Canterbury." "Knights came from Henry King" to slay Thomas. He died in the "mother church." "Worship ye Thomas in all your life."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1430 (British Library -- Sloane MS. 2593)
KEYWORDS: religious death royalty MiddleEnglish
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1170 - Murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Greene-TheEarlyEnglishCarols, #114, pp. 72-73, "(A, a, a, a, Nunc gaudet ecclesia)" (1 text with variant readings)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #1892
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #3113
ADDITIONAL: Roman Dyboski, _Songs, Carols, and Other Miscellaneous Poems from the Balliol Ms. 354, Richard Hill's Commonplace Book_, Kegan Paul, 1907 (there are now multiple print-on-demand reprints), #40, p. 31, "[The murder of Thomas a Beket]" (1 text)
Carleton Brown, editor, _Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century_, Oxford University Press, 1939, #123, pp. 189-190, "The Martyrdom of St. Thomas" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSRichardHill}, The Richard Hill Manuscript, Oxford, Balliol College MS. 354, folio 227
MANUSCRIPT: {MSCaiusCollege383}, Cambridge, Gonville & Caius College MS. 383, page 68
MANUSCRIPT: {MSSloane2593}, London, British Library, MS. Sloane 2593, folio 23
MANUSCRIPT: London (Kew), Public Record Office C 47/34/1/12
NOTES [1880 words]: Greene's The Early English Carols lists four carols about Thomas Becket (the name "Thomas a Becket" is a late distortion; Tyerman, p. 202), #113-#116. This, #114, is by far the most popular, appearing in four different manuscripts; it appears that none of the others appears in more than one, and with the exception of #115, they don't appear in very "folk-ish" manuscripts.
Although this is a carol about an historical character, the text (at least as printed by Greene) has only the most limited actual historical references:
"The gretest clerk of al this lond, Of Cauntyrbery": Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury when he died.
"Knytes kemyn fro Hendry King": Becket was slain by four knights who responded to an outburst by King Henry II. Nominally the two English Archbishops, Canterbury and York, were of equal rank, but everyone knew that the see of Canterbury was richer, more populous -- and closer to the center of power.
"Thomeys"/"Thomas": the only real name used by Thomas himself; he did not like his surname Becket (Tyerman, p. 202).
"Worchepe ye Thomeys": Becket was made a saint soon after his death.
Greene, p. 374, mentions a few other words that match with the chronicles ("altar," "traitor"), but while these are genuine parallels, they frankly struck me as commonplaces. Still, his notes are worth reading.
Thomas Becket was born around 1120, and killed 1170. Thomas, son of Gilbert Becket, was anything but a natural choice for a saint or a bishop: "Chaucer's 'holy, blissful martyr' redeemed a life of fame, conflict, vanty, pride and failure by being hacked to bits by four probably rather drunk knights one dark December evening in Canterbury Cathedral [and became a legend as a result].... The reality, however, if not the stuff of legend, is almost that of fiction" [Tyerman, p. 202].
The Chaucer reference above is to line 17 of the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales; Chaucer/Benson, p. 23, gives the text of the line as "The hooly blisful martir for to seek" -- i.e. the Canterbury Pilgrims were bound for the shrine of Becket at Canterbury (although the earliest manuscript of the passage, in the Hengwrt manuscript, write the line as "The holy blisful martir for to seke..." -- and Chaucer/Andrew/Ransom/Moorman, volume 1A p. 129, shows no variation whatsoever in the text).
Becket -- who was Norman, not English -- had had some education in Paris (Warren, p. 56) and began his career as a mercer and worked for a banker (Tyerman, pp. 202-203; OxfordCompanion, p. 88). In 1145/1146, while in his mid-twenties, he joined the household of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, and proved an adept enough clerk that they sent him off for further education (OxfordSaints, p. 505). He was made Archdeacon of Canterbury in 1154 (Tyerman, p. 203).
Henry II (reigned 1154-1189) was the son of Matilda/Maud, the only legitimate child of King Henry I to live to have children; in 1128 she had been made to marry as her second husband Geoffrey of Anjou. It was not a happy match, but they managed to have three children (Brooke, p. 184; for more on the May-December marriage of Matilda and Geoffrey, see the notes to "A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing)" [Laws O35]), Matilda should have succeeded Henry I when he died in 1135, and her son Henry should have been her heir, but the barons of England, not wanting a queen to rule them, instead chose Stephen, the second son of William the Conqueror's daughter Adela (Brooke, pp. 39-49; genealogy on p. 9 of Warren). Stephen was a disaster; although he won a civil war with Matilda, he simply didn't know how to govern.
In the 1150s, the young Henry (born probably 1133) pursue his claim to the throne on his own. In 1152, he married Eleanor of Aquiitaine (for more on this, see "Queen Eleanor's Confession [Child 156]" and, again, "A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing)" [Laws O35]). In 1153, he invaded England. Stephen -- who had just lost his oldest son and heir, decided to accept Henry as his heir if allowed to serve out his reign in peace (Wilson, p. 14). In 1154, Stephen died and Henry II became king (OxfordCompanion, p. 888).
When Henry II became King, Theobald for some reason suggested that the worldly Thomas become Henry's Chancellor. He did that job in a rather desultory way, but became Henry's close friend and personal advisor (Tyerman, p. 204). "His zeal in the king's interests, even when they appeared to conflict with the church's, gave Theobald much cause for concern and, not surprisingly, led Henry to believe that Thomas was his loyal friend" (OxfordCompanion, p. 88). Henry found him so good a supporter that he showered him with gifts, and Becket acted more and more like a great magnate, even competing successfully in a tournament (Tyerman, p. 205).
A less likely archbishop can hardly be imagined, but when Theobald died in 1161, Henry decided to give the job to his close friend (Tyerman suggests that Theobald would have approved, but OxfordCompanion, p. 88, notes that the tradition was to choose a monk, which Becket was not. Becket himself supposedly warned Henry that choosing him could lead them into conflict; Warren, p. 449).
Becket served in the post from 1162, but Tyerman, p. 206, suggests that the fact that he was now, for the first time, his own boss caused him to lose his discretion. Warren, p. 450, quotes other explanations for why Becket changed -- e.g. he was like an actor slipping into a role. Whatever the reason, Becket went from being Henry's supporter to being Henry's mulish opponent. He fought with Henry even over trivia. By 1163, he and Henry were in open conflict (Becket was trying to assure that priests, no matter what their crime, were protected from secular justice; Wilson, pp. 18-19); in that year, Henry deprived him of the Chancellorship and his secular properties. Even most English bishops disliked his arrogance and obstinacy (Tyerman, p. 207). In 1164, in trouble with a council in England, he fled to the continent and conducted a propaganda effort to get his job back (Warren, pp. 491-494; OxfordSaints, p. 505).
He and Henry reached a partial reconciliation in 1170, which let him return home (Warren, pp. 506-507), but Becket hadn't really backed down. Among other things, he started excommunicating people who opposed him, including even the Archbishop of York who had crowned Henry II's son "Henry the Young King," which Beckett thought was his place (OxfordCompanion, p. 88; Warren, p. 502).
Henry II quickly realized that the New Becket was just like the Old Becket (Warren, p. 508). It's not entirely clear what Henry said -- the traditional "Will no one rid me of this turbulent/pestilent priest?" is poorly attested (Tyerman, p. 209; Warren, p. 508), but four knights, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracy, Reginald FitzUrse, and Richard le Breton, set out to eliminate the problem. (Warren, p. 509, in essence calls them fools; the result probably proves him right.) They may have wanted to arrest Becket, but he would have none of it. The whole situation turned into a farce, with both sides blustering (Warren, p. 510), and when a drunken group of stupid knights bluster, the outcome can't surprise anyone. On December 29, 1170, they cut him down -- incompetently -- and butchered his corpse in Canterbury Cathedral.
"So Thomas Becket came to be regarded as a martyr, and as a saint, and as a folk hero. The reality became irrelevant" (Warren, p. 518). (Frankly, this is pretty typical; when famous people were murdered, they became saints, even when they were uncompromising zealots like Becket, or incompetents like Henry VI, or people who just didn't get it, apparently like Edmund of East Anglia.)
Tyerman, p. 209, calls it "The single most chronicled death in English history." Supposedly five people who were present wrote about it, John of Salisbury being the most important. The Pope threatened to excommunicate all England, though in the end he moved primarily against the murderers (Warren, pp. 519-520).
Supposedly 703 miracles were recorded by Becket's tomb in the first decade after his death (OxfordSaints, p. 506); little wonder he was canonized in 1173! Henry II did penance at his tomb in 1174, walking there barefoot and in sackcloth and submitting to a scourging (Tyerman, p. 210; Wilson, p. 30; I read somewhere that it is suspected that the flagellation involved was probably something of an act). A church was dedicated to him in near Dublin in 1177; in 1178, William the Lion of Scotland founded an abbey in his name (Chaucer/Andrew/Ransom/Moorman, volume 1B, p. 25; I personally suspect this was William taking a jab at Henry II). Chaucer/Andrew/Ransom/Moorman in the next sentence say that "Becket was undoubtedly the most popular saint of the Middle Ages after the Virgin Mary." But in practice, Becket's martyrdom did nothing to advance the liberty of the church (Tyerman, p. 211).
It did, however, all but displace all other Canterbury saints (OxfordSaints, p. 506), making him the object of regular pilgrimages, as in the Canterbury Tales (although, as Chaucer/Andrew/Ransom/Moorman, volume 1B, p. 25, notes, that one line is the only reference to Thomas in the entire Canterybury Tales! -- on the next page, they mention various suggestions that Chaucer was criticizing the Church, or Becket, or somebody. This fits in with various contentions of Lollard influence on Chaucer's thought, but I doubt it -- while Chaucer was extraordinarily original and open-minded, every such hint that has been suggested is subtle and dubious.)
"During his lifetime few churchmen thought that Becket's truculence did much to help the cause of Canterbury, of the English church, or of the church in general. Probably no one thought his conduct was that of a saint, even if he had taken to wearing coarse and lice-ridden undergarments. But his murder changed everything. It put Henry in the wrong. It forced him to do penance and make concessions, though none of lasting significance" (OxfordCompanion, p. 89).
It probably won't surprise you that that paragon of royal self-centeredness, Henry VIII, declared Becket a traitor and destroyed his shrine (OxfordCompanion, p. 89). That didn't by itself destroy his cult, but Anglicanism inherently placed less stress on saints than did Catholicism.
Although no longer found in tradition, there is good reason to think that it once was, given its presence in four different manuscripts, two of them quite important, and all the texts substantially different:
- Balliol MS. 354 (folio 222 recto; this is the famous Richard Hill manuscript, with the components written by 1537)
- British Library MS. Sloane 2593, another famous manuscript with many traditional pieces
- Cambridge University, Gonville & Caius College MS. 383 (fifteenth century. Very miscellaneous, with many Latin and French records, although it also has some English carols)
- Public Records Office, Chancery Misc. (fifteenth century; Greene would date c. 1400. Small format, badly stained and damaged. Written by a single hand, with Latin and English sections. Two folios only; the only other piece of possible interest is a short poem about Gabriel and the nativity).
For more on manuscript Sloane 2593, see the notes to "Robyn and Gandeleyn" [Child 115]. - RBW
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