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After six years of contention, partly spent in.
St thomas of canterbury long beach: St. Thomas Becket, also known as Thomas à Becket, was a towering figure in 12th-century England whose life and death continue to inspire devotion and reflection.
Thomas, with full foresight of martyrdom before him, returned as a good shepherd to his Church. On the 29th of December, , just as vespers were beginning, four knights broke into the cathedral, crying: "Where is the archbishop? Thomas might easily have escaped. He was ordained priest on Saturday in Whitweek and consecrated bishop the next day, Sunday , June 3, It seems to have been St.
Thomas who obtained for England the privilege of keeping the feast of the Blessed Trinity on that Sunday , the anniversary of his consecration, and more than a century afterwards this custom was adopted by the papal Court itself and eventually imposed upon the whole world. Even as chancellor he had practiced secret austerities, but now in view of the struggle he clearly saw before him he gave himself to fastings and disciplines, hair shirts, protracted vigils, and constant prayers.
Before the end of the year he stripped himself of all signs of the lavish display which he had previously affected. On August 10 he went barefoot to receive the envoy who brought him the pallium from Rome. Whereupon Henry seems to have required him to surrender certain ecclesiastical preferments which he still retained, notably the archdeaconry, and when this was not done at once showed bitter displeasure.
Other misunderstandings soon followed. The question has been dealt with in some detail in the article England V, That the saint himself had no wish to be lenient with criminous clerks has been well shown by Norgate Angevin Kings, ii, It was with him simply a question of principle. Thomas seems all along to have suspected Henry of a design to strike at the independence of what the king regarded as a too powerful Church.
Thomas inflexibly insisted. Thomas, though at first yielding somewhat to the solicitations of the other bishops, in the end took up an attitude of uncompromising resistance. Then followed a period of unworthy and vindictive persecution. When opposing a claim made against him by John the Marshal, Thomas upon a frivolous pretext was found guilty of contempt of court.
Paul's Cathedral. One of Thomas' father's rich friends, Richer de L'aigle, was attracted to the sisters of Thomas. He often invited Thomas to his estates in Sussex. There, Thomas learned to ride a horse, hunt, behave, and engage in popular sports such as jousting. Richer was later a signer at the Constitution of Clarendon against Thomas. Upon returning to the Kingdom of England, he attracted the notice of Theobald of Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, who entrusted him with several important missions to Rome and finally made him archdeacon of Canterbury and provost of Beverley.
He so distinguished himself by his zeal and efficiency that Theobald commended him to King Henry II when the important office of Lord Chancellor was vacant. Henry, like all the Norman kings, desired to be absolute ruler of his dominions, both Church and State , and could find precedents in the traditions of the throne when he planned to do away with the special privileges of the English clergy, which he regarded as fetters on his authority.
This created both a hardship and a resentment of Becket among the English Churchmen.
To further implicate Becket as a secular man, he became an accomplished and extravagant courtier and a cheerful companion to the king's pleasures. He was so devoted to his master's interests with such a firm and yet diplomatic thoroughness that scarcely anyone, except perhaps John of Salisbury, doubted his allegiance to English royalty.
King Henry even sent his son Henry, later the "Young King," to live in Becket's household, it being the custom then for noble children to be fostered out to other noble houses. Later, that would be one of the reasons his son would turn against him, having formed an emotional attachment to Becket as a foster-father. Henry the Young King was reported to have said Becket showed him more fatherly love in a day than his father did his entire life.
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When Archbishop Theobald died April 18, , Henry conceived what must have seemed a neat solution to the problem of the imposing of his will upon the church: installing his friend Becket who, in his eight years as lord chancellor, had consistently taken a firm line with the church. So much to the indignation of the church Henry arranged for Becket's appointment as the new archbishop.
He was elected in May, and consecrated on June 3, , in accordance with the king's wishes. At once, there took place, before the eyes of the astonished king and country, an unexpected transformation in the character of the new archbishop. Having previously been a merry, pleasure-loving courtier, Becket became an ascetic prelate in simple monastic garb, fully devoted to the cause of the hierarchy and prepared to do his utmost to defend it.
Most historians agree that Becket begged the king not to appoint him archbishop, knowing that this would occur, and even warning the king that he could not be loyal to two masters. Henry could not believe that his closest friend would forsake their friendship and appointed him to the archbishopric anyway—something he came to regret for the rest of his life.
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In the schism which at that time divided the Church, Becket sided with Pope Alexander III, a man whose devotion to the same strict hierarchical principles appealed to him, and from Alexander, he received the pallium at the Council of Tours. On his return to England , Becket proceeded at once to put into execution the project he had formed for the liberation of the Church in England from the very limitations which he had formerly helped to enforce.
His aim was twofold: the complete exemption of the Church from all civil jurisdiction, with undivided control of the clergy, freedom of appeal, etc. About one in six of the population of England were clergymen, many of whom were not ordained to the priesthood. All clergy could claim the right to be tried in ecclesiastical courts where they would invariably receive a more lenient sentence than if tried in the criminal courts of the land.
When Henry arrived back in England after a stay in France, he was told that, while he had been away, there had been a dramatic increase in serious crime. The king's officials claimed that over a hundred murderers had escaped their proper punishment because they had claimed the right to be tried in church courts.
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Henry's problem was the need to restore order after the chaos which marked the civil war between King Stephen and Empress Matilda. For Becket, the King's concern over criminous clerks touched on the question of clerical immunity from secular jurisdiction. The king was quick to perceive the inevitable outcome of the archbishop's attitude and called a meeting of the clergy at Westminster October 1, , at which he demanded that they renounce all claim to exemption from civil jurisdiction and acknowledge the equality of all subjects before the law.
This is an older book, written in the 19 th century by an English scholar during the height of the historical revival of the Victorian era. With an original introduction by Ryan Grant, The Murder of Becket and the Canterbury Shrine is a must-have for anyone interested in the life of the great English martyr. Thomas Becket, ora pro nobis! You can learn more about his books and classes on his website.
Phillip resides in southern Michigan. Clarifying the Two Types of Pride. How I Learned Tarot is a Trap.
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Catholic Exchange is a project of Sophia Institute Press. Email Login. Catholic Exchange. Thomas Becket Phillip Campbell. The Knights Did Not Intend to Kill Becket at First Though the four knights came to Canterbury fully armed and prepared for violence, it appears that killing Becket was not their initial plan of action. Becket Was Killed in a Tussle Hagiography has depicted Becket docile and passive, hands folded in prayer, being stabbed from behind.
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