The two swords

On December 29, 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was hacked to death in his own cathedral by four minions of Henry II: murdered by four knights inspired -- whether intentionally or accidentally -- by the king's exasperated exclamation, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"

Most of us are familiar with the outlines of the story, if only from viewing the 1964 movie Becket (based on the Jean Anouilh play), or from attending T.S Eliot's drama, Murder in the Cathderal. 

As a college student, required to produce a thesis for my mandatory junior-year historiography seminar, I chose to examine the life of Becket.  Specifically, I addressed the issue of whether the Church had a reasonable basis for declaring Thomas a saint, just two years after his death.  Unfortunately, I didn't make a copy of my (doubtlessly) brilliant paper -- over thirty pages in length with voluminous footnotes -- probably because, following my normal custom, I had sat up all night, the night before it was due, typing it out on my old Smith Corona, and had hurriedly handed it in the next morning.  Somewhere, however, I still have the nearly illegible manuscript from which I did my typing.

I remember more about the process of research and writing than I do about the analysis contained in my magnum opus.  I'm confident, however, of my ultimate conclusion -- Thomas was indeed worthy of sainthood, although his acts and motivations often remain ambiguous  and confusing -- and certainly infused with the politics of his time.

As the play and movie suggest, Thomas Becket's life is the sort of stuff that popular history thrives on.  And today's New York Times presents a book review of a new look at the saint's life:  Thomas Becket, by John Guy.  The book is suggestively subtitled: "Warrior, Priest, Rebel: A Nine-Hundred-Year-Old Story Retold."

My research paper was a primitive attempt at the analysis of history as an historian, drawing no conclusions not based on reliable original source material.  A popular history, on the other hand, has the advantage of not being so restrained by documented facts -- the author can fill in the blanks, based on his empathy for the characters and for the times he is describing, so long as he doesn't actually contradict known facts.  This advantage makes the popular history more readable and exciting than the scholarly analysis; it also, however, if the author isn't careful, allows him to speculate freely, to impute today's motivations and concerns into the minds of those who lived in a totally different intellectual and emotional climate.

I haven't read Guy's book (although I intend to do so).  But the NYT review devotes some of its brief allotted space to discussing possible homosexual relationships between Becket (as a teenager) and an older friend and mentor, and -- later -- between Becket and Henry II himself.  Thomas Becket's life has been a subject of fascination to both friends and enemies, both religious and secular, for nearly a millennium.  I don't recall ever having read any such speculation until now, the sort of speculation that has seemed to permeate obsessively almost every biography -- of almost every person -- written in the past 50 years or so.

Judging from the review, Guy's work focuses on the conflict between the king and his former close friend and chancellor as "more like a chess match than a morality play."  To understand that conflict, and Becket's ultimate assassination, it's certainly critical that one understand the politics of the time.  The church's role in England was that of a major player, a force constantly at odds with the monarchy (when not acting, at other times, in its support).  But to us, those conflicts appear as merely cynical struggles for political and personal power, as in some cases they were.  But in the world of the eleventh century, the struggle for political power was never wholly divorced from the parallel struggle for personal salvation. 

The bishops and papacy thus strove for power for their own political ends, but at the same time sincerely believed they were fighting for God and the salvation of the souls entrusted to them.  And the king himself could never forget that any conflict between him and the church endangered not merely his power base, but also his own hopes for eternity.

As the review concludes, "Guy's biography is a portrait of a saint with plenty of shadows."  Those shadows have intrigued historians for centuries.  They were the reason my college paper seemed worth writing. 

I look forward to reading this new examination of the life of St. Thomas Becket, trusting it will offer  new insights into the life and world of this most complex of men.