Thomas Becket, known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas a Becket served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then notably as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his death in 1170.
23 Facts About Thomas Becket
2.
Thomas Becket engaged in conflict with Henry II, King of England, over the rights and privileges of the Church and was murdered by followers of the king in Canterbury Cathedral.
3.
Thomas Becket is venerated as a saint and martyr by the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.
4.
The main sources for the life of Becket are a number of biographies written by contemporaries.
5.
Thomas Becket was the son of Gilbert and Matilda Beket.
6.
Thomas Becket served as the sheriff of the city at some point.
7.
At the age of 10, Thomas Becket was sent as a student to Merton Priory south-west of the city in Surrey.
8.
Thomas Becket did not study any subjects beyond the trivium and quadrivium at these schools.
9.
Later Thomas Becket acquired a position in the household of Theobald of Bec, by then Archbishop of Canterbury.
10.
Thomas Becket was nominated as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162, several months after the death of Theobald.
11.
Thomas Becket used his skills to induce their consent and apparently succeeded with all but Becket.
12.
Finally, even Thomas Becket expressed willingness to agree to the substance of the Constitutions of Clarendon, but he still refused formally to sign the documents.
13.
Thomas Becket spent nearly two years in the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, until Henry's threats against the order obliged him to return to Sens.
14.
Thomas Becket fought back by threatening excommunication and an interdict against the king and bishops and the kingdom, but Pope Alexander III, though sympathising with him in theory, favoured a more diplomatic approach.
15.
The knights told Thomas Becket he was to go to Winchester to give an account of his actions, but Thomas Becket refused.
16.
Thomas Becket's assassins fled north to de Morville's Knaresborough Castle for about a year.
17.
In 1220, Thomas Becket's bones were moved to a new gold-plated, bejewelled shrine behind the high altar in the Trinity Chapel.
18.
Thomas Becket destroyed Becket's bones and ordered all mention of his name obliterated.
19.
The absence of nightingales in Otford is ascribed to Thomas Becket, who is said to have been so disturbed in his devotions by the song of a nightingale that he commanded that none sing in the town ever again.
20.
The first holy image of Thomas Becket is thought to be a mosaic icon still visible in Monreale Cathedral in Sicily, created shortly after his death.
21.
Thomas Becket's cousins obtained refuge at the Sicilian court during their exile, and King William II of Sicily wed a daughter of Henry II.
22.
Over 45 medieval chasse reliquaries decorated in champleve enamel showing similar scenes from Thomas Becket's life survive, including the Thomas Becket Casket, constructed to hold relics of him at Peterborough Abbey and now housed in London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
23.
Wall painting of Thomas Becket's martyrdom painted in the 1330s in the parish church of St Peter ad Vincula, South Newington, Oxfordshire.