Thomas á Becket and the Catholic Context

Thomas á Becket and the Catholic Context

The tragedy of Thomas á Becket and his relationship with Henry II was symptomatic throughout the Europe of the day. The Church/State power struggle that plagued a back and forth match between the two institutions, finding harmony only in mere glimpses, was one of the largest sources of divine and royal troubles. If the emperor had too much power, the Pope would attempt to assert dominance. If a Pope had too much power, then the emperors would seek to depose and replace him. Central to this dilemma is the case of the English king and the Archbishop of Canterbury, but playing in the backdrop, on a much larger scale is the case of the German Emperor and the Pope. Overwhelmingly similar are the cases of Henry II and Becket compared to Barbarossa and Alexander III.

Thomas á Becket was born circa 1118 (some sources claim 1120) in London to a wealthy merchant, Gilbert Becket and Roesa or Matilda of Caen, of Norman roots. Becket, with this wealthy background of a father who was even sheriff for some time, was well educated at Merton Priory, and Paris. Becket became proficient in hunting and hawking

The first among these brazen insults to Henry’s kindness in Becket’s Elevation was the quarrel over ecclesiastic justice. Part of the Gregorian reform movement through out the European Catholic Church included the right of clergy to choose whether to be tried for a crime in the royal courts or the Church courts. The Church tended to impose lesser penalties for all crimes, such as stealing and murder than the royal courts did. Furthermore, when a lay person broke anything the church referred to as a moral code, he/she would have the choice to be tried in the ecclesiastic courts as well, thus removing the control over the population from the king to the Church as a frequent administer of punishment and justice. Over Phillip de Brois, a canon who murdered a soldier, Henry called the bishops to Westminster to demand that convicted clergy members by sentenced by the king after the judge, Bishop of Lincoln, acquitted the case, only ordering him to be fined. Becket commanded that the bishops not yield.

Henry, by the end of 1164 had three grievances against Becket: the protection of clergy from lay punishment, the uncommon persecution of laity for moral offences, and a disregard for the ancestral customs of William II and Henry I. Instead of resigning and conceding to Henry’s threats, Becket took his stand and fled to France, living in self-imposed exile for the next six years. He, just like the Pope, only remained alive due to the protection of the French King, Louis VII. Though Becket had sought the aid of the Pope during this time, the Pope was immersed in his affairs of defending himself and his lands from the invading Germans. Upon his departure, Becket denounced the Bishops who did not come to his aid, particularly Foliot. To these accusations, Foliot wrote:

Following William I and Lanfranc were William II and Anselm, the former completely abusing the trust his predecessor established with the church. Anselm completely subordinated the church to the Papacy. William used the opportunity to keep the Church at bay and assumed personal control over all church politics, holding elections in his own chapel. He removed the freedoms and liberties from the church. Henry I continued this sequence of church repression Even though Henry II also wished to retain this system of repression and further it, “he recognized the law of God and of the Church as existing independently of what he himself might desire, and as having authority.”

In order to understand fully the politically ecclesiastical moves of Thomas Becket and his role as Archbishop, the atmosphere of Church State relations needs to be examined prior to Becket’s appointment. Previous to the Norman invasion, the Catholic Church in England was perhaps the least influenced by the Roman center than any other in Europe. There was a feeling of fidelity and homage to the Roman and Papal roots abroad, but the distance was too far and the Channel provide a physical barrier to influence either way. The pre-Norman Church’s independence allowed it to be far more entangled in the secular realm as well. The Church had such a tie to the land and the people that there was almost no conflict between “Church” and “State” because the two were almost synonymous. While on continental Europe with the reign of Charlemagne and the evident division between Emperor and Pope, the Papacy had been reduced to a mere vassal of the Emperor. The Emperor appointed the Pope and did whatever he desired. The Church throughout the continent and the isles was in the hands of laymen, completely dependent on the contributions and patronage of private endeavors, further reducing the church to a decentralized position and at the mercy of (most notably German) nobles. The same was true in England, but without such a negative consequence as the English kings were devout patrons, not power-politics.

Some topics in this essay:
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