Thomas Becket and His Biographers

THOMAS BECKET AND HIS BIOGRAPHERS

Michael Staunton

THE BOYDELL PRESS

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Acknowledgements vi Abbreviations vii

1 Introduction: The Lives and their context 1

2 The forerunner: John of Salisbury 19

3 Telling the story: Edward Grim, Guernes and Anonymous I 28

4 Criticism and vindication: Anonymous II and Alan of Tewkesbury 38

5 The view from Canterbury: Benedict of Peterborough and William of Canterbury 49

6 Observation and reflection: illiamW Fitzstephen 56

7 Breaking the rules of history: Herbert of Bosham 63

8 Conversion 75

9 Conflict 97

10 Trial 129

11 Exile 153

12 Martyrdom 184

Conclusion 216

Bibliography 220 Index 242

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Conflict

Undergraduate students of the Becket conflict will be familiar with an examination question of this kind: ‘ “The Becket conflict was primarily a clash of personalities”. Discuss.’ The word ‘personalities’ may be replaced by ‘jurisdictions’ or even ‘ideologies’, but the question remains essentially the same: What was the Becket dispute about? A thoughtful answer will usually acknowledge the participation of all these elements in the dispute to varying degrees, and might also discuss the role of Canterbury rights. Such a question recurs because no matter how many times it is asked, a definitive answer will never be given. But a question much less frequently asked is: What did the participants in the Becket dispute think it was about? That this question is not asked more often is surprising, first, in that there is a wealth of material to draw on from letters written in the thick of it, and from posthumous reflection on the dispute in the Lives, but also in that a central feature of the dispute was the very fact that its participants disagreed as to what the dispute was about. In many ways, of course, the twelfth-century perspective is more limited than ours. It was less easy for contemporaries to place the dispute within the context of the legal and administrative developments of the Angevin era, or the simultaneous expansion of papal power. The king’s refusal of the kiss of peace to his archbishop or his usurpation of Canterbury’s right to crown a king seem more trivial to us. Also, the twelfth-century discussions of the Constitutions of Clarendon or Thomas’s murder can seem to overinflate their importance when we consider that their consequences for relations between the Church and the Crown turned out to be more modest than might have been expected. Still, a modern perspective can be limited too. A tendency to see it as a dispute between archbishop and king, or between Church and Crown may obscure the fact that the debate was carried out primarily among churchmen, and that the greatest bitterness was between those ostensibly on the same side. The fact that Henry’s attempt to reform Church–Crown relations ended in failure can unfairly diminish the significance of his introduction of the ancestral customs. Some biographers, notably John of Salisbury and Herbert of Bosham, were actively involved in the dispute, but the issues involved were of great concern to all writers, and this is reflected in their work.

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The dispute Though the dispute between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV and that between Thomas Becket and Henry II were in many ways very different, there are some interesting parallels. Both involved a headstrong and con- troversial churchman pitted against a monarch determined to reassert royal authority after a childhood dominated by the perception of its loss. Both conflicts expressed the explosion of long-simmering tensions, prompted in large part by the personalities involved, especially the personalities of the ecclesiastics in question. In both cases, the dispute began as a show of strength between the two parties, and became more involved as it progressed and resisted resolution. But also, both disputes had a central point of issue at stake: in one, lay investiture; in the other, the Constitutions of Clarendon. In the former case, the central issue gave historians a name for the dispute, and although this is not so in the case of Thomas and Henry, the Constitutions played at least as strong a role in their conflict. All Thomas’s biographers saw it as such. Many writers insert the text of the Constitutions, or at least the contentious clauses, into their works, and most give them prominence. Her- bert of Bosham, with uncharacteristic succinctness, calls them ‘the full cause of dissension … the reason for exile and martyrdom’. To the biographers, and those after them who have sought to understand the Becket dispute, the Constitutions mark a point of clarity, a statement of clear difference between the parties, before the forces that it unleashed gave the dispute such complexity. But behind the Constitutions were deeper ques- tions about the shifting nature of jurisdictional authority, the respective posi- tions of royal and ecclesiastical power, and the formalization of relationships. More narrowly, they were part of Henry II’s general reform of government, and more narrowly again they were a consequence of his increasingly fraught relationship with Thomas. This is acknowledged by Thomas’s biographers: Henry’s insistence on the Constitutions was the central issue in the dissension between king and archbishop, but it was founded on a pre-existing ‘plot against the Church’, and deteriorating relations reflected in early skirmishes. The breakdown of relations happened gradually, marked by a sequence of increasingly divisive encounters. Most modern observers identify Thomas’s resignation of the office of chancellor as the first cause of dissension between him and his king. It seems likely that Henry intended his new archbishop to continue in his earlier role, a combination of duties which was not unusual in twelfth-century Europe, and his unexpected abandonment of his place in the king’s household must have given a worrying signal to the king. Oddly, only William of Canterbury and Guernes mention it. Guernes, identifying it as the first quarrel, tells us that Thomas sent his seal-bearer, Master Ernulf, to the king, telling him that he was giving up his office because of the burden

1 MTB 3. 286, 287, 341.

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of his own work. The king, furious, declared, ‘He doesn’t care about serving me! That’s very clear.’ It is likely that this occurred shortly after the receipt from the pope of the pallium in autumn 1162, almost a year before any other dispute mentioned by the other biographers. The limited attention paid to this episode could be because the king remained in France until January 1163, and his reaction to the resignation of office may not have been known to the biographers. A number of writers identify the first quarrel as happening in July 1163 at the king’s lodge at Woodstock, when Henry attempted to claim for the exchequer revenues traditionally paid by the Church for the support of his local officials. When Thomas refused to accept this new practice, the king backed down, but not without great resentment. William Fitzstephen, uniquely, mentions an early clash over another issue. Thomas had, without informing the king, excommunicated a powerful landlord, William of Eyns- ford, who had expelled some clerks who had recently been intruded into his parish church. This time Henry prevailed, and Thomas absolved William of censure. But for almost all the biographers, the most important early point of conflict was the issue of ‘criminous clerks’: how to try and punish churchmen guilty of serious offences. Henry had increasingly become concerned with what he saw as undue leniency meted out by ecclesiastical courts to those in holy orders. Herbert of Bosham gives one, and William Fitzstephen two, early examples of clerks punished but protected by the archbishop from harsher justice by the king, but the case most prominent in the Lives is that of Philip de Broi, a canon of Bedford who had been accused of killing a certain knight. He was freed by an ecclesiastical court, and when a lay justice attempted to reopen the case, Philip verbally abused him. The justice complained to the king, and Philip was brought before a group of bishops and nobles, who imposed a mild sentence for his insult to the judge, but did not convict him on the charge of murder. It was this case in particular that prompted Henry to gather together the bishops of the realm at Westminster in October 1164 and demand that clerks convicted of serious crimes be deprived of the Church’s protection and handed over to the secular power. When the bishops, led by Thomas, rejected Henry’s demand, citing the distinctive nature of the clergy, the king adopted a different approach, demanding a general observance of his royal customs, that is, the rights which he believed his predecessors had held. The bishops answered that they would only observe the customs ‘saving their

2 Guernes v. 741–50; see MTB 1. 12. 3 Barlow, Becket, p. 82. 4 MTB 1. 12; 2. 373–4; 4. 23–4; Guernes v. 751–70. 5 MTB 3. 43. 6 MTB 3. 264–5, 45–6. 7 MTB 1. 12–13, 2. 374–6; 3. 45, 265–6; 4. 24–5; Guernes v. 771–825. 8 MTB 1. 13; 2. 310; 3. 261, 266–75; 4. 25–7, 95–7, 201–5; Guernes v. 826–920.

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order’, that is, where they did not conflict with the law of the Church. This led Henry to convene in January 1164 a council of the realm at Clarendon, where he demanded a full public acknowledgement of the customs, to which Thomas and the other bishops were eventually persuaded. Then, to the sur- prise of the clergy, the king had the specific customs of the realm as regards the mutual rights of Church and Crown enunciated by his senior magnates and written down in a document. The contentious clauses of the Constitutions of Clarendon dealt with the controversies mentioned by the biographers – royal and ecclesiastical jurisdiction (1, 3, 7, 9, 15) and excommunication (5, 7, 10) – but also with relations with the pope (4, 8) and vacancies and elections (12). Thomas at first refused to acknowledge the Constitutions, but was then constrained to give a verbal recognition, though he did not affix his seal to the document as required. There are, then, some differences about the early disputes, but broad con- sensus about the shape that the dissension took: early disputes emerged over various issues, the most important being criminous clerks. This led the king to demand the recognition of his ancestral customs, first in general form, and then in specific written detail. The biographers also tend to approach the king’s customs from both a specific and general perspective. Though many writers insert all or part of the text of the Constitutions into their Lives, only Guernes and Herbert of Bosham provide a gloss upon them.10 Guernes’s comments are the briefer. For example, to the prohibition on beneficed clergy leaving the realm without the king’s permission (3), he simply comments, ‘If this were put into operation, no powerless man would ever be able to obtain his rights. King Henry would hold St Peter’s powers.’ Herbert, claiming to represent the stated arguments of the archbishop, objects that, first, this could prevent pilgrimages to holy places, and second, that it would make England a prison for many distinguished men. What, he asks, if a dispute between king and pope should arise, and an ecclesiastic is prevented from attending a council or travel- ling on other necessary business? Surely he ought to obey the vicar of the Church more than a worldly king? But it is the issue of criminous clerks which attracted by far the greatest and most detailed analysis.11 Two writers in particular outline the case made by the king and his

9 MTB 1. 15–23; 2. 311–12, 379–83; 3. 46–9, 278–92; 4. 99–103; Guernes v. 921–1035. 10 Guernes v. 2396–2545; MTB 3. 280–5. 11 See in particular Smalley, Becket Conflict, pp. 123–33; C. Duggan, ‘The Becket Dis- pute and Criminous Clerks’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 35 (1962): 1–28, repr. Canon Law in Medieval England: The Becket Dispute and Decretal Collections, Variorum (London, 1982); C. Duggan, ‘The Reception of Canon Law in England in the Later-Twelfth Century’, Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. S. Kuttner and J. J. Ryan=Monumenta Iuris Canonici, Series C: Subsidia 1 (Vatican City, 1965), repr. Canon Law in Medieval England, 359–90; Councils and Synods, pp. 855–77.

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supporters. Herbert, in describing the Council of Westminster, relates how the king, relying on those ‘expert in both laws’ – that is, customary and canon law – made his case on two bases. First, referring to the canon Tradatur curiae,12 he argued that the Church sanctioned the handing over of the clergy to secular courts upon their deposition; secondly, he drew attention to the fact that the Mosaic law allowed no exemption for priests or Levites.13 The Summa Causae has Thomas’s fellow-bishops also referring to the treatment of the Levites, saying that since they had a greater dignity on account of their order, they should be judged more harshly for their offence, and being judged more harshly, they should be punished more severely.14 The fullest and most incisive presentation of the contrary case is provided by William of Canterbury in words he attributes to the archbishop.15 The first argument is that contrary to the claim attributed by Herbert to Henry, ecclesiastical law prohibited the handing over of clergy to secular judgement, a case which he backs up with a long list of canons linked by commentary. Here William very closely follows the relevant canons of both Rufinus and Gratian. In C. Duggan’s view, of all the Becket materials, this passage ‘pre- serves the most professional canonical argument, complete with texts and expounded in technical phraseology’.16 The second argument, more briefly stated, is that where clergy are convicted of a crime and stripped of their office they ought not to suffer a further punishment of mutilation, according to the reading from the Old Latin Nahum 1:9, ‘God does not judge twice for the same thing.’17 Though he acknowledged that if they should commit a similar crime after their degradation, they may be punished by a secular judge according to public law.18 No other writer has as developed a canonical case as William of Canterbury, but others expand on his rejection of double punishment. Edward Grim, Guernes and Anonymous II refer to Solomon’s punishment of his priest Abiathar for supporting the succession of Adonia to David’s throne, which involved stripping him of the functions and privileges of his order, but not subjecting him to death or mutilation. Guernes adds cases of a similar kind, for example that Adam was expelled from the Garden of Eden but not executed.19

12 Decretum C. 11 qu. 1 cc. 18, 31. 13 MTB 3. 266–7. 14 MTB 4. 202. 15 MTB 1. 25–9. 16 Duggan, ‘Reception of Canon Law’, p. 361. 17 Double punishment is condemned in similar terms by Gratian, Decretum DP. 3 cc. 39– 44; John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. Webb, vol. 1, p. 238; Bernard, Ep. 126, Opera 7. 318; see Councils and Synods p. 855; Barlow, Becket, p. 103. 18 Edward Grim and Herbert attribute similar sentiments to Thomas, MTB 2. 386, 3. 270, but Guernes argues that Thomas ought not to have conceded this, v. 46–50. 19 MTB 2. 388; 4. 96; Guernes v. 1146–75, 1274–1355; see 1 Kings 2:26. This reading is

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These are the technical legal arguments as stated in the Lives. It is interesting that the biographers do not, in their own or Thomas’s words, challenge Henry’s assertion that this and the other customs were ancestral. Little mention is made either of perhaps the most significant aspect of the Council of Clarendon: the fact that royal customs were not only recalled but written down.20 But some biographers suggest that Thomas addressed the issue on another level, by challenging the general validity of royal custom as against ecclesiastical right.

Two laws In his account of Westminster, Anonymous I reports that Thomas claimed,

‘Holy church, from the beginning of the Christian faith established and instructed by the holy apostles and apostolic fathers, has in the canons and decrees of the same holy fathers customs of the Christian life and discipline fully expressed; besides which it is not useful, rather it is not permitted, for you to demand anything new, nor for us to concede. Since we who have been raised, albeit unworthily, to the place of the fathers, have not been appointed to establish new institutions, but to humbly and reverendly obey the old.’ The king said, ‘I do not demand this. I only wish that those customs which are known to have been observed in the realm in the times of my predecessors also be conceded to me and observed in my time. There were also in those times better and more saintly archbishops than you, who saw this and allowed it, and had no difficulty or controversy with their kings.’ To this the archbishop said, ‘If such were presumed by former kings against the rule of ecclesiastical custom, and some time violently observed by fear of kings, they should not be called customs but abuses, and we are taught by the testimony of Scripture that their depraved use should be abolished rather than propagated.’21 William Fitzstephen advances a similar argument in his own words and with reference to traditional arguments: The king in affirming these spurious statutes ought to have taken note that the Lord said, ‘Keep my laws.’22 He also said, ‘Woe to those who decree iniquitous

cited in a similar context by John of Salisbury in 1166, LJS no. 187, pp. 236–7. See also Herbert of Bosham, MTB 3. 281, and Summa Causae, 4. 202–3 on double punishment. 20 Fitzstephen writes that ‘these constitutions were never written down, nor indeed had existed at all in the realm of England’, MTB 3. 47. He also describes Herbert of Bosham saying to Henry in 1165 that it seemed amazing to him that the king had put them in writing, ‘For there are also in other realms other evil customs inimical to God’s church but they are not written down. And because they are not written down, there is a better chance that by God’s grace they will be annulled by kings’, MTB 3. 100. See also the Empress Matilda’s reported comments of 1164 to Nicholas, prior of Mont-aux-Malades, CTB no. 41, pp. 166–7. 21 MTB 4. 26; see 2. 387–8, Guernes v. 3571–5. 22 Lev. 20:22.

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decrees.’23 Also, the Lord is never found to have said, ‘I am custom’; but he said, ‘I am truth.’24 Also, authority of custom or longstanding use is not so great that it, as the pagan emperor said, overcomes either reason or law.25 Rather, as the holy fathers write in the decrees, when equity and truth have been revealed, custom yields to reason.26

We do not know if Thomas himself presented such arguments either at West- minster or Clarendon, but he did employ them in two letters of 1166 to the king. First, in Desiderio desideravi, he wrote that,

God’s Church consists of two orders, the clergy and the people. One has the ability to conduct ecclesiastical affairs, the other secular affairs. And since it is certain that kings receive their power from the Church, and the Church receives hers not from them but from Christ, if you allow me to say so, you do not have the power to command bishops to absolve or excommunicate anyone, or draw clergy to secular judgements, to pass judgement concerning churches and tithes, to forbid bishops to hear cases concerning breach of faith or oaths, and many other things of this kind, which are written down among your customs, which you call ‘ancestral’. For the Lord says, ‘Keep my laws’; and again, he declares through the Prophet, ‘Woe to them who make unjust laws and set down injustices in writing to oppress the poor in judgement and deprive God’s humble people of their right.’27

Again in Fraternitatas vestrae, writing that the king should allow peace and liberty to Church, allow Rome to enjoy the liberties which it should have in his lands, and restore rights to Canterbury, he asserts,

These are the royal dignities, the good laws which a Christian king should seek and observe, by which the Church ought to rejoice and flourish under him. These are the laws which observe the divine law and do not derogate from it; whoever does not observe them is manifestly an enemy of God: ‘The law of the Lord is without stain, converting souls.’28 For the Lord said of his laws, ‘Keep my laws’; and the prophet, ‘Woe to those who make unjust laws and write down injustices to oppress the poor in judgement and deprive God’s humble people of their right.’29

Here, then, we can see the Lives echoing arguments made during Thomas’s

23 Isa. 10:1; John 14:15; see MTB 1. 24, 3. 291. 24 Attributed to Cyprian; see John 14:16; Decretum D. 8 c. 5. For its origins see G. B. Ladner, ‘Two Gregorian Letters on the Sources and Nature of Gregory VII’s Reform Ideology’, Studi Gregoriani 5 (1956): 221–42; Smalley, Becket Conflict, p. 128. 25 Decretum D. 8 c. 4. 26 MTB 3. 47–8. 27 CTB no. 74, pp. 296–7. 28 See Ps. 19:7 (18:8). 29 CTB no. 95, pp. 422–3.

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lifetime about the superiority of the law of the Church over secular law. The fullest statement of this position comes from Herbert of Bosham in his account of Westminster. After surveying Henry’s case as regards criminous clerks he reports Thomas’s reply:

My lord king, sacrosanct Church, mother of all kings and priests, has two kings, two laws, two jurisdictions and two penalties. Two kings, Christ the heavenly king, and the worldly king; two laws, human and divine; two jurisdictions, priestly and legal; two penalties, spiritual and corporal. ‘Look, there are two swords.’ ‘It is enough’, said the Lord.30 Neither is too much and these are sufficient. But men of this profession, called clerks, by reason of order and office have Christ alone as their king, are assigned a distinguishing mark on their heads, as if by this set apart from the nations of people, and given over pecu- liarly to the work of the Lord; hence by privilege of order and office they are not subject to but superior to earthly kings, since they appoint kings and it is from them that the king receives the belt of knighthood and the power of the material sword. Therefore kings have no jurisdiction in these things, on account of profession and order, but rather these are judges of kings. For these men of our office, even if in the world there are weak, contemptible and cow- ardly ones, nevertheless, as a great king and prophet said, ‘They bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron.’31 And therefore under their own king, the King of heaven, not worldly kings, they are ruled by their own law, and if they transgress, are penalized by their own law, which has its own penalty.32

He goes on to elaborate on the distinctive nature of the clergy, and how inde- cent it should be to see the hands that ministered at the altar bound and the head anointed with holy chrism hanging on the pillory. And he concludes by rejecting the example of the Old Testament Levites who submitted themselves to bodily punishment:

Since this new law, new King, new judgement is reformed, not only in new punishments, but in new sacraments, new sacrifices, new works and new bur- dens. ‘For the old has passed away, behold, all things have become new.’33

Herbert tells us that if these are not Thomas’s precise words, they express the spirit and substance of what was said.34 Thomas may well have made a speech which touched on these matters. In describing the early days of his archiepiscopate, Anonymous I tells us that Thomas delivered a sermon to a crowded gathering of clergy and people in the presence of the king which concerned ‘the kingdom of Christ the Lord, which is the church, and the worldly king-

30 Luke 22:38. 31 Ps. 149:8. 32 MTB 3. 268. 33 MTB 3. 272; 2 Cor. 5:17. 34 MTB 3. 272.

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dom, and the crown of each realm, priestly and royal, and also the two swords, the spiritual and the material’.35 The words attributed to Thomas draw on traditional and current discussions of spiritual and temporal power. The ultimate source is Pope Gelasius I’s letter of 494 to the emperor Anastasius:

There are two powers, august Emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled, namely, the sacred authority of the priests and the royal power. Of these that of the priests is the more weighty, since they have to render an account for even the kings of men in the divine judgement. You are also aware, dear son, that while you are permitted honourably to rule over human kind, yet in things divine you bow your head humbly before the leaders of the clergy and await from their hands the means of your salvation. In the reception and proper disposition of the heavenly mysteries you recognize that you should be sub- ordinate rather than superior to the religious order, and that in these matters you depend on their judgement rather than wish to force them to follow your will.36

But Herbert more specifically echoes Gregory VII’s tendentious reading of Gelasius, later included in Gratian’s Decretum, which omits the acknowledgement that that the emperor rules over human race and is subject to priesthood only in matters concerning sacraments, thereby implying an unlimited subjection to priesthood on part of emperor.37 Eleventh-century scholars interpreted Gelasius’s words as a commentary on Luke 22:38, ‘Look, Lord, there are two swords’, and by the mid-twelfth century it was widely accepted that the two swords represented the two powers.38 Do the words Herbert attributed to Thomas represent a statement of the superiority of spiritual over temporal power? The answer must be yes, but with qualification. Herbert, and Thomas one assumes, would have said, if pressed, that the sacerdotium was pre-eminent over the regnum, but it is by no means likely that they devoted much energy to discussing it in such general terms. This speech occurs in the specific context of jurisdiction over

35 MTB 4. 22. 36 Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum Genuinae I, ed. A. Thiel (Brunsberg, 1868), no. 12, p. 350. 37 Das Register Gregors VII viii. 21, ed. E. Caspar, 2 vols., MGH Epistolae selectae, 2nd edn (1920, 1923), p. 553; see also 4. 2, p. 293; Decretum D. 96. cc. 9–10; C. 2 q. 7 dictum post c. 41 is more faithful to Gelasius; see I. S. Robinson, The Papacy, 1073–1198 (Cam- bridge, 1990), p. 296–9. 38 See, for example, A. Stickler, ‘Concerning the Political Theories of the Medieval Can- onists’, Traditio 7 (1949–51): 450–463; E. Kennan, ‘The “De Consideratione” of St Bernard of Clairvaux and the Papacy in the Mid-Twelfth Century: A Review of Schol- arship’, Traditio 23 (1967): 73–115; B. Tierney, ‘Some Recent Works on the Political Theories of the Medieval Canonists’, Traditio 10 (1954): 594–625, repr. Church, Law and Constitutional Thought in the Middle Ages, Variorum (London, 1979); Robinson, Papacy, pp. 286–300.

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criminous clerks. Furthermore, while the two swords were, by the time Her- bert was writing, seen as indicative of the two powers, the spiritual sword continued to be discussed in terms of the powers of coercion available to the Church, specifically excommunication. Hugh of St Victor is the only medieval writer I have found who links the reading from Psalm 149:6–8 (‘To bind their kings with chains’) which Herbert invokes to the two swords of Luke 22:38.39 Although elsewhere Hugh discusses the domination of the spiritual over the temporal world,40 here his discussion focuses on the unsheathing of the spiritual sword in preaching and excommunication. And when Herbert employs Psalm 149:6–8 again, a few pages after the speech at Westminster, it is also in this context: Thomas condemns clause 7 of the Constitutions limit- ing excommunication for taking away the Church’s right to ‘bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron’.41 The biographers’ discussion of the two laws, and particularly Herbert’s, are striking, in that they seem to place the Becket dispute in its broader significance as a struggle between regnum and sacerdotium. The rarity of such arguments in the Lives is also noteworthy. We can see the dispute as a struggle between the two powers, and presumably many contemporary observers did too, but that is not in the main how it is discussed in the Lives. Rather, it is presented as the failure of Henry II to fulfil his duties to the Church, and the failure of Thomas’s episcopal colleagues to respond appropriately.

King and archbishop To approach the relations between the Crown and the Church in Angevin England from the point of view of the Becket dispute is somewhat similar to examining relations between the king and his nobles from the perspective of the clash between King John and his barons. For while both these crises revealed in dramatic manner the existence of deep tensions, a focus on them can obscure the general co-operation and shared interests which existed between the powers in the realm. Furthermore, contemporary theory on the Crown’s relations with the nobility on the one hand and with the Church on the other not only advocated close co-operation between the powers, but saw it as part of the proper order of things: if things went wrong, this was an aberration from the ideal. In 1065 Peter Damian wrote to Emperor Henry IV that ‘As both the royal and priestly dignity are in their origin joined together by a unique sacra- ment, so they are bound together in the Christian people by a mutual com- pact … the priesthood is protected by the guardianship of the royal office and

39 Sermones centum 82, PL 177. 1161–2. 40 De Sacramentis Christianae Fidei 2. 2.4, PL 176. 418. 41 MTB 3. 282–3; see Lombard, PL 191. 1289, and Smalley’s comments, Becket Conflict, pp. 130–1.

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kingship is supported by the sanctity of the priestly office.’42 More radical the- orists of the reform movement echoed these principles, stressing the necessity of an alliance between pious secular rulers and reforming churchmen.43 For them, the advancement of the Church’s liberties did not demand the diminu- tion of the secular power. Rather, the correct fulfilment of the pact between the two powers would allow both to flourish. Eadmer, chronicler of the first serious breach in this relationship in post-Conquest England, looked to the past for an ideal. His Life of Wilfrid, written in the 1080s, describes the late seventh century as golden age in the relations between the Crown and the Church, when one worked for the welfare of the other, bringing peace and prosperity to the realm – a view which Bede would perhaps not have shared.44 He begins his later Historia Novorum by looking back to the tenth century, when, he writes, ‘In the reign of that most glorious king, Edgar, while he governed diligently the whole realm of England with righteous laws, Dunstan, prelate of Canterbury, a man of unblemished goodness, ordered the whole of Britain by the administration of Christian law.’ Under Dunstan’s influence and counsel Edgar showed himself to be a devoted servant of God, and repelled foreign invaders: ‘England enjoyed peace and happiness throughout the length and breadth of the land so long as she was fortunate enough to have King Edgar and Father Dunstan with her in bodily presence.’45 Eadmer has Anselm describing the Church as a plough drawn by two oxen, the king and the archbishop of Canterbury, one ruling ‘by human justice and sover- eignty, the other by divine doctrine and authority’.46 There are two parts to this image: first, the plough, representing the objective and – theoretically at least – unchangeable contract between regnum and sacerdotium; second, those who pull the plough, the individual kings and archbishops who, according to will and ability, determine how this contract is fulfilled.47 None of Thomas’s biographers identifies an earlier reign as a golden age of Church–Crown relations, but some writers look to the more recent past. Wil- liam Fitzstephen’s account of the chancellorship presents not only a picture of a close personal relationship between Thomas and Henry, but one which worked to the mutual benefit of Church and realm:

42 Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, ed. K. Reindel, 4 vols. (Munich, 1983–93), MGH Episto- lae II, no. 120, vol. 3, p. 389. 43 See I. S. Robinson, Authority and Resistance in the Investiture Contest (Manchester, 1978), p. 117; K. Leyser, ‘The Polemics of the Papal Revolution’, Trends in Medieval Political Thought, ed. B. Smalley (Oxford, 1965), pp. 42–65 at pp. 49–50. 44 Eadmer, Vita S. Wilfridi 27–8, PL 159. 725–6. 45 HN p. 3. 46 HN p. 36. 47 S. Vaughn offers a different interpretation, Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan: The Wisdom of the Serpent and the Innocence of the Dove (Berkeley, 1987), pp. 150–1; ‘The Monastic Sources of Anselm’s Political Beliefs: St Augustine, St Benedict and St Gregory the Great’, Anselm Studies 2 (1988): 53–92 at 55.

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Through the industry and counsel of the chancellor, through God’s disposition, and also thanks to the counts and barons, the noble realm of England was renewed, as if it were a new spring. Holy church was honoured, with vacant bishoprics and abbacies going without simony to honourable persons. The king, with the aid of the King of kings, prospered in all his doings. The realm of England was enriched, the horn of plenty was filled to the brim.48

Almost all the biographers suggest that this concord was shattered soon after Thomas became archbishop in April 1162, with one notable exception. Herbert of Bosham, in presenting his ideal relationship between king and archbishop, looks to the early days of Becket’s archiepiscopate.49 He follows his lengthy description of Thomas’s change of life by turning to the king’s attitude to his new archbishop. One of Thomas’s first actions was to reclaim various Canterbury estates which had, to his mind, been unfairly alienated during the vacancy or during Theobald’s archiepiscopate. This brought the archbishop into conflict with many important magnates, but, according to Herbert, most were afraid to complain to the king, because of his approval of Thomas, and those who did were rebuffed.50 Henry did not see his new archbishop until nine months after his consecration when he returned to England in late January 1163. Thomas, along with the young Henry, came to his court at Southampton, and when they were admitted,

The king and all his men came running to him, and there was great joy and celebration throughout the whole court. The king and archbishop threw themselves into mutual kisses and embraces, each trying to outdo the other in giving honour. So much so that it seemed that the king was not effusive enough towards his son, being entirely effusive towards the archbishop.

A particular reason for Henry’s joy, writes Herbert, is that he had already privately heard such great things about Thomas’s sanctity.51 Next Herbert describes Thomas’s triumphant attendance at the Council of Tours in April 1163. His destination lying in Henry’s dominions, Thomas passed through the king’s cities, towns and villages, ‘received with as much honour as if it were the king himself’. When he reached Tours a great crowd converged on his lodgings – ecclesiastics, nobles, and ‘in particular royal justices, knowing the archbishop to be high in the king’s favour’. Omitting to mention the attendance of other bishops, the flaring up of the primacy dispute with York

48 MTB 3. 19; see 23, 26–7. 49 Anonymous II also allows for the period between the consecration in June 1162 and Thomas’s first confrontation with the king at Woodstock in July 1163, but in less depth, MTB 4. 92–5. 50 MTB 3. 250–1. 51 MTB 3. 250–3.

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and Becket’s failure to achieve Anselm’s canonization,52 Herbert reports how the pope honoured him and renewed some Canterbury privileges. ‘Secure in apostolic blessing and favour’, he sailed to England on a gentle breeze, and ‘was received by the king in all happiness and enthusiasm as if a father by his son’.53 This is an important corrective to the picture of immediate conflict presented by most writers. First, recent research suggests that relations between Henry and Archbishop Theobald may have been more difficult than is often believed.54 England was not necessarily plunged into crisis in 1162 after years of concord between king and archbishop. Indeed, the early months of Tho- mas’s archiepiscopate might have represented a time of stability, especially after a relatively lengthy vacancy following Theobald’s death. Furthermore, although most biographers immediately follow their description of consecration, ‘conversion’ and Thomas’s new way of life with an account of the unfolding dispute, neglecting any co-operation between king and archbishop, the specific disputes they mention do not occur until 1163. The exception, as mentioned above, is the resignation of the office of chancellor, probably in autumn 1162, only mentioned by William of Canterbury and Guernes. If this raised tensions, the king’s absence from England until 1163 would have prevented them from flaring up, and Thomas spent much time at court in spring of that year.55 Still, Herbert’s characterization of an ideal relationship between Henry and Thomas is as guilty of distortion as that of the other bio graphers, as we can see from a significant manipulation of chronology. After his account of the Council of Tours, Herbert describes how Thomas secured the filling of the long vacant sees of Hereford and Worcester, appoint- ments to which were made in March 1163. ‘After a little’, he writes, the archbishop called together many co-provincial bishops and dedicated

that noble and royal abbey of Reading, in which Henry of divine memory, formerly king of England, and grandfather of our illustrious king Henry II, himself its founder, rests in a glorious mausoleum. This was done at the king’s wish and in his presence. And in the same year in London, at the equally famous and royal abbey of Westminster, he raised from the dust the body of the glorious and truly saintly Edward, as a very distinguished and precious vessel of perfect continence. And on account of the many outstanding merits of his royal life he solemnly elevated it and placed it amongst the bodies of the saints, likewise at

52 R. Somerville, Alexander III and the Council of Tours; Councils and Synods, pp. 845–7; Barlow, Becket, p. 86. 53 MTB 3. 253–5. 54 See A. Duggan, ‘Henry II and the Papacy’, The World of Henry II: Proceedings of the 2004 Conference at UEA, forthcoming. Commendation of Theobald, and in particular his record, is quite muted in the Lives. Compare Eadmer’s praise of Lanfranc in discussing Anselm’s conflict with the crown,HN pp. 12–26. 55 See Barlow, Becket, p. 84.

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the wish of the king and in his presence. And, as we have said, the heart and mind of the illustrious king and holy pontiff were as one in God, and through this kingship and priesthood converged in the greatest peace and tranquillity, through the power of the God of peace and love.56

Herbert is correct to emphasize the royal character of these ceremonies. Reading was not only the resting-place of Henry I but also of Henry II’s first- born son William, who died in infancy in 1157. It also boasted the relic of the hand of St James which Henry’s mother Matilda had brought back from Ger- many in 1125.57 Henry II was the first king of England to be descended not only from William the Conqueror but from the family of Edward the Confes- sor, and his enthusiasm for the sanctity of that king was not unconnected with the glory it reflected on him, as the cornerstone where the English and the Norman peoples met. Edward had been canonized in 1161, and his trans- lation represented the culmination of the promotion of his cult. These, then, are perfect examples of the head of the English Church working side by side with the head of the English realm. However, although there is a question as to the exact date, it seems that the latter ceremony was performed on the last day of the Council of Westminster on 13 October 1163 – that is, when the conflict had already been developing for some time, and had, indeed, gained a new impetus.58 The dedication of Reading happened even later, on 19 April 1164, three months after the Council of Clarendon.59 Herbert’s purpose seems to be to build up the picture of concord so as to bring out the tragedy of the rift: ‘Indeed it would have been difficult to find such a great king and such a great pontiff in any other kingdom in the world, and such concord between them. Great indeed the concord, but brief in time.’60 But this picture also goes some way to absolving Thomas of any charge that he had conceived a design against the king and his interests from the beginning of his archiepiscopate. Where, then, does the fault for the breakdown of the relationship lie? For most writers, the process of ‘conversion’ involved not only a transformation in his inward spirituality but a change in the importance he gave towards

56 MTB 3. 260–1. 57 See Barlow, Becket, pp. 106–7. 58 Councils and Synods, pp. 849–50; F. Barlow, Edward the Confessor (London, 1970), pp. 282–4, 325–7; B. W. Scholz, ‘The Canonisation of Edward the Confessor’, Speculum 36 (1961): 38–60; O’Reilly, ‘Double Martyrdom’, pp. 218–35. 59 C. W. Previté-Orton, ‘Annales Radingenses Posteriores, 1135–1264’, EHR 37 (1922): 400–403 at 400, gives this date; Annales Monasterii de Wintonia (AD 517–1277), in Annales Monastici, ed H. R. Luard, 5 vols., RS 36 (London, 1864–9), vol. 2, p. 57, and Annales Bermondsey, in ibid., vol. 3, pp. 441–2, place the two events together, immediately before the conflict with Henry, but Winchester gives the year as 1163 and Ber- mondsey as 1164; See Barlow, Becket p. 106; O’Reilly, ‘Double Martyrdom’, pp. 223–4. 60 MTB 3. 261.

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ecclesiastical rights and a new zeal in their defence, and that the two went together. William Fitzstephen, for example, writes that the new archbishop was

humble and amiable to the gentle, but stern to the proud. Against the injustice and insolence of the mighty he was strong like the lofty tower in Damascus, nor did the letters or entreaties of the king himself in favour of any man avail anything with him, if they were contrary to justice.61

Anonymous II comments that Thomas became anxious on behalf of the usurpation of the Church’s powers and liberties, and as he advanced on a holier path of life, he simultaneously redoubled his efforts to reform this situation.62 Guernes is blunter in linking Thomas’s new zeal for the Church to the begin- nings of dissension, writing that

The more he loved God, the worse was his relationship with the king. For as soon as he was consecrated to this honour, he made himself a proclaimer of God’s word, and gave his whole attention to his sovereign Lord. I do not know whether it was because of this that the king began to hate him, but it was from this time onwards that he banished him from his love.63

Anonymous I similarly writes that ‘What a venerable pontiff should do, and how he should hold himself, [Thomas] could not hide from the king’, and refers to the speech he made on the two swords:

And as on this occasion he discussed much about ecclesiastical and secular power in a wonderful way – for he was very eloquent – the king took note of each of his words, and recognizing that he rated ecclesiastical dignity far above any secular title, he did not receive his sermon with a placid spirit. For he sensed from his words how distant the archbishop was from his own position: that the church owned nothing and could do nothing unless he granted it. How that which had already lurked in the heart of the king from then on came out in the open, how the venerable archbishop opposed himself as a wall for the house of the Lord, and with what constancy he came to interpose himself to royal fury in order to protect ecclesiastical liberty, the following will tell.64

Earlier, in reporting Thomas’s appointment to Canterbury, Anonymous I writes that it was prompted by Henry’s belief that ‘his plot against the church’ could easily be fulfilled through Thomas, and that Thomas from the first opposed his promotion, ‘knowing undoubtedly that he could not with concord serve two lords, whose wishes were far discrepant from each other, and

61 MTB 3. 39; compare 2. 370. 62 MTB 4. 91. 63 Guernes v. 735–40; Shirley, p. 20. 64 MTB 4. 22–3.

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whoever would be bishop of Canterbury, quickly would be held hostile to God or the king’.65 In 1166 Herbert wrote to the English clergy in Thomas’s name. His sorrow, he writes, is not for his own people, but that such a great king by the inspiration of evil men, ‘gave scandal to the world, insult to himself, offence to God, and sorrow to me’. He loved Henry more than anyone after God, and he wished nothing less than happiness and glory for the realm; ‘But he turned his face from me.’ These words, which Herbert includes in his account of Thomas’s contemporary reflections,66 reflect in summary how most of the biographers explain the origin of the conflict: Thomas’s efforts to work with Henry for the good of all were betrayed by the king, at the instigation of evil men. There are some strong words about the king in Thomas’s letters. In a letter of 1167 to all the cardinals, for example, the word ‘tyrant’ is freely used in describing Henry’s behaviour towards the Church.67 Implicit comparison of Henry to Old Testament tyrants is, as A. Saltman has explained, a notable feature of John of Salisbury’s letters.68 Henry is identified with Saul, who put the priests of Nob to death,69 Absalom, who committed parricide and incest,70 Ahab, who set up false prophets and destroyed Naboth’s vineyard,71 and Pharaoh, who enslaved the Israelites.72 There are also oblique references to tyranny in the Lives. Henry is compared to Herod, in his persecution of the Holy Innocents,73 and implicitly, in his role in Becket’s death.74 For example, the author of the Summa Causae writes that when Thomas refused to acknowledge the customs at Westminster, ‘The king was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him’, words associated with Herod hearing of the birth of Jesus.75 Herbert even compares him to the devil when he reports the king’s words to Thomas during an interview in 1170: ‘Why do you not do what I wish? Certainly I would give everything into your hands.’ This, he writes, reminded Thomas of the words from the gospel, ‘All these I will give you, if

65 MTB 4. 14, 18. 66 MTB no. 221, 5. 463; 3. 370–1. 67 CTB no. 125, pp. 596–605. 68 A. Saltman, ‘John of Salisbury and the World of the Old Testament’, The World of John of Salisbury, ed. M. Wilks pp. 343–63, at pp. 344–9. 69 1 Sam. 22:6–20. 70 2 Sam. 15–17. 71 1 Kings 16–18, 21. 72 LJS no. 171, pp. 126–7. 73 MTB 3. 370. 74 MTB 1. 116. 75 MTB 4. 205; see Matt. 2:3.

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you will fall down and worship me.’76 One also finds more direct criticisms, as in this from Anonymous I:

For whenever tyrants occupied the kingdom, they destroyed ecclesiastical liberties completely. This king Henry, following in their footsteps, usurped for himself the entirety of ecclesiastical management and organization. For he conferred bishoprics and abbacies on whomsoever he wished, and now at his order and decree he drew priests and clerks to secular judgement, as if they were no different from the common people.77

Henry is compared unfavourably to Louis, ‘the most Christian king of the French’.78 John’s encomium of France is matched by Herbert: ‘Kings of France, as is held from their ancient deeds, were always bellicose men, but hardly ever or never tyrants.’79 He reports that when Louis heard of Henry’s reference to Thomas as ‘formerly archbishop’, he remarked, ‘Certainly, like the king of the English, I am also a king, but I have no power to depose even the mean- est clerk in my realm.’80 Therefore Henry’s actions are seen to be out of the ordinary for a monarch. The most common criticism is that he failed follow models of good kingship by not controlling his anger.81 His turning away from Becket is seen to parallel the archbishop’s transformation, and Herbert even calls it a conversio.82 This is all relatively restrained, considering that King Henry had just been implicated in the murder of his archbishop. Such restraint is understandable in part if we consider the fact that these works were written during Henry’s lifetime: Gerald of Wales waited until John’s death to fulminate against him and his father Henry II in De Principis Instructione, and Stephen Langton preached on the theme of tyrannical kings but used William II as an example rather than an Angevin ruler.83 It is also significant that most biographers were writing in the

76 MTB 3. 470; Matt. 4:9; Luke 4:6. 77 MTB 4. 23. 78 LJS no. 288, pp. 638–9. The designation Rex Christianissimus, hitherto rare, was frequently used in letters of Pope Alexander, especially those addressed to Louis VII of France, but also to Henry II: see G. B. Ladner, ‘The Concepts of “Ecclesia” and “Chris- tianitas” and their Relation to the Idea of Papal “Plenitudo Potestatis” from Gregory VII to Bonifice VIII’, Images and Ideas in the Middle Ages: Selected Studies in History and Art, 2 vols. (Rome, 1983), vol. 2, pp. 487–515 at p. 500. 79 LJS no. 136, pp. 5–6. 8–9; MTB 3. 408. 80 MTB 3. 332. 81 MTB 2. 311; 3. 355, 372; 4. 33. 82 MTB 3. 262. 83 M. H. Caviness, ‘Conflicts between Regnum and Sacerdotium as Reflected in a Can- terbury Psalter of ca. 1215’, Art Bulletin 61 (1979): 38–58 at 48; P. B. Roberts, Studies in the Sermons of Stephen Langton, Stephanus de lingua tonente (Toronto, 1968), pp. 130, 134–5.

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atmosphere of reconciliation introduced by Henry’s submission at Avranches in May 1172. But it also reveals that the greatest bitterness was not necessarily between Thomas and Henry but between the archbishop and his supporters on the one hand, and his enemies within the Church on the other.

Rivals and false brothers Thomas made enemies easily, and they played a major role in his story from the beginning of his career right up to his death. They are prominent in all the Lives, both as individuals and as groups, attracting blame for the conflict and the archbishop’s various misfortunes, acting as antithesis to Thomas, the champion of truth and justice, and by their acts unwittingly revealing his glory. When Thomas was a young clerk in Theobald’s court Roger of Pont l’Evêque, then archdeacon of Canterbury, but soon to become archbishop of York, taunted him, out of envy for his favour with the archbishop.84 And when he became chancellor Thomas is said to have borne so much from rivals in court that he considered giving up his office.85 Herbert of Bosham describes the poisonous serpent of envy which Thomas encountered in court, kissing in public and betraying in secret, ‘with honey in its mouth and poison in his heart, and a sting in its tail’. As yet in the chancellor’s court the serpent skulked on account of fear of the king, but when Thomas became archbishop it began to raise its head.86 According to William of Canterbury, many wor- ried about the influence of evil counsellors on King Henry from the time of his accession.87 Thomas himself is reported to have expressed concerns to the king that if he accepted the office of archbishop, ‘The envious would find occasion to stir up endless strife between us.’88 John of Salisbury describes how Thomas’s enemies misrepresented his ‘conversion’ of 1162, portray- ing his asceticism as superstition, his zeal for ecclesiastical right as rashness. In this way, the king came to believe that if Thomas’s will should prevail, royal dignity would undoubtedly suffer.89 Here Becket’s biographers follow a convention frequently applied to discussions of kingship, and particularly in their relations to the Church.90 Eddius Stephanus criticizes the role of

84 MTB 2. 362; 4. 9–10; Guernes v. 256–60. 85 MTB 2. 304–5; 4. 12. 86 MTB 3. 177; Craib, ‘Arras MS’, p. 219. 87 MTB 1. 4. 88 MTB 3. 181. 89 MTB 2. 309–10; see 4. 22, 91–2. 90 See E. Bornazel, Le Gouvernement capetien au XIIe siècle, 1108–1180 (Paris, 1975), pp. 152–54; C. W. Hollister, ‘Henry I and the Invisible Transformation of Medieval England’, Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. H. C. Davis, ed. H. Mayr-Harting and R. I. Moore (London, 1985), repr., Monarchy, Magnates and Institutions in the Anglo- Norman World (London, 1986), pp. 303–15 at pp. 304–5.

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King Ecgfrith’s flatterers in expelling Bishop Wilfrid from his see.91 Gregory VII claims that the emperor’s counsellors were responsible for polluting the churches with simony.92 And Eadmer implicitly contrasts the good counsel taken by Edgar and the Conqueror with the bad counsel of William Rufus and Henry I which provoked the conflict with Anselm.93 In describing the eruption of rivalry on Thomas’s appointment to Canter- bury, a commonly employed image is that of the devil, envious of Thomas’s sanctity, sowing weeds of envy designed to suffocate the friendship between him and the king.94 William Fitzstephen writes that some of this rivalry came from within the king’s court, either from those who had no reason to defame the archbishop except to win the king’s favour and gain his ear, or clerks of the court who feared for their ill-gotten benefices.95 They were joined by nobles who either lost lands or feared for them when Thomas began to reclaim Canterbury estates.96 But when Thomas’s biographers allude to rivals who turned the king against him, they are usually referring to bishops. In an account echoed by many others, Edward Grim recounts how, between the councils of Westminster and Clarendon, Bishop Arnulf of Lisieux sug- gested to the king that he detach some of the English episcopate from Beck- et’s side. Three of their number, Hilary of Chichester, Roger of York and Gilbert of London

were captured unarmed; rather, more truly, they threw down their arms on the ground and began to help the enemy … From these it is believed the error of the king gained, if not perhaps its beginning, at least its basis and increment. Therefore these sowed weeds, and by their industry worthless seeds grew in the hearts of others.97

Herbert relates how those who had first stood with the archbishop now were fully prepared to accept the king’s desire, and though noting that he was unworthy to comment on the merits of the bishops, he adds that saints are always built up by injuries from false brothers:

91 Eddius 24, pp. 48–51. 92 The Epistolae Vagantes of Pope Gregory VII, ed. H. E. J. Cowdrey (Oxford, 1972), 14, p. 34. 93 Edgar: HN p. 3, William I: HN p. 12; William II: VA pp. 67, HN 43; Henry I: HN pp. 131, 134, 178, 191–2. 94 MTB 1. 12; 2. 309; 3. 41–2. 95 MTB 3. 42. 96 MTB 3. 42–3, 250–1. 97 MTB 2. 377; see 1. 14; 3. 42–3; 4. 29–30; Guernes v. 851–65.

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For as the furnace to gold, the thresher to grain, the file to steel, is the false brother to the righteous man, by whom he is worn away until he reaches the point of truth. As one doctor said, ‘He refuses to be Abel, whom the malice of Cain does not exercise.’98

These bishops, ‘like chaff winnowed and shaken out from the grain’,99 left the archbishop alone with only a few supporters. He reports that long-time rivals of the archbishop secretly persuaded the king that his customs should be put in writing, while urging Thomas to remove his objections:

Such tend to be the counsels of those who according to the prophet are ‘skilled in doing evil’; or like the golden cup of Babylon which is covered in gold so that he who drinks from it does not detect the poison, which indeed is usually offered with honey smeared all around. Therefore those skilled in doing evil indeed have honey in their mouths, but truly as brothers of scorpions carry poison in their hearts, and a sting in the tail shooting arrows from ambush at the blameless.100

Such a characterization of Thomas’s episcopal colleagues, while perhaps extreme, reflects both the sympathies of many amongst the clergy at the time, and the concept of the episcopacy revealed in medieval writing. The majority of the Anglo-Norman episcopacy had, like Becket, made their way through the royal service or belonged to the king’s immediate circle, and their interests were closely tied to his.101 While some, such as Roger of Worcester, were consistently loyal to Becket, others, notably Gilbert of London and Roger of York, took a hostile position. There was a long tradition of distinguishing individual bishops from their office: as Jerome writes, ‘Bishop, presbyter and deacon are not names of merits but of offices.’102 And bishops are often criticized, as individuals and as groups. In 1077 Gregory VII, writing to the faithful in Germany, complained that the Lombard bishops, who should be pillars in the Church of God, not only retain no place in the structure of Christ’s body but are constantly its attackers and would-be destroyers.103 Such

98 MTB 3. 275. Furnace to gold etc: see Bede (attrib.), De Psalmorum libro exegesis, PL 93. 520; Abel: Gregory, Mor. 20. 39, CCSL 143A. 1059; Homiliae in Hiezechihelem prophetam, ed. M. Adriaen (1971), vol. 1, 1. 9, CCSL 142. 136; Homilia in Evangelia, ed. R. Étaix, CCSL 141 (1999), 365; Decretum D. 2 C. 7 q. 1 c. 48. 99 MTB 3. 276–7; compare 1. 14. 100 MTB 3. 277. Skilled in doing evil: Jer. 4:22; see also MTB 3. 308, 323. Golden cup of Babylon: Jer. 51:7; see Gregory, Mor. 34. 15, CCSL 143B. 1752–3. Shooting arrows: Ps. 64 (63):3–4; context, v. 2: ‘Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked’. 101 D. Walker, ‘Crown and Episcopacy under the Normans and Angevins’, ANS 5 (1982): 220–33 at 228; Knowles, Episcopal Colleagues, esp. pp. 1–54. 102 Adversus Jovianum 1. 34, PL 23. 258. 103 Epistolae Vagantes 19, pp. 52–3.

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a characterization is present also throughout Eadmer’s depiction of Anselm’s dispute with his kings.104 The main criticism of Thomas’s episcopal colleagues is that they failed in their duty to correct the king. Three examples will serve as illustration. At the end of his lengthy description of the new archbishop’s way of life, Herbert discusses Thomas’s caution about ordaining new men to office, writing that too many he saw to have been promoted by virtue of royal favour rather than being called by God. Citing the words of Solomon, ‘Like one who binds the stone in the sling is he who gives honour to a fool’,105 he turns to that king’s successor,

the first schismatic king Jeroboam, who first usurped both the kingdom and the priesthood to himself, at the start of his schismatic reign was repeatedly corrected through the prophets, because he set up idols for the people to adore, and made temples on high and priests from the lowest of the people …106 O how many of our kings after this foreshadowing usurped the priesthood and every day usurp still! Read our histories, read chronicles, read annals and you will find hardly a king who did not send take the devoted things,107 who did not usurp the priesthood, who did not put their hand on the ark, who did not plunder the temple, who did not drink from the vases of the temple or did not handle the vases from the temple; as if for them the kingdom was not sufficient unless they added the priesthood.108

Such kings, he warns, should beware the fate of Jeroboam, defeated in battle by Abijah;109 of Uzzah who was smitten by the Lord because he put out his hand to steady the ark;110 of Uzziah who burned incense on the altar and was struck on the forehead with leprosy;111 of the Babylonians who carried off the vases from the temple and had their empire destroyed.112 The correct example, he writes, is that of David, who strove to provide strong columns for the Church.113 A little later, Herbert describes how Thomas complained to the

104 They urge Anselm to buy William Rufus’s favour, HN pp. 50–1; urge him to accept the king’s side at the Council of Rockingham, VA p. 86; are accused of apostasy, HN p. 64; likened to Judas, Herod and Pilate, HN p. 65; acknowledge that they are not as holy as the archbishop, HN pp. 82–3; support and urge on Henry I’s investiture policy, HN p. 140. 105 Prov. 26:8. 106 1 Kings 12:31. 107 See Josh. 6:18. 108 MTB 3. 242. 109 2 Chron. 13. 110 2 Sam. 6:6–7. 111 2 Chron. 26:16–21. 112 1 Esd. 1:41; Dan. 4:28–33. 113 MTB 3. 243.

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king of vacancies in the Church, and he contrasts his behaviour in this regard with that of many other metropolitans:

By their dissimulation many kings turn into tyrants. And these archbishops, alas, stroke, caress and soothe them, when they ought to have controlled them as a father would. Hence the master said to one of his metropolitans, ‘reprove with all authority’.114

There are many, he says, who do not identify error freely lest they cause offence to friendship, and do not correct what is reprehensible by the authority they discharge. And he recalls how the prophet Isaiah reproached himself for not attacking King Ahab freely and with authority as he should have with the words ‘Woe is me for I was silent.’115 This, placed before the eruption of the conflict, is a theoretical discussion of a prelate’s duty to correct, when necessary, a ruler who usurps the power of the priesthood. It establishes that there have been many such kings, from Jeroboam’s time onwards, and that there have also been rulers of the Church who failed to reprove such kings when they ought to have done so. As we have seen, Herbert attributes to Thomas a lengthy address to a group of cardinals at Sens on the same subject.116 It was at the Council of Westminster that the king began, in the biographers’ opinion, to extend his authority unlawfully over ecclesiastical liberties. In the Summa Causae the bishops tell Thomas that the destruction of the Church’s liberty would bring no danger to the Church,

‘But’, they said, ‘it is better that it perish than we all perish.117 Let us do therefore what the king requires. Otherwise no refuge will remain to us, and no one will care for us.118 But if we give our consent to the king we will enjoy the sanctuary of the lord as our inheritance, and sleep secure in our ecclesiastical possessions. We must make allowances for the evil of these times.’119 So said the bishops, as if the evil of the times were not enough without the added evil of the bishops.

Thomas, ‘inflamed by zeal for the house of God’, replied,

114 Titus 2:15. 115 MTB 3. 257–8; Isa. 6:5; employed by Thomas with reference to his lengthy patience and duty to speak out: CTB no. 203, pp. 880–1; no. 233, pp. 1002–3; MTB no. 222, 5. 480. For its similar use, see Gregory, Mor. 7. 37, CCSL 143. 380, and The Letters of Peter the Venerable, ed. G. Constable, Harvard Historical Studies 78 (Cambridge, MA, 1967), vol. 1, no. 161, p. 388. 116 See above, pp. 68–71. 117 See John 12:50. 118 See Ps. 142 (141):4. 119 See Eph. 5:16.

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I see that you console yourself for your inertia under the guise of patience, and suffocate the liberty of Christ’s bride under the pretext of prudence. Who put a spell on you, foolish bishops? Do you think you can cover up your manifest iniquity by calling it prudence? What do you call prudence, that is destruc- tive to the whole church? Let things be called by their names, do not pervert things and words. I certainly agree with what you say, that we must make many allowances for the evil of the times, but that does not mean that sins should be heaped on sins. God is capable of improving the church’s condition without worsening ours … Let me ask, when ought bishops offer themselves to danger, in tranquillity or in danger? You would certainly be ashamed to say that it is in tranquillity. Then it must be, that when the church is threatened, the pastor of the church ought to oppose himself to the danger. For it is just as worthy for us in our time to spill our blood for the liberty of the church, as it was for the bishops of old to found the church of Christ in their blood.120

Here the bishops invoke the evil of the times as many correspondents, including the pope, did in attempting to restrain Thomas. The archbishop’s response is consistent with Herbert’s case above, that there have been times when bishops were required to stand up to kings, even in danger, but goes further in suggesting that Henry’s introduction of his royal customs represents just such a time. Finally, Guernes, in his account of the Council of Clarendon, breaks off to address the bishops:

You weak and foolish men! Tell me, what is it you are afraid of? That the king will take your powers from you? Indeed, he will not, if you have the courage to hold on to them. You are not real bishops, you are only called so. You do not do your duty in any respect. You ought to lead men and keep them on the right path, but you make them all stumble and fall – you even make the king of the country go wrong. You ought not always advise him to follow his own wishes; no, you should often rebuke and reprimand him. God has entrusted his flock to you for protection, and if the king is your sheep, then you must lead him. The shepherd must always turn away the stranger and carry the sick sheep on his shoulder; he must not leave it for the robber to kill. You are hirelings; there are not many true shepherds. And the king can see this, he will see the worse of you. God, who placed him in the kingdom, will require him at your hands; it is your duty to keep him well. He will not always think as he does now, and then he will hate those who gave him that advice.121

Here Guernes invokes two biblical readings frequently employed in both the correspondence and the Lives in relation to the duty of a prelate to speak out against injustice, First, Jesus’s words before the Jews and the Pharisees: ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hireling and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, sees the

120 MTB 4. 203–4. 121 Guernes v. 1191–1210; Shirley, p. 33.

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wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees.’122 Second, God’s warning to the prophet Ezekiel: ‘So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn away from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.’123 Though the comments by Herbert, the anonymous author of the Summa Causae and Guernes concern the early period of Thomas’s archiepiscopate, they reflect arguments made during his exile, particularly those expressed in letters of 1166, a critical year in the conflict, and recapitulated, especially by Herbert of Bosham, in discussions of the pivotal event of that year: Thomas’s excommunications at Vézelay.

To speak or to be silent After his flight to France and his meeting with the pope at Sens in November 1164, Thomas retreated to the Cistercian monastery of Pontigny, but the relative calm of his surroundings did not hide the increasing entrenchment on both sides, which was only deepened by distance. Henry had attempted to marginalize Becket with diplomatic missions to King Louis of France and had punished the archbishop for his flight by expelling and persecuting his kindred and allies. Thomas, meanwhile, had tried to extend his support, with little success, but new opportunities opened up when, on Easter Sunday, 24 April 1166, the pope granted him a papal legation within the province of Canterbury which, crucially, conferred the power of ecclesiastical censure. On 12 June at Vézelay, Thomas pronounced sentence of excommunication against a number of royal officials, and against the bishop of Salisbury and his deacon. This measure moved the dispute to a new level, not least because of what had not been done but remained a latent threat: the excommunication of the king or the imposition of an interdict upon England.124 Though not always explicitly stated, this was the central concern of the exchange of letters of 1166. From the archbishop’s side, three letters ‘of mounting severity’ were written to Henry, the first two just before Vézelay, the last shortly after. In them Becket warns, cajoles and threatens Henry to go back on his actions or suffer the consequences.125 The English clergy responded to the censures with

122 John 10:11–12. 123 Ezek. 33:7–8; for a list of allusions to this reading in the correspondence, see CTB, p. 1423. 124 John of Salisbury reports that Thomas intended to excommunicate the king, but had mercy on him when he heard that he was seriously ill, LJS no. 168, pp. 112–15. 125 Discussed by C. H. Wynne, ‘The Tradition: Sacerdotium versus Regnum and the Two Beckets’, Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses 23 (1972): 289–315.

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an appeal to the pope and a letter to Thomas informing him of the appeal, both drafted by Gilbert Foliot.126 A number of replies to the bishops’ appeal were drafted in Thomas’s name, though not all of them were sent.127 These were followed by John of Salisbury’s letters condemning the appeals and cul- minated in Foliot’s magisterial denunciation of Thomas, Multiplicem nobis.128 These letters are rhetorical exercises, public broadcasts of their author’s position. It is at this point that Thomas’s correspondence began to be collected and circulated as a way of rallying supporters. It is possible in these exchanges to determine an argument on each side. There is very little on the theoretical relationship between the Church and Crown, but more on the character and behaviour of king. The main concern, though, is how one ought to respond to the present situation. These letters are relevant to the present discussion, first, because some biographers include them in their Lives and therefore they form an integral part of their works. The letters themselves, or the arguments which they expressed, were widely known: John of Salisbury and Alan of Tewkesbury’s work prefaces the Becket correspondence, and in the earliest manuscript Fitzstephen’s work is accompanied by Gilbert Foliot’s letters. Fur- thermore, many of the arguments presented by both sides appear in some form in the Lives. This is especially the case for Herbert of Bosham, who did not include letters in his work (he referred the reader to Alan’s collection) but weaved arguments from them into his narrative, especially in the form of reported speech. The theme of the letters ‘of mounting severity’ is Henry’s repeated failure to do penance for his transgressions against the Church, and the pastor’s duty to correct him if he should continue on his path. In the first, Loqui de Deo, Thomas asks, ‘What do I do, speak or be silent? There is danger both ways.’ On the one hand, there is danger of which the Lord warned Ezekiel, that his failure to act as a watchman over Israel would be punished; on the other is the danger of provoking the king’s anger. But, he concludes, it is safer to invite the indignation of men than of God, and therefore he chooses to rebuke the king for his oppression of the Church. The Lord, he warns, is a patient requiter, and waits for a long time, but a most harsh avenger. And unless he heeds this advice, he adds, Henry is destined to emulate the down- fall of Solomon, who turned his back on the Lord. Better, Thomas advises, to follow the example of Solomon’s father, David, who immediately after his offence humbled himself before God, sought mercy, and obtained pardon.129 Included in Grim and Guernes’s Life is the second of these letters, Deside- rio desideravi, which was read aloud before Henry II at Chinon in June 1166.130

126 MTB no. 204, 5. 403–8; CTB no. 93, pp. 372–83. 127 CTB nos. 95–6, pp. 388–441; MTB nos. 221–2, 5. 459–90. 128 CTB nos. 99–101, 109, pp. 452–83, 498–537. 129 CTB no. 68, pp. 266–71. 130 CTB no. 74, pp. 292–99.

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Thomas begins by saying how he has longed to see the king’s face and had hoped that he would be moved to pity on the archbishop’s behalf,

First, because you are my lord, second, because you are my king, and third, because you are my spiritual son … Because you are my son, I am bound to reprove and restrain you by reason of my office. For a father corrects his son, sometimes with mild words, sometimes with severe ones, so that in this way he may draw him back to rightdoing.

He contrast the fate of those kings, David and Hezekiah, who repented for their misdeeds and recovered God’s favour, to those like Pharaoh, Saul, Neb- uchodonosor and Solomon who did not and suffered for it before God. And he concludes with a warning to Henry:

And we are ready to serve you as our dearest lord and king, loyally and devot- edly with all our strength in whatever way we can, saving the honour of God and of the Roman Church, and saving our order. If you do not, you may know for certain that you will suffer the divine severity and vengeance.

The third of these letters, Exspectans exspectavi, probably reached Henry in June 1166 and is included in Guernes’s work.131 He begins in similar manner to Desiderio desideravi, with the words,

Expectantly I have waited for the Lord to look down upon you so that you might change your ways and do penance, turn back from the wrong path, and cut away from your side the evil ones by whose incitement, as we believe, and counsel you have already almost fallen into the pit.

But until now, he writes, he has waited in vain to hear of the king’s satisfac- tion.

Without any doubt he is at fault who neglects to correct what he should correct. Inasmuch as it is written, ‘Not only they who do wrong, but also they who agree to it are judged to be participants.’132

He goes on to remind the king how God promoted, honoured and exalted him, blessed him with children, strengthened his throne and enriched him with possessions, and how he has repaid such favours. Again, he recalls the fate of Old Testament rulers – Saul, Uzziah, Ahaz and Uzzah – who usurped the office of the priesthood and reaped God’s vengeance.133 He reminds the king how Ambrose excommunicated the emperor Theodosius, and how the prophet Nathan rebuked and corrected David, and led him to penance.134

131 CTB no. 82, pp. 329–43. 132 Decretum, D. 86 c. 3. 133 See 1 Sam. 22:18; 2 Chron. 26:18–21; 2 Chron. 28:21–7, 2 Kings 15:5; 2 Sam. 6:6–7. 134 See 2 Sam. 12:13.

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These letters, particularly the last, are in fact heavily influenced by letters of Ambrose to Theodosius which dwell on this particular example of Nathan’s correction of David,135 the arguments and language of which are recapitulated by Gregory VII in his letter to Hermann of Metz of 25 August 1076,136 and in Gratian’s discussion of ecclesiastical jurisdiction over rulers.137 Gilbert Foliot wrote two responses to Thomas’s censures in the name of the English clergy. In Quae vestro, they write of how their hopes of peace were shattered and their fears renewed by the news from Vézelay. They remind the archbishop of the perilous state of the Roman Church in time of schism, and urge him not to extend excommunication to the king.138 In their appeal to the pope, Vestram, pater, meminisse, they recall how ‘a holy contention sprang up, which, as we believe, simple intention of both parts excuses before the Lord’. In introducing the customs, the king was not aiming to oppress ecclesiastical liberty, but even so, they say, he had promised to make amends, and divisions had been almost put to sleep before they were revived by the archbishop. Having neither a father’s devotion nor a pontiff’s patience, he has provoked the king, thus causing great danger to the Church, ‘for the days are evil’.139 The lengthy final section of Multiplicem nobis deals with the nature of the dispute itself, or, as Gilbert puts it, ‘The reason why you urge us to our death.’ No dispute, he writes, exists over faith, the sacraments or morals: ‘The entire dispute with the king and regarding the king, then, is about certain evil customs which he claims were observed, and enjoyed by his predecessors, and he wishes and expects to enjoy.’ These customs were deeply established, and therefore they need to be dealt with as one might root out a well-established plant, by digging around it. He gives examples of other ecclesiastics who suc- ceeded in rooting out many evils ‘not with reproaches, but with blessings and praise, and steady encouragement’. If they had hastened to arms, they would have achieved nothing. Thomas ought to have sought out the counsels of his brothers and other, and paid attention to the works of wise fathers, and balanced the Church’s loss against its gains. Praising the king for his commit- ment to the Church, he warns Thomas of the danger of wounding him, and

135 Epistulae, ed. M. Zelzer (1982), no. 74, extra collectionem no. 1, 11, CSEL 82/3. 55–73, 145–61, 212–18. 136 Register IV, 2, vol. 2, pp. 293–7. 137 Decretum C. 2 q. 7 c. 41; see also D. 96 c. 10. On the influence of Ambrose’s example up to and including Canossa, see R. Schieffer, ‘Von Mailand nach Canossa: ein Beitrag zur Geschischte der christlichen Herrscherbusse von Theodosius der Grosse bis zu Heinrich IV’, Deutsches Archiv 28 (1972): 333–70; S. Hamilton, The Practice of Penance, c. 900–c. 1050 (Woodbridge, 2001), pp. 174–82. 138 CTB no. 93, pp. 372–83. 139 MTB no. 204, 5. 403–8.

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cites canons criticizing the use of ecclesiastical censure in time of schism.140 And he adds,

Does anyone reckon it greater among a doctor’s skills to cure one wound by inflicting another, far greater and more dangerous? Who calls it discretion to desert his church in this way for what could be obtained very quickly and very easily, to rise up against his prince, and, having destroyed the peace of the whole church throughout the realm, not to trouble about the dangers to the souls and bodies of his subjects?141

Becket’s camp drafted four letters in response to the bishops’ appeal, each providing a lengthy and complex theological and canonical analysis of Beck- et’s position. One appears to have been written by Lombard of Piacenza, another by Herbert of Bosham, and the other two may have been collabora- tions.142 All give a fascinating insight into the development of the arguments in Becket’s favour, but perhaps the most interesting is that written by Her- bert, Exspectans expectavi. Responding to the bishops’ charges and echoing their language, he employs imagery from a wide range of sources to make the claim that rebellion to secular authority is in some cases justified, and that Henry’s treatment of the Church is one such case. Therefore, he states, he is prepared to follow a prelate’s duty to enforce discipline on his spiritual son.143 Although it may have been circulated privately, it seems that Exspectans expectavi was never sent.144 But nor did it remain as a draft. Two decades later, Herbert incorporated its arguments and imagery into his Life, and developed upon them, using the author’s commentary and reported speech to describe how Becket came to his decision to excommunicate the king’s supporters, an issue skirted over by almost all the other writers.145 Without mentioning the change of circumstances caused by Thomas’s receipt of the papal legation, Herbert describes how, in the second year of his exile, the archbishop was roused to vigorous action. Realizing how hardened were the hearts of his enemies,

140 Decretum D. 50 c. 25; Augustine, Ep. 185, CSEL 57. 39. Decretum C. 23 qu. 4 c. 32; Augustine, Contra epistulam Parmeniani, ed. M. Petschenig (1907), iii. 2. 14, CSEL 51. 116. Anonymous II uses the latter canon to explain the pope’s restraint of the archbishop after Vézelay. 141 CTB no. 109, pp. 526–37. 142 CTB no. 95–6; MTB no. 221–2; Barlow, Becket, p. 152. 143 MTB no. 221, 5. 459–78. 144 Barlow, Becket, p. 152. 145 Anonymous II is the only other writer who deals with Vézelay in any depth. His comments echo many of those made by Herbert, insisting on the validity of the censures and concludes that the pope subsequently restrained Thomas’s powers of censure because he did not know Henry as well as the archbishop did: MTB 4. 110–13.

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The archbishop began to reflect within himself and meditate in his heart, and in this meditation a fire began to kindle, a fire not of malice but of love … not driven by vindictiveness but by justice and fatherly compassion.’146

He who up to now had patiently borne all, was roused by the Lord’s warning to Ezekiel, that if he did not speak to keep the wicked from their ways he would requite their blood from his hand,147 and addressed his ‘companions in battle’, his household in exile. He begins:

There is a time for all things, a time of suffering and a time of rebelling, a time of mercy and a time of justice. ‘When I receive the time’, he said, ‘I will judge justice.’148 And the master said to the disciples, ‘be patient in tribulation’.149

Up to now they have been patient, while their enemies pile sins upon sins. The Lord said, ‘Do you not for three or four transgressions go against him?’150

Up to now we have been silent, but does that mean that we will always be silent? ‘Woe is me’, said the prophet, ‘for I was silent.’151 Surely, frightened by the prophet’s example we will not be silent in the same way? And we, who have slept in solitude between these monks and these stones, do we not also awake.

It is good, he says, to enjoy leisure in the embrace of Rachel,152 but now, duty of office compels them to action. ‘Any pastor who does not ward off the wolves carries his sword without cause, and a judge who does not reprimand transgressors carries the sword without cause.’153 The Lord said, ‘I

146 See Ps. 39:3 (38:4), and note the context: ‘I said, “I will guard my ways that I may not sin with my tongue; I will bridle my mouth, so long as the wicked are in my presence”. I was dumb and silent, I held my peace to no avail: my distress grew worse, my heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue’. Herbert’s words echo Augustine’s remark in relation to this passage, ‘a fire of charity is within me’, Sermones inediti 20. 8, PL 46. 904. 147 Ezek. 3:17. 148 Ps. 75:2 (74:3). Augustine links this to Psalm 101 (100):1, ‘I will sing of loyalty and justice to thee, O Lord’, Enn. Psal., CCSL 39. 1027. Peter Lombard comments, ‘There is a time of teaching and mercy; but later there is a time of judging’: PL 191. 699. 149 Rom. 12:12. Ambrosiaster writes, ‘He explains what it is to be patient in tribulation when he says elsewhere, “Redeeming the time, for the days are evil” (Eph. 5:16)’, Com- mentaria in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 17. 159. This is echoed by Rabanus Maurus, Enna- rationes in Epistolas Pauli, PL 111. 1552. See above, pp. 68, 70. 150 See Amos 1:3. 151 Isa. 6:5. 152 See above, pp. 54–5. 153 See Rom. 13:4. Herbert’s extension of this reading (‘He does not bear the sword in vain’) appears to derive from Gratian’s discussion of examples of the correction of kings, such as Uzziah who usurped the priesthood and was struck with leprosy, and David who did penance when rebuked by Nathan. Ambrose excommunicated the Emperor Theo- dosius ‘for as the judge does not carry the sword without cause, so not without cause do

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have constituted you today above the peoples and kingdoms to root out and destroy and scatter and dissipate and build and plant.’154 Therefore, Thomas concludes, they should take action, but, following the example of the Samari- tan, cure sins first by pouring on the oil of leniency, and then if necessary, wine.155 The oil of leniency takes the form of the three letters ‘of mounting severity’ which Thomas sent to Henry in 1166. The speech at Pontigny also looks forward to the excommunications at Vézelay, suggesting first that Thomas was provoked to action, and also that his actions were not rash ones. Rather, that Vézelay was the final resort to severity only after the ‘oil of leniency’ had been poured on. Herbert claims that for a time Becket considered resigning his office but was dissuaded by his learned friends, who told him that this was not a time to flee but to advance.156 Encouraged by their exhortation, and having suffered and endured for so long without changing the king’s heart, he now did not think of deserting pastoral care, but rather of exercising it more bravely and boldly than before. Now thinking nothing of flight, nothing of rest, but solely of duty and the fight, he resolved to threaten the king with the pastoral staff, who did not feel the lighter castigation of the rod.157 Herbert presents this decision as an entirely personal one on the archbishop’s behalf, repeating how he debated the pros and cons within his heart, frequently stopping and hesitating, without revealing his plan or consulting with his companions.158 Thomas, he writes, considered the scriptural exhortation, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people’,159 and also of various arguments against excommunication in time of schism, including one of those advanced by Gilbert Foliot in Multiplicem.160 But, Thomas concluded, to unsheathe the spiritual sword in this case is not to speak ill of the leader, which is prohibited in law, but to coerce a son of the Church with paternal discipline. Such discipline is as the medicine of the Samaritan, or the cutting off of a wound with

priests receive the keys of the church. He carries the sword for the punishment of evil- doers, but praise of the good; they hold the keys for the exclusion of excommunicates and the reconciliation of the penitent. Therefore by this example subjects are shown to be due reprehension by prelates, not prelates by subjects’, C. 2 q. 7 c. 41 dictum post. See also MTB 3. 391. 154 Jer. 1:10. 155 MTB 3. 380–3; see Luke 10:33–4. Gregory I interprets the Samaritan’s application of oil and wine as the mingling of mercy with severity, Mor. 20. 5, CCSL 143A. 1012. He is followed by Gregory VII, Register iv. 3, p. 298; and Gratian, Decretum D. 45 c. 9. 156 MTB 3. 386. On the significance of Thomas’s language in the context of exile, see below, pp. 178–81. 157 MTB 3. 386–7. 158 MTB 3. 387. 159 MTB 3. 387; Acts 23:5; see Exod. 22:28. 160 3. 388; Decretum C. 23 qu. 4 c. 32; Augustine, Parm. iii. 2. 14, CSEL 51. 116, but also Decretum C. 23 qu. 4 c. 19; Augustine, Parm. iii. 2. 13, CSEL 51. 114–15.

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steel which did not feel the bandage.161 Nor does such punishment originate with the pastor himself, because if the Church acts to punish a king, the punishment is said to derive from God alone.162 Thomas then recalls how Ambrose excommunicated and excluded Theodosius from the Church, and how more recently Ivo of Chartres excommunicated Philip of France.163 But Thomas’s decision to issue censures was not only based on his interpretation of the canons, but by his meditation on what it meant to be a pastor: he was persuaded by the example of Isaiah, who said, ‘Woe is me, I was silent’;164 by the warning to Ezekiel that if he did not act as a watchmen over Israel, the blood of the evil would be required from his hand,165 and concluded that if he did not act to exclude from the Church one who ought to be excluded, the pastor held the staff without cause, the ecclesiastical judge held the sword without cause, and the priests of the Lord held the keys of the Church without cause.166

Conclusion One of the ways in which the treatment of the dispute in the Lives differs from that in the letters is that the biographers pay greater attention to the Constitutions themselves. Whereas there is some condemnation of them in Thomas’s letters of 1166, there is no evidence of a debate on their validity. Instead, the argument is about the depth of the threat they presented to the Church, in particular as held against the danger that might be caused by incurring Henry’s hostility in time of schism, and the related issue of how best to respond to the king’s actions. When the biographers were writing, it seemed that this debate had been settled. The murder of the archbishop and his posthumous acclaim rendered unsustainable Foliot’s argument that the dispute involved a minor and unimportant matter better approached with moderation. For the biographers it set the Constitutions in a new light, as an unparalleled attack on the liberties of the English Church, and vindicated the force with which Thomas opposed them. That the Constitutions perhaps seem of lesser significance to us is in part because they were abandoned: they faltered in the face of Thomas’s resistance, and his murder provided the coup de grâce. Even if compromise between royal and ecclesiastical interests initi- ated at Avranches and sustained for the rest of Henry’s reign meant that Tho- mas’s cause did not triumph in his death – and that is Herbert’s disillusioned view – one ought not to underestimate what had been achieved. Henry’s

161 Decretum D. 82 c. 4. 162 MTB 3. 389. 163 MTB 3. 389–90. 164 MTB 3. 389. 165 MTB 3. 390. 166 MTB 3. 391.

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ecclesiastical policy was typically radical, and the Constitutions ought to be seen in the context of the formalization of relationships and the growing importance of written record from Domesday Book to Magna Carta, and as part of Henry’s broader reform programme. It was only in the ecclesiastical sphere that his reforms met with such opposition that they were abandoned, and that, whatever one thinks about his methods, was largely due to Tho- mas. Another difference with the treatment of the dispute in the letters is that there the key issue of how a prelate ought to behave in such a situation was more directly addressed: Thomas stated that in some cases resistance to royal authority was necessary, and that he was following in the footsteps of earlier champions of righteousness, while his critics characterized his actions as reckless and held up more appropriate models. Direct comment on these issues is present in the Lives, most obviously in Herbert’s discussion of Tho- mas’s decision to issue his censures at Vézelay. But more usually, this theme is integrated into descriptions of Thomas’s actions and those of his opponents in his trials, his exile and martyrdom.

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