Saint Thomas Becket

Bishop and Martyr

Feast Day

December 29

Life

1118–1170

Canonized

1173

Born

London, England

Thomas Becket was born on December 21, 1118, in Cheapside, London, the son of a Norman merchant family. After studies in London, Paris, Bologna, and Auxerre he entered the household of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1143 and was ordained deacon. In 1155 King Henry II of England, on Theobald's recommendation, made him Royal Chancellor; for the next seven years Thomas was the king's intimate friend and most able administrator, distinguished by his magnificent style of life and his vigorous prosecution of royal interests, including against the Church.

On Theobald's death Henry, expecting an even more compliant ally, secured Thomas's election as Archbishop of Canterbury on June 3, 1162. Thomas's transformation was immediate and total: he resigned the chancellorship, took up an austere monastic life under his archiepiscopal habit, and set himself to defend the rights and properties of the Church against royal encroachment. The conflict came to a head over the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164), by which Henry sought to bring criminal clergy under royal jurisdiction; Thomas's resistance forced him into six years of exile in France (1164-1170). After a fragile reconciliation he returned to Canterbury in early December 1170. On the evening of December 29, 1170, four knights of Henry's household - acting on a furious royal outburst (will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?) - cut Thomas down at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral while he was preparing for Vespers. Pope Alexander III canonized him only three years later, on February 21, 1173. Henry submitted to public penance and a scourging at Canterbury in 1174.