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The Becket Controversy in Recent Historiography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2014

Extract

December twenty-ninth of this year will mark the eight hundredth anniversary of the martyrdom of Thomas of Canterbury. There will be no such superfluity of books as commemorated the nine hundredth anniversary of the Conquest, the one hundredth of the American Civil War, or the fiftieth of the Soviet Revolution. Few will even recall the murder, since the propers have been deleted from the general calendar of the Roman Church. If Thomas's feast has been quietly dropped from the missal, his career has by no means been neglected by historians in recent years. New editions of the writings of participants in the dispute have appeared, new interpretations of the quarrel are numerous, and important new studies in the history of canon law have altered traditional perspectives on the dramatic confrontation. Now is therefore an opportune time to survey modern scholarship on the Becket controversy and to indicate fruitful directions for further research.

There is, first, the problem of context. The most recent scholarly study of the dispute is that of H. G. Richardson and G. O. Sayles. The eccentricities of the provocative, peppery, and erratic Governance of Mediaeval England have been amply, if cautiously, alluded to by reviewers. Richardson and Sayles commence their discussion of the relations of regnum and sacerdotium in the later twelfth century with the reign of Stephen, neglecting questions of continuity from the reigns of earlier Norman kings. They dispute the received interpretation of Stephen's Second Charter, of which the central clause has been generally interpreted to mean that this King granted benefit of clergy in some form to the English church.

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Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1970

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References

1. Acta Apostolicae Sedis, LII, 10 (Aug. 15, 1960)Google Scholar.

2. Richardson, H. G. and Sayles, G. O., The Governance of Mediaeval England (Edinburgh, 1963)Google Scholar. For a sampling of equivocal reviews, see le Patourel, John, E.H.R., LXXX (1965), 115–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilkinson, Bertie, A.H.R., LXIX (1964), 427–29Google Scholar; Dunham, W. H., Speculum, XXXIX (1964), 561–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Schuyler, R. L., “History and Historical Criticism: Recent Work of Richardson and Sayles,” J.B.S., III (1964), 123Google Scholar.

3. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, p. 289Google Scholar and n. 1; cf. the comments in Davis, R. H. C., King Stephen (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967), p. 19Google Scholar. For the charter, see Cronne, H. A. and Davis, R. H. C. (eds.), Regesta regum anglo-normannorum, III, Regesta regis Stephani (Oxford, 1968)Google Scholar, No. 271; Stubbs, William (ed.), Select Charters, ed. Davis, H. W. C. (9th ed.; Oxford, 1913), pp. 143–44Google Scholar.

4. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, p. 289Google Scholar and n. 1.

5. Advowson cases came to be heard customarily before court royal, probably because English custom regarded these pleas as property, rather than as ecclesiastical, actions. For advowson, see esp. Gray, J. W., “The Ius praesentandi in England from the Constitutions of Clarendon to Bracton,” E.H.R., LXVII (1952), 481509CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For important comments on the advowson as property, see also Brooke, Z. N., The English Church and the Papacy from the Conquest to the Reign of John (Cambridge, 1931), pp. 203–04Google Scholar; van Caenegem, R. C., Royal Writs in England from the Conquest to Glanville [Selden Society, LXXVII] (London, 1959), pp. 330–35Google Scholar; Maitland, F. W., Roman Canon Law in the Church of England (London, 1898), p. 63Google Scholar, which should be revised in the light of Cheney, C. R., From Becket to Langton (Manchester, 1956), pp. 109 ff.Google Scholar; Mayr-Harting, Henry, “Henry II and the Papacy, 1170–1189,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, XVI (1965), 3953CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Flahiff, G. B., “The Use of Prohibitions by Clerics against Ecclesiastical Courts in England,” Mediaeval Studies, III (1941), 101–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Writ of Prohibition to Court Christian in the Thirteenth Century,” ibid., VI (1944), 261–313, and VII (1945), 229–90.

6. Saltman, Avrom, Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1956), pp. 2530Google Scholar: “Stephen had shown that he could control the English Church.” For the harrying of Roger of Salisbury and his familia, see Davis, , King Stephen, pp. 31 ff.Google Scholar

7. Duggan, Charles, “From the Conquest to the Reign of John,” in The English Church and the Papacy in the Middle Ages, ed. Lawrence, C. H. (London, 1965), p. 67Google Scholar. For the English church under Stephen, see Brooke, English Church, ch. xii; Saltman, Theobald, passim; Voss, Lena, Heinrich von Blois, Bischof von Winchester (1129-71) [Ebering's historische Studien, Heft 210] (Berlin, 1932)Google Scholar.

8. Saltman, , Theobald, p. 158Google Scholar.

9. For this case, see ibid., pp. 124–25; Richardson, H. G. and Sayles, G. O., Law and Legislation from Aethelberht to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1966), pp. 5960Google Scholar, and Governance, pp. 288, 291, 304, 306, 312. Cf. the interesting comments in Douglas, David C., William the Conqueror (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964)Google Scholar, App. F, “On Poisoning as a Method of Political Action in Eleventh-Century Normandy.”

10. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, p. 291Google Scholar, and Law and Legislation, pp. 59-60. In the latter the authors are less positive in asserting this interpretation of canon law.

11. Saltman, , Theobald, pp. 163–64Google Scholar.

12. Duggan, Charles, “The Becket Dispute and the Criminous Clerks,” Bull. Inst. Hist. Res., XXXV (1962), 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Knowles, David, The Episcopal Colleagues of Thomas Becket (Cambridge, 1951), p. 133Google Scholar.

13. Duggan, , “Conquest,” English Church and Papacy, p. 88Google Scholar; see also his thoughtful article, The Reception of Canon Law in England in the Later-Twelfth Century,” Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. Kuttner, Stephan and Ryan, J. Joseph [Monumenta Iuris Canonici, series c: Subsidia, I] (Vatican, 1965), pp. 359–90Google Scholar. Older works on the general history of canon law in England for the period include Makower, F., The Constitutional History and Constitution of the Church of England (London, 1895)Google Scholar; Maitland, Roman Canon Law, to which Ogle, Arthur, The Canon Law in Medieval England (London, 1912)Google Scholar, was intended as a stunning rebuttal. The latter is not very good, nor is Dibdin, L. T., “Roman Canon Law in England,” Quarterly Review, CCXVII (1912), 413–36Google Scholar. See the bibliographical footnotes below relating to specific topics within the purview of canon law; also Kuttner, Stephan and Rathbone, Eleanor, “Anglo-Norman Canonists of the Twelfth Century,” Traditio, VII (19491951), 279358Google Scholar.

14. The source materials for the Becket controversy are listed and discussed in Poole, Austin Lane, From Domesday Book to Magna Carta (2nd ed.; Oxford, 1956), pp. 495–96Google Scholar; Freeman, E. A., “St. Thomas of Canterbury and His Biographers,” Historical Essays, first series (3rd ed.; London, 1875), pp. 80115Google Scholar; Halphen, Louis, “Les biographes de Thomas Becket,” Revue historique, CII (1909), 3445Google Scholar; Walberg, E., La Tradition hagiographique de Saint Thomas Becket avant la fin du XIIIe siècle: études critiques (Paris, 1929)Google Scholar. Valuable editions published subsequently to Poole's bibliography include Foliot, Gilbert, Letters and Charters, ed. Morey, Adrian and Brooke, C. N. L. (Cambridge, 1967)Google Scholar, a superb edition; Blake, E. O. (ed.), Historia Eliensis [Camden Society; third series, XCII] (London, 1962)Google Scholar; Holtzmann, Walther (ed.), Papsturkunden in England (Berlin and Göttingen, 19351952)Google Scholar; Powicke, F. M. and Cheney, C. R. (eds.), Councils and Synods, II, A.D. 1205–1313 (Oxford, 1964)Google Scholar. Studies of the English church in the twelfth century are listed and assessed in Poole, , Domesday Book to Magna Carta, pp. 499500Google Scholar. To his bibliography should be added Duggan, , “Conquest,” English Church and PapacyGoogle Scholar, which is particularly valuable for canon law and for the place of the English church in Western Christendom; Mayr-Harting, , “Henry II and the Papacy,” Jour. of Eccles. Hist., XVIGoogle Scholar; Shaw, I. P., “The Ecclesiastical Policy of Henry II on the Continent, 1154–1189,” Church Quarterly Review, CLI (1951), 137–55Google Scholar; Baldwin, Marshall, Alexander III and the Twelfth Century (New York, 1968), pp. 85134Google Scholar; see also bibliographical footnotes below devoted to special topics.

15. Freeman, , “Thomas and His Biographers,” Historical Essays, p. 85Google Scholar. The best independent study of the archbishop is Knowles, David, Archbishop Thomas Becket: A Character Study (London, 1949)Google Scholar; Knowles is publishing a new biography of Becket in 1970. Among the better works are the sound, but brief, introduction to Greenaway, George (ed. and tr.), The Life and Death of Thomas Becket, Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1961)Google Scholar; Radford, Lewis B., Thomas of London before His Consecration [Cambridge Historical Essays, VII] (Cambridge, 1894)Google Scholar, which treats of Thomas as chancellor; Tout, T. F., “The Place of Saint Thomas of Canterbury in History,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, VI (1921), 235–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar, a study too ecclesiastical in emphasis and too uncritical of the subject. Of the scissors-and-paste school of historical writing, the least inadequate is the pleasingly written but shallow Winston, Richard, Thomas Becket (New York, 1967)Google Scholar. Dark, Sidney, St. Thomas of Canterbury (London, 1927)Google Scholar, is a deplorable example of unabashed propaganda. Urry, William, Canterbury under the Angevin Kings (London, 1967)Google Scholar, an exemplary study, has material of pertinence for the history of Becket. Special aspects of the Becket tradition are well treated by Abbot, E. A., St. Thomas of Canterbury, His Death and Miracles (London, 1898)Google Scholar; and Brown, Paul Alonzo, The Development of the Legend of Thomas Becket (Philadelphia, 1930)Google Scholar, a solid literary study. Püschel, Brita, Thomas a Becket in der Literatur [Beiträge zur englischen Philologie, Heft 45] (Bochum-Langendreer, 1963)Google Scholar, is dreadful. Churchill, Irene J., Canterbury Administration (London, 1933)Google Scholar, gives a good picture of archdiocesan administration. Foreville, Raymonde, L'Église et la royauté en Angleterre sous Henri II Plantagenêt (1154–1189) (Paris, 1943)Google Scholar, while based on wide reading in the sources and effectively argued, suffers from an adulatory view of Thomas; it is not definitive, although it is most interesting.

16. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, pp. 267, 294, 318Google Scholar.

17. Stubbs, William, The Constitutional History of England, I (6th ed.; London, 1897), 498Google Scholar.

18. Pacaut, Marcel, Alexandre III: Étude sur la conception du pouvoir pontifical dans sa pensée et dans son oeuvre (Paris, 1956), p. 162Google Scholar.

19. Freeman, , “Thomas and His Biographers,” Historical Essays, p. 106Google Scholar.

20. Radford, , Thomas of London, p. 238Google Scholar.

21. Russell, Josiah Cox, “The Canonization of Opposition to the King in Angevin England,” in Anniversary Essays in Mediaeval History by Students of Charles Homer Haskins, ed. Taylor, C. H. and LaMonte, John L. (Boston, 1929), p. 280Google Scholar.

22. Stubbs, William (ed.), Gesta Regis Henrici II (London, 1867), II, xxixGoogle Scholar. For an amusing criticism by a serious historian, see Cantor, Norman F., The English (New York, 1967), pp. 162, 163, 164Google Scholar: Thomas had “a need to identify himself with an authoritarian institution,” he “submerged his personal frustrations [owing to his bourgeois origins] in service to the Heavenly City,” and he was the victim of an “increasingly disordered mind.”

23. Brooke, C. N. L., in John of Salisbury, Letters, ed. Millor, W. J. and Butler, H. E., I (Edinburgh and London, 1955), xxviiGoogle Scholar.

24. Knowles, Becket, passim; Tout, , “Thomas,” Bull. of Rylands Library, VIGoogle Scholar, passim; Brooke, , English Church, p. 193Google Scholar. For a warm yet judicious appraisal of the man, see Hutton, W. H., Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (Cambridge, 1926), pp. 251 ff.Google Scholar

25. Poole, , Domesday Book to Magna Carta, p. 199Google Scholar.

26. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, p. 303Google Scholar, and Law and Legislation, p. 63.

27. For criminous clerks in canon law and allied matters, see works cited in nn. 13 and 14 above and the following studies: Brooke, Z. N., “The Effect of Becket's Murder on Papal Authority in England,” Cambridge Historical Journal, II (19261928), 213–28Google Scholar, which presents the traditional view of church-state relations in Stephen's reign. Cheney, C. R., “Legislation of the Medieval English Church,” E.H.R., L (1935), 193–224, 385417CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “The Punishment of Felonous Clerks,” ibid., LI (1936), 215–36, which is quite good both on canon law and on English peculiar practice; concentrating primarily on the period after 1170, it shows the uncertainties and changes in curial policy between the pontificate of Alexander III and the publication of the Decretals. Also, Mary Cheney, “The Compromise of Avranches, 1172, and the Spread of Canon Law in England,” ibid., LVI (1941), 177–97, especially strong on appeals and on advowsons; Duggan, Charles, Twelfth Century Decretal Collections and Their Importance in English History [University of London Historical Studies, XII] (London, 1963)Google Scholar, which should be considered with his other important contributions, “Conquest,” “Becket Dispute,” and “Reception of Canon Law.” The standard general work remains Fournier, Paul and Lebras, Gabriel, Histoire des collections canoniques en Occident (Paris, 19311932)Google Scholar. Gabel, Leona, Benefit of Clergy in England in the Later Middle Ages [Smith College Studies in History, XIV, Nos. 1–4] (Northampton, 19281929)Google Scholar, is sound; Génestal, R., Le Privilegium fori en France [Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études, Sciences religieuses] (Paris, 1921, 1924)Google Scholar, remains essential to a study of the topic. Lillie, H. W. R., “St. Thomas of Canterbury's Opposition to Henry II,” Clergy Review, VIII (1934), 261–83Google Scholar, is superseded by Duggan's work. Maitland, F. W., “Henry II and the Criminous Clerks,” E.H.R., VII (1892), 224–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar (reprinted in Roman Canon Law), presents the traditional view that Henry II had the support of canon law concerning the issue of benefit of clergy. Plucknett, T. F. T., A Concise History of the Common Law (5th ed.; Boston, 1956)Google Scholar, gives examples of the privilegium fori at work in the royal courts. Volumes which remain important contributions are SirPollock, Frederick and Maitland, F. W., The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (2nd ed.; Cambridge, 1911), I, 426–40Google Scholar; Poole, Austin Lane, “Outlawry as a Punishment of Criminous Clerks,” in Historical Essays in Honour of James Tail, ed. Edwards, J. G., Galbraith, V. H., and Jacob, E. F. (Manchester, 1933), pp. 239–46Google Scholar; Makower, , Constitutional History, pp. 399416Google Scholar. Foreville, L'Église et la royauté, is an erudite and forceful defense of the archbishop.

28. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, pp. 285–86Google Scholar.

29. Morris, Colin, “William I and the Church Courts,” E.H.R., LXXXII (1967), 449–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, pp. 285–86Google Scholar.

31. Ibid., p. 286; Knowles, David, The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge, 1950), p. 594Google Scholar, disagrees. On lay Eigenkirchen, the standard work remains Thomas, Paul, Le Droit de propriété des laïques sur les églises et le patronage au moyen âge [Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Études, Sciences religieuses] (Paris, 1906)Google Scholar; the subject deserves restudy. For England, Böhmer, Heinrich, “Das Eigenkirchentum in England,” Texte und Forschungen zur englischen Kulturgeschichte: Festgabe für Felix Liebermann (Halle, 1921), pp. 301–53Google Scholar, says little of the practice after the eleventh century. Knowles, , Monastic Order, pp. 592 ff.Google Scholar, is concerned with monastic, rather than lay, proprietorship. Gray, , “Ius praesentandi,” E.H.R., LXVIIGoogle Scholar, and Flahiff's studies deal thoroughly with advowson and related matters.

32. Duggan, , “Reception of Canon Law,” Congress of Medieval Canon Law, pp. 360–61Google Scholar.

33. Foreville, , L'Église et la royauté, p. 161Google Scholar.

34. The Constitutions may be consulted in Stubbs, , Select Charters, pp. 163–67Google Scholar. Clauses iii, iv, vii, viii were condemned by the archbishop; the others mentioned, by the Pope.

35. For good material on the exequatur, see Brooke, , English Church, pp. 117–46Google Scholar; Cantor, Norman F., Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture in England, 1089–1135 (Princeton, 1958), pp. 1234CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Brooke, , English Church, p. 206Google Scholar; Tout, , “Thomas,” Bull. of Rylands Library, VI, 248Google Scholar, agrees that for Thomas the question of the customs' antiquity was irrelevant — if they were truly ancient, “so much the worse for the customs.” Poole, , Domesday Book to Magna Carta, pp. 206–07Google Scholar, wrote that the Constitutions “represented not unfairly the practice of the past”; Foreville, , L'Église et la royauté, pp. 154–55Google Scholar, agrees. Knowles, , Episcopal Colleagues, p. 133Google Scholar, argues against the Constitutions. First, they were not traditional; they “had no ancestry in the history of either the Empire or Papacy.” More important, he finds them not customary if tradition be permitted to embrace practices antedating the Conquest. His other objections are beyond dispute: the Constitutions were incongruous with the “international and administrative movements” of their own time, and the effort to make England a self-contained unit was quixotic in the later twelfth century.

37. Maitland, , “Criminous Clerks,” E.H.R., VII, 226Google Scholar. He is followed by Génestal, , Privilegium fori, II, 97Google Scholar; Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, p. 303Google Scholar, and Law and Legislation, p. 64; and by virtually all others who have commented on the problem.

38. Richardson, and Sayles, , Law and Legislation, p. 64Google Scholar, and Governance, p. 304; Génestal, , Privilegium fori, II, 97Google Scholar; Gabel, , Benefit of Clergy, p. 14Google Scholar; Brooke, , English Church, p. 204Google Scholar. Cf. Cheney, , “Felonous Clerks,” E.H.R., LI, 215CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “Earlier custom, in England as elsewhere, provided that a clerk, convicted and degraded in court christian, should be punished in the lay court,” and the church had acquiesced in this.

39. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, p. 306Google Scholar; Saltman, , Theobald, p. 161Google Scholar.

40. Ibid., p. 124.

41. Duggan, , “Reception of Canon Law,” Congress of Medieval Canon Law, p. 359Google Scholar.

42. Duggan, , “Becket Dispute,” Bull. Inst. Hist. Res., XXXV, 1415Google Scholar; cf. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, pp. 285, 313Google Scholar.

43. Duggan, , “Becket Dispute,” Bull. Inst. Hist. Res., XXXV, 3Google Scholar; cf. Foreville, , L'Église et la royauté, p. 151Google Scholar.

44. Duggan, , “Becket Dispute,” Bull. Inst. Hist. Res., XXXV, 4Google Scholar. The last idea was advanced before Becket's pontificate by (e.g.) John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. Webb, C. C. J. (Oxford, 1909), II, 788Google Scholar. Interestingly, Becket's implacable enemy, Gilbert Foliot, was unyielding in defense of clerical immunity; see Foliot, Letters and Charters, Nos. 117, 170, 197, the last two falling after the beginning of the controversy.

45. Cheney, , “Felonous Clerks,” E.H.R., LI, 216Google Scholar.

46. Ibid., LI, 219.

47. Greenaway, , Life, p. 19Google Scholar. But cf. Tout, , “Thomas,” Bull. of Rylands Library, VI, 249–51Google Scholar, where it is argued that Henry may well have intended to try clergy in royal courts for secular crimes after ecclesiastical trial and degradation.

48. Richardson, and Sayles, , Law and Legislation, pp. 6263Google Scholar.

49. Maitland, , Roman Canon Law, p. 60Google Scholar.

50. Plucknett, , Common Law, p. 18Google Scholar.

51. Flower, C. T., Introduction to the Curia Regis Rolls, 1199–1230 [Selden Society, LXII] (London, 1944), pp. 106–07Google Scholar. For a random sample of corroborative evidence, the following are useful. Of 1,153 cases enrolled in the plea and assize rolls for Yorkshire in 1218-19, two cases only involve benefit of clergy: Stenton, Doris M. (ed.), Rolls of the Justices in Eyre … for Yorkshire in 3 Henry III [Selden Society, LVI] (London, 1937)Google Scholar. Only three cases of clerical immunity appear among 1,352 entries in Stenton, Doris M. (ed.), Rolls of the Justices in Eyre … for Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Staffordshire, 1221, 1222 [Selden Society, LXI] (London, 1940)Google Scholar. Maitland, F. W. (ed.), Select Pleas of the Crown [Selden Society, I] (London, 1888)Google Scholar, prints 203 cases; of these, thirteen touch benefit of clergy, and of this number, three were false pleas (Nos. 43, 135, 140, the last showing a mysteriously fresh tonsure upon an accused).

52. Gabel, , Benefit of Clergy, p. 8Google Scholar.

53. Richardson, and Sayles, , Law and Legislation, p. 61Google Scholar. Knowles, David, The Historian and Character and Other Essays (Cambridge, 1963), p. 9Google Scholar, points out that “the [historical] moment will bring out what is most significant in [men], even if it be only great folly.”

54. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, pp. 306–07Google Scholar.

55. Ibid., p. 307.

56. Ibid., pp. 296–300; Cheney, , Becket to Langton, pp. 4849Google Scholar, notes appeals in 1128, 1139, and 1153. Duggan, , “Conquest,” English Church and Papacy, p. 85Google Scholar, stated that there was “ample evidence” of appeals before the legatine commission of Henry of Blois (1139), although he noted that “it is possible that papal judges delegate with explicit commissions and mandates can first be clearly traced from this time.”Saltman, , Theobald, p. 143Google Scholar and n. 1, wrote that “it was only under Theobald that appeals to the pope became a normal part of the procedure in English ecclesiastical causes in accordance with Canon Law,” adding that “down to 1135 appeals to the pope were exceptional.” He observes further that appeals to the Curia from archdeacons' and higher church courts were to the derogation, not of the King's dignity, but of the archbishop's, as was the appointment of judges-delegate; ambiguous evidence that royal license was required before an appeal could be carried to Rome temp. Stephen is presented in ibid., p. 155.

57. Cheney, , “Compromise of Avranches,” E.H.R., LVI, 85Google Scholar.

58. Cheney, , Becket to Langton, p. 89Google Scholar; Morey, Adrian and Brooke, C. N. L., Gilbert Foliot and His Letters (Cambridge, 1965), p. 235Google Scholar (pp. 234 ff. contain a lucid discussion of the topic).

59. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, pp. 308–09Google Scholar.

60. Poole, , Domesday Book to Magna Carta, p. 207Google Scholar.

61. Knowles, , Episcopal Colleagues, pp. 142–43Google Scholar. Cf. Barlow, Frank, “A View of Archbishop Lanfranc,” Jour. of Eccles. Hist., XVI (1965), 175Google Scholar: “In the secular sphere a man was either a good and loyal vassal or a faithless perjurer.” Foliot's open letter Multiplicem nobis accepts the distinction between a bishop as tenantin-chief and as ecclesiastic. Foliot, Letters and Charters, No. 170. When Stephen harried Roger of Salisbury and his familia, the King claimed that he was dispossessing them as royal servants and as feudatories, not as bishops. Davis, , King Stephen, pp. 2537Google Scholar; cf. Knowles, , Episcopal Colleagues, pp. 151–52Google Scholar.

62. Jolliffe, J. E. A., Angevin Kingship (2nd ed.; London, 1963), pp. 52, 5556Google Scholar. Chapter iv of this stimulating work discusses the King's ira et malevolentia as a political weapon and notices the employment of the King's official rage against the unfortunate Thomas.

63. Ibid., p. 98

64. For the development of Becket's ecclesiology while in exile, see Foreville, , L'Église et la royauté, pp. 156 ff., 214 ffGoogle Scholar. A perceptive account of the Pope's increasingly uncomfortable diplomatic and political position is presented by Pacaut, Alexandre III, pp. 126–31, 153–71; the latter is especially interesting in showing Alexander's caution and prudence, Becket's growing intemperance and rigidity.

65. Bolt, Robert, A Man for All Seasons (London, 1962), Act I, p. 20Google Scholar.

66. John of Salisbury to Bartholomew of Exeter, in Robertson, J. C. (ed.), Materials for the History of Thomas Becket [Rolls Series] (London, 18751885), V, 544–45Google Scholar, ep. 226.

67. Foliot, Letters and Charters, No. 170. For learned discussions of this famous letter, see Morey, and Brooke, , Gilbert Foliot, pp. 166–87Google Scholar; Knowles, , Episcopal Colleagues, pp. 122 ff.Google Scholar, App. vii.

68. Maitland, , Roman Canon Law, p. 57Google Scholar.

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71. Greenaway, , Life, p. 25Google Scholar.

72. Scammell, , Hugh du Puiset, p. 167Google Scholar; cf. Knowles, Episcopal Colleagues, passim, where he is found to be virtually without redeeming qualities. For Thurstan, see Nicholl, Thurstan.

73. Delisle, Léopold and Berger, Élie (eds.), Recueil des actes d'Henri II (Paris, 1916), I, 433Google Scholar (No. cclxxxv, to Alexander III).

74. In addition to general studies of the Becket controversy, see Heslin, Ann, “The Coronation of the Young King in 1170,” in Studies in Church History, ed. Cuming, G. J. [Ecclesiastical History Society] (London, 1965), II, 165–78Google Scholar. For Canterbury's rights, see Schramm, Percy, A History of the English Coronation (Oxford, 1937), pp. 40 ff.Google Scholar

75. Arnulf of Lisieux, Letters, ed. Barlow, Frank [Camden Society; third series, LXI] (London, 1939)Google Scholar, ep. 59 (to Alexander III).

76. Knowles, , Episcopal Colleagues, p. 139Google Scholar: Such an absolution would have been “against justice and papal authority.” Brooke, , English Church, p. 211Google Scholar, presented the view that “it was his fierce vindication of the rights of Canterbury that was really responsible for his murder.”

77. Jolliffe, , Angevin Kingship, p. 106Google Scholar: “It was of the essence of these processes of coercive mischief that they should create a state of extra-legal tension, that they should be as ambiguous as they were intolerable, hinted to royal bailiffs, conveyed without words, put out of sight and abandoned if they became likely to embroil the King further than he cared to go. It was a kind of calculated playing with fire, such as frightened Becket out of England and allowed Henry's Kentish servants to believe that they could receive him on his return as the King's enemy; the same which Henry confessed to Pope Alexander in the first shock of the martyrdom.”

78. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, p. 310Google Scholar, where the agreement is wrongly dated 1178.

79. Cheney, , “Felonous Clerks,” E.H.R., LI, 219–20, 216Google Scholar.

80. Duggan, , “Becket Dispute,” Bull. Inst. Hist. Res., XXXV, 2Google Scholar.

81. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, p. 268Google Scholar.

82. Shaw, , “Ecclesiastical Policy,” Church Quarterly Rev., CLI, 141–42Google Scholar.

83. Ibid., CLI, 154-55.

84. Duggan, , “Reception of Canon Law,” Congress of Medieval Canon Law, p. 360Google Scholar; but cf. Richardson, and Sayles, , Law and Legislation, p. 62Google Scholar, n. 7. Shaw, , “Ecclesiastical Policy,” Church Quarterly Rev., CLI, 146–47Google Scholar.

85. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, p. 312Google Scholar.

86. Round, John Horace (ed.), Calendar of Documents Preserved in France (London, 1899), IGoogle Scholar, No. 1318.

87. Richardson, and Sayles, , Governance, pp. 312Google Scholar, 268 and n. 1.

88. Mayr-Harting, , “Henry II and the Papacy,” Jour. of Eccles. Hist., XVI, 5253Google Scholar.

89. Duggan, , “Reception of Canon Law,” Congress of Medieval Canon Law, p. 361Google Scholar.

90. Cheney, Becket to Langton, passim, esp. chs. iii, iv.

91. Morey, Adrian, Bartholomew of Exeter, Bishop and Canonist (Cambridge, 1937), p. 77Google Scholar; see also Knowles, , Epıscopal Colleagues, p. 134Google Scholar.

92. Cheney, , “Compromise of Avranches,” E.H.R., LVI, 197Google Scholar.

93. Cantor, , Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture, p. 320Google Scholar.

94. Southern, St. Anselm, which is definitive; Cantor, Church, Kingship, and Lay Investiture; Barlow, English Church; Cheney, Becket to Langton. Foreville, L'Église et la royauté, does not live up to the promise of its title, despite its author's vast learning; the history of the church under Henry II remains to be written.

95. For the conflicts under Anselm, see Southern, St. Anselm, ch. iv, “Anselm as Archbishop.”

96. Ibid., pp. 150-51.

97. Ibid., p. 162.