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Penance, Mercy and Saintly Authority in the Miracles of St Thomas Becket*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2016
Extract
The miracle stories of St Thomas Becket, recorded first by Benedict of Peterborough (d. 1193) and then by his successor in the task, William of Canterbury (of whom little is known), comprise the largest collection of miracles of the high Middle Ages, and describe the nature of medieval sanctity in manifold ways. The two writers went about their task in markedly contrasting ways, with William generally the more ambitious of the two. He frequently returned to records entered by Benedict to adapt, correct or expand upon them.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2011
References
1 Mansfield, Mary C., The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth Century France (London, 1995), 17.Google Scholar Pilgrimages, the journeys often involved in the reporting of miraculous stories, also have an almost essentially penitential dimension, as Raymonde Foreville pointed out: ‘Les “Miracula S. Thomae Cantuariensis”’, Actes du 97e congrès national des sociétés savantes (Nantes, 1972), 443–68, at 452; repr. in eadem, Thomas Becket dans la tradition historique et hagiographique (London, 1981), 443–68 Google Scholar, at 452.
2 Grim, Edward, ‘Vita S. Thomae’, in Robertson, James Craigie, ed., Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (Canonized by Pope Alexander III. A. D. 1173), 6 vols (London, 1876), 2: 353–450 Google Scholar, at 436. John of Salisbury, among others, omits this. But Grim was present, and it is too prosaic a detail, given the situation, to be put down to embellishment. William fitz Stephen includes it: ‘Vita Sancti Thomae, Cantuariensis archiepiscopi et martyris’, in Robertson, ed., Materials, 3: 1–154, at 132–3.
3 Bull, Marcus, ‘Criticism of Henry II’s expedition to Ireland in William of Canterbury’s Miracles of St Thomas Becket’, JMedH 33 (2007), 107–29 Google Scholar, at 119–20.
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7 See esp. Gervase, who saw the expedition as an evasion of this responsibility: Opera Historica, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols, RS 73 (1879–80), 1: 234–5.
8 Anne Duggan thinks Henry was there from around 11 November 1171 until late February 1172: ‘Ne in dubium: The Official Record of Henry II’s Reconciliation at Avranches, 21 May 1172’, EHR 115 (2000), 643–58, at 643–4.
9 Nevertheless, nobody could suppose that the king was unaware of the damage the murder had done to his reputation. A description of Henry’s instant realization that the infamy of the murder would mark his reputation and guarantee the opprobrium of posterity can be found in the third fragment of Lansdowne MS 398 (London, BL), abridged in Robertson, ed., Materials, 4: 158–85, at 159.
10 Bull, ‘Criticism of Henry II’s Expedition’, 119–20. Gerald of Wales recorded, with typical gusto, Henry II’s expedition to the ‘occidental kinglets, [subsequently] stupefied by his thunderbolts’: Giraldi Cambrensis Topographia Hibernica et Expugnatio Hibernica, ed. James F. Dimock (Wiesbaden, 1964; first publ. 1867), 149.
11 The apocryphal second-century Protoevangelium of James is the only source to repeat Matthew’s claim.
12 This tale is related by William of Canterbury, ‘Miracula’, in Robertson, ed., Materials, 1: 195–98; and Benedict of Peterborough, ‘Miracula Sancti Thomae Cantuariensis’, in ibid. 2: 21–298, at 219–20. The divergence in some fundamental details between the two versions makes their exact relationship ambiguous.
13 This is a further reference to the ostracizing of the murderers. Roger of Howden describes Hugh de Morville’s isolated existence at Knaresborough: Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols, RS 49 (1867), 1: 13. Knaresborough is only ten miles or so from Fountains Abbey, a Cistercian house where the said Stephen’s younger son was apparently sent to become a monk, according to Benedict.
14 William of Canterbury, ‘Miracula’, in Robertson, ed., Materials, 1: 197.
15 In his Vita, William had uniquely included an anecdote describing the deceit and sinfulness of de Morville’s mother, which he supposed de Morville to have inherited: ‘Vita et passio S. Thomae’, in Robertson, ed., Materials, 1: 1–136, at 128. On the wider significance of this anecdote, see Dahood, Roger, ‘Hugh de Morville, William of Canterbury, and Anecdotal Evidence for English Language’, Speculum 69 (1994), 40–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 The manuscripts of both miracle collections probably circulated widely through Cistercian networks, possibly to advertise the translation of Becket’s remains, initially planned for May 1186. Henry II had made threats against the order and its property in the 1160s, at the height of the dispute with Becket, whom the order supported. Anonymous I (formerly thought to be Roger of Pontigny) describes the presentation of Henry’s warning to the General Chapter, in ‘Vita Sancti Thomae, Cantuariensis archiepiscopi et martyris’, in Robertson, ed., Materials, 4: 1–79, at 65. On the Cistercians’ role in the Becket conflict, see Preiss, Martin, Die politische Tätigkeit und Stellung der Cisterzienser im Schisma von 1154–1177 (Halle, 1934).Google Scholar
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19 Abbott’s account of the martyrdom remains one of the most detailed and comprehensive, despite its idiosyncrasies: Abbott, Edwin A., St Thomas of Canterbury: His Death and Miracles, 2 vols (London, 1898), 1: 27–174 Google Scholar; on Morville’s role in particular, see 124–5.
20 Although questions concerning the highly complex provenance of various sections of St Thomas’s Miracula must remain beyond the scope of the present discussion, a letter in Book IV from the prior of Wenlock in Shropshire, validating a cure of leprosy, suggests a terminus ad quem of 1175, for its ‘frater Humbaldus’ was Prior Humbald (1155–75): William of Canterbury, ‘Miracula’, in Robertson, ed., Materials, 1: 338–9.
21 See Vincent, Nicholas, ‘The Murderers of Thomas Becker’, in Fryde, Natalie and Reitz, Dirk, eds, Bischofsmord im Mitteltalter / Murder of Bishops (Göttingen, 2003), 211–72.Google Scholar
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25 Knowles, David, The Monastic Order in England (Cambridge, 1940), 177Google Scholar n. 1. Indeed, Benedict himself became prior of Christ Church in 1175, and Henry II helped him to obtain the abbacy of Peterborough just two years later. Benedict’s replacement of Odo in Canterbury was foretold by St Thomas, as described by William of Canterbury, ‘Miracula’, in Robertson, ed., Materials, 1: 542–3.
26 Urry, Canterbury, 29.
27 See White, Stephen D., Custom, Kinship, and Gifts to Saints: The Laudatio Parentum in Western France, 1050–1150 (London, 1988), esp. 19–39.Google Scholar White too sees giving as an important interface between ecclesiastical and lay communities. ‘By giving a gift to a saint, a lay benefactor established with his monastic beneficiaries an ongoing social relationship that was supposed to last forever and to link him indirectly to one of the saints and to God’: ibid. 27.
28 For example, we are told that St Thomas rejected oblations from a couple living in sin: William of Canterbury, ‘Miracula’, in Robertson, ed., Materials, 1: 288–9.
29 For a detailed comparison of the royal penance at Avranches with this visit to Canterbury, see Duggan, Anne, ‘Diplomacy, Status, and Conscience: Henry II’s Penance for Becket’s Murder’, in Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte: Peter Herde zum 65. Geburtstag von Freunden, Schülern und Kollegen dargebracht, ed. Borchardt, Karl and Bünz, Enno, 2 vols (Stuttgart, 1998), 1: 265–90 Google Scholar, repr. in eadem, Thomas Becket: Friends, Networks, Texts and Cult (London, 2007), VIIGoogle Scholar. Duggan argues that the Canterbury penance was far more voluntary and conscientious than the sequence of political demonstrations at Avranches. ‘Avranches had reconciled the public man; Canterbury absolved the private person at a much more fundamental level’: ibid. 285. However, the division of public humiliation and private penance was perhaps less clear-cut.
30 William of Canterbury, ‘De adventu regis ad tumbam martyris Thomae’ [part of his ‘Miracula’], in Robertson, ed., Materials 1: 487–9.
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35 Duggan, ‘Ne in dubium’ 644.
36 See Keefe, Thomas, ‘Shrine Time: King Henry II’s Visits to Thomas Becket’s Tomb’, Haskins Society Journal 11 (2003), 115–22.Google Scholar
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40 See Southern, R.W., The Monks of Canterbury and the Murder of Archbishop Becket (Canterbury, 1985), 13–14.Google Scholar
41 William of Canterbury, ‘Miracula’, in Robertson, , ed., Materials, 1: 470–1 Google Scholar. Foliot had also made penitential promises at the tomb when he accompanied Henry II in 1174, for which (within another account of Henry’s penance) see Diceto, Ralph de, Radulfi de Diceto Decani Lundoniensis Opera Historica, ed. Stubbs, William, 2 vols, RS 68 (London, 1876), 1: 383–5.Google Scholar