Dirty Laundry Thomas Becket's Hair Shirt and the Making of a Saint Chapter uri icon

abstract

  • The study of the events surrounding the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket at the side altar of Canterbury Cathedral in December 1170 has focused primarily on the significance of the assassination itself as confirmation of his saintliness. As the body was finally being prepared for burial, the surprising discovery was made that underneath his stately vestments, Becket wore (and had long worn) a hairshirt, crawling with lice, maggots, and other vermin. All lingering suspicions that Beckets conversion from worldly courtier to spiritual archbishop had been a pretense, a fabrication designed to bolster his claim to authority against King Henry II, fell away. It was the hairshirt, and not the murder, that made the martyr.

author list (cited authors)

  • Bollermann, K., & Nederman, C. J.

complete list of authors

  • Bollermann, Karen||Nederman, Cary J

Book Title

  • INTELLECTUAL DYNAMISM OF THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES

publication date

  • 2021