Church-State conflict in 12th-century England

God and my right. by Alfred Duggan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Church versus State conflicts seem to appear throughout the history of the Christian Church, and that between English King Henry II and Archbishop Thomas Becket in the 12th century is one of the better-known examples. It took place not long after the Norman conquest of England, and so most of the ruling class were Normans, with one foot in England, and the other on the European continent. Thomas of Cheapside, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, was the son of a London merchant of Norman descent, and was educated in monastic schools, and spent his holidays with a Norman knightly family to learn the code of chivalry.

When King Henry II was looking for a chancellor, someone recommended Thomas, and he and the king became friends. He was ordained as a deacon. His monastic schooling meant that he took his Christian duties seriously, but in his duty as chancellor he looked after the interests of his employer, the king. When the post of Archbishop of Canterbury became vacant, King Henry proposed Thomas for the job, and he was duly elected by the monks of Canterbury. King Henry expected that the post would be a sinecure, and that Thomas could go on being his chancellor, and delegate his church duties to others. Thomas, however, saw that being the most senior bishop in England required all his attention, and thought that the kings interests came second to those of God. As a result f this, their friendship cooled. Henry wanted to control the Church and its revenues, and Thomas resisted.

King Henry was given to temper tantrums when he didn’t get his way, and would roll around screaming and drumming his heels on the floor like an infant. Apparently these outbursts impressed his courtiers, and it seems not dissimilar to the temper tantrums of US President Donald Trump in our day. It was in the course of one of these rages that he complained that no one would help him to get rid of the turbulent priest. A group of his knights took him at his word, and set off for Canterbury where they murdered Thomas, and soon afterwards he was declared a saint by the Western Church. 

Alfred Duggan tells the story well, and gives an impression of what life was like in 12th-century England. As historical novels go, the story is well told.

I've been re-reading The Inklings and King Arthur: J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, C. S. Lewis, and Owen Barfield on the Matter of Britain, and since Thomas was Archbishop of Canterbury about the time that King Arthur's story was being compiled, God and my Right seemed an appropriate one to read concurrently. Of King Arthur, it says:

Bishop Gilbert had been studying the new fashionable romances about King Arthur, a frivolous diversion for a holy monk of Cluny. Geoffrey of Monmouth described a state of affairs, in the fifth century, when the Church in Britain was ruled by an Archbishop of London. At this Gilbert’s imagination took fire, and he began to claim that his See should be raised to Metropolitan status; at the same time King Henry relied on him to administer all benefices left vacant by the exile of the Archbishop’s supporters.

Geoffrey Monmouth and other contemporary compilers of Arthurian romances, like Layamon, doubtless viewed fifth-century Britain through twelfth-century spectacles. Later historians referred to the fifth century as the beginning of the “Dark Ages” because so few written sources had survived from that time. Archaeology has given later historians a better idea of the material culture of the earlier period, but Geoffrey and Layamon lacked such resources, and so Alfred Duggan in giving us a picture of life in the twelfth century, also gives a picture of the fifth-century as seen through the eyes of the authors of the Arthurian romances.

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