Thomas A. Beckett: Martyred Priest
by A general idea of the great saint worshipped in The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer.
Who was this Thomas A Beckett fellow? Where have we heard that name before? Is it worth remembering?
Image via Wikipedia
Thomas A Beckett was a Catholic Priest back in the time of King Henry VII of England, this would be around the mid-1100’s. Beckett believed that God’s wor
d was the only word that could govern the world. This never sat right with King Henry II, and this caused Henry a lot of problems. Henry, the great matriarch of the infamous Stewart line (which the current Queen is part of), had instituted many ways to find out what the church was doing and how to get a little bit more money from the church.
One of those ways was the choosing of specific church personnel, specifically the Arch Bishops.In the late 1160’s, Archbishop Becket excommunicated these Bishops, as well as all other bishops that did not hold the pope higher than Henry. Since, in reality, the Catholic Church is more powerful than any kingdom or king because they are the voice of the kingdom of God.
In 1170, King Henry II had lost his skim money and his informers. However, because Beckett based his excommunications on church ideals and God-based logic, Henry could do nothing to him. As he sat in his thrown room, he yelled out in anguish: This man Becket has cost me so much money and caused me so many problems, I wish someone would just get rid of him.
In the middle of Sunday mass a few days later, in order to make their king happy, gain themselves notoriety, as well as solve the problems of the state of England; this renegade group of the king’s knights stormed into the church and killed Beckett on the alter.
He immediately became a martyred saint and people believed that his body and blood would heal, protect, and bless them. People would travel from around the world to see and touch his tomb. Thus there was a road called the “pilgrims road” which everyone who was traveling on a “pilgrimage” to see the tomb of Thomas A Becket in his home church in the town of Canterbury, England would be on. This is the same road Chaucer’s pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales are walking on.
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