1st Edition

The Cult of Thomas Becket History and Historiography through Eight Centuries

By Kay Brainerd Slocum Copyright 2019
352 Pages
by Routledge

352 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

352 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

On 29 December, 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was brutally murdered in his own cathedral. News of the event was rapidly disseminated throughout Europe, generating a widespread cult which endured until the reign of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century, and engendering a fascination which has lasted until the present day. The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography... Read more

Introduction  Part One: Saint and Cult  1 The Creation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury  2 Thirteenth-Century Translations  3 "Hooly Blisful Martir": The Development of the Becket Cult  4 Liturgies, Sermons and the Translation of 1220  5 Becket and Iconography  Part Two: Becket and The Reformation  6 Henry VIII and the Specter of Thomas Becket  7 Becket as a Symbol for the Catholic Opposition  Part Three: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Views of Becket  8 Rationalism and the Canterbury Martyr  9 Victorian Biographers and Antiquarians  Part Four: Becket in the Modern and Postmodern World  10 Becket in Legal and Intellectual History  11 Twentieth-Century Biographies of the Canterbury Martyr  12 Becket Scholarship in the Postmodern World and Beyond;  Conclusion

Biography

Kay Brainerd Slocum is Professor Emerita at Capital University, USA, where she was previously the Gerhold Professor of Humanities. She is the author of three books and multiple journal articles on music and medieval and religious history.