Thomas Becket. Father John S. Hogan

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СКАЧАТЬ issue of kings and their subjects’ obedience to them, had something interesting to say. While it was accepted that Christians had a duty to submit to secular power — Saint Paul suggests this in his Letter to the Romans (13:1–7), Robert notes that royal power does not excuse tyranny, and Christians must distinguish between the monarch in their person and royal power. If a monarch acts as a tyrant, he then acts impotently.⁷ There is no evidence to show that Thomas drew upon this teaching during his conflict with Henry; it would be interesting to know whether he was aware of it and whether it colored his response to Henry in their dispute.

      Thomas’s life in Paris remains a mystery. Only two people in the historical record claimed to have known him in Paris — the first is Everlin, abbot of Saint Lawrence at Liège. Following Thomas’s canonization, Everlin dedicated an altar to him in his abbey church and spoke of their time together in Paris.⁸ The second, Ludolf, archbishop of Magdeburg, claimed to have been one of his students.⁹ Thomas was never a teacher, so Ludolf must have meant that they were fellow students. One of Thomas’s later friends, John of Salisbury, was in Paris at the same time, and though the two often shared memories of the city in their conversations and knew people in common,¹⁰ there is no evidence that they knew each other then — they did not meet until both were working for the archbishop of Canterbury.

      Whatever hopes and dreams Matilda had for her son, Thomas had other ideas. Instead of removing him from an aimless life of pleasure, his parents had inadvertently sunk him in the motherlode. While Paris was indeed a fervent grove of learning, it was also a heady center of excess. If Thomas was sulking as he crossed the English Channel, he certainly perked up when he found himself plunged into the vibrant social life of the city; and given his fondness for the high life, he may have been as or more regular a student of the Parisian world of festivity as he was of the lecture hall. Students generally gathered in the various taverns and inns of the city to discuss their day’s work, to eat, and to drink. Those who were looking for something more intimate could find it in the taverns or in cer tain spots outside the city where ladies of the night loitered for business.

      There is no doubt that Thomas jumped right into this life. Paris held many temptations, and young men succumbed to them. Yet, for all his love of pleasure, his contemporary biographers note that he remained chaste:¹¹ Thomas was with the others up to a point, but there were limits, and it seems that casual sex may have been one of them. Some modern biographers believe that he engaged in these pleasures, too¹² — that his contemporary biographers, rather than offend the dignity of the new martyr, spared his blushes in this regard. However, while the early biographers did not concentrate a great deal on these years, they did accept that his student life was less than perfect and hardly virtuous. If he had been as rakish as his fellow students in Paris, these biographers’ admitting that he had had sexual experiences in his youth would have enhanced the impact of his conversion and the penitential nature of his life as archbishop; it would have made him another Saint Augustine of Hippo. Also, given that many of Thomas’s contemporaries were still alive when the early biographies were written and knew all too well that he had been no saint for much of his life and demonstrated many faults, it would have been counterproductive for his biographers to maintain that he was chaste if it was known he was not.

      How he was able to remain chaste when everything seemed against it is unknown. Perhaps his distant and at times cool personality, as noted by some,¹³ prevented him from forming close relationships with others and militated against sexual intimacy. He may have been too awkward to engage a prostitute or not particularly interested; it may have been too seedy for his liking. Perhaps his mother had left her mark; his piety drew a line in the sand that he would not cross, though he had crossed many others. Whatever the cause, his refusal to succumb is noteworthy and reveals an aspect of his personality and nature that, though hidden in the years of excess, boded well for the future.

      Whoever taught Thomas during his time in Paris and whatever he did, it is obvious that he did not learn a great deal, for when he entered the service of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury a number of years later, he needed further tutoring to give him the skills to advance. While the schools in Paris gradually developed into the university, taking a degree was not yet heard of in Thomas’s day; however, students would reach a point in their education where they could qualify to teach and so would be called magister, or master. Clerks who had spent a certain period of time in these schools would normally be addressed as magister. Thomas was never styled magister in his later employment, and educated colleagues sometimes looked down on him; indeed, his advancement caused jealousy among some because he was deemed unfit, partly because of his lack of education.

      That said, Gilbert did not intend his son to be a teacher; he had other plans for him. Thomas was intelligent and possessed natural gifts, so a little education went a long way. He could speak and write Latin; he was fluent in French before he ever set foot in Paris; and he had the basics of a medieval education. Frank Barlow in his biography suggests that Thomas, when royal chancellor in 1155, had the same level of education as an average bishop.¹⁴ It is unclear how much of that education was from Merton Priory and later studies in Canterbury as archbishop’s clerk and how much was from his time in Paris, but it may be that his time in Paris was not of great educational benefit to him.

      Thomas remained in Paris for about two years. At some point in 1141, when he was twenty-one, devastating news arrived by means of a messenger: His mother had died.

       6

       Return of the Wastrel

      Thomas left Paris, but by the time he returned to London his mother was already buried, and he had to content himself with solitary moments of grief at her tomb. The house seemed empty; everything had changed. Roger of Pontigny in his biography says that Thomas became careless in his studies as a result of Matilda’s passing,¹ suggesting that he may not have returned to London upon hearing of his mother’s death, but only when the zest of the student life was gone. The period of mourning would prove to be a dark one for father and son; it was also a time of decision for both.

      Thomas made up his mind not to return to Paris. Whether that was his initial intention is unknown. Certainly, his mother’s death meant that some of the pressure for him to continue was gone, but subsequent events may also have relieved him of whatever urge remained. Gilbert had retired by now, and if he had hopes of living from the rents he charged his tenants, those hopes were quashed as he fell victim to a series of misfortunes, including fires in a number of his properties.² Money was not as plentiful as before, and there was not enough in the family coffers to send Thomas back to Paris. The tuition fees might have been manageable, but the son and heir had not been living hand to mouth: Gilbert could no longer afford to keep a young socialite living the good life in Paris.

      At the age of twenty-two, Thomas was indeed a young man with prospects. However, in the year after his mother’s death, despite his father’s hints and then urgings, he made no effort to benefit from his natural abilities. He lazed about at home and around London, intent, as his friend and biographer Herbert of Bosham noted, on the kind of things that are sweet and fashionable.³ Thomas’s only cares at this time were for clothes and his appearance — he wanted to look more fashionable than anyone else. Modern psychologists might see this behavior as a means of coping with his mother’s death, and perhaps it was, but it was also entirely in keeping with his character. If, in the wake of his wife’s death, Gilbert was exercising patience with his son, then he was a very patient man indeed. However, that patience came to an end after a year. The pressure was on Thomas to grow up and start earning his keep. At his father’s insistence, job hunting started and negotiations to find him an employer began. Thomas would now have to pull his weight; his working life was about to begin.

      Around 1142, thanks to his father’s influence, Thomas was given a position as a clerk in the business of a London banker and sometime merchant, СКАЧАТЬ