Thomas Becket. Father John S. Hogan

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СКАЧАТЬ side more often as time passed. Meanwhile, Roger de Pont L’Évêque was festering with malice and discontent; it may have been he who dubbed Thomas Baillehache, or “Hatchet Man.” As time progressed, the two were considered rivals, and bitter ones at that. Roger was given to conspiracy, and he began to use his skills to undermine Thomas before he achieved too lofty a role in the archbishop’s service. On two occasions, Roger was able to stir up trouble, making false accusations against Thomas to the archbishop and providing evidence that seemed to confirm the truth of his claims. On both occasions, Theobald was convinced and dismissed his protégé from his service and his presence. Both times, Thomas took refuge with Walter, Theobald’s brother, for whom he had done many favors; and, convinced of the clerk’s innocence and perhaps even of Roger’s malice, Walter interceded with his brother each time and won Theobald around, helping to restore Thomas to his position and to favor. Roger’s triumph was short-lived on both occasions, but his contempt for the “lowborn clerk” never waned.⁷

      As he returned to the court after each of his banishments, it may have seemed to his nemeses in the archiepiscopal household that Thomas, the upstart, had a charmed life. By this stage, Thomas was well aware of the dangers and pitfalls that lay around him, and now he was ready for a fight and willing to do what he could to rise above those who tried to bring him down. Thomas was too clever and too ambitious to be caged in by those who wanted to destroy him. He may have felt insecure at first due to his lack of education and his “lowborn” status compared with many of those around him, but he was gifted and competent. The wastrel of the Paris years was gone; now, he was intent on going as far as he could. His ambition would prove to be a great motivator, and while collegial and supportive of his fellow clerks, Thomas relished competition and pushed himself. He kept an eye on his enemies and was very careful in his dealings with Roger.

      In the meantime, around 1147, another ambitious and highly skilled clerk came into Theobald’s service: John of Salisbury. This young man arrived with a reference from none other than the highly esteemed and venerated Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.⁸ Thomas might have seen another rival, but his first impressions of John were favorable; this new clerk, while obviously gifted and highly capable, was very different from Roger. Thomas offered the hand of friendship to John, and it was gladly accepted. Not only would the two become fast friends, but their friendship would prove to be one of the most providential relationships in Thomas’s life. John would be a friend, an ally, and a confidant; a sure support in the years of suffering and exile that lay ahead; a champion following Thomas’s death; and one of his biographers. John would become one of the foremost intellectuals of his age and would also know exile, which for a man of his sensitivity would be a very bitter experience. In time, he would be raised to the episcopate and, on his death, leave an important body of work.⁹ Entering Theobald’s service as the archbishop’s secretary, John would hold the post for seven years — years he and Thomas would cherish and often reminisce about later in their lives.

      As Thomas progressed in his studies and served his master well, Theobald made the decision to send his clerk abroad to continue his studies in a more formal environment. Though he was often hard on his clerks, Theobald was generous. Recognizing their gifts and abilities, he sought to give them every opportunity to perfect their skills and interests, realizing that these skills would be beneficial to the Church, both local and universal.

      Thomas was sent first to Bologna,¹⁰ the great university in the north of Italy. Founded in 1088 and still in existence, it is the oldest continuously functioning university in the world. In Thomas’s day, it was just over fifty years old but already an important center for learning. Having gained a notable reputation for canon law, it was the obvious place to send Thomas. One of its first professors had been Irnerius, a native of Bologna, who founded the school of jurisprudence at the university. Often called lucerna juris, the “lantern of the law,” Irnerius is credited as the founder of the medieval Roman law tradition for his recovery of the Codex of the sixth-century Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I, a revival that would prove revolutionary for European law for centuries to come. Irnerius had died long before Thomas arrived, but Thomas would have studied under men well versed in Roman and canon law, some of the best legal minds in Europe at the time. Among these were the “Four Doctors” of Bologna: Bulgarus, Martinus Gosia, Jacobus de Boragine, and Hugo de Porta Ravennate. These were towering figures who not only brought their brilliant minds to bear on the study of law, but were also involved in the various disputes and controversies of the twelfth century.

      Thomas would spend a year at Bologna, and it would be very different from his last foray at university. Now a serious student and a cleric, he would not have put frequenting the local taverns on his list of priorities, if on any of his lists at all. He threw himself into his studies, not merely for the sake of academic interest, but also because the law he was studying and the cases his teachers were considering might well have a direct bearing on his own career and decisions he might have to make in the future. The method employed by the law school of Bologna was that of the “glossators.” This was a detailed study of the laws with copious explanations of the text added in the margins — glossing, after the method of Irnerius. This method led Thomas to a deep familiarity with the law, its sources, and the many nuances it held that would allow wide application.

      Bologna was known as the university where future archdeacons were educated; among Thomas’s fellow students would have been men who had just been appointed and ordained archdeacons and those who had reason to consider themselves archdeacons in waiting. Thomas may well have seen Theobald’s plan for his life in this choice of school. But Theobald had another reason: Bologna was at the heart of a legal reform, one that Theobald himself was promoting and would introduce into England in the next few years with his appointment of the renowned legal scholar Roger Vacarius to a position at Oxford teaching Roman law in 1149. That decision would upset the royal masters of England, who liked to see themselves not only as the fount of all honor but also as the fount of all law. Theobald was a revolutionary in his own way, ensuring that the Church in England was in the vanguard of intellectual knowledge, with well-educated clerics to advance and protect the Church. Following Thomas’s studies in Bologna, Theobald arranged for him to be enrolled for a short time in the law school of Auxerre in France, where the courses he attended completed his legal education.

      During his time of service, Thomas had already been on missions with Theobald, whose skills were now variously employed in the service of the state as well as of the Church. Certainly by the time he was in Auxerre, Thomas was deemed one of Theobald’s personal assistants. When Pope Eugene III called a council to be held at Reims in France in March 1148, Theobald sent word to Thomas in Auxerre to make his way to Reims to join him there. Pope Eugene had originally called the council to meet at Trier, in what is now Germany; however, an unfavorable reaction from the locals forced the pope to change the venue to Reims. Over the council’s eleven days, the pope intended to bring an end to debates on a number of canons that had been promulgated at the Second Lateran Council in 1139. One of these canons forbade clerical marriage. When the canon was pronounced, it was greeted by the council bishops with much hilarity in the hall — the clergy already knew about the law of celibacy, but it seemed that some offenders against the canon were feigning ignorance and still holding out for a change. Other matters included the condemnation of a heretic, Éon de l’Étoile, a Breton who thought he was the Messiah; a further condemnation of the supporters of the antipope Anacletus II (Anacletus had died in 1138, but his supporters were still making a nuisance of themselves); and other various disputes that needed to be settled.

      At this point, Theobald was going through a bad patch with King Stephen. Feeling more comfortable on the throne with Matilda weakened, the king had begun to reverse some of the liberties he had yielded to the Church. To consolidate his position, Stephen had appointed various bishops to support him; including, it was said, William FitzHerbert, his nephew, to whom he granted the see of York, England’s second metropolitan see and often a rival to Canterbury. Though aware that the king might not approve of his leaving England, Theobald was not prepared to miss the council — he needed to consult the pope about important matters. Escaping Stephen’s spies, the archbishop commandeered a smack, a traditional СКАЧАТЬ