Tea at Trianon: Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, September 2, 2021

Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint

The exhibition is over but the article is still fascinating reading. From Medieval Manuscripts Blog:

On 29 December 1170, a group of Henry’s knights murdered Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, causing great outrage across Europe. For more on why they were there, and whether they were acting on the King’s orders, read the British Museum’s blogpost: Who killed Thomas Becket? After his death, Becket was honoured as a saint and Canterbury became a major pilgrimage centre.

One of the most famous images of the murder itself is featured in the Murder in the Cathedral section of the exhibition. In a 12th-century collection of Becket’s letters, the story of Becket’s murder is told in four scenes, beginning with a messenger announcing the knights’ arrival while Becket is at table, with the knights conversing outside. In the register below is the murder itself, with one of the knights slicing through the bishop’s skull with his sword. A bear on this knight’s shield may indicate that this is Reginald Fitzurse (ursus is ‘bear’ in Latin). Finally pilgrims kneel before Becket’s shrine, seeking to get as close to the saint as possible. This image accompanies a letter of John of Salisbury (d. 1180), who was one of the eye-witnesses to the murder.

This manuscript was digitised recently as part of the Polonsky Foundation England and France 700-1200 project, and you can read more about it on the project website. Another well-known image features in the Making of a Saint section, in which Becket is laid in his tomb. It is one of five full-page miniatures (another is a scene of his murder) inserted into a Latin Psalter, to which a translation in Anglo-Norman French was added above the Latin to the first part of the Psalms. In the exhibition, the pages on display show the entombment of Becket opposite the beginning of Psalm 18, with the French added above the text. (Read more.)