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Product Description
This collection tells the story of Thomas Becket's turbulent life, violent death and extraordinary posthumous acclaim in the words of his contemporaries. The only modern collection from the twelfth-century Lives of Thomas Becket in English and features all his major biographers, including many previously untranslated extracts. Providing both a valuable glimpse of the late twelfth-century world, and an insight into the minds of those who witnessed the events. By using contemporary sources, this book is the most accessible way to study this central episode in medieval history. Thomas Becket features prominently in most medieval core courses. This book allows the subject to be taught as never before, and is highly suitable as a set text.
About the Author
Michael Staunton is Lecturer in Medieval History at University College Dublin
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These stories are found in most of the Lives and are typical of hagiographical writing Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
These stories are found in most of the Lives and are typical of hagiographical writing Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Thomas Becket: a figure of sanctity, or sanctimony?
28 Nov 2008
Format:Paperback
Thomas Becket's extraordinary life broke into distinct parts separated by abrupt boundaries. Editor Michael Staunton has catalogued the life in five parts. Curiously, he chose not to assign a separate section to Becket's time as King Henry II's chancellor. The editor's sixth and last part cleverly gives expression to the unofficial opposition, the dissenting voices opposing the prevailing view that Becket was a saint. I happen to agree with an opinion expressed elsewhere that "The man was a martyr to his own pig-headedness."
Staunton does a fine job of leading his readers through commentators' voices on the life of Becket, starting with his mother, Matilda. She was a font of mystical pronouncements about her son, during her pregnancy, through the boy's infancy and into his maturity. She would come to be known as the "Venerable Matilda." (After you read Staunton's first pages you may share my point of view: that Matilda was a wildly effective medieval stage-mother.)
The author is just as thorough when he marshals commentators to discuss each stage of Becket's life, and his death. Staunton would write about these people again, in a later book, "Thomas Becket and his Biographers" (2006).
Was the uncommon figure of Thomas Becket justly sanctified, or was he more than a little sanctimonious? Staunton empowers his readers to decide, giving us all the evidence a jury could desire--although we might have expected smoother English in some of these translations from medieval tongues. This book is thorough. We will have only ourselves to blame if we close "The Lives of Thomas Becket" without discoving every facet and rumor about this sainted being.
Robert Fripp, author of
"Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine"
Staunton does a fine job of leading his readers through commentators' voices on the life of Becket, starting with his mother, Matilda. She was a font of mystical pronouncements about her son, during her pregnancy, through the boy's infancy and into his maturity. She would come to be known as the "Venerable Matilda." (After you read Staunton's first pages you may share my point of view: that Matilda was a wildly effective medieval stage-mother.)
The author is just as thorough when he marshals commentators to discuss each stage of Becket's life, and his death. Staunton would write about these people again, in a later book, "Thomas Becket and his Biographers" (2006).
Was the uncommon figure of Thomas Becket justly sanctified, or was he more than a little sanctimonious? Staunton empowers his readers to decide, giving us all the evidence a jury could desire--although we might have expected smoother English in some of these translations from medieval tongues. This book is thorough. We will have only ourselves to blame if we close "The Lives of Thomas Becket" without discoving every facet and rumor about this sainted being.
Robert Fripp, author of
"Power of a Woman. Memoirs of a turbulent life: Eleanor of Aquitaine"
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