Webinar: Thomas Becket: Murder & The Making of a Saint by CICERONI Travel

CICERONI Travel

Synopsis

On 29 December 1170, Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered in his cathedral, after years of quarrelling with King Henry II. Three years later he was declared a saint by Pope Alexander III, and in 1220 his body was translated to a glorious shrine in the Trinity Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral. Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint, the British Museum exhibition (20 May – 22 August 2021) delayed a year, courtesy of Covid, commemorates the anniversaries of these dramatic events. This pair of webinars provides a context for these events using artefacts featured in the exhibition, including a miracle window from the Trinity Chapel, and a stone baptismal font from Lyngsjö church, Sweden, exhibited in England for the first time.

Meet The Lecturer

Sally Dormer

Dr Sally Dormer is an art historian who specialises in the Middle Ages. She studied History at Durham University before moving to the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University, where she completed an MA in Medieval Art History and a PhD on drawings in English illuminated manuscripts 960-1380. After brief stints working as a research assistant in the Department of Palaeography, University of London, and a curator in the Metalwork Department of the Victoria & Albert Museum she started lecturing at the V&A in the mid 1980s and never looked back. She is founder, and Course Director, of the V&A’s Early Medieval Year Course (300-1250), currently delivered on-line, and from 2000 – 2020, she was Dean of European Studies, an American university study abroad programme based in Tennessee, Durham, Oxford, and on the Continent. Sally currently lectures, or has lectured, and led study tours for The Arts Society (formerly NADFAS), the Art Fund, Gresham College, Cox & Kings, Swan Hellenic and Art Pursuits Abroad.

Series of two lectures

On Demand

Lecture 1 - Thomas Becket: Life & Death

Thursday, June 10, 2021 · 11:00 AM BST

Appointed as Chancellor of England in 1155, Becket enjoyed a gilded life, and basked in the approbation of his king; no-one could have predicted he would die violently, slaughtered by four knights acting on Henry II’s orders. Relations between Becket and his king soured after Becket became Archbishop of Canterbury, primate of the English Church in 1162. Archbishop Becket resisted the Crown on various issues, opposition that culminated in his shocking murder, which desecrated Canterbury Cathedral and left Henry in danger of excommunication. Illuminated manuscripts, alabaster and ivory carvings and wall paintings featured in the BM’s exhibition, chronicle the life and death of England’s most notorious archbishop, and explain how, and why, his friendship with Henry failed.

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On Demand

Lecture 2 - Thomas Becket: Cult & Legacy

Thursday, June 17, 2021 · 11:00 AM BST

Within weeks of his death, miracles occurred thick and fast at Becket’s tomb in Canterbury Cathedral’s crypt, providing evidence to support his swift canonisation. The east end of the cathedral was rebuilt to accommodate a ravishing shrine for the precious saint and thousands of pilgrims flocked to Canterbury each year. Becket’s cult spread beyond England’s shores; France, Spain, Sicily, Saxony, and Scandinavia, celebrated the archbishop who had stood up to royal authority. No wonder Henry VIII, seeking to control the English Church, in the 1530s, regarded Becket as a persona non grata. The BM’s exhibition would antagonise Henry VIII, but it pays fitting homage, eight centuries after his death, to Becket’s legacy as Chancellor, Archbishop, and Martyr Saint.

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