Thomas Becket and the Royal Abbey of Reading

Abstract

Abstract Drawing on a wide variety of evidence, including letters, charters, indulgences, poems, miracle stories, relic lists, and a stained-glass panel in Canterbury Cathedral, this essay examines how the monks of Reading Abbey reacted to the controversy between King Henry II and Thomas Becket in the late 1160s and the beginning of Becket’s cult in the 1170s and 1180s. Reading Abbey was founded and richly endowed by Henry II’s grandfather, Henry I. William the Templar, abbot of Reading from 1168–73, was, unsurprisingly, on the side of Henry II and Becket’s opponents. The sympathies of the prior of Reading and of at least one Reading monk, however, were with Becket’s supporters. After Becket’s death, this dissension continued. Abbot William banned pilgrimage to Canterbury, orders that his monks circumvented. Abbot William’s successor, Abbot Joseph (1173–86), had a very different outlook. He promoted Becket’s cult to an extraordinary degree, despite the fact that Reading Abbey was in possession of an important relic, the Hand of St James, which had been placed at Reading by the king himself. The story of Reading Abbey’s relationship with Thomas Becket provides new perspectives on the factionalism triggered by the Becket controversy, the strength of Becket’s early cult, and the devotional history of a major English Benedictine abbey.