Thomas Becket. Father John S. Hogan
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be elected bishop of Paris in 1159. Peter Abelard was a very different sort of man. As Lombard progressed in the ecclesiastical life and was renowned for his innovative orthodoxy, Abelard’s life and genius were mired in scandal and accusations of heresy. He had arrived in Paris in 1100 and was taught in the cathedral school of Notre Dame before teaching in various places in France. He had returned to Paris in 1108 to take up a position as master at the cathedral school. From there, he engaged in a number of disputes. It was his affair with a young woman, Hélöise, that led to his downfall. Scandal surrounded their torrid relationship, which produced a child, and even greater infamy awaited Abelard as he faced trial and condemnation for his theological positions. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was involved in the formal process that eventually led to Abelard’s excommunication in 1141. Abelard would die in 1142, but not before the excommunication was lifted and he was reconciled with Bernard.
It is not known where Thomas studied or under which teachers, but it is unlikely that he studied under Peter Lombard, and he certainly did not study under Abelard, though Paris would have been abuzz with news of his trial. It would have been unusual to study in Paris at that time and not seek out the great lights, so even if he was not studying there, Thomas may have gone to the cathedral school to hear Lombard, who was gaining a reputation for his singular method of teaching. But there were other great teachers of note, and if Thomas had had the wit to realize it, he could have attained in Paris all the knowledge, influence, and contacts he needed to carve out a successful and profitable career. One of his early biographers, Guernes de Pont-Sainte-Maxence, a writer known for his meticulous research who wrote his life of Thomas in French and published it four years after the martyrdom, maintains that Thomas did not study theology but rather took courses in the arts.2 Of the four academic areas in the schools — arts, medicine, law, and theology — arts was considered the lowest. Anne Duggan suggests that Thomas went to Paris not to study the arts curriculum in its entirety, but rather to “cherry pick” some of the advanced courses.3 Biographers indicate that he may have studied under the great Robert of Melun;4 his later recommendation for Robert’s elevation as bishop could be offered as evidence to suggest that he did. Robert’s career would prove interesting and influential for Thomas.
Little is known of Robert’s origins, though it is known that he was born in England around 1100. The title he bore, Melun, refers to the town in France where he taught between 1142 and 1147. He was in Paris for most of his career and was considered one of the great disputatores of the time.5 A student of the Parisian schools himself, Robert had studied under Peter Abelard; while he admired Abelard, Robert was strictly orthodox in his writing and teaching. Hugh of Saint Victor, the theologian of the mystical life, had also taught Robert and would influence his work. In 1137, Robert succeeded Peter Abelard as a teacher in the school on Mont Sainte-Geneviève on the Left Bank of the Seine; there he taught and influenced a number of scholars, Thomas’s future friend John of Salisbury among them.6
Robert was in great demand as a theologian, and because of his orthodoxy and brilliance, he was trusted to adjudicate the questionable works of other scholars. In this role, he opposed the teaching of the bishop of Poitiers, Gilbert de la Porrée, who in his commentary on the work of the early sixth-century Roman theologian Saint Severinus Boethius offered an interpretation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity that seemed to contradict Church teaching. Peter Lombard had raised the alarm about this work, with Saint Bernard of Clairvaux sharing his concerns; the matter was referred to the pope. In 1148, when Pope Eugene III came to Reims to preside over a council — one that Thomas would also attend with Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury — Robert, Saint Bernard, and others were called to a consistory to contest Gilbert’s theology. Saint Bernard already had his suspicions about Gilbert, since he had been a defender of Peter Abelard; indeed, he regarded Gilbert as a heretic. Robert was just as vociferous in his opposition to Gilbert’s writing. However, while Gilbert was required to recant and change the offending passages in his work, he was not formally condemned as a heretic, much to Robert and Saint Bernard’s chagrin, and he returned to his diocese with his reputation unsullied.
Robert would teach in France for forty years, after which he was recalled to England to take up the position of bishop of Hereford in 1163, an appointment in which Thomas was instrumental. Robert would become an uneasy ally of Thomas’s in the disputes that lay ahead; but apart from his support, wavering as it would prove to be, there was something vital in one of his works that may have proved valuable for Thomas, though the student may not have noticed it until he was archbishop. His Quaestiones de Epistolis Pauli, a commentary on Saint Paul’s theology, reflecting on the issue of kings and their subjects’ obedience to them, had something interesting to say. While it was accepted that Christians had a duty to submit to secular power — Saint Paul suggests this in his Letter to the Romans (13:1–7), Robert notes that royal power does not excuse tyranny, and Christians must distinguish between the monarch in their person and royal power. If a monarch acts as a tyrant, he then acts impotently.7 There is no evidence to show that Thomas drew upon this teaching during his conflict with Henry; it would be interesting to know whether he was aware of it and whether it colored his response to Henry in their dispute.
Thomas’s life in Paris remains a mystery. Only two people in the historical record claimed to have known him in Paris — the first is Everlin, abbot of Saint Lawrence at Liège. Following Thomas’s canonization, Everlin dedicated an altar to him in his abbey church and spoke of their time together in Paris.8 The second, Ludolf, archbishop of Magdeburg, claimed to have been one of his students.9 Thomas was never a teacher, so Ludolf must have meant that they were fellow students. One of Thomas’s later friends, John of Salisbury, was in Paris at the same time, and though the two often shared memories of the city in their conversations and knew people in common,10 there is no evidence that they knew each other then — they did not meet until both were working for the archbishop of Canterbury.
Whatever hopes and dreams Matilda had for her son, Thomas had other ideas. Instead of removing him from an aimless life of pleasure, his parents had inadvertently sunk him in the motherlode. While Paris was indeed a fervent grove of learning, it was also a heady center of excess. If Thomas was sulking as he crossed the English Channel, he certainly perked up when he found himself plunged into the vibrant social life of the city; and given his fondness for the high life, he may have been as or more regular a student of the Parisian world of festivity as he was of the lecture hall. Students generally gathered in the various taverns and inns of the city to discuss their day’s work, to eat, and to drink. Those who were looking for something more intimate could find it in the taverns or in cer tain spots outside the city where ladies of the night loitered for business.
There is no doubt that Thomas jumped right into this life. Paris held many temptations, and young men succumbed to them. Yet, for all his love of pleasure, his contemporary biographers note that he remained chaste:11 Thomas was with the others up to a point, but there were limits, and it seems that casual sex may have been one of them. Some modern biographers believe that he engaged in these pleasures, too12 — that his contemporary biographers, rather than offend the dignity of the new martyr, spared his blushes in this regard. However, while the early biographers did not concentrate a great deal on these years, they did accept that his student life was less than perfect and hardly virtuous. If he had been as rakish as his fellow students in Paris, these biographers’ admitting that he had had sexual experiences in his youth would have enhanced the impact of his conversion and the penitential nature of his life as archbishop; it would have made him another Saint Augustine of Hippo. Also, given that many of Thomas’s contemporaries were still alive when the early biographies were written and knew all too well that he had been no saint for much of his life and demonstrated many faults, it would have been counterproductive for his biographers to maintain that he was chaste if it was known he was not.
How he was able to remain chaste when everything seemed against it is unknown. Perhaps his distant and at times cool personality, as noted by some,13 prevented him from forming close relationships with others and militated against sexual intimacy. He may have been too awkward to engage a prostitute or not particularly interested; it may have been too seedy for his liking. Perhaps his mother had left her mark; his piety drew a line in the sand that he would not cross, though he had crossed many others. Whatever the cause, his