Description
On Dec. 20, 1170, the most notorious murder of the Middle Ages took place in Canterbury Cathedral: Archbishop Thomas Becket was killed by four knights of King Henry II, who had (apocryphally) spurred them to act by exclaiming in exasperation, “Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?” What was so troublesome about Thomas Becket? Historian Jennifer Paxton explores how the archbishop fell afoul of his king for both personal and political reasons and ignited a political dispute that convulsed church and state for almost a decade, and why Becket’s violent death turned him from a lightning rod for controversy into the most important saint in Europe
