Throughout the Middle Ages there was constant friction across Western Europe between the crown and the church – with the temporal authority of the crown envious of the spiritual authority of the church (and vice versa). The fate of one person in particular came to symbolise this struggle. This was Thomas a Becket, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by King Henry II of England in 1162 and subsequently executed on his orders in 1170.  His martyrdom and beatification gave birth to a cult celebrated through pilgrimage to Canterbury and the veneration of shrines and relics across Europe including here in Como.

The Reliquary housed in the sacristy of the Basilica di San Giorgio in Borgo Vico. It contains the mandible of Saint Thomas a Becket

The Basilica di San Giorgio in Via Borgo Vico is the proud possessor of Thomas A Becket’s lower jaw complete with molars! We will attempt to explain why and how the jaw came to reside in the sacristy of the church starting with a minimum of Becket’s backstory.

Brief History

Poster of the 1964 film ‘Becket’ starring Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton

Those of a certain age may remember a great film entitled ‘Becket’ released in 1964 starring Peter O’Toole as Henry II and Richard Burton as Becket – the Archbishop of Canterbury. They will therefore be fully aware of how these two figures were close friends until the King sought to have Becket ordained as a bishop. Becket had warned the King against this knowing full well that his loyalty would no longer be towards his good friend but to the church that he would now head. As he himself said, he changed from ‘a patron of play-actors and a follower of hounds, to being a shepherd of souls.’

Fresco depicting Thomas a Becket in the Basilica di San Giorgio in Borgo Vico, Como. The fresco is attributed to the Recchi brothers.

Henry II had come to the throne in 1154 and the following year he appointed Becket as his chancellor. Becket then served the King loyally for seven years in his role as statesman, diplomat and soldier. But in 1161,on the death of Theobald, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the King ensured Thomas was ordained a bishop in the following year and then immediately appointed Archbishop.  Henry was hoping to have selected a close ally as head of the English church to support him in his disputes over the judicial rights of church members, their freedom from regal taxation and their right of final legal appeal to the Papacy in Rome. 

Their personal relationship rapidly broke down to the extent that Becket was forced to flee the country in 1164 taking refuge in France. However he returned six years later in 1170 following a reconciliation with the King. But towards the end of that year, the relationship broke down again with Henry becoming irate when Becket held a formal meeting with Henry’s heir apparent in London. In a fit of temper the King is said to have turned to his courtiers and uttered the challenge, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”. Four knights took him at his word and rode off to Canterbury where they murdered Becket on the 29th December 1170 as he was at prayer in the cathedral.  

The Becket Cult

This fresco is in the Church of Saint John and Saint Paul in Spoleto. It depicts the murder of Thomas a Becket and is said to date back to the 13th century.

News of Becket’s martyrdom rapidly spread across Europe to Rome.   By 29 February 1173 Pope Alexander III had, in an unusually short time, completed the process of canonisation. Canterbury Cathedral rapidly became an important destination for pilgrims across England. The Pope continued to fan the flames of a growing Becket cult by publishing various tracts from Rome aligning the saint’s martyrdom with his own dispute with the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I – better known in Italy as Federico Barbarossa. The Papacy was keen to present Becket’s martyrdom as a potent symbol of resistance to temporal power. 

This bas-relief sculpture depicts Christ sat in the middle with Saint Peter on his right and Saint Thomas a Becket on his left. It is found in the Basilica di Aquileia in Friuli.

As a result of Pope Alexander’s ‘propaganda’ the Becket cult quickly spread throughout Italy. There are at least forty religious sites across Italy dedicated wholly or in part to Thomas a Becket with twenty eight of these in the North. A chapel within the grounds of Varese’s Ospitale Nifontano was dedicated to Saint Thomas and St. John the Evangelist immediately following his beatification in 1173. The delightful mediaeval village of Corenno Plinio on the Lecco leg of Lake Como has a church dedicated to Becket. It was originally built as a chapel for the adjoining castle. 

The most significant dedications to the saint are to be found in Sicily, possibly because many members of Becket’s family were forced to take refuge there when Thomas himself sought safety in France in 1164. Clearly they had received help and a welcome from Queen Margherita. She was the English widow of the Norman King of Sicily, William I, and was at the time acting as regent to the infant William II. He in turn was married to Giovanna D’Inghilterra whom he had married when she was at the tender age of eleven. Giovanna was the daughter of King Henry II.  Becket is said to have written the following to Margherita,  “We owe you a great debt of gratitude and we thank you from the depths of our heart for all you have done for our family – those poor souls forced to flee to your country to save themselves from persecution and where they have found consolation…”. Becket himself had visited Italy in happier times with a visit to Rome in 1150 and a year spent studying canon law at Bologna from 1146 to 1147. 

Mosaic depiction of Saint Thomas a Becket in the Duomo of Monreale.

The cathedral at Marsala in Sicily was dedicated to Saint Thomas at some point between 1173 and 1189 which was when the reign of William II of Sicily ended. The Chiesa di S. Tommaso Cantuariense (Canterbury) in Palermo is said to have been dedicated to the saint immediately following his beatification. The church is noted as having an ancestral right dating from 1439 to receive a whole tuna once a year gifted by one of the numerous ‘tonnare’ along the Palermo coastline.  Sicily can also boast one of the first known representations of Saint Thomas a Becket.  It can be found in the mosaics of Monreale Cathedral. This dates from before 1182 and so just precedes a bas-relief to be found at the other end of Italy on one of the altars within the Basilica of Aquileia in Friuli. The sculpture depicts three figures with Christ at the centre with St.Peter sat to his right and Thomas a Becket to his left. The sculpture has been dated to the early 1180s and is perceived as a symbol of Papal propaganda directed against Frederick I, the Holy Roman Emperor. 

The Becket cult was consolidated over the following years with over seven hundred healing miracles assigned to him over the ten years after his martyrdom. These would have resulted either from a visit to his shrine in Canterbury or exposure to any of his relics. His shrine in Canterbury became one of three or four of the most significant pilgrimage centres in Europe. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written between 1387 and 1400, are testimony to the broad appeal of this destination throughout the Middle Ages.  

Becket’s Relics

A reliquary casket showing the murder of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.

In a clever move to encourage and facilitate pilgrimage to Canterbury, Archbishop Langton instituted the Feast of the Translation of Thomas a Becket first held  on 7th July 1220. On that day the remains of the saint and his clothing were moved from his grave in the crypt into a specially constructed shrine in the cathedral’s Trinity Chapel. From 1220 onwards, every 7th July was celebrated as the Feast of the Translation with festivities lasting for two weeks afterwards.  Thousands of pilgrims would descend on Canterbury every year preferring to celebrate the mid-summer ‘translation’ rather than the mid-winter martyrdom. A jubilee celebration was held every fifty years attracting hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to Canterbury at a time when the overall population of the country was no more than three million. 

A reliquary built in Limoges showing the martyrdom of Thomas a Becket

For those pilgrims travelling to Canterbury, visiting his shrine was a confirmation for them of the saint’s continuing earthly presence. Being physically at his shrine meant having a link to Becket’s immortal being. Relics of the saints also possessed similar power in the minds of believers.  The belief was that by viewing or touching something that belonged to the saint, the devotee might receive some of their healing or redemptive qualities. The relics provided a conduit to the saint’s spiritual presence.  When Archbishop Langton transferred Becket’s remains to his shrine, he ensured that he left out some of the bones so as to present them to visiting dignitaries. And this may be how Como came to host Becket’s lower jaw. 

The spread of Becket’s relics outside of Canterbury and across Continental Europe can primarily be attributed to the passage of pilgrims to and from Canterbury and Rome. It is of course very difficult to validate the authenticity of relics and as Chaucer depicted in the Pardoner’s Tale, there was a brisk business in false relics across the Middle Ages. The Pardoner came armed for his pilgrimage to Canterbury with his glass jar full of pigs’ bones. 

The reliquary housing the tunicle said to have been worn by Thomas a Becket at the time of his assassination. It is housed in the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

But the most significant and probably entirely genuine relic resides in the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. It is the blood-stained vestment said to have been worn by Becket when he was assassinated. It is known as the Rome tunicle and is housed in a seventeenth century glass reliquary. It has been loaned out from time to time to Canterbury Cathedral. The most recent loan was in 2020 timed to coincide with the 850th year anniversary of the saint’s martyrdom. On that occasion a spokesman for the Anglican church said, “Venerated by pilgrims for hundreds of years, the artefact will be a focus for prayer for the thousands of pilgrims expected to come to Canterbury this summer, and will give historical perspective to the bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion attending the 2020 Lambeth Conference in Canterbury during this time. ”  The tunicle was originally given to the Pope by Henry VII who reigned from 1485 to 1509. His son Henry VIII, as we shall see, had a very different attitude towards the ‘turbulent priest’ and any of his relics.

Sens Cathedral in France has a chasuble (the frock worn by priests when celebrating mass) said to have belonged to Thomas a Becket, while the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore possess parts of the saint’s brains in addition to his tunicle. And Como has his lower jaw. I have not been able to establish how the Basilica di San Giorgio came to acquire their relic other than the suggestion it was bought at some point in the first half of the 13th century. 

Suppression of the Becket Cult

In this manuscript illustration, the background shows London Bridge as it was rebuilt in 1176 with funds secured by building a chapel dedicated to Thomas a Becket at the bridge’s centre (visible in the top left hand corner of the illustration.)

Becket’s fate was the result of a political struggle between crown and church. The immediate and sustained popularity of his cult was aided by the Papacy adopting his cause in support of its conflict with the Holy Roman Empire. The Pope had both temporal and spiritual supremacy across the Papal States whilst retaining only spiritual leadership elsewhere. The Holy Roman Empire was constantly threatening to seize temporal power around the margins of the Papal States whilst also seeking to extend or consolidate its rights over spiritual matters within its dominions. Italy’s fragmented series of dukedoms and city states sought survival through alliances with one or other of these two major players with the so-called Ghibellines supporting the Imperial cause and Guelphs supporting the Pope.  Como was predominantly Ghibelline throughout the Middle Ages whilst neighbouring Milan was Guelph. 

The crest of Guelph cities supporting the Papacy such as Milan (on the left) have a red cross on a white background while those of Ghibelline cities such as Como (on the right) reverse the colours to show a white cross on a red background.

This contest for spiritual power was resolved in favour of the crown in Britain when Henry VIII passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534 declaring himself as the Supreme Head of the Anglican Church rather than the Pope.  Schoolchildren in UK have been brought up in the belief that Henry broke with Rome so as to allow himself to divorce his first wife, Katharine of Aragon. This may have been one advantage from the King’s perspective but the main purpose was to resolve the struggle between temporal and spiritual power that had characterised the Middle Ages. By breaking with Rome, Henry was now free to seize the wealth of the church, suppress a large number of the abbeys and monasteries around the country, consolidate all legal jurisdiction under the crown and pursue an entirely independent mercantile policy abroad. 

With Becket so closely associated with the Papacy, it was inevitable that shrines and imagery dedicated to him came to be destroyed across Northern Europe as the Reformation took hold. In Britain Becket was redefined as a traitor to the crown in a royal decree of 1538. His shrine in the Trinity Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral was destroyed and his body either burned or reburied elsewhere in an unknown location. It seemed that Becket was not an appropriate person to venerate on the dawn of the modern age.

Further Reading

The fresco on the ceiling of the Basilica di San Giorgio in Borgo Vico attributed to Giovanni Paolo Recchi.

The Basilica di San Giorgio in Borgo Vico was the local church of the Recchi brothers who saw to its redesign in the 17th century and to much of the internal decoration. Read Early Lombardy Baroque: Fratelli Recchi for more information.

The conflict between Guelphs and Ghibellines has been a constant element in Como’s history. Read Como’s City Walls for an overview of this history and Isola Comacina – A Serene Location with a Tragic Past for an account of one of the major Guelph v Ghibelline conflicts in our area. The story of Lake Como’s Condottiere – The Marquis of Musso illustrates the complex series of shifting alliances that led to bloodshed between neighbouring cities on the lake.