A man examines the St. Thomas Becket exhibit at The British Museum in London, which is marking the 850th anniversary of the death of the 12th-century saint. (Credit: CNS photo/courtesy The British Museum.)
Posted on 08/22/2021 5:28:04 PM PDT by marshmallow
A man examines the St. Thomas Becket exhibit at The British Museum in London, which is marking the 850th anniversary of the death of the 12th-century saint. (Credit: CNS photo/courtesy The British Museum.)
LONDON — In a gallery of The British Museum, light plays on an array of medieval crosses, reliquaries and manuscripts, as an audiovisual display reenacts one of English history’s most notorious crimes.
At the center, three stained-glass windows, painstakingly transferred from Canterbury Cathedral, convey images from the fabled afterlife of St. Thomas Becket (1120-1170), next to badges and keepsakes left by generations of pilgrims at his place of martyrdom.
When the exhibition, “Murder and the Making of a Saint,” opened in May, as England’s coronavirus lockdown was relaxed, the curators said they hoped to depict Becket’s journey from a humble clerk to one of Europe’s most popular miracle-working saints.
This skull fragment of St. Thomas Becket is part of a display, “Murder and the Making of a Saint,” at The British Museum in London. (Credit: CNS photo/courtesy The British Museum.)
Three months on, after attracting record crowds for the 850th anniversary of his death, many are struck by the exhibition’s warm evocation of the country’s Catholic past and dramatic reconstruction of the centrality of church and faith.
“There’s no doubt the anti-Catholicism long embedded here is dissipating now, enabling a more sympathetic understanding of the past, which cultural events like this can subtly reflect,” Jesuit Father Timothy Byron, a historian, told Catholic News Service.
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There's a grainy upload on YouTube from some Russian source of the 1964 Richard Burton movie, "Becket". It's also on Amazon Prime.
I'd love to see the exhibit, especially this:
An original copy of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales,” the first book printed in English, shows how Becket’s story quickly became rooted in public imagination.
Looks like a great exhibit.
Spent a day in The British National Museum in the 80’s.
Great place! Loved it.
I stood in awe before a copy of the “Canterbury Tales” at the British Library”. Among the many, many other items in the collection: a copy of the Guttenberg Bible, Shakespeare’s First Folio, The Domesday Book, the Magna Carta. I could go on. Totally awestruck that day. So blessed.
Chaucer was married to Phillipa Roet, sister of Katherine Roet Swynford, who after her husband died, became the long-time mistress of John of Gaunt (Plantagenet), son of King Edward III. Gaunt and Chaucer were friends, and Gaunt was a patron of Chaucer. Gaunt and Katherine married years later after his 2nd wife Constance of Castile died. Gaunt petitioned his nephew, the King to have his children with Katherine legitimized, and they were. John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford are allegedly my 17th great-grandparents, through their daughter Joan Beaufort. Joan's children from her marriages to Robert De Ferrers, and Ralph Neville are in my family line as well. Neville's first wife was Margaret Stafford. I'm supposed to be related to their daughters Phillipa and Margaret Neville, and son Ralph as well.
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