Why Thomas Becket still divides opinion

Visitors to the British Museum’s new exhibition will become acquainted with one of the most gloriously bizarre stories in the history of English Christianity: the tale of Eilward, a 12th-century Bedfordshire peasant. One day Eilward is in the pub when he has the misfortune to run into his neighbour Fulk, to whom he owes a small debt. An angry confrontation follows; eventually Eilward storms off drunkenly — in the direction of his creditor’s house, where he breaks in and starts trashing the place. Fulk catches him red-handed, beats him up and then hands him over to the authorities. One account suggests Eilward was framed; but whatever the truth of the matter, the judge sentences him to blinding and castration.

Eilward’s punishment, as well as what happened next, is among the scenes portrayed in an exquisite stained-glass window at Canterbury Cathedral, now on loan to the British Museum as the centrepiece of Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint. When I spoke to the co-curator, Naomi Speakman, she waxed rhapsodic over the window. ‘This is the first time ever that visitors will be able to see the glass this close up,’ she says. ‘It’s very exciting — and so beautiful as well. It’s not just an interesting historical document: these are masterpieces of medieval art.’

For Speakman, the arrival of the stained glass from Canterbury was an emotional moment. The exhibition was meant to open seven months ago, in time for the 850th anniversary of Becket’s assassination on 29 December 1170. But the anniversary, of course, came and went while the museum doors were shut and the curators were at home, studying PDFs and holding Zoom meetings. Finally the all-clear came and the treasures of the exhibition began to arrive. ‘It was just so wonderful to see the glass coming in and each pane come out of the crate,’ Speakman says.