Feast Day of St. Thomas of Canterbury

December 29th is the Feast Day of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The church calendar called him St. Thomas Becket. 

I always greatly marvel that Henry VIII's fingerprints are still all over poor Thomas of Canterbury, even in the Catholic church to this day. No one referred to Thomas of Canterbury as St. Thomas Becket before Henry VIII launched the great smear campaign against him that still reverberates to this day.

St Thomas of Canterbury was by far the most famous saint in the Middle Ages other than the Virgin Mary herself. His shrine was one of the marvels of medieval England that was pure gold and jewels. People would travel from all over the world on pilgrimage to St. Thomas of Canterbury's shrine. The Vatican even has a record of a pilgrim from India who walked into the Vatican after traveling on foot most of the way to get a safe passage letter from the Pope to travel to England to see St Thomas of Canterbury's shrine. Archaeologists have found St Thomas of Canterbury holy medals from the period all the way in China and Siberia.
 
Because he was a martyr who stood up to a King, Henry VIII wanted to liquidate all the gold from the Canterbury shrine but was afraid it would cause an uproar, so he basically launched a smear campaign to besmirk the image of St. Thomas of Canterbury. He was forbidden to be referred to as St Thomas of Canterbury, only Thomas Becket or Thomas Becket the traitor. The kicker was no one spelled Becket with the 'k' before Henry VIII forced the spelling. Beket was the spelling (including Beket's own writings and personal seal) in all writings prior to Henry VIII intentionally mispelling his name to separate him from the mythos of Thomas of Canterbury.
 
A becket was a nautical term for a short piece of rope in a semi circle. In other words, Henry VIII respelled his name to make it synonymous in people's minds with a hangman's noose because Henry VIII wanted to reinforce his narrative as Thomas of Canterbury as a traitor to the crown. #truestory
 

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