29th of December - St Thomas Becket Day
29th of December is the 363rd day of the year
St Thomas Becket Day:
December 29th was chosen as the saint’s day for Thomas Becket (frequently if wrongly known as Thomas à Becket) for obvious reasons – that was the day on which he was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Becket was canonized by Pope Alexander III extremely quickly, on Ash Wednesday 1173. As with his life and death his rapid elevation to sainthood had much of the political about it: his disagreement with Henry II which by accident or design led to Becket’s death was over church independence – the king wished to gain more control over the church and thus weaken the grip of Rome - and clerical rights, including the right for clerics to continue to be tried by church courts, something that had led to many gross injustices. In the Middle Ages pilgrimages to Canterbury, the focus of Chaucer’s greatest work, were of enormous importance in English spiritual life.
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