(Updated June 26, 2025)
This Author Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Medieval Archbishop, St. Thomas Becket (1119/20-1170).
Next to each quote are the topic-based Quote Archives in which they are included.
This Quote Archive is being continuously updated as research continues.
Letters
St. Thomas Becket, Letter to King Henry II (1166)1
QUOTE ARCHIVE | Christendom: The Spiritual and Temporal Powers, and the Conversion of the Empire
For your sake for three causes: because you are my lord, because you are my king, and because you are my spiritual son. In that you are my lord I owe and offer to you my counsel and service, such as a bishop owes to his lord according to the honor of God and the holy church. And in that you are my king I am bound to you in reverence and regard. In that you are my son I am bound by reason of my office to chasten and correct you…
Christ founded the Church and purchased her liberty with His blood, undergoing the scourging and splitting, the nails, and the anguish of death, leaving us an example that we should follow in His steps. Whence also saith the apostle, “If we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him. If we die with Him, with Him we shall rise again” (2 Tim. 2:12).
The Church of God consists of two orders, clergy and people. Among the clergy are apostles, apostolic men, bishops, and other doctors of the Church, to whom is committed the care and governance of the Church, who have to perform ecclesiastical business, that the whole may redound to the saving of souls. Whence also it was said to Peter, and in Peter to the other rulers of the Church, not kings nor to princes, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
Among the people are kings, princes, dukes, earls, and other powers, who perform secular business, that the whole may conduce to the peace and unity of the Church. And since it is certain that kings receive their power from the Church, not she from them but from Christ, so, if I may speak with your pardon, you have not the power to give rules to bishops, nor to absolve or excommunicate anyone…
Let my lord, therefore, if it pleases him, listen to the counsel of his subject, to the warnings of his bishop, and to the chastisement of his father…
It is known almost to the whole world with what devotion you formerly received our lord the Pope and what attachment you showed the Church of Rome, and also what respect and deference were shown you in return. Forbear then, my lord, if you value your soul, to deprive that Church of her rights. Remember also the promise which you made, and which you placed in writing on the altar at Westminster when you were consecrated and anointed king by my predecessor, of preserving to the Church her liberty…
We are ready faithfully and devotedly with all our strength to serve you as our dearest lord and king with all our strength in whatsoever we are able, saving the honor of God and of the Roman Church, and saving our order [the clergy]. Otherwise, know for certain that you shall feel the divine severity and vengeance.
Footnotes
- James Bruce Ross and Mary Martin McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Medieval Reader (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), 249-50. ↩︎
