The Feast Day of St Thomas of Canterbury is celebrated on 29 December each year, between Christmas and the New Year, following St Stephen on the 26th, St John the Evangelist on the 27th and the Holy Innocents on the 28th. (The latter happens to be my birthday and I am often distressed that Athelstan Riley’s translation of Salvete flores martyrum by Aurelius Prudentius (348–413) is not more widely sung: “All hail, ye little martyr flowers, sweet roses built in dawning hours”)
St Thomas à Becket was born in either 1119 or 1120 of Norman descent at Cheapside in the City of London on 21 December, the then Feast Day of St Thomas the Apostle. His father had been a successful merchant and Sheriff of the City of London. Becket was educated initially at Merton Priory in Surrey and later a grammar school in London. In due course he acquired a position in the household of Theobald of Bec, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who sent him on various missions to Rome and also to study canon law in Auxerre and Bologna. In 1154, although not a priest, he became Archdeacon of Canterbury. A year later he was appointed Lord Chancellor and enforced the traditional sources of revenue including those from the Church.
