Ireland’s new UNESCO World Heritage Site Northern Ireland has gained a second UNESCO World Heritage Site, after the Gracehill Moravian Church Settlement in County Antrim was awarded the status in July. The site is the best-preserved example of such a…
Last month, Warwick Rodwell guided us through recent research in Canterbury Cathedral, focusing on the virtuosic mosaic that once lay before the shrine of Thomas Becket. As a sequel, he now reveals what was learned about the shrine itself, and the chapel in which it stood before the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
The Friends have raised some £15 million towards projects as diverse as the purchase of a minibus for the choristers, the conservation of rare books in the library, the restoration of the splendid Tudor gatehouse, and the creation of a new garden in the cathedral precinct.
Dover’s massive castle, rising in tiers above the harbour to the crest of the hill above the town, looks like the very model of a medieval fortification – but, as a new book reveals, it has some very odd features indeed. Current Archaeology's Chris Catling reports on the efforts of English Heritage and Historic England, as well as castle specialists and medieval historians, to explain this extraordinary monument.
The story of Thomas Becket’s murder in AD 1170 still resonates after 850 years, despite the attempts of Henry VIII to eradicate all memory of the man that Henry II reportedly called ‘this turbulent priest’. Henry VIII called for the destruction of his shrine and the defacing of prayer books referring to his martyrdom. Even so, the Becket cult refused to die, and the British Museum has brought together an array of pilgrim badges and reliquaries, medals, paintings, and stained glass to show us why so many people in medieval Europe flocked to his Canterbury shrine. Current Archaeology's Chris Catling reports.
In a way, I began to feel slightly more sympathetic to Henry VIII; the church was extremely powerful and if you are to oppose it, I suppose you must be ruthless.
Bringing together more than 100 objects from museums, churches, and private collections across Europe, 'Thomas Becket: Murder and the making of a saint' powerfully evokes the medieval era as it explores the life, death, and legacy of Henry II’s ‘turbulent priest’.
With museums allowed finally to reopen next month, those of us who have been starved of culture are looking forward eagerly to the British Museum’s ‘Thomas Becket: murder and the making of a saint’. The exhibition, originally scheduled for last year, marks the 850th anniversary of the country's most famous political assassination – the grisly murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury on 29 December 1170 by four knights in the service of Henry II.
In 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket was killed in his cathedral by knights linked to his former friend King Henry II. But how did Becket become a revered saint and protector of the king?
What job did Becket already hold when he was appointed as Archbishop on 23 May 1162?
This is a medieval ampulla, made of lead alloy and probably dating to the late 12th or early 13th century. Discovered by a mudlarker along the Thames foreshore in London, it was probably originally purchased during a pilgrimage to the…
Eight hundred and fifty years after Thomas Becket’s martyrdom within the walls of Canterbury Cathedral, major works have shed vivid light on how the religious building has been used over the centuries. Nathalie Cohen shares some of the highlights.