Canterbury Tales

Canterbury casts long shadows. Here, St. Augustine of Canterbury built the first cathedral in 600 AD. Sent by Pope Gregory to evangelise the heathen Saxons, he was instructed to be mindful of obstinate custom, “whoever climbs lofty heights, climbs step by step.” By the 12th century, England was a total Christian society. Clerics stood outside Royal Courts: robbery, violence and murder were rife, protected by ecclesiastical privilege and autonomy. The dispute between two friends, King Henry II and Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, bore the hallmarks of Shakespearean tragedy. Once close, Henry grew into a realist, adept at realpolitik. Becket transformed into a creature of noise: obstinate, often hysterical, and addicted to posturing. He cared not for reform or holiness. His mantra was power, symbolism and performance. As crime festered amongst the untouchable clergy, Henry countered with the Constitutions of Clarendon. Becket decried this betrayal of church liberty. Even his allies winced. When Henry rhetorically exploded during the crisis, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”, four knights rode for Canterbury on a maladroit quest. Becket could have slipped away amongst the crypt’s dark stones. Instead, he chose melodrama. The martyr became relic. Henry mourned. Pilgrims wept. In time, his shrine turned backdrop to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales; not a holy pilgrimage, but a satirical stage for gossips, drunkards, braggarts and liars. His legacy was poison. Becket’s style, ego cloaked in virtue, made him the patron saint of gesture politics, of would-be Nietzschean supermen. His was the politics of spectacle: no consensus, no compromise and pure self-aggrandisement. The peril of strongmen, alongside their nefarious special interest groups, lies in mistaking theatrical conviction for leadership. Tuchman has always been right: "Man is ever the same and nothing is lost out of nature, though everything is altered." Ever shall there be sultans of spin.