The Life & Death of Thomas Becket

Written soon after 1170 by a clerk in Thomas Becket's household, this Latin life follows Becket from his London youth and service under Theobald of Canterbury through his chancellorship under Henry II, his elevation as archbishop, and the quarrel over clerical courts and royal custom. Fitzstephen describes the exile in France, the return, and the murder in the cathedral, and he includes a celebrated sketch of twelfth-century London. The work is a contemporary vita and passion, not a modern political history of the Angevin empire.

Quarter-bound in red leather with Japanese wood-veneer boards. Crest printed red endleaves. Black slipcase.