Mimetic Crisis in the Medieval Mass: A Sequence for the Feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury and Its Liturgical Function, ca. 1230

Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, murdered in his own cathedral by four knights of King Henry II's court, became one of the most revered saints of the High Middle Ages. The story of Becket's violent death is familiar to modern readers from stage and film productions of T.S.Eliot's play, ¹ and from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, built on the narrative framework of a pilgrimage to Becket's shrine at Canterbury.