The most important contemporary account of the life of Archbishop Thomas Becket, murdered in Canterbury Cathedral in December 1170 and canonised in April 1173, was written by his closest friend, companion and secretary, Herbert of Bosham (c.1120-c.1194). Herbert, who had left Canterbury for France two days before Becket’s martyrdom, later referred to himself as the ‘living relic’ of the saint. He spent most of his remaining life in exile, latterly at the Cistercian abbey of Ourscamp, in the diocese of Arras. Between 1184 and 1186 he composed the last, longest and most original of the biographies of Becket written from first-hand personal knowledge, a book to which he gave the punning title Thomus.
Surviving copies of this text are very rare indeed, and all but one are either abridged or of significantly later date.
