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The three compositions that Benedict of Peterborough (d. 1193) wrote in Thomas Becket's honour were among the most influential and widely read texts composed in late twelfth-century England. His Passion of St Thomas of Canterbury, a short account of Becket's martyrdom on 29 December 1170 and its immediate aftermath, survives only as extracts in a late twelfth-century compilation known as the Quadrilogus II, but his very much longer Miracles of St Thomas of Canterbury was the most widely circulated miracle collection of the age, while his liturgical Office for Becket, the Studens livor, was utilized throughout Latin Christendom and survives in hundreds of manuscripts.1 Benedict was a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, when Becket was killed. He became Prior of Christ Church from 1175 to 1177. He left in 1177 to take up the abbacy of Peterborough, a post he held until his death in 1193.2 Many of Benedict's observations in the Passion and Miracles have the ring of eye-witness accounts, and his highly praised Office not only became the foundational text for Becket's liturgical celebration, but also, in Estelle Joubert's words, is 'one of the first to make use of rhymed accentual verse, and is thought to have been the model for many subsequent rhymed offices'.3
The aim of this article is to examine the dating and interrelationship of Benedict's compositions. Despite the fact that they were written by the same man, concern the same saint, and contain numerous overlaps with each other, the three have rarely been considered as an interconnected body of work.4 This is due in part to disciplinary boundaries but mostly, as I will show below, to troublesome dating issues. The dating of the Office is the most secure. Anne Duggan has pointed out that Benedict was unlikely to have begun writing it before news arrived in Canterbury of Alexander III's canonization of Becket (his letter to the Christ Church monks regarding the canonization is dated 12 March 1173),5 and that he must have composed it in time for the first celebration of Becket's feast day on 29 December 1173.6 Duggan also notes that the Office contains a reference to a divided kingdom, and that the rebellion of Henry II's sons, begun in April 1173, was at a very serious...