The ‘wolf’ who found God and lost his life by Simon Griffith.
‘…The past really is another country, and the medieval mindset becomes impossible to fathom unless we first rid ourselves of such anachronistic notions as equality, individualism and human rights.
Fortunately, John Guy has a comprehensive understanding of the Middle Ages and is able to illuminate with absolute clarity the complex religious and political background to this fascinating story….’
Review (Mail on Sunday), 13th May 2012, p8.
Saturday Review (The Times) review by Dan Jones.
‘…So vicious was Becket’s breach with Henry II, and so shocking his death, those who knew him strove to preserve (and gloss) his life story. Their extensive, detailed lives of the “precious martyr” allow for that rarest of things: a medieval biography that can attempt serious psychological analysis. This is what John Guy has written, and his new study of Becket is a triumph: a beautifully layered portrait of one of the most complex characters in English history, which gives a new narrative coherence to a very peculiar life.’
‘…It is to Guy’s immense credit that he has written such a lively, effortlessly readable biography – a book that not only corrects many historical errors and uncertainties, but merits reading more than once, for the sheer joy of its superb storytelling.’
Saturday Review (Saturday Times), 24 March 2012, p 16
The Culture (The Sunday Times) review by Helen Castor.
‘His (Becket’s) relationship with this overwhelming, bloody-minded monarch wold define Becket’s life, and it stands at the heart of John Guy’s fine and thought-provoking book.’
‘…Guy compellingly questions the tradition that the closeness between king and chancellor was an intensely personal bond. Instead, he shows us a relationship that was a meeting of interests rather than minds.
…The wordly man of power did not become an asetic overnight; instead – as Guy brilliantly demonstrates through a forensic examination of the texts studied – the new archbishop experienced an intellectual and spiritual reawakening, as his highly strung mind grappled with the gravity of his responsibilities.’
The Culture (Sunday Times), 18 March 2012, p 44-45
