Author Description

This Old Norse text and English translation, prepared by the librarian and scholar Eiríkr Magnússon (1833-1913) and published in two volumes between 1875 and 1883, remains the standard edition of the 'Saga of Archbishop Thomas'. Composed in Iceland in the early fourteenth century, it narrates the life, death and miracles of Thomas Becket, based on earlier Latin and Old French traditions. Embedded in the saga is a lost Latin life by Robert of Cricklade, written soon after Becket's murder in 1170, which contains some unique details: for example, that he had a stammer. The saga is valuable not only as evidence for Thomas's life, but as an insight into the development of his saintly cult in Iceland. This publication includes an extensive introduction to the text and its place in the tradition of Becket historiography, an account of St Thomas's miracles, several appendices of related texts, and an extensive glossary of words and phrases.