MovieChat Forums > Becket (1964) Discussion > The 'Saxon' Becket

The 'Saxon' Becket

posted 10 years ago by Edward_de_Vere
4 replies | jump to latest

Was there ever any debate about Becket being a Norman rather than a Saxon? I read a quote by Jean Anouilh where he claims that he wrote the play thinking that Becket was a Saxon collaborator, and only found out afterwards that Becket was Norman.

If so, it's a rather stupid mistake someone to make even without knowing the history, especially for a Frenchman, since "Becket" is obviously a French-sounding rather than a Germanic name (the Irish writer Samuel Beckett claims Norman ancestry too, for instance). So I'm guessing that Anouilh just took the artistic license from the get-go and make it look like an innocent error.

As is often the case, great play, terrible history.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

From what I gather, the name "Becket" actually derives from the Germanic sources of Old English and Old Norse.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Interesting. And since the Normans were of Norse stock, the name could have become a Norman French name somewhere along the way.

[–] Otter (24464) 6 years ago

"As is often the case, great play, terrible history. "

I couldn't agree more! The movie is compelling, but it twists the hell out of history. Henry II was actually one of England's best and brightest monarchs, and Beckett was an awful person whose priority was increasing the church's earthly power. And Henry seemed to have been quite heterosexual, not that I don't enjoy the movie's homoerotic aspects.

I guess Anouilh fell in love with the idea of someone genuinely changing from a rotter to a saint, which doesn't seem to have been the case in real life.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Indeed.