New Readings of the Becket Miracle Windows: Miracles of Locals in Canterbury Cathedral Trinity Chapel nIV

Thomas Becket’s miracles formed the chief subject of the early thirteenth-century stained glass installed in the ambulatory windows surrounding Becket’s magnificent shrine in the Trinity Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral.  This presentation re-examines the miracle stories portrayed in the glass of nIV, a well-preserved window on the north aisle.  Three of the five surviving narratives in nIV have been misread.  Rather than picturing miracles of pilgrims from Oxford, Essex, and Warwickshire, these panels recount the miracles of people from the region of Canterbury and Dover.  With these new readings in place, it is possible to see that all of the surviving narratives found in nIV are devoted to the miracles of Kentish locals, a remarkable and hitherto unrecognized commemoration of Thomas Becket’s Kentish cult in the cathedral’s glass.