The Medieval Church played a far greater role in Medieval England than the Church does today. In Medieval England, the Church dominated everybody's life. All Medieval people believed that God, Heaven and Hell were very real. People were taught that the only way they could get to Heaven was if the Roman Catholic Church let them. Everybody would have been terrified of Hell and every time people attended church they would have been told of the many horrors awaiting for them in Hell.

The control the Church had over the people was total. Peasants worked for free on Church land. They also paid 10% of what they earned in a year to the Church (this tax was called tithes). Tithes could be paid in either money or in goods produced by the peasant farmers. As peasants had little money, they almost always had to pay in seeds, harvested grain, animals and so on. This usually caused a peasant a lot of hardship.

What the Church got in tithes was kept in huge tithe barns. Peasants were told that if they failed to pay their tithes they would go to Hell when they died.

They also had to pay for baptisms (if you were not baptised you could not go to Heaven when you died), marriages (there were no couples living together in Medieval times as the Church taught that this was a sin) and burials - you had to be buried on holy land if your soul was to get to heaven.

The Church also did not have to pay taxes. This saved them a vast sum of money and made the church far more wealthy than any king of England at this time. The sheer wealth of the Church is seen in its buildings : cathedrals, churches and monasteries.

In those days there were two kinds of law: one law for people in general, and another law for the clergy. There were two kinds of courts: the king's court and the Church's court.

It was not just priests who claimed the right to be tried in a church court. Any man who had been trained by the church could choose to be tried by a church court. Even clerks who had been taught to read and write by the Church but had not gone on to become priests had a right to a Church court trial. This was to an offender's advantage, as church courts could not impose punishments that involved violence such as execution or mutilation. There were several examples of clergy found guilty of murder or robbery who only received "spiritual" punishments, such as suspension from their job.

The consequence of all this was that the king was the ruler of only a part of the nation. The real ruler of the other part was the pope in Rome. This made great confusion, and stopped the king bringing the whole land under one strong law. A man might be a most dangerous citizen, and guilty of most serious offenses, but if he belonged in any way to the clergy the king could not touch him.

So when the archbishop of Canterbury died, the king saw an opportunity to end this confusion, and so bring the Church under the law of the State. He appointed Becket in his place. "Now," he said to himself, "Becket and I will work together." The splendid chancellor, the king's friend, loving power and wealth and luxury, would be the very man to make the Church obey the king's will.