Theobald of Bec succeeds at Canterbury

1140

The Norman abbot of Le Bec succeeded William of Corbeil as Archbishop of Canterbury, bringing a school of canon law and a staff of brilliant young clerks - including the young Thomas Becket - to England. His household would train a generation of English administrators. Theobald's quiet patronage of legal and administrative talent made Canterbury the nursery of the Angevin bureaucratic state that Henry II would build.