Who was Thomas Becket? Many learned scholars have asked this question. What were his thoughts and convictions, what made him act the way he did? Was he a staunch defender of ecclesiastical rights against the encroachments of an imperious king? Was he convinced that canon law left him with no other choice? He certainly claimed to be speaking for the whole English Church, but on the way he somehow lost his fellow bishops. Was he just a very unpleasant person? But if so, why did the king not notice that when he was chancellor? Did he undergo a dramatic change of personality after having been made archbishop? Did he dissimulate his true character while chancellor? The question of Becket's character is an ever-present issue when scholars try to come to terms with his actions as archbishop. Much hinges on the perception of Becket as chancellor and on his transition from chancellor to archbishop.

A few years ago it was argued that the Lives don't support the view that Thomas Becket underwent a radical change on becoming archbishop. Obviously all the Lives are emphatically pro-Becket – otherwise they would not have been written – and they, it is argued, present a consistent picture of sanctity from birth to death, building their arguments on the dichotomy of outward wordliness and inner spirituality. In their view Becket always was and always remained his own pious self.