OTD 850 years ago (Weds 30 Dec 1170) Thomas Becket's funeral is held in Canterbury Cathedral #Beecket850 #Becket2020. (Image from BL MS Harley 5102 fo. 17r, c. 1200) 
Robert de Broc had returned to the cathedral at dawn the morning after the murder, telling the monks that the land was rid of a traitor, and that if they did not bury the body quickly he would have it dragged around the city then thrown into a cesspit.
The monks remove Becket's clothes, finding his lice-ridden hair shirt underneath, and dress him in vestments. Some of his garments are given away to monks and clerics as keepsakes. The monks are in such a hurry that they do not wash or embalm the body, as they normally would.
Becket is dressed in alb, amice, stole, and maniple, and vested with his tunic, dalmatic, chasuble, gloves, ring, sandals and pallium. On his head they put the chrismal cloth from his baptism and finally a mitre. His chalice and staff are placed in the coffin.
The body was placed in a stone sarcophagus sunk into the ground, perhaps already prepared for Becket himself, in the eastern crypt chapel, next to a pillar between the altars of SS Augustine and John the Baptist, and between the tombs of Abps Eadsin (d.1050) and Ethelred (d. 889)
The funeral is conducted by the Abbot of Boxley and Richard, Prior of Dover, who had been with Becket the day before on ecclesiastical business. As the cathedral had been polluted by bloodshed no public services are allowed, so there is no funeral Mass.
A stone slab is placed on top of the tomb, level with the ground. The marble superstructure with holes in the side to allow people to kiss this slab (the 'foramina' tomb shown here in c.1408) is placed over it a few months later to stop pilgrims chipping bits off as relics
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