The story
Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, fled England in 1164 after his quarrel with King Henry II and spent several years of exile around Sens, under the protection of the town's own archbishop. Vestments traditionally said to be his, a chasuble and an alb among them, are still kept here in the treasury of Sens Cathedral. That treasury is one of the richest collections of medieval church textiles in Europe, with Byzantine and Persian silks, embroidered robes and reliquaries, including a 12th-century ivory casket known as the Sainte Châsse.
The Musées de Sens fill the old palace of the archbishops, right against the cathedral and beside the 13th-century synodal palace, where the church's court once sat. Under the Romans the town was Agedincum, and the museum's underground galleries hold about 40 carved funerary stones showing the dead with the tools of their trades. There is also a 15th-century Brussels tapestry of three coronations, made for Cardinal Charles de Bourbon.
The paintings are a smaller part of the visit. One of them, Jupiter and Antiope, dated 1771 and left to the museum in 1896, is attributed to the young Jacques-Louis David, a debated call because David later disowned most of his early work.
