The Saint was first published in German as Der Heilige in 1880.  Like Anouilh, Meyer was influenced by Augustin Thierry's The Conquest of England by the Normans, but he also incorporated folklore into his work, such as the legend concerning Thomas Becket's parentage, and just made things up when he needed to.  It's a work of fiction, after all, and refreshingly has no pretensions of being otherwise.

The main part of the book takes place within a framing story in which the narrator, Hans, returns to Zurich on December 29, 1191 and tells the story of his time in England to Sir Burkhard, a canon of the cathedral, with whom he stays.

Hans had been a failed monk who then became a bowmaker.  He traveled through Europe from his native Germany to Moorish Granada in his quest to perfect his trade.  There he learned the story of Prince Moonlight: A young man from a northern island came to Cordova and won the caliph's favor through his intellect, wisdom, skill at chess, and political acumen, and he was called Prince Moonlight because of his pallor.  The caliph gave Prince Moonlight his sister, Princess Sunshine, as his bride, but Sunshine died at the birth of a daughter.  A hundred courtiers plotted against Prince Moonlight, thinking his position was now weakened, and he foiled them but out of gentleness begged for their lives.  Then one day slaves brought a train of mules laden with sacks to his house, and when the sacks were opened the heads of the courtiers fell out.  Shaken, Prince Moonlight took his daughter and fled Cordova by night.

After his time in Granada, Hans travels to England, where he works as a bowmaker.  His master's daughter, Hilde, sings the ballad of Gilbert Becket (the same story Gwendoline sings in Anouilh's play, only in Hilde's version Gilbert is a merchant, not a crusader).  The chancellor of England, Thomas, is the son of Gilbert Becket and his Saracen wife.  According to gossip, Thomas had distanced himself from his middle-class Saxon/Saracen background as soon as possible, entering the service of a Norman bishop.  Left rich at his father's death, Thomas traveled in Moorish Spain, where he practiced astrology and other secret arts, and, according to rumor, used these arts to bind King Henry to him upon his return to England.

Back to Hans, to whom not much has happened, considering he's the narrator.  He sees the chancellor ride past one day and is impressed.  However, not long afterward Hilde is kidnapped from her father's shop, and everyone suspects Gui Malherbe, one of the knights in the chancellor's retinue.  The next time Thomas rides past, the father asks him for justice, but is ignored.  He cries after the departing figure, "It's too bad, priest, that you don't have a daughter a Norman can ruin for you!" (p. 24).

One day Hilde suddenly reappears at the shop, and her father decides to marry her to a distant relative who works there, Trustan Grimm.  Hans leaves the shop and becomes crossbowyer to King Henry.  He becomes the king's favored servant, and he also wins the chancellor's favor by his knowledge of Moorish customs.

Henry is out hunting one day and comes upon a hidden castle inhabited by a beautiful girl.  He thinks he's discovered the place where the chancellor has hidden his mistress, but it's really Thomas's daughter, Grace.  (Thomas, by the way, is Prince Moonlight from the story.)  Henry doesn't realize this fact, and Thomas doesn't know what's been going on, but Queen Eleanor, knowing someone has supplanted her in her husband's affections, plots against Grace.  Thomas plans to send her overseas for safety.  There is a raid on the castle and Grace is killed by a stray arrow.

Henry decides to elevate Thomas to Archbishop.  Thomas protests but eventually acquiesces.  After becoming archbishop, he changes.  He wanders the streets with a Saxon following and becomes a laughingstock at court.  Trustan Grimm, rejected by Hilde, has become his crucifer.  Thomas gives up the chancellorship, saying he has a new master, more powerful than Henry.  He also refuses to give up the criminous clerks to Norman barons.  This is not in accord with the king's plans.  Henry complains that Thomas is stirring up the Saxons.  Meanwhile Eleanor, affected by Thomas's holy example, repents of her evil life and throws herself at his feet.  Henry is tormented by Thomas's distance, and the barons say he's undermining the state with an "insurrection of souls" (p. 89).  Henry has Thomas convicted of treason and banished.

Henry is losing the respect of the people.  Hans and Prince Richard go incognito to find Thomas, and Richard persuades him to agree to a reconciliation including the Kiss of Peace.  However, when the time comes, Thomas finds Henry too repulsive to kiss.  He tries to effect a reconciliation nevertheless and says he'll forgive Henry Grace's death if he'll liberate the Saxons.  This only succeeds in further infuriating Henry.

Henry's outburst at Christmas causes some of his knights to leave for Canterbury.  Hans warns Henry about what has happened and sets off himself in an effort to arrive before the knights and save Thomas.  He arrives in time, but Thomas refuses to save himself and is killed before the high altar.

Henry does penance, but Hans can no longer bring himself to continue in his service.  He thinks he might marry Hilde, but he finds her deathly ill.  Hans tries to cure her with a cloth dipped in Thomas's blood, but she dies, and Hans goes back to Germany.

Since this books tells you up front that it's a fictional biography, I won't be too hard on it for historical inaccuracies.  It can be thought of as an alternate history.  There are still things I want to comment on, though.

Thomas is described as unable to compete with the Normans "in ruddiness of countenance or in size" (p. 23).  I can't help but be amused, remembering that in reality he was unusually tall.  In the book his paleness and "superhuman" intelligence are often noted, with the effect that Thomas becomes something of an otherworldly figure, pure and sexless - a perfect Victorian ecclesiastical hero.

Poor Edward Grim, transformed into the "coarse-grained uncouth redhead" (p. 25) Trustan Grimm.  I'm not sure if he's meant to epitomize the rude Saxon peasant or to contrast with Thomas's refined beauty.  And how does "Trustan" come out of "Edward"?  (Trustan isn't even a Saxon name, it's of Celtic derivation.  And "Edward" is Saxon.)  Maybe we should call this change in language Grimm's Law.

The royal family as depicted bear the marks of later prejudice.  Of Henry's four living sons, Richard, the future Lionheart, is the golden boy, Henry's and everyone's favorite.  (And somehow he's the third son and Geoffrey is the second, in a reversal that has no purpose I can discern.)  John, who I'm pretty sure really was Henry's favorite, is demonized as worthless and malicious.  And Eleanor, though unfaithful herself, is murderously jealous of her husband's mistresses and often contrives to dispose of them.

Thomas is very Moorish and Muslim in his inner life.  He first likes Hans because the latter can quote the Qur'an, and after Grace's death he's comforted by words from the same book.  One wonders how he can make himself be such a good Christian archbishop.

Once Thomas is archbishop, his life seems to become an imitation of Christ.  He's a holy man who wanders around, beloved of the poor Saxons, who follow him around in a crowd.  And look at Eleanor's behavior when she repents: reminiscent of the woman who anoints Jesus in the gospels (Mk 14:3-9 with parallels in Mt 26:6-13, Jn 12:1-8, and especially Lk 7:36-38, where the woman is a weeping sinner - also, consider that later Christian tradition conflated these women with Mary Magdalene and decided Mary was a former prostitute, and the parallel with Eleanor the formerly unfaithful wife in this book become even stronger).  When Thomas returns from exile, he rides into Canterbury on a donkey while the people spread clothing and branches on the road before him.  Actually, that last does have a historical basis.  The rest, though, is purely literary invention, and an effective one, I suppose.  The whole thing seems very, yet indefinably, nineteenth-century to me in its piety.

When Hilde dies at the end I'm not sure if it's meant to be a good or a bad thing.  On the one hand, someone dying isn't good, and Hans thinks St. Thomas is persecuting him and killing what is dear to him (I suppose out of anger that Hans tried to prevent his martyrdom), but on the other, Hilde has a radiant look before she dies, and it could be thought that her death is good because she's going to join the saint or whatever.  I don't know.  I just thought I'd mention it.