THE STORY OF CANTERBURY
It would be a mistake to imagine that it solely was due to that bloody
deed perpetrated on a certain December afternoon back in Norman times
that Canterbury occupies a place of such pre-eminence in English
history, for the city was ancient before the days of Thomas of
Canterbury; and in this short chapter it is the writer's endeavour to
indicate the position of that tragic occurrence in the chronology of
the former Kentish capital.
The earliest people who have left evidence of their existence near
Canterbury belong to the Palæolithic Age; but as it is not known
whether this remote prehistoric population occupied the actual site,
or even whether the valley may not have then been a salt-water creek,
it is wiser in this brief sketch to pass over these primitive people
and the lake-dwellers who, after a considerable interval, were
possibly their successors, and come to the surer ground of history.
This brings us to the early Roman invasions of Britain and Julius
Cæsar's description of the people of Kent, whose civilization he found
on a higher level than in the other parts he penetrated. He described
them as being little different in their manner of living from the
Gauls, whose houses were built of planks and willow-branches, roofed
with thatch, and were large and circular in form, but he adds:
All the Britons dye themselves with woad, which gives them a
bluish colour, and so makes them very dreadful in battle. They
have long hair, and shave all the body except the head and
upper lip.
These people, owning allegiance to various chiefs and living in camps
or villages defended by earthen ramparts, were attacked by the Roman
expeditions which invaded Britain in the opening years of the
Christian Era, and there is evidence for believing that there was a
British settlement of considerable importance on the site of
Canterbury. Of this there remains a lofty artificial mound, now known
as the Dane John--another form of the familiar donjon. The Romans
called it Durovernum, a name perhaps derived from the British
Derwhern, and although their historians are curiously silent in
regard to the place there cannot be any doubt that the town rose to
great importance in the later years of the four centuries of the Roman
occupation of Britain. A glance at a map of the Roman roads in Kent
shows Durovernum as a centre for five great ways leading from the
coast towns of Portus Lemanis (Lymne), Portus Dubris (Dover), Portus
Ritupis (Richborough, near Sandwich), Regulbium (Reculver), and also
the Isle of Thanet, and from this important centre the Watling Street
ran straight to Londinium. These roads all converge upon the spot
where the River Stour became a tidal estuary and where it was
fordable, and all who arrived or departed from the ports nearest to
Gaul would therefore of necessity pass that way. Another indication of
the size of the town is found in the five Roman burial-places
discovered close to Canterbury, and if anything else were needed it is
only necessary to look at the walls of St. Augustine's Abbey and many
other buildings of the Middle Ages to see the large quantities of
Roman material then available. Wherever any excavation has taken place
in the heart of the present city, the foundations of Roman buildings
with tesselated pavements and quantities of pottery, small objects of
domestic use, and coins have been brought to light. These remains are
all far beneath the present surface, a most significant fact in
relation to the transition period between Roman and Saxon Canterbury.
The Romans having finally abandoned Britain early in the fifth
century, the invasions of the Anglo-Saxons began to take a permanent
form, and the Jutes gained possession of the south-eastern corner of
England. During the period of struggle between the rival groups of
invaders Durovernum must have been entirely abandoned by the Britons,
and the conquerors, having reduced the city to a shapeless ruin,
appear to have allowed it to become over-grown to such an extent that
when, after a lapse of perhaps a whole century, the town was rebuilt,
no attempt was made to dig down to the former surface. The new
buildings therefore arose with their foundations some feet above the
original level of the Romano-British city. So complete was the gap
between the destroyed Durovernum and the Saxon town which eventually
grew up that men had had time to forget the old name, and, finding it
necessary to invent one, called it Cantwarabyrig, which meant the
city of the men of Kent. This title reveals the fact that the new
settlers had by this time fixed their limits in Kent, and that they
had found this site at the junction of all the Roman roads the most
convenient for their capital. It was probably not until Ethelbert had
begun to reign in 561 that Canterbury became the most important place
in Kent, and at that time the site of the Cathedral was outside the
town walls. Ethelbert, it should be mentioned, had extended his power
so far beyond the confines of Kent that he had authority as far north
as the Humber, and Bede writes of "the city of Canterbury, which was
the metropolis of all his dominions."
Up to the year 597 this Saxon capital, of practically all
south-eastern England, was completely heathen, saving only the King's
Frankish wife Bertha and Bishop Luidhard, who had come over as her
chaplain about the year 575, when the marriage with the heathen
Ethelbert had taken place. But in the year 597, that famous landmark
in the Christianizing of Saxon England, Augustine, landed--if Bede may
be trusted for a topographical detail of this character--on the island
of Ebbsfleet, where Hengist and Horsa had previously found a haven
for their vessels. This is now part of the corner of Kent, called
Thanet, and is an island no longer. There Ethelbert, in that generous
and broad-minded speech, familiar to all students of English history,
while expressing himself as content with the gods of his forefathers
(these included Thor, Woden, Freya, and the rest), yet would place no
obstacles in the way of these missionaries of new and strange ideas.
He even provided them with quarters in Canterbury, and in the old
church of St. Martin outside the city, where Queen Bertha had been in
the habit of worshipping with her chaplain, Augustine and his monks
began to preach and instruct all who cared to listen. It seems
unlikely that the influence of the queen and her good chaplain should
have been entirely without results, and it is quite possible that
Augustine found the ground prepared for the seed he diligently began
to sow. Bishop Luidhard, whose name should always be linked with that
of St. Augustine, appears to have died soon after the arrival of Pope
Gregory's mission, and his remains were eventually placed in a golden
chest in the church of Saints Peter and Paul, afterwards St.
Augustine's.
The zeal and enthusiasm of the band of missionaries began to bring in
many converts. Ethelbert himself consented to be baptized on June 2 in
the year of Augustine's landing, and the Saxons soon began to embrace
the new faith in thousands, so that in a very few years the
Christianizing of England had made such progress that Canterbury
became the headquarters of the Christian Church in England, a position
it has held without interruption ever since--a period of over 1,300
years. It took England nearly nine centuries to make up its mind to
rid itself of the stultifying authority of the Bishop of Rome and to
shake itself free from monasticism and the various forms of idolatrous
worship which grew up in the sultry atmosphere of the Papal Church;
but these great changes have been evolved, and still the ancient city
of Canterbury, hallowed with so many memories of saintly lives,
continues to be the metropolis of the Established Church of England.
And the imminence of further change carries with it no danger of any
break in this long association of Canterbury with ecclesiastical
control, for if in the slow grinding of the wheels of Time there
should cease to be a State Church in this land, the organization of
the churches holding to the Elizabethan form of worship will no doubt
continue to be centred and focussed at Canterbury.
[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH WEST.
The state central or "Bell Harry" Tower is one of the most beautiful
works of the Perpendicular period in existence.]
As the first church mentioned in history associated with Christian
worship St. Martin's occupies a unique position, and yet the fabric of
the little building does not conclusively prove that it is even in
part the actual church of this fascinating period. Cautious
archæologists, represented by Mr. J. T. Micklethwaite, regard the
earliest work in St. Martin's as belonging to the Saxon period, Roman
materials having merely been worked up by the later builders. On the
other hand, there are various careful antiquaries who are willing to
accept the oldest parts of the church as Roman, and claim that St.
Martin's is a Christian church put up during the Roman occupation.
Perhaps the problem will be solved by further discoveries, but until
then it seems wiser to regard St. Martin's as being in part a very
early Saxon building, very probably standing on the site of the
restored Roman church in which Queen Bertha worshipped before
Augustine's arrival. Even if it were possible to state that parts of
the walls were Roman, it would not be an easy matter to say whether
the building were older than the two early Christian churches of
North Cornwall, preserved through the ages by the drifting sand of
that exposed coastline; therefore, to write, as so many have done,
that St. Martin's is the oldest Christian church in England, is not
justified by the facts. Besides St. Martin's, William Thorne, a
fourteenth century chronicler, makes mention of "a temple or
idol-place where Ethelbert had been wont to pray and to sacrifice to
demons," and this building, instead of being destroyed, was purged
from its defilements and idols and hallowed by Augustine when he
dedicated it to St. Pancras the Roman boy-martyr. When the site, about
halfway between St. Martin's and St. Augustine's, was excavated in
1901, it was found to possess a nave about 47 feet long by 26 feet
wide, with an apsidal chancel nearly the same width and depth
separated from the nave by four Roman columns, and Mr. W.H. St. John
Hope, of the Society of Antiquaries, who carried out the operations
with Canon Routledge, has suggested that this may be the first church
built by Augustine out of Roman materials ready to hand, while the
larger one, dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, a little to the west,
was slowly being constructed. It was not finished when, in 605,
Augustine died, and eventually the dedication included the canonized
first archbishop of the English Church, who was buried in the building
when it was finished. The other great figures of the period--Ethelbert
and his Queen, and her chaplain--were also laid to rest in the church.
A few years ago it was only possible to form an idea of this large
structure from the Norman north wall of the nave and part of the
north-west tower, but now that nearly the whole of the eastern end has
been excavated one can see the underground portion of practically all
the east end and part of the north transept. Ethelbert's son, Eadbald,
having been converted two years after his accession, built another
church east of that of Saints Peter and Paul, and this was joined on
to the abbey church when the east end was extended about the time of
the Norman Conquest. At the same time as he began the monastery
subsequently called after him, Augustine appears to have made his
headquarters close to another early Christian church within the walls
of the Saxon city. This, according to Bede, was hallowed "in the name
of the Holy Saviour," and thus arose the name Christ Church--the name
the cathedral now bears. In these early times there were therefore
five Christian churches either restored or under construction, and
they were all roughly in a line running east and west. First there was
Christ Church and Augustine's residence--eventually the priory--within
the walls, then the embryo abbey of Saints Peter and Paul, with the
chapel of St. Mary a little to the east. Farther still was the church
of St. Pancras, and farthest from the city walls, on its little hill,
St. Martin's. There are other traces of Saxon work in the church of
St. Mildred near the castle, but this is much later than anything that
has been discovered on the other sites, and Dr. Cox points out what he
claims as pre-Conquest work in St. Dunstan's outside the city, on the
Whitstable Road.
Canterbury appears to have grown and prospered in spite of various
attacks made by the Danes until the year 1011, when the city, after a
defence lasting nearly three weeks, fell into the hands of the
invaders through treachery from within. Alphege, the good old
archbishop, was obliged to witness the savagery of the Danes when they
burst through the gates and began a horrible slaughter, which included
the monks of Christ Church, and it is said that about 7,000 Saxons
perished. Not content with all this butchery, they burnt the
cathedral. Archbishop Alphege was carried off by the victorious Danes,
who at Greenwich gave way to drunken excesses, and in brutal fashion
killed their prisoner. The body was brought from London, where it had
been buried, back to Canterbury ten years later by Canute, the first
Danish King of England, who made what atonement he could by lending
his freshly painted state barge for the ceremonious translation of the
martyr's remains. Arrived at Canterbury, the King proceeded to further
demonstrate his submission to the Church his people had devastated by
hanging up his crown in the cathedral which Alphege's successor,
Archbishop Living, had reroofed. Canute, having made a journey to Rome
in 1031, among other pious resolutions, declared that he would amend
his life and conversation, and it was with his help that the Saxon
cathedral was properly repaired and decorated.
During the year following the Norman Conquest a fire began in
Canterbury, which, besides destroying many houses, reduced the
unfortunate cathedral to a roofless ruin once more. Three years
later, in 1070, when Lanfranc was made the first Norman archbishop, he
decided that the Saxon walls were worthless, and he swept away every
trace of the building, which may have been partially Roman, before
proceeding to erect a larger and grander pile in the Norman style
familiar to him. One feature of the original church has, nevertheless,
left its mark on the Norman cathedral. This was a crypt described by
Eadmer, the monkish historian, who, as a boy, saw the Saxon church
being demolished. It was only a small affair, but it must have been
the most remarkable feature of the comparatively small oblong
building, for it was not, properly speaking, a crypt at all, but an
undercroft beneath the eastern altars. "To reach these altars," says
Eadmer, "a certain crypt, which the Romans call a confessionary, had
to be ascended by means of several steps from the choir of the
singers. Thus the Norman archbishop, in planning a larger cathedral,
constructed a crypt under the choir of his new building, and the steps
one ascends to-day are there as the direct outcome of the structural
methods of rude Saxon times."
Lanfranc completed his new cathedral in 1077, and in his lifetime he
also founded the great Benedictine priory of Christ Church, whose
considerable remains add so much medievalism to the surroundings of
the vast cathedral. Anselm succeeded Lanfranc after an interval of a
few years, during which Rufus found it exceedingly desirable to keep
the see vacant while the revenues were diverted into the royal
coffers, and scarcely twenty years after his predecessor's church was
finished, Prior Ernulph pulled down the east end and constructed in
its place the magnificent Norman choir, with its transepts and chapels
standing with various alterations to-day. This great work was finished
by Prior Conrad, who succeeded Ernulph, and the noble work, which
became known as Conrad's Choir, was consecrated in 1130 by Archbishop
de Corbeuil. To make this bald statement and omit to mention the
ceremony attending it would be misleading; for not only were Henry I.
and David of Scotland present, but Canterbury saw such a gathering of
dignitaries of Church and State with their splendid retinues that the
historian found nothing to compare with it but Solomon's dedication of
the Temple!
This splendid church, representing the finest achievement of Norman
master-builders and workmen, rising high above the domestic quarters
of the monastery and standing forth conspicuously from every part of
the little walled city, then consisting, to a considerable extent, of
low wooden houses, had now reached the stage in its development when
it was to be the scene of the murder which was to make Canterbury the
most famous resort of pilgrims in Europe. This occurred forty years
later; but no change in the great Norman church had taken place in
that period.
So thrilling is the whole story of Becket's murder that there is every
temptation to tell again the tale of Henry II.'s hasty exclamation,
and the headlong journey from Normandy to Canterbury made by those
four knights whose foul deed history has not ceased to condemn; but
for a full account the reader is advised to turn to Dean Stanley's
"Historical Memorials of Canterbury." It was in the same year and the
same month as his death that Becket had returned from exile to
Canterbury after an absence of six years, and at the close of a decade
of continual struggle with the King. The Archbishop, having landed at
Sandwich on his arrival from France, had been received with the
greatest enthusiasm, and the people of Canterbury showed their
delight in every possible manner. There were imposing banquets, and
hangings of silk were put up in the cathedral for the great occasion;
but at the end of this December, on the gloomy afternoon of the 29th,
the four murderers arrived in the city. The day was a Tuesday, the day
on which all the great events of Becket's life had taken place; for
not only had he been born on a Tuesday, but on that day he had been
exiled, on that day he had been warned of his impending martyrdom, and
on that day he had returned from exile.
[Illustration: THE "ANGEL" OR "BELL HARRY" TOWER AND THE BAPTISTERY.
The massive Norman work is seen here in strong contrast with the
lightness and delicacy of the Perpendicular tower.]
While leaving the long story to be told with the amazingly ample
detail Dean Stanley was able to employ, one is tempted to quote his
account of the first interview between Becket and the four knights,
for too often the memory recalls nearly every fact of the murder
except the indictment, if it may be so called. The four knights had
discarded their weapons and concealed their armour under the cloak and
gown of ordinary life on entering the cathedral precincts, so that on
their first appearance in the Archbishop's private room their aspect
was sinister without being immediately threatening. Becket had just
finished dinner, and was seated on his couch talking to his friends
when the four knights were announced, and he pointedly continued, his
conversation with the monk who sat by him and on whose shoulder he was
leaning.
They on their part entered without a word, beyond a greeting
exchanged in a whisper to the attendants who stood near the
door, and then marched straight to where the Archbishop sate,
and placed themselves on the floor at his feet, among the
clergy who were reclining around. Radulf the archer sate
behind them, on the boards. Becket now turned round for the
first time, and gazed steadfastly on each in silence, which he
at last broke by saluting Tracy by name. The conspirators
continued to look mutely at each other, till Fitzurse, who
throughout took the lead, replied with a scornful expression,
"God help you!" Becket's face grew crimson, and he glanced
round at their countenances, which seemed to gather fire from
Fitzurse's speech. Fitzurse again broke forth: "We have a
message from the King over the water--tell us whether you will
hear it in private, or in the hearing of all." "As you wish,"
said the Archbishop. "Nay, as _you_ wish," said Fitzurse.
"Nay, as _you_ wish," said Becket. The monks, at the
Archbishop's intimation, withdrew into an adjoining room; but
the doorkeeper ran up and kept the door ajar, that they might
see from the outside what was going on.
Before the knights began the recital of their complaints, however,
Becket appears to have become alarmed at the demeanour of the four
men, who afterwards admitted that they thought of killing him then and
there with the only weapon that was handy--a cross-staff that lay at
his feet.
The monks hurried back, and Fitzurse, apparently calmed by
their presence, resumed his statement of the complaints of the
King. The complaints--which are given by the various
chroniclers in very different words--were three in number.
"The King over the water commands you to perform your duty to
the King on this side of the water, instead of taking away his
crown." "Rather than take away his crown," replied Becket, "I
would give him three or four crowns." "You have excited
disturbances in the kingdom, and the King requires you to
answer for them at his court." "Never," said the Archbishop,
"shall the sea again come between me and my Church, unless I
am dragged thence by the feet." "You have excommunicated the
bishops, and you must absolve them." "It was not I," replied
Becket, "but the Pope, and you must go to him for absolution."
[Illustration: THE CHAPEL OF "OUR LADY" IN THE UNDERCROFT OF THE
CATHEDRAL.
Being entirely above the ground this is not a crypt as it is so often
miscalled. The morning light in winter fills the spaces between the
massive Norman piers.]
After some more stormy words the knights became irritated by Becket's
contradictions, and swore "by God's wounds" that they had endured
enough, but Becket, putting aside John of Salisbury's suggestion that
he should speak privately to the angry knights, began to complain of
the grievances and insults he had himself received during the preceding
week: "They have attacked my servants," he said; "they have cut off my
sumpter-mule's tail; they have carried off the casks of wine that were
the King's own gift." To this Hugh de Moreville, who was the least
aggressive of the four, replied: "Why did you not complain to the King
of these outrages? Why did you take upon yourself to punish them by
your own authority?" But Becket, turning sharply towards him, said:
"Hugh! how proudly you lift up your head! When the rights of the
Church are violated, I shall wait for no man's permission to avenge
them. I will give to the King the things that are the King's, but to
God the things that are God's. It is my business, and I alone will see
to it." Taking up such an attitude in front of four men who had come
hot-foot to Canterbury with the express determination to seek an
excuse for killing him, Becket was sealing his own fate.
For the first time in the interview the Archbishop had assumed
an attitude of defiance; the fury of the knights broke at once
through the bonds which had partially restrained it, and
displayed itself openly in those impassioned gestures which
are now confined to the half-civilized nations of the South
and East, but which seem to have been natural to all classes
of medieval Europe. Their eyes flashed fire, they sprang upon
their feet, and, rushing close up to him, gnashed their teeth,
twisting their long gloves, and wildly threw their arms above
their heads. Fitzurse exclaimed: "You threaten us--you
threaten us! are you going to excommunicate us all?"
Becket sprang up from his couch at this insulting demonstration, and
in the state of great excitement into which he could fall when roused,
he flung down his defiant challenge that all the swords in England
could not shake his obedience to the Pope. The four knights, goaded to
fury by other passionate words, left him, shouting, "To arms! to
arms!" They made their way with an excited throng to the great
gateway, where they armed, while the doors were closed to shut off the
monastery from communication with the town. The Archbishop seems to
have been fully alive to his danger, and yet he persistently refused
to take the smallest measure for his safety, opening with his own
hands the door from the cloisters into the north transept which some
of the monks had closed and barred immediately after they had dragged
the Archbishop into the nearly dark building.
Vespers had just begun when the murderers entered, but the singing of
that service was never completed. The fear of sacrilege induced the
knights to try to drag the defenceless Archbishop out of the
Cathedral, but he struggled with such vigour, flinging one of the men
down on the stone floor, that they gave up the attempt and killed him
with three or four sword strokes, the last of which, as he lay prone,
was delivered by Richard le Bret, or the Breton, and so tremendous was
the force with which it was delivered that the crown of the head was
severed from the skull and the sword broke in two on the pavement.
Canterbury being much divided in its attachment to Becket, the
murderers found escape easy, and the general regrets most expressed
seem to have been at the sacrilege rather than at the murder.
It is almost incredible how rapidly Becket became St. Thomas of
Canterbury. Within a few hours of the tragic scene, when, night having
fallen and the great church being closed and deserted, Osbert, the
Archbishop's chamberlain, entering with a light in his hand, found his
master's body lying on its face, with the frightful wound exposed, the
monks had kissed the hands and feet of the corpse and called him by
the name of Saint Thomas. What appears to have raised the fraternity
to this enthusiastic anticipation of the canonization, officially
announced at Westminster in 1173, was the discovery that Becket had on
beneath his outer robes, and the many other garments he wore, the
black cowled cloak of the Benedictines, and next to his skin a
hair-cloth shirt of unusual roughness. When the body was being
prepared for the tomb this shirt was found to be easily removable for
the daily scourging Becket had been in the habit of enduring, the
marks of the stripes administered on the previous day being plainly
visible. Dean Stanley adds another fact not easy to be believed by
those who have never become intimate with the practices of medieval
monasticism:
Such austerity had hitherto been unknown to English saints,
and the marvel was increased by the sight--to our notions so
revolting--of the innumerable vermin with which the hair-cloth
abounded--boiling over with them, as one account describes it,
like water in a simmering cauldron. At the dreadful sight all
the enthusiasm of the previous night revived with double
ardour. They looked at one another in silent wonder, then
exclaimed, "See, see what a true monk he was, and we knew it
not!" and burst into alternate fits of weeping and laughter,
between the sorrow at having lost such a head and the joy of
having found such a saint.
[Illustration; THE CHAPEL OF ST. MICHAEL OR THE WARRIORS' CHAPEL.
It is one of the most interesting Chapels in the Cathedral, containing
the tomb of Stephen Langton and in the centre of the drawing that of
Lady Margaret Holland and her two husbands.]
Almost immediately the superstitious belief in the efficacy of a
martyr's blood made everyone who was permitted to approach Becket's
body anxious to obtain a scrap of a blood-stained garment to soak in
water with which to anoint the eyes! In a short time many parts of the
clothes had been given away to the poor folk of Canterbury; but as
soon as the miracle-working properties came to be properly understood
these precious shreds of the Archbishop's voluminous garments ran up
in value until the possession of such a fragment meant wealth to the
owner. Any relic of the body itself had still greater value, its
efficacy in curing the multifarious ailments of the pilgrims who began
to flock to Canterbury being immeasurable. And when the neighbouring
monastery of St. Augustine burned with desire to possess a relic of
St. Thomas they offered Roger, the keeper of the "Altars of the
Martyrdom," the position of Abbot of their own abbey if he would
contrive to bring with him a portion of Becket's skull. Roger had been
specially chosen to guard this relic, but he succumbed to the
temptation offered by the rival establishment outside the city walls,
and having purloined the coveted fragment of the martyr, was duly
installed in the highest office of St. Augustine's. Whether the whole
affair was public property at the time does not fully appear, but
those who recorded events at St. Augustine's did not hesitate to
glory in the success of their scheme!
So great was the popular execration of the murder that the autocratic
Archbishop who had not inspired universal admiration in his lifetime
was soon to become the most frequently invoked of all the calendar of
saints, and the King himself, finding that his submission to the Papal
legate at Avranches, two years after the crime, was not sufficient to
avert the wrath of Heaven, which seemed to be visiting him in the form
of rebellions and disasters in every part of his dominions, came to
Canterbury in 1174 and went through a penance of extreme severity.
Landing at Southampton, he came by the Pilgrims' Way to Harbledown,
and so entered the ancient city. At the church of St. Dunstan, outside
the walls, he took off his ordinary dress and walked barefoot through
the streets to the monastery of Christ Church. It was a wet day, but
being in the month of July the wearing of a shirt only with a cloak to
keep off the rain could not have been the cause of very great physical
discomfort apart from the cutting of his feet by stones on the road.
At the Cathedral they took Henry to the tomb of the man whose death he
had caused, and there he knelt and shed bitter tears, groaning and
lamenting. After again regretting his rash words in an address read by
Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London, and promising to restore the rights
and property of the Church, the King, kneeling at the tomb, wearing a
hair-shirt with a woollen one above it, placed his head and shoulders
in one of the openings in the tomb and there received five strokes
with a monastic rod from each of the bishops and abbots present, and
afterwards the eighty monks each administered three strokes. Henry was
now quite absolved, but he remained for the whole night with his bare
feet still muddy and in the same penitential garb.
[Illustration: THE SCENE OF THE MARTYRDOM IN THE NORTH-WEST TRANSEPT
OF THE CATHEDRAL.
Since the tragic death of Becket in 1170 practically everything in this
portion of the Cathedral has been re-constructed.]
Arriving in London, the King took to his bed, suffering from a
dangerous fever, but a few days later, hearing from Richmond in
Yorkshire that the Scots had been defeated and driven north, he
recovered rapidly, believing implicitly, after the manner of his age,
that this success was attributable to the penance he had undergone on
the day before the battle.
And so, through the savage murder of an archbishop and the severe
penance of a king the archiepiscopal capital of England began to
resound all over Europe, and the annual procession of pilgrims
commenced to traverse the hills along the old road from Winchester to
the little Norman city. Not by that way only did the vast crowds reach
Canterbury, for there was scarcely a road that at some period of the
year did not send its contribution to the throng which jostled through
the gates into the narrow streets leading to the monastery gateway.
Year after year wealth poured into the Cathedral coffers, and pilgrims
went away lighter in spirits and in purse, but each carrying with them
the little leaden bottle in which the infinitely diluted blood of the
martyr mixed with water was distributed.
Scarcely two months after Henry's penance the splendid choir of the
Cathedral caught fire, and the townsfolk, in a state between grief and
rage, found themselves unable to stay the progress of the flames until
nearly everything that could burn had vanished. The nave suffered less
than Conrad's splendid choir, and in that less ruined portion of the
building a temporary altar was erected. But for this fire it might
have been possible for the modern pilgrim to see the building as it
appeared during the stirring events just recounted; for,
notwithstanding the wealth of the monastery of Christ Church, it would
have probably been thought desirable to retain the fabric as much as
possible as it appeared in Becket's time. The fire came, however, and
the choir was to a great extent rebuilt, but fortunately the chapels
were only slightly affected.
After careful inquiry the monastery decided to employ William of Sens
as architect for the reconstruction, and the excellent work of this
clever Norman craftsman lives to-day in the eastern portion of the
cathedral church. He set to work soon after the fire; but, after four
years of labour, was so much injured by a fall from the scaffolding
that he was obliged to abandon his unfinished work and return to his
native Normandy. Upon an Englishman named William devolved the task of
completing the work.
Either following the Frenchman's plans or adapting them to his own
ideas, he finished the eastern parts of the church as they stand
to-day in the year 1184. To one or both of these architects is due the
unusual device of narrowing the choir to avoid altering the site of
the Trinity Chapel of Becket's time. When the reconstruction of
Conrad's Norman choir began, the Gothic style was just beginning to
appear--an incipient tendency towards a pointed arch here and there
which grew into what is called the Transitional Period; and to this
style--in between the Romanesque semicircular arch, with its
accompanying massiveness, and the first style of Gothic known as Early
English, distinguished by the pointed arch, detached pillars
decorating the triforium and clerestory, and elaborate mouldings and
capitals--the choir belongs.
When the whole of the east end of the cathedral was finished, nearly
two centuries elapsed before any further change took place beyond the
beginning of the chapter-house. At the commencement of that period,
however, one of Canterbury's most magnificent scenes of ecclesiastical
pomp occurred in connection with the remains of Becket. The summer of
1220 saw the completion of the new shrine, and on July 7, the
translation of the saint's remains was accomplished amid scenes of the
most astonishing splendour, described by those who were present as
being without a parallel in the history of England, the crowds
including people from many foreign countries. Money was spent so
lavishly on the entertainment of the innumerable persons of
distinction who were present or took part in the great ceremony that
for several years the finances of the see were unpleasantly
reminiscent of the vast expenditure. Henry III. was present, but he
was not old enough to be a bearer of the great iron-bound chest
containing the poor remnants of Becket's human guise. In the presence
of nearly every ecclesiastical dignitary in the land the remains were
placed in the newly finished shrine all aglow with jewels set in gold
and silver.
Throughout the centuries succeeding this crowning glory of Canterbury,
the little walled city saw many great functions apart from the yearly
stream of pilgrims of every grade of society, and the huge doles of
food and drink given away by the two great monasteries and the lesser
houses of the city must have brought together an unwholesome concourse
of the needy.
Every fifty years after the translation of Becket's remains to the
great shrine there was a special festival on July 7, when the people
of the archiepiscopal city would find their resources strained to the
very uttermost in feeding and housing the great assemblage. The
martyrdom took place on December 29, but owing to the time of the
year this festival did not draw so many as the summer one. All through
the year the pilgrims came and went, and instead of falling off in
numbers as the martyrdom receded, the popularity of the saint did not
reach its zenith until the fifteenth century. Royal visits were of
frequent occurrence, and of all the cities of England, after London,
Canterbury would appear to have entertained more distinguished
personages than any other.
Between 1378 and 1411 Prior Chillenden pulled down Lanfranc's Norman
nave and transept, which had survived the fire, and rebuilt them in
the Perpendicular style, then prevailing. When this work was finished
and the south-western tower had been completed, in 1481, there was not
much left of the Norman priory church built by Lanfranc. The
north-western or Arundel Tower, the last survival of Lanfranc's
church, was rebuilt in 1840 and made to match its Perpendicular
neighbour and the central tower--the external masterpiece of the
cathedral--commenced by Prior Molashe in 1433, and completed by Prior
Selling in the closing years of the century. The piers supporting this
tower are Norman with a later casing, and the foundations of the nave
walls belong to the same period.
Having reached its greatest glories, Canterbury began to decline, and
the dissolution of the two great monasteries and the demolishing of
Becket's shrine must have been to the city, on a much larger scale,
what the sweeping away of all the Shakespearean landmarks and relics
from Stratford-on-Avon of to-day would imply. Nevertheless the city
could afford to present Queen Elizabeth with £30 in a scented purse
when she came thither in 1564, and the fact that Canterbury remained
the chief centre of the authority and state of the English Church
prevented the city from decaying. And even if this dignity had not
remained the position of the town in relation to the comings and
goings between England and France would have saved it from any sudden
fall from its opulence and greatness before the dissolution.
To touch even lightly on the subsequent history of Canterbury is not
possible here, but its remarkably interesting story has been woven
into a connected narrative by Dr. Cox, whose admirable book should be
procured by all who may, by reading this little sketch, feel some of
the glamour which the old city has for the writer.