the body of St Mildred which was given to the house by Canute. It must
never be forgotten by those who would look at things mediæval with
mediæval eyes, that in those days the dead were more powerful than the
living; even kings humbled themselves before the bones of dead saints.
This relic worship became almost a madness, and the rage seized upon
monks and their rulers, who stooped to the meanest thefts in order to
possess themselves of such valuables. It is related that the monks of St
Augustine’s Abbey offered to make Roger, the keeper of the altar of the
Martyrdom, their abbot, if only he would steal for them the fragment of
Becket’s skull which was entrusted to his charge. He fell to the
temptation, and rose to be ruler of the rival house. For many a long
year indeed St Augustine’s dominated and domineered over Christ Church;
and for more than one reason. The former was an abbey, the latter but a
mere priory; in the precincts of the former was buried England’s apostle
Augustine, and Ethelbert, Augustine’s successor Lawrence--indeed, the
first eight occupants of the archiepiscopal throne. How could a poor
cathedral with never an archbishop’s bones hope to contend with such
favoured rivalry? So St Cuthbert, the ninth archbishop, came to the
rescue, preferring to lay his bones in his own cathedral rather than in
the church of the rival establishment. He foresaw the difficulties that
would arise; provided against them by procuring from the King of Kent
and from the Pope an authorisation to be buried within the city walls,
which he handed to the sorrowing monks as he lay adying, bidding them
also to bury him first and toll the bell afterward. So it came to pass
that when Abbot Aldhelm and the monks of St Augustine’s came to claim
their lawful prey, they were defeated and retired in dismay. They
struggled once more over the body of the succeeding Archbishop Bregwin,
and then succumbed to the inevitable. The glory of the Cathedral waxed;
it covered the graves of St Dunstan, St Alphege, and St Anselm; then
came St Thomas and eclipse to St Augustine.
Of the church but a few fragments remain, though at the beginning of
last century Ethelbert’s Tower, built about 1047, was still standing.
South of the church are the remains of St Pancras’ Church, where
excavations have revealed much of interest.
After the heavy hand of Henry VIII. had fallen on it, the abbey served
him as a palace, afterward coming into the possession of many owners,
and at length reaching a deep depth of degradation and ruin. From this
it was rescued by Mr A. J. Beresford Hope in 1844, and was eventually
incorporated as a college to provide “an education to qualify young men
for the service of the Church in the distant dependencies of the British
Empire, with such strict regard to economy and frugality of habit as may
fit them for the special duties to be discharged, the difficulties to be
encountered, and the hardships to be endured.” The college buildings
were designed by Mr Butterfield, and opened in 1848 on St Peter’s Day.
Of the old abbey, several buildings have been “worked into” the new
college; one of the most important is the fourteenth century gateway,
which is the main entrance, and above the archway of which is the State
bedchamber, in which Elizabeth and other monarchs have rested their
royal bones. The College Hall is the old Guesten Hall, and retains the
ancient open-work roof.
But somehow there does not shimmer round St Augustine’s the romance of
history; it is too closely in touch with to-day to allow us to dream of
its yesterday. We meet no shadowy figures there of abbot or monk, of
prince or soldier, hear no echoes of the clash of arms or of the voices
of singers. It is as dead to us as the Cathedral and the quaint streets
near by are alive.
From the city the Longport Road leads up a gentle ascent to St Martin’s.
To whom this church was first dedicated is uncertain. Of the Roman
building only some of the bricks remain; it was to some extent restored
by the Normans, and to a great extent rebuilt in the thirteenth century.
The first feeling as we enter the churchyard and look upon this famous
House of God is one of disappointment; there is something rough and
homely about the clumsy walls of stones, flint, and Roman tiles, and the
squat tower, creeper clad. But the associations of the little building
render it lovely to us. No matter what the faith may be of him who
stands in this seemly God’s-acre, he cannot but be profoundly impressed
by the view as he turns first to the spot where Augustine baptised the
heathen king, and then toward the soaring Cathedral tower, beneath whose
shadow lie buried so many Christian kings and rulers. The very building
“has had a remarkable history, surviving
[Illustration: ST MARTIN’S CHURCH, CANTERBURY]
disuse and decay, surviving the savage destructiveness of Jutes, the
devastation of Danish invaders, the innovating rigour of Norman
architects, and the apathy of succeeding centuries.” Setting our backs
to the older we turn to later days and to-day, as we walk home to the
city. The sun is setting; the sky panoplied in gold; lights shine out
here and there from homely windows; workmen tramp to their rest; there
is a gentle melancholy reigning over all things, as there ever is in
ancient cities; above all broods the Cathedral, its splendid tower,
steeped in the rays of the departing day, looking down as though it were
no handiwork of mortal man, but some creation of Nature, immutable,
inscrutable, full of majesty, of power, of everlasting dignity.
A CANTERBURY ROUNDABOUT
There are many delightful places round about Canterbury, beautiful to
look on and historically of the greatest interest. We set out of a
morning along Northgate, passing the fine half-timbered gateway of St
John’s Hospital, which was founded by Lanfranc, in the year 1084, for
the comfort of the aged who were poor and infirm. The entrance is a most
beautiful piece of fifteenth century timber-work, one of the most
delightful “bits” in Canterbury, and the enclosure within is a veritable
harbour of refuge from the noise and the turmoil without. The west door
of the chapel is Norman, and there are other fragments which will
interest the architect. In the hall is preserved a sixteenth century
account-book, from which we quote this curious item: “Note that Laurence
Wryght was admonished the xxviij daye of Maye the fyrst yere of Kyng
Edwarde the vjth for sclanderyng of the prior Christofer Sprott and the
pryors syster Margaret Forster for dwellyng yn to tenements under on
rofe. Wyttnesses brother Wyllyam Pendleton, brother Wyllyam Kytson”; one
more sad proof that brethren do not always dwell together in unity or
amity.
On, past the depressing range of barracks and along the straight, level
road to Sturry. Esturei, the island in the Stour, is a pleasing,
old-fashioned village, with ample accommodation for the refreshment of
man and beast. The church of St Nicholas stands guarded by a grove of
chestnut-trees, and hard by are the remains, including the gate, of
Sturry Court, dating from the reign of James I. Turning to the right
just beyond the Welsh Harp Inn--how does such a sign come here?--we
reach in a few minutes Fordwich bridge, beneath which flows the narrow
waters of the Stour; once on a time the scene of busy traffic, for we
are looking on the ancient port of Canterbury. How changed the scene,
now so quiet and out-of-the-world, since the days when this was a tidal
water, since an arm of the sea covered the valley of the Stour as far up
as Chilham, beyond Canterbury. Up to Fordwich--possibly Fiord Wich--in
olden days large vessels could be navigated, hence the importance of the
place for trading purposes. Domesday Book records that there were seven
fisheries and ten mills here--a busy, thriving place, now the home of
memories. The Abbey of St Augustine owned the manor here, by gift from
Edward the Confessor and others, and the monks and the townspeople do
not appear to have lived upon the best of terms. The monks of Christ
Church also traded here, and their presence does not appear to have made
for peace. Fordwich was a “limb” of the Sandwich Cinque Port, on the
same river but fourteen miles farther down the stream, sharing with that
ancient and once glorious town the ship service, so valuable to the
kings of England. Until 1861 Fordwich possessed a corporation, the first
mayor in 1292 being one John Maynard. The government consisted of the
mayor, twelve jurats, the freemen, and various officers, whose powers
included those of life and death. The works of Nature and of man have
combined to destroy the commercial prosperity of the erstwhile port; the
Wantsum--which cut off Thanet from the mainland--has ceased to be; the
Stour has silted up, to the detriment also of decayed Sandwich; and
Canterbury is connected with the sea by railways to Whitstable,
Faversham, and Dover.
Therefore as we stand upon this little bridge of stone, though the
prospect has many charms it is tinged with the sadness of decay and
death. There is the ancient crane of wood, now usually idle; and the
river-banks once so busy are now deserted save by occasional
merry-makers and water parties. Much water has flowed beneath this
bridge since Fordwich was a thriving sea-port, but less and less year by
year--the tide of prosperity has ebbed with the tides of the sea; all
that is left is but a memory and a few pieces of wreckage on the shore
of time.
Passing over the bridge we walk through the deserted village, for such
it appears to be at this hour of noon, until we come to the sign of the
Fordwich Arms, where we may rest and restore. Opposite the inn is the
Town Hall, of which we have heard so much that its diminutive size is
somewhat startling. It is a square building with high-pitched, tiled
roof; the upper story is half timbered, overhanging the lower of mingled
stone and brick. Ascending a steep, short flight of modern wooden
stairs, we enter the quaint Council Chamber--quaint in its tininess as
compared with the matters of import once enacted therein; it is little
more than thirty feet long by twenty-three broad, and is lighted by
three windows of lattice. The wall opposite to the entrance is
wainscoted, in the centre being the mayor’s seat, with those of the
jurats on either hand; and, above, the royal arms and those of the
Cinque Ports, with the legend below--“1660. Love and Honour the Truth”;
and we will trust that the mayor and jurats did so, for their powers
were great. Across the room runs a heavy black beam, on either end of
which stand two gaudy drums, once beaten by the heavy hands of the
pressgang; and in the centre the village cucking-stool, the use of which
is deemed no longer necessary. It is said--with what want of truth who
shall decide?--that a sort of cupboard high up in the wall, was used as
a drying loft for the unfortunate ladies after they had been immersed.
Women had more wrongs than rights in those forceful days. On the ground
floor is the lock-up, a chilly place, now a mere curiosity; once a very
stern reality to debtors, poachers and greater malefactors.
Turning back from the river, we proceed to the church, surrounded by a
grassy graveyard; there is not much to detain us here, the building
being chiefly interesting for its old-world air. There is the pew once
used by the mayor and another for the singers and players, who aforetime
sat aloft in the gallery beneath the tower; a Norman font and a fine
tomb, which possibly was that of the founder of the church. In the
woodwork of the gallery at the west end are two shelves, upon which were
placed the loaves of bread to be distributed on a Sunday to the poor,
under the bequest of Thomas Bigge.
We can return to Canterbury by another and more pleasant route than that
by which we came. Following the road uphill, past the pretty cottage
where we obtained the keys of the church, we turn to the right, so
gaining a cleanly field path. Before us rise low grassy knolls; behind
us, screened by trees, the spire of Fordwich church and the gables of
its houses and cottages; on our right hand the broad, flat valley of the
Stour, the Sturry Road marked by the straight line of trees. Bobbing up
and down goes the path, so that we scarcely note that we are gradually
ascending, until suddenly we find ourselves high up, looking down on the
outskirts of Canterbury; beneath us the trumpets ring out from the
barracks notes of modernity and echoes of old fighting days; before us
soars the tower of the Cathedral, shrouded--when we saw it--in mists
and wisps of falling rain; on our left the level ground where the
cavalry exercise. Along this track for sure, when in old days the valley
was a swamp, many a weary traveller has toiled from the coast unto the
old city; how their hearts must have leaped within them as they saw
rising there the Angel Steeple, perhaps bathed in the rays of the
setting sun, perchance veiled in sorrowful clouds. As did we, so must
they have passed on down the slope to St Martin’s Church, and so to the
city gate, now vanished. It is but a short walk this which we have
taken, short in the distance we traverse, but it takes us back to dim,
far gone ages; now the train, with its pennant of white, thunders along
the valley, where of old coracles have floated, and we return from our
visit to a village that may be called a mile-stone on the road of
history, to a great cathedral city, where Britons shivered in mud and
wicker hovels on the reedy islets of the Stour.
On a fresh and breezy morning, the sky washed clean by the rain and
flecked with thin white clouds, we walked out by the West Gate on our
way to Harbledown, by many held to be Chaucer’s “little town” which
“y-cleped is Bob-up-and-down, Under
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, ST MARTIN’S CHURCH TOWER, AND HARBLEDOWN
From the Priory Garden, Canterbury]
the Blee in Canterbury way.” Turning along the London Road to the left,
the road to Whitstable running right ahead, we soon found ourselves
leaving the main road by a small lane, the Canterbury end of the famous
Pilgrims’ Way from Winchester. How ancient this track may be no man
knows; but it was in existence long before pilgrimages were dreamed of,
before Christianity had come to the country, being utilised probably for
the conveyance of metals and merchandise from the west to the east. Soon
we have clambered through the mud to the summit of a little hill, from
which we gain a wide view of the surrounding country. Before us stands
out Bigberry Wood, with its ancient camp; turning to the left, on either
side the mill, whose sails are at rest, we see Canterbury spread out in
the broad valley, which to the eyes of the earliest wayfarers by this
route presented a desolate scene of marsh and woodland. Turning to our
right there are the hop fields, with gaunt bare poles; the red roofs of
Sidney Cooper’s home; and, farther round, Harbledown and the Hospital of
St Nicholas. We go on down the slippery descent, until we reach a
brawling stream, spanned by a small wooden bridge; keeping to our right,
through the hop field, we soon find a path clambering up toward the
hospital, and suddenly before us the stone archway covering the well
known by the name of the Black Prince. Primroses are peeping forth out
of the abundant winter foliage; but for some reason we cannot call up
much interest in this well, ancient though it be, perhaps because of the
falsity of the story that connects it with the Black Prince. A few yards
higher and we find ourselves behind the long, low building of the
hospital, and then we stand within what we may call the precincts. This
lazar house was founded by the busy Lanfranc, and the west door of the
church is Norman work. The interior of this edifice is well worth
visiting; there is about it--though restored--a savour of old-world days
and a pathos of suffering, as we think of the leprous men and women who
have worshipped here long days ago. The Norman carving on some of the
pillars is good, and the roof a fine example of the strength of old
work. In the chancel are some old seats, and some benches older still in
the body of the church. Old--how old! echoes through our mind as we
stand here, and again as we lay our hands on the ancient gnarled tree in
the churchyard; how old it all is, this church set high upon the hill,
overlooking a vast stretch of valleys and uplands. What sights has this
old tree looked down upon, what sounds heard--troops marching by to the
war, pilgrims marching by to the shrine of St Thomas (for we are looking
down on the road to London). How the coaches toiled up these hills a
century ago. And even as we listen, we hear the rush and trumpeting of a
motor-car.
The other buildings are of modern years; in the centre of the neat
dwelling-houses stands the hall, where various relics are preserved and
made into a raree-show, the only one that touched home to us being the
old collecting box, which was formerly hung up outside the gate so that
passers-by might drop in such coins as they cared to spare. Into this
box it is possible that Erasmus dropped his “consolation,” of which he
tells us in his description of his walk toward London with Colet, a
passage oft quoted but worth quoting again. “....those who journey to
London, not long after leaving Canterbury, find themselves in a road at
once very hollow and narrow, and moreover the banks on either side are
so steep and abrupt, that there is no possibility of escape; nor can the
journey be made by any other way. On the left hand of this road is a
hospital of a few old men, and as soon as they perceive any horsemen
approaching, one of them runs out, sprinkles him with holy water, and
presently offers the upper part of a shoe, bound with a brazen rim, and
set with a piece of glass resembling a jewel. People kiss this relic,
and give some small coin in acknowledgment.... As Cratian[7] rode on my
left hand, next to the hospital, he had his sprinkling of water; this he
put up with; but, when the shoe was held out, he asked the man what he
wanted. He said, that it was the shoe of St Thomas. On that my friend
was irritated, and turning to me he said, ‘What, do these brutes imagine
that we must kiss every good man’s shoe? Why, by the same rule, they
might offer his spittle to be kissed, or what else.’ For my part I
pitied the old man, and gave him a small piece of money by way of
consolation.... From such matters as cannot be at once corrected I am
accustomed to gather whatever good can be found in them.”[8]
The foundation consists of a Master, nine Brethren (one of whom is Prior
and another sub-Prior), seven Sisters, and various Pensioners.
We turn back as we go out of the picturesque gate and across the road to
the high footpath, and see that still the banks on either side are
steep and abrupt. We pass the parish church of St Mildred, and then,
descending the hill, there bursts upon us another grand view of
Canterbury, the Cathedral domineering over the city. “There are two vast
towers that seem to salute the visitor from afar, and make the
surrounding country far and wide resound with the wonderful booming of
their brazen bells,” so says Erasmus. The towers have changed since his
day, but to his eyesight as to ours the view must have been wonderfully
impressive; the more so in that as he stood there in this roadway, he
could realise as we never can what the sight of those towers meant to
the pilgrims who passed him by. He had been to that shrine, and his
broad mind, while contemplating some folly which he could not praise,
understood that beneath all this to which his companion so strongly
objected there lay much of good, and that a ruthless destruction of the
tares might prove disastrous also to the wheat.
We soon pass by the opening--or rather the close--of the Pilgrims’ Way,
and stopping at the sexton’s house in London Road, obtain his guidance
to the church of St Dunstan, where there is much to see of interest.
Immediately inside the western porch, a door admits us to the ancient
lepers’ chapel, now used as a vestry, where those outcast folk could
join in the worship of the congregation by using the squint, now blocked
up with a cupboard. Here is an ancient chest, once on a time used for
the collection of Peter’s Pence; and the table, a fine piece of cabinet
work, is the old sounding-board. At the east end of the church is the
Roper Chapel, in the vault beneath lying buried Margaret Roper and the
head of Sir Thomas More, her father. To this chapel pilgrims still come,
and another form of reverence has been paid to the “martyr” by the
offers more than once made to purchase this unpleasant relic. When the
vault was opened in 1879, during the restoration of the church, the head
was found to be in a state of perfect preservation.
On the opposite side of the roadway, a short distance farther on toward
the city, built into a brewery, is the red brick gateway of Roper
House--or Rooper, as it is spelled on the monument in the church--where
Margaret preserved the sad relic, which had first been exhibited on
London Bridge.
And so back again to Canterbury.
ENVOI
Back again to Canterbury, where it is to be hoped our leisure will
permit us to loiter, or which our good fortune may allow us to visit
again and yet again.
Canterbury sits between History and Romance, the chief city of one of
the most delightful and most interesting of English counties. Her
streets are thronged with memories, crowded with historic figures.
Romance and History mingle inextricably--Chaucer, Marlowe, Dickens;
Augustine, Becket, Cranmer. In these pages an endeavour has been made to
depict Canterbury and some of the surrounding country not with the pen
of the historian or of the archæologist, but to set forth rather the
personal impressions of a lover of old times, old ways and old books.
Christ Church Cathedral is to him no mere record in cold stone of a dead
past, but a living memorial of a living past. It is meant to be a book
for those who share with the writer his delight in calling up to the
mind’s eye ghosts of men and women dead and gone.
At first, as has been said, Canterbury strikes disappointingly on those
who go thither thinking to step back straightway from the present into
the past. But gradually and surely the past overpowers the present as we
linger in its narrow streets and loiter in its ancient buildings. It is
no city of the dead. The life of to-day throbs in its veins; but its
to-day is dull, dim and uneventful compared with its stirring,
many-coloured past.
These pages have touched upon many matters concerning which many volumes
have been, and will be, written; but no attempt has been made at
completeness. This book is not a guide, but rather aims at being a
sign-post--pointing to the past. For many years yet pilgrims will come
to Canterbury, and if this little work helps any of them to see and to
hear there what has been so vivid and so clear to the writer of it, the
object with which it is set forth will have been gained.
INDEX
The Illustrations are printed in italics.
PAGE
Aldhelm, Abbot, 100
Aldon, Thomas of, 29
Alford, Dean, 19, 37
Alfroin, 11
Alphege, 9
Angel Tower, 1
Anselm, 12
Arthur, Catherine, 90
Arundel, 43
Arundel, Archbishop, 17
Athol, Countess of, 40
Augustine, 97
Austin Canons’ priory of St Gregory, 68
Auxerre, Henry of, 47
Baptistry, 45
Barton, Elizabeth, 80
Beale, Henry, 94
Beaufort, John, 38
Becket’s Murder, 46
Bell Harry Tower, 1
Bertha, 97
Bigberry Wood, 111
Bigge, Thomas, 109
Bocking, 86
Boehm, Sir Edgar, 37
Bourchier, Archbishop, 32
Boys, Sir John, 22
Bregwin, Archbishop, 100
Bret, 49
Broc, Robert de, 46
Butterfield, Mr, 101
Canterbury College, Oxford, 68
Canterbury Pilgrims, 54
Canterbury, St Thomas of, 51
_Canterbury Weavers, The_, _92_
Canute, 99
Cathedral, The--
_Baptistry, The_, _46_
_Chapel of “Our Lady” in the Undercroft, The_, _18_
_Christ Church Gate_, _4_
_Edward the Black Prince’s Tomb_, _38_
_Infirmary, The Ruins of_, _44_
_Nave, The_, _22_
_North Side, The_, _Frontispiece_
_St Martin’s Church Tower and Harbledown_, _110_
_Warrior’s Chapel, The_, _38_
_West Towers and South-West Entrance, The_, _42_
Exterior of, 41
Interior of, 18
The Story of, 7
Catherine, 84
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 54
“Chequers of the Hope”, 56
Chichele, Archbishop, 31
Chichele Tower, 43
Chillenden, Prior, 17, 18, 20, 38, 45
Christ Church, 8
Gateway, 4
Priory of, 57
Colet, 113
Coligny, Odo, 34
Conrad, 12
Cooper, Sidney, 111
Courtenay, Archbishop, 34
Cranmer, 84
Dark Entry, 44
Denys of Burgundy, 71
Dunster, Lady Mohun of, 40
Durham, Rites of, 72
East Bridge Hospital, 94
Edmer, 10
Edward III., 30
Edward the Black Prince, 32, 33
Elizabeth, 90
Emperor Charles V., 53
Envoi, 117
Erasmus, 19, 64, 113
Ernulf, 12, 35, 36, 39
Estria, Prior Henry de, 25
Ethelbert, King, 97
First View of Canterbury, 1
Fitzstephen, William, 47
Fordwich, 106
Gasquet, Abbot, 72
Gerard, 71
Gervase, 12, 26
Gibbons, Orlando, 22
Goldstone, Prior, 39, 42
Grandison, Bishop of Exeter, 36
Green Court, 45
_Greyfriars’ House, The_, _64_
Grim Edward, 46
Guest House Hostry, The, 72
Hadley, 86
Harbledown, 110
Hasted, 63, 78
Henry IV., 34
Henry V., 31, 52
Henry VIII., 25, 35, 44, 52
Holland, Lady Margaret, 38
Holy Maid of Kent, 80
“Hope, Chequers of the”, 56
Hope, Mr A. J. Beresford, 101
Hospital, East Bridge, 94
St John’s, 94
Howley, William, 31
“Inglesant, John”, 74
Ingworth, Richard, 93
Kemp, Cardinal, 31
Kent, Holy Maid of, 80
King’s School, 45
Lanfranc, 10, 43, 104
Langton, Archbishop Stephen, 38
Lavatory Tower, 45
Lawrence, 99
Lindhard, 97
Louis VII., 51
Magdalen College, Oxford, 70
Marlowe, Christopher, 4, 90
John, 90
_Martyrdom, The_, _50_
_Doorway from Cloisters into Westgate Towers_, _70_, _88_
Masters, 86
Maynard, John, 106
Mepham, Archbishop Simon de, 36
Molash, Prior, 42
Montreuil, Madame de, 62
More, Sir Thomas, 116
Morton, Cardinal, 40
Navarre, Joan of, 34
_Norman Staircase, King’s School, Canterbury_, 48
Odo, Archbishop, 8
Oxford Tower, 43
Peckham, Archbishop, 39
Peter II., 32
Peter’s Pence, 116
Pole, Cardinal Archbishop, 35
Prince Consort, 32
Priory of Christ Church, 57
Queen Mary, 35
Queen Victoria, 32
Religious, The, 66
Richard Cœur de Lion, 52
Roger, 99
Roper, Margaret, 116
Roundabout, A Canterbury, 104