Cantuaria.
("Doomsday Book.")
Of all Cathedral cities, Canterbury, or, as it is also called, Christ
Church, may possibly be considered the most interesting. Though not the
first to spread Christianity in Britain, it nevertheless firmly
established it in the end. The earliest authentic evidence of Christians
in England is mentioned by Tertullian, in 208. And again, in 304, St.
Alban had been martyred during Diocletian's persecution at Verulam, now
known as St. Alban's. Then, in 314, Christianity had attained such a
position in Britain that it had been considered necessary for the
Bishops of York and London to attend at the Council of Arles, in France.
So that by the end of the third century to the beginning of the fourth,
it is known that there existed bishops, though not till the close of the
fourth century was there a "settled Church" in Britain, with churches,
altars, Scriptures, and discipline.
These expounded the Catholic Faith, and were in touch with Rome and
Palestine. But the arrival of Augustine, in 600, decidedly gave an
impetus to the lasting establishment of Christianity in England, and the
whole island quickly became converted.
Though Christianity had long flourished in Rome, it could hardly, in its
early stages, be expected to make itself greatly felt in Britain, owing
to the continual troublous times caused by the invasions first by the
Roman soldiery, then by the Scots and Picts from Caledonia (now called
Scotland), and the Saxons, who came from the river Elbe, and the Angles,
who dwelt to the north of the Saxons, in the districts now called
Schleswig and Holstein. Then the Danes and Northmen landed in England in
787, and practically overran the whole kingdom. All these tribes, each
in its turn, devastated the country, pillaging and destroying
everything, so that there is little to marvel at the slow growth of
Christianity in the island, seeing that the clergy were the first to
suffer. Augustine may be said to have certainly revived Christianity and
rescued the Church from utter oblivion, but it was left till the Norman
Conquest to erect the wonderful architectural structures, many of which
exist till this day.
[Illustration: CANTERBURY