Canute, after his usurpation of the throne, rebuilt a great part of the
city and restored the Cathedral; and the monks were not forgotten, in
that the revenue of the port of Sandwich was made over to them for their
support. These benefits greatly helped the city to attain great
importance, and in Doomsday Book it is entered under the title of
"Civitas Cantuariae."
In 1080 the Cathedral was burnt down, only to be restored with greater
splendour, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity, by Archbishop Lanfranc,
who rebuilt the monastic edifice, erected the Archbishop's palace,
founded and endowed a priory dedicated to St. Gregory, and built the
hospitals of St. John and St. Nicholas.
In 1161 the city became almost extinct through fire, and at several
subsequent periods it suffered severely from the same cause.
In 1170 the great event which stirred the kingdom, and which
conveniently marks the starting-point of the disastrous half of Henry
II.'s reign, was the great means of replenishing the treasury of the
Cathedral. In that year Becket was murdered as he was ascending the
steps leading from the nave into the choir. His name was subsequently
canonised. His shrine was visited from far and near by every rank of
pilgrim, who seldom left without depositing first some substantial token
of their reverence for the saint. Four years after the murder popular
feeling was as great as ever, so that it was probably to propitiate the
people, as much as to ask for Divine intercession in his troublous
affairs, that Henry II. performed a pilgrimage to the shrine and
submitted himself to be scourged by the monks.
Another source of great importance to the Cathedral was the institution
of the Jubilee by the Pope. It commemorated every fifty years the death
of Becket, and till the last one, celebrated in 1520, attracted an
immense number of pilgrims, who gave a great impetus to trade in the
city. The number and richness of their offerings were incredible.
The dissolution of the priory of Christ Church was gradually effected;
the festivals in honour of the martyr were one by one abolished; his
shrine was stripped of its gorgeous ornaments, and the bones of the
saint were burnt to ashes and scattered to the winds.
A part of the monastery of St. Augustine was converted into a royal
palace by Henry VIII. In this palace Queen Elizabeth held her court for
a short time. During her reign there was an influx of Walloons, who,
persecuted for their religious tenets, had fled from the Netherlands and
settled in Canterbury.
They introduced the weaving of silk and stuffs. To them Queen Elizabeth
allotted the crypt under the Cathedral as their place of worship, where
the service is still performed in French to their descendants.
In this Cathedral was solemnised the marriage of Charles I. with
Henrietta Maria of France, in 1625. During the war between Charles I.
and Cromwell the Cathedral was wantonly mutilated and defaced by the
followers of Cromwell, who converted the sacred edifice into stables for
his horses. At the Restoration, Charles II., on his return from France,
held his court in the royal palace at Canterbury for three days. This
monarch, in 1676, granted a charter of incorporation to the refugee
silk-weavers settled in the city. These refugees, a few years after,
were considerably increased by French artisans, who came over consequent
on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.
To those admirers of form and beauty the wonderful architecture of the
present Cathedral must satisfy their every craving. To students the
study of this colossal building must be a work of love, encouragement,
and continued interest. Rebuilt soon after the Conquest by Archbishop
Lanfranc, and worthily enlarged and enriched by his several successors,
the Cathedral is a crowning work of grandeur and magnificence,
exhibiting, in its highest perfection, every specimen of architecture,
from the earliest Norman to the latest English. In form it is that of a
double cross. Where the nave and the western transepts intersect, there
springs up a lofty and elegant tower in the Later English style, with a
spired parapet and pinnacles, with octagonal turrets at the angles,
terminating in minarets. In the west end are two massive towers, of
which the north-west is Norman, and the south-west is similar in
character, though embattled, and little inferior to the central tower.
Perhaps the most noteworthy portions of this Cathedral, though it is
hardly possible to make a distinction, are the Chapel of Henry IV., with
its beautiful fan tracery depending from the roof; the small but
beautiful Lady Chapel, which is separated from the eastern side of the
transept by the interposition of a finely carved stone screen; and in
that part of the Cathedral, called Becket's Crown, is the Chapel of the
Holy Trinity, famous as the site of the gorgeous Shrine of St. Thomas a
Becket. In "Becket's Crown" a softened light steals through the painted
window. The interest in this window lies in the fact that most of the
glass shown is ancient, and it is the fifth of the twelve windows in
the Trinity Chapel which suffered severely at the hands of the Puritans
in 1642.
[Illustration: CANTERBURY