CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF THE CHURCH
Before coming to the more immediate history of St. Martin's Church, we must say a few words about the Roman occupation of Canterbury, and the events preceding the landing of St. Augustine.
The city is mentioned in the second "iter" of Antonine's Itinerary, under its ancient name of Durovernum or Duroverno, a word supposed to be compounded of dour, "water," and vern, which has been variously interpreted to mean "temple," "marshes," or "alders."
Its position is described as fifty-two miles distant from London, fourteen from Dover, sixteen from Lympne, and twelve from Richborough; and the road from London to each of these last-named places divided itself at this point into three, crossing the ford of the River Stour, so that it would be a natural station for troops on the march.
The Egyptian geographer, Ptolemy, apparently writing about the middle of the second century, gives Durĕnum as one of the three cities of the Cantii; while in the fragmentary map known as the Tabula Peutingerii (called so from Conrad Peutinger, in whose library it was found, and supposed to have been compiled about the time of the Emperor Theodosius the younger) it is put down as "Buroaverus," evidently a corruption of copyists, with the conventional mark usually attached to a city or fortress of considerable size.
Horsley, in his Britannia Romana, suggests that Canterbury was the fortress taken by the seventh legion after Julius Cæsar's second landing; but this is purely conjectural, and founded on the mistaken belief that Cæsar landed at Richborough. Even though the fact is not directly mentioned in the "Notitia Imperii" (enumerating the garrisons of the Empire), it is far from impossible that at some period or other during the first four centuries there were some Roman soldiers quartered for a considerable time at Canterbury. If not wholly or partially surrounded by walls (which is more than probable), the city was at any rate defended by earthworks, and we have evidences of a fortified position held by the Romans immediately above the Whitehall marshes, north-west of the city; and of a stronghold or fort of masonry on the so-called Scotland Hills overlooking the Reed Pond.
Whether much stress be laid on this or not, one fact is absolutely certain, that the extensive Roman foundations discovered by Mr Pilbrow while constructing the deep-drainage system of the city in 1868, the number of Roman tesselated pavements, coins, and other relics found at various periods, and the traces of Roman cemeteries, abundantly prove that Durovernum developed at length into a large and populous place.