Special features: Becket’s Crown; Door of Chapter-House; West Doorway; Crypt.
Canterbury Cathedral presents a beautiful effect when seen from a distance, keeping watch over the city that lies in the valley of the Stour, girdled by hills. On one of these hills stands the village of Harbledown, the “Bob Up and Down,” where Chaucer’s Pilgrims halted, and from which a charming view of the ancient Cathedral is to be enjoyed.
Another fine prospect is gained from St. Martin’s:
“Let any one sit on the hill of the little church of St. Martin, and look on the view which is there spread before his eyes. Immediately below are the towers of the great Abbey of St. Augustine, where Christian learning and civilisation first struck root in the Anglo-Saxon race; and within which now, after a lapse of many centuries, a new institution has arisen, intended to carry far and wide to countries of which Gregory and Augustine never heard, the blessings which they gave to us. Carry your view on,—and there rises high above all the magnificent pile of our Cathedral equal in splendour and state to any, the noblest temple or church, that Augustine could have seen in ancient Rome, rising on the very ground which derives its consecration from him. And still more than the grandeur of the outward buildings that rose from the little church of St. Augustine, and the little palace of Ethelbert, have been the institutions of all kinds, of which these are the earliest cradle. From Canterbury, the first English Christian city—from Kent, the first English Christian kingdom—has, by degrees, arisen the whole constitution of Church and State in England, which now binds together the whole British Empire.”—(A. P. S.)
This great Cathedral stands on the site of the primitive Roman, or British, Church, attributed to King Lucius and granted by Ethelbert, King of Kent, to St. Augustine (who had converted him in 597). It is, therefore, the earliest monument of the English union of Church and State, and the cradle of English Christianity. Pope Gregory had intended to fix the Primacy in London and York alternately; but the sentiment of St. Augustine’s landing in Kent prevailed; and, therefore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the See of which was founded in 597, is still Primate of England. He crowns the King and ranks next to royalty.
The first Cathedral was injured by the Danes in 1011 and it was burned down during the Norman Conquest in 1067. Lanfranc, the first Archbishop after the Conquest (1070-1089), reconstructed both church and monastery from their foundations. Anselm (1093-1109), took down the eastern part of the church and reërected it with far greater magnificence. Ernulf, Prior of the monastery, was responsible for the architecture; but the chancel being finished by his successor, Prior Conrad, and beautifully decorated, became known as the “glorious Choir of Conrad.” Canterbury Cathedral was dedicated by Archbishop William in 1130. Henry I., King of England, David, King of Scotland, and all the Bishops of England were present at what Gervase calls “the most famous dedication that had ever been heard of on the earth since that of the temple of Solomon.” In 1170, Thomas à Becket was murdered here, having fled for protection to the church after a violent scene in his chamber with Henry’s knights. Becket was buried at the east end of the Crypt and remained there forty-six years.
“Most men were persuaded that a new burst of miraculous powers, such as had been suspended for many generations, had broken out at the tomb; and the contemporary monk, Benedict, fills a volume with extraordinary cures, wrought within a very few years after the ‘Martyrdom.’ Far and wide the fame of ‘St. Thomas of Canterbury’ spread. The very name of Christ Church, or of the Holy Trinity, by which the Cathedral was properly designated, was in popular usage merged in that of The Church of St. Thomas. For the few years immediately succeeding his death there was no regular shrine. The popular enthusiasm still clung to the two spots immediately connected with the murder. The Transept in which he died, within five years from that time acquired the name by which it has ever since been known, ‘The Martyrdom.’ The flagstone on which his skull was fractured and the solid corner of the masonry in front of which he fell, are probably the only parts which remain unchanged. But against that corner may still be seen the marks of the space occupied by a wooden altar, which continued in its original simplicity through all the subsequent magnificence of the church till the time of the Reformation. It was probably the identical memorial erected in the first haste of enthusiasm after the reopening of the Cathedral for worship in 1172. It was called the Altar of the Martyrdom or more commonly the Altar of the Sword’s Point (Altare ad Punctum Ensis) from the circumstance that in a wooden shed placed upon it was preserved the fragment of Le Bret’s sword, which had been left on the pavement after accomplishing its bloody work. Under a piece of rock crystal surmounting the chest, was kept a portion of the brains. To this altar a regular keeper was appointed from among the monks, under the name of ‘Custos Martyrii.’ In the first frenzy of desire for relics of St. Thomas, even this guarantee was inadequate.
“Next to the actual scene of the murder, the object which this event invested with especial sanctity was the tomb in which his remains were deposited in the Crypt behind the Altar of the Virgin. It was to this spot that the first great rush of pilgrims was made when the church was reopened in 1172, and it was here that Henry performed his penance. Hither on the 21st of August, 1179, came the first King of France who ever set foot on the shores of England, Louis VII., warned by St. Thomas in dreams, and, afterwards, as he believed, receiving his son back from a dangerous illness through the Saint’s intercession. He knelt by the tomb and offered upon it the celebrated jewel,[2] as also his own rich cup of gold.”—(A. P. S.)
In 1174 a fire destroyed “Conrad’s Glorious Choir.” Rebuilding was immediately begun under a French architect, William of Sens, who fell from a scaffolding and had to relinquish the work to another William, who completed the Choir and eastern buildings in 1184.
Everything was now in readiness for the removal of the Martyr’s remains. Stephen Langton gave two years’ notice of the intended “Translation”; and a marvellous assemblage gathered from all parts of Europe on July 7, 1220. The Archbishop opened the tomb the night before the coffin was carried to the Shrine above in Trinity Chapel, and the “Vigil of the Translation,” July 6, was kept in the English church until 1537. The great procession to the Shrine was led by Henry III., then aged thirteen. Pilgrims came to the new Shrine, as they had done to the one below, in thousands. Seven great “jubilees” were held before 1530.