Opposite to St. Anselm’s, St. Andrew’s Chapel, now used as the Choir Vestry, contains interesting remains of coloured decorations. In olden days St. Andrew’s was a sacristy, where, as we have seen, were kept the very precious offerings to the Shrine. On the inner side is a building of late Norman work—this was originally the Treasury.
The North-east Transept is a repetition of the South-east Transept. It, however, contains a monument to Archbishop Tait, designed by Boehm; and in the north wall are three slits called hagiscopes. Through these “holy spy holes,” the Prior could see Mass being celebrated at the High Altar and in the altars in the Chapels of St. Martin and St. Stephen in the Transept below.
Before descending into the Crypt we must stop to look at St. Augustine’s Chair, by tradition the throne on which the kings of Kent were crowned and given by Ethelbert to St. Augustine. All the Archbishops of Canterbury have taken office in it.
“This chair, which is sometimes called the chair of St. Augustine, but which belongs to the Thirteenth Century, is composed of Purbeck marble. In it each successive archbishop for the last six hundred years has sat when he has been admitted to his metropolitan functions.”—(W. H. F.)
The famous Crypt is usually entered from the South Transept. It is the oldest part of the Church, having been built between 1093 and 1107 in the reigns of William II. and Henry I. It is heavy, massive, dark and low, like all Norman work. The capitals of the pillars are quaintly and sometimes harmoniously carved; one under St. Anselm’s Chapel, for instance, represents a concert of beasts playing on musical instruments. The whole crypt was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and in the centre stood her altar and chapel. “The Virgin Mother,” Erasmus wrote, “has there an habitation, but somewhat dark, enclosed with a double iron rail, for fear of thieves; for indeed I never saw anything more loaded with riches. Lights being brought we saw a more than royal spectacle. This chapel is not shown but to noblemen and particular friends.”
The beautiful Screen, which resembles the screen behind the High Altar of the choir, is thought to have been added with other decorations of the Crypt at the time of the Black Prince’s marriage to the Fair Maid of Kent (1363), when he founded two chantries in the Crypt. These now form the entrance to the French Church, where the descendants of the Huguenot and Walloon refugees still hold service in the ritual of their ancestors.
Queen Elizabeth gave up the whole of the Crypt in 1561 to the Flemish and French refugees “whom the rod of Alva bruised.” The silk-weavers set up their looms here.
Before the magnificent shrine of the Virgin lies Henry VII.’s minister, Cardinal Morton, whose tomb is enriched with the crown and roses of York and Lancaster, the Cardinal’s hat, the Tudor portcullis and a passing allusion to his name—Mort (hawk) and Ton or Tun (a barrel). He assisted in building Bell Harry (or the Angel) Tower.
Another famous tomb in the Crypt is that of Isabel, Countess of Atholl, granddaughter of King John and sister-in-law of John Balliol, King of Scotland. She owned the castle of Chilham near Canterbury and died in 1292. Her tomb stands at the entrance to the Chapel of St. Gabriel. The latter is extremely dark, but shows, when lighted up, some remarkable frescoes of the Twelfth Century, representing the Nativity of Christ and of John the Baptist.
“Further beyond the Duchess of Atholl’s tomb the crypt is much loftier and becomes almost a church in itself. This is the part beyond the apse of the original Cathedral, the place of Becket’s first burial, where Henry II. did penance, passing the night in fasting and in the morning baring his back and receiving three lashes from each of the monks. Here the miracles began to be wrought and the Tumba, even after its contents were removed, was still reckoned a holy place. The present lofty crypt was built over and round the Tumba after the great fire of 1174; and, some forty years after its completion and that of the Trinity Chapel above it, the remains of Becket were translated by Stephen Langton, with great pomp, to the shrine prepared for them in the sanctuary above.”—(W. H. F.)