Peeps at Many Lands: England

by John Finnemore

The cathedral cities of England are among the chief glories of our land, and the charm of these ancient places is only felt to the full when the splendid church dominates absolutely over the city clustered around it. A cathedral in a place which has swelled to a big modern town may be interesting, but it lacks the appropriate setting: it should stand in the midst of a small, old city, whose streets are narrow and winding; whose houses are gabled, lattice-paned, and with overhanging storeys; whose medieval walls may still be traced, and the mouldering keep of whose ruined castle may still be climbed.

First of all English cathedral cities stands Canterbury, with its splendid church, raised upon the spot where first Christianity flourished in Britain. Kent was the cradle of the English race in England, and to Kent came St. Augustine, preaching the Christian faith to Ethelbert, Saxon king, who listened and believed.

There was already a ruined church, it is believed, in Canterbury—a church built by Roman or British Christians—and this was restored and reconsecrated by the missionary bishop. In time this church grew into a great cathedral, but in 1011 the Danes attacked the city, plundered, slaughtered, and burned and destroyed the place. Again and again fire wrought much harm, until in 1174 the cathedral suffered utter ruin by a tremendous outbreak, and was reduced to ashes. But without delay the builders set to work, and the present glorious edifice began to rise from the ruins of the destroyed building. More than 200 years passed before the great church was completed by the building of the magnificent central tower, the famous Bell Harry Tower.

"As we stand upon the summit of Bell Harry Tower—more happily called the Angel Steeple—of Canterbury Cathedral, looking down upon city and countryside, much of the history of England lies spread beneath our feet: the Britons were at work here before the Romans came marching with their stolid legions; here to Ethelbert St. Augustine preached the Gospel of Christ; in the church below, Becket was murdered and the Black Prince buried; to this city, to the shrine of St. Thomas, came innumerable pilgrims, one of them our first great English poet.... Away to the east and south are the narrow seas, crossed by conquering Romans and Normans, crossed for centuries by a constant stream of travellers from all ends of the earth, citizens of every clime, to some of whom the sight of the English coast was the first glimpse of home, to others the first view of a strange land; away to the north and west are the Medway and the Thames, Rochester and London. From no other tower, perhaps, can so wide a bird's-eye view of our history be obtained; Canterbury is so situated that ever since England has been, and as long as England shall be, this city has been and will be a centre of the nation's life."

Round the cathedral lies its close, and a cathedral close is one of the quietest, quaintest, pleasantest places in the world. Clustered in shadow of the great building lie the houses of the clergy who serve in the cathedral—the bishop, the dean, the canons—and their dwellings are fenced off from the streets without, and kept private from all noise and traffic. The cathedral close is entered by a low grey gateway in an ancient wall, and within we find quaint old houses with oriel and bay windows, each kept in the trimmest order, with its neatly-railed grass plot in front, and its garden behind, where peaches and nectarines ripen on sunny walls.

From this haunt of ancient peace we will go into the great building and visit the Martyrdom, the place where stood the shrine of Thomas Becket, St. Thomas of Canterbury, whom the four knights of Henry II. slew in 1170.

For hundreds of years the people of England looked upon Becket as a martyr and a saint, and went on pilgrimage to visit his tomb. One company of pilgrims lives for ever in the verse of Geoffrey Chaucer, the great fourteenth-century poet; they ride from London to Canterbury in a right merry fellowship, and tell tales to pass the time on the way—the ever-famous "Canterbury Pilgrims." But throngs without number of wayfarers who have found no such splendid chronicler marched to the city where the bones of the martyr lay under Bell Harry Tower, and their offerings made the shrine glorious with gold and gems.

A Venetian who saw the shrine about the year 1500 says: "The tomb of St. Thomas the Martyr, Archbishop of Canterbury, exceeds all belief. Notwithstanding its great size, it is wholly covered with plates of pure gold; yet the gold is scarcely seen because it is covered with various precious stones, as sapphires, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds; and wherever the eye turns something more beautiful than the rest is observed."