The next great undertaking was the destruction of Lanfranc’s nave in 1378. The Norman’s work seems to have fallen into desperate disrepair. Archbishop Sudbury appealing for public help, “issued a mandate addressed to all ecclesiastical persons in his diocese enjoining them to solicit subscriptions for rebuilding the nave of the church, ‘propter ipsius notoriam et evidentem ruinam,’” and promising forty days’ indulgence to all who subscribed. Nowadays we should hold a bazaar. The works were not completed until 1411, under Archbishop Arundel, who contributed a thousand marks and the five bells known as the Arundell ryng. But it was not the archbishops in person but Prior Chillenden who actually carried out the rebuilding, becoming Prior in 1390 and dying in the same year that his task was completed. Practically nothing of Lanfranc’s nave remains; it was pulled down wholesale, and the existing nave, transepts, and portions of Bell Harry raised.
With the building of the towers it is better to deal when we come to walk round the exterior of the church.
So it will be seen, and more clearly understood as we wander round the interior, that Canterbury Cathedral sets before us the history of English ecclesiastical architecture. From Norman down to late Decorated, all styles are exemplified here, often most beautifully. From these historic stones echo back not only the voices of the great dead—warriors, kings and priests—but the noise of chisel and hammer and axe wielded by pious hands of those who in their humble sphere lived to the glory of God and of His Church.
The Interior
The best way to obtain a fair view of the beautiful proportions of the nave and of the most striking picture of the interior of the church, is to enter by the south-west door or porch. Here in Saxon days courts of law were held, cases being tried which could not be referred to other courts. Prior Chillenden about 1400 built the
