On this day of celebration of the (thwarted) attempt to blow up Parliament, I present to you Canterbury and other tales of English plotting. With my sister visiting, weekdays became tourist days again and we took a day trip to this medieval city (while poor Tom worked...).
Canterbury is inextricably linked to (hi)stories of various insecure King Henrys murdering various righteous Saint Thomases. The city was established much earlier than these kings and saints by the Romans in the 3rd century, and Roman St. Augustine arrived 400-years later to convert the pagans and found Canterbury Cathedral.
Cathedrals are unceasingly amazing in the way they contain space and the sheer amount of space they contain. With this being my reaction in the modern world, imagine a 12th-century pilgrim arriving in this space... As always, my favourite place is the cloister. I can’t help but think the world would be a much less stressful place if only everyone had access to one.
Today, of course, Canterbury Cathedral is the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion and home to the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, when I naively asked the audio-guide clerk if the Archbishop might be in, she told me that he resides in more-happening London and only comes on special occasions. An Archbishop more in evidence was Thomas Becket.
Thomas Becket was murdered in the northwest transept of the Cathedral in 1170. A floor stone bearing his name and contemporary, macabre swords pointed out the location of his gruesome demise. Four knights of King Henry II apparently mistook the king’s venting over Becket’s defiance as a direct order to kill the archbishop. His canonization occurred three years later after countless miracles attributed to his blood (including bringing people back from the dead!). Similarly countless pilgrims made their way to Canterbury to visit his shrine and their treks became the context of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
The location of Saint Thomas’ shrine is now marked only by a lit candle and the path of stones worn down by pilgrims. It was destroyed / looted by Henry VIII in 1538 to end the pilgrimages and assert the unquestionable authority of the monarchy. Remember this Henry for later, too.
Enclosing the Cathedral and the Old Town are the remains of the city walls and their Roman, Norman and medieval elements. The Old Town is a mostly walking tour kind of place and we visited on a steady-rain kind of day. Nevertheless, we persevered, wet and somehow still enjoying ourselves, along the City Wall Trail. We wound our way down narrow streets and past time-warped, crooked houses, and read historical anecdotes from our increasingly moist guidebook. Despite the rain, the town was picturesque in fall colours. A wonderful find was the Greyfriars humble refectory spanning the ironically tiny Great Stour River. The rain did, however, lead to a photo shortage as my camera stayed buried under my jacket most of the day.
We took a side-trip outside the city walls to visit 1000-year old St. Dunstan’s Church. This church purportedly houses Saint Thomas More’s head in a vault beneath the floor. A few years before destroying the first Saint Thomas’ shrine, King Henry VIII beheaded his trusted advisor, Thomas More, for refusing to recognize him as head of the Church of England. More’s severed head adorned a pike along London Bridge for a month and then was thought to have been retrieved by his foster daughter and buried in her vault here.
Rainy twilight in the cemetery of the oldest church in England is not the ideal weather, time nor location for an overactive imagination, but that is where I found myself, amidst the gravestones, wondering where my sister was. I thought she was right behind me and she, apparently, didn’t know where I went... I suddenly had twigs in broken tombs morphing into skeletal hands... We managed to find each other and even bravely set about looking for some grave marker indications of St. Martin’s 6th-century origins.
The rain stopped in time for us to catch the train back to London.
Suz has since returned home and I am slowly sifting through the 1500+ photos from our Italy trip. The Fates compensated our one day of rain in Canterbury with seven sunny, beautiful days in Italy. That post will have to wait until we get back from Landscheid-Neiderkail (near Frankfurt) – this weekend we’re visiting my old roommate from Korea who’s living there now.
Canterbury is inextricably linked to (hi)stories of various insecure King Henrys murdering various righteous Saint Thomases. The city was established much earlier than these kings and saints by the Romans in the 3rd century, and Roman St. Augustine arrived 400-years later to convert the pagans and found Canterbury Cathedral.
Cathedrals are unceasingly amazing in the way they contain space and the sheer amount of space they contain. With this being my reaction in the modern world, imagine a 12th-century pilgrim arriving in this space... As always, my favourite place is the cloister. I can’t help but think the world would be a much less stressful place if only everyone had access to one.
Today, of course, Canterbury Cathedral is the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion and home to the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, when I naively asked the audio-guide clerk if the Archbishop might be in, she told me that he resides in more-happening London and only comes on special occasions. An Archbishop more in evidence was Thomas Becket.
Thomas Becket was murdered in the northwest transept of the Cathedral in 1170. A floor stone bearing his name and contemporary, macabre swords pointed out the location of his gruesome demise. Four knights of King Henry II apparently mistook the king’s venting over Becket’s defiance as a direct order to kill the archbishop. His canonization occurred three years later after countless miracles attributed to his blood (including bringing people back from the dead!). Similarly countless pilgrims made their way to Canterbury to visit his shrine and their treks became the context of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
The location of Saint Thomas’ shrine is now marked only by a lit candle and the path of stones worn down by pilgrims. It was destroyed / looted by Henry VIII in 1538 to end the pilgrimages and assert the unquestionable authority of the monarchy. Remember this Henry for later, too.
Enclosing the Cathedral and the Old Town are the remains of the city walls and their Roman, Norman and medieval elements. The Old Town is a mostly walking tour kind of place and we visited on a steady-rain kind of day. Nevertheless, we persevered, wet and somehow still enjoying ourselves, along the City Wall Trail. We wound our way down narrow streets and past time-warped, crooked houses, and read historical anecdotes from our increasingly moist guidebook. Despite the rain, the town was picturesque in fall colours. A wonderful find was the Greyfriars humble refectory spanning the ironically tiny Great Stour River. The rain did, however, lead to a photo shortage as my camera stayed buried under my jacket most of the day.
We took a side-trip outside the city walls to visit 1000-year old St. Dunstan’s Church. This church purportedly houses Saint Thomas More’s head in a vault beneath the floor. A few years before destroying the first Saint Thomas’ shrine, King Henry VIII beheaded his trusted advisor, Thomas More, for refusing to recognize him as head of the Church of England. More’s severed head adorned a pike along London Bridge for a month and then was thought to have been retrieved by his foster daughter and buried in her vault here.
Rainy twilight in the cemetery of the oldest church in England is not the ideal weather, time nor location for an overactive imagination, but that is where I found myself, amidst the gravestones, wondering where my sister was. I thought she was right behind me and she, apparently, didn’t know where I went... I suddenly had twigs in broken tombs morphing into skeletal hands... We managed to find each other and even bravely set about looking for some grave marker indications of St. Martin’s 6th-century origins.
The rain stopped in time for us to catch the train back to London.
Suz has since returned home and I am slowly sifting through the 1500+ photos from our Italy trip. The Fates compensated our one day of rain in Canterbury with seven sunny, beautiful days in Italy. That post will have to wait until we get back from Landscheid-Neiderkail (near Frankfurt) – this weekend we’re visiting my old roommate from Korea who’s living there now.
Postscript: The TV Licensing Enforcement Division finally came by yesterday for their surprise inspection. He stepped one foot in the door, barely glanced around and removed us from their hit list!
And, cheers again to Guy Fawkes for the brilliant and deafening light show out my window - it’s been a week of amateur, back-garden firework displays culminating in tonight’s extravaganza.
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