W. Teignmouth Shore

“ It is to the Cathedral that most men, when set down here, first turn their steps; and rightly so. We must not refuse to listen to the voices of its stones, must not look upon them as dull, dead, dumb things; to those who are ready to hear they will always a tale unfold—of beliefs gone beyond recall, of the men whose untiring patience and skill raised for us this splendid monument of the past, of saints and of sinners, of victors and of vanquished. ”

“ 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.
At first entrance to it, Canterbury does not impress with its antiquity; there are, indeed, the ancient Cathedral, ancient gates and ancient houses. But as the sights of the city grow familiar, as its atmosphere enters into our souls, as its story becomes known, gradually and surely we realise that most of what we see now is but youthful compared with the great age of the place ”

“ But it is not history—not the story of dead events—that chiefly fascinates us in Canterbury, or, indeed, in any such city; it is the lives of the men who made that history, who took part in those events. Here, as we walk the streets, we think of Augustine, of Thomas, of the Black Prince, of many another; and of many great men of letters—Chaucer, Erasmus, Marlowe, Thackeray, Dickens, Stanley: the first painting for us the Canterbury of his own days, the last that of past times. ”

“ Indeed, Canterbury is a city of great memories.
Augustine was, of course, the monastery’s chief treasure, and next came the body of St Mildred which was given to the house by Canute. It must never be forgotten by those who would look at things mediæval with mediæval eyes, that in those days the dead were more powerful than the living; even kings humbled themselves before the bones of dead saints. ”

“ FIRST VIEW 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, Saxon King of Kent, 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 ”

“ The monastery, as the years went by, grew more powerful, more rich, more proud, achieving much work of splendid usefulness, some of no use at all. And then came Henry VIII. The buildings inside the monastery walls were numerous—the church, the chapter-house, the cloisters, the dormitories, the buttery, the kitchen, the dining-hall, the infirmary, store-houses and bakeries, stables, houses of entertainment for guests of high and low degree—a beehive of industrious monks. ”

“ A beautiful place wherein to rest and dream dreams of the past. All now is grey, but in bygone ages the great church blazed with colours; paintings and rich hangings adorned the walls; there were numberless altars with their tiny points of light, and all was enriched and at the same time mellowed by the splendour shed upon pavement and pillar from the “storied windows richly dight.” Who shall say whether the change from pomp to simplicity be for better or for worse? As with so many other matters in this opinionative world, it all depends upon the point of view ”

“ But both ways we usually fall short of the fact; they were most picturesque, most uncomfortable. We have seen how once upon a time the Cathedral, now so decorously grey,{67} blazed with purple and fine linen; so too was it with all life; the very streets now so sober-minded were then a veritable kaleidoscope; all life was highly coloured, save that of the cloister. In those times in the good city of Canterbury it must have been as difficult when one took his walk abroad to avoid the sight of a hospital or of a holy house as to-day to escape from the clangour of church bells. ”

“ The least advantageous way to attempt the attainment of any true sense of the fascination of Canterbury Cathedral is to enter it straightway, intent on seeing rapidly all that it contains of interest; though every stone in its fabric is of interest, almost every charm that it possesses will be lost to those who thus wrongly approach. Rather walk slowly round, entering the close by Christ Church gateway, completed in 1517, sadly battered by time but unspoiled by the hand of the destroying restorer; without stands the monument to Christopher Marlowe, son of the city. ”

“ Old—how old! echoes through our mind as we stand here, and again as we lay our hands on the ancient gnarled tree in the churchyard; how old it all is, this church set high upon the hill, overlooking a vast stretch of valleys and{113} uplands. What sights has this old tree looked down upon, what sounds heard—troops marching by to the war, pilgrims marching by to the shrine of St Thomas (for we are looking down on the road to London) . How the coaches toiled up these hills a century ago. And even as we listen, we hear the rush and trumpeting of a motor-car. ”

“ Setting our backs to the older we turn to later days and to-day, as we walk home to the city. The sun is setting; the sky panoplied in gold; lights shine out here and there from homely windows; workmen tramp to their rest; there is a gentle melancholy reigning over all things, as there ever is in ancient cities ”

“ A great figure of a man, a name resonant in history, yet on the whole one of the least effective of our princes in that his work lasted not. We stand by his tomb, looking upon his effigy which is life-like in its strength. ”

“ The grey weather-beaten exterior, with its varied architecture, is evidently not the design of any single brain, and the dim, religious aisles and chapels echo with hints of memories of architects and masons into whose various hands came the glory of carrying on the work which their forefathers had begun and left for them to continue or to complete. ”

“ Canterbury is ancient and beautiful; no place for the mere tourist who fancies that in an hour or two of sight-seeing he can learn to know and love her: she is like a beautiful woman, whose charms never stale; like a good woman, ever showing to those who love her some fresh enchantment. ”

“ And then we may go into the cloisters, which next after the church was the centre of monastic life. The present cloister is chiefly the work of Prior Chillenden, but traces of many periods are to be found—Norman, Early English and Perpendicular. Do not hurry here; it is a place in which to loiter, examining its many beauties, watching the Cathedral the while; as the white clouds sail behind the great tower, or as the storm darkens the day. The lightning flashes, the thunder rolls and mutters, and as the mirk grows deeper and{46} deeper, as though night were upon us—what do we hear? ”

“ Is not the atmosphere exactly caught and held? Then, as did Ruskin, look on the Cathedral itself. Up high soars the beautiful central tower, now known as Bell Harry, but once and better called the Angel Steeple. Of this perfect building the beginning was in 1433, under Prior Molash, and after delays and intermissions it was brought to completeness by Prior Goldstone, of whose handiwork it has been written: “He vaulted it with a most beautiful vault, and with excellent and artistic workmanship, in every part sculptured and gilt, with ample windows glazed and ironed. ”

“ It is impossible to see into the future, all but impossible to see clearly into the past; the past, as the future, often decks itself in colours to which it has no claim. The chief impression on the minds of most of us when we look back to mediæval days, is that they were picturesque if somewhat uncomfortable. ”

“ In July 1538 came the downfall with the arrival of Henry VIII.’s commissioners; there was a demonstration of resistance on the part of the monks, but cannon provided a conclusive argument; and then the end, the glory departed. Here were buried not only Augustine, but King Ethelbert and many of the archbishops. The saint who came as an apostle of Christianity to Kent founded this great monastery; now it is a missionary college of the Church of England, whence preachers of Christ’s teaching go forth to the ends of the earth. ”

“ Christ Church Cathedral is to him no mere record in cold stone of a dead past, but a living memorial of a living past. It{118} is meant to be a book for those who share with the writer his delight in calling up to the mind’s eye ghosts of men and women dead and gone.
At first, as has been said, Canterbury strikes disappointingly on those who go thither thinking to step back straightway from the present into the past. But gradually and surely the past overpowers the present as we linger in its narrow streets and loiter in its ancient buildings. It is no city of the dead. ”

“ Commentators are very fond of reading into the works of dead and gone writers, in particular into the plays and poems of{25} Shakespeare, thoughts and speculations and intentions entirely alien to past ages. Is it not more than likely that architectural critics fall not seldom into the same blunder? Probably the sheer truth concerning these old builders is that they builded better than they knew, and that we with the light of later and present days attribute to design what was the result of inadvertence. ”

“ We do not wish to be irreverent; there are certain relics of pious and saintly men which all can treat with respect if not with adoration; but relic worship ran mad and was too often reduced to absurdity, sometimes of a positively disgusting character.
Onward to the shrine of the saint, first visiting Becket’s Crown—the Corona—where we would be shown the portion of the saint’s skull which was shorn off by the murderer’s sword. ”

“ It can scarce be wondered at that the ignorant and superstitious neighbours were amazed and that they began to talk of her, some saying that she was inspired of the Holy Spirit, others that a devil possessed her. Her master consulted the village priest, Richard Masters, and together they watched the girl, coming to the conclusion that it was a good and not an evil spirit that was speaking through the mouth of the Maid. The affair was brought to the notice of the archbishop by the priest, and a gracious message of encouragement was sent to the girl. ”

“ Following the road uphill, past the pretty cottage where we obtained the keys of the church, we turn to the right, so gaining a cleanly field path. Before us rise low grassy knolls; behind us, screened by trees, the spire of Fordwich church and the gables of its houses and cottages; on our right hand the broad, flat valley of the Stour, the Sturry Road marked by the straight line of trees. Bobbing up and down goes the path, so that we scarcely note that we are gradually ascending, until suddenly we find ourselves high up, looking down on the outskirts of Canterbury ”

“ When the tomb was laid open, the skull of the saint was removed from it, set in a silver reliquary, and added to the other relics that were displayed to wondering though not always credulous pilgrims. Among these other relics may be named the right arm of Jesus Christ, some of the clay from which Adam was created and portions of Aaron’s rod. Wonderful are the abuses of credulity.
Of the shrine or altar of St Dunstan, destroyed at the Reformation, on the south of the great altar, some Decorated diaper work is all the remnant ”

“ The passers-by of to-day are not those whom we should see, for we should bend our mind’s eye on monk, priest and pilgrim, on knight, dame and squire, or king, queen and prince; it needs no vivid imagination to call up these shades of the past. But above all and through all the pageantry of old days looms the church; Canterbury is a city of churches, of priories, monasteries, hospitals. There is St Dunstan’s, where in the Roper vault they say is the head of Sir Thomas More ”

“ CHRIST CHURCH GATE
Entrance to the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral round by Becket’s Crown and the ruins of the Infirmary, by the Dark Entry and so out into Green Court.
The face of Nature never grows so familiar to us that we know her every tone and expression; so is it with some of the handiworks of man—with this Cathedral, for instance. Great changes are wrought in its aspect by the seasons of the year, by daylight, by the lights of night, by sunrise and by sunset; changes which every man may see ”

“ To King Ethelbert, a heathen, and to Bertha, his queen, a Christian, came Augustine to preach the gospel; and Christian worship he found carried on by Lindhard, the queen’s French chaplain, in a small chapel standing outside the city walls, the present church of St Martin, altered in aspect, but the “mother church of England.” Through the mists of centuries we cannot clearly see; we know not how far well or ill disposed toward Christianity the King may have been ”

“ The other buildings are of modern years; in the centre of the neat dwelling-houses stands the hall, where various relics are preserved and made into a raree-show, the only one that touched home to us being the old collecting box, which was formerly hung up outside the gate so that passers-by might drop in such coins as they cared to spare. ”

“ Well, you drop off again and get about an eyeful of sleep; lo, it is tinkle, tinkle, for matins.’”
Caricature sometimes tells the truth more understandably than history or realism, and these facetiæ of Denys convey a fairly accurate idea of part of a monk’s life. From midnight to midnight it was lived by rule and rote, full of worship, full of work. But it will become us and entertain us to take a more serious view of the hospitality exercised by a great convent. The Guest House, or Hostry, was an important and integral part almost of every monastery. ”

“ In visiting the interior the usual course pursued by visitors is curious and unsatisfactory, leaving but a confused impression upon those who have not read the story of the building, and killing what may be called its humanity. ”

“ Then the people and the monks assemble in haste; they draw water, they brandish their hatchets, they run up the stairs full of eagerness to save the church, already, alas! beyond their help. But when they reach the roof and perceive the black smoke and scorching flames that pervade it throughout, they abandon the attempt in despair, and, thinking only of their own safety, make all haste to descend.
“And now that the fire had loosened the beams from the pegs that bound them together, the half-burnt timbers fell into the choir below upon the seats of the monks ”

“ Other monks assisted Bocking in the deception.
“Archbishop Warham having a roll of many sayings which she spake in her pretended trances, some whereof were in very rude rhymes, sent them up to the King; which, however revered by others, he made but light of, and showed them to More, bidding him show his thoughts thereof. Which after he had perused, he told the King, that in good faith (for that oath he used) he found nothing in them that he could either esteem or regard: for a simple woman, in his mind, of her own wit might have spoken them.” ”

“ The story of Elizabeth Barton, more generally known as the Holy Maid of Kent, throws not a few curious lights upon the beliefs and manners of the sixteenth century. She was born in or about the year 1506, and when about nineteen years old was living in the service of Thomas Cobb, who was steward to an estate of Archbishop Warham at Aldington, which lies four miles south-east of{81} Ashford, commanding an extensive prospect over Romney Marsh. The living here, St Martin’s, was presented by Warham to Erasmus in 1511, but he held it for only a few months. ”

“ Havoc was wrought to the roof, molten lead poured down into the edifice, but at last the fire was conquered and the church rescued from the threatened repetition of the disaster that had destroyed Conrad’s choir. Te Deum was sung that afternoon from full hearts.
The two western transepts are the building of Prior Chillenden. Opening out of the southern is the chapel of St Michael or the Warrior’s Chapel, built by whom is uncertain, but, according to Willis, probably by Chillenden. ”