William Danks

“ Genius transforms hindrances into triumphs. French William's difficulty was that the side chapels of St. Andrew and St. Anselm, built on the arc of the old apse, were too near together to admit of the full width of his new and longer choir. He kept the chapels, contracted the choir at their nearest points and then expanded it into the Trinity Chapel, with the remarkable effect which strikes every observer. ”

“ No man bearing weapons was admitted to the Precincts after the murder of Becket; therefore the two emblematic riders who had accompanied the bier from Westgate, "one bearing the Prince's arms of England and France, the other the ostrich feathers—one to represent the Prince in his splendid suite as he rode in war, the other to represent him in black as he rode to tournaments"—had here to fall out of rank. Here were borne to their grave Henry IV and his Queen Joan of Navarre. ”

“ From the Mintyard we step back into a rather squalid street of a modern world. But the house just opposite is old enough to have housed pilgrims, and two or three hundred yards along Northgate Street, to our right, is the fifteenth-century timbered archway of St. John's Hospital, shown in our illustration. St. John's was founded before the days of the pilgrims as a nook of safety and peace for the aged poor, and this it still remains. How many wearied souls have bidden here their long farewell to Canterbury! ”

“ Many are now hidden behind ugly modern fronts, but many are yet unspoiled. Doubtless some of these in St. Dunstan's Street took in belated pilgrims who arrived after curfew and the shutting of the city gate.
Just outside Westgate is the old Falstaff Inn, with its sign suspended from a remarkable bracket of fifteenth-century ironwork. This reminds us that before the era of coal mining in the north, Kentish men were craftsmen in iron, obtaining unlimited fuel from the forest of the Weald. ”

“ The pilgrims were usually conducted from the altar in the Martyrdom to the "Tumba" or first resting place of the "holy blissful martyr", which was in the crypt. The whole of the crypt was dedicated to the Virgin, and the Chapel of Our Lady of the Undercroft, though now dark and deserted, is still enclosed by the lovely stone tracery placed round it by the Black Prince as a memorial of his marriage. When Erasmus was here he said it was "so loaded with riches" as to be "a more than royal spectacle", and he added: "It is shown but to noblemen and particular friends". ”

“ As we look down narrow, crooked Mercery Lane, with its overhanging fronts, struggling to survive "improvements", we not only recognize "the last enchantments of the Middle Age", but we ask what kind of mercery used to stock the stalls under the arcades which once sheltered the sidewalks? Chiefly, no doubt, cheap memorials or "signs" of the accomplished pilgrimage; the little leaden bottles or "ampulles", containing water from the well near Becket's tomb in the crypt, and the infinitesimal tincture therein of the martyr's blood ”

“ This and some other things we shall understand better when we have walked through the infirmary cloister, and along Lanfranc's vaulted passage to the great or main Cloister of the convent. This was the centre of the whole monastic life, in which the monks spent the greater part of the day, and from which doors gave access to every part of the building, dining hall or frater, dormitories, cellarer's stores and lodging, deportum or recreation room, chapter house for business and discipline, Cathedral choir [53] for worship, infirmary for the sick or weary. ”

“ In 1220, the first of the Great Pardons, it has been estimated that 100,000 pilgrims offered £20,000 of our money; and this did not include the stream of worshippers and gifts that flowed on other days of the year. If we add to these "devotions of the people" the splendid generosity of the monks and clergy, we begin to understand how the Cathedral was paid for. Lanfranc gave the whole revenues of the manor of East Peckham, bestowed on him by [8] William the Conqueror; and he was but the first of a series of munificent archbishops. ”

“ Eadmer was a boy in the convent school before the Conquest, and singer or precentor in Lanfranc's choir of monks. He also lived through the rule of Anselm.
Gervase was a monk of Christ Church when Becket died in the Martyrdom. He witnessed the fire of 1174, the desolation it left behind, and the immortal achievements of French William and of his English namesake. Eadmer and Gervase have both left us narratives, not umixed with monkish legend, but faithful and full of curious information.
It is not easy for us to understand the veneration paid to relics ”

“ The three most famous objects in the Cathedral are the site of the shrine, the Black Prince's monument, and the chair of St. Augustine; and here is the last of the three. In this seat of Purbeck or Bethersden marble have been enthroned from time immemorial the Archbishops of Canterbury. If some critics say that it is no older than the thirteenth century, others say that it was in existence in the sixth century, when Augustine arrived, and that Kentish kings were crowned on it. It has always a place in the triple enthronement of an Archbishop of Canterbury. ”

“ All this side was very marshy, and the crypt of the choir was frequently flooded. The ground-level has risen during the last few centuries, but is still only some 20 or 30 feet above the sea.
Above the outer entrance of the south-west porch is a bas-relief, blackened with age, of the altar which, after Becket's murder in the Martyrdom, was erected at the spot where he fell. It was called the Altar of the Sword's Point; and the fragment of Richard the Breton's sword, which dealt the last fierce blow, and was shivered on the pavement, is seen here at the foot of the altar. ”

“ On July 7, the feast of the Translation of Becket's bones from the Crypt to the Trinity Chapel, and especially at the Great Pardons or Jubilees of the Feast every fifty years, from 1220 to 1520, these ways were crowded with pilgrims, English or foreign, on foot or on horseback, sick or whole, sad or merry, intent on paying homage and receiving a blessing, above all of winning the promised plenary indulgence at the miracle-working shrine. ”

“ It is possible that at Canterbury there was some difficulty about space on the south side; certainly in a chilly climate open cloisters hidden from the sun by a mountain of masonry must have inflicted much hardship on the monks, and added to the austerities of their ascetic life. They were a delicate and short-lived race, usually failing to attain forty years of age, and compelled by statute to spend three days of each month in the infirmary, independently of occasional recourse thither for ailments and for being bled, which was regarded as periodically necessary. ”

“ The lowest step, worn by pilgrims' knees, and three of the inlaid "roundles" form part of the present pavement. On the platform three arches sustained the body of the saint in a gilded and richly wrought coffin. Two of these arches, with their columns, were hung with the precious offerings of those who had sought or received benefit by the saint's intercession. Through the third, suppliants were allowed to pass, that by contact with the pillars they might derive some virtue from the relics. ”

“ From Westgate the main street, under as many aliases as a hardened criminal, starting as St. Peter's Street, continuing as High Street, Parade, and St. George's Street, runs the whole length of the city, with quaint and curious dwellings on either hand. If we were real pilgrims, and had walked or ridden all the way from London, we should make at once for "The Chequers of the Hope" mentioned in the supplementary Canterbury Tale. It is only a few hundred yards away, where Mercery Lane turns off to the left, and has, or had, its dormitory of a hundred beds. ”

“ While we are thinking of poets, and their not infrequent tendency (in the past) to a bad end, we may as well walk up High Street. Various epochs and ages look down upon us on either side, though too often through modern windows. ”

“ The monument is of rare artistic merit, [42] as is the chantry close by, which he built for "twey preestes" to say masses for his soul.
The next monument eastward of the Black Prince's is Archbishop Courtenay's (1396) ; and beyond this a mean brick mound without inscription but not without a history. Here lies Odet de Coligny, brother of the great admiral. Though a prince, a cardinal, an inquisitor, and a bishop, his sympathies were with the Huguenots, and he undertook a mission on their behalf to Queen Elizabeth. ”

“ There have been two comparatively recent discoveries in the crypt. One is the well which probably supplied the water for the "ampulles" or leaden bottles of the pilgrims, the other is a stone chest containing bones which many believe to be the actual [37] remains of Becket. They are certainly those of a tall man, placed in a receptacle which was not their original coffin, and there is certainly the mark of violence on the skull. It has been cogently argued by Dr. Moore, a canon of this Cathedral, and Principal of St. ”

“ This came to be known as "the glorious choir of Conrad", from the name of the prior who completed it. Anselm's or Ernulf's work still remains as part of the present crypt. In 1174, a hundred years later, the year of Henry II's penance at [46] Becket's tomb, the whole church was ruined by the most devastating fire in its annals. How severe was the blow, both to monks and people, we may learn from Gervase, who was an eyewitness and one of the fraternity. The people "tore their hair and beat the walls and pavement of the church with their heads and hands, blaspheming the Lord and his Saints" ”

“ CHRIST CHURCH GATE—ENTRANCE TO CATHEDRAL PRECINCTS (Page 24)
The nave was not built till the end of the fourteenth century, and is therefore one of the latest parts of the church. Of the two western towers the northern stood, as built by Lanfranc shortly after the Conquest, till 1834. During the excavations preparatory to the [30] present structure it is said that the skeletons of a man and two bullocks were found in an upright position, as they had sunk into the marsh in Norman times. ”

“ Ethelbert's Tower, a splendid remnant of the Norman abbey church, stood till 1822, when it was battered down by the Philistines to provide cheap building material and make room for a tea-garden. In Bede's time this church had a tomb inscribed: "Here resteth the Lord Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury A.D. 605". To share the sanctity of a spot so consecrated, saints, nobles, and kings were brought hither on their last journey. Cuthbert turned the tide when he so cunningly gained the right of sepulture for Christ Church, and eventually, as we know, Becket's shrine quite eclipsed St. ”

“ Henry himself went hence to die in the Tower, and so end the hopes of the House of Lancaster.
The little open space between Mercery Lane and the Precincts gatehouse has seen many strange doings [24] which we cannot record. In the thirteenth century Canterbury was requisitioned for a contingent of Edward I's Welsh invasion, and the monks refused to bear their share of the expense. ”

“ There are certainly not more than one or two [6] cities in the kingdom which rival Canterbury in interest, or bring back to us more vividly "the days that are no more". Here is the work of pre-historic man in the Dane John (variant of Donjon or stronghold) and long earthen rampart which guarded the ford of the Stour. Here are the bastions and parapet of the city wall, with which the soldiers of the Middle Ages faced and fortified the British earthwork. Here is Saxon building with Roman materials, as in the churches of St. ”

“ Then Howley, who crowned Queen Victoria, and finally Bourchier, who crowned Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII, and, by wedding the latter to Elizabeth of York, terminated the Wars of the Roses.
WESTGATE (Page 13)
In Canterbury Cathedral have been buried some fifty archbishops, the Black Prince, Henry IV, two queens, and many others of royalty or distinction. [45] Of the old monuments only about eighteen are left. The great fires of 1067 and 1174, the violence of men, and the ravages of time have all taken their toll. ”

“ The fury of the crowd found voice in the curse flung [15] then and there upon the preacher by one of the Kentish gentry: "My Lord Bishop, for this act of yours, stirring the people to sedition against St. ”