Archdiocese of Canterbury

“ A few steps onward up the steep little Harbledown Hill and we have a view of Canterbury Cathedral across the River Stour—a view which has delighted the eye and heart of many pilgrims, whether ancient or modern. Nearly a mile downhill and we come to St. Dunstan's Church in the environs of Canterbury. Here in a vault is the head of a nobler martyr than Becket—of a man with all Becket's constancy and faith, with more than Becket's intellect, and without his haughty spirit and violent temper. ”

“ These things are of the simplest facility to any man whose heart is in the right place; and if, instead of locking himself up with two or three dreary effigies of man, in the shape of chaplains, and freezing all the soul within him by a rigid and repulsive routine, he shall “do as he would be done unto” if he had remained a country curate, an Archbishop of Canterbury might be the most beloved, popular, and for all the best purposes, the most influential man in the kingdom. ”

“ But the spectacle offered of a morally courageous and intellectually independent Archbishop of Canterbury would be so stimulating, the presence of a Live Person at the head of the Church instead of a glorified Penny-in-the-Slot Machine would be so far-reaching in its results, that all questions of agreement and disagreement would sink into insignificance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And indeed dead as she is and silent, Canterbury is worthy of resurrection if only because she is as it were a part of him and a part, too, of our origins, the well, though not the source from which the Faith was given us. For some thirteen hundred years when men have spoken of Canterbury, they have had in mind the metropolitan church of England, the great cathedral which still stands so finely there in the rather gloomy close behind Christ Church gate, rightly upon the foundations of its predecessors, Roman, Saxon, and Norman buildings. ”

“ By walking outside Canterbury, a mile distant to Saint Thomas’s Hill, on the Whitstable Road, you shall see how thoroughly the Cathedral dominates the city; and arrive, by an exploration of the narrow lanes and the meads below, at an understanding of how this great Minster was Canterbury, and how subservient to it was all else. Affairs are now very different. A vigorous and pulsing life belongs to the streets and lanes, while it is the Church that has passed away from the intimate life of the people, and sunk back into retirement. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Defeat never made him idle or despondent, and his noblest triumphs, the conversion of the last heathen people of English race, were won in exile. At the same time, he was hasty, impolitic, and perhaps over-jealous for his own honour. In the part that the two archbishops took against him it is hard not to see some fear lest the magnificence of the northern prelate should endanger the authority of Canterbury in Northumbria, though they certainly acted for the good of the Church in insisting on the division of his vast diocese. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most Nonconformists with an instinct for English history could see something poetic and national about the Archbishop of Canterbury as an Archbishop of Canterbury. It is when he does the rational British statesman that they very justifiably get annoyed. ”

“ This much is known from authentic records, that the present constitution of the convocation of the prelates and clergy of the province of Canterbury was recognized as early as in the eleventh year of the reign of Edward I. (1283) as its normal constitution; and that in extorting that recognition from the crown, which the clergy accomplished by refusing to attend unless summoned in lawful manner (debito modo) through their metropolitan, the clergy of the province of Canterbury taught the laity the possibility of maintaining the freedom of the nation against the encroachments of the royal power. ”

“ Thomas of Canterbury would not grant him such things as he asked, contrary to the liberties of the Church, first banished him out of this realm; and at his return he was slain at his own church, for the right of Holy Church, as many holy fathers have suffered now of late: as that holy father the Bishop of Rochester: and he doubteth not but their souls be now in heaven.
“He saith and believeth that he ought to have a double obedience: first, to the King’s Highness, by the law of God; and the second to the Bishop of Rome, by his rule and profession. ”

“ At Canterbury, during the stormy period of the Reform Bill, his talents, which were allied with a combative temperament, found abundant occupation, and both by voice and pen he became recognised as the leader of the church party in the diocese. But he was no less a zealous parish priest, and to him is due the first venture in cheap church periodical literature. ”

“ Matthew Parker, a moderate man after Elizabeth's own heart, became Archbishop of Canterbury. Very few of the old clergy who had said mass in Mary's reign refused to use the new Prayer (p. 430) Book, and as Elizabeth prudently winked at cases in which persons of importance had mass said before them in private, she was able to hope that, by leaving things to take their course, a new generation would grow up which would be too strong for the lovers of the old ways. The main difficulty of the bishops was with the Protestants. ”

“ There is always a certain sociological interest in the public utterances of an Archbishop of Canterbury. He is a great State official who automatically registers the level of the public opinion of the respectable classes. ”

“ As the model must be older than the copy, Canterbury school must be allowed the primacy over Dunwich. Being spoken of as an existing institution, with no suggestion that it was then newly established, we need not doubt that it was founded by St Augustine as part of the cathedral establishment of Christ Church, Canterbury. This church was not then monastic, but like all other cathedrals, a college of priests, the monks being placed apart, outside the city walls in the abbey, first called St Paul’s, afterwards known as St Augustine’s. ”

“ At each election to Canterbury the debate broke out, enhanced by the jealousies between the secular clergy, who often formed the majority of the bishops, and who usually held with the sovereign, and the regular monks of St. Augustine, who were the canons of the cathedral, and looked to the Pope. ”

“ The archdeacon cited the abbot to appear before him, and on his refusal cited him before the bishop. The abbot refused to acknowledge the bishop's authority, and Grosseteste excommunicated him. When the bishop sent lay visitors to Bardney to bring the monks to submission, the door was shut in their faces. He threatened to bring ruin on the convent, and the abbot appealed to the Canterbury chapter. The bishop then deposed the abbot, and the king seized on the temporalities. The Canterbury monks then assembled fifty priests of the diocese, and solemnly excommunicated the bishop. ”