Canterbury Cathedral, East End view
In 597 AD St Augustine arrived at Canterbury as a missionary sent from Rome by Pope Gregory the Great. After being made Archbishop of Canterbury, St Augustine established his seat (from the Latin cathedra) within the Roman city walls and founded there the first cathedral. During the tenth century, a monastery of Benedictine monks was founded within the cathedral; this was later dissolved by Henry VIII in 1540. Augustine’s original building lies beneath the floor of the nave, as the Normans rebuilt the cathedral after a major fire in 1070. St Anselm, the scholastic philosopher, was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. Over the next nine hundred years the cathedral suffered many disruptions and changes to the building mainly due to wars and works of repair. Since the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas Becket, canonized in 1173 by Pope Alexander III, Canterbury has become a place of pilgrimage. Though Becket’s shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII, today a candle is lit where it stood and a pink stone marks the place where thousands of pilgrims have knelt in prayer. Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, written during the fourteenth century, tells stories of pilgrims who left London to go and worship at St Thomas Becket’s shrine. The picture was drawn by Hablot K. Browne (b. 1815), famous during the nineteenth century for being Dickens’ illustrator; and engraved by Benjamin Winkles.
Size: 4242px × 5251px
Location: Canterbury, Kent, England
Photo credit: © Cameni Images / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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