Our focus in class this morning was on the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, as we are going to Canterbury tomorrow. As I have mentioned before, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are a collection of tales told by a group of pilgrims making their way from London to Canterbury in order to pray at the shrine of St. Thomas Becket. In terms of history, Canterbury has been an important site in English religious history since 597, although its most defining moment came on December 29, 1170. That day, four of Henry II’s knights murdered Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, within the walls of Canterbury Cathedral, for reasons that I will talk more about later. Within a few years of his death, Becket had been canonized as a saint, and his bones were reputed to work miracles, putting Canterbury on the map in terms of pilgrimages.
Indeed, in medieval England, if a church was in possession of relics or a saints’ bones, it quickly gained prestige as a pilgrimage site; furthermore, if the saint was prominent, like Becket, the church’s fortunes were guaranteed to make an upswing. Canterbury Cathedral was no exception to this, as it eventually grew to become one of the four major pilgrimage sites for medieval English Christians, behind on Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela. Additionally, as more and more pilgrims traveled to Canterbury, the town benefited as well, since the pilgrims required food and lodging during their stay in Canterbury. With all of this in mind, it is little wonder that Chaucer’s fourteenth-century pilgrims chose Canterbury as their destination. Speaking of the pilgrims of The Canterbury Tales specifically invites discussion of another aspect of pilgrimages in medieval England: the social factor. Medieval society, especially before the Black Death, was extremely rigid, divided between the three estates of those who pray, those who fight, and everyone else; therefore, in normal life, a knight would most likely never associate with a miller or a summoner. However, on pilgrimage, people from all three estates are thrown together and forced to interact with each other; in The Canterbury Tales, this creates many of the conflicts between Chaucer’s disparate characters. Chaucer likely chose this genre, called estates satire, for The Canterbury Tales, as it gives him ample opportunity to critique members of all three estates. Thus, The Canterbury Tales are not only a collection of entertaining stories, but also an early venture into social criticism.
From here, it might seem logical to jump straight into our trip to Canterbury on Tuesday; however, before I do that, I must mention what else occurred Monday. After class, we proceeded to King’s College Chapel so that we could tour the inside of what is perhaps the building with the most spectacular fan vaulting in England. King’s College is one of the largest colleges in Cambridge, so it seems only logical that it would have one of the largest chapels. Indeed, when I first entered King’s College Chapel, I was amazed that it was a chapel for one college only, as it appears to be large enough to be a small cathedral! The entire length of the chapel is just one fan vault after another, which support the weight of the building’s roof and walls without any central columns. My first impression of the fan vaulting was that it is absolutely amazing from an engineering standpoint, even more so since the chapel was built between 1446 and 1515, but that I preferred the traditional Gothic pointed arches and ribbed vaults. However, after thinking about King’s College Chapel for several days and revisiting my pictures of it, I have come to the conclusion that the fan vaulting has grown on me; I now appreciate it from both an engineering and an aesthetic viewpoint.
Beyond the fan vaulting, another interesting part of King’s College Chapel is that the stained glass is actually original to the building, which is quite unusual in post-Reformation England. As I have seen at other sites, such as Castle Acre Priory or Bury St. Edmunds Abbey, the Reformation was the catalyst for the destruction of the great monastic houses of England. However, the forces behind the Reformation did not stop there, but continued to target other symbols of Catholicism, such as paintings within churches, statues of saints, shrines, and stained glass. In many of the cathedrals we visited, the stained glass windows have been repaired or replaces after the damage they suffered. Furthermore, the destruction did not end with the Tudors, but continued during the rule of Oliver Cromwell. In the midst of all this destruction, then, why were the windows in King’s College Chapel spared? The most likely theory is that some of Cromwell’s troops were billeted in the chapel during wintertime; when ordered to destroy the stained glass windows within reach, the commander refused, arguing that his troops would freeze in the cold weather. For one reason or another (possibly the troops moved on before spring), the windows were never destroyed and are still in place today. Thus, it seems as though pure dumb luck played a role in preserving an artistic treasure.
Now, at (long) last, back to Canterbury. Tuesday we were up bright and early, boarding the bus before breakfast for the journey to Canterbury. As the crow flies, it is not all that far from Cambridge to Canterbury; however, it took at least 2 hours, if not more, by bus, partially because we had to skirt around London, then head east. One thing I have learned during my travels in England is that, while north-south roads and train lines are quite good, east-west roads are rather lacking in quantity and quality. We arrived in Canterbury around 10am and headed to Eat for some coffee and snacks to awaken us before our tour of the cathedral. My first impression of Canterbury was that it is a cute town, with wide streets, pretty buildings, and nice shops; in some ways, it reminded me of Bury St. Edmunds, with a shopping district in the old, historic downtown, as well as several important historic sites. After getting food, we continued on our way to the cathedral, which we entered through a gate that bore quite a bit of resemblance to a city wall gate; perhaps the monks of Canterbury Cathedral were concerned with separating themselves from the townspeople. More likely, the Archbishops of Canterbury probably enjoyed putting distance between themselves and the laity.
My first impression of Canterbury Cathedral was that it is, as with the other great cathedrals I have seen, incredibly large, rising above the town; furthermore, the exterior is quite beautiful, with elaborate towers, stone carvings, and, of course, flying buttresses. With these details, especially the flying buttresses, most of the cathedral appears to have been constructed in the Gothic style; however, near the East End in the rear of the cathedral, some remnants of the original Norman Romanesque cathedral can be seen. However, to say that the Norman cathedral is original is somewhat misleading, as there has been a cathedral in Canterbury since 597. That year, the Pope sent a monk, later canonized as St. Augustine of Canterbury, to England in order to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity; as his name suggests, Augustine landed at Canterbury, in Kent, where he began his mission. It was not random chance that brought Augustine to Kent first; rather, he chose that kingdom deliberately, as its queen was Christian, and thus might be better able to persuade her husband to convert. Ultimately, this is exactly what happened, as the King of Kent and his subjects converted to Christianity. Additionally, the king gave Augustine several tracts of land, upon which Augustine constructed an abbey and a cathedral: Canterbury Cathedral. This Anglo-Saxon cathedral burned down in 1067 and was rebuilt in the Norman Romanesque style, as England had been conquered by the Normans just the year before. The cathedral was not done being modified, though, as much of it was remodeled in the Gothic style in the fourteenth century, finally producing the cathedral that stands in Canterbury today.
When we entered the cathedral, our guide took us first into the nave, where pilgrims would have heard mass before proceeding on to view the shrine of Thomas Becket. At first glance, the nave appears ordinary compared to other cathedrals I have seen, such as York Minster, but I soon realized that my eye was being drawn upward, not in the sense of toward the ceiling, but up in elevation. Indeed, the entrance to the choir is up a flight of stairs, rather than on ground level, as is usual in cathedrals. This sense of height is everywhere in Canterbury Cathedral, as one climbs up from the nave to the choir, and then up again from the choir to the site of Becket’s shrine, so that when one reaches the East End of the cathedral, they are quite a bit higher than when they entered the church. Having never seen a cathedral such as this before, I was quite fascinated by the changes in elevation throughout the church. One place where the changes in height is quite apparent is in the martyrdom, the area where Thomas Becket was murdered in 1170. It is a rather square area with a small chapel, set off from the rest of the nave by a staircase; though the staircase today has been altered since 1170, it was upon this staircase that Becket was standing when the four knights burst into the cathedral. In an example of how height has changed over the years, today the martyrdom has high ceilings; however, in 1170, there was a chapel atop the space, necessitating a pillar to support the second story. When the knights attempt to drag Becket outside the cathedral, so they would not murder him on consecrated ground, Becket clung to the pillar; though they tried, the knights could not dislodge him, and finally fell upon him with their swords in the middle of the cathedral. Thus, blood was spilled in what would become known as the martyrdom.
From the martyrdom, our guide took us into the crypt, which is less burial space and more a place for storage and more small chapels. Interestingly, one such chapel is actually a Huguenot chapel, as Canterbury gave shelter to many French Huguenots when they were being persecuted; even today, there is a Sunday service in French in the Huguenot chapel in Canterbury Cathedral. Additionally, the first shrine of Becket was located in the crypt, as the larger shrine behind the choir was not built until around 1220. After seeing the crypt, we reemerged near the choir, climbing the steps to enter the space. In the choir, a blend of Gothic and Romanesque styles can be seen, as the ceiling is composed of ribbed vaults, a Gothic feature, but many of the arches are rounded, a Romanesque feature. Personally, I felt that the blend of styles worked very well, giving the choir more architectural interest that if it was just built in one style alone. Near the choir, our guide showed us a few of Canterbury Cathedral’s stained glass windows, which depict Biblical stories in amazing detail, allowing the illiterate masses to understand the Bible as well. During the Reformation, as well as Cromwell’s rule, many of the stained glass windows were damaged or destroyed; later, when the windows were being repaired, panels from several different windows were often mixed together so as to create one window with fully original stained glass. Because of this restoration, one window our guide showed us began by telling the story of the three kings traveling to Bethlehem, but then abruptly switched to another story where the replacement panes had been inserted.
Just a few steps from these stained glass windows is the tomb of Henry IV and his second wife, Joan of Navarre, which would have flanked the shrine to Becket before the latter was destroyed. I did not know that Henry IV was buried in Canterbury Cathedral, so being able to see his tomb brought on another history moment akin to those I had in Westminster Abbey. However, my history moment did not end there, as the Black Prince, the eldest son of Edward III (who unfortunately predeceased his father), is buried across from Henry IV. This creates a certain historical irony, as it was the Black Prince’s son, Richard, who succeeded his grandfather Edward III as Richard II; in 1399, Richard II was overthrown by none other than Henry IV. Thus, the Black Prince lies near the man who overthrew his son for all eternity. Each of these royal tombs is located on the edge of a large open space with one single candle burning in the center. This candle marks the spot where the shrine of St. Thomas Becket once stood before it was completely demolished by order of Henry VIII in 1538; Henry VIII was so thorough in his obliteration that Becket’s bones were destroyed as well. Henry VIII’s likely motive for eliminating all mention of Becket was not a Protestant religious fervor, but the fact that Becket was a symbol of challenging the king’s authority over the church. At a time when Henry had just asserted his own authority over the church, he could not afford to have Becket serving as an inspiration to English clergymen not reconciled to the break with Rome.
Soon after viewing the former Becket shrine, our tour of Canterbury Cathedral unfortunately ended; overall, I thought that our guide at Canterbury was one of the best guides we had on a field trip. From the cathedral, our group split apart to find lunch; I and several others ended up at a small tearoom, which proved to have delicious food. I had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast, and ate all of it! After finishing lunch, we wandered around Canterbury for a bit before heading back to the cathedral for a talk about and demonstration of stained glass manufacture from the head curator of stained glass. Interestingly, the process of making a stained glass window has not changed very much since the medieval period; the tools have gotten more sophisticated, but the general procedure of cutting glass, arranging it in the desired pattern, and holding it together with lead has not changed. Our guide also showed us how glass is painted, as well as some of her sketches for stained glass windows. After our tour was over, we left the cathedral for the final time and walked to the ruins of St. Augustine’s Abbey, founded at the same time as Canterbury Cathedral. There is little left of the abbey today, due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but it still holds an important place in history as the place where Christianity first took hold in England.
St. Augustine’s Abbey was our last stop in Canterbury, so, after leaving, we boarded the bus once again and came back to Cambridge. All in all, Canterbury was an excellent way to spend our last field trip!
Making the Past Present 