CANTERBURY!

WELCOME TO Durovernum Cantiacorum! Later Cantwareburh - the stronghold of the people of Cantia - or Kent. 


Canterbury is deserving of a page all its own.The Cantia people loved it, the Romans loved and walled it in, the Christians took it over, and today you'd think the French school kids ran the streets. It was an amok afternoon. Did every kid in the EU descend on a bizarre field trip to Canterbury today? 

As I come into Canterbury, totally missing all the "first views" of the elusive Cathedral, the first stop on the pilgrim trail is St Dunstans Church.  St Dunstans is important to us pilgrims for a couple reasons. One, it holds the  Roper family vault beneath the chapel floor, and the head of St Thomas More. More on that in a bit. 

But here, in 1174 serving a self imposed penance for the rash murder of Thomas Becket, King  Henry II stripped off his clothes, and clad only in a hair shirt and cloak, walked barefoot to the Cathedral where he was scourged by the monks. This started the custom of later pilgrims completing their journey without shoes, but wearing regular clothes and without the scourging.  
Modern day Canterbury streets are not conducive to bare feet.  I thought of wearing my flip flops  as a sort of symbolic bareness, but I just wasn't up for it. I'm not doing this for the religious embodiment of spirit, I'm here for the historical re-enactment. 

St Dunstans

There is so much going on for this Anglophile history buff my neck is aching from Stendhal's Syndrome*. Add to that the sore toes, cramping groin muscles and I'm a bent over Igor, especially after getting out of the taxi. This is where all my best characters actually lived and walked. This is where history, my favorite history, comes alive. Ok so its romanticized and biased to a modern story, colored by period dramas on Masterpiece, omitting the reality, but what remembrance isn't? History recalls the beauty of the winners and  written by them, while softens the evil down to manageable, unemotional fact. There are a myriad of books written about these people - the Henrys, Mores, Cranmers, Cromwells.... most of us are fascinated by them and the time period. It was  "Days of our Lives" only real, it really happened. We don't do stuff like that anymore, we're "civilized". If not fascinated than how about an entire global religion stemming from this very place? Canterbury is probably one of the holiest places on earth beside Jerusalem.

At least they are all remembered and their lives were valued even if they didn't always behave. Was More's  direct authorization of burning heretics actually sinful or not?  He was zealously trying to vindicate his faith in the face of those attempting to subvert it by their errors , right?

Thomas More seemingly never repented of his authorization of burning of heretics. If his authorization of burning heretics was sinful, and he never repented of it, what are we to make of his sainthood?

I don't happen to like Thomas More, why should someone who was a self righteous sadist, a hypocrite who seem to enjoy burning and torturing people to death, be revered! Its funny that no one engraves THAT on the plaque on the Roper tomb.  
*Dizziness, neck strain, madness caused by viewing certain artistic or historical artifacts , by trying to see too many such artifacts in too short a time, or overcome by the mental weight of their history and significance.

Thomas

Enough proselytizing, something in the air I guess ....After St Dunstans I reach the West Gate to the city.... its called the largest city gate in the country, but, in my opinion, it doesn't rival the beauty and well maintained respect of the surviving gates in York. Generations of medieval pilgrims passed under the gatehouse arch on their way to the shrine of Thomas a Becket at the Cathedral, and here comes one more.  

The West Gate  was built by Archbishop Sudbury to replace an earlier Roman gate through the city walls. It was finished in 1380, and the following year Sudbury himself met a violent end at the hands of rebellious peasants. Thats gratitude. He's buried in the cathedral. At one time it served as the town prison, connected by a walkway to the police station next door. 

Now I think its undermined by all the traffic passing through it.

The Weavers Cottages and the River Stour. Elizabeth I granted Flemish weavers the right to establish their businesses in Canterbury, and they are known to have used this building dating from the 14th century.

The Eastbridge Hospital of St Thomas was founded possibly as early as 1176, to provide overnight accommodation for poor pilgrims on their way  to the shrine of  St Thomas Beckett. It is still a working almshouse.

The  Wall of the Norman Nave, Walled Up and converted into a Palace for Anne of Cleves

The Church of Sts Peter and Paul was founded shortly after AD 597 by St Augustine as a burial place for the Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent. Augustine was a Roman abbot who was sent by the pope, Gregory the Great,  to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity and later canonized for his trouble.  He's buried here, along with various pagans and Abbot Wulfric - Saint Wulfric, AKA Wulfric of Haselbury.

We didnt go in to visit, we took pictures through the fence while waiting for our taxi. 

More about More

H'mmm, the Roper House, all thats left of William and Margaret Roper's house is the gate on St Dunstan's street. Margaret Roper was Thomas More's daughter. 

When More was beheaded by Henry VIII in 1535 for refusing to accept the Act of Supremacy and the Act of Succession (silly man) thereby swearing allegiance to Henry as head of the English Church, his head was displayed on a pike for a month at London Bridge . Afterwards, Margaret bribed the man whose business it was to throw the head into the river, and he gave it to her instead. She preserved it by pickling it in spices until her own death at the age of 39 in 1544. After her death, William Roper took charge of the head, and it is buried with him, stored in the Roper family vault in St Dunstan's Church. There it became a gruesomely fascinating destination for pilgrims, particularly following More's elevation to sainthood in 1935.

Google it, there are pictures if you don't believe me,

Oh ok, here.....

Thomas More's Head

Linda's Photo

Finally, a glimpse of the Cathedral!

So, early dinner at the Old Butter Market Pub, 

Linda's photo

over 14 miles walked  and time to find our new B&B, the Howfield Manor. Come get me Mr Taxi Man!