Bell's Cathedrals: The Church of St. Martin, Canterbury: An Illustrated Account of its History and FabricRoutledge, C. F. (Charles Francis)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Church of St. Martin, Canterbury: An Illustrated Account of its History and Fabric
Routledge, C. F. (Charles Francis)
St. Martin's Church (Canterbury, England)
It only remains in this chapter to mention a few of the traces of British
Christianity as supplied by monumental or other evidence well attested. We
may believe, with Bede, that over St. Alban's tomb at Verulam, "when the
peace of the Christian times returned, a church was built of wonderful
workmanship, and worthy of that martyr"; and three churches are spoken
of at Caerleon, two of which were dedicated to Julius and Aaron, said
to have been martyred in the Diocletian persecution; another at Bangor
Iscoed, near Chester; besides one at Candida Casa or Whithern, and the
Vetusta Ecclesia at Glastonbury, our own church of St. Martin, and the
foundations of that lately discovered in Roman Silchester. This is a
fair number, even if we pass over for the time any possible claims to
Roman origin on the part of Brixworth, Lyminge, Reculver, and St. Mary's
Church in Dover Castle, all of which are ascribed to the Saxon period
by Mr J. T. Micklethwaite in his interesting paper read at Canterbury
in 1896 before the meeting of the Royal Archæological Institute--though
we need not allow that his reasoning is in all cases indisputable.
We possess, too, some sepulchral monuments and inscriptions (not
at present very extensive, but probably greatly to be multiplied as
fresh excavations and explorations are made) at St. Mary le Wigfred,
Lincoln, Caerleon, and Barming, and the _Chi-Rho_ monogram (which
was first introduced as a Christian symbol by the Emperor Constantine
at the beginning of the fourth century) on various rings, stones, and
tesselated pavements, also crosses on pavements at Harpole and Harkstow,
and various Christian formulas such as "Vivas in Deo," "In pace," etc.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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