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)
On the other hand, this practice was by no means universal, and even
as early as the second century _affusion_ was frequently used, with or
without immersion. A picture of our Lord's baptism in the baptistery
of St. John's at Ravenna (about 450) represents Jesus as standing in
the water, and the Baptist pouring water over him from a shell. There
is a similar representation in the church of St. Maria in Cosmedin
(about 550), and one of earlier date in a fresco from the cemetery of
St. Callixtus. On two sarcophagi, mentioned by Ciampinus, representations
of a like character are engraved, supposed to be the Baptism of Agilulfus
and Theodolinda (about 590), and of Arrichius, second Duke of Beneventum
(591). In the latter case a man somewhat advanced in years, kneels to
receive baptism, which is administered by _affusion_ only. Both of
these are assigned to the same decade as that of King Ethelbert. We
may conclude, therefore, that both forms of administering the rite
were practised from early times, and it is by no means impossible
that Ethelbert was baptised by _affusion_. It was probably not from
the existing font, even though in the seal of N. de Battail, Abbot of
St. Augustine's (1224-1252) and in the common seal of St. Augustine's
Abbey, the king is represented as standing in a font, resembling in many
respects the present one--while the baptism of Rollo, the first Christian
Duke of Normandy, is illustrated in an early MS. of the twelfth-century
Chronicle of Beuvit de St. More, with Rollo standing (or sitting) naked
in a similar tub-like font.
_St. Martin's_, "a small and mean church," as it is unkindly called by
Stukely, after the death of Augustine, Ethelbert, and Bertha, relapses
into comparative obscurity, and its history is gathered chiefly from
the testimony of architecture. We may, however, mention, as connected
with the immediately succeeding period, that there were dug up in the
churchyard (besides the Roman ornaments already described) a Saxon or
Frankish circular ornament set with garnets, and other things which
were of too costly a description to have belonged to any but persons of
distinction, with whom they had probably been interred--also three gold
looped Merovingian coins, fully described by Mr Roach Smith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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