If we would understand rightly the Canterbury of Becket and Cranmer, we must remember that the rulers of the land were then the King and his nobles and the clergy, the men of arms and the men of peace; there was then no vast and powerful middle class. It is scarcely doubtful that had Augustine not set up his tabernacle in Canterbury that the city would have played but a small part on the stage of English history; she owes her honour and renown to the men of peace who made her their capital in England. Canterbury never became more than a fairly large country town, yet we find that within her bounds were no fewer than eleven religious houses. With two we are already friendly, the two Benedictine establishments--the abbey of St Augustine and the priory of Christ Church. To the latter were attached the cells of St Martin at Dover and Canterbury College, Oxford. There were also the Austin Canons’ priory of St Gregory; houses belonging to the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Austin Friars; St Sepulchre, St Mildred’s; and various hospitals, including St John Baptist’s, the Poor Priests’, St Lawrence’s for lepers, and Eastbridge Hospital. It will help us to travel back if we gain some outline and idea, at any rate, of the “religious” life of those times. It was thought by many then, as by many now, that a “regular” life, led under strict rule, with self-denial and in retirement from the world, helped men and women to attain nearer to the example of Christ than could otherwise be hoped. The rule of St Benedict was by no means so ascetic as those of some of the other orders. It was introduced into England by Augustine in 597. Then--dealing only with those whom once we should have met often in Canterbury--there were the Dominicans, or Black Friars, so called on account of the black cloak and hood which they wore over their white tunic when they went out of the bounds of their houses; they were a preaching brotherhood, their work in life being to convert the heathen and the heretical; they crossed over to this island in 1221. The Franciscans, or Grey Friars, also called Minorites, in their humility holding themselves the least of all the orders. The Augustinian, Austin, or Black Canons, a monastic order, whose first foundation in this country was at Holy Trinity, Aldgate. The Austin Friars, the shadow of whose presence lingers familiarly in London ears, were ranked as “mendicants.”