Cathedrals -- England; England -- Description and travel
Canute, after his usurpation of the throne, rebuilt a great part of the
city and restored the Cathedral; and the monks were not forgotten, in
that the revenue of the port of Sandwich was made over to them for their
support. These benefits greatly helped the city to attain great
importance, and in Doomsday Book it is entered under the title of
"Civitas Cantuariae."
In 1080 the Cathedral was burnt down, only to be restored with greater
splendour, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity, by Archbishop Lanfranc,
who rebuilt the monastic edifice, erected the Archbishop's palace,
founded and endowed a priory dedicated to St. Gregory, and built the
hospitals of St. John and St. Nicholas.
In 1161 the city became almost extinct through fire, and at several
subsequent periods it suffered severely from the same cause.
In 1170 the great event which stirred the kingdom, and which
conveniently marks the starting-point of the disastrous half of Henry
II.'s reign, was the great means of replenishing the treasury of the
Cathedral. In that year Becket was murdered as he was ascending the
steps leading from the nave into the choir. His name was subsequently
canonised. His shrine was visited from far and near by every rank of
pilgrim, who seldom left without depositing first some substantial token
of their reverence for the saint. Four years after the murder popular
feeling was as great as ever, so that it was probably to propitiate the
people, as much as to ask for Divine intercession in his troublous
affairs, that Henry II. performed a pilgrimage to the shrine and
submitted himself to be scourged by the monks.
Another source of great importance to the Cathedral was the institution
of the Jubilee by the Pope. It commemorated every fifty years the death
of Becket, and till the last one, celebrated in 1520, attracted an
immense number of pilgrims, who gave a great impetus to trade in the
city. The number and richness of their offerings were incredible.
The dissolution of the priory of Christ Church was gradually effected;
the festivals in honour of the martyr were one by one abolished; his
shrine was stripped of its gorgeous ornaments, and the bones of the
saint were burnt to ashes and scattered to the winds.
A part of the monastery of St. Augustine was converted into a royal
palace by Henry VIII. In this palace Queen Elizabeth held her court for
a short time. During her reign there was an influx of Walloons, who,
persecuted for their religious tenets, had fled from the Netherlands and
settled in Canterbury.
They introduced the weaving of silk and stuffs. To them Queen Elizabeth
allotted the crypt under the Cathedral as their place of worship, where
the service is still performed in French to their descendants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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