Canterbury Cathedral [antikvár]

CATHEDRAL IS not a museum. As you look at the pictures in this book and read the history of the great building they illustrate, remember that with ali its beauty, grandeur and power-fully evocative sense of the past, the Cathedral Church of Christ at Canterbury remains at its stili centre what it has always been: a holy place in which God is worshipped, a focal point for the religious aspirations of many millions of Christians, and a symbol of the living Church in the modera world. Only by seeing it in these terms is it possible to understand the power that it has exercised over the minds of the countless people who have visited it during the long centuries of its existence: from those who, like Chaucer's pilgrims, from every shires end Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,The holy blisful martyr for to seke, That hem hath holpen, when that they were seke,'to those who come todayfrom ail over the world -among them, with a message of peace and hope for the future, the first Pope in history to be received at Canterbury.ON 29 December 1170, four knights rode into Canterbury. Richard Brito, Hugh de Moreville, Reginald FitzUrse and William de Tracy had come to confront Thomas Becket - Archbishop, sometime Chancellor of England, former friend of King Henry II and now his bitterest foe. The long-standing quarrel between Becket and the King had already resulted in six years of exile from which the Archbishop had only just returned, and when fresh evidence of his intransigence reached the King in Normandy, Henry gave way to a characteristic outburst of rage, crying in an unguarded moment 'Who will rid me of this low-born priest?' In ail too eager response, the knights set sail for Kent, determined to deal once and for ail with Becket's stubborn opposition to royal interference in Church affairs.An interview with Thomas fol-lowed the usual pattern of accusation and angry rebuttal from either side, and as the four men rallied their supporters outside the palace, the Archbishop was per-suaded by the monks to enter thecathedral. It was late afternoon and the service of vespers was being sung. The knights burst into the church and called for Becket through the darkness, scornful and insulting. He shook them off as they tried to seize hold of him, actually throwing FitzUrse to the ground. A few moments later, when Tracy cried 'Strike, strike!', a sword cut deeply into Thomas's head and, as Brito gave the death blow, the Archbishop prayed to an earlier Canterbury martyr, St Alphege, murmuring, 'For the name of Jesus and the defence of the church I am willing to die'. The force of Brito's stroke took off the crown of Becket's head and shattered the tip of the biade upon the stone pavement.His body was placed in the crypt and two days later began that series of miracles which, in 1173, was to warrant Thomas's canonization 'among the company of martyrs' by Pope Alexander III. Canterbury swiftly became the most populär centre of pil-grimage in the England of the Middle Ages, providing a goal for devout travellers along the Pilgrims' Way from Winchester across southern England, bringing ample revenue to the cathedral and its clergy and forming the background to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Taies, written during the last years of the fourteenth Century.The text of this book was written by Jonathan Keates. The photographs were taken by Angelo Hornak other than the photograph on page 2, the right hand photograph on page 33 and the photographs of the canons on page 36 which were taken by David Watts. Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd gratefully acknowledgc the co-operation of the Dean and Chapter and the Cathedral staff.