Canterbury Cathedral
Seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury and mother church of the Anglican Communion.
Overview
Canterbury Cathedral is the cathedra of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion of roughly 85 million members. Founded in 597 by St. Augustine of Canterbury, sent by Pope Gregory the Great to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons, it is among the oldest continuously used Christian sites in the English-speaking world.
The current building dates primarily from the 11th and 12th centuries, with successive medieval and later additions. Canterbury has been a center of pilgrimage, political drama, liturgical reform, and global Anglican identity for over fourteen centuries.
Historical significance
Canterbury became the defining stage of a medieval conflict between crown and church when Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in the cathedral's northwest transept on 29 December 1170 by four knights of King Henry II. Becket was canonized within three years, and his shrine made Canterbury one of the great pilgrimage destinations of Europe — immortalized by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
During the English Reformation, Henry VIII destroyed Becket's shrine in 1538 and dissolved the monastic priory attached to the cathedral. Canterbury remained the primatial seat, now of a church separated from Rome. Today the Archbishop of Canterbury presides at the Lambeth Conference, where bishops from across the Anglican Communion gather roughly every decade.
Architecture
The cathedral is an encyclopedia of English church building: the austere Romanesque crypt survives from the Norman rebuilding of 1070–1077; the choir, rebuilt by William of Sens after a fire in 1174, is the earliest fully Gothic choir in England; the nave, rebuilt in the 14th century by Henry Yevele, is a masterpiece of the Perpendicular style.
The soaring Bell Harry Tower at the crossing was completed around 1498. Inside, the Corona chapel once held a relic of Becket's skull; the Trinity Chapel, with its worn pavement from centuries of kneeling pilgrims, marked the site of his shrine.
Notable figures
- St. Augustine of CanterburyFounded the see in 597
- St. AnselmArchbishop 1093–1109; medieval philosopher-theologian
- St. Thomas BecketMartyred in the cathedral on 29 December 1170
- Thomas CranmerArchbishop under Henry VIII; architect of the Book of Common Prayer
- William of SensRebuilt the choir after the 1174 fire, introducing early Gothic to England
Related doctrines
Visiting
Open to visitors most days with a modest entry fee that supports the cathedral foundation. Evensong is sung daily and is open to all without charge.