Murder lures visitors to Canterbury Cathedral
One million arrive yearly, centuries after Becket’s death
—After nearly nine centuries, murder in the cathedral is still luring visitors to Canterbury.
It was in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 that Archbishop Thomas Becket was killed by four knights who believed they were doing the bidding of King Henry II.
Becket became a martyr and the cathedral a place of pilgrimage.
The killing was the subject of Murder in the Cathedral, a verse drama by T.S. Eliot, and was the basis of Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century work, The Canterbury Tales, which focused on one such journey in what had become an annual spring pilgrimage.
It is said that 100,000 pilgrims made their way to the cathedral in 1420, including the sick whom the shrine cured.
Today, Canterbury Cathedral draws one million visitors a year.
Chaucer’s pilgrims made the journey on horseback; today’s visitors are more likely to arrive by plane and car, train or bus from London or Dover.
With its sites, shops, and restaurants, pubs and tea rooms concentrated largely in its Old Town area, Canterbury is a comfortable walking city with a population of about 150,000.
The Stour river runs through the city and at some points is navigable for small boats. Rowboats and punts (flat-bottomed boats) can be rented, generally with a local university student serving as oarsman and guide. Kent University and other schools contribute to a large local student population.
But by far the biggest tourist attraction is Canterbury Cathedral, founded in the year 597 (there is an entrance fee). It is a marvellous edifice on spacious property that also houses some buildings of the King’s School, a renowned secondary school.
The exterior of the cathedral, an impressive 72 metres high, reflects Romanesque, English Gothic and Gothic architectural styles, with round and pointed arches, blind arcades, and pinnacles of the 14th-century perpendicular Gothic nave.
Trinity Chapel was built for the Shrine of St. Thomas, which stood from 1220 to 1538 when it was destroyed on orders of King Henry VIII.
The floor of the current chapel has a set of inlaid marble roundels representing zodiac signs, months, virtues and vices. A lone candle marks the spot of the shrine.
UNESCO World Heritage sites in Canterbury include the cathedral along with St. Augustine’s Abbey (mostly the ruins of the monastery where St. Augustine’s monks lived) and St. Martin’s Church, England’s oldest working parish church.
Another popular tourist site is the Norman Canterbury Castle, or at least its remains.
The castle was one of three original royal castles of Kent, built soon after the Battle of Hastings on the main Roman road from Dover to London.
This was the route taken by William the Conqueror in 1066.
The medieval St. Margaret’s Church now houses The Canterbury Tales, an audio-visual presentation of five tales (in modern English) from Chaucer’s most colourful characters, using life-size character models, with live guides at the start (Tabard Inn) and end (shrine of Thomas Becket).
There is, however, little other evidence of Chaucer in Canterbury, aside from this shortened retelling at The Canterbury Tales — and a pub by that name.
Another famous literary name with a connection to Canterbury is Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan poet and playwright (Hero and Leander, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus) who was born in Canterbury in 1564 and attended King’s School there.
The city’s modern theatre house is named for him and his death is noted at the clock tower of St. George’s Church.
Marlowe was baptized in the church, but its clock tower is all that survived German bombs in the Second World War.