history

January 23 – local history II: death in the cathedral

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“I saw you from the cathedral
You were watching me
And I saw from the cathedral
What I should be”

— Tanita Tikaram, Cathedral Song (Ancient Heart, 1988)


In 701 CE, Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and that position went on to become the highest in the English church.  Initially under the authority of Rome, the Reformation in 1533 resulted in the Archbishop of Canterbury being established as the de facto head of the Anglican communion.  This comes with the title of ‘Primate of All England’, to which you can insert your own monkey joke if you really must.

Canterbury cathedral

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January 22 – local history I: Celts, Romans and Anglo-Saxons

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“The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.”

— T S Eliot, from The Four Quartets, Little Gidding


I live in an area with a lot of history.  Probably everywhere has a lot of history but being near the closest point to continental Europe means that we tend to be on the front line of wars and invasions. 

The successful invasion of the Roman Army in the first century CE began in Kent, and the aerial Battle of Britain was fought over our fields and towns during WWII.  In between, the first English monastery was founded in Canterbury, and Archbishop Thomas à Becket was murdered in the cathedral during the reign of King Henry II.  Geoffrey Chaucer also wrote his classic work of literature about a pilgrimage to the area, The Canterbury Tales. 

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