The Cathedral Church of Canterbury | Page 4

building," he says, "it happens that the nave and transepts have been transformed into the Perpendicular style of the fourteenth century, and the central tower carried up to about double its original altitude in the same style. Nevertheless indications may be detected that these changed parts stand upon the old foundations of Lanfranc."
The building, however, was not destined to remain long intact. In A.D. 1174 the whole of Conrad's choir was destroyed by a fire, which was described fully by Gervase, a monk who witnessed it. He gives an extraordinary account of the rage and grief of the people at the sight of the burning cathedral. The work of rebuilding was immediately set on foot. In September, 1174, one William of Sens, undertook the task, and wrought thereat until 1178, when he was disabled by an unfortunate fall from a scaffolding, and had to give up his charge and return to France. Another William, an Englishman this time, took up the direction of the work, and under his supervision the choir and eastern portion of the church were finished in A.D. 1184. Further alterations were made under Prior Chillenden at the end of the fourteenth century. Lanfranc's nave was pulled down, and a new nave and transepts were constructed, leaving but little of the original building set up by the first Norman archbishop. Finally, about A.D. 1495, the cathedral was completed by the addition of the great central tower.
[Illustration: PLAN OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL, ABOUT A.D. 1165.
From a Norman drawing inserted in the Great Psalter of Eadwin, in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. First published in Vetusta Monumenta (Society of Antiquaries, 1755). For full description and a plan of the waterworks see Arch?ologia Cantiana, Vol. VII., 1868.]
During the four centuries which passed during the construction and reconstruction of the fabric, considerable changes had manifested themselves in the science and art of architecture. Hence it is that Canterbury Cathedral is a history, written in solid stone, of architectural progress, illustrating in itself almost all the various kinds of the style commonly called Pointed. Of these the earliest form of Gothic and Perpendicular chiefly predominate. The shape and arrangement of the building was doubtless largely influenced by the extraordinary number of precious relics which it contained, and which had to be properly displayed and fittingly enshrined. Augustine's church had possessed the bodies of St. Blaize and St. Wilfrid, brought respectively from Rome and from Ripon; of St. Dunstan, St. Alphege, and St. Ouen, as well as the heads of St. Swithin and St. Furseus, and the arm of St. Bartholomew. These were all carefully removed and placed, each in separate altars and chapels, in Lanfranc's new cathedral. Here their number was added to by the acquisition of new relics and sacred treasures as time went on, and finally Canterbury enshrined its chiefest glory, the hallowed body of St. Thomas à Becket, who was martyred within its walls.
Since, owing to an almost incredible act of royal vindictiveness in A.D. 1538, Becket's glorious shrine belongs only to the history of the past, some account of its splendours will not be out of place in this part of our account of the cathedral. It stood on the site of the ancient chapel of the Trinity, which was burnt down along with Conrad's choir in the destructive fire of A.D. 1174. It was in this chapel that Thomas à Becket had first solemnized mass after becoming archbishop. For this reason, as we may fairly suppose, this position was chosen to enshrine the martyr's bones, after the rebuilding of the injured portion of the fabric. Though the shrine itself has been ruthlessly destroyed, a mosaic pavement, similar to that which may be seen round the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, marks the exact spot on which it stood. The mosaic is of the kind with which the floors of the Roman basilicas were generally adorned, and contains signs of the zodiacs and emblems of virtues and vices. This pavement was directly in front of the west side of the shrine. On each side of the site is a deep mark in the pavement running towards the east. This indentation was certainly worn in the soft, pinkish marble by the knees of generations of pilgrims, who prostrated themselves here while the treasures were displayed to their gaze. In the roof above there is fixed a crescent carved out of some foreign wood, which has proved deeply puzzling to antiquaries. A suggestion, which hardly seems very plausible, connects this mysterious crescent with the fact that Becket was closely related, as patron, with the Hospital of St. John at Acre. It was believed that his prayers had once repulsed the Saracens from the walls of the fortress, and he received the title of St. Thomas Acrensis. Near