The Cathedral Church of Canterbury | Page 4

the midst a strong pillar; this pillar sustained a vault which proceeded
from the walls on three of its sides," etc. Prof. Willis considers that as
far as these parts of the building are concerned, the present fabric
stands exactly on the site of Lanfranc's. "In the existing 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 Archæologia 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