A tale of Canterbury

Canterbury is a town in Kent with a population of about 120,000. It is the religious capital of England because its cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury who is head of the Church of England.

From the 12th to the 15th centuries, it was a place of pilgrimage. Thousands of people came to pray at the shrine of a former Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered in the Cathedral in 1170. His name was Thomas Becket.

Murder in the Cathedral

During the 12th century, King Henry II decided that the Church had too much power. In 1162, he made Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, thinking that his friend would help him to weaken the position of the Church. Although the King himself liked Thomas, he was not popular with other powerful men in England. They were jealous of his friendship with the King, and they also disliked him because he was not a nobleman. As Thomas was not even a priest, many people were very angry that he had been made Archbishop.

The King was amazed when Thomas began to defend the position of the Church against the King. After a while, Thomas had to leave England because relations between him and the King had become very bad, and Thomas was afraid that he might be killed. He lived in exile for five years until the King asked him to come back. The people, the bishops and the Pope were causing the King problems because they all wanted Thomas to continue as Archbishop of Canterbury.

When Thomas returned, in 1170, he brought authorization from the Pope to excommunicate the priests and noblemen who had acted against him. The King was furious when he learned this - soon afterwards, four of Henry's knights entered Canterbury Cathedral and murdered the Archbishop on the steps of the altar.

Three years later in 1173, Becket was made a saint, and his tomb became the destination of thousands of pilgrims for three centuries. It was said that miracles happened there, and many sick people went there in the hope of finding a cure.

In the 16th century, when King Henry VIII separated from the Roman Catholic Church and established the Church of England, he said that Becket was no longer a saint, and his tomb was destroyed.

The story of Thomas Becket is the subject of two modern plays, Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot and Becket by Jean Anouilh.

Chaucer's pilgrims

The best-known Canterbury pilgrims are probably those who appear in the book by Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. It was written in the 14th century, when the pilgrimage had become a rather pleasant holiday for the groups of people who travelled together for protection and companionship.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories told by the members of a group of pilgrims. Through the stories we get a vivid picture not only of the narrators themselves but also of the religious and social life of the 14th century. There were twenty-nine pilgrims altogether, including a knight, a doctor, a miller, a middle-aged widow and numerous members of religious orders of one kind or another.

The Pilgrim's Way is the name of an old path starting at Winchester which, it is traditionally thought, was taken by pilgrims travelling to Canterbury. However, there is no real evidence of this. You can still walk along some of the route, which is part of a long-distance footpath called the North Downs Way. It is protected by law, so it cannot be ploughed by farmers or made into a motorway!

If you have the energy to follow the route as far as Canterbury, you will find that although there is no tomb, Becket is not forgotten. His face and name are still there, on postcards and souvenirs in every other

shop!

A twentieth-century visitor

The most famous modern 'pilgrim' is without doubt Pope John Paul II. His visit to Canterbury in 1982 was an important historical event because it showed the spirit of understanding that exists now between the Roman Catholic and the Anglican Churches.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Runcie, and the Pope knelt in silence on Becket's steps - just 812 years after his murder.

Susan Sheerin, Jonathan Seath, Gillian White: Spotlight on Britain; Oxford University Press, 1985, page 37 f.