Paul Cobb

Canterbury has a fascinating history. Before the Anglo-Saxon period that I write about in The Book and the Knife it was an important Roman town, and in that period became the seat of the church in England with its archbishop the head of the church.

Westgate – an echo of Canterbury’s Roman past

The city walls of Canterbury are some of the most interesting and in places best preserved of their kind in southern England, according to the Kent Historic Environment Record (HER). The whole of the mediaeval city wall was on the same line as the Roman city wall, built in the late third century. The West Gate was most likely on the same spot as a Roman gate, one of seven in the wall in total, all of which bar one were re-used in mediaeval times.


The West Gate in the city walls - the cathedral is above 'Queningate'

In the late Anglo-Saxon period, a chapel dedicated to the holy cross was located above the West Gate, which later became a parish church. There are documentary records from 605 and 1011 of Danes being "thrown from the wall", which the HER says suggests that they were then of a defensible height – not to mention handy for chucking invading warriors from.

Work began on a new West Gate in the late 1370ies, and the old ‘tumbledown’ West Gate that features in Part Three of The Book and the Knife was demolished. A defensive structure was built in anticipation of likely attacks from the French (still attacking us, two centuries after the Battle of Hastings – plus ça change!). As well as items such as a drawbridge and a portcullis, the design incorporated 18 ‘gunloops’ (gunholes), the earliest gunloops recorded in Britain, and the guns for them were in place by 1404.

Westgate Tower today

Canterbury Cathedral – archbishops and saints

The cathedral is especially important as a building – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – and for the famous figures associated with it; the resting place of royalty and saints. As the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, most people will know about its martyred archbishop Thomas Becket, but earlier archbishops have a claim to fame too.

Repaired just before the Norman Conquest in 1066, Canterbury cathedral and most of its city were largely destroyed by a huge fire on Dec 6th 1067, a year after my characters Ralf and Ælfwyn pass through Canterbury in The Book and the Knife Part Three. There is a passage in this which describes Ralf coming across the cathedral for the first time. We forget in an era of large, tall buildings just how overwhelming a mediaeval cathedral must have been to its beholders.

It is so big that at first he does not recognise a building; rather it must be a distant hill, or a bank of cloud. But the shape forms itself, into roofs and towers, atop long walls set with windows, and Ralf understands he is seeing the great cathedral of Canterbury, dwarfing the houses huddled below it. He starts to run, making his way through the maze of houses, pushing past people, turning this way and that to reach the cathedral. At times it almost disappears from view, only the very top of a tower showing to guide him. Ralf stumbles out from a narrow alley, tripping over a beggar’s stumps. As he lies in the dirt, he looks up. Soaring above him is one of the hexagonal stair towers at the cathedral’s west end, its twin just visible beyond. Some two hundred and fifty feet away at the east end, two square towers flank the transept, with its own great central tower. The nave, arcades and apses complete his view of one of the largest buildings in northern Europe, its roof timbers rosy in the late afternoon sun.

A lot of our Anglo-Saxon cathedrals were destroyed after the Conquest, which may not be a coincidence, as under William the Conqueror, now King William, they were rebuilt in the Norman style. William’s zeal was not confined to building however, he took a dim view of the English church and its many saints, and at a church council at Easter 1070 set about ‘reforming’ it, ie removing several bishops and archbishops, who found themselves replaced by Norman appointees, including Archbishop Stigand of Canterbury, who was replaced by the highly intelligent and widely respected Lanfranc from Pavia in Italy, the Abbot who had made the foundation of Bec in Normandy a hugely influential seat of learning and authority.

The Anglo-Saxon Cathedral Source: Wikipedia 

Although they had fallen out over his opposition to William’s marriage with Matilda, Lanfranc was a long-standing friend of and spiritual adviser to William. Even so he was reluctant to take on the position at Canterbury, and it took a direct order from the Pope to persuade him. But William had seen in him abilities that went beyond ruling a few monks, as Lanfranc put it, and he was to become part of the Conqueror’s machinery of government, especially during William’s absences in Normandy.

Little of Lanfranc’s Romanesque cathedral at Canterbury remains, but the impact of his zeal went beyond rebuilding. Before the reconstruction, he had all the shrines and relics removed from the old burnt-out building and kept elsewhere. Good organisation, perhaps, but these were the shrines to and relics of many English saints revered locally, and Lanfranc thought them too many and of dubious sanctity. So there was no place in the rebuilt cathedral for the shrines of St Ælfheah (sadly pelted to death with ox bones by the Danes) or St Dunstan, another Archbishop of Canterbury and an important minister of state to several English kings. Along with all the other relics, they probably stayed hidden away in an upstairs room above the north transept during Lanfranc’s term as archbishop.

The present-day cathedral from the south 

St Dunstan became Archbishop of Canterbury in 959 where he made a name as a reformer, and became a popular English saint known for a few run-ins with the devil. He once managed to put a horseshoe on his hoof, only agreeing to take it off if the devil promised never to enter a place with a horseshoe over the door – supposedly the origin of the ‘lucky’ horseshoe. Now, a horseshoe-shaped doorbell cam would be double protection these days… Interestingly, there is a St Dunstan’s chapel in Leicester Cathedral close by the tomb of Richard III with a window which depicts scenes from his life. St Dunstan’s church in Canterbury has a claim to fame – the head of Thomas More, beheaded by Henry VIII for his opposition to the divorce of Queen Katherine, is kept there.

St Dunstan's window in Leicester Carthedral

St Dunstan's church Canterbury - lots of Thomas More images and references

Anselm, who had also succeeded him at Bec, followed Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury at the end of the 11th century. There is an Anselm chapel in the cathedral with a plaque to him, and a superb stained glass window, actually a modern replacement for the glass lost in WW2, depicting five people important in his life. One of these is Lanfranc, and the others include William Rufus who succeeded his father William the Conqueror as king, and Rufus’ brother who became Henry I on Rufus’ death in a hunting accident in the New Forest. No spoilers, but this may feature in Part Four of The Book and the Knife…

Anselm was one of the most important Christian thinkers of the eleventh century, and his work explored many important philosophical and theological matters, such as the complex nature of human will and its involvement in free choice. He was often in conflict with William Rufus, who tried not only to appropriate church lands, offices, and incomes, but even to have Anselm deposed. Anselm had to go into exile and travelled to Rome, only returning on William’s death in 1100.

The St Anselm window in Canterbury Cathedral 

A bakery in a hairdressers  

When master baker Bill Marder retired in 1976 he closed the oven door on 900 years of bread making in Canterbury. His shop in The Borough was originally built in 1011 and was mentioned in the Domesday Book! Not just bread was produced in the oven in question – Bill’s cream puffs were a favourite with pupils from the nearby Kings School. The oven was 17’ square and can still be seen in the current premises – a hairdressers called The Chair. Luckily, when Chair owner Katie Hopkins expanded her premises into the old bakery, she made sure that the refurbishment kept the open plan of the premises, the oven and other features such as the fireplace, beamed ceilings and stone floors. It’s a wonderful place – and quite a thought that it had been there for 55 years when Ralf and Ælfwyn passed through in 1066 in The Book and the Knife. They could have called at the bakers for some cream puffs while they were there.. or at least Ælfwyn – Ralf was too busy looking round the cathedral.
The bread oven in The Chair 

Fireplace in The Chair

Interior of The Chair with beamed ceiling