Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/39

Rh district registries at Canterbury for the prubate and bankruptcy divisions. Canterbury contains a cathedral church, the seat of an archbishop, who is primate of all England and metro politan, and provincial of the dioceses south of Trent, his own diocese comprising the greater part of Kent and a small piece of Surrey. The cathedral staff consists of a dean, six canons, twenty-four honorary canons, an auditor, six preachers, four minor canons, and subordinate officers ; and attached to it is a school founded by Henry VIII., and called the king s school, comprising a foundation for two masters and fifty scholars, with a few exhibitions also. The cathedral library contains about 9000 volumes, and is rich in ancient charters and registers of the monastery. Besides the cathedral there are fifteen parish churches, and places of worship for Roman Catholics, Jews, Unitarians, Independents, Baptists, Wesleyans, Lady Huntingdon s congregation, and the Society of Friends. In the crypt of the cathedral there is also a church founded by Queen Elizabeth for French Protestant refugees, and still used by a small French congregation. A college for the education of missionary clergy of the Church of England was founded by Royal Charter in 1848 on the ruins of St Augustine s abbey ; and on St Thomas Hill in the suburbs is the boys school of the Clergy Orphan Corporation. The principal public buildings are the Guild Hall, the Corn Exchange with market-place below, the Museum, the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, an institution for upwards of 100 patients, and the gaol, which is for the eastern divi sion of the county, with the county court-hall adjoining. The city contains barracks for horse, foot, and artillery, that for cavalry being used for depots of regiments on foreign service, and that for infantry as the brigade depot of the 3rd regiment (Buffs) and the East Kent regiment, and as the headquarters of the East Kent militia. The trade of Canterbury comprises good markets for hops and corn, but has no other speciality. There are some pleasant public gardens known as the Dane-John Walks. The suburbs and neighbourhood are favourite spots for residence. Canterbury returns two members to Parliament, the con stituency being 2794 (revision 1875). The population in 1871 was 20,962, and the number of houses 4102. Canterbury occupies the site of the Roman Durovermim, a city established upon that ford of the River Stour at which roads from the three Kentish harbour-fortresses, Rutupice, Dubrce, and Lemance (now Richborough, Dover, and Lymne) became united into the one great military way through Britain, known in later days as Watling Street. From this ford the city apparently derived its name, the first syllable of which is the Celtic dwr, &quot; water. The Romans do not seem, at least towards the end of their occupation, to have made it a military centre, or given it a permanent garrison ; but, as a halting-place for troops on the march, and commercially, as lying in the direct path of all the Continental traffic of Britain, its importance at this date must have been considerable. The city re appears, under its new name of Cantwarabyrig (since shortened to the present word), as the capital of Ethelbert the fourth Saxon king of Kent, during the latter part o whose reign it became in a manner the metropolis o: England, the office of Bretwalda, or overlord, of the island to the Humber being held by Ethelbert. It was in this reign (in 596) and under these circumstances that Augustine and his fellow-missionaries arrived from Rome, anc their settlement by Ethelbert in his capital became the origin of its position, held ever since, as the metropolis o: the English Church. It3 history from this time becomes chiefly ecclesiastical. Here lived and ruled Augustiua anc the succeeding archbishops, and here under their auspices from the time of Ethelbert and Augustine downwards arose two of the principal monasteries of England, the abbey of St Augustine and the priory of Christ Church, the latter ruled by a prior only, as acknowledging he archbishop for its abbot. These were long rivals in mportance and wealth, in which the abbey held for several centuries the advantage, as possessing the shrines of the jarlier archbishops, tht chief saints of the English Church, ill the pre-eminence of the priory in turn became decidedly established by the murder of Archbishop Becket (1170) in ts cathedral church, his canonization as St Thomas of Canterbury, and the resort of the Christian world on iilgrimage to his shrine. Miracles were almost immediately said to be worked at his grave in the crypt, and at the well ~.u which his garments had been washed ; and from the ime v/hen Henry II. did his penance for the murder in the church, and the battle of Alnwick was gained over the Scots a few days afterwards it was supposed as a result the fame of the martyr s power and the popularity of his worship became an established thing in England. On the rebuilding of the cathedral after a fire, in 1175, a mag nificent shrine was erected for him in a new chapel built for the purpose, which became thronged for three centuries by pilgrims and worshippers of all classes, from kings and emperors downwards. Henceforward the interests of the city became bound up in those of the cathedral, and were shown in the large number of hostels for the accom modation of the pilgrims, and of shops containing wares especially suited to their tastes. A pilgrimage to Canter bury became not only a pious exercise, but a fashionable summer excursion ; and the poet Chaucer, writing in the 14th century, has given us an admirable picture of such pilgrimages, with the manners and behaviour of a party of pilgrims, leisurely enjoying the journey, and telling stories to each other on the road. Our very language still contains two words originating in these customs, a &quot; canterbury,&quot; or a &quot; canterbury tale,&quot; a phrase used for a fiction, and a &quot;canter,&quot; which is a short foim for a &quot; canterbury gallop,&quot; an allusion to the easy pace at which these pilgrimages were performed. The largely ecclesi astical character of the city may still be seen in the numerous remains of buildings connected with the church with which its streets abound to the present day. The shrine with its vast collected wealth was destroyed, and every reminiscence connected with it as far as possible effaced, by King Henry VIII. &quot;s commissioners in 1538. In secular history Canterbury has been less remarkable. The castle was taken by Louis, son of Philip Augustus of France, during his incursion into England in 1215. Here, in the cathedral, Edward I. was married in 1299 to his second queen, Margaret of France, and Charles I. to Henrietta Maria in 1625. Hence started the Kentish rebels under Wat Tyler on their march to London in 1381, taking with them us prisoner Archbishop Sudbury, whom they beheaded later on Tower Hill, in this point curiously repeating the action of the Danes during their invasion of 1011, who seized Archbishop Elphege from this cathedral, and shortly afterwards put him to death at Blackheath. The &quot; Canterbury Christmas,&quot; that of 1647, is known for the resistance offered here to the attempt to carry out the decree of Parliament against the observance of the day. Out of the rising that ensued grew the &quot; Kentish Petition &quot; for the release of Charles I, supported, in the following summer, by an armed gathering of the gentry and yeomanry of the county, which was scattered by General Fairfax in the battle of Maidstone. The cathedra] stands on the site of a Roman church given by King Ethelbert, together with his own palace adjoining, to Augustine and his monks. This early church and its adjacent buildings were destroyed and entirely rebuilt by Archbishop Laufranc iu 1070, and the choir 