THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF

CANTERBURY

A DESCRIPTION OF ITS FABRIC
AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE
ARCHIEPISCOPAL SEE

BY HARTLEY WITHERS, B.A.

LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1897

First Edition December, 1896.
Second Edition, Revised, with many Additional Illustrations, May, 1897.

GENERAL PREFACE.

This series of monographs has been planned to supply visitors to the great English Cathedrals with accurate and well illustrated guide books at a popular price. The aim of each writer has been to produce a work compiled with sufficient knowledge and scholarship to be of value to the student of archæology and history, and yet not too technical in language for the use of an ordinary visitor or tourist.

To specify all the authorities which have been made use of in each case would be difficult and tedious in this place. But amongst the general sources of information which have been almost invariably found useful are:—firstly, the great county histories, the value of which, especially in questions of genealogy and local records, is generally recognized; secondly, the numerous papers by experts which appear from time to time in the transactions of the antiquarian and archæological societies; thirdly, the important documents made accessible in the series issued by the Master of the Rolls; fourthly, the well-known works of Britton and Willis on the English Cathedrals; and, lastly, the very excellent series of Handbooks to the Cathedrals, originated by the late Mr. John Murray, to which the reader may in most cases be referred for fuller detail, especially in reference to the histories of the respective sees.

Gleeson White.
E. F. Strange.
Editors of the Series.

PREFACE.

Among authorities consulted in the preparation of this volume, the author desires to name specially Prof. Willis’s “Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral” (1845), Dean Stanley’s “Historical Memorials of Canterbury” (Murray, 1855, and fifth edition, 1868), “Canterbury,” by the Rev. R.C. Jenkins (1880), and the excellent section devoted to Canterbury in Murray’s “Handbooks to the English Cathedrals, Southern Division,” wherein Mr. Richard John King brought together so much valuable matter, to which reference has been made too often to be acknowledged in each instance. For permission to use this the publishers have to thank Mr. John Murray.

For the reproduction of the drawings of the various parts of the Cathedral, and the arms on the title page, by Mr. Walter Tallent Owen, the editors are greatly indebted to the artist, from whose volume, “Bits of Canterbury Cathedral,” published by W.T. Comstock, New York, 1891, they have been taken. Others are taken from Charles Wild’s “Specimens of Mediæval Architecture,” and from Carter’s “Ancient Sculpture and Paintings.”

The illustrations from photographs in this volume have been reproduced from the originals by Messrs. Carl Norman and Co.

H. W.

CONTENTS