My report of the Canterbury Cathedral

Visit to

Simone Ruiter

T2B

13-1-2012

Visual art

Introduction

From Tuesday the 20th of December until Thursday the 22nd of December I went on a trip to England together with the other students of T2A and T2B. On Wednesday, at our stay in England, we visited the Canterbury Cathedral. The aim of this report is to identify what I expected from the cathedral before the visit and what I think about it after we had visited the cathedral.

Before the visit to the Canterbury Cathedral

In the beginning, I didn’t know anything about the Canterbury Cathedral. But, because I was going to visit the cathedral I did do some research.

I found out that the Canterbury Cathedral is one of the oldest buildings in England. In the year 597 the pope Gregorius sent the archbishop Augustine to England, together with around forty monks, and they had to convert the Saxons, who lived in England, to Christianity. Augustine did a good job and he baptized a lot of Saxons in a small church on the spot where nowadays the Canterbury Cathedral can be found.

In 1066 some Normans attacked England and occupied parts of England. A Norman archbishop named Lefranc took over the power of the church. He saw the church was too small for all the monks and he rebuild the small church into a big cathedral, the Canterbury Cathedral.

 Later on, Thomas Becket became Archbishop of the Canterbury Cathedral. Sadly, Thomas Becket excommunicated a lot of people because he told they weren’t loyal to the church and their belief. The king of England, Henry II, didn’t agree, so he required Thomas Becket to undo his deeds. Thomas Becket didn’t and finally four men were sent to him by the king and they murdered Thomas Becket.

This is all I know about the history of the Canterbury Cathedral. I hope that I will get to know a lot more about the cathedral. I think that in the cathedral I will see the grave of Thomas Becket, because I’ve read that his grave is still there. Personally, I don’t like to see graves of dead people, because it makes me sad. But, I think there are a lot of other nice things which I definitely will enjoy.

One of the main things I like about visiting cathedrals is to watch the stained glass windows. I think is fascinating how people, even a long time ago, can make art like that. I’m a big fan of art myself, so I really want to see that.

During the visit to the Canterbury Cathedral

When we arrived at the Canterbury Cathedral I noticed straight away that it was a huge and highly decorated building. I found it very impressive to see. After we entered the entrance, we were introduced to a guide. The guide gave us a tour through the whole cathedral. While we were walking he talked about the history of the cathedral and what things we were visiting at the moment.

After we went through the entrance, we entered the nave. The nave is a very big aisle which starts at the main entrance of the cathedral and leads to the high altar. The word nave comes from the Latin word ’navis’, which means ship. I think this name is well chosen, because the high ceiling of the nave looks like the bottom of a ship. In the nave there were lots of chairs to sit on while visiting the church or while following a mass. Besides the chairs, there were also a lot of decorations in the nave.

One type of decorations are the statues. A particular statue inside this nave is the welcoming Christ, which lets everybody feels themselves welcome. Another type of decorations inside this cathedral are the stained glass windows. Every window tells a story. These biblical stories were made in the Middle Ages. They have been made, because most of the ordinary people couldn’t read the bible, but because of these images they could know the biblical stories. An example of a stained glass window which I could recognize was Adam, digging in the ground. I really liked the stained glass windows, because it was very colourful and cheerful.

After we visited the nave we walked along the high altar and we went outside, into the Cloisters. This is the inner courtyard of the cathedral. While we were walking through the Cloisters we walked on lots of graves.

Then we went entered the Chapter House. This is the gathering place for monks. An impressive thing of this room is, according to me, the ceiling. The ceiling is beautifully decorated with a complicated pattern. In addition, the walls are nicely decorated too. There are colourful stained glass windows all over the room, which all tell a story belonging to a person.

Then we entered the cathedral again. We arrived at the place where Thomas Beckett was murdered, the Martyrdom. At the back of the room there was a grave with a statue laying on it. Our guide told us Thomas Beckett was laying beneath this statue. On another wall, there were hanging three swords which made the symbol of a cross. These swords had to remind us of the cruel event which has happened before: Thomas Beckett was murdered with a sword. Below these swords, on the ground, there was written something in red: Thomas. It was written in red as a representative of his blood. On the one hand, I didn’t like this room because I don’t enjoy the feeling that someone is killed on the exact place where I’m now. It feels kind of dangerous and evil. On the other hand, the decorations on his grave were very special and nice.

Then we went to the Crypt. The crypt is a chapel beneath the ground. There were a lot of people buried in this place, that’s why some people call it a burial chamber. In the crypt we couldn’t take pictures. Likewise, we also had to be quiet, so people could pray in silence. In the crypt there were a lot of pillars. All these pillars were decorated at the upper side with drawings. One drawing I recognized was a weird animal; it had a head of a lion and as tail a snake head. In the chapel there was a kind of a secret room. Earlier the room had four walls, so nobody could get in. Nowadays they have discovered the room and cut one wall out, so we could see this room. The room was highly decorated with icons. An icon on the ceiling was a drawing of Adam and Eve. I found this room very nice, because of the knowledge it for hidden for a long time.

Next we went to the Quire. The quire was earlier the place for monks to hold their church services. Back then pilgrims weren’t even allowed to come here. Nowadays we can visit this room and this room is even still used. I saw that there were still church services being held, because of the banks and the altar. One special thing I saw in this room was a statue called the lectern. It was a golden statue of an eagle. In my opinion, this was a very impressive statue.

Then we walked on to the Trinity Chapel. In this place there was long time ago a shrine of Thomas Beckett. Back then, pilgrimage would come and kiss this shrine. Nowadays there’s a candle in memory of Thomas Beckett. The shrine isn’t there anymore because someone has destroyed the shrine.   

When we walked further on we came across statues with heads cut off. This is done due the iconoclasm. People wanted to break the statues as a protest, because they were hungry while the church had huge wealth. Only this couldn’t be done, because the most statues were cut out of the wall, so they were resolute to the wall. That’s why they cut off their heads. After we had passed all these statues, we entered the nave again. We were back at our starting point, so our tour was over.  

After the visit to the Canterbury Cathedral

The Canterbury Cathedral was totally not what I expected it to be. I’ve already been in a lot of churches and some cathedrals. In addition, I had also seen some pictures of the Canterbury Cathedral. Still, it was very different. I knew the cathedral would be huge, but the cathedral was way larger than I expected it to be. I didn’t know that there was another part after the nave and the altar. But there was even a part under the ground and it had also its courtyard!

The cathedral was also more beautifully decorated than I thought. The most beautiful things of the cathedral were, in my opinion, all the stained glass windows. I found it very impressive how people from a long time ago could make such art. They were brilliant, because of all the colours. I could even recognize half of all the drawings,

One part of the Canterbury Cathedral that I didn’t enjoyed was the martyrdom. Although it had all kinds of impressive decorations, it made me feel very distasteful and unpleasant.  

However, I really think that the cathedral was impressive and beautiful. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve definitely enjoyed my visit to the Canterbury Cathedral.

The Canterbury tales

A story which has something to do with the cathedral is the story about the Canterbury tales. The story is about pilgrims. They are all making a journey to the Canterbury cathedral, to kiss the shrine of Thomas Beckett. The host makes the rules. He says that each person should tell two stories on their way to Canterbury and two stories on their way back. Each pilgrim will chose at the end of their journey whose tale is the most meaningfulness and fun.

I found this story a very special story, because in fact it is a lot of little stories. All the stories the pilgrims tell are also not just normal stories. Every time there’s a meaning behind the story. That’s what makes all the Canterbury tales stories special to me.

   

the Canterbury Cathedral