Another Canterbury Tale

Canterbury Cathedral Outside & In, plus medieval grafitti

Canterbury, of Chaucer fame, lies about an hour east of London. Since the 1100s it's attracted pilgrims, though today they're likely to be sipping lattes from the Starbucks that nestles right next to the entrance to the famed cathedral where Thomas Becket was murdered by four knights, who were incited by King Henry II. In an act of penance, the king later donned sackcloth and walked through the streets of Canterbury while 80 monks reportedly flogged him with branches. No floggings in sight the day we visited, though we would have liked to take some branches to the hordes of noisy French schoolchildren who thronged the narrow cobblestone lanes. (Don't they have their own medieval churches to visit?) The cathedral, the first built in the Gothic style in England, is truly awe-inspiring with an enormous nave filled with light and the patterns of stained glass windows that survived World War II because someone had the presence of mind to remove them and stash them somewhere safe. We sat in the crypt for awhile, a dimly lit, low-ceiling space with heavy Romanesque arches. Past pilgrims have etched their initials and dates into the thick walls. It's amusing to realize that grafitti was a problem even back in the 1400s.