Canterbury

A former Roman fort, today a quiet serene little city about 70km east of London and the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the tutilar head of the Church of England.

At the time in 597 when Pope Gregory appointed Augustine to lead a mission to the Anglo-Saxons England was divided into a series of kingdoms, and London (Londinium) was at its ebb. Augustine decided then that the wisest thing to do was to set up his base in Canterbury, the capital of Kent, the kingdom nearest to and most easily assessible to Europe. When political power laternshifted from Kent to London, the Anglican Church established a palace in Lambeth, across the Thames from the city. Canterbury, however, remained a vital center of pilgrimage, especially after the murder of Thomas Beckett at the alter in the Cathedral in 1170. These pilgrimages were, of course, the background behind Geoffrey Chaucer's highly popular Canterbury Tales.