Canterbury
The Roman town of Durovernum and chief city of the kings of Kent, where Augustine, sent by Gregory the Great, established his see in an old Roman church.
Bede calls Canterbury the metropolis of King Aethelberht of Kent’s dominions. The king gave Augustine of Canterbury and his monks a dwelling there, and they first worshipped in a church of Saint Martin on the east side of the city, built in Roman times, where the Christian queen Bertha used to pray (Bede, Ecclesiastical History 1.25–26). Augustine then restored another old church inside the city and dedicated it to the Saviour as his cathedral, and founded outside the walls the monastery of Saints Peter and Paul, where he and the kings of Kent were buried (Bede, Ecclesiastical History 1.33).
What happened here
- AD 590 to AD 604, firm dateGregory the Great and the Mission to the English
Gregory I, a monk made pope against his will, governs the Roman church from 590 to 604, writes the Pastoral Rule, refuses the title of universal bishop and sends the monk Augustine to convert the English of Kent.
- about 1078 to 1098, estimated dateAnselm: Faith Seeking Understanding
Anselm, monk of Bec and later archbishop of Canterbury, sets out to understand by reason what he already believes. The Proslogion argues that God cannot be thought not to exist; Cur Deus Homo argues that only a God-man could make satisfaction for sin.
- 29 December 1170, firm dateThe Murder of Thomas Becket
Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, back from six years of exile for resisting Henry II’s claims over the church, is cut down by four knights in his own cathedral. He is venerated as a martyr, and the king does public penance at his tomb.
- 29 June 1864, firm dateSamuel Ajayi Crowther, the First African Anglican Bishop
Samuel Ajayi Crowther, enslaved as a boy and freed at Sierra Leone, is consecrated at Canterbury as bishop for the Niger, to lead a mission planned as purely African. By the mission society’s own account, English missionaries sent in 1890 override him; he dies the next year.