When was canterbury cathedral founded

The pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales followed the Pilgrims Way to Canterbury, to worship and make penance at the tomb of the murdered Archbishop, Thomas Becket. You can discover the colourful characters of medieval Canterbury — from Princes and archbishops, to ale sellers and washerwomen. Visitors can also learn about medieval food, Chaucer and the monastic life.

Canterbury has been home to poets and playwrights and an inspiration to writers of English literature through the centuries. Today Canterbury still welcomes visitors from all four corners of the globe and has, with its many ancient buildings, shops, bars and restaurants, retained both an old world charm and a cosmopolitan vitality. A small and compact city, the centre is closed to traffic during the daytime so that streets and attractions may more easily and safely be accessed by walking trails or from April to October with a guided tour.

Canterbury is easily accessible by both road and rail, please try our UK Travel Guide for further information. Each itinerary would take approximately 1 day to complete, but can be adapted to fit a half day visit if necessary. Take a walking tour of Canterbury with an official guide Tel finishing at the Visitor Information Centre in the Buttermarket. He was amicably received by Ethelbert I, king of Kent, still a pagan, although married to a Frankish princess of the Christian religion, Bertha.

He was given the queen's Church of St Martin, located on a hill, outside the Roman city walls. This building had been a place of worship during the Roman occupation of Britain and remains the oldest consecrated church in England still in use. Shortly afterward, the king and his subjects converted to Christianity. Augustine, who had already founded a monastery, then decided to establish a larger church within the Roman city walls. The Pope gave this church the status of a cathedral, hence Canterbury became the first episcopal seat of England, and Augustine was its first bishop.

Along the creation of the cathedral came the formation of a community offering daily prayer to God. When other dioceses were created in England, Augustine was made archbishop, becoming the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He also built the Abbey of St Peter and Paul outside the city walls.

The Canterbury Cathedral was originally called Christ Church. The evangelisation of England began in Canterbury, and the city has become the spiritual capital of the country. This had been the primary objective of the Church of Rome and, later, also that of England, and the Canterbury Cathedral was key to this objective. Developments of and events relating to the Canterbury Cathedral The Canterbury Cathedral remains one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England.

Following its foundation in the 6th century, English rulers converted to Christianity and the English Church flourished. The building underwent reconstruction through the centuries and was expanded more and more, thus creating the present Canterbury Cathedral. Described as 'England in stone', the history of the cathedral was intrinsically linked to the history of England. Prior to this, an abbey was added to the cathedral. The cathedral was reconstructed to a design based closely on an abbey in Caen, where Lanfranc was previously an abbot.

It took the form of a complete church in itself. The rebuilding and improvement were supervised by the priors since Archbishop Anselm was twice exiled from England. Due to frequent tensions with the king, the archbishop was killed in the cathedral by the four knights of Henry II. He was canonised in The assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket made the cathedral one of the top pilgrimage destinations in Europe. Augustine had been consecrated a bishop in France and was later made an archbishop by the Pope.

Since that time, there has been a community around the Cathedral offering daily prayer to God; this community is arguably the oldest organisation in the English speaking world.

Until the 10th century, the Cathedral community lived as the household of the Archbishop. During the 10th century, it became a formal community of Benedictine monks, which continued until the monastery was dissolved by King Henry VIII in There have been many additions to the building over the last nine hundred years, but parts of the Quire and some of the windows and their stained glass date from the 12th century. A staircase and parts of the North Wall — in the area of the North West transept also called the Martyrdom — remain from that building.

The murder took place in what is now known as The Martyrdom.