THE SAXON CATHEDRAL AT CANTERBURY
St. Austin did not rebuild it but restored and enlarged it for his Cathedral Church, though he did not live to see it completed, as he died in A.D. 605.
We call these buildings Roman, because they occur in this part of the country over which Roman influence extended, but it must be remembered that the Christian religion did not emanate from Rome but from Jerusalem, and it is from the East that it spread, passing to Rome and North Africa as well as to Spain, Gaul and Britain. We may therefore take it as a truth that though Britain, Ireland and Scotland were probably Christianized from Gaul, yet the Christianity of Gaul is quite as likely to have proceeded from North Africa as by way of Rome, and this is the supposition adduced by Professor Baldwin Brown in The Arts of Early England, Vol. II, to which I am greatly indebted for these last remarks.[1]
Early Seal of the Cathedral
Before closing this chapter it would be well to draw attention to the evidence which may be rightly adduced concerning the style and appearance of Christ Church, Canterbury, from the earliest seal of the Cathedral foundation. It is attached to twelfth-century muniments, but is undoubtedly earlier, possibly of the middle of the tenth century, after Archbishop Odo had raised the walls of the Church and made other improvements, and before the fire of 1067. It is circular in form and is surrounded by the words "✠ SIGILLUM ECCLESIÆ CHRISTI." It bears within the inscription the representation of a church of peculiar form and archaic appearance; briefly, it fills up the whole of the centre of the seal from side to side, therefore representing a building of considerable length. Its altitude is lofty, with a high-pitched roof; at either end is an apsidal extension, the roofs of which are not much less in height than that of the main roof. In the midst is a tower, with a spire showing two dormers, one east and one south, surmounted by a vane; and projecting slightly from the building is a porch or lower tower, with a door beneath, and at either end are what appear to be quasi-transepts or portici also projecting slightly from the main building,
- ↑ Pothinus, the first bishop of Lyons, had come directly from that country (Asia Minor), bringing with him Irenæus, the disciple of Polycarp, the disciple of John. F. E. Warren, Liturgy and Ritual of Celtic Church, p. 58.
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