Pictures from Canterbury

I just uploaded pictures form Canterbury, here are some of them.

This is the site of the old shrine to St. Thomas a Beckett before it was destroyed by the reformation.

The cathedral at sunset.

This is the Martyrdom of St. Thomas a Beckett; the site where we was murdered. St. Thomas stood up to Henry II and eventually three knights of the king attacked him in the cathedral, slicing the top of his head off and smearing his brains on the floor. (That is a VERY simplified version of the story)

Another view of the old Beckett Shrine. In the back (not the one surrounded by a metal gate) is the tomb of a French Catholic Bishop who came to England to help French Protestants. He died in England and his family refused to take his body back since he was a heretic for helping Protestants, so he has been in the cathedral ever since.

This is of the main altar from the quire. The chair barely visible behind the altar cross is the arch-episcopal cathedra, the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury when he is attending services as the Archbishop and not just as the Bishop.

The sixth is a picture of the nave facing the altar.

This was the place for the shrine of the crown. The top of Thomas' skull was preserved and placed in a shrine in this chapel at the eastern end of the nave.

This is the entrance from the nave into the quire.

I think this is my favorite Cathedral in England.