Sunday, 19 April 2020

The oldest church in the English-speaking world

Today I went to the east of Canterbury city centre to see St Martin's Church.


Bertha (died about 601) was a Christian Frankish princess who married the pagan King Aethelbert of Kent. According to Bede she adopted a pre-existing Roman church on this site to be her private chapel, naming it for St Martin of Tours, a town near when she grew up. When St Augustine arrived on his mission to convert the English (597) he adopted this church as his headquarters, and here he baptised the King (who by this time ruled not just Kent but all of the eastern side of England as far north as the Humber). It was after this that he built his Abbey (nearby) and the church that became the Cathedral (a little further off).

This infor comes from Bede, the historian, saint and 'doctor' of the church, who writes of "a church dedicated of old to the honour of St. Martin, built whilst the Romans were still in the island" in chapter 26 of his Ecclesiastical History of England, written about 731.

From the front view above the church looks Victorian mock-mediaeval but if you look at the side walls of the back you can see Roman bricks (typically flat) among the Saxon flints:

You can learn more about this church from its website here.


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