SIXTH WINTER MEETING.— FEBRUARY 9th, 1904. 



•THE EARLY HISTORY OF CANTERBURY MONASTERY.' —By the 

 Rev. A. J. GALPIN. 



There is probably no study more interesting- or 

 more fascinating than that of the history of ancient 

 buildioog. As we look at the dark and stately 

 piles which are to be seen in various parts of the 

 country we cannot but conjure up memories of the 

 many ages durinoj which they have existed — the 

 troublous times and vicissitudes which they have 

 witnessed and the many changes which have 

 led up to the high state of civilization which we 

 now enjoy. Carlylein his book on "Heroes and Hero 

 \Vor3hip''expoundsthe very interesting the 11 y that 

 every great reform and improvement made in every 

 age is the outcome of the thoughts and energies of 

 the great men who lived in those ages. Whilst 

 not venturing to express an opinion on such a 

 tremendous subject, or venturing to criticise such 

 a great authority as Carlyle, still in looking at the 

 great relics of the past we may be permitted to 

 connect them with the great men to whom we are so 

 indebted for our present day civil aad religious 

 liberty. Here in Canterbury we possess a large 

 Dumber of very ancient buildings (mainly of course 

 reminiscent ot religious vicissitudes and changes) 

 and it is only natural, therefore, th it our Society 

 should make this study a somewhat prominent 

 feature of their work. On Tuesday evening, 

 February 9th, 1904, a lecture was given by the 

 Headmaster of the King's School (the Eev. A. J. 

 Gnlpin) entitled " A Monk of Canterbury," in 

 which the talented lecturer ga\e an interesting 

 discourse on the early history of Canterbury 

 Monastery, in the Parry Library at the King's 

 School. Mr. Sidney Harvey, F.I.C., presided, and 

 there was an extremely good attendance consider- 

 ing the UDpropitious weather which prevailed. 



The Chairman, in a few introductory remarks, 

 mentioned that in meeting there that night the 

 Society were not establishing a precedent, for 

 year^ ago, he said, before they obtained the use of 

 the Reference Library at the Beaney Institute, 

 the Society used to meet in a small room in the 

 Cathedral, but on special occasions, when they 

 met in force, they enjoyed the hospitality of the 

 King's School. That occasion gave him an oppor- 

 tunity of recalling the very pleasant gatherings 

 they had in those days. Now that they were 

 visiting the old scenes, as it were, they were 

 putting themselves under another obligation to 

 the King's School (applause). 



The Rev. A. J. Galpin prefaced his remarks by 

 thanking those present, on behalf of the King's 

 School, for their attendance that evening. It was 

 his intention, he said, to trouble them with very 

 few dates but rather to endeavour to put a little 

 life int^3 the buildings which they saw around 

 them. During the time he had lieen there, he had 

 been filled with some longing to know what the 

 people were who had lived in those buildings and 

 what their dai'y mode of life had been. He had 

 ventured to call his lecture " A Monk of Canter- 

 bury," not that he proposed dealing with any 



particular monk, but rather to give them an idea 

 of monastic life in their immediate vicinity. At 

 the outset they would do well to remind themselves 

 of what was meant by a monk and a monastery in 

 the strict sense of t he words. In the MiddleAges they 

 came across a great many religious foundations in 

 common religious life ; but it would be incorrect to 

 speak of them as monasteries. The essence of 

 monasticism lay in the consecration of the work 

 woolly to the service of God, to live a life apart 

 from the world, disciplined and under bonds. When 

 the monk entered his cloister and took his vows he 

 bade farewell for ever to the world. These were, 

 what were called. Regular Foundations. But there 

 was another class of foundations in which a 

 number of men in Holy Orders lived together 

 under a common rule but without vows and not 

 separate from the world. These were known as 

 secular clergy and they belonged to a secular 

 foundation. He thought it would be quite clear 

 that when they spoke of secular clergy they did 

 not mean to infer that they were wi rldly. It 

 seemed that there was a foundation rf that latter 

 kind— secular clergy attached to their Cathedral 

 in the Anglo-Saxon days, after the landing of St. 

 Augustine in 597. " Until the Conqueror's time," 

 writes Somner (an old King's Scholar) in 1620, 

 I find no mention of any " Prior " of Christ Church. 

 Aforetime it seems he that held the place was 

 called Decanis Ecclesiae. And the list, for wiiich 

 he (the lecturer) could not vouch, gave the names 

 of twelve of these Deans. The question as to 

 what the constitution of the Cathedral clergy 

 actually was before the time of Lanfranc was 

 certainly a difficult one, because the old monastic 

 historians such as William of Malmesbury, who 

 wrote in 1125 were— as Dr. Stubbs had shewn — 

 utterly regardless of truth in this matter. TheMonks 

 wrote as if the Cathedrals from the earliest times 

 were in the hands of the Monks. This was 

 extremely doubtful, and it was quite certain that 

 it was not true of many of the English Cathedrals. 

 A good modern authority, Mr. Arthur Leach, 

 maintained that before the coming of Lanfranc, 

 their Cathedral at Canterbury was not, for the 

 most part, in the hands of monks and never in the 

 hands of monks exclusively. St. Augustine him- 

 self was, of course, a monk, and so, no doubt, were 

 many of h is companions. At any rate as a 

 Bishop and a Missionary, St. Augustme bad to 

 live a life entirely inconsistent with that of a 

 monk — the essence of whoso rule was that he 

 should have no property, and not go outside 

 his cloister, excepting occasionally. Augustine 

 consulted the Pope Gregory, and it was thought 

 probable by some, that — in accordance with the 

 Pope's reply — the clergy, who were monks, were 

 placed in the Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, 

 which irhey now called St. Augustine Abbey, 

 some two hundred yards from the Cathedral where 

 they could lead a monastic life, undisturbed, 



