To historians of religion and art, England’s Canterbury Cathedral is one of the world’s most significant medieval buildings. Dedicated to St. Augustine (sent by Pope Gregory the Great to the pagan Kingdom of Kent in 597 AD), it became a major pilgrimage site following the martyrdom of Britain’s most important saint, Thomas Becket, in 1170 AD. Becket was archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder by agents of King Henry II with whom Becket openly disagreed over the rights and privileges of the church. The importance of this cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is reflected by the fact it receives close to a million visitors every year.
Enter York University historian and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada Rachel Koopmans, an expert in medieval religious culture, currently writing a book on Canterbury’s medieval stained glass. She became suspicious about a stained glass panel that had long been thought to had been made by Victorian glaziers in the late 19th century.
Enlisting the help of Leonie Seliger, director of Canterbury’s Stained Glass Studio, Koopmans determined that this glass dates all the way back to the 1180s. That’s 200 years before The Canterbury Tales, depicting this same pilgrimage, was penned by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Left: Image of Chaucer as a pilgrim from “Ellesmere Manuscript” in the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. The manuscript is an early publishing of The Canterbury Tales (Wikipedia). Right: Canterbury Cathedral, a major pilgrimage site for centuries
“Astoundingly, this glass was created within 15 to 20 years after Becket was killed. This means that this is the earliest surviving portrait of pilgrims on the road to Canterbury. Moreover, once the glass was installed, thousands of later pilgrims would have seen this glass – including Chaucer himself, if he came on pilgrimage to Canterbury,” Koopmans explains.
Seliger adds that she and Koopmans were “literally hopping with excitement” when they made this discovery.
It began in the archives of Canterbury Cathedral
The story begins deep in the Cathedral’s archives where Koopmans was pouring over documents about the “miracle” windows, 12 large windows surrounding the spot where Becket’s magnificent shrine, covered with jewels, stood in the eastern-most chapel of Canterbury Cathedral. These windows, eight of which still survive, depict Becket’s life and his posthumous miracles.
Koopmans homed in on one in particular: window nV.
Koopmans examining the portrait of Canterbury now known to date to the late 12th century (Image: Gareth Fuller/Press Association. Image reproduced with permission of the Press Association)