Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0258Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is the interior of a cathedral. Above the image "T301 (Star)" is printed, below the image "V13177 Cathedral Choir E. Past Altar to the Corona, Canterbury, England." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company Copyrighted, Underwood & Underwood Inc. Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
V13177
THE LOFTY INTERIOR OF THE CATHEDRAL CHOIR, CANTERBURY, ENGLAND
One of the earliest and most charming poems in the English language, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales," written in the fourteenth century has for its theme a journey over English highways made by a company of pilgrims bound for Canterbury cathedral, which is situated about sixty miles southeast of London. A large part of the present edifice was already old at that time, the original building having been completed in 1184. It was at this place that St. Augustine and his fellow missionaries from Rome established themselves in 597, and from that time to the present Canterbury has been the metropolis of the Church of England.
Perhaps the most notable episode in the long history of this venerable structure occurred in 1170, when Thomas Becker, then archbishop of Canterbury, was brutally murdered within its walls by four courtiers of King Henry II. The horror of such sacrilege produced a natural reaction and in 1172 Becket was canonized as St. Thomas of Canterbury. For nearly 400 years thereafter his tomb, which formerly stood just beyond the altar, at the right, was the most popular shirne in Engnd, visited by pilgrims frm all over the land, until Henry VIII in 1538 burned the bones of the saint and put a summary end to the organized pilrimages.
The splendid interior on which we are looking follows the prevailing Gothic style of the 12th and 13th centuries, with pillars and narrow pointed arches supporting the heavy side walls and the roof. The choir, directly before us, and the space beyond the altar, called the corona, are both exceptionally long.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection