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Cantuaria.

("Doomsday Book.")

F all Cathedral cities, Canterbury, or, as it is also called, Christ Church, may possibly be considered the most interesting. Though not the first to spread Christianity in Britain, it nevertheless firmly established it in the end. The earliest authentic evidence of Christians in England is mentioned by Tertullian, in 208. And again, in 304, St. Alban had been martyred during Diocletian's persecution at Verulam, now known as St. Alban's. Then, in 314, Christianity had attained such a position in Britain that it had been considered necessary for the Bishops of York and London to attend at the Council of Arles, in France. So that by the end of the third century to the beginning of the fourth, it is known that there existed bishops, though not till the close of the fourth century was there a "settled Church" in Britain, with churches, altars, Scriptures, and discipline.

These expounded the Catholic Faith, and were in touch with Rome and Palestine. But the arrival of Augustine, in 600, decidedly gave an impetus to the lasting establishment of Christianity in England, and the whole island quickly became converted.

Though Christianity had long flourished in Rome, it could hardly, in its early stages, be expected to make itself greatly felt in Britain, owing to the continual troublous times caused by the invasions first by the Roman soldiery, then by the Scots and Picts from Caledonia (now called Scotland), and the Saxons, who came from the river Elbe, and the Angles, who dwelt to the north of the Saxons, in the districts now called Schleswig and Holstein. Then the Danes and Northmen landed in England in 787, and practically overran the whole kingdom. All these tribes, each in its turn, devastated the country, pillaging and destroying everything, so that there is little to marvel at the slow growth of Christianity in the island, seeing that the clergy were the first to suffer. Augustine may be said to have certainly revived Christianity and rescued the Church from utter oblivion, but it was left till the Norman Conquest to erect the wonderful architectural structures, many of which exist till this day.