InfoBritain

 

Southwark Cathedral, London

There has been a church on the site of Southwark Cathedral in south London since Norman times. In 1170 the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket preached here, before leaving for Canterbury Cathedral, where he was murdered. Becket had been involved in a power struggle with King Henry the Second, A few headstrong knights overhearing some careless words from the frustrated Henry, killed Becket in Canterbury Cathedral itself. In honour of Becket, a tradition of pilgrimage then grew grew up, with Southwark as the starting point and Canterbury as the destination. The Church did all it could to encourage this cult, including the building of an ornate shrine to Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Becket after all was a symbol of the seniority of the church over the state. His stand against secular power thus became an important symbolic weapon in the Church's struggle to maintain its power.

In the fourteenth century Chaucer used a pilgrimage from Southwark to Canterbury as the framework for his Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's pilgrims all go on the same pilgrimage to Canterbury. By this time John Wycliffe was challenging the Roman Catholic Church in a kind of precursor of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Church was struggling to remain Europe's most powerful unifying force. In this situation the symbolism of Becket's final journey, lying behind the Canterbury Tales, was even more important. All of Chaucer's pilgrims go on the same pilgrimage, and they are all united in that sense; and yet in the tales there is much satire of corrupt churchmen. The togetherness of the pilgrimage is combined with growing division. By the sixteenth century religion was bitterly divisive. Henry the Eighth changed the religion of England from Catholicism to Protestantism, only for his daughter Mary the First to change it back again. Heresy trials during the reign of Mary were held at Southwark Cathedral.

By the later sixteenth century Elizabeth the First had confirmed England as a Protestant country. England had become more stable, and one of the ways in which this stability is illustrated was in the rise of theatre. During the long chaotic period after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Church had forbidden drama. Perhaps the power and unpredictability of drama couldn't be accepted in such unsettled times. But ironically Church ritual slowly evolved into the drama which the Church detested. By the reign of Elizabeth the First the theatre in England suddenly burst into life with some of the greatest writing in the history of literature. Once again this is reflected in Southwark Cathedral. Shakespeare's brother Edmund was buried at Southwark Cathedral in 1607. In the nineteenth century a large stain glass window was installed depicting scenes from Shakespeare's plays.

Today pilgrimages continue to start from Southwark Cathedral. Shakespeare's Globe is close by, and so is the George Inn, an old galleried in which once stood near the Tabard Inn where Chaucer's pilgrims set off on their pilgrimage to Canterbury.

Excavation at the Cathedral reveals successive building on the site, back to the Roman road which once ran in from Kent to London Bridge.

There is a shop and refectory at the cathedral. The refectory is open for breakfast from 8.30am on weekdays,and remains open until 6pm. Refectory opening at the weekend is 10am - 6pm.

 

 

Directions: Southwark Cathedral is in Montague Place just off Borough High Street in Southwark. London Bridge Underground and mainline station is close by. Click here for an interactive map centred on Southwark Cathedral.

Contact:

telephone: 020 7637 6700

web site: http://www.southwark.anglican.org/cathedral/images/arms.gif