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“Murder in the Cathedral”

“Murder in the Cathedral”

Last updated on: May 7, 2026 at 5:57 pm by Dan Peterson

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“Murder in the Cathedral” 2026-05-07T17:57:17-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Canterbury Cathedral, shown here in a 2006 Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph by Antony McCallum, who is the uploader, photographer, full copyright owner, and proprietor of WyrdLight.com, is currently undergoing an exterior cleaning and renovation that has already made its twin towers gleam as if they had been completed just a few days ago.

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licóur

Of which vertú engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale foweles maken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open ye,

So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,

To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;

And specially, from every shires ende

Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

So run the first eighteen lines of The Canterbury Tales in their original Middle English, as they were written by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. And here they are as one modern translator has rendered them:

When April with its sweet-smelling showers
Has pierced the drought of March to the root,
And bathed every vein (of the plants) in such liquid
By which power the flower is created;
When the West Wind also with its sweet breath,
In every wood and field has breathed life into
The tender new leaves, and the young sun
Has run half its course in Aries,
And small fowls make melody,
Those that sleep all the night with open eyes
(So Nature incites them in their hearts),
Then folk long to go on pilgrimages,
And professional pilgrims to seek foreign shores,
To distant shrines, known in various lands;
And specially from every shire’s end
Of England to Canterbury they travel,
To seek the holy blessed martyr,
Who helped them when they were sick.

Our tour began today. We drove out of London, which is a very slow and complicated process, and over to Canterbury. Our first stop there was at the Church of St Martin, which is believed to be the oldest church in the English-speaking world, as well as the oldest English church building that is still in active ecclesiastical use. With the nearby Canterbury Cathedral and St Augustine’s Abbey, it forms a collective UNESCO World Heritage Site. It also happens to be the place where the parents of our British Latter-day Saint guide, Peter Fagg, were married. They later joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and eventually served as the president and matron of the London England Temple.

We then walked over to St. Augustine’s Abbey, which was founded in AD 598 by the monk and missionary St. Augustine of Canterbury — not to be confused with the philosopher and theologian Augustine of Hippo — who was sent by Pope Gregory I to convert the Anglo-Saxons and who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury — which is still the title of the head of the Church of England and of the world-wide Anglican communion.

From the Abbey we walked over to Canterbury Cathedral, which we visited after lunch. This is where St. Anselm of Canterbury, an Italian Benedictine abbot, philosopher and theologian, served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 until his death in 1109. He is often considered the founder of medieval scholasticism and is very likely the originator of the famous “ontological argument” for the existence of God.

Most famously, it was within the Cathedral that St. Thomas Becket, formerly the close friend of King Henry II and Lord Chancellor of England from 1155 until his very reluctant acceptance of the office of Archbishop of Canterbury in 1162 was assassinated by four of the king’s knights on 29 December 1170. He was canonized as a saint roughly two years later, and his tomb became a major object of pilgrimage.

I first read T. S. Eliot’s verse play Murder in the Cathedral back when I was in high school — though whether I did so as a class assignment or on my own initiative I cannot now recall. It impressed me deeply. Written at the invitation of George Bell, the Bishop of Chichester, and first performed in the Cathedral’s Chapter House for the 1935 Canterbury Festival, the play is a remarkable piece of literature and has occupied a special place in my heart and mind since my initial encounter with it.

After decades have passed, I still remember a passage that struck me powerfully then. It occurs when the second of four “tempters” comes to Thomas, offering him a return to the worldly power and wealth that he had previously enjoyed as Lord Chancellor of England and the king’s friend if we will only accede to the demands that Henry II is making of the Church. Thomas responds:

Thomas: No! shall I, who keep the keys
Of heaven and hell, supreme alone in England,
Who bind and loose, with power from the
Pope,
Descend to desire a punier power?
Delegate to deal the doom of damnation,
To condemn kings, not serve among their
servants, Is my open office. No! Go.
Tempter: Then I leave you to your fate.

I freely admit to having been much impressed, too, by the 1964 film Becket, which is based upon a play by Jean Anouilh and which stars Richard Burton as Thomas Becket and Peter O’Toole as Henry II. I fact, I think that I need to watch it again. It’s been years since I’ve seen it.

A martyrdom is always the design of God, for His love of men, to warn them and to lead them, to bring them back to His ways. It is never the design of man; for the true martyr is he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, and who no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of being a martyr. (T. S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral)

Posted from Cambridge, England

History and Religion

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Murder in the Cathedral

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