Canterbury

An ancient see city in the county of Kent, England. The top diocese in the Church of England, and by tradition, the entire Anglican Church. Although all the branches of the Anglican Church are autonomous, each maintains a traditional connection with England, and therefore looks to the Archbishop of Canterbury as the spiritual leader of the Church. It was at Canterbury cathedral (officially titled, the Cathedral Church of Christ) that St. Thomas Becket was assassinated by King Henry's friends in 1170. Soon after Thomas' death, pilgrimages to his Canterbury shrine began. (The shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII in 1538) It was one of these pilgrimages that served as the setting for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.