The Cathedral's history goes back to 597AD when St Augustine, sent by Pope Gregory the Great as a missionary, established his seat in Canterbury. In 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in the Cathedral and ever since, the Cathedral has attracted thousands of pilgrims, as told in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
In 1011, Canterbury was among the many English towns devastated by marauding Danes, who traveled up the rivers killing and pillaging from their longships. The city was destroyed, the cathedral was set on fire, and Archbishop Alphege was taken hostage in hopes of ransom. In 1093, a man named Anselm became Archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm was a quiet scholarly type, known for his wisdom and piety. But it is to him, along with the priors Ernulf and Conrad, that we owe much of the Romanesque architecture and art that survives today. Most notably, Anselm built the huge and beautifully decorated crypt beneath the east end, which still survives fully intact. An extensive choir with ambulatory, consecrated in 1130, was then built over the crypt.
