The Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction
THE CITY OF CANTERBURY IS within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of the same.
As TO the several parish churches which have been,
or now are within this city or its suburbs; the first of
them that is found mentioned, excepting that of St.
Martin, is that of the four crowned martyrs, taken
notice of upon this occasion by Bede, who says, that
a little before the year 624, great part of this city was
burnt, and the slames raging vehemently near this
church, archbishop Mellitus put a stop to them by his
prayers. The four crowned saints gave title to an antient church in Rome, and was probably given to this
church by one of our three first archbishops, who
were Romans. The place where this church was
situated, cannot now be marked out, but as far as can
be guessed by Bede's short narrative, it was not far
from the archbishop's palace, and not improbably on
the same spot of ground where St. Alphage's church
now stands; for the flames were driven by a south
wind towards the north side of the city, and the archbishop was carried near to this church of the four
crowned martyrs, where a stop was put to the fire; the
wind suddenly turning to the north, as the venerable
historian relates it. (fn. 1) Another church is mentioned in
a charter of Cænulph, king of Mercia, and Cuthred,
king of Kent, anno 804, being a gift to the abbess
and her nuns of Liminge, of a piece of land, which
belonged to the church of St. Mary, situated in the west
part of this city. But as no such church is now, or is
read of, to have been standing since the conquest, it
may be safely inferred, that from the face and condition of the city having suffered an utter change since
that period, especially when the Danes made such havoc
of both place and people in king Ethelred's days, both
by fire and sword; the church above-mentioned, as
well as all others within it, were then totally destroyed
and annihilated; so that all that we know of (except
St. Martin's) must have been erected since that time,
and the names of the saints to which several of the
churches are dedicated, as St. Alphage, St. Dunstan,
and St. Edmund the King and Martyr, serve to confirm the truth of it.