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During the four centuries which passed during the construction and reconstruction of the fabric, considerable changes had manifested themselves in the science and art of architecture. Hence it is that Canterbury Cathedral is a history, written in solid stone, of architectural progress, illustrating in itself almost all the various kinds of the style commonly called Pointed. Of these the earliest form of Gothic and Perpendicular chiefly predominate. The shape and arrangement of the building was doubtless largely influenced by the extraordinary number of precious relics which it contained, and which had to be properly displayed and fittingly enshrined. Augustine's church had possessed the bodies of St. Blaize and St. Wilfrid, brought respectively from Rome and from Ripon; of St. Dunstan, St. Alphege, and St. Ouen, as well as the heads of St. Swithin and St. Furseus, and the arm of St. Bartholomew. These were all carefully removed and placed, each in separate altars and chapels, in Lanfranc's new cathedral. Here their number was added to by the acquisition of new relics and sacred treasures as time went on, and finally Canterbury enshrined its chiefest glory, the hallowed body of St. Thomas
Furseus, an Irish missionary, is said to have settled with a colony of monks, having been favourably received by Sigebert, the ruler of the East Angles, in 633 A.D. Burgh Castle is one of the finest specimens of a Roman fort which our earliest conquerors have left us, and ranks with Reculver, Richborough, and Pevensey, those strong fortresses which were erected nearly two thousand years ago to guard the coasts against foreign foes.
Beda lib. 3 cap. 19. Of this Furseus manie things are written, the which for briefenesse we ouerpasse. After that Felix the bishop of the Eastangles was dead, one Thomas was ordeined in his place, who after he had béene bishop fiue yéeres, died, and then one Beretgils was ordeined in his roome by Honorius the archbishop of Canturburie.
It is the story of how an Irishman of great sanctity, Furseus by name, was taken in spirit by three angels to a place from which he looked down and saw the four fires that are to consume the world: those of falsehood, avarice, discord, fraud and impiety.
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