Sunday September 7

My goal for today was Southwark Cathedral. Medieval pilgrims to Canterbury would leave from there as it was on the south bank of the Thames, at the edge of London, with the Roman road heading down towards the coast.  

In the ‘Canterbury Tales’ (1387 - 1400) Chaucer has his group of pilgrims leave from Southwark, but from an inn, not a church!   So I’m visiting the Cathedral now, and will leave from an inn (the 17th century’George’, as Chaucer’s ‘Tabard’ no longer exists) tomorrow morning.

In Chaucer’s day the population of London only numbered 35,000, nearly all of whom lived on the north bank of the Thames in what had been the Roman town.  The three kilometre long Roman walls still enclosed the medieval town. Today this small town has morphed into the City, a financial hub glittering with skyscrapers and shyly hiding a few bits of surviving Roman wall.

The rows of brick mark the 6 metre high Roman wall. It was heightened to ten metres in the medieval period.

My walk to and from the Cathedral along the Thames was a sheer joy.  

Southwark Cathedral, known in Chaucer’s age as the Church of St. Mary Overie (‘over the river’), has greatly changed over the centuries, but the tomb of John Gower, a poet and friend of Chaucer, still remains. It has retained its original colouring too - bright red, green and blue colours are typically medieval and have been regularly renewed over the centuries.

Here is an excerpt from one of Gower’s poems:

‘I cannot reach heaven’s height

To set the earthly course aright […]

Thus I will change my style of writing,

Devote my words to love’s reciting;

For all this world knows Love full well,

About no strangeness shall I tell;

For every man is but Love’s fool,

And Love himself know no man’s rule.’ 

The sermon today was quite political and also talked of writing. It used as a starting point the story of Otto and Elise Hampel, who for two years during WWII hand wrote postcards urging people in Berlin not to support the Hitler regime.  Whereas Gower, despairing of earthly social problems turned to Love as a subject, the Cathedral Dean urged us to pick up our pens like the Hampels to support the weak and meek in the face of racist and extremist bullying that is shockingly ever more common in England.

Southwark Cathedral partners with Norway’s Bergen Cathedral, and their choir and organist were visiting today. Stunning music, and a bonus one hour concert after the service.

And let me introduce you to Hodge, the Cathedral’s resident demouser, who animates services and takes over the Dean’s seat.