(taken from notes written by Alex MacLaren)

A.   

A brief assessment of the heritage value of Archbishop's Palaces to
National history


1. The early monastic Church 

From the arrival St Augustine up to the Norman conquest, Archbishops were mostly holy men following a monastic way of life. When the Anglo-Saxons archbishops
acquired estates, they managed them from manorial buildings. However, the ravages of the Vikings and the Danes meant that, in Kent, no monastic buildings have
survived from this period beyond St Augustine's Abbey, itself badly damaged when Canterbury was sacked.


2. Change to a political Church

William the Conqueror brought change, obtaining a papal deposition to remove the Anglo-Saxon Archbishop Stigand.  William installed Lanfranc, abbot of William's own abbey in Caen as Archbishop.

Working closely with the King, Lanfranc set about a vast ecclesiastical rebuilding program in the new Romanesque style. Very importantly, Lanfranc established ground-breaking standards for the residences of archbishops and members of their burgeoning entourages.  The buildings not only provided the Church hierarchy with accommodation and chapels for private worship but also great halls and kitchens for entertainment on a grand scale. Thus through Lanfranc, William tightened his grip on the Anglo-Saxon people by building a rich and powerful Church.

The size and grandeur of the Church's ecclesiastical complexes was intended to
impress upon the people the power of their Norman overlords.   

3. The Palace network is built

History recounts that from the time of the Norman Conquest, the Church went on to increase its power and influence both through the acquisition of land and by political intrigue.

As a landowner, in size and power rivaling that of the King, the Church required its leaders to tour constantly its lands settling disputes both secular and ecclesiastical. In the middle ages, travel was generally limited to 15 miles a day. Accordingly, the Church built residences along routes for its archbishops that connected Canterbury with London and reached the sea at Hythe and Dover.


Successive archbishops saw the need for improvements and extensions to their
residences, reinforcing their political position and meeting the growing needs of their entourage or "clerks" supporting the archbishop's administrative duties. Soon Kent and nearby counties hosted a network of archbishop's residences whose grandeur
ensured the term of "Palace". 



4. Dissolution and destruction

Henry Parker, the fifteenth century Carmelite friar wrote about church rebuilding  "I

(Continued on page 27)