Canterbury Christ Church University

 Delivered a lecture on 12th June, 2019, at the Canterbury Christ Church University in the Department of Medieval history on the women saints in India. I was asked to send two of my papers related to  this topic before I reached London and I found that all the students had read the articles and had highlighted the important points. A very interesting discussion followed and I could learn a lot about Medieval England and how there were many similarities between the women I was talking about and the Christian women saints. Canterbury Christ Church University is located in the land of the Canterbury Cathedral and the priory. The Canterbury Cathedral  was built by Saint Francis when he came to the coast of Kent in 597A.D.as a missionary sent by Pope Gregory the Great from Rome. He settled here and converted the King Ethelbert to Christianity, and the King had the Church built. His French wife Bertha was already converted to Christianity. St Francis became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Today also the Archbishop of Canterbury is the Chancellor of the University. The Benediction monks resided here in 11th century. This church was destroyed in 15th Cen and again reconstructed in 19th cen. The second World War saw a lot if damages to the Church and its library was totally burnt. However, soon a replica Church was constructed at the same site where prayers had been offered to God since the last 1400 years.The Head of the Department Professor Louise Wilkinson,a medieval expert  is a leading authority on Women's History of medieval Europe. She is the Co Director of the Centre for  Kent history and Heritage. It was very interesting interacting with her and exchanging notes on Women's History in both these countries, our courses taught by us and the Ph. D topics that our students had worked or are  working on. In the Campus there is  a house which has, Coleridge written on it for he had lived here for some time. The statues of the King and Queen of Kent adorn the campus and there were beautiful structures of medieval designs. I had never imagined that I would be visiting such a historical place. Canterbury has been declared as a Heritage city by UNESCO. The University is relatively modern and came to be set up in 1965 as a College to train teachers. Even today the convocation of the University are held in the Canterbury cathedral and there is a major church festival that is organised by the University that brings in different groups and other activities from around the world, mostly Europe and US to participate in this function. We traveled through the country side with lot of open green spaces before we reached this historical site.