Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, England, was rebuilt in the Gothic style after a devastating fire in 1174. The rebuilding, which introduced French Gothic techniques to England, created the building that remains the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The cathedral became the most important religious site in England and a major pilgrimage destination following the martyrdom of Thomas Becket in 1170.

Canterbury Cathedral is central to English literary history as the destination of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the most famous pilgrimage narrative in English poetry. The cathedral has inspired countless poets from Chaucer to the present, with modern writers like T.S. Eliot (whose Murder in the Cathedral dramatizes Becket's martyrdom) and later poets using the cathedral as a symbol of English faith, history, and the enduring power of the pilgrimage tradition.