Although Canterbury rose to national prominence during the medieval age, it initially became an important settlement during the period of Roman occupation (43 to 400 AD). Founded along the ultra-straight Watling Street, leading from the channel ports and crossing the Thames at Londinium, the road forked after London, with branches leading to the capital of Britannia at Colchester and towns further afield in northern Britain. Durovernum Cantiacorum, as Canterbury was then known, was a convenient fording point across the meandering River Stour.

The initial founding of the title: Archbishop of Canterbury by St Augustine, in the 6th century and the later construction of the cathedral in the 10th and 11th century, placed Canterbury at the centre of Christian Britain. The Archbishop of Canterbury is still the head of the Church of England and the Queen is the 'Supreme Governor'. After Thomas Becket's murder in 1170, Canterbury Cathedral became a place of pilgrimage, which was the subject of Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales' in the late 1300s.