Chad's grave-the evidence

 Summary. Excavation at the east end of the nave, 2003, revealed the foundation of a shrine chapel and within it was one grave. Eight reasons are given for believing this was Chad’s grave.

 Context

King Wulfhere gained overlordship of Mercia c. 657-9, possibly by paying tribute to King Oswiu of Northumbria.[1] He appointed the third and fourth bishops of Mercia, who came from the north. They most likely built their timber churches, perhaps along the Trent washlands where there were large settlements.[2] Bishop Wilfrid, acting as the bishop of Mercia, together with Wulfhere, between 667 and 669, fixed a site for a mother church-cathedral beside a stream on a Mercian mudstone slope.[3] They called the location Licitfelda, meaning the approved field. They said it was paratum, meaning prepared and taken to show the site had two churches for an incoming 5th bishop of Mercia. Bede 17–19 years later, confirmed the event.[4] Chad of Lastingham, Yorkshire, newly made a bishop for the second time in the Roman church agreed to be the missionary bishop for Mercia. Bede recorded when Chad died in 672 two churches were present;[5] St Peters and St Marys. He also stated Wilfrid became the Bishop of the Middle Angles, ?690–692,[6] and with Bishop Headda of Lichfield, c. 691 x 716–27, a close relationship with Mercia continued and lasted for eleven years, between 691/2 to 703.^[7] Almost certainly Wilfrid encouraged the cult of Chad, its pilgrimage and Licetfelda as a sacred landscape.[8] A similar arrangement was repeated with Cuthbert at Lindisfarne and in time with Wilfrid at Ripon. Each diocese had a major saint and a shrine and at Lichfield the sacred landscape was early.

Imagined layout of the sacred landscape

 

Archaeological evidence

          In 2003, an octagonal hole, 7.5m wide, was dug in the floor at the east end of the nave to install a rising platform.[9] A foundation for a building was found (described later) and inside the foundation was a sunken, possibly lined, pit, 0.8m deep, c. 2m wide and slightly longer[10]; clearly a burial pit. A baptistry was considered, but then disregarded.[11]  Rodwell published the outcome of the dig for the cathedral library and later its significance in a magazine.[12] He concluded the pit was a grave with Insular features. 

Reconstructed diagram of the shrine foundation enclosing the sunken chamber and showing how it was offset to the north. Only the left half of the shrine tower foundation (brown) was uncovered. Only three-quarters of the left side of the pit was excavated.

 

 

Photograph of the excavation area and the grave. The chapel foundation wall is outlined in red. 

 

Position of the grave in the current cathedral, 3.5m from the north pillar of the second bay.

 

 

Reasons for believing this was Chad’s grave.   

1.     Every aspect suggests a shrine chapel was built to house the grave of someone special.[13] One grave (there were 3 later internments) inside a building indicate it was a significant relic. Similar arrangements, many in Ireland and a few in England, point to a shrine for a saint sympathetic to the traditions of the Celtic church.  Adomnán, 7th-century, stated Christ’s tomb allowed 9 men to stand praying beside the rock-cut tomb. This is around a 5m square space and is the size of many Irish saint’s shrines and the foundation building at Lichfield.

   2.     Bede recorded Chad’s relics were within a ‘wooden house’, on (ibidem) the original grave.[14] It is entirely plausible the wooden house was later replaced with a stone sepulchre-chest. Within the grave and close by were found three pieces of stonework which fitted together to make what is now called ‘The Lichfield Angel’. It appeared to once having a capping slab, but there was no indication it had a floor. The head of the angel Gabriel is very similar to the head on King Offa’s coins (Romanesque) suggesting he ordered the new shrine chest. Its fine painted detail and being best stone from Ancaster, Lincolnshire, suggests wealth typical of Offa and his archbishopric. The style of Gabriel, especially his Romanesque tunic, closely resembles the incised Gabriel on the left end of Cuthbert’s wooden coffin now exhibited in Durham Cathedral. It infers linkage between the chest for Chad and the coffin for Cuthbert. 

 Michael (left) and Gabriel on Cuthberts coffin.

  Lichfield Angel showing the archangel Gabriel in the same pose.  

     

      3.     A substantial socketed, sandstone block was found next to the sunken chamber and could have been the base to a standing cross.[15] Alternatively, it could have supported an eternal flame from an oil lamp; such an item has been noted elsewhere with saintly burials such as with Brigid at Kildare in 5th century. Leviticus 6 v13 states "The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out." It was clearly an extra to the grave and a marker of some kind.  

AI rendition of a shrine chest in a shrine chapel with an eternal flame and the Lichfield Angel superimposed. The chest is against the north wall.

 

      4.     Of the 22 people, some were priests, found in the 2003 excavated area, some had requested burial near St Chad. For example. William Berford who died in 1450 requested burial near his uncle, Dean Stretton, and St Chad. The sunken chamber had never been cut by later graves.[16] Rodwell noted¹³ broken fragments of incised floor slabs with indents of Purbeck marble and bluestone that show the high status of burials. This was an acclaimed grave site. It appears that even in medieval times there was an understanding where Chad was buried, but this was largely forgotten, or ignored, until the discoveries of 2003.               

       5.  It makes sense that when the current cathedral was built the remains of Chad were removed from the nave area to be housed in St Peter’s Head Chapel on the south side of the choir. The nave then became an open area for the attendance of worshippers and pilgrims kept separate from the main church to the east of the crossing. Visitors could be ushered from the south door, along the south choir aisle to St Peter’s Head Chapel and then returned to the doorway. This illustrates the late-medieval practice of exhibiting relics usually split up, not graves, and housing them in elaborate shrines.     

        6. The sunken chamber had been infilled with soil and rubble and a loose tiled floor laid across. On top was a board, possibly a coffin lid, and on this was a little twisted skeleton of an aged man. Across his pelvis and legs was a tree branch around 3cm thick thought to have been his staff. By his right side of his thigh was the remains of a large round pouch or scrip and around his waist was a hint of a leather belt. He was thought to have been a pilgrim and the depth of burial suggested 15th-century. It is either an odd coincidence or a deliberate burial of perhaps a distinguished pilgrim on top of Chad’s grave. No other pilgrim has been found. 

                        AI rendition of a pilgrim’s skeleton on Chad’s grave. 

        7.     The grave is positioned in the centre of the current cathedral and close to the centre of the Close and therefore the middle of the 7th-century settlement. If the layout of the mynster was a series of circular enclosures as seen in Irish-Celtic monasteries and also thought to be at Iona, it is the centre of the site.^[26] A 7th-century drawing of the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem shows a rotunda containing concentric circles with the tomb of Christ at the centre (see the post ‘A sacred landscape').  

AI rendition of the rotunda showing the concentric circles with the supposed tomb in the middle.     

Being at the centre, between the main church of St Peter and the secondary church of St Mary emphasises the central importance of the grave. 

          8.   A recent review of features seen in the excavation has supported the notion this was an early grave.[17] Rodwell[18] in 2006, wrote, “We now have fair reason to believe we have found the secondary burial place, that is after translation,[19] of St Chad.” No one has disputed this. It resembles the crypt at Repton and is of the same time.     

In the Great Register of the cathedral, known as Magnum Registrum Album, there is a reference to ‘the altar of St Chad in the nave,’ 1325, and this could be either an isolated altar, a chantry chapel or the grave site. It fails to state where in the nave the altar was located.

 Why a shrine?

Crook wrote early Christian writers in Roman times knew the devout visited holy graves because in a mysterious way they believed the saint, his corporeal relics, continued to maintain contact with the earthly sphere through the physical remains that they had left behind.[20] The bones (and grave) provided a channel of communication between earth and heaven.

 Conjecture on the oratory-shrine

Venerating relics appears to have started in the 6th-century onwards, and this included the corporeal remains of saints. To begin with an above ground shrine might have consisted of corner-posts with slabs slotted between them. Later small stone rooms were built often having hipped roofs to imitate a chapel. Crook has linked the shrine to that at Jouarre Abbey, northern France, which connects with St Columbanus and his Celtic mission, c. 630.[21] The shrines could have an opening through which the devout could touch the saintly remains.[22] It is thought some shrine-chapels were originally the saint’s oratory, that is, their private chapel which then became their gravesite.

The best examples of shrine chapels are found in Ireland. [23]^, [24] St Declan was a very early missionary, 350-450, and is thought to have had an oratory at Ardmore, Co. Waterford. It is assumed he was buried in his oratory and today there is a repaired building, originally 8th-century, on this site which is 5.6 x 2.7m and with walls 3.1m high. The west side had a door with a heavy lintel and the east wall has a window sculpted from one stone. A large sandstone block forms the base and in the southeast corner there is a hollow said to have been the saint’s grave. The walls were mortared like most shrines on the south and east coast of Ireland.[25] 

St Declan’s oratory at Ardmore, Co. Waterford, as it appears today. Thanks to Wikimedia.

 

Ó Carragain[26] and Carver²² concluded shrine buildings were narrow and tall, employed megalithic construction for the walls, enclosed a single room rarely larger than 6 x 4m and had a single western door with an east window. A somewhat similar layout occurred for the Hexham and Ripon crypts.[27] 

Archetypal shrine chapel-oratory

           So, was the foundation found in the nave floor in 2003 an oratory and shrine for Chad? The foundation was c. 7 m wide north-south,[28] possibly the same length east-west, and 5m square internally. The walls were mortared and mostly a metre, or more, thick and suggested the building was relatively tall.[29] The east end had a tongue of natural clay thought to have been steps into the building. There have been implausible suggestions on whether the chamber was much longer and it attached to a church 20m away.[30]

The early 8th-century crypt at Repton is internally about 5m square and 3m high. Originally it was thought to be 2m below ground and 1m above. Date and size are similar to the Lichfield foundation.

An earlier cell?

Rodwell¹³ found immediately to the west of the oratory-chapel foundation the walls to an earlier cell. Walls, around 1m thick, projected around 3.6m to the west and were 5.2m wide. They consisted of rough sandstone blocks, not mortared, but with small stones in the gaps. Was this an earlier shrine?

 Endnote

The location of the grave has not been marked or noted in the cathedral and visitors sometimes remark on this. Instead, modern pilgrims have finished their journey with prayers at the new shrine at the east end of the cathedral. It would be fitting to have a portable cross or eternal candle above the site of the grave. There is no other ecclesiastical centre in England where the grave site of the patron saint is unmarked. This is important if it is thought significant to establish the cult in the way it was. 

All the archaeology was destroyed when the rising platform was installed.

[1] No battle or skirmish is known. Three ealdormen proclaimed Wulfhere king of the Mercians. See F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, (Oxford: 1989), 84. Perhaps, Christian King Oswiu had an arrangement with Christian King Wulfhere.

[2] The cathedral seems fond of stating a church on the site since the year 700, but in fact there must have been a church on or close by in 659 and certainly one by 669. That is, over 1350 years ago.

[3] Described in the biography of Bishop Wilfrid written by a monk at Ripon called Stephanus and published 712–3. Title was Victa Sancti Wilfridi I. Episcopi Eboracensis. It has been translated by B. Colgrave The life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus (Cambridge: 1985). “He knew of a place in the kingdom of Wulfhere, King of the Mercians, his faithful friend which had been granted to him at Lichfield, and was suitable as an episcopal see either for himself, or for any other to whom he might wish to give it.”

[4] Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. The ecclesiastical history of the English People, 731. Bede listed this work as Historiam ecclesiasticam nostræ insulæ ac gentis in libris V, which translates to, The ecclesiastical history of our island and nation in five books.

[5] Ibid, Book 4 chapter 3.

[6] HE Book 4, chapter 23. This is often stated to be centred on Leicester, but there is no evidence for a see at Leicester before 737. It is unclear why Bede confined Wilfrid’s activity to the Middle Angles in the early 690s. See A. Thacker, ‘Wilfrid, his cult and his biographer.’ Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 8.

[7] M. Capper, ‘Prelates and politics: Wilfrid, Oundle and the Middle Angles’. Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 262.

[8] See the post, ’A sacred landscape’.

[9] A four-lobed shaped area of floor, 38 m², can be raised 300 mm in two stages to form a platform for the altar table to be higher and seen from the end of the nave. The eight-tonne floor uses six electrically operated, precision, screw jacks, not hydraulics. The perimeter stone is 170 mm thick, but the inner stone is only 20 mm thick. Manchester Cathedral copied the mechanism.

[10] A squarish grave was not thought to be unusual, especially if it was a crypt-shaped chamber like that at Repton.

[11] No lead lining was found. Often baptism used a large lead pot. The river south of the cathedral was probably more likely to be used for baptism,

[12] W. Rodwell, Archaeological excavation in the nave of Lichfield Cathedral. Lichfield, Unpub. report in Lichfield Cathedral Library. (2003). Also W. Rodwell, Revealing the history of the Cathedral. 4. Archaeology of the Nave Sanctuary. 67th Annual Report to the Friends of Lichfield Cathedral held in Lichfield Cathedral Library. (2004). Also W. Rodwell, ‘The forgotten cathedral.’ Current Archaeology, (2006), 18, 1 (205), 9–17.

[13] Rodwell, ‘Lichfield Cathedral. Archaeology of the Sanctuary’, (2004), 4.

[14] Were the dimensions those of Christ’s tomb chamber at Jerusalem, namely, 2.5m long, 1.2m wide and 2.5m high?

[15] Rodwell conjectured it was one of four uprights with a canopy on top, but this is very speculative. Finding one post-hole cannot justify claiming a canopy needing several supporting columns.

[16] Around half of the 22 graves found were 13th to 15th-century. The youngest grave was 1810.

[17] A. Sargent, Lichfield and the Lands of St Chad: creating community in Early Medieval Mercia (Hatfield, 2020), 117.

[18] See note 12, Rodwell (2006), 13

[19] Bede is clear the ‘constructa’ or wooden house was ‘ibidem’ on the same spot as the grave. Some Latinists of Bede have mis-translated this description. His relics would not have been taken into St Peter’s church, unless the church had a side chamber and Chad was a minor saint. In the 16th-century this translation was commemorated on Rogation Sunday.

[20] J. Crook, English Medieval Shrines. (Woodbridge: 2011), 5.

[21] Ibid, 64.

[22] L. Laing and J. Laing, Celtic Britain and Ireland: Art and Society (London,1995), 112.

[23] M. Carver, Formative Britain. An archaeology of Britain, fifth to eleventh century A.D. (London and New York, 2019), 569. Carver cites Iona (beneath St Columba’s House), Tighlagheany (Co. Galway), Teach Molaise (on Inishmurray) and St Columb’s (Co Meath) as examples, p. 570. Iniscealtra church, Co Clare has walls 2.5m thick and internally measures 5.5 x 4.4m.

[24] Possibly also Patrick’s chapel at Heysham on the Morecambe coast. This was 8 x 2.7m in size.

[25] On the southwest peninsulae the churches were dry-stoned.

[26] T. Ó Carragáin, ‘The architectural setting of the cult of relics in early medieval Ireland’ The J. of the Royal Soc. of Antiquaries of Ireland, 133 (2003) 66.

[27] R. N. Bailey, ‘St Wilfrid – a European Anglo-Saxon’ Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conferences, ed. N. J. Higham (Donington, 2013), 122.

[28] Drawing shows a width of c .6.7 metres (22 feet or 1.5 short perches), see W. Rodwell, ‘Archaeological excavation in the nave of Lichfield Cathedral’. (Unpublished report held in Lichfield Cathedral Library, 2003), 15.

[29] A modern term for such a building is a shrine chapel. However, a shrine in Medieval Latin was called a cappella, which translated to chapele and by the 13th-century became a chapel. The word is therefore relatively recent. It is not known what the shrine tower might have been called.

[30] Rodwell thought the distance between the choir foundations and the nave foundations, c. 20m, was considerable and belonged to two separate buildings in an east-west alignment.[30] Sargent repeated the notion of one long church with the sepulchral of Chad at the west end and the altar of St Peter at the east end.[30] There is a difficulty with the alignment and the length of this church. Also implausible is the housing of a saint’s shrine at the west end of a church in the 7th-century; elsewhere the saint was buried in a porticus on the side of the nave and near the altar. 

Ten myths

Summary. The cathedral history has been mythologised with plausible assertions despite having no supporting evidence. Repetition has then made them believed. Ten are exposed.  

1.     The earliest church was built on St Michael’s hill.

Diuma, the first Bishop of Mercia died in c. 658 and some believed to be buried at Repton.[1] The next priest, Coellach, left the area at the start of the reign of King Wulfhere. The next two bishops were more favourable to the Mercian king and it is presumed they now had a church within the Lichfield (Licetfelda) area, but where?

Sculptures of the first four bishops around the northwest entrance door. From the left, Diuma who was Irish, Coellach who was Irish or Scottish and is without a mitre and staff suggesting he was never formally installed, Trumhere who was English and from Ingethling (Gilling)[2] monastery, near Richmond, Yorkshire, and Jaruman, possibly Irish, who, according to the Victorian sculptors, holds the first church with a date around 666. All four bishops were acquainted with the monasteries at Lindisfarne and Iona.

Savage posed the question, ‘Why did Jaruman (should this be Trumhere the third Bishop of Mercia?) build his church in Lichfield’ and then speculated the location as being on St Michael’s hill.[3] 

He cited a copy of an anonymous manuscript held in the cathedral archive (its provenance is unclear) called, ‘History of the church of Lichfield’ and dated 1575.[4] This told the legend of Romans (Savage stated it could have been the heathen Angles) slaying a thousand Christians and burying them in what is now St Michael’s churchyard. The cemetery was said to have been consecrated by Augustine, ‘The Apostle of the English’. Savage added it was ‘the tribal burying ground of the Mercians’. Evidence of an Early Medieval crouched burial was revealed when excavations were made for a new vestry for the church in 1978, suggesting an earlier history to the site.[5] Gould and Gould[6] wrote cautiously, perhaps it had early medieval origins. This tentatively points to a Roman/Early Medieval cemetery and presumably a church on the wooded hill and fits with the idea of the first churches being constructed of timber and on high, prominent ground.[7]           If true, why did the church for Chad move across the marshy, wooded area, now Lichfield city centre, to the hillock on which now stands the cathedral? Three reasons are presented; firstly, it was nearer the stream or river for baptism and sanitation and secondly, it was on a flat Mercian sandstone outcrop lined east to west in which stone was readily available. Thirdly, King Wulfhere and Bishop Wilfrid considered this site to be spiritually untainted, unlike the Anglo-Saxon pagan burial ground containing Christian martyrs.[8] It was superior topographically, practically and most important of all spiritually clean.

Two beads held in the hand of a young woman buried in the 6th or 7th-century and discovered in the choir area suggesting there was an early cemetery on the cathedral site. The cathedral site might not as been unspoilt as the early builders of the church thought.

     2.     It was King Oswiu of Northumbria who founded the site for a church at Lichfield.

Before the 20th-century, it was believed Oswy (now Oswiu), King of Northumbria (now Northumberland), about the year 656, having conquered and put to death Penda, King of the Mercians, converted his kingdom to Christianity, and established a bishopric in Licitfelda (now Lichfield). Here he built a church, which was dedicated to St. Peter and St. Mary, and appointed Dwina (now Diuma), a Scotsman (now thought to be an Irishman), the first prelate of Mercia.^[9] This myth was so embedded from late Medieval times it was written in Latin on a plaque under the west window of the cathedral from the mid-17th century. Translated it stated, “Oswy is the founder, but the repairer was Offa. The fame of these Kings will be immortal. King Stephen, King Henry, Richard I and King John bestowed many gifts.”^[10] There was an extra to the history, “This church has flourished for almost a thousand years. It will endure to the end, noble until the day, and God grant long life, that this sacred house may flourish. And the people there may celebrate your holy name.” According to Dugdale the plaque had a foundation date for the cathedral of 657. This date was first recorded by William Whitlock, prebendary of the cathedral (died in or before 1584), in his Chronicon Lichefeldensis Ecclesie (see later). This origin is unsupported by any other document and has to be believed with caution.

Statue of King Oswiu on the arch above the northwest door. He is holding treasure which could be for the churches he is said to have founded.

 

Reasons for the caution are:

      ·       Diuma visited Repton according to Bede, where there was a church, but there is no record of him visiting the fields, 17 miles away, where the known cathedrals were built.

      ·       Stephen of Ripon in his biography of Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon described how the church at Lichfield (Licitfelda) was founded, and it does not include Oswiu. Bede does include Oswiu, but King Wulfhere and Archbishop Theodore were clearly given as the founders of the new church. It is inexplicable stating the first cathedral was founded in 657 when 667-669, is clearly laid out in two reliable books, Bishop Wilfrid’s biography (712-13) and Bede’s book on English history (731).                         

         ·     Why would Oswiu build a church at the centre of a huge, new diocese far from (400 miles) from his fragmented and diverse northern diocese? Especially when there is a church at Repton.   

          ·   There is no evidence that Kings Stephen, Henry I and II, Richard I and John did anything for the cathedral, except possibly paid for a chantry. This is wrong and calls into question the rest of the statement on the plaque.

 

Perhaps, Oswiu and Diuma supported the first cathedral at Repton and King Wulfhere and Bishop Wilfrid later moved it to Licetfelda.  If so, there have been 4 cathedrals. Alternatively, when Wulfhere negotiated with Oswiu to form the kingdom of Mercia, c. 658, Oswiu wanted to keep Repton and the church-cathedral in his northern kingdom, so Wulfhere needed to build his first cathedral within his middle kingdom. The river Trent was a tribal border and later, 679, became a battleground for a battle or skirmish between the two kingdoms, with Bede (Book 4, 21) not stating who won which suggests the Mercians.     

3.     Bishop Headda built the first church in the year 700.

Little is known about Bishop Headda of Lichfield, c. 691 x 716–27. His length of episcopacy is uncertain and so is his origin. He had a close relationship with Bishop Wilfrid of Mercia, bishop of the Middle Angles, and it has been suggested it was Wilfrid who consecrated Headda.^[11] This relationship, senior Wilfrid and minor Headda, continued and lasted for at least eleven years, between 691/2 to 703.^[12] Strangely, Bede never mentioned Headda or his relationship with Wilfrid. The spurious date of 700^[13] is known from the 14th century and a text that is wholly unreliable. The text was in the Chronicon Lichfeldense, since lost, but copied in Warton’s, Anglia Sacra. Originally it was titled ‘The book of Alan de Assheborn, Vicar of Lichfield’ and dated in 1320s. Alan of Ashbourne wrote a tangled history full of fabled beliefs from c.1323 until his death in 1334.

Page 428 of Wharton’s Anglia Sacra. The translation is, ‘By this Bishop Hedda the church of Lichfield was built on the 2nd of January, 700, and the bones of Bishop Cedda (Chad) were transferred to the same.’           

Unfortunately, this claim was repeated as an authoritative statement in the Victoria County History, 1970, “The first church definitely known to have stood on the site of the present cathedral was that built by Bishop Headda and consecrated in December 700.”[14] It is unsubstantiated history.

Bede said the grave of Chad was by the church of St Mary and on the site of the church of St Peter.^[15] Why 28 years later in 700 would another church be built? Where did the pilgrims arriving from 672 onwards worship? In Wharton’s Anglia Sacra it is stated a ‘cathedral church’ was built in Lichesfelden and consecrated by Ceadda, page 426. If the church built in 700 is taken to be a cathedral church, where did bishops Chad, 669–672, Winfrith, 672–c. 674 and Seaxwulf, c. 676–c. 691, have their church, as well as Headda in his early years of being a bishop? Even Jaruman before Chad is thought to have had a church as shown in a roundel in the presbytery floor, It is feasible the church built in the year 700 was in fact the shrine tower discovered in 2003 for housing Chad’s grave. The year 700 is 28 years after Chad’s burial and sufficient time for his bones to be recovered and placed in a reliquary shrine. A shrine tower, 7m x 7m, containing one grave is not, in today’s understanding a church, but it might have been in the 14th-century. This myth or misunderstanding still ignores the existence of the main church called St. Peter, which existed from the time of Chad, and perhaps was built before he arrived. Chad was very familiar with sizeable stone churches in Northumbria, Yorkshire and Ireland and the notion of him coming to a barren site is difficult to believe.

Headda with his supposed new church. The church resembles the early medieval church at Escomb, County Durham. The small statue in the north presbytery aisle demonstrates the myth believed by the Victorians.

 

       4.     The cathedral was built cross-shaped for biblical symbolism. Its three spires represent the Trinity. The cathedral lies east-west and points to Jerusalem. The cathedral is straight.

The shape of the cathedral is a Greek cross (+) with small side arms, not the shape of a tau cross (T). This is because all four arms are buttresses for the massive central tower; it is an architectural necessity. The central spire is the tallest (78.65 m), the bell tower spire in the southwest corner is next in height (60 m) and the spire on the northwest tower is the lowest (59 m). This could be the trinity, but different heights provide a ranking which would be heresy. Three spires might also be because there were three towers, and other cathedrals had three towers, and some had spires; there was no fixed rule for cathedrals. The cathedral was built at the same time as the cathedrals of Wells and Salisbury and the Minster at York. All had three towers, though their spires varied.

          The cathedral is also out-of-line on an east-west axis. Robert Plot stated the cathedral declined by 27 degrees from the true points.[16] He gave several curious theories why churches should face due east and why there was a declination.[17]

Misalignment the cathedral

            Many think all churches face directly east, but many do not, especially where space is restricted; their orientation accords with the surroundings. Savage thought the strongly marked ancient boundary could not have been enlarged and this restriction of space effectually barred any rebuilding of the cathedral on a much larger scale.[18] He also noted the cathedral was built with ‘a marked swerve northward,’ and claimed this was caused by the line of rock on which the foundations were laid.[19] Builders following the line of the bedrock,[20] is conjecture. The building was subjected to the whims of kings, master-masons and architectural constraints and each added different ideas.^[21] Lichfield, like other cathedrals, is not perfect. It was built in stages at different times.

          There is no evidence cathedrals and churches were orientated to face the point where the sun arose on the feast day of the patronal figure, in Lichfield’s case March 2 the death day of Chad. Benson thought it was in line of sunrise on St Peter’s Day, 1 August, in the 12th-century.[22] Neither was it the case of facing when the sun rose on an equinox or a solstice day. There is no way the cathedral could have been satisfactorily aligned to face Jerusalem. However, east was held to be where earthly paradise lies; Jesus was believed to have ascended into heaven east of where the disciples were standing.[23] Christians are buried facing eastwards, so to arise before Christ when he comes again. Consequently, the high altar is at the east end and that is where the daily and weekly services were held from early times.

          There are many graves in the Close which are not strictly facing east. Many are graves of soldiers killed in the three Civil War sieges and appear to have been laid in an unplanned way.

Another kink in the north presbytery aisle. Some have speculated there was once a passageway or room attached to this north wall and its demolition left a kink in the wall.

 

       5.     The cathedral was built in a      Norman Gothic style

Soaring pinnacles, pointed arches, heavy, thick walls pierced by large open windows and arcades, flying buttresses, elaborate vaulted stone roofs and windows subdivided by closely spaced parallel mullions (narrow vertical bars of stone) are some of the features associated with the Gothic fashion of architecture. Many have described it as Norman but they are wrong. Much of this architecture was inspired by Islamic architecture of the Middle East. It was borrowed by French stonemasons in the Ile de France, centred on Paris, from around 1130 to 1170.^[24]  It did not originate in Normandy with Norman stonemasons. When it crossed the channel, it was known as ‘French work’ and never labelled Gothic until the 19th century and the Gothic revival in architecture around 1860.^[25] There are Norman cathedrals with round arches, small windows and very little in the form of pinnacles and pointed stonework, see Rochester Cathedral. There are many Early Medieval Churches with round, arched front doors. There was a transitional period in the 12th-century with much crossover of styles. Indeed, much of the Gothic architecture was completed in the neo-Gothic revival by the Victorians and this is typified by Lichfield, Wells and Salisbury cathedrals.

     Lichfield Cathedral was built from the early 13th-century (perhaps a start date of 1220) by Plantagenets, 1154‑1485, and postdated the Norman era by at least 50 years. There is no verifiable Norman stonework in Lichfield Cathedral. Misleading labelling originated from Thomas Rickman, 1776‑1841, who wrote a handbook[26] for clergy to help them to understand the ‘English Style’. He sub-divided it into Early English, Decorated English and Perpendicular English architecture. He then added an earlier fourth style following the Norman conquest, described it as Romanesque and called it Norman rather than English.[27] Coming after the long isolation of England during the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars the name gave it a patriotic base, and it has been difficult to change. [28] The third cathedral was built in an early Gothic (French) style and restored in a Revival Gothic style.       

6.     The      Lindisfarne Gospels are earlier and superior to the       Chad Gospels

Chad’s Gospels are minimal compared to the detailed Lindisfarne Gospels. Chad’s Gospels were based on St Jerome’s Vulgate Bible and written by a small team of scribes. St Jerome, c. 342 or 47-420, was an early priest known for leading an ascetic Christian life. He was appalled at the lavish texts wealthy Roman patrons wanted and wrote, ‘parchments are dyed purple, gold is melted into lettering, manuscripts are decked with jewels, while Christ lies at the door naked and dying.’ He loved his ‘poor pages and copies which are less remarkable for beauty than for accuracy.’ So, were the Gospels deliberately kept minimal with pastel tones and few colours in keeping with Jerome’s mores? Are they also in keeping with Chad’s ascetism?

 In contrast, the Lindisfarne Gospels are colourful, intricate and have elaborate gold and silver artwork. They are complete, unlike Chad’s Gospels missing much of St Luke’s Gospel and the whole of St John. The Lindisfarne Gospels were not finalised until 715-721 and written by Bishop Eadfrith, 698-721. They were written at a time of Romanitas in which a rich display was the convention. The two Gospels could not be more different, yet they have affinities. Both were commissioned in the memory of a saint (Cuthbert and Chad). Both suffered an exodus away from the Viking onslaught. The layout of the carpet page is strikingly similar with the Lindisfarne having cormorant birds and the Chad crane-like birds. Similar styles with the carpet page, three incipit pages and the Chi-rho page with the equivalent in the Lindisfarne Gospels led Brown^[29] to write the artist must have studied the Lindisfarne book at first hand.

Context indicates Chad Gospels are the earliest; Chad died in 672, Cuthbert in 687. Chad’s shrine was 672, Cuthbert’s was 698. Dating Gospels is imprecise, but the simplicity of Chad’s Gospels (ignoring the Chi-Rho and Carpet pages which might have been added later) compared with the intricacy of the Lindisfarne Gospels might be an indicator of its earlier provenance.

It is better to see the two Gospels as the product of two separate scriptoria, yet comparable and written in the two powerful kingdoms of the 8th-century. One was minimalist and the other more fanciful, but both beautiful in their detail. Both were altar display books possibly to impress pilgrims and to teach novitiates.      

7.   The Gospels were removed by the Dean during the Civil War and were stored in London.

Another myth with the Gospels is they were returned to the cathedral after the Civil Wall in the bequest of Frances Devereux, Duchess of Somerset and wife of William Seymour. She gave the cathedral around 400 books in 1674. The fact is the Gospels were returned by Precentor William Higgins. He wrote he had the gospels on 15 August 1658. The evidence comes from this letter in 17th-century prose, but can be updated to

“I present you this day with a fitting Sunday occupation, the Gospel Text of Saint Chad, in which you will discover no less, and perhaps more, than Sir Henry Spelman did, who wished to see it and to whom it travelled as far as London. I also send you the Lichfield Chronicle. Tomorrow, I will bring you other materials; and he honours you most highly, as is fitting.

Sir, Your most faithful and grateful servant,

William Higgins, Tenth Sunday after Trinity. 15 August 1658.

Clifton[30] wrote “It owes its escape at the time of the Civil War to the vigilance of William Higgins, Archdeacon of Derby, who was precentor of the cathedral. He abstracted it and kept it until the troubles were over.” Higgins had a home in Shropshire where he could have kept the book. Furthermore, he returned only one book. Any mention of the existence of a second volume is misleading; it is more likely there once was an early Psalter, much used and long worn out.

AI generated image of William Higgins 1646 holding the returned St Chad's Gospels.       

              8.    Visitors have always been welcomed in the cathedral.

When Bishop Walter de Langton built in 1299 a castellated wall around The Close with two entrances dominated by towers and massive oak doors visiting the cathedral was controlled. Knowing when during the day worship was being undertaken would have been difficult. Pilgrims, penitents and those seeking a cure would cross the Minster Pool by ferry, enter the southern door and be under supervision. If the chambers on the south side of the Lady Chapel were occupied by anchorite priests, then entry to the cathedral at the southeast end was limited. Baptism was held by the door and weddings and funerals were stewarded. When the choir and presbytery were screened off and isolated by Wyatt’s restoration in 1780s visitors could enter the nave but know little of what was happening in the dark, central church. Entry to the stalls was regulated. Casual visiting of the cathedral was not possible until the 1860s and the Gothic Revival. Even then the times of opening were regulated. Free and casual visiting is a twentieth-century privilege.     

   9. The current rite of worship (Sunday, 10.30am) is centuries old.

 The authority of the Church of England is thought by many to be embedded in a very long tradition which grew from an ancient time. Consequently, the way of worship within the cathedral is supposed to have long roots from the far past. In fact, much of the ritual is no more than two centuries old and is essentially Victorian.

Following restoration from the Civil War, 1640s, most Anglicans agreed on the authority of the English Church, but there was a rapidly growing number of Dissenting Churches.  By the 1820s to 30s internal divisions were giving three distinct, even sharply different, approaches to Christian belief and worship, namely Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic and Liberal interpretations. In response to this division High Anglo-Catholic Churchmen began to resist further reform. A small group based in Oxford between the years 1833 and 1845 led a campaign, known as the Oxford Movement, to return to the theology and practice lost since reformation times, 1530s.^[31] Their philosophy was called Tractarianism after a series of publications called ‘Tracts for the Times’ published from 1833 to 1841. This involved neo-Gothic aesthetics,^[32] revived colourful ceremony and intense sacramentalism. Essentially, it was the doctrine of the church standing alone with its own authority and having its own traditional practices unfettered by actions from the state. This doctrine derived from the idea priests connected in time to the Apostles by ordination through the laying on of hands known as ‘Apostolic Succession’. It meant the ordained ministry could not be beholden to civil or State authority. By 1845, the movement conflicted with the bishops and it splintered into factions leading some to join the Catholic Church. However, many Anglican priests were strongly asserting a doctrine of real presence and of eucharistic sacrifice. The eucharist was only valid when celebrated by a priest or bishop.^[33] For some Tractarians, life was in anticipation of death and judgment.^[34] Penance was important.

Tractarianism is thought by some to have led to Ritualism and Ceremony. The church service now adopted frequent procession, colourful dress, use of incense and above all the centrality of the eucharist in worship. Choral music in cathedrals and church bands in smaller churches became an intrinsic part of a service. Coloured altar frontals, candles on the altar and choristers in surplices appeared. A credence table with the chalices and receptacles of communion stood alongside the altar. The host, now wafer bread, was raised above the head in a prayer of consecration. The wine was mixed with water. A modern Anglo-Catholic liturgy and worship became widely accepted, especially in cathedrals.

This High Church Revival spurred new relations with the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, inspired artists, poets, writers and musicians,^[35] and new neo-Gothic architecture became the fashion with G. Gilbert Scott, his sons George and John and grandson Giles prominent especially at Lichfield. The connection between the Oxford Movement, Ritualism and neo-Gothic architecture was obvious.^[36] This Victorian movement is the background to current worship in the cathedral, but most, not all (such as saying the creed and some responses), is relatively recent.

A further change resulted from the first World War. A new cult of sacrificial death entered into churches. Language formerly restricted to Christian martyrs and Christ was extended to include ordinary people killed in the war. Loss was glorious, death for King and country was the highest sacrifice and all for the pursuit of peace. Demand for prayers for the dead was an annual event. Memorialisation took several forms. For veterans church became important.^[37] 

1    10. Lichfield cathedral was a forgotten cathedral.

A recent archaeological account in a national journal described the cathedral as ‘forgotten.’^[38] It is true the Normans marginalised the cathedral and removed the bishop to first Chester and later Coventry. Furthermore, up to Reformation the cathedral was secondary in many ways to the larger monastic Coventry Cathedral. Then the cathedral Close became the centre of three ferocious sieges, 1643-1646, and could not at this time be described as forgotten, but it was destroyed. Between the Civil War destruction and the Victorian restoration, 1850s onwards, the cathedral was only an inner church in an outer, drab, much repaired frame of a building. Visitors to the nave would see a screened off choir, presbytery and altar, and hear a muffled sound of worship by clergy and known laypeople. However, describing the cathedral as forgotten is perverse because throughout these travails it remained a major centre for pilgrimage. Its origin, survival and Victorian recovery have depended on pilgrimage. For 12 centuries it has been firstly a major local and later a national pilgrimage centre with the relics and cult of Chad.^[39] It has also had national importance in being the ecclesiastical centre of King Offa’s large kingdom and has also received the rich refurbishment from Bishop Walter de Langton including, perhaps, the greatest saint’s shrine and best Lady Chapel in the country. Ownership of the Chad’s Gospels gives significance and now the finding of the (Lichfield) Staffordshire Hoard adds to its importance. The Lichfield Angel is the best kept early medieval stonework in Europe. Lichfield cathedral has been a place for mixed fortunes, but never forgotten. Its rich history makes it an important heritage centre.

[1] J.T. Micklethwaite ‘Something about Saxon Church buildings.’ Archaeological Journal Volume 53 (1896), 329

[2] Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. J. McClure and R. Collins, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, (Oxford: 2008) 132.

[3] H. E. Savage, The church heritage at Lichfield, St Chad’s Day address 1914. Unpub. Article held in the cathedral library, 3. J. Britton, The history and antiquities of the See and Cathedral Church of Lichfield. (London: 1820), 24, referred to William Dugdale knowing of a document that claimed Jaruman had a church in the Close in 666.

[4] It is difficult to know the origin of this reference. It is said to be a copy made by Canon Whitlock made in 1569 of a previous lost ‘Chronicle’ manuscript. It is likely the story was taken from the ‘Book of Alan of Ashbourne, Vicar of Lichfield’ written in the 1320s, which has been lost, but a copy was made by Canon Thomas Chesterfield, mid-15th century and then repeated by H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, (London: 1691). The manuscripts are in the British Museum and Bodleian Library, Oxford.

[5] P. R. Wilson, ‘V investigations in St. Michael's and St. Mary's churches, Lichfield’ Trans, South Staffs. Archaeological and Historical Society for 1980-81. (1982), 22, 71.

[6] J. Gould and D. Gould, ‘St Michael’s churchyard, Lichfield’, Trans, South Staffs. Archaeological and Historical Society, (1975), 16, 58‑61.

[7] William of Malmesbury wrote, ‘Lichfield was a tiny village in the midst of a woody district on the banks of a brook’, William of Malmesbury’s ‘De Gesta Pontificum Anglorum’, written early in the 12th century (Hamilton 1870, 307).

[8] See the post, ‘Why Licitfelda was approved.’

[9] T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield, (London: 1806), 3.

[10] J. Jackson, History of the City and Cathedral of Lichfield. (London: 1805). 110. “Oswyus est Lichfield Fundator, sed Reparator Offa fuit, Regum Fama perennis erit : Rex Stephanus, Rex Henricus, primusque Richardus, Rex et Johannes, plurima dona dabant.”

[11] M. Capper, ‘Prelates and politics: Wilfrid, Oundle and the Middle Angles’. Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 262.

[12] M. Capper, ‘Prelates and politics: Wilfrid, Oundle and the Middle Angles’. Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 262.

[13] This dating appeared in the ‘Lichfield Chronicle,’ British Library MS Cotton Cleopatra D IX. It was later published in H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, Volume 1. (London, 1691), 428. The source and detail for this date, January 700, and construction of a church are unknown. Sargent suggested St Peter’s church can be plausibly connected with a church built by Bishop Headda, see A. Sargent, Lichfield and the Lands of St Chad: creating community in Early Medieval Mercia (Hatfield: 2020), 53. If so, the church could have been built from the start of Headda’s episcopate, namely 691 onwards.

[14] M. W. Greenslade and R. B. Pugh, House of secular canons - Lichfield cathedral: To the Reformation, A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 3. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1970, 140‑166.

[15] See the post, ‘A sacred landscape.’

[16] R. Plot, The Natural History of Staffordshire, (Oxford: 1686), 362–9. Plot found the deviation when taking a compass to the ‘battlements of the middle steeple.’ He justified the east as being significant by citing various events from the Bible, mostly Old Testament. He believed the church should have faced the equinox rise of the sun, but had a blemish, p367. He thought Bishop Roger Clinton was to blame. He concluded the declination from the precise east was not essential for devotion, p368. Other churches not precisely facing eastwards were mentioned, p369.

[17] Remarked on by R. Willis, ‘On foundations of early buildings recently discovered in Lichfield Cathedral’, The Archaeological Journal, (1861), 18, 3.

[18] H. E. Savage, The fourteenth century builders, Unpub. article in the cathedral library, (1916), 18.

[19] Ibid, 20

[20] A. Clifton-Taylor, The Cathedrals of England’, (London and New York: 1967 and 1986), 191, wrote ‘Lichfield Cathedral is built on a bed of sandstone which veers to the northeast.’

[21] See the post, ‘Building the cathedral.’

[22] H. Benson ‘Church orientations and patronal festivals’, The Antiquaries Journal, (1956), 36, 205-213.

[23] N. Orme, Going to Church in Medieval England, (Yale: 2021), 93.

[24] Strangely, not in Scotland or Wales. Perhaps, the greatest example was the royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. There were rivals in other parts of Europe; the cathedrals of Burgos and Toledo in Spain, the cathedral of Strasbourg near the French border with Germany and the cathedral of Cologne when it was finally completed.

[25] See the post ‘Gothic Cathedral’.

[26] T. Rickman, (1819) Attempt to discriminate the styles of English Architecture. (Cambridge: 2014).

[27] M. J. Lewis, The Gothic Revival, (London: 2002), 48.

[28] Ibid. 49.

[29] M. P. Brown, ‘The Lichfield/Llandeilo Gospels reinterpreted’. In R. Kennedy and S. Meecham-Jones (eds) Authority and Subjugation in writing of Medieval Wales. (New York: 2008), 57–70.

[30] A. B. Clifton, The Cathedral church of Lichfield. (London: 1900). 117.

[31] Ibid. 239. The movement included John Henry Newman, John Keble, Edward Pusey and Richard Hurrell Froude.

[32] See the post ‘Gothic Cathedral’.

[33] Ibid. 241. With great emphasis on the eucharist came new forms of clerical dress including a white collar, black cassock, coloured vestments and a revived practice of personal confession and sacramental absolution.

[34] Ibid 246.

[35] Ibid. 255.

[36] M. J. Lewis. The Gothic Revival. (London: 2002).

[37] J. Morris, A People’s Church. A history of the Church of England. (London: 2022), 340.

[38] W. Rodwell, The forgotten cathedral. Current Archaeology, (2006), Vol. XVIII No. 1(205), 9--17.

[39] See the post, ‘Pilgrimage defines the cathedral’.