History has been warped by plausible assertions made without evidence and with repetition these untrue explanations have become accepted. The historical narrative of the cathedral has a good number of these falsities.
- King Oswiu
of Northumbria fixed the site for a church at Lichfield.
Up
to the 20th century the following was believed. Oswy, King of 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
this place; in commemoration probably of the former persecution. Here he built
a church, which was dedicated to St. Peter and St. Mary, and appointed Dwina
(Diuma), a Scotsman, the first prelate of Mercia.[1]
This myth was so embedded it was written in Latin under the west window of the
cathedral from the mid-17th century. Translated it read, “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.”[2]
Oswiu was the
king of Northumbria, including Yorkshire. Penda more likely died from drowning
according to Bede. Stephen of Ripon in his biography of Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon
described how the church was founded and it does not include Oswiu. Bede does
include Oswiu, but King Wulfhere and Archbishop Theodore are the chief
instigators. Why would Oswiu commemorate the death of an enemy by building a
church at the centre of a new diocese that competed with Oswiu’s northern
diocese? Bishop Diuma was Irish not Scottish. There is no evidence Kings
Stephen, Henry I and II, Richard I and John did anything for the cathedral,
except possibly paid for a chantry.
- The
cathedral was built cross-shaped for biblical expression. Its three spires
represent the Trinity. The cathedral lies east-west. The cathedral is
straight.
The
cathedral is in the shape of a Greek cross (+) with small side arms, not 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 be because there were three towers and other cathedrals had three
towers and some had spires; there is no fixed rule for cathedrals. The layout
of the cathedral is nearer west-southwest to east-northeast; it is out of
east-west alignment by 27o. There is a 2o kink in the
line of the cathedral. The building was subjected to the whims of kings,
master-masons and architectural constraints.[3]
- Lichfield
cathedral was a forgotten cathedral.
An
archaeological account in a national journal described the cathedral as
‘forgotten.’[4]
It is true the Normans marginalised the cathedral and removed the bishop to
first Chester and later Coventry. Up to Reformation the cathedral was secondary
in many ways to the larger monastic Coventry Cathedral. 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. To
describe the cathedral as forgotten is, however, excessive because throughout
these travails it remained a major centre for pilgrimage. Its origin, survival
and Victorian recovery has 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.[5]
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 shrine and best Lady Chapel
in the country. Ownership of the Chad’s Gospels gives significance and now the
origin of the Staffordshire Hoard adds to this importance.
- Bishop
Headda built the first church in the year 700. Worship has been from 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.[6]
This relationship continued and lasted for eleven years, between 691/2 to 703.[7]
Strangely Bede never mentioned Headda or his relationship with Wilfrid. The spurious date of 700[8]
was added in the 14th century from 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.
This
account conflicts with Bede who stated the grave of Chad was by the church of
St Mary and on the site of the church of St Peter.[9] Why
28 years later in 700 would another church be built? If the first cathedral
church was built in 700, 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? Why is this nonsense still repeated?
- The
Lindisfarne Gospels are superior to the Chad Gospels
If
you prefer Gospels that are colourful, have elaborate gold and silver artwork
and are complete, then the Lindisfarne Gospels are the best. The Chad Gospels
are incomplete having lost John and much of Luke, the artwork is simpler on
eight pages with no gold or silverwork, and handwriting differences suggesting
at least four scribes were involved. The Gospels contain excellent Chi-Rho and
carpet pages, display interesting marginalia, have some text in runic-like form
and have diminuendo for every one of the 20 lines on each of its 236 pages.
Artwork is in pastel tones and replete with symbolic references.
Gospels
written in different scriptoria are bound to differ and, of course, all are
wonderful. The surprising aspect is the two gospels are similar in several
ways. They were commissioned for Cuthbert and Chad who were nearly
contemporary. 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 let Brown[10]
to write the artist must have studied the Lindisfarne book at first hand. It is
better to see the two Gospels as comparable and written in the two powerful
kingdoms of the 8th-century.
- 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 to the cathedral around 400 books in 1674. The fact
is the Gospels were returned by Precentor William Higgins and may have been
stored in his house in Derbyshire. Furthermore, it is most likely he returned
one book; the existence of a second volume is misleading.
- The
current rite of worship (Sunday at 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.[11]
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.[12]
Their philosophy was called Tractarianism after a series of publications
called ‘Tracts for the Times’ published from 1833 to 1841. This included
neo-Gothic aesthetics,[13]
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 was in conflict 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.[14]
For some Tractarians life was in anticipation of death and judgment.[15]
Penance was important.
Tractarianism
is thought by some to have led to Ritualism and Ceremony. The church service
now had 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,[16]
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.[17]
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.[18]
- 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 then describe it as Norman and they are misconceived. 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 around1130 to 1170.[19] 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.[20]
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 by Plantagenets, 1154‑1485,
and postdates the Norman era by at least 50 years. There is no Norman stonework
in Lichfield Cathedral that can be verified.
The misleading labelling originates
from Thomas Rickman (1776‑1841) who wrote a handbook[21]
for clergy to help them to understand the ‘English Style’ could be divided 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.[22]
Coming after the long isolation of England during the French Revolution and
Napoleonic wars the name gave it a patriotic cast. This became difficult to
extirpate. [23]
There
are many more myths, see the posts, ‘Beasts in the Lady Chapel’, ‘Chad, fantasy
folklore and maybe’, ‘It has to be the Lichfield Hoard’, ‘King Penda of Mercia
deserves a statue’, ‘Lichfield's founding myth’, ‘Chad, fact and fiction’,
‘There is no historical evidence for a Norman second cathedral’ and ‘Two
churches in 672 and a shrine.’
[1] T.
Harwood, The history and antiquities of the
church and city of Lichfield, (London:
1806), 3.
[2] J.
Jackson, History of the City and Cathedral of
Lichfield. (London: 1805). 110.
[3]
See the post, ‘Building a cathedral.’
[4] W.
Rodwell, The forgotten cathedral. Current
Archaeology, (2006), Vol. XVIII No. 1(205), 9--17.
[5]
See the post, ‘Pilgrimage defines the cathedral’.
[6] 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.
[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]
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.
[9]
See the post, ‘Two churches in 672 and a shrine’.
[10]
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.
[11]
Ibid. 237.
[12]
Ibid. 239. The movement included John Henry Newman, John Keble, Edward Pusey
and Richard Hurrell Froude.
[13]
See the post ‘Gothic Cathedral’.
[14]
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.
[15]
Ibid 246.
[16]
Ibid. 255.
[17]
M. J. Lewis. The Gothic Revival. (London: 2002).
[18]
J. Morris, A People’s Church. A history of the Church of England.
(London: 2022), 340.
[19]
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.
[20]
See the post ‘Gothic Cathedral’.
[21]
T. Rickman, (1819) Attempt to discriminate the styles of English
Architecture. (Cambridge: 2014).
[22]
M. J. Lewis, The Gothic Revival, (London: 2002), 48.
[23]
Ibid. 49.
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