Two hidden chapels

Summary. Two early chapels, now hidden, were abutted to the east end of the second cathedral and annexed on the south side of the choir area. What was their purpose: did they house relics?

     Archaeology in the 1850s revealed a rectangular chamber under the presbytery floor which abutted the east end of the second cathedral. There is also evidence of another rectangular chamber on the south side of the choir standing alongside the second cathedral. Dates for the two chambers are uncertain and their original purpose can only be guessed, but both could have been present at a time of prolific collection of relics. If so, they would be feretory chapels.

 

Chapel 1 under the presbytery floor.

In the 1850s, the floors of the choir and presbytery were lifted to build an underfloor heating system, and the foundation to a rectangular building was revealed.^[1] A drawing shows a rectangular chamber abutting the east end of the second cathedral.[2] No trace of a doorway or arch from the second cathedral to the chamber was seen, the chamber simply lay against an apse without any bonding.

 

Plan of the rectangular chamber superimposed on the plan for the current cathedral.

 

AI rendition of how the cathedral and abutted chapel might have appeared.

 

Rectangular chamber shown on the 1856 builder’s drawing.

 

Dimensions of the rectangular chamber.

 

The chamber measured internally 12 m (39.3 feet) by 6.4 m (21 feet). Walls had small external buttresses indicating it was single storey. The walls were 3feet 11inches thick which resembled Early Medieval walls before 1020. The foundation had a remarkably fresh external surface showing no signs of having been long exposed to the weather; the chamber must have had a short time of use. There were plinth mouldings, tentatively dated to the latter half of the 12th-century.[3] Having simple plinths could suggest an earlier date between 950–1100.

Plinth at Fountains Abbey (1209) that Willis said to have a resemblance to the plinth around the chamber

 Chapel 2 annexed on the south side of the choir

          A room was built on the south side of the choir which today has been divided and consists of a consistory court and sacristy (larger room) and duckit or verger’s office (smaller room); see the post ‘Rooms south of the choir.’ Willis,1861, thought originally there was one room and his drawing shows a long, single, rectangular chamber. Rodwell in 1985[4] and 1993[5] thought the earliest building was either a smaller foundation only, which changed its layout or it was a small, short-lived building later entirely rebuilt.

Drawing by Willis, 1861, showing a simple side chamber, dated c. 1200 or Early English in style. Note the corners are without turrets (appear to be octagonal towers) and it is thought these were added when the upper storey was built in the 13th-century. On this drawing the chapel is connected to the third cathedral.

There was a hint the chapel was a stand-alone annexe in the diagrams of Irvine[6] and Clifton.[7] There is a gap between the chapel and second cathedral choir wall and there is an angled wall of the chapel away from the aisle wall.

 

Plan of the chapel showing an angled corner as if the aisle wall was not present.

 

The thickness of the wall seen today between the consistory wall and south aisle wall, namely over a metre, strongly suggests it is two walls that once were adjacent and are now conjoined,

 

The internal dimensions of this early chapel, if it corresponded with the current consistory, are 7.4 m (24 feet 4 inches) long, east to west, and 6.4 m (21 feet) wide. If this early chapel ever extended as far as the south transept or opposite the first three bays of the choir it would have been 12.2 m (40 feet) long internally. If so, 12.2m x 6.4m is almost the same as Chapel 1, 12m x 6.4m. Is this similarity in size coincidental or an indication of a common plan?[8] Their roofs are unknown, though chapel 1 had two pier bases.

Plinths found near chapel 1 (left) and stonework around chapel 2 (right). They are different, but not by much.

Very significantly the floor level of chapel 1 is the same ground level of the wall remains for chapel 2, according to Willis.[9] Which could mean the two similar sized chapels could have been on the same level with the same height.   

Diagram showing similarity of soze.

                                       

                                                                                

The enigmatic arches

Scott found three infilled arches on the inside of the consistory wall and could not explain them. Rodwell[10] found they extended c. 11.2 m or just over 2 choir bays. Irregular infill stone and archway stone are very different. It is not clear whether the arches were round or pointed. Speculation on the date of the arches has been intense, but has no agreement. The stonework could be Early Medieval, Anglo-Norman, or even Late Medieval; mortar could be carbon dated. What is obvious is the arches are on the inside of the chapel wall and have no connection with the outside wall of the second and third cathedrals. Thus, their date has no direct bearing on the dates for the cathedrals 2 or 3.

 Two infilled arches seen on the inside wall (not the external face) of the north side of the consistory. The third arcade had a little stone and extended into the western wall of the consistory. A critical question is, are they pointed or rounded? It is very difficult to decide.

 

North wall of the Consistory Court showing the infilled arcades c.1888. The arcades have been labelled Transitional Style, but that adds to the uncertainty.

 

Conjecture on the purpose of the chapels

If one of the chapels had an earlier date, its purpose could have been to house reliquaries. It could have held the relics of Chad at the time of the millennium and was constructed in a context of great fearing for an impending end-time (the year 1000 or 1033). Was a reliquary chapel built during or after the reign of Edgar, an enthusiastic relic collector?^[11] The return of St Chad’s gospel from the monastery of Llandeilo Fawr before or during the time of Bishop Wynsige, 933–4 x 975, hints at renewed interest in the cult of Chad.^[12]  Was the chapel used to hold some of the many, around 300, relics and valuables listed in the 1345 Sacrist’s Roll?^[13]  Did it house the ancient font basin found on the floor of the chapel.^[14]  Were the relics of Chad’s brother Cedd kept at Lichfield by the 11th-century.^[15] All this chimes with Benedictine reform, increased possession of relics, evocation of saints and new architectural undertakings,^[16]  Edgar, for a time King of the Mercians and Northumbrians, was expected to accumulate relics on his travels,^[17]  and it might be significant between 957 and 959 Edgar had three close advisers including Bishop Cynesige of Lichfield, 946/9 x 963–4.^[18]  It fits with increased liturgical practice in the 10th-century onwards of carrying holy relics on Rogation days.^[19]  Plus, mass pilgrimage around the years 1000 and 1033 with anticipation of an apocalypse.^[20] Was the chapel a pre-emptive response to ‘End Times’ which had lost its relevance by the late-12th century?

Was this chapel open to the south side so pilgrims, penitents and the unwell would wash their feet on the outside of the west side of the south transept and then enter the chapel without ever entering the cathedral? It is plausible that access to this chapel was from the outside whilst the cathedral was being built, early 13th century to 1340s. See the post, ‘South choir aisle rooms’ for the existence of a small passage from the south east corner of the lower storey of the rebuilt chapel that led downwards to an undercroft that held the tombs of the Paget family. 

If this similarity of construction was real and of a similar time, why would the cathedral want two chapels? Perhaps, one held the relics of Chad and the other the relics of minor cults or for the tombs of priests. If the two chapels were not of the same time, then one could have been built from the remains of the other; perhaps, chapel 1 was recycled to build chapel 2. There is another factor expressed by Savage.^[21] He thought there was a lack of building between 1208 and the 1220s caused by the Interdict restrictions of King John^[22] suspending all church activities of every kind, March 1208–July 1213, followed by the occupation of England by a French Army and exacerbated by the canons of the cathedral totally preoccupied by disagreements with the monks at Coventry. It suggests any extension and alteration of the early chapel built in the 12th century would have had to wait until 1214 at the earliest. After that any building would occur alongside the building of the cathedral.

 

A possible timeline

Veneration of relics and especially Chad’s relics became all-important at the end of the first millennium and its imminent second-coming. So, Chapel 1 was built abutted onto the apse of the second cathedral in the late 10th-century. This conflicts with the late-11th or early-12th century Willis’s dates. When the east end of the cathedral was extended around the year 1200, chapel 1 was reduced to its foundation and Chad’s relics were now housed in the annexed Chapel 2. A common plan of construction was used for the two chapels. Later, Chapel 2 needed enlargement, so it was joined to the south transept and south choir aisle with a treasury plus sacristy added on. Then a second storey was added with turrets.

The wall and pier bases on the inside of the north wall of the Consistory Court (looking eastwards) are said to be late 12th century. This makes them some of the earliest stonework in the cathedral or is this a separate chapel adjoining the cathedral.

---

[1] R. Willis, ‘On foundations of early buildings recently discovered in Lichfield Cathedral’ The Archaeol. J. (1861) 18, 1–24. Also, The Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1861, vol 210, 297.

[2] John Hamlet’s drawing, a plan of the apse and rectangular chamber, is held in the Staffordshire Record Office LD 289/16. There are small differences with Willis’s published drawing (Willis 1861). Willis’s notes are kept in Cambridge University Library, MS 5042, 67 folios, with the title Architectural drawings and notes of Lichfield Cathedral 1861‑64. Hamlet’s drawing has a few revisions with pen overlaying pencil.

[3] Willis noted a partial resemblance of the upper moulding to that found in three Yorkshire abbeys. 5.

[4] W. Rodwell, Archaeology at the cathedral: a new study of St Chad’s Head Chapel. 48th annual report to the Friends of the Cathedral, (1985).

[5] W. Rodwell, ‘The development of the choir of Lichfield Cathedral: Romanesque and Early English.’

in J. Maddison (Ed.), XIII Medieval archaeology and architecture at Lichfield. The British Archaeological Association. (1993), 17–35.  

[6] R. Paul, ‘Lichfield Cathedral’ in The Builder, (1891) 108–9.

[7] A. B. Clifton, The Cathedral church of Lichfield. Bell Series. (London: 1900), 106–7.

[8] Not everyone has agreed the two chapels were of similar size. The two chapels were drawn in The Builder in 1891 and depicted unequally. In the same article R. Paul’s plan of the cathedral showed the two chapels drawn similar in size, so the writers, St John Hope and J. T. Irvine thought the original chapel 2 was small and then completely rebuilt and enlarged. It was this conjecture which prefaced Rodwell’s view of a small, earlier chamber, later entirely rebuilt.

[9] Willis (1861), 5, note 4, ‘This is also the level of the floor of the sacristy and its adjoining room,’ when referring to the height of the walls left under the pavement floor. 

[10] See note 5, Rodwell (1993), 25.

[11] This narrative fits with finding a King Edgar silver penny near where Chad’s grave was located.

[12] C. P. Lewis, ‘Communities, conflict and episcopal policy in the diocese of Lichfield, 1050—1150’, in P. Dalton, C. Insley and L. J. Wilkinson (eds.) Cathedrals, communities and conflict in the Anglo-Saxon world.  (Woodbridge: 2011), 61–76.

[13] J. C. Cox and W. H. S. J. Hope, ‘Sacrist's Roll of Lichfield Cathedral A.D. 1345’, Derbyshire Archaeological Journal (1882), 4, 107–138.

[14] See note 1, Willis (1861), 8.

[15] J. Crook, English Medieval Shrines (Woodbridge: 2011), 78.

[16] G. Baldwin Brown, The Arts in Early England (Glasgow: 1903), 333.

[17] C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art. A new perspective (Manchester: 1982), 196.

[18] C. P. Lewis, ‘Edgar, Chester and the Kingdoms of Mercians, 957—959’, in D. Scragg (ed.) Edgar, King of the English, 959--975 (Manchester: Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies: 2008), 104–123. Edgar also had a connection with St Editha’s church at Tamworth; the moulding has not been found there.

[19] J. Blair, The church in Anglo-Saxon society (Oxford: 2005), 176 n179.

[20] J. T. Palmer, The Apocalypse in the early Middle Ages (Cambridge: 2014), 191, 220.

[21] H. E. Savage, St Chad’s Day address 1919 on The Chapter House. Unpub. Paper in Cathedral Library, 14.

[22] In a standoff between the pope and King John known as the Interdict John was excommunicated and the bishops gradually left the country. John then confiscated their estates. In 1210, he demanded money from all priests and monks. By 1215, John reversed his confrontation and appeased his irate clergy with judicious grants, return of land, and increased rights and benefices.