12th-century Lichfield and cathedral

Summary.  A ditch and bank probably surrounded Medieval Lichfield, as uncovered at Tamworth. At several entrances to the town stood gates with crosses to greet pilgrims. The Close and cathedral could have had a stone boundary wall. Piped water was taken from a distant spring and conveyed to the bishop’s palace. The second Early Medieval cathedral was nearing the end of its life. Its management went through a reorganisation.

 

Boundary

It is likely Lichfield (Licitfelda) in the 7th to 9th centuries had some kind of vallum surrounding and protecting the hamlets. If it was a ditch and bank it would keep in livestock. If it was an earth rampart, it might have resembled the conjectured bank, ditch and palisade fencing reconstructed from excavations around Tamworth when made a burh or burg, c. 913.[1] The river, its name is unknown, gave good separation of the Close and cathedral from the separate hamlets and later pools increased its isolation. The date for construction of the pools south of the cathedral is unknown. A deed[2] dated 1176 refers to 'a tithe of fish from the bishop's fishponds in Lichfield' known as Vivarium Lichesfeldense.[3]  

 

Possible early medieval layout of Lichfield, c. 1100, before construction of the town, the  Minster Pool and third cathedral. Adapted from A. Sargent[4]

 The Gough Map is the earliest map of Lichfield. Its precise date and authorship are unknown, and is named after Richard Gough, who bequeathed the map to the Bodleian Library in Oxford 1809. Lichfield is not shown with an enclosed wall like Stafford.

 

    Imagined enclosure at Tamworth (originally called Tomeworthig).                                                            

 

          Between 1129 and 1135, there is some evidence of a ditch being dug around the coalescing settlement. This was at the beginning of Roger de Clinton’s episcopate, 1129-48, and plaques around the town attribute the town ditch to his time.[5] Archaeology showed it was 5 m wide and 2.6 m deep in the section named Castle ditch. Various ditches have been found crossing Sandford Street and they vary from 10 m wide down to 4 m wide and 2 m deep. The line for this west end of the ditch is unclear. Within the ditch has been found a large collection of rubbish, including slag from the Sandford Street area showing this community was engaged in metalworking. A 10 m wide, deep ditch and containing some water would be defensive, but it is uncertain whether it completely encircled the small town. The purpose of a large ditch, together with town gates, was more likely to deter or prevent traders entering the town and avoid paying a goods tax at the gate. Tax money would have ended in the coffers of Bishop Clinton. Enclosing the town also kept out beggars and criminals. A ditch was the responsibility of leaders of the town, which was now being called a manor or borough and residents became burgesses.

 

Plan of Lichfield 1150 interpreted by Bassett.[6] Note the Close is traversed from Dam St to the North side. There is an extra entrance on the east side. There was a mill close to the Dam St entrance. It is plausible the Dam St causeway was constructed before the Beacon St causeway. Note the grid pattern of roads for the new settlement. It is unclear whether the earthworks around Lichfield formed a complete boundary.

 

Plaques giving a version of gates and ditches.

In 1956 O.S. field workers[7] mapped a ditch cut around the Close between 1299 and 1312.[8]^{, [9]} The ditch accorded with Bishop Langton building a wall around his palace and the Close to give security and peace to the Close – see the post, ‘Fortress cathedral – 1640’.

Dates of possible construction of a causeway across the marshes (moggs) and water to connect Bird and Beacon Street,

Slater's idea of the Close around the year 1100 

Piped water

Between 1140 and 1170, two springs of water at Manor of Pipe (now the Maple Hayes estate) were bought from William Bell of Pipe and the water conveyed through lead pipes, 1½ inches diameter (38 mm), surrounded by clay. They stretched the 1.4 miles (2.3 k) to the Cathedral Close.[10] It was one of the earliest medieval piped-water systems in Britain.[11] It happened either at the end of the episcopate of Bishop Clinton, or more likely in the time of the following Bishop Durdent since he was at Canterbury when a conduit for water-supply was laid. The original line of the pipe is unknown, but probably entered the close near the north-west corner. This line was later changed and the pipe entered through the Beacon Street west gate. The pipe ended at the stone cross cistern in the north-west corner of the open space in front of the cathedral. In 1786, this was replaced by a cistern and pump and the upper remains of the pump can still be seen. Perhaps the reason to pipe this water was the water near the cathedral had become polluted. The system was finally abandoned in 1969 after around 800 years of use. The conduit-head still stands in Pipe Park, but no early pipe is known. The pipe lead was reused for musket balls in the Civil War.

 

Lichfield with new streets, piped water, gates and ditch. It shows prosperity. There were 5 gates listed in the Magnum Registrum Album (Great White Album of the cathedral). They were Bacun or Bachunneswich gate, Stowe or Stowey gate, Tamworth gate, Culstubbe gate and Santford or Sondord gate. 

 

Conduit-head remains in the north-west corner of the Close.

 

Crosses

At the Culstubbe Street gate (St John’s Street) stood two crosses known as Bishop Durdent and Bishop Pucelle, and it might be the gates came later. There were crosses at the other gates and this must have signified to pilgrims they had arrived at Lichfield. The crosses deteriorated with time, or were knocked down by parliamentarian forces in the Civil War.

 

Streets

If the Cathedral Close was now walled, it must have been necessary to clear away dwellings close to the previous palisade ditch. Bishop Clinton might have needed to accommodate his soldiers and this necessitated the commandeering of dwellings. So where did the occupants go? Was this the spur to add five or six streets on an east-west axis and at least four streets on a north-south alignment on wet ground south of the cathedral? It was the formation of an early grid-town[12] and has always been ascribed to Clinton’s plan for Lichfield. It might have been a consequence of making a garrisoned Close. It certainly came towards the end of his episcopate and followed on with the next bishop. Oddly, the new streets were on a low-lying area wet and easily flooded, so why build there and not on higher ground near Gaia or at Borrowcop. It has been noted the new town was roughly equidistant from the communities in the Close, at Sandford and Greenhill.[13] This suggests the town really consisted of several separated hamlets.[14]

 

Some accounts have Clinton founding the pilgrim’s house of St John the Baptist in 1135, but the earliest record is a grant given in 1208; an inconsistency mentioned by Harwood.[15] The purpose of the house was to accommodate travellers, especially pilgrims, who arrived when the gates were closed. Its position outside the town enclosure is seen in its current name of St John the Baptist without the Barrs. In 1495, it became an alms-house and hospital providing care, priory, school and home for men.[16]

St John the Baptist without the Barrs. Drawing from Lomax 1819

                                                                                           Drawing from Stebbing Shaw 1798[17]

 Second Cathedral

The standing cathedral for the 12th-century[18] is known from the basilica-shaped foundation found in 1854 under the choir and presbytery. This cathedral, presumed to have been built by Offa,[19] had a chapel added to the east end,[20] and was now over 4 centuries old. Its original roof was probably timber and must have been replaced several times, including after the Vikings are thought to have pillaged early in 875.[21] A chapel on the south side, built adjacent but not connected, could have been present. It later became with alteration and attachment the consistory court and St Chad’s Head chapel.

 

Drawing of the foundations in the choir and presbytery area, September 16 1856, found by John Hamlet the builder of the underfloor heating system. The green foundation is the east end of a basilical church. The purple foundation is a chapel attached sometime in the 10th or 11th century. This area might have been an Early Medieval cemetery and the stonework found could have belonged to this burial site. The font has been lost.

 

Bishop Clinton’s statue on the west front has him holding an early church. The second cathedral would have had a resemblance to the held church.

 

Conjectured layout and appearance of the second cathedral based on King Offa’s church at Brixworth, Northamptonshire.  

The entry for St Chad’s church, Lichfield, in the Domesday Book, 1086-7, stated there were on the bishop's manor five canons holding three ploughs. Some of the estates held by the bishop were said to have belonged to the church and might be considered early prebends providing tithe money. Portions of several manors, such as Baswich, Brewood, and Eccleshall, were said to have been held by the church and are known to have become prebends by the end of the 12th century. Some historians have suggested a full prebendal system was created by Bishop Clinton in the 1130s, but others have argued the income went to the twinned monastery at Coventry. This funding would have enhanced an early church, presumably now a cathedral again, and enabled a reconstituted Chapter. It is thought Clinton formed a ‘collegium canonicorum’ along the same lines as those founded at Lincoln, Salisbury, and York some forty years previously. Then came in 1191, a constitution based on one at the cathedral of Rouen which gave a measure of independence for the cathedral with four individuals, dean, precentor, treasurer and chancellor, having some control, but subject to the bishop and king. The earliest dates for these offices were dean 1140, sub-dean 1165, precentor 1177, treasurer 1140, and chancellor 1200. It appears the preoccupation of the cathedral in the 12th century was a formalising of the priesthood and the financing and management of the re-installed cathedral. There is not much evidence for the appearance of the bishop and the church/cathedral was minor in comparison with other cathedrals.

---

[1] The Roman town of Letocetum is centred on a defended area of some 5 acres astride Watling Street enclosed by a 4th-century wall 9 feet thick fronted by three ditches and backed by a turf rampart: J. Gould, ‘Caer Lwytgoed:  Its significance in early medieval documents’, Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions, (1993), 7.

[2] Magnum Registrum Album of Lichfield Cathedral, no. 497

[3] H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, (1619), i, 442.

[4] A. Sargent, ‘Early medieval Lichfield. A reassessment’. Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions, (2013), 1–32.

[5] Clinton also fortified Coventry as part of the siege during the Anarchy. A ditch 1.58 m deep and 7.5 m wide has been excavated at the cathedral site in Coventry.

[6] S. R. Bassett. ‘Medieval Lichfield: A topographical review. South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society transaction. (1980), 22, 117, Fig. 5B.

[7] OS Antiquity Notes, Staffordshire SMR).

[8] T. H. Turner and J. H. Parker, Some account of domestic architecture in England (vols. I-III, 1851-9), 404.

[9] J. Gould, ‘Lichfield: archaeology and development’. (WEMRAC: 1976).

[10] J. Gould, ‘The twelfth-century water-supply to Lichfield Close’, Antiquaries J, (1976), 56, 1, 73–78.

[11] It is thought the earliest system was at Canterbury Cathedral.

[12] J. Blair, Building Anglo-Saxon England. (Princeton and Oxford: 2018) thought grids of 12th and 13th century towns were based on irregular parallelograms and conjectured they might have triangulated with ropes which would give poor measuring out. Grids of 40 feet and 41.25 feet have been identified in the street layout.

[13] C. C. Taylor, ‘The origins of Lichfield, Staffordshire’, South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society transaction. (1969), 10, 43–52.

[14] The growth of Lichfield has been described as polyfocal, that is, disparate, unconnected communities occupying a common location and with time coming together as a town.

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

[16] Clinton has also been linked with the founding of a small Benedictine nunnery at Farewell.

[17] S. Shaw, The history and antiquities of Staffordshire, Volume 1. ( London: 1798)

[18] See the post, ‘Dating the cathedral’.

[19] See the post, ‘Second cathedral has a short perch layout. It is Early Medieval.’.

[20] See the post, ‘Two early chapels.’

[21] See the post, ‘When the Vikings came.’