Summary. The year 1200 was a transitional year for an old second cathedral, and a new expanding town catering for pilgrimage and servicing for many priests. It was the town that motivated construction of a new Gothic cathedral.
Boundary
In Early
Medieval times there must have been a ditch and bank around the area, now known
as The Close, to keep in livestock. The separate Licitfelda (Lichfield) settlements
could even have had a ditch and palisade like the excavated enclosure at
Tamworth thought to be c.913.[1]
Ai enhabced imagined enclosure at Tamworth (originally called Tomeworthig).
Between 1129 and
1135, there is some evidence of a ditch being dug around the coalescing settlements.
This was at the beginning of Bishop Roger de Clinton’s episcopate, 1129-48, and
plaques around the town attribute the town ditch to his time.[2]
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 containing water would be
defensive, but it is unknown whether it completely encircled the small town. The
purpose of a large ditch, together with town gates, was more likely to deter traders
entering the town and avoid paying a goods tax at the gate. The officers of the
town were now directing change which was being called a manor or borough and
residents were burgesses.
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. The
AI enhanced map shows a fortified Close completed c. 1299.
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.[3] It
was one of the earliest medieval piped-water systems in Britain.[4] 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. It is also claimed Canon Thomas Bradford, or
Bradeford, secured a clean water supply to the Close, c.1263. 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.
Conduit-head remains, once housed a pump, in the north-west corner of the Close built 1786.
Lichfield town or manor
If the cathedral
Close was now bounded, perhaps, walled, it must have been necessary to clear
away dwellings close to the previous palisade ditch. Bishop Clinton might have
needed to garrison his soldiers, he was a warrior-bishop, 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[5]
and has always been ascribed to Clinton’s plan for Lichfield. It came towards
the end of his episcopate and followed on with the next bishop. Strangely, the
new streets were on a low-lying area that was wet and easily flooded, so why
build there and not on the 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.[6] The
town comprised of separated hamlets.[7]
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 all
the gates and this must have signified to pilgrims they had arrived at Lichfield.[8]
Lichfield's
market, chartered in 1153, was held initially on Sundays, and could have existed
unofficially long before the new town was laid out.
The river, name is unknown, gave good
separation of The Close and cathedral from the separate hamlets and later pools
added to this isolation. A deed[9]
dated 1176 refers to 'a tithe of fish from the bishop's fishponds in Lichfield'
known as Vivarium Lichesfeldense.[10] Both Stowe Pool and Minster Pool were
artificial ponds created to drive water mills. The Domesday record mentions two
mills belonging to the church estate and a third serving the outlying members
of the manor which suggests the ponds existed in 1086.[11]
Plan of Lichfield 1150 interpreted by Bassett.[12]
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
thought the Dam Street causeway was constructed before the Beacon Street
causeway. Note the grid pattern of roads for the new settlement. It is unclear
whether the earthworks around Lichfield formed a complete boundary.
Slater's idea of the Close around the year 1100[13]
This map has more detail that Bassett’s map suggesting the manor of Lichfield
was more coherent and integrated. Slater thought the Stowe area was most
developed.
Plaques giving a version of gates and ditches.
Cathedral. Strictly the church
of St Chad after the Normans removed the bishop. The entry for St Chad’s church, Lichfield, in the
Domesday Book, 1086-7, stated there were present five canons holding three
ploughs.
The Early
Medieval cathedral-church must have been in a poor condition by the year 1200
and its future an issue. It is thought the first three bays of the choir were
repaired, with a date of 1185; later dates have been suggested. It has some
Early English stonework. Most likely the small area was being isolated for
worship to continue whilst around the area was being prepared for a new
cathedral. Being a non-monastic, secular cathedral meant a lack of cloisters
and outer chambers limited the options for where to continue worship. A chapel on the south side
of the second cathedral, built adjacent but not connected, could still be
standing at this time and is thought to have been used as a sacristy.[14]
Bishop Clinton’s statue on the west front has him holding an
early church (Wing, Buckinghamshire?) The second cathedral would have had a
resemblance to the held church.
The cathedral-church was must
have been neglected and financially poor. Some of the estates held by the
bishop are thought to have belonged to the church and might be considered early
prebends provided some 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. The relationship between the more important Benedictine Priory in
Coventry and the smaller church in Lichfield was strained with bishops
favouring Coventry. 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 in 1191, a constitution based on one created at
the cathedral of Rouen, was adopted which gave a greater measure of
independence for the cathedral with four individuals, dean, precentor, treasurer
and chancellor, having some control, but still 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. By 1195, there were 22 canons, and a
statute laid down that each should reside in The Close for a minimum of 3
months each year. The preoccupation of the cathedral in the 12th-century seems
to be a formalising of the priesthood and the financing and management of the
cathedral now beginning to have restored status. However, there is not much
evidence for the appearance of the bishop, Hugh de Nonant, 1188-98. The prebend
of Wolvey was formed about 1200 by Bishop Geoffry de Muschamp, and more
followed in the years to 1255. Around this time various churches were given to
the Chapter of the cathedral and they raised funds from a destitute level.
Some accounts
have Clinton founding a pilgrim’s rest-house called 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 town gates were closed. Its position outside the town is
seen in its current name of St John the Baptist without the Barrs. Its
existence soon after 1200 does indicate pilgrimage to St Chad’s relics was ongoing.
AI rendition of an early drawing of St John’ the Baptist chapel and hospital.
Robert Wills examined some of the remains of a foundation of
the second cathedral revealed in 1854 in August 1859, took measurements and
published his findings in 1861.[16]
The layout shows the features that date it to around the year 1200 and suggest
this was the transitional church. The first three Early English piers from the
tower were, in the original plan, octagons, with a triple clustered shaft added
on each face. The third pier from the tower is half Early English and half
Decorated. The walls, windows, and vaulting of both the choir aisles are Early
English as far as the third pier of the choir. The sacristy has three Early
English windows.
AI double chevron in north choir aisle archway which could be Early English.
The notion the cathedral dominated and motivated the town is wrong. The third cathedral does not begin construction until 15 or even 25 years after 1200.[17] Perhaps, there was some building with Bishop Geoffry de Muschamp, 1198-1208, since he might have been buried in the cathedral. It is more likely work commenced under Bishop William de Cornhill, 1215-23,[18] and he was recorded as being buried in the cathedral. In 1221, Henry III gave the Dean and Chapter twenty oaks from Cannock Forest to be used for rafters and timber for the church.[19] If this was the start of concerted construction then the cathedral is 805 years old. By this time the town or manor had grown considerably. It is pilgrimage, hostelries, small manufacture in metals, leather and food supplying the palace, priests and acolytes in the cathedral, and local markets which drive prosperity and must have induced the construction of a new Gothic cathedral.[20]
[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]
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.
[3]
J. Gould, ‘The twelfth-century water-supply to Lichfield Close’, Antiquaries
J, (1976), 56, 1, 73–78.
[4]
It is thought the earliest system was at Canterbury Cathedral.
[5]
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.
[6]
C. C. Taylor, ‘The origins of Lichfield, Staffordshire’, South Staffordshire
Archaeological and Historical Society transaction. (1969), 10, 43–52.
[7]
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.
[8]
The crosses deteriorated with time, or were knocked down by parliamentarian
forces in the Civil War.
[9]
Magnum Registrum Album of Lichfield
Cathedral, no. 497
[10] H. Wharton, Anglia
Sacra, (1619), i, 442.
[11]
T. R. Slater, ‘The topography and
planning of Medieval Lichfield. A critique. South Staffordshire
archaeological and historical society transactions for 1984-1985. (1986),
26, 11-35.
[12]
S. R. Bassett. ‘Medieval Lichfield: A topographical review. South
Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society transaction. (1980),
22, 117, Fig. 5B.
[13]
T. R. Slater, (1986), 26. See note 11.
[14]
See the post, ‘Two early chapels.’
[15]
T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield.
(London: 1806).
[16] R.
Willis, ‘On foundations of early buildings recently discovered in Lichfield
Cathedral’ The Archaeol. J. (1861) 18, 1–24. Willis visited the
Cathedral in 1849 to examine window tracery. In 1854, he was invited to forward
a drawing for the restoration of the choir area. Before publication Willis gave
a lecture reported in The Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1861, vol 210, 296‑300.
[17]
See the post ’Dating the cathedral.’
[18]
Burial must have been close to the Early English choir area.
[19]
See note 226 given in M. W. Greenslade and R. B. Pugh (eds.) 'House of secular
canons - Lichfield cathedral: To the Reformation', in A History of the
County of Stafford: Volume 3, (London, 1970), 140–166.
[20]
Taking 110-140 years. Lack of written evidence makes this dating an estimate.
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