Three conjectures on the early church

 Summary. The scant early documentary evidence for the first and second cathedrals has inevitably led to speculation and wild conjecture. Two hypotheses are given which have warped our understanding of the first cathedral are given and a third which arises out of recent archaeological investigation revealing the second cathedral are presented.

    The history of the cathedral has pointers which with extrapolation can give meaningful conjectures. Pursuing these bits of evidence might in the future direct understanding. Here are three.

1.     The earliest churches were built on St Michael’s hill.

Diuma, the first Bishop of Mercia died in c. 658 and the next bishop, Coellach, lasted a few months before being removed by King Wulfhere. The next two bishops were more favourable to the Mercian people 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)[1] 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 (this should be Trumhere the third Bishop of Mercia) build his church in Lichfield’ and then speculated the location as being on St Michael’s hill.[2] 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.[3] 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 Anglo-Saxon crouched burial was revealed when excavations were made for a new vestry for the church in 1978, suggesting an earlier history to the site. Gould and Gould[4] wrote cautiously, perhaps it had early medieval origins. This tentatively points to a Roman/Anglo-Saxon 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.[5]

          If true, why did the church for Chad move across the marshy, wooded area, now Lichfield town centre, to the hillock on which now stands the cathedral? Two 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. Also, nearby clay from the stream bank could be used to mix with the clay, dry in the sun, and construct walls. It might also be that King Wulfhere and Bishop Wilfrid knew this site was spiritually untainted, unlike the Anglo-Saxon pagan burial ground.[6] It was superior topographically and spiritually.

2.     The first church said to be built in the year 700 was instead the shrine tower around Chad’s grave. It was a misunderstanding.

It has been a long-standing myth that the first church was built by Bishop Headda around the year 700. This ignores Stephen of Ripon’s statement and Bede’s assertion of a church for St Chad when he arrived in 669.[7] Yet, there is an authoritative statement, “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.”[8] This unambiguous statement given in the Victoria County History, 1970, without a reference somehow has prevailed? It appears to be premised on Bede stating he was buried near the church of St Mary and the belief from the 13th century that his burial was near the ‘monastery’ or ‘House of St Chad’ 700 m north-east of the cathedral by the east end of Stowe pool at a place called Stowe.[9] The website of St Chad’s church states there was a Christian community on this site in the 7th century. All this comes from a narrative of Lastingham monastery, Yorkshire, where Chad was the abbot before being Bishop of Mercia. From this it was taken the first cathedral came later than Chad and was built in the time of Bishop Headda’s episcopate.  

Headda holding the first cathedral; it looks like Escomb Church, Durham. The statue is on the sedilia on the side facing the north sanctuary aisle.

 

This logic was recorded 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 – see note 3.[10]  The discovery of Chad’s grave at the east end of the nave in 2003[11] now completely contradicts this medieval story. Chad was not buried at Stowe.

 

Nave excavation 2003 showing the position of Chad’s grave. The grave is marked in red, a foundation to a shrine tower in blue and the midline of the cathedral in yellow.

So why did medieval writers believe there was a first church on the cathedral site, but 30 years later than Chad? The conjecture is they saw the foundation of the shrine tower when retrieving Chad’s relics around the time of building the current cathedral, early 13th century. They noted the foundation, but did not notice the grave. They presumed the foundation was the first cathedral. Its wall size, around 1 m thick, indicated a date of around the beginning of the 8th century. Maybe they saw this foundation earlier since a King Edgar silver penny was found in a pit during the 2003 excavation and was dated to the 10th century.

^{King Edgar silver penny. Obverse has +EADGAR RE around a small cross pattée within an inner circle. Reverse has INGEL-RI for the moneyer Ingelrics based at Derby. He minted coins showing a rosette and with MO in the field which means money, coin or die and is a feature of Mercian mints. Little is known on this moneyer which makes it unusual. Thanks to Dane Kurth of wildwinds.com.}

The two records of Stephen of Ripon’s biography of Bishop Wilfrid and Bede’s history book are relatively clear the first church was built around 667‑9 when Bishop Wilfrid joined King Wulfhere to provide a site for the new ecclesiastical centre of the kingdom of Mercia, but medieval writers chose to ignore this and later writers never questioned the notion.

3.     The second cathedral would have had a tower for keeping treasure and had sections to separate worshippers, king and clergy.  Its nave extended into the current cathedral nave, and was slightly narrower.

The massive foundation for the second cathedral was revealed in 1854 under the choir and presbytery floor.[12] It has been argued with some evidence it is Early Medieval (Anglo-Saxon) and is best seen as being built by King Offa for his archbishopric, but until it is carbon-dated this remains  speculative.[13]

 

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

If it was the east end of Offa’s basilical cathedral, what would the rest of this cathedral, particularly the west front, look like? There are few cathedral foundations existing for the late 8th century to give guidance. However, in 2003 at the east end of the nave a very early wall on the inside of the nave columns indicated an earlier nave. Rodwell (2004) described it as a late Saxon or Norman nave wall foundation.¹¹ It could also have been the nave of Offa’s second cathedral. If so, it was slightly narrower than the current nave.

Stone wall (red) on inside of columns. It had very little masonry. It was a mortared construction using mixed rubble which has a similarity to the basilical foundation in the choir and presbytery.

It has been argued the church was similar in time and structure to Brixworth, Northamptonshire.[14] The west end of this church has undergone much change, but some detail is known, so if it is used as a model, remembering Offa attended both churches, then it is reasonable to guess what the second cathedral looked like.

 

Imagined Offa’s second cathedral using Brixworth as a guide.

Externally, might the second cathedral have looked like this?  

Or this? Chad’s shrine tower would stand alone away from the west end,

 

One reason for having a tower was to securely hold the treasures and artefacts of the cathedral. With Lichfield that could have included everything found in the Staffordshire Hoard.[15] It could also have had a secure meeting room. This was also the time churches were sectioned internally to serve various functions. The nave could have had procession, the king and family might have sat separated from others, perhaps in the presbytery/choir area, and the clergy would be in the apse. The altar could have been in the presbytery. The church is now a line from the public entrance at the west end to the high altar and clergy at the east end. The three arches separates the secular from the sacred areas.

 

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

[2] 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.

[3] 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.

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

[5] 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).

[6] See the post, ‘Reasons why Lichfield (Licitfelda) had approval.’

[7] See the posts, ‘Wulfhere and Wilfrid, and later Bede, name Lichfield’ and ‘Wilfrid founder of church of Mercia.’

[8] 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.

[9] It has been suggested the location of Stowe was more likely to be at the west end of Stowe pool. It cannot be assumed it is where his well and 13century church are now located.

[10] 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.

[11] W. Rodwell, ‘Archaeological excavation in the nave of Lichfield Cathedral’, (unpublished report held in Lichfield Cathedral Library 2003) 1–17.

[12] See the post, ‘The incomparable apse of the second cathedral.’

[13] See the post, ‘Why the second cathedral must be Anglo-Saxon (Englisc).’

[14] See the post, ‘Comparison shows an Anglo-Saxon (Englisc) second cathedral.’

[15] See the post, ‘It has to be the Lichfield Hoard.’

Chad's grave-the evidence

Summary. A 2003 archaeological excavation at the east end of the nave revealed the foundation to a shrine tower and within it a grave. Eight reasons are given for believing this was Chad’s grave. It should be marked.

 Context

King Wulfhere gained overlordship of Mercia c. 657-9, possibly by paying tribute to King Oswiu of Northumbria.[1] He then assisted in appointing the third and fourth bishops of Mercia, who came from the north, and most likely built their timber church in the vicinity, perhaps, along the Trent washlands.[2] Bishop Wilfrid, acting as bishop of Mercia, and Wulfhere, between 667 and 669, fixed a new site for a mother church-cathedral beside a stream on a Mercian mudstone slope for the fifth bishop of Mercia (Chad). They called the location Licitfelda, meaning the approved field. Bede 17–19 years later, confirmed the event.[3] See the posts, ‘Wilfrid, creator of the first cathedral’ and ‘Reasons why Lichfield (Licitfelda) had approval’. Bede recorded when Chad died in 672 two churches were present.[4] See the post, ‘Understanding Chad’s grave site’. This is the documentary evidence for two churches, St Peters and St Marys at Lichfield by at the year 672 when Chad was buried at Licetfelda.

Bede stated Wilfrid became the Bishop of the Middle Angles, ?690–692.[5] Then, 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.^[6] Almost certainly Wilfrid encouraged the cult of Chad, its pilgrimage and Licetfelda as a sacred landscape. This was repeated with Cuthbert at Lindisfarne and in time with Wilfrid at Ripon. Major ecclesiastical centres had noted saints in special shrines.

 

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.[7] A foundation for a building c. 7 m wide north-south[8] and possibly the same length east-west was found. The walls mostly a metre thick suggested the building was relatively tall.[9] The east end had a tongue of natural clay and this was thought to have been steps into the shrine. Inside was a sunken, possibly lined, pit, 0.8m deep, c. 2m wide and slightly longer[10]; clearly a burial pit or hypogeum (underground tomb). Alternatives, such as a baptistry, were ultimately dismissed.[11]  Rodwell published the outcome of the dig for the cathedral library and later in a magazine.[12] Since the dig there have been implausible suggestions on whether the chamber was much longer and it attached to a church 20m away.[13] Bunce[14] has concluded local burial practices of saint’s graves between c. 600 and 850 in Britain and Ireland explain the variation in the types of shrines including unique Insular shrines. This might be a grave with Insular features.

 

Reconstructed diagram of the shrine tower 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 (outlined in red). Foundation wall is outlined in blue. The midline of the chamber is in yellow.

 

 

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

The size and shape resembled shrine towers known in Ireland and dated 8th to 9th-century. Such buildings were well under 12m square and usually had a west-facing door.[15] Carver said they 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.[16] A somewhat similar layout occurred for the Hexham and Ripon crypts.[17]

St Kevin's shrine tower at Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland.

 

Reasons for accepting this was Chad’s burial site.

1.     Every aspect suggests a shrine tower built to house the grave of someone special.[18] The shrine resembled those, at least 4, in Ireland[19] each dedicated to hold the remains of a saint. The archaeologist suggested burial offset to the north in a small room 5m square had some resemblance to Christ’s tomb chamber (2.5m long, 1.2m wide and 2.5m high) reconfigured in Constantine’s church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (which was different from the original rock tomb). The cobbled stone floor suggests many attended the grave. The possible east end door is characteristic for such monuments.

 

Adomnan’s 7th-century drawing of the church of the Holy Sepulchre.

 

2.     Bede recorded Chad’s relics were within a ‘wooden house’, on (ibidem) the original grave.[20] It is entirely plausible the wooden house was exchanged later with a stone sepulchre-chest, see the post ‘Chad’s relics.’ Within the grave and close by were found three pieces of stonework which fitted together to make what is now called ‘The Lichfield Angel’. The head of the angel Gabriel is very similar to the head of King Offa on his coins 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 buried and now exhibited in Durham Cathedral. This equates Offa’s shrine chest for Chad with the shrine and coffin of Cuthbert. See the post, ‘Lichfield Angel.’

3.     A substantial socketed, sandstone block was found next to the sunken chamber and could have been the base to a standing cross.[21] Alternatively, it could have supported an eternal flame from an oil lamp; this 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.

4.     Of the 22 people, some were priests, found above the shrine tower foundation in the 2003 excavation, 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 was not cut by later graves.[22] Rodwell noted broken fragments of incised floor slabs with indents of Purbeck marble and bluestone to show the high status of burials. This was a special grave site. It seems that even in medieval times there was an understanding where Chad was buried and 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 kept separate from the main church to the east of the crossing. Pilgrims and penitents 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 explains the medieval practice of exhibiting relics, not graves, and why the grave was empty of bones in 2003.

6.     The sunken chamber had been infilled with soil and rubble and a 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. He was thought to have been a pilgrim and the depth of burial suggested 15th century. 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. 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.

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 monasterium was a series of rings as seen in Irish-Celtic monasteries and thought to be at Iona, see the post ‘A sacred layout for the first cathedral,’ then it is central to the site.

8.     A recent review of features seen in the excavation has supported the notion this was an early grave.[23] Rodwell[24] in 2006 wrote, “We now have fair reason to believe we have found the secondary burial place, that is after translation,[25] of St Chad.” No one has disputed this.

     Surprisingly, the location of the grave has not been marked or noted in the cathedral and visitors sometimes remark on this. Instead, pilgrims have finished their journey with prayers at the 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. Crook expressed it as, early Christian writers (in Roman times) knew the devout visited holy graves because in a mysterious way they believed the saint, though dead in body, continued to maintain contact with the earthly sphere through the physical remains that they had left behind.[]26The bones (and grave) provided a channel of communication between earth and heaven. The grave provided a source of spiritual power, such as healing infirmities.

[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] 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.

[4] Ibid, Book 4 chapter 3.

[5] 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.

[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] 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.

[8] 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.

[9] 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.

[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 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.[13] 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.[13] 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.

[14] M. Bunce, Shrines and special graves in Britain and Ireland c.600-850, (2022). PhD thesis University of Oxford.

[15] 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.

[16] 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.

[17] 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.

[18] Rodwell, ‘Lichfield Cathedral. Archaeology of the Sanctuary’, 4.

[19] Possibly also Patrick’s chapel at Heysham on the Morecambe coast.

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

[21] 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.

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

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

[24] See note 10, Rodwell (2006), 13

[25] 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.

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