King Wulfhere of Mercia and Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon selected a site for the early church at Lichfield. They wanted it to be the right location for a bishop’s seat in the new diocese in Mercia in 667–8. The appointment by Archbishop Theodore of Chad of Lastingham to be the fifth bishop of Mercia and the first bishop of Lichfield established the first cathedral at Lichfield, then called Licitfelda, 669–672. The Venerable Bede of Jarrow repeated this decision in his book,[1] 731.
See the posts, ‘How Lichfield got its name’ and ‘Bede
also names Lichfield the ‘right field’’
One reason why Licitfelda was chosen was because it had all the right requirements for settlement and worship. The Mercian mudstone hillock provided a dry site for settlement in which the bedrock could have been used for making walls. Mudstone, a form of sandstone, together with local pockets of clay could when mixed and baked in the sun provide walls for dwellings including a church. The surrounding forest on the higher north side would have provided timber and wattle for roofs. Shellfish in the many surrounding pools would have provided calcareous minerals for making lime mortar. Close by on the south side was a stream (now called the Curborough brook and dammed for the Minster pool) was suitable for baptism, washing and sanitation. The site is nearly east-west aligned (the current cathedral is 29o off this alignment).[2] Like the sites of many early minsters the area had seclusion being partly surrounded by marsh and probably open pools of water, with the site slightly above the alluvium and the floodplain. The church could have had the aspect of being in a densely wooded, river plain with the river navigable by a flat-bottomed vessel. Many English minsters were on open ground with water south eastwards and gently rising ground north westwards[3] and Lichfield has precisely this terrain.
Topography of early Lichfield. The numbers refer to elevation above sea level in metres. Aldershawe is 110m and Pipe Hill is 120m, both providing water to supply the Trunkfield brook.
Inhabitants
could exit and reach the Saxon pathways of Watling (A5) and Icknield Street
(A38) and this would have enabled travel, particularly to Northumbria. The
first seven bishops and others came from Lindisfarne and Northumbria. Warriors
were a small distance away, possibly at Repton or Tutbury,[4] but
significantly not too close. Presumably Wulfhere’s settlement was not too far
away (see the post ‘Tōmtun
early settlement’). Close by were the settlements at Catholme (sixth to ninth
centuries) and Letocetum (first to seventh century). These neighbouring
settlements had people needing to hear the word of God; it was a good base for
missionary work.[5]
A limited archaeological excavation in 1976 and 1977 beneath the gardens to the
south side of Lichfield Cathedral was undertaken revealing three inhumations,
timber structures and pottery of the mid-to-late Anglo-Saxon period. It was
thought these were the traces of the first ecclesiastical mid-Anglo-Saxon
timber-built streamside settlement, directly comparable to that at Jarrow and
only slightly damaged by the short-lived late-Saxon cemetery.[6]
If true, it means there were residents to construct and maintain an early
church. There could also have been farmers since oat and wheat seeds were found
which suggests they were either grown on site or being brought in from local
fields. The site had all the attributes needed for settlement, including
seclusion to concentrate on worship and devotion.
A
second reason for the site being approved by Wulfhere, Wilfrid and Bede was it
was free of ‘idols and devils’. Pope Gregory’s letter to Mellitus and
Augustine,[7]
c. 601, told them to sprinkle holy water on existing temples to cleanse
them and then add altars and relics. Lastingham, at the foot of the North
Yorkshire Moors, was only suitable, according to Bede, once Cedd, Chad’s
brother, spent time expiating the site from the taint of robbers and dens of
wild beasts.[8]
Wilfrid found the church at York had become like a den of thieves and needed
cleansing. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has for the year 656, Wulfhere alongside
Jaruman and Wilfrid hallowing the new abbey at Medhamsted, later Peterborough.[9]
There are folklore stories of Chad communing with local deer, baptizing
penitents, standing in prayer for long times in the river, but never a specific
reference to Chad having to cleanse the site at Lichfield. Yet when first
consecrated bishop, Bede stated Chad travelled on foot across the country
devoted to the task of keeping the church in truth and purity.[10]
Perhaps, when Lichfield was offered as a suitable location, previous bishops
had already spiritually cleansed the site. This is plausible considering a
little earlier in time Wulfhere, according to Bede, sent Bishop Jaruman, c. 665,
to restore the East Saxons from their decline into building temples and worshipping
images following a devastating plague.[11]
Clearly, the Mercian king and bishop rejected apostasy and demanded churches in
their kingdom have legitimate worship on a sacred site.
An
account of how the site of Mildrith’s legendary chapel at Ebbsfleet in Kent
became sanctified identified four steps, that is, association with a saint,
revelation by God, transformation of a church through a
ritual process and consecration by liturgical rite.[12] These same four steps would presumably have
had to be applied to the early church at Lichfield to justify its existence.
Steps 1 and 2: Association with
a saint and revelation by God.
Many sacred
sites began with a miracle associated with a saint and this would lead to a
shrine being built where the saint was buried followed by pilgrims visiting the
site. Lichfield is atypical because the church came first. Bede stated Chad’s
bones were buried by the church of St Mary.[13] On that spot frequent
miracles of healing occurred including a man suffering from freneticus[14]
who wandered onto the site and fell asleep. He stayed the whole night and
next morning was cured in his mind, sanato sensu.[15]
Depiction of a man sleeping near the grave of Chad (Ceadda).
This miracle must have activated
pilgrimage. Visitors to Chad’s shrine could collect pulveris (dust, soil,
or probably sand), add to water and drink it, and this too gave healing. The
sacred site was never chosen by man, it was merely discovered by him; it came
to man from without.[16] Bede must have realised
the similarity of this miracle with Jacob’s story in which after wandering he
fell asleep at an unknown place. He saw heaven in his dream and on wakening,
Jacob thought the place was awesome and named it, Bethel, meaning House of God.
By these signs it was God who sanctified the site. Bede was simply
acknowledging this same miracle at Lichfield.
Divine elevation
is extraordinary if it occurs in a pre-existing folk territory.[17] Not far away the Trent
washlands at Catholme had barrows, a cursus, a sunburst monument and wood
henges; closer still was a Roman temple at Letocetum and a Saxon burial hill
site at St Michaels. The surrounding landscape had a pre-Christian importance
ready to be spiritually cleansed. Reclaiming or taming of a supernatural past
was one among many factors in the location of minsters.[18]
 |
Reconstruction of the henge with the sunburst monument in the distance at Catholme. The cursus is farther back. A date of 2880 – 2410 BC has been given to the henge. Courtesy of Henry Rothwell, with satellite imagery © Google |
Steps 3 and 4: Transformation of a church through a ritual process and consecration by liturgical rite
A review of the
dedication rites undertaken in the Middle Ages concluded every part of a church
had to be sanctified.[19] Wilfrid too would require
new churches to be properly dedicated and therefore legitimised. Wilfrid’s
service for the new church at Ripon in the mid-670s included dressing and
vesting the altar, presumably with sprinkling of blessed water, reading a list
of lands granted to support the church, providing a sermon, presumably having
Mass and following with a feast lasting three days and nights.[20] Whether the early church
at Lichfield received a similar dedication is unknown, but with Bishop Wilfrid
possibly in Mercia there is every reason to assume this. The actions of King
Wulfhere to remove apostasy in the kingdom of the East Saxons indicate he too
would support a ritual consecration of any church. Finally, the ‘Penitential of
Theodore’, attributed to Archbishop Theodore, but compiled after his death,
690, listed lawful ways a monastic organisation should be governed and
legitimate ways clergy must conduct themselves. This showed from the Council of
Hertford, September 673, Theodore was exceptionally severe on how clergy and
their community had to behave.[21] It was part of the
Romanising of the church and clergy at Lichfield would have been expected to
follow.
The
first church-cathedral was built on a site with features appropriate for
settlement and worship, for having accepted aspects of sacredness and being
dedicated by top bishops. Licitfelda was right for a church or minster.[22]
It was not in an uninhabited waste land[23] in the
middle of a forest as some writers think. Lichfield was appropriate,
spiritually clean, sanctified and approved. The name tells us, see the post, ‘How
Lichfield got its name’.
[1] Historia
Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. See note 6, for a modern translation.
[2] See the
post, ‘East-West alignment’.
[4] ibid.
106.
[5] M. W. Greenslade,
A History of the County of Staffordshire, XIV, Lichfield: The place and
street names, population and boundaries, 37–42. Lichfield: The Cathedral.
[6] M. O. H.
Carver, ‘Excavations south of Lichfield Cathedral, 1976–1977’ South
Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions, 1980–1981,
XXII (1982), 38.
[7] J. McClure and R. Collins, Bede. The Ecclesiastical
history of the English People. Book I, Ch. (2008) 30, 56.
[8] ibid.
148.
[9] J.
Ingram, The Saxon Chronicle with an English Translation (London, 1823),
pp. 42 and 45.
[10] see note 7 McClure and Collins, (2008), 164.
[11] ibid.166–7.
[12] H. Gittos, Liturgy, architecture and sacred places in
Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford, 2013), 21–2.
[13] see note 7, McClure
and Collins, (2008), 149. A very similar translation of bones from a grave to the church of
St Mary happened at Lastingham with his older brother Cedd.
[14] In
turmoil, having a mental issue, possibly crazy.
[15] ibid.
178.
[16] M. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion
(Lincoln and London, 1958), 369.
[18] ibid.
191.
[19] see note 12, Gittos, (2013), 21–2.
[20] B. Colgrave,
The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus. Text, translation and notes,
(Cambridge, 1927), 37.
[21] M. W.
Herren and S. A. Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity (Woodbridge,
2002), 42.
[22] Bede
described Chad having eight ‘brothers’ on the site and such a religious
community would have been called a monasterium, which became translated
to mynster and then minster with modern spelling.
[23] See the
post, ‘Lichfield’s founding myth’. Also, ‘Chad fantasy, folklore and maybe’.