Wilfrid founder of church of Mercia

1350 years ago, 672, Wilfrid began a cathedral-church in Ripon.

1354 years ago, c. 668, Wilfrid with King Wulfhere proposed the site for the first cathedral at Licitfelda in Mercia.[1]

 Wilfrid lived for 76 years, 634–710, and in his life was Abbot and Bishop of Ripon, Bishop of Northumbria, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Bishop of Deira/York, Bishop of Selsey, Bishop of Mercia and possibly the Middle Angles.[2] He was also acting bishop at Lichfield. His history has been revised and reveals he was pivotal in building the Roman church.[3]

 

Lambert Barnard mural, c. 1508–1536 in Chichester Cathedral

     Wilfrid was born, 634, to a noble Northumbrian family, some historians believe in Deira (the area between the Humber and the Tees) and therefore like Chad, but 3 to 7 years later. His mother possibly died early in his life and Wilfrid, aged 14, came under the guardianship of Queen Eanflæd of Northumbria.[4]  She arranged for him to enter the Celtic worshipping monastery at Lindisfarne and also spend around a year in Canterbury where he encountered the Roman version of the Book of Psalms. In 654 aged 20, he went on his first of three pilgrimages to Rome accompanied by the older Benedict Biscop (founder of Wearmouth-Jarrow Priory). He spent many months in Rome visiting the shrines of saints and gradually converting to the Roman form of worship. On his return he spent three years in a monastery at Lyon and became a convert to the Benedictine way of life. Many novices from Lindisfarne completed their training for the priesthood in the Celtic monasteries of Northern Ireland, but Wilfrid was different. He went to the Roman monasteries in Paris and Rome and that sets him apart.

Around 660–63, Wilfrid became the religious advisor to Alhfrith King of Deira,  and in return was granted land containing the new monastery at Ripon, where he became the second abbot. Bede wrote Cuthbert and Irish-Celtic monks, including the abbot Eata, were forced to leave.[5]

 

Wilfred with a scroll listing the Roman manner of worship and observance. One foot is on a head; is this an artistic reference to him forcing the removal of Celtic priests?

Around 663 probably aged 29, Wilfrid was made a priest. A year later at the Synod of Whitby he advocated changing the practices of the church to a Roman form and this was accepted. He was opposed by Bishop Colmán of Lindisfarne, who lost the argument and afterwards left for Iona. Wilfrid, aged 30, was then chosen in 664 to be the Bishop of Northumbria after the new incumbent suddenly died of the plague. His consecration now needed three Roman bishops and at that moment there were not three in England who had been consecrated in the Roman manner and therefore eligible to consecrate Wilfrid. Wilfrid was told by the king to go to France and he was consecrated, 665, in the royal city of  Compiegne. Later writers described a lavish service with Bishop Agilbert and 11 Frankish bishops carrying him in a golden chair. He delayed his return according to Bede and on the way stayed for some time in Canterbury where he learnt new liturgy and ways of singing the Roman rite. He did not return from Francia until 666 and in the meantime King Oswui forced the uncanonical consecration of Chad as Bishop of Northumbria with two Celtic bishops in attendance. Having been usurped, Wilfrid retired to Ripon as abbot for three years. He began to rebuild Ripon monastery to be a basilical church in 669. Bede stated from foundation to roofbeam the church was built of dressed stone, supported with various columns and complete with side porticuses (small, low roofed side chapels). Lavish furnishings and relics were added in a way he had seen in Rome. The innovative church was dedicated in 672.[6]

 

14 steps down to a crypt at Ripon which once held Wilfrid’s relics collection. It had a one-way passage down and out through another exit. Was it built to recall the catacombs below the basilicas in Rome? It is the oldest cathedral building in England and has been in use since its construction.

 

Whilst rebuilding Ripon cathedral, Wilfrid was invited by King Wulfhere to act as the Bishop of Mercia. Jaruman, the fourth Bishop of Mercia, had died in 667. For two to three years, under the patronage of Wulfhere, numerous monasteries were founded in Mercia (East and South Midlands) and Wilfrid picked out Lichfield (Licitfelda) for the centre of the see of a new diocese.[7] Wilfrid had already located a church at Ripon; it was on rising ground above the river Skell, thus giving access to fresh water and within easy reach of the Roman road system. The same features applied to Licitfelda. Wulfhere appeared to want Wilfrid to be the fifth Bishop of Mercia and the first at Lichfield. Instead, Archbishop Theodore intervened and picked Chad, who had been bishop of Northumbria for three years, and in May 669 arranged for Wilfrid to return as Bishop of Northumbria, based at York.

A comparison of the early life of St Chad and St Wilfrid showing similarities.

 

Wilfrid as Bishop in York, Aidan Hart icon.

     Between 669–678, Wilfrid brought in singers, masons and artisans from Canterbury to develop his monastery in Ripon. He commissioned altar cloths made with gold thread and a Gospel book. This book had pages decorated with an expensive purple pigment, gold lettering, and illuminations (artwork). It was in a casing covered with precious gems (Ripon Jewel?) and intended to be yet another means of making a powerful statement of affinity with Rome. An early form of Benedictine Rule was introduced. When the church was consecrated they celebrated with a feast that lasted days. At the same time, he restored the church at York in the style of a Roman basilica. In 670, Wilfrid’s diocese was extended to include Lindsey (Lincolnshire). He oversaw the foundation and construction of Hexham abbey. It had three levels, was embellished with sculptures and paintings and was said to be a church equal to any in Rome.

 

11 steps down to Hexham’s crypt.

 

Crypt at Hexham that once held relics. It was built using purloined Roman stone.

 

 Frith stool or Wilfrid’s seat at Hexham.

 

In 672, Chad died and was replaced by Bishop Winfrith. Theodore soon deposed Winfrith for disobedience.[8] He was replaced by Bishop Seaxwulf from Peterborough and then in 691 by Headda, who was most likely consecrated by Wilfrid. King Ecgfrith of Northumbria turned against Wilfrid and Archbishop Theodore divided Wilfrid’s diocese by consecrating three new bishops in three new sees. The date of 678 for Wilfrid’s expulsion was given by Bede.[9] In 678–9, Wilfrid travelled to Rome surviving several attempts to kill him on the journey. By October 679, the Lateran Council supported Wilfrid’s complaint of being driven out of York after more than ten years of service. So, in 680–1 Wilfrid presented his papal documents showing his right to the bishopric to King Ecgfrith who then imprisoned him for nine months, only to be released later by a petition from the queen. His release was conditional he went into exile and that led to missionary work in Wessex and Sussex. He became the first bishop of Selsey and resided there for five years.

 

Archbishop Theodore, born in Tarsus, Turkey.

     In 686–7, Archbishop Theodore was dying and he confessed to Wilfrid he had been wrong in the ways he had treated him and depriving him of his property. King Æthelræd of Mercia immediately restored all his properties, mostly monasteries. Once again Ripon and York come under his jurisdiction and remained so for another five years.

In 687–8, Wilfrid was made Bishop of Lindisfarne, but encountered difficulties with the king and again left Northumbria and took refuge in Mercia.[10] Bede stated Wilfrid became the Bishop of the Middle Angles, ?690–692.[11] 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.^[12] By the end of Wilfrid’s life there existed a  large network of monasteries in Mercia owned and influenced by him.^[13] There is good reason to believe Lichfield was in his ‘kingdom of churches’ and it is plausible he was guiding Headda in growing the church in the way of Rome.

     In 702, Wilfrid was summoned to the Council of Austerfield. He claimed he had been a bishop for nearly forty years and had followed papal commands for 22 years. Other bishops rebuked him and his followers and they were excommunicated. Wilfrid, with his followers, travelled again to Rome where in 703–4 the pope absolved him. He asked to stay in Rome since he was not well, but was ordered to return home.

In 704, Wilfrid visited King Æthelræd on his retirement. In 706, he regained Ripon and Hexham. In 709, Wilfrid knowing he did not have long to live handed over his properties in Mercia to their abbots. Early in 710, Wilfrid, aged c. 76, in front of ten witnesses at Ripon, including two Mercian monks, ordered his treasurer to open the church treasury, spread out the gold, silver and precious jewels and distribute them to his abbeys and monasteries in Northumbria.^[14] He died at Oundle monastery, Northamptonshire, 24 April, 710, ^[15] with burial at Ripon. In the 10th-century Canterbury claimed to have his relics and later some (?) were supposed to have been translated to the early cathedral at Worcester. York claimed to have an arm bone. Sometime between July 712–March 714, Stephen of Ripon wrote his biography of the life of Wilfrid.

 The legacy of Bishop Wilfrid

Early antiquarian accounts of Wilfrid’s life presented him as noble and arrogant. A priest who ignored those who stood in his way and placed much emphasis on ceremony and position. He is now seen as a pioneering bishop bringing the Roman rite to England and facing opposition from many people reluctant to change. There was a close and often a fractious relationship with Northumbrian kings, but a strong kinship with Mercian and Wessex rulers. Some writers have judged Bede to have disliked Wilfrid, but his hagiography of Wilfrid was the way Bede wrote to emphasise the Roman church. Bede knew Wilfrid and generally understood what he was doing, even if Wilfrid’s ways appeared extravagant. Popes absolved him of wrongdoing on two occasions and eventually the archbishop pardoned him. In his struggles he spent 26 years away from his northern homeland. He gave much to the rich and powerful, but he also endowed and protected new monasteries. Stephen of Ripon’s biography gave him the highest praise, but his closest friend the bishop of Hexham, the abbot of Ripon and the community of Ripon asked for this eulogy. Equating him with saints and miracles was simply the genre of the time. It also gave him sainthood and a cult started soon after his death.

Wilfrid was pivotally important in 7th and early-8th century church and many innovations were orchestrated by him. He was a fixer and often in the centre of disagreements. Lichfield owes him much for he located the first cathedral and founded the diocese, then he nurtured the Middle Angle monasteries and secured the cult of Chad. It is remiss he does not have a large statue on the west front centre and next to Chad.[16] Lichfield cathedral started as a daughter church of Lindisfarne and was part of the Wilfridian network.

 Michelle Brown’s conjecture – Jarrow Lecture 2000[17]

Following Wilfrid's death, 710, a purple codex penned in gold and silver and enshrined in a jewelled case, was apparently the focus of attempts to establish a cult of Wilfrid at Ripon. Perhaps, it was at this time that the need for a similar adornment of the shrine of Cuthbert was commissioned, in the form of the Lindisfarne Gospels.

It would now be plausible to think Wilfrid’s codex was the spur for the St Chad’s Gospels and if so, suggests the Gospels were written by 720.

Both Lichfield and Ripon cathedrals have downplayed the role of Wilfrid and Chad in the formation of their churches.

Image of Chad at Ripon found at the back of their new pulpit. It is equal to Wilfrid being a small sculpture amongst others around the northwest door,

[1] See the post ‘The earliest name for Lichfield’.

[2] His life is known from his biography Victa Sancti Wilfridi I. Episcopi Eboracensis (hereafter VW) written by a monk at Ripon called Stephanus, published 712–3. Also, from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (hereafter HE) published in 731.

[3] N. J. Higham (ed.), ‘Wilfrid, Abbot, Bishop, Saint.’ Papers from the 1,300th Anniversary Conference. (Donington: 2013), 1–390.

[4] Eanflæd was a princess from Deira (the area between the rivers Humber and Tees) and it is thought this is where Wilfrid came from.

[5] Bede, Vita Sancti Cuthberti, 8

[6] J. Hill, ‘Rome in Ripon. St Wilfrid’s inspiration and legacy’. The Journal of the Historical Association. (2020), 105, 603–625.

[7] T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield. (London: 1806), 129, expresses it as ‘At his death (Jaruman), in 667, the care of this diocese was committed to Wilfrid, who had been deprived of his (arch)bishopric of York, for his long absence from his own diocese’. This shows Harwood thought Wilfrid was more than an occasional adviser.

[8] Cubitt dates this in 673 with HE Book 4, chapter 6. It could have been anytime between 672 and 676.

[9] HE Book 4 chapter 12.

[10] VW 45.

[11] 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.

[12] 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.

[13] S. Foot, ‘Wilfrid’s monastic Empire. Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 31. At least six have been suggested between AD 691/2 and 703, see P. Coulstock, The Collegiate Church of Wimborne Minster (Woodbridge, 1993). Capper, ‘Prelates and politics: Wilfrid, Oundle and the Middle Angles, 263, mentioned Bath, Oundle, Ripple, possibly Inkberrow and Chester. Evesham and Wing have some claim, see D. Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, fifth ed.’ (Oxford, 2011), 448. Also, Worcester, Leicester and Medeshamstede (Peterborough) with its satellite minsters at Breedon-on-the-hill, Woking, Bermondsey and perhaps Hoo (Kent) and Brixworth, see Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, 83. Foot, Monastic life in Anglo-Saxon England c. 600–900, 258–269, included Repton and Thorney. Mercian monks were regarded as part of the Ripon Community according to Stephen, Vita Sancti Wilfrithi, chapter 64,138.

[14] Vita Sancti Wilfrithi, 63, 136–137. 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), 10.

[15] C. Stancliffe, Dating Wilfrid’s death and Stephen’s life’ Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 21.

[16] Clearly reflects the old Victorian view of Wilfrid.

[17] M. P. Brown, ‘In the beginning was the Word: books and faith in the age of Bede’. The Jarrow Lecture 2000. The Heroic Age (2001), 4. See https://heroicage.org/issues/4/Brown.html

Two churches in 672 and a shrine

     The history for the early church/cathedral at Lichfield according to the cathedral website is[1]           

The cathedral established by St Chad, 669–72, was presumably the church dedicated to St. Mary near which he was buried. In 700 his remains were transferred to a funerary church, apparently dedicated to St. Peter.

This account is wrong in three ways and needs correction. The spurious date of 700[2] was added in the 14th century from a text that is wholly unreliable.

 

A simpler version of first a church of St Mary, next to which Chad was buried, and a later church of St Peter, which received his relics, comes from an 18th-century translation of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (published 731). The account was copied by later translators[3] and essentially is:

Chad died on the 2nd of March, and was first buried by St. Mary's Church, but afterwards, when the church of the most holy prince of the apostles, Peter, was built, his bones were translated into it.

 

This translation of Bede is not the only version. The earliest surviving translation of Bede by Thomas Stapleton, 1565,[4] described the existence of two churches at the time of Chad’s relics being translated (presumably sometime after 672). Namely, Chad was, ‘buried first by St. Mary’s Church, but afterward his bones were removed into the church of the most blessed Saint Peter chief of the apostles, the same church being finished.’

 

So, it is generally understood there were two churches with St Peter secondary in time to St Mary and the relics were only translated when the funerary church dedicated to St Peter was constructed. Chad’s relics were then kept in St Peter’s church. The earliest translation of Bede,[5] 1723, of more recent times states when St Peters was built. Yet the Latin word for when, uer, does not appear in Bede’s text.  

 

Here is a revised interpretation based on another way to read Bede’s text. To help understand the significant features the text is separated into its constituent parts[6]. 

1.    Obiit autem Ceadda sexto die nonarum Martiarum, et supultus est primo quidem iuxta ecclesiam sanctæ Mariæ, – Chad died on 2 March and was first of all buried close to the church of St Mary. Chad’s grave was in a cemetery close to the church of St Mary. This is clear and unequivocal.

2. sed postmodum constructa ibidem – and afterwards was built at this place. This is equivocal and suggests his relics were moved to something that was built (constructa) at the place (ibidem) where he was buried.
3. ecclessia beatissimi apostolorum principis Petri, – on the site of the church of St Peter, the most blessed of the apostles. This states the whole site was dedicated to St Peter and so had a church already established.
4. in eandem sunt eius ossa translata. – (where) his bones were transferred. This suggests the translation was at the original grave.

 

Much depends on the word constructa and what it was. Bede uses the word constructa on three other occasions in his book and all refer to the building of memorial shrines to individuals and not churches. Namely, where King Oswald died on a battlefield, for Saint Fursa’s final resting place and in a letter to Abbot Mellitus from Pope Gregory giving instructions for building new shrines where there were heathen temples.[7] In the Vulgate Bible the word appears twice, in Nehemiah 3.16 it refers to a pool built next to the sepulchre of David and in Ephesians 2.21 it is to the making of the figurative Holy Temple of God. That is a total of six references where constructa was used for the building of some kind of shrine, sepulchre or metaphorical temple for remembrance; it appears to have a restricted and specific use. It is not a church. Chad’s relics were not translated into a church.

 

What was constructed on Chad’s grave? Bede’s text in the Moore copy has, Est autem locus idem sepulcri tumba lignea in modum domunculi. That is, at the same place of (Chad’s burial) was a sepulchre/shrine made of wood in the shape of a little house.[8] This is understood to mean a timber monument in the shape of a small roofed cell over the original grave. It is supported by Bede describing those who visited the sepulchre out of devotion being able to place their hands through an aperture and collect pulveris. If this refers to soil or sand, it is the soil or sand of Chad’s original grave. It is similar to the miracle at Maserfelth where people took soil from the place where King Oswald’s body fell in battle.[9]

This explication of Bede now reveals the grave was close to the church of St Mary on a site with the church of St Peter. Often the primary Anglo-Saxon church was dedicated to an apostle and later acquired a lesser, secondary church dedicated to the Virgin.[10] A list of secondary Marian churches has been collated and the St Mary’s church apparently being first at Lichfield and so anomalous was noted.[11] A first church dedicated to St Peter is consistent with Biblical teaching, was the convention across Europe and the most likely arrangement at Lichfield. This order of churches has significance because the pre-existence of an early primary and secondary church could explain why the site was prepared (paratum) for a new fifth Bishop of Mercia (Chad in 669).[12] It also emphasises the constructa, a little house, was above the grave of Chad. It was this constructa that was later built.

 

Reconstructed site with two churches and a shrine tower.

 New explication

Chad died March 2 in 672 and was buried in a grave by the church of St Mary. This was on the site of St Peter the Apostle. Sometime later, presumably two or three decades after his body had decomposed, his bones were retrieved and placed in a wooden ‘little house’ shrine on the grave site. This translation could have been around the year 700. It could have been organised by Bishop Headda (Bede never mentions this bishop and this is anomalous) and Bishop Wilfrid. Archaeology in 2003 showed the grave was within a shrine tower, 7 m x c. 7 m. The ‘Lichfield Angel’ stone shrine chest replaced the wooden ‘little house.’ The whole complex, St Peter, St Mary, Shrine tower and necessary dwellings would constitute a monasterium, later a mynster, or minster.

 

Bishop Jaruman holding an early (elaborate) church before Chad arrived. This very early church could not have been on the Lichfield site. This is a roundel in the presbytery floor.

---

[1] 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 (London 1990), 37.

[2] This dating appeared in the ‘Lichfield Chronicle,’ initially called the ‘Book of Alan of Ashbourne, Vicar of Lichfield’, British Library MS Cotton Cleopatra D IX, started in 1323. Later published by Wharton in the Anglia Sacra see H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra, Volume 1. (London, 1691), 428. The source and detail for this date, January 700, and construction of a church are unknown. Sargent suggested St Peter’s church can be plausibly connected with a church built by Bishop Headda, see A. Sargent, Lichfield and the Lands of St Chad: creating community in Early Medieval Mercia (Hatfield,  2020), 53. If so, the church could have been built from the start of Headda’s episcopate, namely 691 onwards. Bede never mentions Headda and does not link a bishop with the construction of the church of St Peter.

[3] J. McClure and R. Collins,  Bede. The Ecclesiastical history of the English People, (Oxford: 2008),178. Bede book four, chapter three.

[4] T. Stapleton, The ecclesiastical history of the English people. By the Venerable Bede. Translated out of Latin into English by Thomas Stapleton, ed. P. Hereford (London, 1935), 196.

[5] John Stevens, The ecclesiastical history of the English Nation from the coming of Julius Ceasar into this island in the 60th year before the incarnation of Christ, till the year of our Lord, 731. (London: 1723).

[6] Unfortunately, the constituent parts are not entirely separated by commas, but that is not unusual for Bede.

[7] J. McClure and R. Collins,  Bede. The Ecclesiastical history of the English People .(oxford: 2008). Oswald’s at Heavenfield,  Book III Ch 2, 112; Fursey’s at Péronne, Book III, Ch. 19, 143; shrines replacing altars, Book 1, Ch. 30, 57.

[8] ibid. 178.

[9] ibid. 124.

[10] J. Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society, (Oxford:2005) 200; W. Rodwell, J. Hawkes, E. Howe and R. Cramp, ‘The Lichfield Angel: A spectacular Anglo-Saxon painted sculpture’, Ant.J. 88 (2008), 51.

[11] H. Gittos, Liturgy, architecture and sacred places in Anglo-Saxon England, (Oxford: 2013), 94.

[12] J. Gould, ‘Lichfield before Chad’ XIII Medieval archaeology and architecture at Lichfield, The BAA Conference transactions for the year 1987 (1993), 5; Blair, The church in Anglo-Saxon Society, 99.