Two churches in 672 and a shrine

     Abstract.     The translation of Bede’s description of the two early churches at Licitfelda (Lichfield) Is ambiguous and misleading. The two churches were present by 672 at Chad’s death. A later shrine around Chad’s grave and presumably dwellings for the priests would have given a ‘monasterium’ or ‘mynster’ complex.

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 Early Medieval (once known as Anglo-Saxon or Englisc) church was dedicated to an apostle and later acquired a lesser, secondary church dedicated to the Virgin.[10] This pairing of churches with St Mary being secondary includes Canterbury, Ripon, Monkwearmouth, Glastonbury, Lindisfarne, Lastingham, Malmesbury, Hackness and Whitby. This list of secondary Marian churches shows if Lichfield has St Mary first it is significantly anomalous.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.

 Location of St Mary and St Peter.

St Mary was near the grave of Chad according to Bede, but that asks how near was nearby. Notable kings and saints were usually buried to the east of the main church. If Lichfield follows Glastonbury, Whithorn, Hexham, Wells, Worcester, Winchcombe, Ripon, Gloucester and possibly Bradford-on-Avon, then the church of St Peter is in the nave area. It is not possible to say with any certainty where these two churches were located.

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.

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[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.