There is no historical evidence for a Norman second cathedral

             Wikipedia, copying a long list of writers mostly in Victorian times, repeats the second cathedral was built by the Normans.[1] By the 20th century most writers mentioned a Norman cathedral but gave some cautious qualification.[2] If true, this narrative means a second Norman cathedral would have lasted for no more than 110 years before the current cathedral was built early in the 13th-century. Since there are no obvious remnants of Norman stonework it envisages a monumental Norman cathedral being completely demolished to make way for an entirely new Gothic cathedral. Why writers would want to invoke a Norman cathedral is an interesting zeitgeist.[3] Reasons to confute this myth are given in the posts. ‘Why the second cathedral must be Anglo-Saxon’, ‘Comparison shows an Anglo-Saxon second cathedral’ and ‘It is short perch: historians, please note’. Two more reasons follow considering the background history.

 

The Normans marginalised Lichfield

Four years after the Conquest in1066, a Council held at Windsor, Leofwin,[4] the Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Lichfield, was summarily dismissed with a charge of carnal incontinence meaning he had a wife and children, but this was a ploy since other bishops were also married. It was backed by papal legates at the behest of Normans brought in to purge the English church. In fact, Leofwin had been too political and maintained too close an association with the dissentient Earls of Mercia. He was never going to be compliant with the new Norman hegemony. At the next Council in 1075, headed by the new Archbishop Lanfranc appointed by William the Conqueror, it was decided any bishops from villages were to be moved to populous cities, as cited in the Council of Serdica (now Sofia in Bulgaria) in 343 and repeated in the Council of Laodicea, Turkey, in 363/4. Citing a 4th century custom was a device to justify the move. This meant the bishopric at Sherborne was moved to Old Sarum, Salisbury, Selsey was moved to Chichester, Wells to Bath, Elmham, East Anglia, was succeeded by Thetford and later Norwich, and Lichfield was transferred to Chester. In fact, Peter, consecrated bishop of Lichfield in 1070, some think earlier in 1067, had already moved to Chester by 1072 or 1073. The Council, two or three years later, was merely reflecting what had already happened. A letter in late 1072 or early 1073 referred to the Bishop of Licifeldensis (Lichfield) who is now Cestrenis (Chester).[5]

William I with his Domesday Book and William of Malmesbury

 

The Normans downgraded the Anglo-Saxon cathedral to become The Church of St Chad, the designation in the Great Survey, 1086, in the Domesday Book. William of Malmesbury[6], 1080–1143, wrote Lichfield was a tiny village (uilla exigua) far from the busy life of towns, in the midst of a woody district, on the banks of a brook. Its church was on a cramped site, revealing the mediocrity and self-repression of its men of old, a place unworthy of the dignity of a bishop. He also added the church was famous for its poverty. The old cathedral and the Anglo-Saxon bishop were unimportant. In the Domesday Survey, 1086,[7] the cathedral had only five priests and was among the poorest of the English cathedrals. Furthermore, Lichfield lay at the centre of perhaps the poorest part of the entire diocese.[8] The downgraded cathedrals were never likely to become wealthy and powerful.[9] Furthermore, Morris thought any Norman bishop would have been safer nearer a castle and this favoured Chester above Lichfield.[10] Wright saw the downgrading of Anglo-Saxon churches as engineered by the pope. He thought the papal court considered the Anglo-Saxon church was more-or-less obnoxious and the Norman Conquest was a signal victory for Catholicism.[11]

Then came another change in location of the bishopric with Bishop Limesey leaving Chester c. 1095, officially 1102, to site his see at Coventry. Why would the Bishop of Chester, now Coventry, want to build a large cathedral at Lichfield when there was much to extend and develop at Coventry and much to complete at Chester? Various reasons for the move have been given[12]  and all point to the greater development of a large Coventry cathedral and a further marginalisation of Lichfield. This realignment continued into the first half of the 12th century.

 For 18 years, southern England was caught in the civil war known as the Great Anarchy, 1135–1153. Most Bishops loyally supported King Stephen against Matilda, though towards the end they called for a reconciliation. Some believe Bishop Clinton of Coventry and Lichfield was a strong supporter of the king, but some have conjectured whether he also thought more of Matilda’s claim to the throne. During this time cathedral building everywhere was paused.[13] The warfare might be the reason why Clinton garrisoned the Close, c. 1135. It also explains why in The Deeds of King Stephen,[14] c. 1148, it claimed Clinton was heavily involved in the military.[15]  With documentary evidence for Clinton selling land to build monasteries,[16] possibly adding streets to Lichfield,[17] probably allowing piped water into the Close[18] and other projects during his 19-year episcopate, it is significant there is no record of him founding, overseeing or repairing a cathedral in Lichfield.

 

Reconstruction of Lichfield by mid-12th century as a garrison town with a castle-cathedral and gridded streets. It is an adaptation of the 1610 John Speed map.

 There is no documentary evidence for a Norman cathedral at Lichfield

William of Malmesbury,[19] c. 1125, said Bishop Robert Peche (1121–1126) gave great benefit to Lichfield (magnorum apud Licetfeld edificationum) and this has been interpreted as constructed buildings. In 1691, it was written there were large buildings (magnas aedificationes) in Lichfield at the time of Bishop Robert Limesey, 1085–1117.[20] Bishop Robert Peche (1121-6), is said to have begun large-scale building (magnarum apud Licetfeld edificationum inchoator).[21]  Bishop Roger Clinton, 1129–1148, raised Lichfield both in workplace and in honour (erexit tam in fabrica quam in honore).[22] From these statements, antiquarians, mostly Victorian, have concluded this supports the idea a Norman cathedral was built. The measured Victorian County History stated, “Of the cathedral buildings little definite is known before the rebuilding in the 13th century”.[23] Greenslade used the word reportedly to suggest building began in the late 11th century instigated by Bishop Robert de Limesey.[24]

In 1854, a foundation was found under the floor of the choir and presbytery and writers have since claimed this was the second cathedral and it was Norman. The discovery was published by Robert Willis in 1861, and he concluded, “we have no history to guide us in forming opinions save the most meagre indications”.[25]

Drawing of the foundation of the second cathedral.

Some writers were certain there never was a Norman cathedral. Clifton-Taylor stated of the 16 cathedrals existing at the time of the Reformation, only three can show no Romanesque or Norman; they are Salisbury, Wells and Lichfield.[26] Pevsner and Metcalf were convinced the eastern part of the cathedral was built after c. 1195–1200 and so much after Clinton and just before the current cathedral was built.[27] Woodhouse[28] claimed the buttresses outside of the transepts appeared Norman, but these were changed in the 18th-century.

The historical narrative does not support a building of a second cathedral in Norman times and there is no written record to support such an undertaking.

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[1] Clinton built a cathedral about the time he was installed, as I guess. R. Plot (1686) 362, 367. Clinton repaired and much adorned the church. T. Cox (1738), 125. Clinton about the year 1140 built a new cathedral church. T. Tanner (1744), 485. Little or nothing of the old Norman work appears at this day. J. Bentham (1771), 36. Clinton added greatly both to the size and beauty of the church. S. Shaw (1798), vol.1, 233. Clinton pulled it entirely down and rebuilt it. J. Jackson (1805), 75. Clinton took down the ancient Mercian cathedral and rebuilt it. T. Harwood (1806), 9. Present fabric was begun by Bishop Clinton. J. C. Woodhouse (1811), 4. Clinton added to the extent and beauty of the cathedral. W. Pitt (1817), 90. Clinton either re-edified or greatly augmented the cathedral. J. Storer (1817) sect. e. Clinton took down the Mercian building and erected the present edifice. T. J. Lomax (1819), 11. Clinton is said to have rebuilt the cathedral. J. Britton (1820), 19. Clinton almost rebuilt the cathedral. S. Erdeswick (1820), 213. Clinton is said to have rebuilt a great part of the cathedral. W. White (1834), 65. A great part of the present cathedral was built by Clinton. W. Dugdale (1846), 1238.Clinton is reputed to have entirely rebuilt the cathedral. J. B. Stone (1870), 16. Clinton’s Norman cathedral has disappeared by degrees. C. Bodington (1899), 20. Clinton may have erected or helped to erect the Norman cathedral. A. B. Clifton (1900), 5. (Bells).

[2] The Normans rebuilt Lichfield Cathedral. All the Norman work has vanished with the exception of a few undistinguished carved stones. S. A. Jeavons (1962), 11. Nothing of the pre-Conquest church has been discovered but foundations of an apsidal building may be assigned to the 11th-century. A. R. Dufty (1963), 293. Clinton certainly rebuilt or more likely completed the rebuilding of the cathedral though nothing of his work now remains. C. C. Taylor (1969), 48. The antiquated Anglo-Saxon cathedral was pulled down and a new edifice in the very latest Romanesque style of architecture was built. R. Studd (1980), 32. A Norman cathedral was built between c. 1090 and 1150, but nothing has been found of the pre-Conquest church. P. Johnson (1980), 113. Work was probably completed by Bishop Clinton 1129–1148. M. Greenslade (1990) The Saxon church was quickly replaced after the Conquest by a new cathedral in Norman style, begun in 1085. R. Mead (2001), 132.

[3] Many Victorian writers repeated the myth of a Norman cathedral. Invoking Norman fitted with their zeal to build large churches, railway stations like cathedrals and public buildings with a great façade. It was a conservative antidote to their major advances in science and technology which challenged the existence of God. It was the zeitgeist of the Victorian Age. Lichfield Cathedral is mostly a Victorian restoration and thus harks back to the surge in cathedral building in Norman times.

[4] He was possibly related to supporters of the Anglo-Saxon Earls of Mercia. On resignation he returned to be abbot of Coventry monastery. 

[5] Lanfranc’s third letter page 42, see C. P. Lewis, ’Communities, conflict and episcopal policy in the diocese of Lichfield, 1050—1150’. In: P. Dalton, C. Insley and L. J. Wilkinson, eds. Cathedrals, communities and conflict in the Anglo-Saxon world. (Woodbridge: 2011), 61—76, for a full account of this time at Lichfield. See H. Clover and M. Gibson, The letters of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, Oxford Medieval Texts. (Oxford: 1979), for the letters of Lanfranc.

[6] Note the reference to a cramped site for the cathedral, presumably still restricted by a surrounding enclosure. The men of old is pejorative for Anglo-Saxons. William had a Norman father, an English mother and was a monk, but living in Norman times he distained most things Anglo-Saxon. T. Wright, Biographia Britannica Literaria. Anglo-Norman Period. (London: 1846) wrote it was the fashion for at least two centuries after the Conquest to speak contemptuously of everything Saxon.

[7] Great Domesday Book 247r Lecefelle/Licefelle NA E31/2/2/1932 (Phillimore ref. Staffs. 2,16)

[8] R. Studd, ‘Pre-Conquest Lichfield’. Transactions South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society, (1980), 22, 31. Also F. Barlow, The English Church, (London: 1979), 36, 62, 117.

[9] The Normans were preoccupied by strengthening their defences in Mercia and this was seen with the building of castles at Dudley, Shrewsbury, Tamworth, Tutbury, Warwick and later Stafford and Bridgnorth.

[10] M. Morris, The Norman Conquest. (London, 2013).

[11] See note 6 and Wright (1846), 7.

[12] See note 5 and Lewis (2011), 75. The formation of a Lichfield-Chester-Coventry diocese, with Lichfield the minor partner, by Bishops Peter and Robert was a way of augmenting their limited resources, as well as reforming the diocese along monastic lines.

[13] H. Braun, An introduction to English Medieval architecture. 2nd ed. (London: 1968). Also K. J. Conant, Carolingian and Romanesque architecture, 800–1200 (New Haven & London: 1978).

[14] Gesta Stephani an anonymous mid-12th-century history of King Stephen’s reign,

[15] T. Cox, Survey of the ancient and present state of Great Britain. (London: 1738) overstated this believing Clinton’s inclination was “to shine in armour”. This was supported with his involvement in the ill-fated Second Crusade,1147–1149, ending in his death.

[16] M. J. Franklin, Roger of Clinton (Oxford, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: 2004).

[17] C. C. Taylor, ‘The origins of Lichfield’, South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions, (1969),10, 43–52.

[18] J. Gould, ‘The twelfth-century water supply to Lichfield Close’. The Antiquaries J. (1976), 56, 1, 73–79.

[19] William of Malmesbury, De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum. (Rolls Ser.), 311 (Cambridge University Library: 1125). It conflicts with his assertion that Lichfield was a small village (uilla exigua).

[20] H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra. Volume 1(London: 1691), 433. This was possibly from Thomas de Chesterfield, 1347.

[21]  See note 3.

[22] Ibid, Wharton (1691), 434.

[23] G C Baugh, W L Cowie, J C Dickinson, Duggan A P, A K B Evans, R H Evans, Una C Hannam, P Heath, D A Johnson, Hilda Johnstone, Ann J Kettle, J L Kirby, R Mansfield and A Saltman, 'House of secular canons - Lichfield cathedral: To the Reformation', in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 3, ed. M W Greenslade and R B Pugh (London, 1970), pp. 140-166. 

[24] M. Greenslade, Lichfield: The Cathedral. In: A history of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield. (London: 1990), 47–-57.

[25] R. Willis, ‘On foundations of early buildings recently discovered in Lichfield Cathedral’. The Archaeological J., (1861), 28I, 17–8.

[26] A. Clifton-Taylor, The Cathedrals of England. (London: 1986), 15.

[27] N. Pevsner and P. Metcalf, The Cathedrals of England: Midland, Eastern and Northern England. (New York: 1985), 182, 187-8.

[28] J. C. Woodhouse, A short account of Lichfield Cathedral (Lichfield, Thomas George Lomax: 1811).

 

Why the second cathedral must be Anglo-Saxon (Englisc).

     In 1851, plans were made for extensive restoration of the cathedral including the installation of a heating system. Between 1856 and 1860, the floors of the choir area and side aisles were lifted to build brick flues which would carry heated air. In the course of the work foundations for two earlier buildings were revealed. A detailed survey of the foundation walls was made by the stonemason John Hamlet with assistance given by James Rawson a local physician and George Clarke, the clerk of works to George Gilbert Scott the architect for the restoration. A large drawing showed a well-defined, large choir foundation wall continuous with an apsidal ending. Abutted, but not attached, to this apsidal ending was a rectangular chapel.^[1] Revd Robert Willis, 1800–75, an authority on church architecture, visited the Cathedral for two days in August 1859.^[2] He saw the foundations resting on the sandstone bedrock 1.5‑2.1 m (5–7 ft) below the pavement of the side aisles of the current cathedral, took measurements, made observations, and published his interpretation in 1861.^[3] 

 

Foundation of the choir-apse and abutting chamber superimposed on the plan of the current cathedral.

 

Robert Willis

  

Choir in 1860 with its floor uncovered

                                          Willis’s drawing of the choir-apse foundation with dimensions

 

The remarkable size of the choir-apse foundation was too great to have sustained a roof without internal pillars, so Willis imagined it had an inner apse of pier arches supporting the roof. Willis found ‘no architectural detail’ to fix a date of build for the foundation and concluded it was of ‘uncertain date’. Despite this he called it a Norman church, presumably reasoning such a large choir-apse in stone would be extraordinary for an Anglo-Saxon building. There was nothing comparable. The foundation was internally 15.9 m (52 ft 3 in.) wide and 21.4 m (70 ft 1.5 in.) long. The outer boundary of its lateral walls ‘seemed to lie’ in contact with the bench table of the side aisles of the current cathedral.^[4] Both the north and south walls measured 1.7 m (5 ft 8.5 in.) in width which gave a total span for the choir-apse of 19.4 m (63 ft 8 in.). Willis measured the foundation height as c. 1.8 m (6 ft).

In the 1990s, part of the foundation was seen again and its exceptional size merited the labels ‘massive’ and ‘a great apse’. Rodwell fixed a start of build in 1085 and described it as Norman Romanesque in style.^[5] Willis had conjectured the inner columns were wood, but Rodwell saw them as drum columns, 1.5 m in diameter. Roofing material has not been found apart from small amounts of Roman brick and tile,^[6] which could have come from the first 7th-century cathedral.^[7]

 

                          Photograph taken 1994 of the foundation in the north choir aisle.

 

The nature of the foundation was atypical, being well mortared, buff-cream, dense, and described as like concrete. During the 1856 installation of heating ducts, men had to force a way through concrete of ‘unusual hardness’.^[8] Willis noted the wall had rough masonry in courses about 150 mm (6 in.) high. He thought the external face ‘appeared intended to receive a coat of plaster’. Rodwell described the lower levels as layers of mortared rubble. The upper layers were faced with rough ashlar behind which was a poured concrete core, of such strength that it was assiduously avoided by grave-diggers of all periods. It was an immensely strong monolithic construction comprising lime mortar and rubble poured into a trench.^[9] It was like a section of an apse uncovered at Rochester, part of an early-7th-century Anglo-Saxon church.^[10]  The use of rubble in the foundation resembled Clapham’s description of the early-9th-century crypt at Wing church, Buckinghamshire, in which the whole structure was built of the rudest rubble masonry with barrel vaulting in the same material.^[11] Examination of the foundations at Deerhurst found they all contained 5 ft or more of coursed rubble laid in trenches with good mortar. Similarly, the walls at Brixworth contained random rubble.^[12] There was no mention of uniform, dressed stone, typical of Anglo-Norman buildings.^[13]

A very simple radiocarbon dating of the mortar would give resolution on the age of the cathedral. The foundation is a mere 300 mm below the floor of the choir aisle floor. Extracting two samples and having them dated would cost around £2.5K.

NB. There is a problem with naming the people Saxon or Anglo-Saxon (the preferred title in academic publications). Based on surviving texts, early inhabitants of the region were commonly called englisc and angelcynn. From 410 A.D. when the Romans left to shortly after 1066, the term only appears three times in legal charters in the entire corpus of Old English literature and all in the tenth century. It is used here because Anglo-Saxon is understood.

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[1] John Hamlet’s ‘General plan shewing the position of old foundation as discovered during progress of excavations for hot air flues’ is held in the Staffordshire Record Office LD 289/16. The drawing has a few revisions with pen overlaying pencil. Willis’s notes are kept in Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS 5042, with the title ‘Architectural drawings and notes of Lichfield Cathedral 1861‑64’. Willis saw only the south east part of the apse. The greatest amount of the foundation wall was observed by Rawson and Hamlet in 1856 and 1860. Map reference for the apse is SK1159 0978 and the chamber is SK1157 0977.

[2]  A. R. Dufty, ‘Lichfield Cathedral’ in The Archaeol. J., 120 Report of the Summer Meeting of the Royal Archaeological Institute at Keele in 1963 (1963), 294.4

[3] 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.

[4] ‘Seemed to lie’ was Willis’s phrase. The gap between the lateral wall and cathedral wall is estimated to be

 c. 180 mm (7 in.). Hamlet’s drawing showed the bottom of the foundation was wider than the top.

[5] Fragments of moulded masonry identified as Romanesque were found Rodwell 1992a, 29; R. K. Morris, ‘The lapidary collections of Lichfield Cathedral’, in J. Maddison ed., 13th Medieval Archaeology and Architecture at Lichfield (Leeds: The British Archaeological Association 1993), 101–108; Rodwell 1994, 29.

[6] Rodwell 1992a, 28

[7] Hamlet noted on his drawing a clay pit that contained a quantity of molten lead. Was this for the roof?

[8] J. G. Lonsdale, Recollections of work done in and upon Lichfield Cathedral from 1856—1894 (Lichfield 1895), 6.

[9] W. Rodwell, ‘An interim report on archaeological excavations in the south quire aisle of Lichfield Cathedral’, (Unpub. report held in Lichfield Cathedral Library 1992b), 4; W. Rodwell, J. Hawkes, E. Howe and R. Cramp, ‘The Lichfield Angel: A spectacular Anglo-Saxon painted sculpture.’ The Antiquaries Journal (2008), 88, 51 note 24.

[10] G. M. Livett, ‘Foundations of the Saxon Cathedral Church at Rochester’ Archaeologia Cantiana (1889) 18, 264.

[11] A.W. Clapham, English Romanesque architecture (Oxford 1930), 156.

[12] H. M. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon architecture: vol III (Cambridge 1978), 761 and 964.

[13] H. M. Taylor and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon architecture: vols I and II (Cambridge 1965), 7 and 1978, 756.

Comparison shows an Anglo-Saxon (Englisc) second cathedral

     It is now known Anglo-Saxons in timber houses and churches laid out buildings with some precision.^[1] The 1970s partial excavation of the site at Catholme, 5.3 miles (8.5 km) northeast of Lichfield, provided early evidence for a revision. At least 18 of the post-hole buildings, dated c. 680–700, were aligned, more-or-less, to a grid pattern with sides of 4.57 m or 15 modern feet, a unit known as a short perch. A 15-foot (4.57 m) grid has now been found in major church buildings in eastern England^[2] in the years 600–800. Then occurs a gap, partly explained by a lack of buildings surviving, but reappears again between 950 and 1020 in the layout of farmsteads, manor houses and settlements, before finally disappearing from the archaeological record. Thus, any short perch gridding is now held to be a signature, in this part of Britain, of Anglo-Saxon planning from 600 to 1020.^[3] By the 12th-century, a long perch gridding, 5.48 m or 18 modern feet, was brought in from France, probably by the Normans and many of the great buildings at the end of the 11th-century and the beginning of the next seem to have been laid out on the module of 18 ft.^[4] For major early churches[5] the short perch was the commonest measurement of walls and presumably foundations as well.

Short perch dimensions are obvious and evident in the foundation of the second cathedral. Five linear short perch measurements can be discerned, namely, choir-apse length, internal choir width, cross distance between drum columns, cross distance between abutments/pillars on the choir west wall, and distance between the choir west wall and beginning (chord) of the apse.[6] Very significantly, no long perch (18 ft) length can be seen in the layout of the foundation. The only long perch measurement in this part of the cathedral is the wall-to-wall width of the current, third cathedral, choir area and aisles, 63 ft 8in., or a little more than 3.5 long perches. This must be a long perch measurement used by Norman/Plantagenet builders when the east end of the cathedral was reshaped c. 1200.

 

Short perch (sp) gridding of the great apse foundation based. Hamlet’s abutments and Rodwell’s drum pillars are included inside the apse columns. 

It is crucial an upper wall must be included in this scaling of the foundation, but nothing of a wall was mentioned by Hamlet, Willis or Rodwell, so its width can only be calculated. Foundation plans often differed from wall plans[7], but the converse could also be true, so all possibilities for the width of the wall must be considered. It is an exercise of what fits best with thin walls being disregarded.

 

The foundation with a possible wall showing 4 short perch correspondences.

The best fit is a width of 3 ft 11 in. This is the same width as the wall of the rectangular chamber abutted to the apse, which must be highly significant. If a 3 feet 11 in. wide wall was built on the 5 ft wide semicircular section of the apse in the middle of the foundation wall, then the length from the choir west wall to the apse wall was 75 ft or 5 short perches. If this width of wall was built on the lateral walls of the apse, but was off centre, then the apse width was 60 ft 1 in. or 4 short perches. The gap on the outside of 1 ft 9 in. could have been for a step-plinth or more likely for thickened wall type buttresses including pilaster buttresses. It is plausible the original wall was 3 ft 9 in. wide when laid out, or one quarter of a short perch, and then with a plaster layer added with a mortar, it gave a width of 3 ft 11 in. If so, with the apse foundation wall being 5 ft wide it means the foundation was one third of a short perch and the wall was one quarter of a short perch. No arrangement of walling, other than a 3 feet 11ins. dimension, fits the foundation. The core finding is the choir-apse building is calculated to have had walls 5 short perches long and 4 short perches wide.

Five possible short perch dimensions have been identified in the foundation and three more with a possible upper wall calculated to be 3 ft 11 in. (1.2 m) wide. The precepts of Blair for short perch gridded church and claustral buildings being earlier than 1020, infers the apse must be pre-Conquest.

 

Resemblance to Brixworth Church.

Rodwell was certain churches, both distantly separated and locally grouped, could have similarities of proportion, or absolute measurement, as to leave little doubt master-plans existed in pre-Conquest England.^[8] It therefore should not be surprising to find churches near to the Mercian centre with similarities of proportion.

Brixworth Church, Northamptonshire, closely fits the short perch module^[9] and its dimensions are very similar to the second cathedral.

Brixworth Church, exterior and interior.

 

The width of the choir-apse (63 ft 8 in.) is the same as the width of Brixworth church (63‑4 ft). The cross distances between the columns of the inner apse at Lichfield and the width of the nave at Brixworth are both c. 9.1 m (30 ft), two short perches wide. The distance between the inside edge of the piers at Brixworth is the same as the estimated distance of the assumed piers inside the current nave columns at Lichfield.^[10] The bay before the sanctuary (choir or presbytery) at Brixworth was c. 30 ft square and the first two bays in the inner apse at Lichfield also measured 30 ft square and is presumed to be the choir or presbytery area. It is thought at Brixworth there was a transverse wall with triple openings (a larger central choir-arch and two lateral door-size openings) separating the nave from the choir bay. This arrangement might have occurred at Lichfield.^[11] If the two pier bases were drum columns it accounts for the column fragments found in 1994. The length of the choir, apse, and ambulatory at Brixworth is approximately 21 m (69 ft). This is tentative because the thickness and position of the original outer ambulatory wall is unknown. It compares with the 22.8 m (75 ft) length for the choir-apse. Distance between the nave and choir columns at Lichfield is almost 75 ft or 5 short perches. Brixworth has a narrow ambulatory, described as a ring crypt, external to the apse and 7 ft 6 in. (half short perch) wide in the current passage. The narrow ambulatory in the Lichfield apse was 6 or 7 ft wide. Both passages (now external at Brixworth) had barrel vaulted roofs (suggested at Lichfield). The original apse roof at Brixworth is unknown. The early semicircular apse at Brixworth lacked buttresses.^[12] There is no evidence of buttresses or pilaster bases on the external face of the apse at Lichfield. Both foundations at Lichfield and Brixworth are around 1.5 m wide.^[13] The wall thickness at Brixworth is close to the estimated thickness of a wall at Lichfield. Plaster was evident at Brixworth and Willis thought it could have been added externally to the apse at Lichfield.^[14] Both churches contain sandstones (Brixworth has an assortment of stone).

 

Comparison of the choir-apse at Brixworth Northamptonshire, with the choir-apse at Lichfield. Units are in feet.

     In summary, many elements of the second cathedral have proportions and features similar with those found at Brixworth.  If the correlation is more than coincidence, it associates the second cathedral with a group of Mercian basilican shaped churches with similar proportions, though not necessarily the same date of build. Basilica-like churches include Brixworth, Cirencester, Deerhurst and Wing.^[15] All had walls over 3 ft thick and three with an apse wall close to 4 ft thick. All could have been late-8th or 9th-century buildings.^[16] The minster at South Elmham, Suffolk, has an indeterminate history, but with walls 3 feet 10 inches thick, an Anglo-Saxon shaped window, an apsidal shaped nave, a possible triple-arch and distinctive mortar an early Saxon date of late-8th or 9th century has been attributed.[17] Its size and shape are like the foundation of the second cathedral without the aisles. Is this a coincidence or another analogous foundation?

A date for building Brixworth Church was fixed precisely after an extensive investigation, 1977–2010, with carbon dating of charcoal found in the mortar, concluded the earliest church was built in the late-8th or early-9th-century.^[18] This was the time of King Offa, 757 x 796, or the very beginning of the reign of Coenwulf, 796 x 821. Was the second Lichfield cathedral built in a Carolingian basilical style; an archbasilica for Offa’s archbishop and an emulation of Charlemagne’s basilica-style church of Saint-Denis, Paris, dedicated in 775?^[19] The hypothesis Offa built a new church at Lichfield is not new.^[20]

 NB. There is a problem with naming the people Saxon or Anglo-Saxon (the preferred title in academic publications). Based on surviving texts, early inhabitants of the region were commonly called englisc and angelcynn. From 410 A.D. when the Romans left to shortly after 1066, the term only appears three times in legal charters in the entire corpus of Old English literature and all in the tenth century. It is used here because Anglo-Saxon is understood. 

[1] P. J. Huggins, K. Rodwell and W. Rodwell, ‘Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian building measurements’, in P. J. Drury ed., Structural reconstruction. British Archaeological Reports, (1982) 110, 21‑65. Anglo-Saxon buildings with short perch lengths were identified at Thetford and Mucking P. Huggins, ‘Anglo-Saxon timber building measurements: Recent results’ in Med. Archaeol. (1991) vol 35, 6–28.

[2] Kent, Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Perhaps, rarely in Wessex.

[3] J. Blair, ‘Grid planning in Anglo-Saxon settlements: the short perch and the four perch module’, in H. Hamerow ed., Anglo-Saxon studies in Archaeology and History, 18 (Oxford 2013), 54 and J. Blair, Building Anglo-Saxon England (Princeton and Oxford 2018), 71, 149.

[4] H. Braun, An introduction to English Medieval architecture 2nd ed. (London 1968), 71.

[5] The churches of St Augustine and St Pancras in Canterbury, Brixworth, Escomb, Monkwearmouth, Jarrow, Lyminge, Repton, possibly Whitby and the crypts at Hexham and Ripon. Good short perch dimensions in two or more axes are evident at Bardsey, Bradwell, Brigstock, Cirencester, Deerhurst, Heysham, Hexham, Reculver, Wareham, Wing and Worth.

[6] The measurement from the outside edge of the round apse foundation at mid-line to the inside edge of the choir west wall is 75 ft 1.5 in. equal to 5 short perches. The internal apse width was 52 ft 3 in., 3 inches short of 3.5 perches. The choir or presbytery fits a 12 short perch grid and the apse fits an 8 short perch grid. The distance between the two (presumed) rows of drum columns forming an inner apse has to be 30 ft or 2 short perches. This same 2 perch distance is evident between the abutments on the west wall of the choir-apse shown on Hamlet’s drawing, perhaps supporting a chancel triple-opening with the middle arch 2 short perches wide and lateral openings each close to half a perch in width. The distance between the choir west wall and the west edge of the internal pillar shown on Hamlet’s drawing (third choir pillar, bay 3 to 4) is 45 ft or 3 short perches. This distance delineates where the choir or presbytery ends and the apse-sanctuary begins. It is the point where the straight lateral sides of the choir change to the semicircular section of the apse.

[7] Pre-Conquest walls are seldom as much as 3 ft in thickness and are more often nearer 2 ft 6 in.; whereas Norman walls are seldom less than 3 ft thick. However, there are exceptional Anglo-Saxon walls. The earlier semicircular apse at Deerhurst, Gloucestershire, was 3 ft 9in. wide. South Elmham had nave walls uniformly 3 ft 10 in. thick. Brixworth, Northamptonshire, had walls between 3 ft 4 in. and 3 feet 10 ins. thick. Six miles (9.6 km) away at Northampton, a Saxon palace or a monastic complex, built c. 825–850, had walls 3 ft 11in. thick. Walls barely 4 ft thick were found at Wenlock Priory and considered to be late Anglo-Saxon. 

[8] W. Rodwell, ‘Anglo-Saxon church building: aspects of design and construction’, in L. A. S. Butler and R. K. Morris eds., The Anglo-Saxon Church. Research Report 60, The Council for British Archaeology (1986), 157.

[9] J. Blair, ‘Grid planning in Anglo-Saxon settlements: the short perch and the four perch module’, in H. Hamerow ed., Anglo-Saxon studies in Archaeology and History, 18 (Oxford 2013), 26.

[10] The distance between the inner faces of the Romanesque column foundations under the floor of the nave were slightly narrower than the present columns.   

[11] There are two pier bases on the choir west wall drawn on Hamlet’s 1856 drawing

[12] C. F. Watkins, The basilica or palatial hall of Justice and sacred temple; its nature, origin and purport; and a description of the basilican church of Brixworth (London 1867), 51.

[13] D. Parsons and D. S. Sutherland, The Anglo-Saxon Church of All Saints, Brixworth; Northamptonshire: Survey, excavation and analysis, 1972—2010 (Oxford 2013).

[14] H. M. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon architecture: vol III (Cambridge 1978) 1063. Taylor had little doubt that most Anglo-Saxon churches were plastered inside and outside

[15] E. Fernie, The architecture of the Anglo-Saxons (New York 1983), 64–5.

[16] E. Gilbert, ‘Brixworth and the English Basilica’ in Art Bulletin, (1965) vol 47, 1, 14. Gilbert concluded English basilicas were erected between 730 and 867.

[17] H. M. Taylor and J. Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture, (Cambridge: 1965), Volume 1, 231.

[18] See note 7, Parsons and Sutherland 2013

[19] Gilbert 1965, 1, suggested Brixworth church was contemporary with Fulrad’s Saint-Denis church.

[20] S. Shaw, The history and antiquities of Staffordshire: vol I (London 1798), 234; J. Jackson, History of the City and Cathedral of Lichfield (London 1805), 73–74 and T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield (London 1806), 7.