Chad's relics

     Abstract.  relics were removed from his grave to a side chapel of the choir presumably after when the Chad’s cathedral was built early in the 13th century. His skull, arm bones in a reliquary casket and the rest of the bones were kept separately. They were united when added to the shrine in the retrochoir following Bishop Langton’s benefactions. After Reformation, they were secretly kept by Catholic families and split up. Six bones eventually were added to a reliquary in St Chad’s cathedral, Birmingham. One bone in November 2022 was returned to the cathedral and kept in a reordered shrine.

An archaeological dig over five days in 2003 revealed Chad’s grave dug in 672. It was found offset to the north inside the foundation of a shrine tower located at the east end of the nave. According to Bede (Book 4, Chapter 3 of his history book – Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, 731) his relics were later placed on his grave (ibidem) inside a small, wooden house. Assuming three decades passed for the body to decay means the translocation must have been at the start of the eighth century. It is presumed the relics were still there on display on this spot in the tenth, eleventh or even the twelfth-century. Originally the grave was near to the church of St Mary and on the site of the main church called St Peters, but these churches have not been discovered.

Chad’s grave and shrine tower described in 2003. The red ring was an area undetermined because of the constraints of the area agreed for examination. The description is from Rodwell 2004. [1].

     During excavation a King Edgar silver penny was found within a pit.[1] This suggested Chad’s relics were being accessed, and perhaps relocated, during or after this king’s reign. Lepine conjectured “towards the end of the 10th century, for reasons not yet understood, the nave shrine over Chad’s grave was deliberately dismantled, buried and replaced by a new shrine on the same site, but if so, nothing is known about the replacement”.[2] One coin cannot suggest this much.

 

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.

Lepine wrote with the building of the current nave the shrine was incorporated into the present cathedral building. Unfortunately, he placed this change of the shrine in the time of Bishop Limesey (1085–1117) and this is without any evidence and contrary to the best idea of when the second cathedral was built. It also ignores the suggestion of the shrine being moved to a chapel behind the high altar.[3]  An endowment in 1176 for six shillings was given for a light to be kept burning at the saint’s shrine.[4] Therefore this was either at Chad’s grave site in the nave, or in a chapel behind the high altar (Victorian suggestion), or in an early chapel on the south side of the choir (mentioned by several writers, see the post ‘Two early chapels’). The justification for moving Chad's relics, presumably bones in a reliquary box, from the nave to a dedicated chapel nearer the high altar is based on the presumption of having a shrine within the inner church and away from the public nave. It is in line with practice elsewhere.

Sometime early in the 13th century the relics are thought to have been moved to a suite of secure rooms added to the south side of the choir, c. 1230. Lepine rightly noted the surviving written sources of the 11th to 13th centuries and the account of this period in the cathedral chronicle make no mention of any translation or remodelling of Chad’s shrine in this period. In particular, there is no evidence that the shrine was moved in either 1148 or 1296 as suggested in the entry for Chad in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.[5] This relocation is simply based on logistics and repeating what happened to relics in other cathedrals. For example, the relocation is reminiscent of the earlier movement of Thomas Becket’s relics at Canterbury. Becket’s tomb was originally located in the eastern part of the western crypt, then as part of the rebuilding programme after a fire, it was relocated to the centre of the eastern crypt. Finally, his remains were moved to a new shrine in the Trinity Chapel on 7 July 1220. However, there is no evidence for Chad’s relics being housed at the eastern high altar and were probably in St Chad’s Head Chapel for a comparatively short time before being ultimately being placed in Langton’s shrine facing the Lady Chapel.

 Recreated Chad’s shrine much based on Becket’s shrine. If similar, pulleys lifted a pitched, wooden chest canopy upwards to expose the casket on an elaborate oblong plinth. On the plinth was a model church, presumably the cathedral. It was decorated with 6 rubies, 5 sapphires, 15 large emeralds, 16 pearls and many small stones. Some jewels were set in an image of Chad. It is unclear which relics were kept in the casket, if relics were still in St Chad’s Head Chapel. It is presumed there was an aperture to view the relics. Pilgrims would have left many valuable offerings around the shrine, such as rings, brooches and necklaces. Permission given from The Centre for the study of Christianity and Culture, University of York, 2018.

A sacrist’s roll for 1335 shows the relics had been divided into at least three parts;[6] it is not known when this division occurred. His skull, now thought to be lined in gold, was in a painted, shaped wooden box[7] stored in the Chapel of St Chad, late-14th century. Alongside was the right arm encased in a silver-gilt reliquary shaped as a hand with the fingers placed as in a blessing. An inventory of artefacts held by the cathedral was made in 1445, but then lost. However, a copy of part of the inventory was rediscovered in 1987; D. Johnston, New light on the shrine of St Chad, 1988, Article held in Cathedral Library. It described the head of St Chad in a silver-gilt reliquary weighing 16 lbs. It was in two parts so that the skull could be revealed on special occasions. It was adorned with gold and jewels and had a precious mitre. The arm reliquary weighed 4.5 lbs. The arm would have been used to touch the sick. Some of his bones were in a portable box shrine shaped like a church and encrusted with jewels, and kept in the sacristy. This could have been the reliquary used in the liturgy, displayed in processions and sometimes taken around the diocese to raise funds. Lepine makes the point it is likely that the portable relics were used to enhance the liturgy on principal feast days, especially those of the Virgin Mary, the cathedral’s co-patron, and on Chad’s death day of March 2nd. Possibly some bones were kept by the high altar. On feast days the skull would be removed from its box and displayed to pilgrims. Chad’s grave site was also venerated by pilgrims and there are citations in the years 1325, 1426 and 1450 of requested burial or prayer next to the tomb of St Chad. Deans tended to be buried in the nave close to the original shrine and bishops at the east end close to the altar and later shrine.

 

            In 1534, Reformation proscribed the use of relics. In 1538, Chad's shrine was destroyed, presumably soon after Becket’s shrine was dismantled. Although the gold and precious jewels at Langton’s shrine near the Lady Chapel were removed (Chad’s gold skull as well?), Bishop Lee petitioned the king to keep part of the shrine for the cathedral’s use. Despite this some bones were apparently lost. Arthur Dudley, a cathedral prebendary, secretly removed[8] some of Chad's bones and left them with two nieces, members of his family[9], in Russell’s Hall, Dudley.[10] It is said the two sisters were afraid of holding onto proscribed relics, soldiers were hunting Catholic Priests in the area, so they entrusted the bones to Henry and William Hodgetts (Hoodsheeds[11]), Catholic recusants of High Arcal Farm in Woodsetton Sedgley, between Dudley and Wolverhampton.[12]  William died in 1649 and his widow gave his relics to his brother Henry. Just before Henry died in 1651 he gave some bones to the Jesuit priest, Peter Turner, who was administering the Last Rites.[13] It is thought the brothers had given bones to their wider family and in time were lost. On Peter’s death the remaining fragments, together with a written description, were given to a royalist and recusant member of the Leveson family in Willenhall, Wolverhampton.

 

 A priest securing the casket of Chad’s relics. Reconstructed from a window in St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham.

 

      In 1658, a soldier’s raid on the Leveson house resulted in the loss of some of the bones. Why only some are taken is a mystery. The remaining bones and paperwork were added in 1665 to a new casket with a dome lid, covered in red velvet and with silver hinges and locks. By c.1667, they were at a house called Boscobel owned by the Fitzherbert’s family. In 1667, a visitor from St Omer, France, was given ‘a particle of St Chad’s relics.’ By the mid-18th century, they were in the hands of Basil Fitzherbert of Swynnerton Hall, near Stoke-on-Trent, for safe-keeping. Basil died in 1797 and in time the family moved back to Aston Hall, near Stone, and left the casket in its closed chapel. There is a narrative that a key was found in Swynnerton Hall with a label stating the relics of Chad were now at Aston Hall. On investigation the key opened a chest in which lay six bones.  In 1837, the chapel was reopened by Benjamin Hulme and he discovered a casket underneath the altar containing six bones wrapped in silk with the paperwork stating what they were. The bones were taken to Oscott, Birmingham, for examination. After careful consideration a report was sent to Rome where Pope Gregory XVI confirmed that these were the bones of St Chad and instructed, they be enshrined in the new cathedral in Birmingham. They were placed in a shrine designed by Pugin above the High Altar on the day of consecration on 21 June 1841.[14] The high altar reliquary contained a box with five incomplete bones. A sixth bone was housed in a separate reliquary displayed on the altar of St Edward’s side-chapel.

In 1995, Archbishop Couve de Murville arranged for a fresh examination of the bones by the University of Oxford Archaeology Unit.[15] The report concluded that one bone was eighth or ninth century, but the other five were all of the mid-seventh century. Cut marks on the bones were evident and there was much degradation. The viability of DNA analysis was explored, but considered impracticable. Two of the bones were left femurs. It was thought a left femur, two tibiae and part of a humerus belonged to one body. The church holds it is reasonably certain that at least one and possibly three of the bones are those of Chad. In 1997, a Decree required the bones should be kept together and venerated collectively. However, one bone in November 2022 was returned to the cathedral and kept in a reordered shrine.

 

New shrine of Chad

 

It has been claimed some more bones were held by the Jesuits (Society of Jesus) and eventually archived at Stonyhurst College, Clitheroe, Lancashire.

 

[1] W. Rodwell, ‘Revealing the history of the Cathedral. 4. Archaeology of the Nave Sanctuary’, (Friends of Lichfield Cathedral, 67th Annual Report: 2004) 25.

[2] D. Lepine, ‘Glorius Confessor: The cult of St Chad at Lichfield Cathedral during the Middle Ages’. SAHS transactions, (2021), 52, 31.  takes the view the light shone in the nave by Chad’s grave site.

[3] R. Willis, ‘On foundations of early buildings recently discovered in Lichfield Cathedral. The Archaeological J. (1861), 18, 1–24. See also W. Rodwell, ‘The Development of the Choir’, in Maddison (ed.), Archaeology and Architecture at Lichfield, 17–35.

[4] H. E. Savage (ed) The Great Register of Lichfield Cathedral known as Magnum Registrum Album. (being SHC, 3rd series, 1924), no. 740.

[5] D. H. Farmer, ‘Ceadda (d. 672)’ ODNB, online ed. ref/odnb/4970 (accessed 18 November 2019); D. H. Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford, 1979), 75. No source is clearly cited by Farmer but it seems to have come from R. Hyett Warner, Life and Legends of St Chad, Bishop of Lichfield (669–72) (London and Cambridge, n.d.), 129–30. Thanks to D. Lepine for this full reference.

[6] There are references to various bones of St Chad being at churches around the country.

[7] Lepine (2021) states this was probably a gilt bust reliquary, described in the 1445 inventory as ‘gilded and well decorated with various precious stones’, including collars and other gold jewels weighing 256 ounces, and made up of two parts which could be divided. Accompanying it was a ‘precious’ mitre which was hung above it.

[8] Often the story is extended with removal of the bones in the middle of the night.

[9] Probably nieces.

[10] According to a document written by a Jesuit priest in mid-17th century.

[11] J. Hewitt, ‘The keeper of Saint Chad’s Head in Lichfield Cathedral and other matters concerning the Minster in the fifteenth century’. Archaeological J. (1876), 33, 72–82.

[12] It is said the two brothers handed bones to members of their family and in time they were lost.

[13] His account was published in the Records of the English province of the Society of Jesus (Foley 1875, III, 230–33).

[14] An account of Chad’s relics was given by Hewitt, see note 11.

[15] A. Boyle, ‘The bones of the Anglo-Saxon bishop and saint, Chad’. Church Archaeology (1998), 2, 35–8