Wulfhere and Wilfrid, and later Bede, name Lichfield

Summary. King Wulfere of Mercia and Bishop Wilfrid of Ripon name the location of the early church as Licitfelda: later spelt Licetfelda. Licet means approved or legitimate and felda is a field.

After King Penda of Mercia apparently drowned returning from his raid in the north in 655, King Oswiu of Northumbria resumed overlordship over Mercia. A year later Oswiu sent Bishop Diuma of Lindisfarne, to be the first bishop of Mercia (Myrce) and the Middle Angles (Middel-Angli),.[1] Diuma visited Repton, 17 miles northeast of Lichfield, but may not have come to an early settlement on fields by a river within a large forest. Diuma died around 658 and was buried, according to Bede in feppingum.[2] The next bishop from Northumbria was another Irishman called Ceollach, but he was only in place for less than a year when the Mercians somehow took control of Mercia.[3] In 658, Wulfhere, second son of Penda became king of the Mercians and he now chose his own bishops and probably built churches for them. Trumhere was English, possibly from Yorkshire, and then Jaruman, probably an Irishman, administered until 667. These first four bishops and possibly three that followed were all from the North and particularly Lindisfarne.[4] Wulfhere’s kingship might have been conditional on having bishops from the North and accepted by Oswiu. From 667 Wulfhere wanted to become less dependent on Northumbria so his next bishop and spiritual advisor was critical.[5] Wulfhere turned to the exalted bishop of Ripon for advice; he was Wilfrid, 634‑710. Wilfrid had upset Oswiu and had begun to act independently, and this helped Wulfhere in his ambition. Wilfrid was allowed to be the acting bishop of Mercia, c. 666 x 669.[6]

 Small statue of Wilfrid on the entrance to the north west door of the Cathedral and his frith stool at Hexham Abbey.  

 

Stephen of Ripon in his biography of Wilfrid, written between July 712 and March 714, wrote Wilfrid remained at Ripon except for the frequent occasions when Wulfhere invited him into his realm to fulfil various episcopal duties. He added, Wulfhere and Wilfrid agreed an area called Onlicitfelda was either prepared, or needed to be prepared, to allow the fifth bishop of Mercia to have a church at the centre of the new diocese.[7] The ‘On’ of Onlicitfelda is understood to mean ‘this area.’ The name was repeated in Wilfrid’s biography as Stephen referred to a later Bishop Winfrith of Licitfelda; it was Lyccitfelda in a second manuscript. The episcopal centre was now specifically called Licitfelda, and the site was paratum, that is, prepared and ready, or at least had all the attributes for a church. Either Wilfrid knew the location would be a seat for a fifth bishop of Mercia or more likely Wulfhere had proposed this favourable site to entice Wilfrid to leave Northumbria and Ripon and be the fifth bishop.[8] Wulfhere’s plan was thwarted when in 669, the new (8th) Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus, arranged for Chad of Lastingham, Yorkshire, to come out of his retirement and become 5th Bishop of Mercia.[9] Bede stated Chad had his cathedral-church, called St Peters, at the location now agreed as Licitfelda, in 669.   

 

          A charter dated 803, formally abolishing the short-lived archbishopric of Lichfield set up by King Offa, also had the name for the cathedral site, but spelt in Latin as Liccidfeldensi.[10]

Cotton MS Augustus II 61 on the abolishing of the archbishopric of Lichfield, 803, showing the name as In-Liccidfeldensi.

 

          In summary, the earliest spellings for the name of the ecclesiastical centre of Mercia were Licitfelda, Liccitfelda and Lyccitfelda (originally written in the years 712‑714), a little later Lyccidfelth and Lyccitfeld (c. 737), then Liccitfeld and Licidfelth (c. 746), and finally Liccidfelth and Liccidfeld (mid-eighth to ninth century) and Licetfelda (ninth century). Unfortunately, all the original manuscripts have been lost, but copies have survived. This settlement name continued to be used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, written in Old and Middle English. All the Chronicles were copies of the late 9th-century original, which again has not survived.

Winchester CCCC MS 173 (MS A)	Abingdon 1 Cotton Tiberius AVI (MS B)	Abingdon 2 Cotton Tiberius BI (MS C)	Worcester Cotton Tiberius BIV (MS D)	Peterborough Laud 636 (MS E)
Late 880s?	10th century	1040s	1050s	After 1116
Licetfelda	Liccedfelda	Licetfelda Licedfelda	Licetfelda Licedfelde	Licetfelda

Spelling of the name in the 5 main Anglo-Saxon Chronicles for the year 716.^[11] The Worcester Chronicle contains material from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and presumably is the best translation of the earlier Latin manuscript.

 

Venerable Bede later confirms Lichfield’s name

Bede, c. 672/3‑735, aged seven, entered a monastery at Monkwearmouth (Sunderland) and its linked monastery at nearby Jarrow (south Tyneside) as a novice.  In 731, now a priest and scribe, he published The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum). This was 17 to 19 years later than Stephen’s account of Wilfrid’s life. He wrote a slightly different version for the start of the church at Lichfield involving the elite rulers of the day and avoided mentioning Wilfrid. Bede’s version was a three-way cooperation with Wulfhere requesting a fifth Bishop of Mercia, Archbishop Theodore naming Chad as his preferred candidate and King Oswiu of Northumbria allowing Chad to be released from Lastingham (north Yorkshire).[12] Bede was keen to support Theodore, emphasise Northumbrian dominance and show a church spreading its authority.

Bede’s original manuscript has been lost, but around 160 copies have survived. An early copy, c. 737, known as the Moore Manuscript,[13] simply states Chad ‘had his episcopal seat at a place called Lyccidfelth’.[14] Later in the manuscript, Bede referred to the year 731 and Bishop Ealdwine of Lyccitfeldensi being Bishop of Mercia. The spelling with a y confined to this one manuscript, was a deviant practice difficult to account for.[15] Unfortunately, it is this spelling which is often quoted and, perhaps, this has deterred writers from trying to interpret the prefix Lyccid. All other copies have different spellings.

Manuscripts	Kassel	St Petersburg	Cotton Tiberius C11	Cotton Tiberius A.XIV
Dating	Late‑8th	c.746	1st half 9th	Mid-8th
Book 4, Ch. 3	Liccidfelth	Licidfelth	Liccidfeld	Liccidfelth
Book 5, Ch. 23	Liccidfeldensi	Liccitfeldensi	Liccitfeldensi	Liccitfeldensi

 

Bede must have been familiar with Stephen’s biography, when writing his history. The material facts in both books hardly ever clash.[16] It is most likely there was correspondence between the two writers mediated by a common friend, Bishop Acca. He was a disciple of Bede as well as following Wilfrid as the abbot of Hexham and is thought to have supplied material for both books.[17] Wilfrid and Bede must have known each other personally in the period 706 x 710;[18] Bede’s Jarrow was a mere day’s journey from Wilfrid’s Hexham. Good communication, perhaps mediated by monks at Lastingham, would explain why both men agreed on the name of the site, but for their own personal reasons differed on the participants who gave the name. The conclusion is two writers with different agendas completely agreed on naming the new ecclesiastical centre of Mercia as an approved site called Licidfelth, later Licetfelda.

 

The current name of Lichfield appears to derive from Licetfelda

Licetfelda is a compound name with the second part, feld, felth and felda, taken, without disagreement, to mean an area of open country, either a naturally treeless pasture or grassland cleared for agriculture, most likely for pig pasturing.[19] In contrast. the first part of the name has not been understood. So, what do the words Licit, Liccit, Liccid, and eventually Licet mean? No Latin or Old English word matches exactly the first three spellings, but the fourth spelling Licet in Latin means allowed, all right, permitted, approved, lawful, licit and legitimate. It is assumed the Latin words are related or cognate and their meaning is common to all. It is now argued Stephen recorded how Wilfrid and Wulfhere agreed the site was set up in a way that was ecclesiastically acceptable for the centre of a major see with a bishop schooled in Northumbria and conforming to the Roman church.[20] The name legitimised the site of a daughter mynster[21] church in Mercia, linked with Northumbria and Lindisfarne. It was the right feld to have a cathedral and after Chad had been re-consecrated in the Roman tradition,[22] he was right for the seat. Lichfield was the approved field site for a major cathedral-church. To those scholars who love to interpret names an explanation involving how two priests and a king thought a name could be about its approval of the site and not some obscure geographical or topological feature has been unthinkable and ignored. It is here postulated this was a 7th-century church way of naming and a few similar examples are known, such as the battle site of Heavenfield where King Oswald of Northumbria regained supremacy, 633–4, and restored Christianity to the north. 

 

Heavenfield and King Oswald.

          In the 12th century Licetfelda morphs into Lichfield and this is explained in the post, ‘Lichfield recasts its name.’

 

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[1] Exactly what this area was cannot be known, but must have involved people living around the Trent. It could have stretched to the southern reaches of the Severn and Cherwell.

[2] Its location is unknown apart from it was in Middle Anglia. Charlbury in North Oxfordshire has claimed to be the location. Diuma visited Repton in 654 and it might be in this area. The name might have been Fæpingas or Fæpinga where the people might be known as Fepsæte.

[3] How the Mercians gained overlordship is unclear. No battle was mentioned, but three Mercian eorls (nobleman later called earls) visited King Oswiu and perhaps gave him tribute for control. The Mercians then have some form of control over their territory for the next 350 years.

[4] Lichfield was clearly a daughter church of Lindisfarne.

[5] D. J. Tyler, ‘Bishop Wilfrid and the Mercians’, Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conferences, ed. N. J. Higham (Donington, 2013), 275–8.

[6] C. Cubitt, ‘Appendix 2: The chronology of Stephen’s Life of Wilfrid’, Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conferences, ed. N. J. Higham (Donington, 2013), 343.

[7] B. Colgrave, The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus. Text, translation and notes. Ch. 14.

[8] A. Thacker, ‘Wilfrid, his cult and his biographer.’ Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conference, ed. N. J. Higham. (Donington, 2013), 6.

[9] Chad, like others before, had been trained at Lindisfarne, had undertaken missionary work in Ireland and after being priested at the age of 30 was made for three years the Bishop of Northumbria based at Lindisfarne.

[10] Cotton MS Augustus II 61 and charter S1431a in Christ Church Canterbury.

[11] B. Thorpe, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, according to the several original authorities (London: 1861), 70, 71, 296, 322.

[12] N. J. Higham, Re-reading Bede. The Ecclesiastical History in Context, (London and New York, 2006), 158.

[13] Cambridge University Library MS Kk. 5.16. The Moore Bede may have been copied at Bede’s own monastery of Wearmouth- Jarrow within a few years of his death, Additions to the folio and an early poem in its Northumbrian dialect suggest a date of around 737. It was owned by John Moore, bishop of Ely, 1707‑14). At the end of the eighth century, it could have been in Charlemagne’s Palace School Library, Aachen.

[14] J. McClure and R. Collins, Bede. The Ecclesiastical history of the English People, (Oxford, 2008).  Book IV, Ch. 3, 174. The edition of McClure and Collins is based on the translation by Bertram Colgrave for the Oxford Medieval Texts first published in 1969. Bede listed this work as Historiam ecclesiasticam nostræ insulæ ac gentis in libris V, which translates to The ecclesiastical history of our island and nation in five books.

[15] T. J. M. van Els, The Kassel Manuscript of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum and its Old English Material (Assen, 1972), 191.

[16] R. B. Patterson, The Haskins Society Journal Studies in Medieval History (London, 1990), 35.

[17] D. Farmer and D. H. Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford, 1978), 2.

[18] N. J. Higham, ‘Wilfrid and Bede’s Historia’, Wilfrid Abbot, Bishop, Saint. Papers from the 1300th Anniversary Conferences, ed. N. J. Higham (Donington, 2013), 55.

[19] 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.

[20] Conforming to the Roman Church would have been very important to Wilfrid, Bede and Wulfhere.

[21] Bede described Chad having seven or 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.

[22] For most of his life Chad was Celtic and practicing an Ionian way of worship as well as abiding by their way of consecrating a bishop. Archbishop Theodore persuaded him to be re-consecrated as a bishop for a second time in a Roman service at York. Bede said he humbly accepted and it is this integrity and humility he is remembered for. Chad “in addition to all his merits of temperance, humility, zeal in teaching, prayers and voluntary poverty he was greatly filled with the fear of the Lord and mindful of his last end in all he did.”

 

 

  

Lichfield recasts its name

Summary.  The site of the 7th-century church-cathedral was named Licitfelda. In the 11th-century, the name began to change and by the 12th century the prefix Lich appeared. Lichfield took until the 17th-century to became the established name.

     From the 7th to the 11th-century Licetfelda was Lichfield’s name. Licit, later Licet, meant approval for a Christian site in a field to build a church-cathedral. In the 1086 Domesday Book, Lichfield was spelt Lecefelle, Licefelle and Licefeld,^[1] and clearly the name was going through some kind of recasting. During the next century the name morphed from Licet or Licit to became Lich, though exactly when the presumably soft-sounding Licet became the harsher Lich is uncertain.[2] In William of Malmesbury’s ‘Gesta Pontificum Anglorum,’ written early in the 12th-century it was spelt Lichefeld (Lichefeldensis). Matthew Paris, c. 1200–1259, a chronicler for St Albans Abbey wrote in a margin of his copy of the ‘Book of St Albans’ the name of Lichefeld and Lichfeld.[3] He added, this meant the death of a thousand Christians was located at Lichfield. Lichfield was interpreted as the site of a field of corpses.^[4] Thus Liche, meaning corpse, was now connected to a folklore story of slaughtered Christians somewhere in the area, see the post, ‘Lichfield's founding myth’.

 Book of St Albans marginalia. Hoc apud Lichefeld evenit. Inde Lichfeld dicitur quasi campus cadaverum. Lich enim Anglice cadaver sive corpus mortui dicitur.

 

A manuscript fragment dealing with the topography of Lichfield survived among the cathedral muniments in the 17th-century, but has since been lost. It was almost certainly compiled in the mid or late 13th-century, probably in Lichfield. It claimed the city was named Lichfeldensis because once upon a time a battle had been fought there.[5]

 

In the Takamiya MS 62 of Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, dated 1375‑1400,[6] the spellings of Lindfsi, Lindfelth and Lythfeld are handwritten in the margin and this might still be a transitional time of spelling, or the writer was uncertain of the name.

 

Marginalia in the Takamiya MS

 

It seems the uptake of Lich was not universal and immediate. According to Duignan[7] in the 12th-century, the variants of the name were Lechesfelde, Lichesfelde, Lichefelde and Licheffeld. The royal clerks preferred Liche, and the variants Lichesfeld and Licheffeld.[8] A grant from King Richard I to Bishop Muschamp dated 1202 has Lichefeld.[9] In the 13th-century it was Lychefelde and Lichefeld. A cartulary of Tutbury Priory, 1253, has the name abbreviated to Lich. In 1301, five citizens gave some land to obtain rent and pay for maintenance of a water conduit in Lychefeld. Throughout this time of spelling Lichfield in various ways its association with death and corpses persisted. In the 16th-century editions of Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ the spellings were Lychefield, Lichefield and Lichfield. By the 17th and 18th-century the town’s name was written Lichesfeld,^[10] Lichfeld,^[11] and Litchfield.^{[12],[13],[14]} The current spelling of the name was finally established in Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, 1755. He defined Lichfield, as the field of the dead, a city in Staffordshire, so named from martyred Christians.

 

City arms on c.1720 map showing martyred Christians.

 

Using Lich denoting death and recasting an Early Medieval name seems odd, but the story of slaughtered Christians and their burial somewhere in Lichfield was fervently believed for at least five medieval centuries. Some must have reasoned a gory ‘founding myth’ attracted visitors or raised sympathy for the resident Christians? Did martyrdom chime with outbreaks of the plague, loss from the great 1291 town fire, or the slaughter in the Civil War? Could be the early origin of the name and association with disliked bishops was a preferred re-interpretation by the dissident townspeople. Maybe it was another example of removing Saxon tropes and adding Norman. It is even possible the change from written Latin to spoken Middle English caused a poor translation and the recast name simply evolved.

 

There have been many attempts in the past to explain the name of Lichfield etymologically and they have been reviewed by Greenslade.[15] See the post,’ The name Lichfield’. Many of these explanations are close to being absurd, some are derivations on flimsy evidence and none have complete acceptance. It is time to see the origin of the name came from the approval of a site by an Early Medieval king when establishing his Mercian diocese.

 

                                                         Summary of evolution of name

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[1] Folio 247r Domesday Book, National Archives reference E 31/2/2/1932.

[2] D. Johnson, 'Lichfield and St Amphibalus: the story of a legend', South Staffordshire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions 1986--1987, (1988), 28, 1. Johnson stated, “Antiquarian speculation on the meaning of the name may even have been partly responsible for the emergence in the 12th-century of the modern spelling of the name.”

[3] Matthew's interest in etymologies occurs on fol. 25v, digital image 57, of the Book of St Albans in the library of Trinity College Dublin.

[4] See note 16, D. Johnson (1988),5.

[5] Ibid D. Johnson, (1988), 28, 6. Plus note 28, The fragment was first printed, apparently from the original MS., by Sir William Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, iii (1673 ed.), 219. The transcript contains demonstrable errors elsewhere and is evidently not by Dugdale.

[6] Kept in the Beinicke Library, Yale University. The name is on 48r page, digital image 99.

[7] W. H. Duignan, Notes on Staffordshire Place Names, (London: 1902), 91.

[8] Ibid D. Johnson (1988), 2.

[9] Magnum Registrum Album 223.

[10] H. Wharton, Anglia Sacra. Volume 1 (London: 1691).

[11] R. Plot, The Natural History of Staffordshire (Oxford: 1686)

[12] W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (1673). Volume 6, part 3, 1238.

[13] W. Stukeley, Itinerarium Curiosum: or an account of the antiquities and remarkable curiosities in nature and art observed in travels through Great Britain, (London: 1776).

[14] T. Cox, Survey of the ancient and present state of Great Britain. (London: 1738).

[15] M. W. Greenslade (ed.), 'Lichfield: The place and street names, population and boundaries ', in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield, (London, 1990), 37-42. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol14/pp37-42