Christmas - Christ's mass

             In pre-Reformation times, Advent leading to Christmas in church was a solemn occasion with three weeks of formal services.[1] The reading of Isaiah and the prophecy of Christ’s birth was a given. Fasting was recommended with fish preferred to meat. Marriages were not allowed because sexual activity was inappropriate (also applied to Lent). A vigil and fasting occurred on Christmas Eve as a precursor to the feast on Christmas Day. Three masses were celebrated, namely on Christmas Eve, at dawn on Christmas Day and then later in the morning. The following three days were festivals, St Stephen (Boxing Day, so called in 1871 and no one knows why), St John the Evangelist (27 December) and finally Holy Innocents Day (28 December) with the custom of having a boy-bishop – see the post on ‘Choristers’. There were further festivals on 1 and 6 January. The centre pieces of the Christmas liturgy were the shepherds at Christmas, the three Magi at Epiphany and Simeon at Candlemas. The three events are similar in that they are welcoming and presenting Jesus as the Messiah.

Visit of the three Magi on the reredos in the Lady Chapel.

     Richard II spent Christmas 1397 at Lichfield staying in the palace in the Close. His stay until January 6 with a large protecting bodyguard, according to the allegations of a monk of Evesham, meant the consumption of twenty cattle, three hundred sheep, and a daily large quantity of poultry.

            The church could be decorated with holly and ivy, and more candles than usual. There is no record of a nativity scene with a crib being displayed.[2] In homes there was generally much celebration with food, games and gift-giving on New Year’s Day. Carols were sung outside of church and usually accompanied with dancing. The twelve days of Christmas could be a holiday for the prosperous, but for many there was a need to keep working. The season of Christmas lasted to Candlemas on 2 February. Candlemas was the time of ‘light’ and almost everyone attended church and brought in a candle. In some places the people processed to the church carrying torches. New candles for the coming year in the church were blessed.

The Nativity, from a 14th-century Sherbrooke Missal. The Missal on parchment originates from East Anglia and is held in The National Library of Wales.

             The origins of the allegorical Father Christmas are obscure, but might have developed from folklore figures in Anglo-Saxon times. The earliest evidence for a character called Christmas can be found in a 15th-century carol, in which a 'Sir Christëmas' shares the news of Christ's birth. One portrayal of Father Christmas was a large man who wore a green robe lined with fur and a crown of holly, ivy, or mistletoe. To link this with a pagan ritual sounds plausible, but is conjecture.

Father Christmas crowned with a holly wreath and holding a staff, wassail bowl and Yule log. From Illustrated London News,1848. A red suited Father Christmas carrying a sack of toys first appeared as an illustration to a poem in 1881.

     In post-Reformation times, not much changed with Christmas traditions except the saints were not venerated and this included St Nicholas the saint for children held on 6 December when a boy-bishop was picked from amongst the choristers. It has been postulated that since St Nicholas was associated with gift-giving his cult gradually morphed into that of Father Christmas; however, this is tenuous. Church liturgy changed, see the post ‘Reformation.’ These changes to the church service did not stop festivities. Henry VIII celebrated twelve days of Christmas with prolonged feasting and the menu would include traditional boar’s head, peacock, swan, lark, partridge, quail, roast beef and prawn pasties. The hall, usually at Greenwich Palace, was decorated with greenery, dried fruit, berries, and candles. Carols were sung as well as danced. There was much pageantry, disguising and convivial merrymaking, all led by the mischievous ‘The Lord of Misrule.’ Mummers would perform a play. The king allowed archery on Christmas Day, but no other sport.

             In parts of Europe, Reformation became a catalyst to curtail Christmas. John Calvin in Switzerland, 1550, thought people gave more importance to the festivities and ignored its Christian significance. Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, Switzerland sought to abolish all feast and saint’s holy days, including Christmas. John Knox, who founded the Presbyterian movement in Scotland, followed the same thinking. Martin Luther, in contrast, liked Christmas (there is an untrue story he attached candles to a tree). In Britain, the 1559 Elizabethan Settlement steered a middle line between removing choral music, candles and dance and the desire to have a celebration. In contrast in Scotland,1583, the Presbyterians secured a ban on Christmas celebrations, though others ignored the ban. William Prynne, 1632, a puritan writer, stated all pious Christians should eternally abominate observance of the holiday. For puritans the word Christmas was synonymous with the Popish mass. This division of opinion simmered until the Civil War.

On 19 December 1643, an ordinance was passed by the Parliamentarians encouraging subjects to treat the mid-winter period with solemn humiliation. This was in contrast with the gaiety advocated by the Royalists. A year later another ordinance confirmed the abolition of the feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsun, but at this time it only applied to the Parliamentarians. It continued, however, until 1659. From 1656, Cromwell’s parliament legislated that every Sunday was to be stringently observed as a holy day. If Christmas was not on a Sunday, then shops and markets could stay open, but special food for a Christmas event was prohibited. Christmas was not to be celebrated with frivolous and immoral behaviour but spent in respectful contemplation. The fear was poor behaviour would spill over into church services and it was too closely associated with Catholicism. The reality is Cromwell did not order the banning of Christmas, but instead legislated to severely curtail such celebrations. The Puritans' prohibition of Christmas proved very unpopular and pro-Christmas riots broke out across the country with many disregarding the ordinance. Royalist propaganda indicated the ban was severe, the reality was it was much ignored.[3]

Early 20th-century architectural drawing of Oliver Cromwell’s statue outside Parliament. There are differences with the statue.

It took until the early 19th-century for the division between puritanical Protestantism and those who wanted to celebrate the mid-winter festival to subside. Popular evangelists, like George Whitfield, John Wesley and others, promoted Christmas as a genuine Christian celebration with carols such as ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘Go Tell It on the Mountain.’ The Victorians added traditions to the festival, c. 1840s, and increased its commercialisation. Its observance has changed in many ways.[4]  

      The flaw in this history is that it is clear how the church saw Christmas and changed its liturgy with time and much is known how leaders of the country tried to impose their idea of the festival, but very little is known how ordinary people approached the winter solstice and New Year. Indeed, the gaiety of Christmas with carols, dancing, gifts and feasting, originated at home and within the local community. 

    The Christ-child was born in a manger, [5] in an ordinary dwelling, Luke 2, 7. From this, artists have painted and sculpted stables, barns, shacks and other out-buildings. The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem has a cave. 

Fresco in the Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, late second century. Three magi each in a different colour with outstretched hands approach Mary and child.

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 [1] Orne. N. Going to church in Medieval England. (New Haven and London: 2022), 257–260. 

[2] Francis of Assisi is credited with staging the first nativity scene in 1223, but it then took many years before it was copied in European countries. The earliest cribs appeared in a few churches in Europe in the mid-16th century. Strangely, it did not get taken up in England. Paintings of the nativity were known in England, but never a diorama. In contrast, the tomb and stone at Easter was modelled in an Easter sepulchre.

 [3] J. A. R. Pimlott, ‘Christmas under the Puritans’, History Today, (1960), 10, issue 12.

[4] There is a theory that agricultural workers moving into the towns expanding with new industries in the early Victorian era brought their rural customs and added them to the Christmas celebration. It was a response to upheaval and many strange practices relieving the poverty and dark gloom occurred.

[5] Trough, crib or rack.  

Anchorite-priest in the cathedral?

     An anchorite or anchoress withdrew from the community and led a solitary, prayerful and ascetic (anachoretic) life. The earliest anchorites, an early form of monasticism, included John-the-Baptist and Anthony living in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd century. In England religious recluses were first recorded in the 10th century.[1] Anchorites and various kinds of solitaries occurred throughout medieval Europe. Anchoritism became very common in England during the 13th to 16th centuries before Reformation terminated the tradition.

Century	Female	Male	Gender unknown	Total	Total known sites
12th	48	30	18	96	77
13th	123	37	38	198	175
14th	96	41	77	214	171
15th	110	66	28	204	139
16th	37	27	4	68	49

Number of documented anchorites, A. K. Warren, 1985,.[2] There have been 780 recorded English recluses from 601 sites between 1100 and the end of the Middle Ages. They were 414 female solitaries, 201 males and 165 of unknown gender. It appears there were more anchoresses than anchorites (4:1 in the 13th-century). The dearth of records suggests there may have been substantially more.[3]

The anchorite usually lived permanently[4] enclosed in a cell called an anchorhold. Some anchorites moved freely between several cells and some were in houses. An anchorhold was usually attached to a church or cathedral and usually located on the north side. Some occupied cells connected to houses and castles or castle walls and some were near monasteries. The anchorite house at Chester-le-Street had four cells and was exceptional. Generally, the cell was small (an average of 4 metres square), contained a bed, a chamber pot and a small altar, but rarely had a window. Commonly, those against a church had a squint or opening to view the altar; the anchorite would want to view the raising of the host in the Eucharist. Often the cell was adjoined to another room in which a servant could assist the anchorite especially in providing a frugal meal. Sometimes local people would converse with the anchorite through a small opening in the wall. The anchorite was seen as a wise person able to offer spiritual guidance. Indeed, many who chose to be immured were of high status and were respected. They also had financial security which was considered necessary. The anchorite was independent of the church, but answerable to the bishop. Early anchorholds were predominantly in rural areas and in makeshift timber buildings. By the 14th century they were stone houses. By the 16th century anchorholds had become ‘an integral element of the ecclesiastical topography of medieval towns.’[5] It was common for wills to contain donations for a local anchorite.

 

  View of anchorite's cell at Holy Trinity Church, Skipton, Yorkshire, Wikipedia Public Domain.

The anchorite might have held their isolation to be a way to avoid hell and by intense prayer a way to join Christ.[6] It was like being perpetually in Lent, that is, isolation avoiding temptation and preparing for ultimate death. Indeed, unlike hermits, before they entered their cell anchorites received a rite of consecration that resembled a funeral. They would be seen as dead to the world, a type of living saint. During the late medieval period it was often a pious, lay woman. Some had terminal diseases and this was a positive way to see their end-life and have a form of martyrdom. There is some evidence of when they died, they were buried within the apse of the church near to the altar. 13 English guides giving instruction on how anchorites are to be made, supported and behave are extant. There were four key ideals: enclosure, comparative solitude, chastity and orthodoxy;[7] the idea of a solitary being unstable and heretical is wrong. Some anchorites suffered, but this was not the intention and most likely applied only to a minority. Some anchorite-priests pursued scholarly or copyist work in their cells.

 Perhaps, the most well-known anchorite was Cuthbert isolated on Farne island and well described by Bede. Another is Billfrith at Lindisfarne who adorned the Lindisfarne Gospels with gold and gems. In the late 7th century, Guthlac left the monastery in Repton and for 15 to 20 years lived isolated on an island in the Lincolnshire Fens. A folklore story has Chad living as a hermit and living on the milk of a doe. This myth has been modified to locate the hermitage at Stowe.

Recent research has emphasised that little is known how the anchorite lived and practised their vocation. It is clear that much of the surviving evidence presents anchoritism as highly esteemed by the surrounding community, a community which, after all, enabled the vocation to exist and persist in both economic and practical terms.[8]

Anchorholds have been identified in churches in Staffordshire and Shropshire. There is a mention of Simon, a longstanding hermit, being translated in 1222 from Lichfield to Dunstable, but he could have been isolating in a cave, house or cell and not be attached to a church.[9] Two hermits were allowed by Matilda to settle a mile to the south of Beaudesert (at Radmoor?) and were given land for pasture on Cannock Chase early in the 12th century. In the register of Bishop Walter Langton, in 1311, Emma Sprenghose was found suitable to be an anchoress in a house close to St George’s chapel, Shrewsbury. In 1315, Iseult de Hungerford was admitted into the same house. The house was said to have other anchorites.[10] The register of Bishop Roger de Northburgh, 1322–1358, (sometimes de Norbury) included appointments of priest anchorites being made 1357–1374.[11] It is not clear where the priest anchorites were sent. In 1360, the prior of Maxstoke was commissioned by Bishop Stretton to enclose Brother Roger de Henorebarwe as an anchorite in the chapel of Maryhall. In 1363, Bishop Stretton inducted a friar at St. John's, Chester, into an anchorite's cell in the churchyard.[12] In 1423, John Grace an anchorite friar from Coventry, preached on three days to the canons in the Cathedral Close.[13] John Woodcoat, a chaplain, in 1457, was asked to hear the confessions of an anchorite at Polesworth.[14] The River Anker runs through Polesworth and its name is said to derive from two anchorholds close-by. In 1509, the bishop suffragan shut up Joan Hythe, a nun from Derby, in a cell at the church in Macclesfield.[15] An anchorhold with an aumbry in the wall, seems to have existed on the northern side of St. Chad's chancel at Stafford.[16] The inference is medieval bishops in the diocese were sympathetic to anchoritism.

            Almost certainly in the 13th or 14th-century there were anchorites in cells adjoining the cathedral or in the Close, but there is no documentary evidence. The involvement of bishops of Lichfield in the 14th and 15th centuries in anchoritism, especially Bishop Walter Langton, supports this notion. It raises the question, if present, where were the cells. One good possibility are the three small chambers on the south side of the Lady Chapel built by Bishop Langton. The cells are small and in line sight with the altar in the Lady Chapel. All three chambers are 1.7 m (5 feet 9 inches) wide internally. The eastern and western chambers are shorter (2. 6 m or 8 feet 8 inches long) and the middle chamber is longer (3.9 m or 13 feet long). The roofs are groined with stone ribs and bosses. The middle chamber has a small door to the eastern chamber; it passes –through a buttress and is 1 m (3 feet 3 inches) thick. This chamber was once accessible to the outside by a door. 

John Snape’s map 1781 has an engraving of the cathedral and appears to show a path leading from the eastern chamber door.

It has been thought the chambers were built for the tomb of Walter de Langton the originator and funder of the chapel, but he was instead buried on the south side near the high altar. Maddison conjectured whether the chambers were originally sacristies or had a tomb intention, but then admits their purpose was open to question.[17] He also pointed out the usual practice of a Lady Chapel being seen as a separate building sometimes entered through a low arch and cited 7 other cathedrals. Cox[18] suggested various priests who might have been buried within the chambers. He also surmised whether they were chantry chapels but comes to no certain conclusion. After Reformation the ‘little cells in the wall of the Lady Chapel may have been occupied by the ecclesiastics who watched the shrine.’[19] The chambers have clearly teased historians as to their purpose.

South side of Lady Chapel in Dugdale's Monasticum Anglicanum Vol 6 part 3, pages 1238–9. Note the outside access door for the eastern most chamber. Note changes of access within chambers; the earliest drawing has no inter-doorways, the 1989 version appears to be different regarding internal doorways whereas the 1891 is more accurate in regard to the current arrangement. Under the three chambers is an undercroft roofed by a pointed tunnel vault.

Exterior of third chamber showing the new stone where there was a door. Note the slit window to the undercroft. Was there a stoup on the ledge inside the archway?

 The most plausible purpose for the exceptional chambers would be for an anchorite, or more likely a priest-anchorite. Such a solitary could have occupied the middle chamber with welfare provided from the western chamber. Visitors wanting spiritual guidance could not enter the cathedral by the main doors, but would access an anchorite-priest by the small door into the eastern chamber. It might be the priest was one of a team of acolytes on a rota. The undercroft could have been for sleeping and sanitation. The chambers are the closest to the southeast gate and the Dam Street entrance from the town. It means any citizen could access a priest through a wall opening without entering the main body of the cathedral.

Doorway from middle chamber to eastern chamber (now a storeroom).

    It would be unlikely for the name of any anchorite-priest to appear in any Dean and Chapter document since the appointment was entirely the work of the bishop. Furthermore, the anchorite would be considered separate from any cathedral or diocesan arrangement. It explains the obscurity of these individuals and why more is known from the architecture of their cell, if it still exists. The existence of three chambers, an undercroft and external door built by Bishop Langton, the lack of information as to their purpose and their location near the town gate point to their use for anchoritism. Also, the enthusiasm for the following two bishops, Northburgh and Stretton, for anchoritism points to their placement of solitaries in or near the cathedral.

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[1] T. Licence, Hermits and Recluses in English Society, 950–1200, (Oxford: 2011). Also, T Licence, ‘Evidence of recluses in eleventh-century England’, in M Godden and S Keynes (eds), Anglo-Saxon England, (2007),36.

[2] A. K. Warren, Anchorites and their Patrons in Medieval England. (Oakland: 1985).

[3] E. A. Jones, Hermits and anchorites in England, 1200–1550. (Manchester: 2019), 7.

[4] There are known examples where the anchorite left or was removed.

[5] R Gilchrist, Contemplation and Action: The Other Monasticism, (Leicester: 1995), 183.

[6] Ibid, A cell of enclosure was equated with prison into which the anchorite propelled himself for fear of hell and for love of Christ.

[7] M. Hughes-Edwards, Reading Medieval Anchoritism, (Cardiff:2012).

[8] Ibid.

[9] R. M. Clay, The Hermits and Anchorites of England. (London: 1914). 142.

[10] J. B. Huges, The episcopate of Walter Langton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1296-1321, with a calendar of his register. Ph.D. Thesis for the University of Nottingham, 1992, 684, 697.

[11] Ibid, 24. Also E. Hobhouse ed. Registers of Roger de Norbury, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, from 1322 to 1358, William Salt Archaeological Society, (1880), 286.

[12] Ibid, 156.

[13] W. Beresford, Diocesan histories. Lichfield. (London: 1883), 154. Also T. Harwood, The history and antiquities of the church and city of Lichfield. (London: 1806), 285.

[14] Ibid W. Beresford (1883),168

[15] Ibid 162

[16] Ibid 162

[17] J. Maddison, ‘Building at Lichfield Cathedral during the episcopate of Walter Langton, 1296–1321.’ In Medieval archaeology and architecture at Lichfield, XIII, The British Archaeological Association, (1993), 71.

[18] J. C. Cox, ‘The mortuary chapels of Lichfield Cathedral,’ Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, (1879), 1, 116–126.

[19] Ibid 190

Wulfhere and Wilfrid, and later Bede, name Lichfield

     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 was exactly what Wulfhere wanted. 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. Wulfhere’s plan was thwarted when in 669, the new (8th) Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus, arranged for Chad of Lastingham, Yorkshire, to become Bishop of Mercia.[8] 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.[9]

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.^[10] 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. 673‑735, 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 seventeen to nineteen 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).[11] 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,[12] simply states Chad ‘had his episcopal seat at a place called Lyccidfelth’.[13] 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.[14] 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.[15] 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.[16] Wilfrid and Bede must have known each other personally in the period 706 x 710;[17] 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.

 

It is presumed the current name of Lichfield derived 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.[18] 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.[19] The name legitimised the site of a daughter minster[20] 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,[21] 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 following post.

[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][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] 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.

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

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

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

[12] 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. 

[13] 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.

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

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

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

[17] 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.

[18] 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.

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

[20] 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.

[21] 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.