King Henry III architect

Summary. It is likely King Henry III was involved in designing the architecture of the cathedral as he did with many other cathedrals.

          King Henry III reigned from 28 October 1216, aged 9, to his death on16 November 1272 aged 65. A reign of 56 years was the longest in medieval history. He was devout and known for his public show of piety; being widely regarded as ‘Rex Christianissimus’, a most Christian King’. He encouraged elaborate church services and the veneration of relics, was often moved to tears by sermons, was extremely interested in architecture, sculpture, painting and providing silverware, vestments and candles for churches. In the first 18 years of his majority, he built 18 new chapels, 10 for himself and 8 for the queen. By the 1250s he was sustaining over 50 chapels and supporting many Dominican and Franciscan houses.  Notably, he rebuilt Westminster Abbey,[1] added to Lincoln Cathedral, St Georges Chapel at Windsor, rebuilt parts of Gloucester and Worcester cathedrals and appears to have accomplished much at Lichfield. His churches show an Early English Gothic style of architecture.[2] He made Westminster Hall the principal throne room of the land with a permanent marble throne set on the dais behind a massive marble table.

 

Henry III drawn by Matthew Paris at the beginning of his Historia Anglorum. He is holding his magnificent Westminster Abbey, Note, his drooping left eyelid.

 

Henry III statue on the west front with him holding his beloved Westminster Abbey. Henry was devoted to Edward the Confessor as his patron saint and Westminster Abbey was where he lay for pilgrimage.

A start date of 1216, at the beginning of Henry’s reign, would be plausible for the planning of a new cathedral. Around 1220, Henry granted a licence to Lichfield to obtain stone and wood for presumably the preparation, or early construction (central tower and south transept), for a third cathedral. Further licences followed.[3] He might have passed through Lichfield in 1226 having been in Nottingham and then travelling on to the Welsh marches. If so, he would have seen the beginning of a new cathedral. Henry was at Lichfield in 1235, 1237, and 1241[4] (probably to increase his funds to pay off a large dowry given away on his sister’s marriage) and these must have been the years of intense construction. Inevitably Henry would have instructed ways to build the cathedral and be assisted by Bishop Roger de Meuland,[5] 1258–95, who was a kinsman, perhaps a cousin,[6] of Henry.[7]

In 1243, Henry issued a commission to Walter Grey, Archbishop of York.[8] to expedite the works at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in which he ordered a lofty wooden roof, like the roof of the new work at Lichfield (probably the choir roof, though some think the south transept[9] and some even think the north transept), to appear like stone work with good ceiling and painting. The same has been said of the wheel window on the south transept.

 Choir roof. Is this the spur for the wooden roof at St George’s Chapel, Windsor?

 

 Wheel window above the south transept drawn in Stebbing Shaw's book 1798

 

The nave ornamentation and arcades are like those at Lincoln and elsewhere and the spheric triangular windows high up in the clerestory are like those at Westminster Abbey.[10] The nave wall ornamentation can be linked to the king and queen’s liking for 5-petalled roses from Provence. If true, it is the beginning of the rose emblem for England. Henry’s hand appears to be behind much of the building of the west end of the cathedral.

Triangular windows in the nave

Side of nave wall decoration of five lobes in a circle

Original head sculpture at the east end of the north nave aisle (bay 1). Eleanor of Provence, young wife of King Henry III, (she was 12 and he 28 when they married) introduced a new type of wimple to England. This veil, usually of linen or lace, covered a pillbox cap which meant the wimple would not fall over the face. Is this Eleanor?

 

Henry was deeply interested in relics and stories of saints. He must have known about the origin myth of Lichfield and the massacre of a thousand Christians, see the post, ‘Lichfield's founding myth-take it seriously.’ The legend was also known to Matthew Paris, c.1200-59, a chronicler for St Albans with a great love of its saints and traditions. It was Matthew who wrote in a margin of his copy of the works of William, the monk at St Alban, Hoc apud Lichefeld evenit (this is the result of Lichfield), meaning this is where the massacre occurred. Whence it is called Lichefeld meaning field of corpses. Johnson,[11] believes Matthew Paris was informed by Richard, bishop of Bangor and John Mansel, one of Henry III’s councillors. Richard might have told Matthew there was documentary evidence at Lichefeld and John would have been very supportive of a foundation story for the new Cathedral. Henry would have relished the story.

---

[1] J. Hillson, ‘St Stephen’s Chapel Westminster: Architecture, Decoration and Politics in the Reigns of Henry III and the Three Edwards (1227–1363)’ Unpublished PhD thesis, University of York, (2015), 92–107.

[2] D. Carpenter, Henry III. The rise to power and personal rule 1207-1258. (Yale, Newhaven and London: 2021)1-763.

[3] For further references to licences given by the king for work on the cathedral in 1231, 1235, and 1238, see the post, ‘Dating the cathedral.’

[4] M W Greenslade, ed. 'Lichfield: The cathedral', in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 14, Lichfield, (London, 1990), also British History Online www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/staffs/vol14/pp47-57

[5] Also spelt Meuleng, Meulent and Molend and could have indicated an ancestral connection with Meulon in Normandy.

[6] J. R. H. Moorman,  Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century (Rev. ed.). (Cambridge: 1955), 159.

[7] The king had taken a dislike to the previous bishop, Roger de Weseham.

[8] In 1243 Henry III instructed Thomas de Gray “to cause work to go on both in winter and in summer until the king’s chapel of Windsor is finished, and to have a high wooden roof made after the manner of the new work at Lichfield, so that it may appear to be stonework, with good panelling and painting”. Calendar of the Close Rolls, Vol. 5: 1242–47, 39; H. M. Colvin, ed., The History of the King’s Works: The Middle Ages, 2 vols (London: HMSO, 1963), 2: 868. The mandate was issued at Bordeaux.

[9] R. Willis, ‘On foundations of early buildings recently discovered in Lichfield Cathedral.’ The Archaeological Journal, (1861), 18, 1--24.  

[10] Is there a sculpted head of Henry III in the Chapter House? There ought to have been.

[11] D. Johnson, 'Lichfield' and 'St. Amphibalus': the story of a legend, South Staffs. Archaeological and Historical Society transactions for 1986-1987. (1988), 1-13.