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This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights and duplication or sale of all or part is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for research, private study, criticism/review or educational purposes. Electronic or print copies are for your own personal, non- commercial use and shall not be passed to any other individual. No quotation may be published without proper acknowledgement. For any other use, or to quote extensively from the work, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder/s. Lichfield and the Lands of St Chad Andrew William Steward Sargent PhD 2012 Keele University Abstract This thesis seeks to construct a history for the diocese of Lichfield during the early medieval period. The region is comparatively lacking in evidence, textual or archaeological, when compared to regions further east and south, and so provides a useful case study on which to test the applicability of narratives developed elsewhere. This study analyses what evidence there is from the region, textual (ninth-century episcopal lists, the Lichfield Chronicle, saints’ Lives), archaeological (ecclesiastical settlements, including Lichfield cathedral, and rural settlement) and topographical (distributions of settlement types, field systems and soils), and asks whether it can be interpreted with reference to two specific narratives: first, the ‘minster narrative’, in which a framework of minsters, established during the seventh and eighth centuries, provided pastoral care to the local population; and a territorial narrative based upon the ‘cultural province’, whereby a region defined topographically, usually along watersheds, persistently affected human activity within it, focussing it inwards. The study finds neither narrative entirely satisfactory: early minsters were clustered in the southern and eastern parts of the diocese, suggesting that episcopal agency was more important in ministering to the population than royal or noble minsters, which were founded for other reasons; and several different scales of territory are found to have been influential on the lives of those living in the region. A contextual interpretation is proposed, whereby nodes of habitual practice are identified throughout the landscape, by which people created and negotiated their identities at several different scales; a concept of ecclesiastical lordship is also recommended, by which the diocesan bishop’s relationships with other minsters in the diocese might be more fruitfully understood. Acknowledgements This thesis was funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council collaborative award grant with Lichfield Cathedral. Many thanks to my supervisor Philip Morgan, to Canon Pete Wilcox and all who followed my progress at Lichfield, to Nigel Coulton for his Latin expertise, and to Clare Henshaw for all her help and support. i Contents Abstract Acknowledgements i Contents ii List of Figures v Abbreviations viii Introduction x Chapter 1: The Bishops of Lichfield 1 The Lichfield Chronicle 1 The Episcopal History 2 The Texts 3 Diuma to Ealdwine 7 Hwita to Tunberht 29 Aelfwine to Leofwine 42 The Dates 45 Lichfield and the Word 53 Writing to Rome 55 Chapter 2: The Words of the Saints 64 St Chad 64 ii The Words of Bede of Jarrow & Stephen of Ripon 64 St Chad in Old English 94 Other Saints in the Diocese of Lichfield 103 St. Werburgh 104 St Wigstan 114 St Modwenna & St Eadgyth 117 Saints with late or no vitae 132 Saints and the Word in the Diocese of Lichfield 134 Chapter 3: The Land of St Chad 146 The Lay of the Land 146 Living on the Land 149 Naming the Land 173 Patterns 198 Early Medieval Settlements 203 Chapter 4: Minsters & Ministry 210 Parish Territories in the Diocese of Lichfield 210 Early Minsters 226 Early Minsters in Roman Settlements 238 Churches and Shrines 243 The Bishop and his Diocese: the Royal Free Chapels 264 iii Conclusion 280 Modes of historical understanding 281 Characterising the Diocese 284 Colonisation and its social context 287 The minsters of the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries 291 Ecclesiastical lordship 297 Territoriality 307 Bibliography 310 Appendix 1: The Kentish Royal Legend 333 Appendix 2: The Life of St Osgyth 339 Appendix 3: West Midlands Soils Associations Analysis 346 Appendix 4: Place-Names Analysis 350 Appendix 5: Churches and Holywells shown on Figure 26 357 iv List of Figures Figure 1: Distribution of furnished burials to c. 560 Figure 2: Distribution of Anglo-Saxon saints cults Figure 3: Location of the diocese of Lichfield Figure 4: Stemma of Kentish Royal Legend versions Figure 5: Stemma of texts involving St Modwenna, St Eadgyth and St Osgyth Figure 6: Topography Figure 7: Solid Geology Figure 8: Drift Geology Figure 9: Average Annual Rainfall Figure 10: Soils analysis in the diocese of Lichfield Figure 11: Settlement dispersal in the Midlands Figure 12: Field systems in the West Midlands Figure 13: Distribution of sizes of township with Brittonic names Figure 14: Distribution of sizes of township with feld names Figure 15: Distribution of sizes of township with hām names Figure 16: Distribution of sizes of township with ēg names Figure 17: Distribution of sizes of township with dūn names Figure 18: Distribution of sizes of township with burh names Figure 19: Distribution of place names overlaid on soil analysis Figure 20: Archdeanery of Chester Figure 21: Archdeanery of Shropshire Figure 22: Archdeanery of Stafford v Figure 23: Archdeanery of Derby Figure 24: Archdeanery of Coventry Figure 25: Church-scot in Marton hundred Figure 26: Distribution of sizes of place names and selected churches overlain on the soils analysis Figure 27: Distribution of seventh, eighth and ninth century minsters Figure 28: Lichfield, a water-side minster Figure 29: Hanbury, a hill top minster Figure 30: Derby, a minster in a worthig Figure 31a: The Anglo-Saxon church and crypt at Repton Figure 31b: A conjectural reconstruction of the hypogeum at Repton compared with hypogee des Dunes, Poitiers Figure 32: Eighth- and ninth-century churches Figure 33a: Repton showing church with hypogeum to the west Figure 33b: Repton, plan of western hypogeum Figure 34a: Archaeological features recorded beneath Lichfield Cathedral Choir in the nineteenth century Figure 34b: Roland Paul’s plan of Lichfield cathedral 1891 Figure 35: Archaeological features beneath Lichfield cathedral, Anglo-Saxon and Norman Figure 36: Conjectural reconstruction of Anglo-Saxon church and funerary chapel Figure 37a: Plan of Lichfield cathedral nave excavation Figure 37b: Photograph of Lichfield cathedral nave excavation Figure 38a: Conjectural location of St Peters church, Lichfield Figure 38b: Conjectural plan of St Mary’s and St Peter’s, Lichfield Figure 39: Distribution of early minsters in the Midlands vi Figure 40: Anglo-Saxon provincial boundaries and forests Figure 41: Church dedications to St Chad vii Abbreviations Alcuin Ep. Alcuin sive Albini Epistolae: E. Dümmler (ed.), 1895. In Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolarum, Vol. 4, pp 1-493 ASC Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Swanton, Michael (trans.). 1996. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Phoenix Press, London DB Chesh Domesday Book, referenced by number in Phillimore edition DB Derbs. Domesday Book, referenced by number in Phillimore edition DB Salop Domesday Book, referenced by number in Phillimore edition DB Staffs. Domesday Book, referenced by number in Phillimore edition DB Warws. Domesday Book, referenced by number in Phillimore edition Derbs. HER Derbyshire County Council, Historic Environment Record; reference given by record number EHD I Whitelock, Dorothy. 1955. English Historical Documents. Volume I. c. 500- 1042. Eyre & Spottiswode, London GP Gesta Pontificum Anglorum: GR Gesta Regum Anglorum: Mynors, R. A. B., Thomson, R. M. & Winterbottom, M. 1998. William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum Anglorum. Clarendon Press, Oxford HB Historia Brittonum: Morris, John (ed. & trans.). 1980. Nennius. British History and the Welsh Annals. Arthurian Period Sources Vol. 8, Phillimore, London & Chichester HE Historia Ecclesiastica: Plummer, Charles. 1896. Venerabilis Bedae Opera Historica. Clarendon, Oxford; Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, R. A. B. (eds.). 1969. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Clarendon Press, Oxford viii Salop. HER Shropshire County Council, Historic Environment Record; reference given by record number SHC Collections for a History of Staffordshire: reference by relevant volume Staffs. HER Staffordshire County Council, Historic Environment Record; reference given by record number VCH Chesh. Victoria County History, referenced by volume VCH Derbs. Victoria County History, referenced by volume VCH Salop. Victoria County History, referenced by volume VCH Staffs. Victoria County History, referenced by volume VCH Warws. Victoria County History, referenced by volume VM Vita Sancte Monenne: Esposito, Mario. 1910. ‘Conchubrani Vita S. Monenna’, in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. XXVIII, Section C, pp 202-251; reprinted in M. Lapidge (ed.), 1990, Irish Books and Learning in Medieval Europe, Variorum, Aldershot, No. XV VMM Vita et Miracula Sancte Modwenne: Bartlett, Robert. 2002. Geoffrey of Burton; Life and Miracles of St Modwenna, Clarendon Press, Oxford VSW Vita Sancte Werburge: Love, Rosalind C. 2004. Goscelin of Saint-Bertin. The Hagiography of the Female Saints of Ely VW Vita Wilfridi: Colgrave, Bertram. 1927. The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus. Text, Translation, and Notes. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ix Introduction The Mercian