106 A TOPOGRAPHICAL 



" 5. The antiquity of Lichfield in Christianity, where the British 

 church suffered a massacre from the Pagans three hundred years 

 before St. Augustine's coming to Canterbury, witness the name of 

 the place, being another Helkath-hazzurim, or Field of Strong Men, 

 where so many worthies died for the testimony of the truth. 



" On these and other considerations, Adulph was made the 

 first and last Archbishop of Lichfield (though others make Hum- 

 bert and Higbert his successors in that dignity), and six suffra- 

 gans, viz. Worcester, Hereford, Leicester, Sidnacaster, Helm- 

 ham, and Dunwich, subjected to his jurisdiction. Yet was not the 

 archiepiscopal See removed (as some seem to conceive), but com- 

 municated to Lichfield, Canterbury still retaining its former dignity, 

 and part of its province. 



" Anno Domini 799. Offa being dead, down fell the best pillar 

 of Lichfield church, to support the archiepiscopality thereof. And 

 now Canterbury had got Athelard, a new Archbishop, who had as 

 much activity to spare as his predecessor Lambert is said by some 

 to want. Wherefore he prevailed with Kenulph, King of Mercia, 

 and both of them with Leo, the new Pope, to restore hack the archi- 

 episcopal See to Canterbury, which in the next century was perfectly 

 effected."* 



From the ninth to the twelfth century little is recorded respecting 

 Lichfield Cathedral, and the See during three centuries appears to 

 have been of so little importance as to be sometimes united to that 

 of Chester, and at others to that of Coventry, according to the will 

 or caprice of successive Bishops. When Bishop Clinton succeeded 

 to this See in 1127, he not only enlarged the Cathedral, but fortified 

 the Close, and conferred many immunities on the prebendaries. 

 His adventurous spirit, however, hurried him among other enthu- 

 siasts into the Holy war, and his untimely death deprived Lichfield 

 of the benefits which it would have obtained from his munificence 

 had he continued a resident. 



At that remote period, the Cathedral was built of timber ; but in 

 1269, Henry III. granted permission to the Dean and Chapter of 

 Lichfield to get stone for building their church out of the forest of 

 Hopwas. There is no record of the time employed in the erection 

 of this fabric, but it must have been several years. Indeed, from the 

 obscurity of Monkish historians, who were then the annalists of the 

 age, there is no certain account in existence by which we might learn 

 when and by whom the present beautiful edifice was erected. It 



* Fuller's Church History, Book II. p. 104. 



