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Lichfield History

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John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales - 1870-2

LICHFIELD
History from 1872 Gazetteer

Lichfield probably sprang, in some way, from the Roman station Etocetum, which stood at the intersection of Icknield-street and Watling-street. The name is Saxon; was anciently written Licedfeld, Licethfeld, and Lichfeld; and has been derived, by some, from lych, "a marsh," with allusion to the marshy character of its site, by others, from lych, "a dead body," or "the dead," with allusion to a tradition that a great battle was fought on "a field" here by three kings, who slew one another on the spot. Another tradition alleges that the town existed in the Roman times; that it was the scene of a slaughter of Christians during the Diocletian persecution in 286; and that it took its name of "the field of the dead" from that slaughter.

It probably was no more than a small village in the time of Oswy, king of Northumbria. That monarch, about 656, having defeated and slain Penda, the heathen king of Mercia, introduced Christianity among his subjects, and made Lichfield the seat of a bishopric. Chad, a zealous ecclesiastic, afterwards canonized, was made bishop in 669; and he greatly propagated Christianity among the people, and raised Lichfield to the condition of a considerable town. Offa, king of Mercia, about 790, obtained from the Pope a decree for dividing the province of Canterbury, and making the see of Lichfield archiepiscopal; but, after Offa's death, that decree became obsolete.

Lichfield did not flourish well even as a simple see; and, at the time of the Norman conquest, had sunk to small importance. The bishopric, therefore, was transferred from it, in 1075, to Chester; whence, in 1102, it was removed to Coventry. Roger de Clinton, being appointed bishop in 1129, i.e.constituted the bishopric of Lichfield, rebuilt its cathedral, and assumed the title of Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. His successors, till the time of Charles II., continued to wear that title; the successors thence till 1836, were styled Bishops of Lichfield and Coventry; and the subsequent successors are styled simply Bishops of Lichfield. De Clinton, besides rebuilding the cathedral, founded a priory, and erected a strong castle or magnificent tower; and the castle became the prison of Richard II., on his way to the Tower of London.

The town had a mint in the time of Stephen; it was burnt in 1291; it was ravaged by the plague in 1593; and it was taken by the parliamentarians in 1643, retaken by Prince Rupert, and given back to the parliamentarians in 1646. Richard II. kept Christmas in it in 1397, two years before being a prisoner in its castle; Queen Elizabeth visited it in 1575; James I. visited it in 1624; Charles I. lodged in it three times in 1643; and the Princess Victoria visited it in 1832. William de Lichfield a learned monk, Whittington a scholar, Butt and Buckeridge the theologians, Camden's father, Dr. Thomas Newton, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Ashmole, Smallridge, Major André, and Dilke the dramatist, were natives; Dr. Darwin, the author of "Zoonomia," and other works, lived in Baron-street, and practised here as a physician; and the Boniface of Farquhar's "Beaux Stratagem" kept the George inn in 1707. The city gives the title of Earl to the family of Anson.

[Description(s) from The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72) - Transcribed by Mike Harbach ©2020]