Lichfield and the Lands of St Chad: Creating Community in Early Medieval Mercia, by Andrew Sargent

Abstract

Andrew Sargent’s doctoral research on the ecclesiastical landscape of the early medieval Lichfield episcopate presents a stimulating set of arguments, frequently takes trenchant issue with established approaches, offers new interpretations, and is enthusiastic in thinking about further, unexplored implications. The general definition of ‘community’ he adopts is ‘groups of people who formed relationships mediated by specific forms of encounter’; his goal is to understand their workings through ‘the collective material practices through which they were created’ (p. 7). Over eight chapters, he pursues that objective by examining how bishops of Lichfield, between the ninth and eleventh centuries, used ceremony and custom to mediate their place, role and influence in communities of religious practice and among secular communities under their lordship. Much is stimulating and convincing. The argument is well made that Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury from 668 to 690, extended and unified the English episcopate and integrated religious leaders, especially the bishops, into the lay elite. His aim was the development of a commanding political influence for the church by instilling a common ‘English’ identity among the ‘chosen’ peoples (gentes) of the established kingdoms. The author’s reconstruction of a more detailed life of St Chad than was previously thought possible is a major achievement. It is based on careful, innovative use of evidence from Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica and from the life of St Wilfrid—and by drawing on Bede to reassemble what Dr Sargent believes was one of Bede’s principal sources: a history of Lastingham Abbey’s first two abbots, drawn up there in the late seventh or early eighth century.