Bishop_of_Lichfield_and_Coventry

Bishop of Lichfield

Bishop of Lichfield

Diocesan bishop in the Church of England

The Bishop of Lichfield is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lichfield in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers 4,516 km2 (1,744 sq. mi.) of the counties of Powys, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and West Midlands. The bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Chad in the city of Lichfield. The Bishop's residence is the Bishop's House, Lichfield,[1] in the cathedral close. In the past, the title has had various forms (see below). The current bishop is Michael Ipgrave, following the confirmation of his election on 10 June 2016.[2]

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History

The Anglo-Saxon dioceses before 925

The diocese of Mercia was founded 656 with Diuma as its first bishop; according to Bede he was at the same time the Bishop of Lindisfarne and of the Middle Angles, amongst whom he died. When Chad was made Bishop in 669, his seat was at Lichfield, thus the diocese was named after that city. In 691 the area over which the bishop held authority was divided to form the smaller dioceses of Lichfield, Leicester, Lindsey, Worcester and Hereford.

It was briefly the seat of an archbishop under Hygeberht from 787 to 799 (officially dissolved in 803) during the ascendancy of the kingdom of Mercia. Offa, King of Mercia seemed to resent his own bishops paying allegiance to the Archbishop of Canterbury in Kent who, whilst under Offa's control, was not of his own kingdom of Mercia. Offa therefore created his own archbishopric in Lichfield, who presided over all the bishops from the Humber to the Thames, in 786, with the consent of Pope Adrian I. The Pope's official representatives were received warmly by Offa and were present at the Council of Chelsea (787), often called 'the contentious synod', where it was proposed that the Archbishopric of Canterbury be restricted in order to make way for Offa's new archbishop. It was vehemently opposed, but Offa and the papal representatives defeated Jænberht, Archbishop of Canterbury, installing Hygeberht as the new Archbishop of Lichfield. Pope Adrian sent Hygeberht his ceremonial garment, obviously denoting his support for this move. In gratitude, Offa promised to send an annual shipment of gold to the pope for alms and supplying the lights in St. Peter's church in Rome. However the Archbishopric of Lichfield only lasted for 16 years, ending after Offa's death, when at the Fifth Council of Clovesho it was restored to Æthelhard, Archbishop of Canterbury, by Pope Leo III.

The bishop's seat was briefly moved to Chester in 1075, but by 1102 was in Coventry. From 1228 Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield became the official title with seats at both cathedrals, though various older names remained in common usage.

After the Reformation of the 1530s the cathedral at Coventry was demolished, and after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 the bishop used the style Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. In 1837 the ancient bishopric was divided. The archdeaconry of Coventry (comprising northern and eastern Warwickshire) was transferred to the see of Worcester and the style Bishop of Lichfield adopted.

List of bishops

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Assistant bishops

Among those called Assistant Bishop of Lichfield, or coadjutor bishop, were:

Notes

  1. [1]
    "Michael Geoffrey Ipgrave". Crockford's Clerical Directory (online ed.). Church House Publishing. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
  2. [2]
    OurCofE twitter (Accessed 11 June 2016)
  3. [3]
    Plant, David (2002). "Episcopalians". BCW Project. Retrieved 25 April 2021.
  4. [4]
    King, Peter (July 1968). "The Episcopate during the Civil Wars, 1642-1649". The English Historical Review. 83 (328). Oxford University Press: 523–537. doi:10.1093/ehr/lxxxiii.cccxxviii.523. JSTOR 564164.
  5. [5]
    "No. 19460". The London Gazette. 24 January 1837. pp. 167–170.
  6. [6]
    Diocese of Lichfield – "40 years seem a good stint" Archived 8 March 2015 at archive.today (Accessed 2 March 2015)
  7. [7]
    Diocese of Lichfield — the Bishop of Lichfield Archived 19 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine (Accessed 18 November 2015)
  8. [8]
    "Hobhouse, Edmund (HBHS858E)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  9. [9]
    "Abraham, Charles John (ABRN833CJ)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  10. [10]
    "Bromby, Charles Henry (BRMY833CH)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.

References

  • Beresford, W. (n.d.). Diocesan Histories: Lichfield. London: SPCK
  • Cahill, M. (2001). The diocese of Coventry and Lichfield 1603–1642. PhD dissertation. University of Warwick.
  • Cooper, T. N. (1994). Oligarchy and conflict : Lichfield Cathedral clergy in the early sixteenth century in 'Midland History', 19, 40–57.
  • Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third Edition, revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 219. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.
  • Haydn, Joseph. (1894). Haydn's Book of Dignities (1894). Horace Ockerby.
  • Stenton, Frank M. (1971) Anglo-Saxon England (Third Edition). Oxford University Press
  • Whittaker, James. (2004). Whitaker's Almanack 1883 to 2004. A & C Black, London.
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