Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Wednesday, 2 March 2011

St Chad and his relics


Today is the feast of St Chad, bishop of York and then of Lichfield, who died in 672. He is the patron of the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Birmingham and a secondary patron of the diocese.

There is a good account of his life here. His episcopal centre at Lichfield became his shrine church, and the present thirteenth and fourteenth century cathedral housed his relics until the reformation.

File:LichCathedral4.jpg

Lichfield Cathedral
Image:Wikipedia

Today they are enshrined above the High Altar in St Chad's Cathedral in Birmingham, seat of the Catholic Archbishop of the see, and the cathedral's website has a section on the survival of the relics.

File:St Chads Cathedral  Birmingham.jpg

St Chad's Cathedral in Birmingham
Designed by AW Pugin in 1840
Image:Wikipedia


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