Pope Stephen IV
Pope Stephen IV was Pope from June 816 to his death in 817. The son of a Roman noble called Marinus, Stephen IV belonged to the family which produced the Popes Sergius II. Very popular among the Roman people, within ten days of Leo III’s death, he was escorted to Saint Peter’s Basilica and it has been conjectured that his rapid election was an attempt by the Roman clergy to ensure that the Roman emperor could not interfere in the election. With Louis’ invitation, Stephen left Rome in August 816, crossing the Alps together with Bernard, the King of the Lombards, in early October, the Pope and Emperor met at Rheims, where Louis prostrated himself three times before Stephen. At Mass on Sunday,5 October 816, Stephen consecrated and anointed Louis as emperor, at the same time he crowned Louis’ wife Ermengarde of Hesbaye, and saluted her as Augusta. This event has seen as an attempt by the Papacy to establish a role in the creation of an emperor. While with Louis, the emperor gave Stephen a number of presents and they renewed the pact between the Popes and the kings of the Franks, confirming the privileges of the Roman church, and the continued existence of the recently emerged Papal States.
It is believed that Stephen asked Louis to enforce reforms for the clergy who lived under the Rule of Chrodegang. This included ensuring that the men and women who lived there were to stay in separate convents, and he regulated how much food and wine they could consume. After visiting Ravenna on his way back from Rheims, Stephen returned to Rome before the end of November 816, here, he apparently discontinued Leo III’s policies of favouring clergy over lay aristocracy. He was buried at St. Peter’s, and was succeeded by Pope Paschal I, at some point, Stephen was canonized as a saint of the Catholic Church. List of Catholic saints List of popes Duffy, Eamon and Sinners, A History of the Popes, Yale University Press Mann, Horace K. The Lives of the Popes in the Early Middle Ages, Vol. II, The Popes During the Carolingian Empire, 795–858 Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Stephen
Franks
Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In times, Franks became the rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, the kingdom was acknowledged by the Romans after 357 CE. Following the collapse of Rome in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians, who succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, which greatly increased their power. The Merovingian dynasty, descendants of the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies that would absorb large parts of the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, the term Frank was used in the east as a synonym for western European, as the Franks were rulers of most of Western Europe.
The Franks in the east kept their Germanic language and became part of the Germans, Flemings, the Franconian languages, which are called Frankisch in Dutch or Fränkisch in German, originated at least partly in the Old Frankish language of the Franks. Nowadays, the German and Dutch names for France are Frankreich and Frankrijk, the name Franci was originally socio-political. To the Romans and Suebi, the Franks must have seemed alike, they looked the same and spoke the same language, so that Franci became the name by which the people were known. Within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the tribes, though the older names have survived in some place-names, such as Hesse. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English and it has been suggested that the meaning of free was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation. It is traditionally assumed that Frank comes from the Germanic word for javelin, there is another theory that suggests that Frank comes from the Latin word francisca meaning.
Words in other Germanic languages meaning fierce, bold or insolent, eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures, Ubi nunc est illa ferocia. Feroces was used often to describe the Franks, contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. According to their law and their custom, writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that the word Frankish quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest. Two early sources describe the origin of the Franks are a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar. Neither of these works are accepted by historians as trustworthy, compared with Gregory of Tourss Historia Francorum, the chronicle describes Priam as a Frankish king whose people migrated to Macedonia after the fall of Troy
Irene of Athens
Irene of Athens, known as Irene Sarantapechaina, was Byzantine empress from 797 to 802. Before that, Irene was empress consort from 775 to 780 and she is best known for ending Iconoclasm. Irene was related to the noble Greek Sarantapechos family of Athens, although she was an orphan, her uncle or cousin Constantine Sarantapechos was a patrician and was possibly strategos of the theme of Hellas at the end of the 8th century. She was brought to Constantinople by Emperor Constantine V on 1 November 768 and was married to his son Leo IV on 17 December, on 14 January 771, Irene gave birth to a son, the future Constantine VI. When Constantine V died in September 775, Leo succeeded to the throne at the age of twenty-five years. Leo, though an iconoclast, pursued a policy of moderation towards iconodules, but his policies became much harsher in August 780, according to tradition, he discovered icons concealed among Irenes possessions and refused to share the marriage bed with her thereafter. Nevertheless, when Leo died on 8 September 780, Irene became regent for their nine-year-old son Constantine, Irene was almost immediately confronted with a conspiracy that tried to raise Caesar Nikephoros, a half-brother of Leo IV, to the throne.
To overcome this challenge, she had Nikephoros and his co-conspirators ordained as priests, as early as 781, Irene began to seek a closer relationship with the Carolingian dynasty and the Papacy in Rome. She negotiated a marriage between her son Constantine and Rotrude, a daughter of Charlemagne by his third wife Hildegard, during this time Charlemagne was at war with the Saxons, and would become the new king of the Franks. Irene went as far as to send an official to instruct the Frankish princess in Greek, Irene herself broke off the engagement in 787, Irene next had to subdue a rebellion led by Elpidius, the strategos of Sicily. Irene sent a fleet, which succeeded in defeating the Sicilians, Elpidius fled to Africa, where he defected to the Abbasid Caliphate. After the success of Constantine Vs general, Michael Lachanodrakon, who foiled an Abbasid attack on the eastern frontiers, Irenes most notable act was the restoration of the veneration of icons. Having chosen Tarasios, one of her partisans and her secretary, as Patriarch of Constantinople in 784.
The first of these, held in 786 at Constantinople, was frustrated by the opposition of the iconoclast soldiers, the second, convened at Nicaea in 787, formally revived the veneration of icons and reunited the Eastern church with that of Rome. While this greatly improved relations with the Papacy, it did not prevent the outbreak of a war with the Franks, Irene was constantly harried by the Abbasids, and in 782 and 798 had to accept the terms of the respective Caliphs Al-Mahdi and Harun al-Rashid. As Constantine approached maturity he began to grow restless under her autocratic sway, an attempt to free himself by force was met and crushed by the Empress, who demanded that the oath of fidelity should thenceforward be taken in her name alone. The discontent which this occasioned swelled in 790 into open resistance, Constantine could only flee for aid to the provinces, but even there participants in the plot surrounded him. Seized by his attendants on the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus and his eyes were gouged out, and he died from his wounds several days later
Einhard
Einhard was a Frankish scholar and courtier. Einhard was from the eastern German-speaking part of the Frankish Kingdom and he was accepted into the hugely wealthy court of Charlemagne around 791 or 792. Charlemagne actively sought to amass scholarly men around him and established a school led by the Northumbrian scholar Alcuin. Einhard evidently was a builder and construction manager, because Charlemagne put him in charge of the completion of several palace complexes including Aachen. Despite the fact that Einhard was on terms with Charlemagne. In 814, on Charlemagnes death his son Louis the Pious made Einhard his private secretary, Einhard retired from court during the time of the disputes between Louis and his sons in the spring of 830. He died at Seligenstadt in 840, Einhard was married to Emma, of whom little is known. There is a possibility that their marriage bore a son and their marriage appears to have been exceptionally liberal for the period, with Emma being as active as Einhard, if not more so, in the handling of their property.
It is said that in the years of their marriage Emma and Einhard abstained from sexual relations. Einhard made numerous references to himself as a sinner, a description of himself that shows his Augustinian influenced world view, to assuage such feelings of guilt he erected churches at both of his estates in Michelstadt and Mulinheim. In Michelstadt he saw fit to build a basilica completed in 827 and sent a servant, once in Rome, Ratleic robbed a catacomb of the bones of the Martyrs Marcellinus and Peter and had them translated to Michelstadt. Once there, the relics made it known they were unhappy with their new tomb, once established there, they proved to be miracle workers. Although unsure as to why these saints should choose such a sinner as their patron, between 831 and 834 he founded a Benedictine Monastery and, after the death of his wife, served as its Abbot until his own death in 840. Local lore from Seligenstadt portrays Einhard as the lover of Emma, one of Charlemagnes daughters, Charlemagne found them at Seligenstadt and forgave them.
This account is used to explain the name Seligenstadt by folk etymology, the count put it in the famous chapel of his castle at Erbach in the Odenwald. In composing this he relied heavily upon the Royal Frankish Annals and his work was written as a praise of Charlemagne, whom he regarded as a foster-father and to whom he was a debtor in life and death. Einhard is responsible for three other extant works, a collection of letters, On the Translations and the Miracles of SS, Marcellinus and Petrus, and On the Adoration of the Cross. Royal Frankish Annals Der hessische Spessart, neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde
Carolingian Renaissance
During this period, there was an increase of literature, the arts, jurisprudence, liturgical reforms, and scriptural studies. The Carolingian Renaissance occurred mostly during the reigns of Carolingian rulers Charlemagne and it was supported by the scholars of the Carolingian court, notably Alcuin of York. Charlemagnes Admonitio generalis and Epistola de litteris colendis served as manifestos, the effects of this cultural revival were mostly limited to a small group of court literati. They applied rational ideas to social issues for the first time in centuries, providing a common language, kenneth Clark was of the view that by means of the Carolingian Renaissance, Western civilization survived by the skin of its teeth. Instead of being a rebirth of new movements, the period was more an attempt to recreate the previous culture of the Roman Empire. In its earlier state of barbarousness, his kingdom had been touched at all by any such zeal. In our own time the thirst for knowledge is disappearing again, of even greater concern to some rulers was the fact that not all parish priests possessed the skill to read the Vulgate Bible.
To address these problems, Charlemagne ordered the creation of schools in a known as the Charter of Modern Thought. A major part of his program of reform was to many of the leading scholars of the Christiandom of his day to his court. The Lombard Paul the Deacon was brought to court in 782 and remained until 787, theodulf of Orléans was a Spanish Goth who served at court from 782 to 797 when nominated as bishop of Orléans. Theodulf had been in competition over the standardization of the Vulgate with the chief among the Charlemagnes scholars. Alcuin was a Northumbrian monk and deacon who served as head of the Palace School from 782 to 796, after 796, he continued his scholarly work as abbot of St. Martins Monastery in Tours. Among those to follow Alcuin across the Channel to the Frankish court was Joseph Scottus, after this first generation of non-Frankish scholars, their Frankish pupils, such as Angilbert, would make their own mark. The courts of Louis the Pious and Charles the Bald had similar groups of scholars, the Irish monk Dicuil attended the former court, and the more famous Irishman John Scotus Eriugena attended the latter.
One of the efforts was the creation of a standardized curriculum for use at the recently created schools. Alcuin led this effort and was responsible for the writing of textbooks, creation of word lists, another contribution from this period was the development of Carolingian minuscule, a book-hand first used at the monasteries of Corbie and Tours that introduced the use of lower case letters. A standardized version of Latin was developed that allowed for the coining of new words while retaining the grammatical rules of Classical Latin and this Medieval Latin became a common language of scholarship and allowed administrators and travelers to make themselves understood in various regions of Europe. Carolingian art spans the roughly hundred-year period from about 800–900, although brief, it was an influential period
Paderborn
Paderborn is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and born, the river Pader originates in more than 200 springs near Paderborn Cathedral, where St. Liborius is buried. Paderborn was founded as a bishopric by Charlemagne in 795, although its history began in 777 when Charlemagne built a castle near the Pader springs. In 799 Pope Leo III fled his enemies in Rome and reached Paderborn, where he met Charlemagne and it was during this time that it was decided that Charlemagne would be crowned emperor. Charlemagne reinstated Leo in Rome in 800 and was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by Leo in return, in 836, St. Liborius became the patron saint of Paderborn after his bones were moved there from Le Mans by Bishop Badurad. St. Liborius is commemorated in Paderborn every year in July with the Liborifest, the bishop of Paderborn, became a Prince of the Empire in 1100. The bishop had several buildings built, and the area became a place for the emperors to stay.
The city was taken by Prussia in 1802, by the French vassal state Kingdom of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813, native Friedrich Sertürner, a pharmacists apprentice in Paderborn, was the first to isolate morphine from opium in 1804. In 1930, the See of Paderborn was promoted to archdiocese, during World War II, Paderborn was bombed by Allied aircraft in 1944 and 1945, resulting in 85% destruction, including many of the historic buildings. After the city was reconstructed in the 1940s and 1950s, Paderborn became an industrial seat in Westphalia. The British Army has retained a significant presence in the area, Paderborn is situated at the spring of the Pader river, approximately 30 kilometres east of Lippstadt and approximately 50 kilometres south of Bielefeld on the Pader river. The hills of the Eggegebirge are located east of the city, the city of Paderborn consists of the following Stadtteile, Paderborn has a population of over 144,000, of which approximately 10% are students at the local university.
Additionally, about 10,000 members or relatives of members of the British armed forces live within Westfalen Garrison, 60% of the population are Catholics, 20% Lutherans and 20% other. Paderborn is the headquarters of the former Nixdorf Computer AG, which was acquired by Siemens in the early 1990s, the company is now known as Wincor Nixdorf which is still located in Paderborn, but Siemens retains a considerable presence in the city. Paderborn has the largest computer museum in the world, the de, from 2001 to 2005 it hosted the RoboCup German Open. The town supports the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie for regular symphony concerts in the Paderhalle, the city is known today for its exhibitions in three museums, the Kaiserpfalz, The Diocesian Museum and the Art Museum - Städtische Galerie. The local baseball team, the Paderborn Untouchables, has won many German championships, and the local American Football team, in 2006 the Paderborn Baskets, the home basketball team of the city achieved the Bundesliga.
The Paderborn Baskets played in the playoffs of the 2008-09 German basketball league, SC Paderborn 07 is a German football club based in Paderborn
Alcuin
Alcuin of York —also called Ealhwine, Alhwin or Alchoin—was an English scholar, clergy and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York, at the invitation of Charlemagne, he became a leading scholar and teacher at the Carolingian court, where he remained a figure in the 780s and 90s. Alcuin wrote many theological and dogmatic treatises, as well as a few grammatical works and he was made Abbot of Tours in 796, where he remained until his death. The most learned man anywhere to be found, according to Einhards Life of Charlemagne, among his pupils were many of the dominant intellectuals of the Carolingian era. Alcuin was born in Northumbria, presumably sometime in the 730s, virtually nothing is known of his parents, family background, or origin. In common hagiographical fashion, the Vita Alcuini asserts that Alcuin was of noble English stock, and this statement has usually been accepted by scholars. Alcuins own work only mentions such collateral kinsmen as Wilgils, father of the missionary saint Willibrord, and Beornred, abbot of Echternach and bishop of Sens, if so, Alcuins origins may lie in the southern part of what was formerly known as Deira.
The young Alcuin came to the church of York during the golden age of Archbishop Ecgbert and his brother. Ecgbert had been a disciple of the Venerable Bede, who urged him to raise York to an archbishopric, Ecgbert was devoted to Alcuin, who thrived under his tutelage. The York school was renowned as a centre of learning in the arts, literature. It was from here that Alcuin drew inspiration for the school he would lead at the Frankish court and he revived the school with the trivium and quadrivium disciplines, writing a codex on the trivium, while his student Hraban wrote one on the quadrivium. Alcuin graduated to become a teacher during the 750s and his ascendancy to the headship of the York school, the ancestor of St Peters School, began after Aelbert became Archbishop of York in 767. Around the same time Alcuin became a deacon in the church and he was never ordained as a priest and there is no real evidence that he became an actual monk, but he lived his life as one. In 781, King Elfwald sent Alcuin to Rome to petition the Pope for official confirmation of Yorks status as an archbishopric and to confirm the election of the new archbishop, on his way home he met Charlemagne, this time in the Italian city of Parma.
Alcuins intellectual curiosity allowed him to be persuaded to join Charlemagnes court. He joined a group of scholars that Charlemagne had gathered around him, the mainsprings of the Carolingian Renaissance, Peter of Pisa, Paulinus of Aquileia, Rado. Alcuin would write that the Lord was calling me to the service of King Charles, Alcuin became Master of the Palace School of Charlemagne in Aachen in 782. It had been founded by the ancestors as a place for the education of the royal children
Pope Leo I
Pope Saint Leo I, known as Saint Leo the Great, was pope from 29 September 440 to his death in 461. He was a Roman aristocrat, and was the first pope to have called the Great. He is perhaps best known for having met Attila the Hun in 452 and he is a Doctor of the Church, most remembered theologically for issuing the Tome of Leo, a document which was a major foundation to the debates of the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. It was followed by a major schism associated with Monophysitism and Dyophysitism, according to the Liber Pontificalis, he was a native of Tuscany. About the same time John Cassian dedicated to him the treatise against Nestorius written at his request and these two men were the two highest officials in Gaul. Leos work helped to solidify political and religious unity in his area of the Roman Empire, during his absence on this mission, Pope Sixtus III died, and Leo was unanimously elected by the people to succeed him. On 29 September, he entered upon a pontificate that was to be epoch-making for the centralisation of the government of the Roman Church, Leo defends the true divinity and the true humanity of the one Christ against heretical one-sidedness.
He takes up this topic in many of his sermons, to Leo the Great, Mariology is determined by Christology. If Christ were divine only, everything about him would be divine, only his divinity would have been crucified and resurrected. Mary would only be the mother of God, and Christians would have no hope for their own resurrection, the nucleus of Christianity would be destroyed. The most unusual beginning of a human life through her was to give birth to Jesus. Leo contributed to the development of the doctrine on papal primacy, based on his devotion to St Peter and on the veneration for the Apostle. Besides recourse to biblical language, Leo describes his own relationship with St Peter in terms derived from Roman law. He calls himself the heir and deputy of Peter, having received his apostolic authority and being obliged to follow his example. On the one hand, Peter stands before him with a claim on how Leo is to exercise his office, on the hand, Leo, as the Roman bishop, represents the Apostle.
Christ, always comes out as the source of all grace and authority, Peter is indeed the example for Leos relationship to Christ. Leo was a significant contributor to the centralisation of authority within the Church. The bishop of Rome had gradually become viewed as the patriarch in the Western church
Coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Empresses were crowned as well. Thereafter, until the abolition of the empire in 1806, no further crownings by the Pope were held, successors of Charlemagne were crowned in Rome for several centuries, where they received the imperial crown in St. Peters from the pope. The Iron Crown of Lombardy was conferred in the Church of St, once a candidate was selected, the new emperor was led to the high altar of the cathedral and seated. He was conducted to a gallery over the entrance to the choir, the coronation itself took place on a subsequent day. These three Archbishop-Electors meet the Emperor-elect at the entrance of the church and the Archbishop of Cologne says the prayer, everlasting God, your servant. etc. Then the choir sings the antiphon, the angels sent forth. etc. as the Emperor-elect, the Archbishop of Cologne said the prayers, who knows the human race. etc. and Almighty and everlasting God of heaven and earth. etc. The Mass is begun, the propers being those of the Feast of the Epiphany, after the opening collect, the collect for the Feast of St.
Michael. After the sequence is sung the Litany of the Saints and the Archbishop of Cologne puts six questions to the Emperor-elect,1, will he defend the holy faith. Will he defend the holy church, will he maintain the laws of the Empire. Will he show due submission to the Pope, to each of these he responds, I will. The Emperor-elect lays two fingers on the altar and swears, the Recognition followed and when the Emperor-elect is presented and asked if those assembled accepted him as their king, they respond, Let it be done three times. The Archbishop of Cologne said the prayers, Lord, amen. etc. and on the palms of both hands. He was vested in the robes, which included buskins, a long alb, a dalmatic, stole crossed priest-wise over the breast, gloves. The sword was given the German king with the words, Receive this sword at the hands of us bishops. etc, the ring was given him with the words, Receive this ring of royal dignity. etc. The sceptre and orb are both given to the king with the words, Receive this rod of virtue and equity.
etc, finally the crown was set on his head conjointly by the three archbishop-electors with the words, Receive this royal crown. etc. The Oath was taken again, this time in the form in both Latin and German, I promise and pledge in the sight of God. etc. The responsory, My soul is longing. etc. and the king is enthroned with the words, Stand fast, at the coronation of Charles V the Archbishop-Elector of Mainz preached a homily at this point. The coronation of the queen consort followed and was conducted jointedly by the Archbishop-Electors of Mainz, the Te Deum was sung during which Charles V dubbed a number of knights with the imperial sword, although at subsequent coronations this took place after the Coronation proper
Pope
The pope is the Bishop of Rome and, the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, the office of the pope is the papacy. The pope is considered one of the worlds most powerful people because of his diplomatic and he is head of state of Vatican City, a sovereign city-state entirely enclaved within the Italian capital city of Rome. The papacy is one of the most enduring institutions in the world and has had a prominent part in world history, the popes in ancient times helped in the spread of Christianity and the resolution of various doctrinal disputes. In the Middle Ages, they played a role of importance in Western Europe. Currently, in addition to the expansion of the Christian faith and doctrine, the popes are involved in ecumenism and interfaith dialogue, charitable work, who originally had no temporal powers, in some periods of history accrued wide powers similar to those of temporal rulers. In recent centuries, popes were gradually forced to give up temporal power, the word pope derives from Greek πάππας meaning father.
The earliest record of the use of title was in regard to the by deceased Patriarch of Alexandria. Some historians have argued that the notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome, the writings of the Church Father Irenaeus who wrote around AD180 reflect a belief that Peter founded and organised the Church at Rome. Moreover, Irenaeus was not the first to write of Peters presence in the early Roman Church, Clement of Rome wrote in a letter to the Corinthians, c. 96, about the persecution of Christians in Rome as the struggles in our time and presented to the Corinthians its heroes, the greatest and most just columns, the good apostles Peter and Paul. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote shortly after Clement and in his letter from the city of Smyrna to the Romans he said he would not command them as Peter and Paul did. Given this and other evidence, many agree that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero. Protestants contend that the New Testament offers no proof that Jesus established the papacy nor even that he established Peter as the first bishop of Rome, using Peters own words, argue that Christ intended himself as the foundation of the church and not Peter.
First-century Christian communities would have had a group of presbyter-bishops functioning as leaders of their local churches, episcopacies were established in metropolitan areas. Antioch may have developed such a structure before Rome, some writers claim that the emergence of a single bishop in Rome probably did not occur until the middle of the 2nd century. In their view, Linus and Clement were possibly prominent presbyter-bishops, documents of the 1st century and early 2nd century indicate that the Holy See had some kind of pre-eminence and prominence in the Church as a whole, though the detail of what this meant is unclear. It seems that at first the terms episcopos and presbyter were used interchangeably, the consensus among scholars has been that, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd centuries, local congregations were led by bishops and presbyters whose offices were overlapping or indistinguishable
Bishop of Lichfield
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 of the counties of Powys, Shropshire, the bishops seat is located in the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Chad in the city of Lichfield. The Bishops residence is Bishops House, Lichfield, in the past, the title has had various forms. The currently bishop is Michael Ipgrave, following the confirmation of his election on 10 June 2016, the diocese of Mercia was founded 656 by Diuma with its see at Repton. When Chad was made Bishop in 669, he moved his seat to Lichfield, in 691 the area over which the bishop held authority was divided to form the smaller dioceses of Lichfield, Lindsey and Hereford. It was briefly the seat of an archbishop under Hygeberht from 787 to 799 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 Offas 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 and 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. Peters church in Rome. The bishops seat was moved to Chester in 1075. From 1228 Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield became the 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, in 1837 the ancient bishopric was divided. The archdeaconry of Coventry was transferred to the see of Worcester, the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield 1603–1642. Oligarchy and conflict, Lichfield Cathedral clergy in the sixteenth century in Midland History,19.
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