One of the most marvellous features, perhaps, of the whole Cathedral is the impressive grandeur of its appearance to the traveller, approaching from any quarter, who sees this Island Hill capped by the mighty structure, soaring up, as it were, into the heavens, yet dominating by its protecting shadows the city round its base—the symbol most beautifully conceived of the affinity between earth and heaven, and truly the noblest form of monument of reverential design that the human brain could have possibly conceived.
Licefelle.
("Doomsday Book.")
ICHFIELD, the ancient cathedral city of Staffordshire, has the best existing type of the fourteenth-century English church. It is memorable also as the birthplace of Dr. Johnson. Through the generosity of Alderman Gilbert the Corporation has purchased the house in which Dr. Johnson was born, with his statue opposite it, and has opened it to the public, much in the same way as that of Shakespeare's at Stratford-on-Avon. Lichfield is about sixteen miles to the north of Birmingham, and lies in a fertile valley, on a small tributary of the Trent.
The Venerable Bede, in his accounts of this city, calls it Licidfeld, being supposed to mean "Field of the Dead." It appears that a large number of Christians, in the reign of Diocletian, was massacred just in the neighbourhood, and thus originated the name Lichfeld, now altered to Lichfield. The termination "feld" was clearly introduced from over the water, for it still exists in the Low Countries, and bears the same meaning. As to what connection exists between "licid" and "dead," we cannot clearly understand.
In 669 Lichfield became an episcopal see, over which St. Chad was the first bishop. He left behind him a work, in the form of his Gospels. For a short time, namely, in the reign of Offa, it was raised to the dignity of an archbishopric, but the Primacy was restored to Canterbury in 803. The See of Lichfield was, in 1075, transferred to Chester, and from there, a few years later, to Coventry. Eventually, in 1148, Lichfield recovered its see. In 1305 the town received a charter of incorporation, and has since returned members to Parliament. It was raised to the dignity of a city by Edward VI., 1549.
The original Norman Cathedral no longer exists. In its stead there is a beautiful structure of Early English style, dating either from the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century.