The Pictorial History of Chester Cathedral [antikvár]

THE PICTORIAL HISTORY OFCHESTER CATHEDRALBy The Very Rev. G. W. 0. Addkshaw, M.A., B.D., F.S.A., Dean of ChesterThe story of Chester Cathedral begins in 907 with the fortification of Chester by Ethelfleda, the martial sister of Edward the Elder, king of Wessex, as a strong-point against the half-heathen Norse from Ireland who were settling in Wirral. Soon after 907 a church was founded on the site of the present cathedral. In the church were placed the relics of St. Werburgh brought from Hanbury in Staffordshire. St. Werburgh, who had died between 700 and 707, was the daughter of Wulfhere, king of Mercia. Like a great many other royal ladies of her time she became a nun and was placed by her father in charge of all the convents in Mercia. Up till 1092 the church of St. Werburgh was a minster staffed by a college of twelve clergymen, called canons, under a ctistos or warden. Each had their own house round the church. They were responsible for the daily services and guarded the relics of St. Werburgh. They were also parish priests, as St. Werburgh's was the parish church of an area embracing most of Chester and extending a good way into Wirral. Nothing is left of the Anglo-Saxon minster except two filled in doorways in the south-east corner of the cloister.In the reign of William Rufus, in 1092, Hugh Lupus, the second earl of Chester, wanted to turn St. Werburgh's into an abbey of Benedictine monks. He was a great friend of St. Anselm, the abbot of Bee in Normandy, and asked him over to England to advise him how to do it. St. Anselm came to Chester in September 1092, and at the time of his visit he was beginning to plan the greatest of his writings, that on the meaning of the Death of Christ, known by its Latin title, Cur Deus Homo. After making arrangements for the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon minster into a Benedictine abbey, he stayed on in England on business connected with the abbey of Bee. During his stay the dramatic events took place which led to him becoming Archbishop of Canterbury.From 1092 till 1540 the present cathedral was a Benedictine abbey in the diocese of Lichfield. The first abbot and monks came from Bee. In the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Anglo-Saxon church was replaced by the first abbey church which stretched from the present west end to just short of the present high altar. In the north-west corner of the nave where the font stands are the striking Continued on page 4The baptistery, made in 1885 out of the north-west corner of the early 12th-century nave. The font, given to the cathedral in 1885, came from Venice.facing page : The nave looking east.Page 3