St Chad

It is not clear whether the long-lost chapel of St Chad had a parish or not. Chad of Mercia (died 2 March 672) was a prominent 7th-century Anglo-Saxon Catholic monk who became abbot of several monasteries, Bishop of the Northumbrians and subsequently Bishop of the Mercians and Lindsey People. He was later canonised as a saint.

Church in Chester
St. Chad's existed by c. 1250. It lay in the area in the north-west of the city known as the Crofts and its status is uncertain but may once have been parochial. By 1318 St. John's had appropriated it. The church was mentioned in the late 14th century and c. 1500, but had probably disappeared by the 1530s. Certainly no curate was associated with it in the 1540s. By the early 17th century the exact site of the church had been forgotten, although the church is said by Hanshall to have been located at the bottom of Princess Street, on the North side. It is last recorded as standing during the reign of Henry VII.

Farndon/Holt
Every July the villagers at Farndon parade to St Chad’s Church for their Rush Bearing Celebrations. Before churches had paved floors, rushes were strewn to keep the earth floors sweet and it was common to make a special occasion from their annual renewal. Few such customs survive and the ones which do are mainly in North-West England. At Farndon the special service in the church is preceded by a procession involving the local schoolchildren, their Rushbearer and Rose Queen and the Farndon and District Brass Band, and flowers and rushes are used to decorate the church and graveyard. It is thought that some portions of the church date back to Sir Patrick de Bartun, a knight of King Edward III, whose effigy lies in the nave. The Church was damaged during the English Civil War and later repaired. The church contains a unique Civil War memorial window, and features an image thought to be that of William Lawes, the famous court musician, who was slain at the battle of Rowton Heath. The church tower still shows signs of Civil War musket ball damage.

Life
Most of our knowledge of Chad comes from the writings of the Venerable Bede (672/3 – 26 May 735) who had gathered information from at least one who knew him personally. It is reasonable to suppose that Chad and his three brothers (all of whom were involved with the church) were drawn from the Northumbrian nobility. They certainly had close connections throughout the Northumbrian ruling class. However, the name Chad is actually of British Celtic, rather than Anglo-Saxon origin. It is an element found in the personal names of many Welsh princes and nobles of the period and signifies "battle". The only major fact that Bede gives about Chad's early life is that he was a student of Aidan at the Celtic monastery at Lindisfarne. Chad traveled to Ireland as a monk, before he was ordained a priest.

Bede gives great prominence to the Synod of Whitby in 663/4, which he portrays as resolving the main issues of practice in the Northumbrian Church in favour of Roman practice. Cedd (Chad's brother) is shown acting as the main go-between in the synod because of his facility with all of the relevant languages. Unfortunately, the synod may have helped to spread the plague within the church, killing many including Chad's brother Cedd (d. 26 October 664). Cedd was not the only prominent churchman to die of plague shortly after the synod. This was one of several outbreaks of the plague; they badly hit the ranks of the Church leadership, with most of the bishops in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms dead, including the archbishop of Canterbury. The plague had a direct role in the rise of Wilfrid of Ripon to Bishop of York.

In AD 669, Bishop Jaruman of Mercia died and King Wulfhere of Mercia (the father of Werburgh) asked Archbishop Theodore to send his people a new Christian leader. The primate did not wish to consecrate a fresh bishop, so he persuaded King Oswiu to release Chad from the Abbacy of Lastingham to be the new Mercian Bishop, whose seat was then at Repton. Chad did not stay long at Repton, but removed the centre of the Mercian See to Lichfield in Staffordshire. King Wulfhere gave him the land of fifty families upon which to build a monastery

Related Pages

 * Farndon;
 * Werburgh;
 * St Johns;

Online

 * Hanshall on Chad;