The Churches of Coventry - Frederic W. Woodhouse

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Reformation, with an expiring flicker of energy in the seventeenth, there is no lack of life and colour, and its story touches every side of the national life, political, religious, and domestic. The only evidence of extreme antiquity produced by Dugdale is the suffix of its name, for "tre is British, and signifieth the same that villa in Latin doth;" while the first part may be derived from the convent or from a supposed ancient name, Cune, for the Sherborne brook.

      The first date we have is 1016, when Canute invaded Mercia, burning and laying waste its towns and settlements, including a house of nuns at Coventry founded by the Virgin St. Osburg in 670, and ruled over by her.[1]

      But there is no sure starting-point until the foundation of the monastery by Earl Leofric and the Countess Godiva, the church being dedicated by Edsi, Archbishop of Canterbury, in honour of God, the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, St. Osburg, and All Saints on 4th October, 1043. Leofwin, who was first abbot with twenty-four monks under his rule, ten years after became Bishop of Lichfield. The original endowment by Leofric, consisted of a half of Coventry[2] with fifteen lordships in Warwickshire and nine in other counties, making it (says Roger de Hoveden) the wealthiest monastery of the period. Besides this the pious Godiva gave all the gold and silver which she had to make crosses, images, and other adornments for the church and its services. The well-known legend of her ride through Coventry first appears in the pages of Matthew of Westminster in the early fourteenth century. The Charter of Exemption from Tolls is not in existence, and the story of Peeping Tom is the embroidery of the prurient age (1678), in which the pageant was instituted. In a window of Trinity Church figures of Leofric and Godiva were set up about the time of Richard II, the Earl holding in his right hand a Charter with these words written thereon:

      I Luriche for the Love of thee

       Doe make Coventre Toll-free.

      Abbot Leofwin was succeeded in 1053 by Leofric, nephew of the great earl; and he by a second Leofwin, who died in 1095. The first Norman bishop of Lichfield had, in compliance with the decision of a Synod (1075) in London fixing bishops' seats in large towns, removed his to St. John's, Chester. But his successor, Robert de Lymesey—whose greed appears to have been notable in a greedy age—having the king's permission to farm the monastic revenues until the appointment of a new abbot, held it for seven years, and then, in 1102, removed his stool to Coventry. Five of his successors were bishops of Coventry only, then the style changed to Coventry and Lichfield, and so remained till 1661, when (in consequence of the disloyalty of Coventry and the sufferings of Lichfield in the royal cause) the order was reversed!

      In 1836 the archdeaconry of Coventry was annexed to Worcester and its name disappeared from the title, and now it is probable that Coventry will soon again give her name to a See without dividing the honour. For the joint episcopal history the reader must be referred to the handbook in this series on Lichfield Cathedral. In this place will only be given that of the Monastery as such, and specially in connection with its "appropriated" parish churches and the City in which it stood. That history is not essentially different from that of other monasteries. Though its connection with the See and the rival claims and antagonisms of the respective Chapters produced a plentiful crop of serious quarrels, its relations with the townsfolk were free from such violent episodes as occurred at Bury St. Edmunds or St. Albans. The Chapter of Lichfield consisted of secular priests (Lymesey and his next successor were married men), while the Monastery, though freed by pope and king from any episcopal or justiciary power and with the right of electing its own abbot, was, like all monastic bodies, always jealous of the encroachments of bishops, and regarded secular priests as inferior in every respect. The opinion of the laity who saw both sides may be gathered from Chaucer's picture of a "poore Persoun of a toun." He knew well enough how the revenue, which should have gone to the parish, its parson and its poor, went to fill the coffers of rich abbeys, to build enormous churches and furnish them sumptuously, to provide retinues of lazy knights for the train of abbot or bishop, and to prosecute lawsuits in the papal courts.

      But when bishop and abbot were one and the same, the monks still claimed the right of election, and so for generations the history of the diocese is a tale of strife and bickering, and how it was that pope, king or archbishop did not perceive that it was a case of hopeless incompatibility of temper, or, perceiving it, did not dissolve the union or get it dissolved is difficult to see. Probably the injury done to religion weighed but lightly against vested interests and the power of the purse. The Monastery was, however, as Dugdale says, "the chief occasion of all the succeeding wealth and honour that accrued to Coventry"; for though the original Nunnery may have been planted in an existing settlement, or have attracted one about it, the greater wealth of the Abbey, its right to hold markets, and all its own varied requirements would quickly increase and bring prosperity to such a township, as it did at Bury St. Edmunds, Burton-on-Trent and many another.

      In the thirteenth century the priory was in financial straits, through being fined by Henry III for disobedience. Later, however, he granted further privileges to the monks, among them that of embodying the merchants in a Gild. In 1340 Edward III granted this privilege to the City. From an early period the manufacture of cloth and caps and bonnets was the principal trade of Coventry, and though Leland says, "the town rose by making of cloth and caps, which now decaying, the glory of the City also decayeth," it was only destroyed by the French wars of the seventeenth century. But in 1377, when only eighteen towns in the kingdom had more than 3,000 inhabitants, and York, the second city, had only 11,000, Coventry was fourth with 7,000. Just one hundred years later 3,000 died here of the plague, one of many visitations of that terrible scourge. At the Suppression it had risen to 15,000, and soon after fell to 3,000, through loss of trade for "want of such concourse of people that numerously resorted thither before that fatal Dissolution."

      But if the town grew apace so did the Monastery. Thus, when in 1244 Earl Hugh died childless his sisters divided his estates and Coventry fell to Cecily, wife of Roger de Montalt. Six years later the Monastery lent him a large sum to take him to the Holy Land, and received from him the lordship of Coventry (excepting the Manor House and Park of Cheylesmore) and the advowson of St. Michael's and its dependent chapels, thus becoming the landlords of nearly the whole of Coventry.

      COOK STREET GATE.ToList

      Civic powers grew with the growth of trade. Before 1218 a fair of eight days had been granted to the Priory, and later another of six days, to be held in the earl's half of the town about the Feast of Holy Trinity. In 1285 a patent from the king is addressed to the burgesses and true men to levy tolls for paving the town; one in 1328 for tolls for inclosing the city with walls and gates, while in 1344 the city was given a corporation, with mayor, bailiffs, a common seal, and a prison. As the municipal importance and the dignity of the city increased, the desire for their visible signs strengthened, and so, in 1355, work was begun on the walls, Newgate (on the London Road) being the first gate to be built. Such undertakings proceeded slowly, and nine years later the royal permission was obtained to levy a tax for their construction, "the lands and goods of all ecclesiastical persons excepted."

      Twice afterwards we hear of licence being granted by Richard II to dig stone in Cheylesmore Park, first for Grey Friars Gate, and later for Spon Gate, "near his Chapel of Babelake." The walls so built were of imposing extent and dimensions, being three yards in breadth, two and a quarter miles in circumference, and having thirty-two towers and twelve gates.[3] Nehemiah Wharton, a Parliamentary officer in 1642, reports of the city that it is:

      Environed with a wall co-equal, if not exceedinge, that of London, for breadth and height; and with gates and battlements, magnificent churches and stately streets and abundant fountains of water; altogether a place very sweetly situate and where there is no stint of venison.

      To return to the monastic history. We have seen how, in the mid-thirteenth century the Monastery had become the landlord of the city; shortly before this it had been so impoverished with ceaseless quarrels with the King and the Lichfield Chapter, involving costly appeals to Rome, that the Prior was

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