The Churches of Coventry | Page 2

monastery, with its leisured
chroniclers ever patiently recording the annals of their house, the
doings of its abbots, the dealings of their house with mother church and
the outside world, and all its internal life and affairs. In the case of

Coventry, the unusual fulness of its city archives, the accounts and
records of its guilds and companies, and the close connection of these
with the church supplies us with a larger body of information than is
often at the disposal of the historian of a parish church. As therefore, in
narrating the story of a cathedral some account of the Diocese and its
Bishops has been given, so, before describing the churches of Coventry,
we shall give in outline the history of the city which for 700 years gave
its name to a bishop and of the great monastery whose church was for
400 years his seat.
Though Dugdale says that it is remarkable for antiquity, Coventry as a
city has no early history comparable with that of such places as York,
Canterbury, Exeter, or Colchester, while its modern history is mainly a
record of fluctuating trade and the rise and decline of new industries.
But through all its Mediaeval period, from the eleventh century down
to the 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