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Coventry's earliest cathedral, dedicated to
St Mary, was founded as a Benedictine
community by Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his
wife Godiva in 1043. Built on the site of a
former religious house for nuns, its sheer
size is some indication of the wealth which
Coventry acquired in the middle ages. The
first cathedral in Coventry was St Mary's
Priory and Cathedral, which held such status
from a date between 1095 and 1102, when the
infamous Bishop Robert de Limesey moved the
Bishop's see from Lichfield to Coventry,
until 1539 when it fell victim to King Henry
VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries. Prior
to 1095, it had been a small Benedictine
monastery (endowed by Earl Leofric and Lady
Godiva in 1043), but shortly after this time
rebuilding began and by the middle of the
13th century it was a cathedral of 425 feet
in length and included many large
outbuildings. Leofric was probably buried
within the original Saxon church in Coventry.
However, records suggest that Godiva was
buried at Evesham Abbey, alongside her father
confessor, Prior Aefic.
In 1539, with the dissolution of the
monasteries, the See of Coventry and
Lichfield was transferred back to Lichfield
and the former cathedral fell into decay,
with only ruins remaining. Only in 1918 was
the modern diocese of Coventry created in its
own right, and the church of St Michael
designated as its cathedral. This structure
originates from the 1300's to 1400's but
originally a smaller chapel of Norman design
stood on the site - first mentioned in 1138
during the reign of King Stephen, although it
might have predated this time.
The majority of the great ruined churches
and cathedrals of England are the outcome of
the violence of the dissolution in 1539. The
ruins of St Michael's are the consequence of
violence in our own century. On the night of
14 November 1940, the city of Coventry was
devastated by bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe.
Approximately half an hour after the raid
began, the first of many incendiary bombs
landed on the roof of the cathedral. Provost
Dick Howard and a small team of brave
helpers, including the elderly 'Jock' Forbes
- the Stone Mason, plus two younger men,
fought hard to extinguish the many fires
around the roof and inside the building. The
four men spent the evening dashing around the
cathedral roofs, attempting to rip open the
lead with axes so that water could be poured
onto the fires. The problem was exacerbated
by the roof's construction - the inner wooden
vaulted ceiling being separated from the wood
and lead sheeting outer roof by an eighteen
inch gap, inside which many incediaries
rested and blazed away, out of easy reach by
the fire fighters.
As the number of incendiaries landing on
the old roof increased, the fires became
harder to tackle by the small team. Even when
the Solihull Fire Brigade made it through to
the cathedral a while later, the hoses soon
became damaged, and water supplies dried up.
With water mains around the city getting
fractured there was little hope of fighting
back the flames. By around 11pm, all the St.
Michael's fire fighters could do was remove
as many items of value as they could from the
blazing building, and retire to safety,
leaving the uncontrollable flames to consume
the once great structure. The next morning,
all that remained was a shell full of rubble,
and of course, the tower and spire. Provost
Howard noted later that he still noticed a
sense of beauty in the fallen masonry, as
though the actual piles of rubble posessed
something living.
Shortly after the destruction, Jock Forbes
noticed that two of the charred medieval roof
timbers had fallen in the shape of a cross.
He set them up in the ruins where they were
later placed on an altar of rubble with the
moving words 'Father Forgive' inscribed on
the Sanctuary wall. Another cross was
fashioned from three medieval nails by local
priest, the Revd Arthur Wales. The Cross of
Nails has become the symbol of Coventry's
international ministry of reconciliation.
Posted 6 months ago.
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