Hereford Cathedral (Cathedral Of Saint Mary The Virgin And Saint Ethelbert The King). (Part One).

Hereford Cathedral.

Photo: 9 July 2014.

Source: Own work.

Attribution: Photo by DAVID ILIFF.

Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Author: Diliff

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,
unless stated otherwise.

Hereford Cathedral is the Cathedral Church of the Anglican Diocese of Hereford[1] in Hereford, England.

A place of Worship has existed on the site of the present building since the 8th-Century A.D. The present building was begun in 1079.[2] Substantial parts of the building date from both the Norman and the Gothic periods. The Cathedral is a Grade 1 Listed Building.[3]

The Cathedral has the largest Library of Chained-Books in the World, its most famous treasure being the Mappa Mundi, a Mediæval map of the World, created around 1300 by Richard of Holdingham.[2] The map is listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.[2]

Wenceslas Hollar’s 17th-Century

engraving of the Cathedral.

Date: Unknown.

Collection: Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

Source: Artwork from University of Toronto.

Wenceslaus Hollar Digital Collection.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Cathedral is Dedicated to two Saints, Saint Mary the Virgin and Saint Ethelbert the King. The latter was beheaded by Offa, King of Mercia, in 794 A.D.[2]

Offa had consented to give his daughter to Ethelbert in marriage: Why he changed his mind and deprived him of his head, historians do not know, although tradition is at no loss to supply him with an adequate motive.

The execution, or murder, is said to have taken place at Sutton, four miles (six km) from Hereford, with Ethelbert’s body brought to the site of the modern Cathedral by “a pious Monk”.

Hereford Cathedral.

The Nave, with Norman Columns.

Photo: 9 July 2014.

Source: Own work.

Attribution: Photo by DAVID ILIFF.

Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.

Author: Diliff

(Wikimedia Commons)

He was buried at the site of the Cathedral.[2] At Ethelbert’s tomb, Miracles were said to have occurred, and in the next Century (about 830 A.D.) Milfrid, a Mercian nobleman, was so moved by the tales of these marvels as to rebuild in Stone the little Church that stood there and to Dedicate it to the Sainted King.

Before this, Hereford had become the Seat of a Bishopric. It is said to have been the centre of a Diocese as early as 670 A.D., when Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury, divided the Mercian Diocese of Lichfield, Founding Hereford for the Magonsæte and Worcester for the Hwicce.

In the 7th-Century A.D., the Cathedral was re-Founded by Putta, who settled there when driven from Rochester by Æthelred of Mercia.

The Cathedral of Stone, which Milfrid raised, stood for some 200 years, and then, in the reign of Edward the Confessor, it was altered. The new Church had only a short life, for it was plundered and burnt in 1056 by a combined force of Welsh and Irish under Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, the Welsh Prince; it was not, however, destroyed until its custodians had offered vigorous resistance, in which seven of the Canons were killed.

PART TWO FOLLOWS.