William the Scabby

I love showing people around Hereford Cathedral, entering Hereford itself is a tad less enjoyable marked too often by slow moving traffic. Once inside the cathedral however, all is peace and calm.

The official date for the founding of Hereford Cathedral is 696 AD and its first notable burial was that of Ethelbert King of Anglia who had come in the hope of marrying the daughter of King Offa of Mercia. The bad news was that he was promptly murdered on the orders of Offa or his queen. The good news was that he became a saint for his troubles and was buried in the Cathedral which was dedicated to him and the Virgin Mary. The bad news is that in 1055 a rebel Welsh army destroyed much of the cathedral and Ethelbert’s shrine and many other treasures were lost. It was the Normans who restored order and the cathedral itself. 

 The cathedral, too, has its own saint, Thomas Cantilupe.  Appointed Bishop of Hereford in 1275 and remained a trusted adviser to Edward I even when voicing different views to the king. This was not true, however, with John Peckham, the Archbishop of Canterbury who excommunicated him after a quarrel. Cantilupe immediately set off for Rome to bend the Pope’s ear.

He died at Ferento in 1282 but was buried at Hereford Cathedral after his flesh was boiled from his bones to simplify transport. The flesh was solemnly buried in Orvieto, his heart taken to a church in Ashridge, Buckinghamshire, and his bones buried in Hereford Cathedral. 

In 1307 the process of canonisation began. Exhumation of his body proved inconclusive since the bones had largely disintegrated.  One factor that might have delayed his canonisation was Cantilupe's support of the Knights Templar. Another fly in the ointment was his excommunication. You couldn’t really have an excommunicated Saint. The church agreed but ‘found’ he had been forgiven.  Then there were the miracles, one in particular— the case of William Cragh—or William The Scabby, (Cragh meaning scabby in Welsh)

Cragh was a Welsh rebel hung eight years after Cantilupe’s death but after fervent prayers to the dead Bishop of Hereford, Cragh was miraculously restored to life and undertook a pilgrimage to Hereford, walking barefoot with a noose dangling from his neck. The noose was subsequently placed alongside Thomas Cantilupe’s decaying bones in a tomb more befitting a saint—the last English saint before the Reformation. 

In subsequent years, the tomb became a place of pilgrimage where, it was said, prayers were answered. And, despite the excesses of the Reformation that saw the smashing of his tomb leaving only its base, Cantilupe's legacy lives on in the name of various schools and as an inspiration to the late Mother Teresa and the present Melinda Gates. 

The restored tomb of Thomas Cantilupe

There are other fine tombs in the Cathedral

Note the slavering hound at his feet.

The Denton tomb displaying the effigies of Alexander Denton and his wife, Anne Willison who died in childbirth in 1566. The baby is shown beside her. Alexander married again and died in Buckinghamshire in 1576

Close up of baby

The Triptych shows the Adoration of the Magi with Saint Gabriel and St Ursula and dates from around 1530. 

Sir Richard Pembridge, a warrior knight serving Edward III at the battle of Sluys, Poitiers and Crecy and one of the earliest knights to earn the 'garter'  shown on his knee

Whereas noble knights had hounds or mythical beasts at their feet, this celebrated cider merchant and benefactor to the Cathedral has a cider barrel. He had his priorities right. 

One of the chapels branching out from the nave

The Audley Chantry Chapel founded by Edmund Audley, Bishop 1492 - 1502 - a place where Masses could be said for his soul. Being a kind of 'belt and braces' man, he founded another chantry in Salisbury Cathedral when he later became bishop there. 

The windows were designed by Tom Denny in 2006 to celebrate the poet Thomas Traherne. Traherne was a C17th poet, priest and spiritual writer who saw God's love in creation, and his writings have only recently been rediscovered. The windows show his love for the Herefordshire countryside, the importance of love in general and the cross of Christ behind it all. The glass is deeply textured, and it is worth zooming in.

I tend to like old stained glass but modern is good too. Following the tradition of honouring warriors and saints (and cider merchants) a recent addition is the window commemorating the SAS whose base is in Hereford 

Its light staining nearby pillars

Richard Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford 1282 - 1317. Swinfield was chaplain to Thomas Cantilupe and succeeded him as forty-sixth bishop of Hereford. He pressed for Cantilupe's canonisation but never lived to see his success. The ornamental pigs in the arch are a pun on his name.

And joining Elgar's stature in admiring the Herefordshire sandstone Cathedral.