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,