St Mary’s, Coventry, and the Anarchy

The period of the ‘Anarchy’ (1135–1153) is commonly remembered, both by contemporaries and later historians, as a time when royal authority broke down and private warfare flourished. Monastic houses were drawn into the conflict as both victims and strategic assets in the struggle.[i] St Mary’s is a striking example of how political power, episcopal ambition, and military need converged on this religious site.

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Friction

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When Bishop Robert de Limesey shifted his see from Chester to Coventry in 1102, effectively making St Mary’s a cathedral,[ii] contemporary and near-contemporary notices stress that the move aligned spiritual prestige with material advantage: Coventry’s endowment outstripped Chester’s and adopting the abbey church as a seat substantially increased revenues.[iii]

 

Yet the re-designation did not inaugurate harmony. In the generation before 1102, Peter, bishop of Chester (1072–1085), had already clashed with the community. Lanfranc of Canterbury intervened, writing to Peter to desist from “harassing” Coventry; later summaries accuse the bishop of forcing entry into the monks’ dormitory, breaking strongboxes, and seizing provisions—conduct Lanfranc condemned as beyond a bishop’s power.[iv]

 

Episcopal pressure did not end with the move of the seat. Antiquarian and archaeological studies preserve a tradition that Coventry’s monastery was repeatedly stripped of its resources—first under Bishop Peter, then by Limesey around c. 1100, later by secular warfare, and finally, in 1188–1189, by Bishop Hugh de Nonant’s harsh reforms.[v] While the specific charges require cautious handling, they capture a durable structural point: cathedral status amplified the house’s political visibility and thus its vulnerability.

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The Anarchy and the militarisation of churches

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The Anarchy sharpened those pressures. Twelfth-century writers noted the routine use of ecclesiastical buildings as strongpoints; the Gesta Stephani records towers and precincts fortified in siege warfare[vi], and modern military-religious studies have traced how sacred architecture was co-opted under the stresses of civil war.[vii] Coventry’s experience belongs squarely within that pattern.

 

In the 1140s Coventry lay within the contested sphere of Ranulf II (de Gernon), the formidable earl of Chester, whose shifting alignments and castle policy made him one of the period’s most energetic leaders. Whatever the contingencies of his relationship with King Stephen, Ranulf’s control of regional fortifications repeatedly drew royalist responses.[viii]

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Marmion at Coventry (1143/4)

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It was against this backdrop that Robert Marmion—an ardent supporter of Stephen—was recalled from continental service and sent against Coventry Castle. In 1143 (some accounts say 1144) Marmion expelled the monks from St Mary’s and converted the partially built cathedral complex into a forward base for operations against the earl’s fortress. Contemporary and later notices agree that he dug a substantial defensive ditch across the precinct to impede counter-attacks.[ix]

 

Archaeology corroborates the chronicles. Ditch sections discovered east of the priory precinct yielded fills no earlier than the mid-twelfth century; local heritage synthesis interprets them as Marmion’s earthworks, and stresses that the feature was open only briefly - consistent with a hasty militarisation during a siege and rapid abandonment thereafter.[x]

 

The assault ended badly for Marmion. When Ranulf’s relieving force arrived, Marmion is said to have been unhorsed, fallen into one of the very ditches he had commissioned, suffered a shattered thigh, and been killed in the ensuing melee.[xi] Ecclesiastical sources underline the moral dimension: because he had desecrated St Mary’s and expelled its clergy, he died excommunicate and was buried in unconsecrated ground; later antiquaries place the burial at Polesworth.[xii]

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Consequences for the priory and cathedral community

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The most immediate effect was material: fortification entailed demolition, the diversion of stone, and the loss or seizure of stores. VCH Warwickshire’s synthetic account explicitly notes the temporary dispossession of the monks,[xiii] and Heritage Gateway/Historic England summaries speak of cumulative impoverishment across the century—from Limesey’s depredations, through Marmion’s militarisation, to Nonant’s late-century interventions.[xiv] That pattern chimes with broader observations on the Anarchy’s local costs, even as monastic patronage elsewhere expanded.[xv]

 

The transfer also carried constitutional and symbolic consequences. By establishing the bishop’s seat at Coventry in 1102, the priory was drawn into diocesan politics. While administrative weight often stayed with Lichfield, Coventry’s monastic chapter now stood alongside it as one of two cathedral chapters in the diocese, a dual arrangement that later required papal intervention to regulate electoral rights.[xvi] The thirteenth-century settlement (Gregory IX’s decree for alternating elections) lies beyond the Anarchy proper, but it reflects dynamics already visible in the 1140s: a monastic cathedral whose sacred prestige made it highly coveted, yet whose resources and buildings could be swiftly appropriated.

 

The episode reframed local memory. Coventry’s own institutional histories place the Marmion outrage alongside earlier wounds (the Danish destruction of the early nunnery) and later cataclysms (dissolution and modern war) to express a civic and ecclesial identity forged through ruin and renewal.[xvii] That lens does not replace critical analysis, but it helps explain why the Marmion siege remains a touchstone in telling Coventry’s past.

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[i] Kerr, Julie. Hospitality and Monastic Discipline in the Anglo-Norman World. PhD thesis, University of St Andrews, 1998.

[ii] Harvey, V. (2023). A Saint Manquée: The legend of Lady Godiva as Hagiography. University of Ottawa, p. 95.

[iii] Lane, Lois. The Bishop, the Cathedral Priory and the Town: Conflict and Coexistence in Coventry, 1102–1190. PhD thesis, King’s College London, 2018.

[iv] McGrory, 2022, p. 27; Lanfranc of Canterbury, Letters, in Lanfranc: Selected Works, trans. Clover & Gibson (Oxford, 1979).

[v] Harvey, 2023, p. 95; Victoria County History of Warwickshire, vol. 2 (1908), pp. 52–59.

[vi] Gesta Stephani, cited in Marritt, Stephen. Clerical Exile and Excommunication in Twelfth-Century England. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 1998.

[vii] Marritt, 1998.

[viii] “Robert Marmion (d. 1144).” Wikipedia. Last modified August 2025.

[ix] John of Worcester, Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. Darlington & McGurk (Oxford, 1995), p. 564

[ix] Rylatt & Mason, 2003; Soden et al., 2003; Heritage Gateway, “St Mary’s Priory and Cathedral (MCT2048).”

[x] “Robert Marmion (d. 1144),

[xi] Dugdale, William. The Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated (London, 1656), p. 116; Britain Express, “St Mary’s Priory and Cathedral.”

[xii] Victoria County History of Warwickshire, vol. 2 (1908), pp. 52–59.

[xiii] Heritage Gateway, “St Mary’s Priory and Cathedral (MCT2048)”; Historic England, “Priory and Cathedral of St Mary, Coventry.”

[xiv] Blair, John. The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (Oxford, 2005), pp. 252–256.

[xvi] Lane, 2018.

[xvii] Coventry Cathedral, “Our Story: History,”