Crediton
Coordinates: 50 ° 47 ′ N , 3 ° 39 ′ W
Crediton (Credington, Cryditon, Kirton) is a small town of about 6,500 inhabitants in the county of Devon in England , about 12 km northwest of Exeter . It is the presumed birthplace of St. Boniface .
The place is located between two steep hills in the narrow valley of the Creedy river , shortly before its confluence with the Exe , and consists of the old town in the east and the new town in the west.
The most important building in the city is the "Church of the Holy Cross", an imposing red sandstone building with a cross-shaped floor plan. Built in the 12th century, it was significantly expanded and rebuilt around the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. The beautiful clerestory from the 15th century is unique among the churches in Devon. The oldest part of the current church is the lower part of the tower, which dates from around 1150. The Lady Chapel and the Chapter House date from the 13th century, while the rest of the building was completely renovated around 1410.
history
Origins
The first reference to the existence of the place can be found in the reports on the birth of Winfried, later Boniface, in Crediton around 672.
King Ine of Wessex established a bishopric in 705 in Sherborne, about 100 km to the east . In 739 his successor Aethelheard gave the Sherborner Bishop Forthhere land in Crediton to build a monastery ("monasterium" or "minster"), which cultivated the Roman version of Christianity followed by Canterbury against the Celtic variant spreading from Wales and Cornwall into Devon and should spread. It is assumed that Boniface had an influence on this decision - or that this election was at least believed to be a symbolic link to the missionary and church-organizational work of the bishop in the spirit of Rome.
Diocese
At the beginning of the 10th century, the diocese of Sherborne was divided into three smaller ones, and Eadwulf , the first bishop of the new diocese of Devon and Cornwall, chose Crediton as the diocesan residence in 909, presumably to tie in with Boniface and because he could rely on the existing monastery. It is believed that the wooden monastery church that existed at the time was expanded to become a bishop's church. There are no remains of it.
King Æthelstan confirmed the rights of the bishop in Crediton in 933. In the same year a large cathedral was built, but nothing of it has survived either. From 926 on, Cornwall had its own bishop based in St Germans . He served as suffragan bishop of Crediton until 994 , after which the diocese became independent. But already in 1030 Cornwall was again incorporated into the Diocese of Crediton.
pen
A total of nine bishops ruled Crediton until 1050. The last was Leofric , who took office as Bishop of Devon and Cornwall in 1046. Since the area was sparsely populated and Crediton was still little more than a dirt village easily attacked by Norman and Danish pirates, he asked Pope Leo IX in 1049 . and King Edward the Confessor to move the bishopric to the fortified city of Exeter. The request was granted and the Cathedra was brought to Exeter in 1050. The episcopal property in Crediton (palace and lands) was preserved until the Tudor kings seized the best parts.
The wooden cathedral was replaced by a stone church in the Norman style after the Norman conquest of England (1066), which was occupied as a collegiate church with 18 canons and 18 vicars. However, by the middle of the 12th century, economic constraints led to a reduction to only 12 canons and 12 vicars. While the vicars lived in Crediton, the canons were free to reside there or elsewhere, and few of them actually lived there. The houses of the canons and vicars, north of the church, were demolished in the middle of the 19th century.
In the second half of the 13th century the church was enlarged, in particular with the addition of the Marienkapelle and the chapter house. This had become possible because Bishop Walter of Bronescombe had provided the monastery with additional income by transferring land and houses. This also made it possible to expand the college of canons to 18 members again. At the turn of the 14th to the 15th century, almost the entire building was completely renovated in its current form.
reformation
As a result of the Reformation carried out by Henry VIII , the English collegiate churches were dissolved between 1545 and 1549. The von Crediton was handed over to Heinrich in May 1545, who gave it with all its possessions to Sir Thomas Darcy in September 1545. Darcy returned them to Heinrich in August 1546 in exchange for other lands. Since the church was now threatened with demolition, the parishioners began negotiations with the crown to buy the church.
In the spring of 1547 the community paid £ 200 to the royal treasury, and Edward VI. , who had succeeded his father Henry VIII on the throne in January, confirmed receipt of the sum in April 1547 as well as a new charter for the church administration of Crediton (which was confirmed again by Elizabeth I in 1559 ). The Church of the Holy Cross and its property were now administered by 12 governors and pastoral care was given to a vicar and two chaplains. The 12 governors of Crediton Parish Church still own and manage the church buildings today. Only two other parish churches in England have a similar self-governing structure: Ottery St Mary in Devon and Wimborne in Dorset .
At the same time, with the new charter, the establishment of a free royal grammar school was decreed, which was attached to the church. The school did not start operating until 1572, in a side chapel of the church. Only in 1859 did they move into their own school buildings. Today there is a boarding school and a technical college in them.
When a Roman Catholic diocese for Devon, Dorset and Cornwall was again established in Plymouth in the 19th century , its cathedral was given the patronage of St. Mary and St. Boniface in connection with Crediton .
Crediton has been the seat of a suffragan diocese in the Anglican Diocese of Exeter since 1897 .
Economic and administrative history
In 1086, when William the Conqueror had his imperial land register, the Domesday Book , drawn up, the area of Crediton was still largely uncultivated, a condition that had already moved Bishop Leofric to move to Exeter, but an economic boom soon began under the new Norman Men's.
Until the Reformation of Henry VIII , the bishops of Exeter were the landlords, but were repeatedly confronted with rebellious rearers. Around 1238 the bishop established a "borough" - d. that is, a partially self-governing community - in Crediton, which probably didn't develop seriously because of its proximity to Exeter. It was not until 1275 that the Borough of Crediton was mentioned again, and for a short time (1306-1307) the community even sent two members to the English Parliament. A parish seal from 1469 has survived, but there is no evidence from the 16th or 17th centuries that the parish was self-governing, and in the 18th century it was under the supervision of commissioners.
In 1306 Edward I gave the community market rights for grain, leather and wool. This gave rise to a large cattle market that was held until 1957.
The 16th century saw a huge boom in the wool industry and considerable prosperity for Devonshire and Crediton, and Crediton was there until the reign of George III. an important wool industry town. Almost all poorer families had a loom, either owned or rented from a contractor, and were busy washing, combing, spinning and weaving wool in addition to doing farm work. The end products were sold by middlemen to exporters in Exeter.
This development also influenced the structural image of the Weststadt. Those who could afford it built a house there along the main street, and the wool workers were housed in quarters behind it, which were grouped around a series of courtyards, as they are still visible today. The eastern part remained a working-class area. A major fire on August 14, 1743 destroyed most of the Weststadt: 460 houses fell victim to it, more than 2000 people were made homeless, and 16 were killed.
By the late 18th century, the Devonshire wool industry succumbed to competition from the East Anglia and Yorkshire factories , with a significant negative impact on Crediton's prosperity. In the 19th century there was a shift to leather processing and the manufacture of shoes and boots, both in factories and at home.
The arrival of the railroad in 1851 heralded the end of Crediton's importance as a market and industrial city. Today it is primarily a residential and dormitory city for Exeter employees, but is also striving to become a service and tourist center.
Twin cities
Sons and daughters
- Roger Knapman (* 1944), British politician
Web links
- Link catalog on the topic of Crediton (English) at curlie.org (formerly DMOZ )
- Crediton Parish Church
- Devonshire Tourist Office
literature
- T. Reuter (ed.): The Greatest Englishman: Essays on St Boniface and the church at Crediton, Exeter, 1980 (English)