Saint Richard of Chichester (1197-1253)

Birth at Wyche, around 1197

Richard was born around 1197 at Wyche, now Droitwich, in Worcestershire, from which he took his family name: of Wyche.^[3] He was the second son of Richard and Alice of Wyche, a family of the rural lesser nobility (gentry) of no great fortune.^[4] His father died while he was still a child, leaving the family estate in an advanced state of decay.^[5]

Refusing to dispossess his brother

On their father's death, medieval custom should have prevailed: the eldest inherits, the younger leaves. But here the situation was strikingly reversed. According to the hagiographical sources, the elder brother himself offered to yield the inheritance to young Richard, judged better able to make it prosper — and Richard refused.^[6] He agreed only to manage it, and within a few years restored the family fortune, before handing it back intact to his brother.^[7]

The nobleman who ploughs his own fields

The English-language Wikipedia article notes that Richard, rather than living off the produce of an inheritance that was not his, worked himself on his brother's farm — ploughing, sowing, tending the beasts — before leaving to study.^[8] This detail, seemingly minor, already sketches a whole character: a man born into the lesser nobility who chose manual labour over unearned income, and who would carry that same logic of voluntary stripping all the way to the episcopal see of Chichester.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." — Jesus, according to Saint Matthew 5:3^[9]

A single cloak for three students, at Oxford

Having put the estate back in order, Richard left to study at Oxford. There he lived, with two fellow students, in destitution that became proverbial: according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the three young men "lived in such poverty that they had only one tunic and hooded gown between them, in which they attended lectures by turns".^[10] According to Catholic Online, he is said to have been taught there by the great theologian Robert Grosseteste, future Bishop of Lincoln and one of the most powerful minds of 13th-century Oxford — a detail other accounts do not specify, but which duly places Richard in the most demanding intellectual milieu of his time.^[11]

Paris, the Master of Arts

From this studious poverty, Richard drew a solid formation. He then went to Paris, where he obtained his Master of Arts.^[12] Paris remained, in the 13th century, the great theological centre of Christendom; to study there already attests a real intellectual ambition, in a young man who was nothing like a wealthy heir.

Bologna and canon law

He completed this formation at Bologna, then the foremost law school of the West, where he acquired a great reputation in canon law.^[13] This legal competence, rare and sought after, would soon earn him a call to the highest administrative responsibilities of the Church in England — and would teach him, when the moment came, to defend his own rights as bishop against the crown at law.

Chancellor of the University of Oxford (1235)

Back in England in 1235, Richard was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford.^[14] He thus held one of the most prestigious intellectual offices in the kingdom — the equivalent, for his time, of heading a pontifical university. Yet nothing destined him to stop there for long: his reputation for learning and virtue would soon attract the attention of the highest personage of the Church in England.

Chancellor to the archbishop (1237-1240)

The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Rich — whom the Church would canonize as Saint Edmund of Canterbury — chose Richard as his chancellor.^[15] Richard, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, "accepted the archbishop's offer and thenceforward became St. Edmund's intimate friend and follower".^[16] This closeness was not merely administrative: the two men shared the same ideal of clerical reform and the same refusal to let royal power dispose of the Church's goods and sees as its own private hunting ground.^[17]

Exile at Pontigny and the death of Saint Edmund (1240)

When Edmund, in conflict with the crown and his own chapter, chose exile rather than compromise, Richard accompanied him to the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny, in Burgundy — the same place which, a century earlier, had already sheltered another Archbishop of Canterbury at odds with his king, Saint Thomas Becket.^[18] Richard was present at his side when Edmund died at Soissy, near Pontigny, in 1240, and from that moment made him a model for his whole life.^[19]

"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." — Jesus, according to Saint John 15:13^[20]

Orleans, the Dominicans, and priestly ordination

After his master's death, Richard withdrew to the house of the Dominicans of Orleans, where he studied theology for two years.^[21] There he was ordained priest, probably in 1243.^[22] Faithful to the memory of the one who had formed him, he had a chapel founded at Orleans in honour of Saint Edmund, before returning to England.^[23] Back home, he first exercised a modest parochial ministry: he became vicar of Deal and rector of Charing, in Kent — far, seemingly, from the episcopal grandeurs that were already awaiting him.^[24]

The death of Ralph Neville and the Robert Passelewe manoeuvre

In 1244, the Bishop of Chichester Ralph Neville died, leaving vacant one of the sees of the south of England.^[25] King Henry III, who regarded Neville as a favourite, pushed the candidacy of his own protégé, Robert Passelewe, Archdeacon of Chichester and senior royal official.^[26] But Passelewe's election was quashed at a synod held on 3 June 1244 by Boniface of Savoy, the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.^[27]

Election by the chapter

On Boniface's recommendation, the chapter of Chichester elected Richard, confirmed without delay by the archbishop.^[28] The choice was in no way a formality: it set two logics head-on against each other — that of a king accustomed to distributing episcopal sees to his loyal administrators, and that of a Church intent on electing its pastors according to merit and holiness. Richard, without having sought it, became the symbol of this second logic.

Consecration by Innocent IV at Lyons (5 March 1245)

Henry III, furious at seeing Richard preferred to his favourite, refused to hand over to Richard the temporalities of his see — that is, the lands, revenues and episcopal palace attached to the office.^[29] Richard then took his case to Pope Innocent IV, who decided in his favour and consecrated him bishop himself at Lyons, on 5 March 1245, before sending him back to England.^[30] But, the Catholic Encyclopedia soberly notes, "Henry was immovable".^[31]

More than a year with neither palace nor income: the charity of Simon of Tarring

For more than a year, Richard was thus a bishop without the material means of one: with no palace, no diocesan revenues, he depended entirely on the charity of his own clergy. One of his priests, Simon of Tarring, shared with him the little he possessed.^[32] Richard is said to have travelled his diocese on foot or on a borrowed mount, confirming the faithful and governing his parishes with the means of a beggar rather than a prince of the Church — a situation which, far from diminishing him in the eyes of the people, already founded his reputation for holiness.

"Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." — Jesus, according to Saint Luke 9:58^[33]

The threat of excommunication and the king's surrender (1246)

The situation was resolved only in 1246: the pope threatened the king with excommunication if he persisted in withholding the goods of the see of Chichester, and Henry III, "induced by the threats of the pope", finally yielded the temporalities to his lawful bishop.^[34] Richard could at last fully govern his diocese — more than a year after his consecration.

The synodal statutes of Chichester

Once master of his see, Richard set about a methodical work of reform. He drew up a body of synodal statutes regulating in detail the life of his clergy: the celebration of divine worship, the administration of the sacraments, the dress of priests, the residence of rectors in their parishes, the collection of tithes.^[35] A copy of these statutes was to be kept by every priest of the diocese and presented at the episcopal synod.^[36]

Against pluralism and clerical laxity

The statutes attacked head-on the most widespread abuses of the time: the accumulation of several benefices by one absentee cleric, the concubinage of certain priests, the wearing of dress and hairstyle imitating laymen.^[37] According to the English-language Wikipedia article on the saint, Richard showed himself "merciless to usurers, corrupt clergy and priests who mumbled the Mass".^[38] Archdeacons were to visit parishes regularly to verify that the sacred vessels, liturgical ornaments and the canon of the Mass were duly respected; a priest who rushed or swallowed the sacred words incurred suspension.^[39]

Mass said worthily, sacraments given without charge

Richard wanted dignified worship and accessible sacraments: he instituted a yearly collection, at Easter or Whitsunday, in every parish of the diocese, for the upkeep of the cathedral, but intended in return that the sacraments themselves be administered without demanding payment from the faithful.^[40] The mendicant orders, in particular the Dominicans, received special encouragement from him — a natural consistency in a man formed and ordained among them at Orleans.^[41]

Charity to the poor and personal austerity

This rigour towards the clergy had as its counterpart a personal life of great austerity: Richard "lived in great austerity, giving away most of his revenues as alms".^[42] He "insisted upon strict adherence to discipline among the clergy, aided the poor, and fearlessly denounced the corruption and vices of the contemporary Church and the royal court".^[43] The bishop who had lived more than a year without a palace never forgot, once provided for, what it meant to lack the necessities.

Preacher of Saint Louis's crusade

In 1250, Richard was appointed collector of the subsidy for the crusades; two years later, in 1252, the king himself — despite their former differences — charged him with preaching the crusade in London.^[44] This crusade was that of the King of France Saint Louis, engaged since 1248 in the Seventh Crusade in Egypt and then in the Holy Land. Richard made sustained efforts to stir the enthusiasm of the faithful in the dioceses of Chichester and Canterbury.^[45]

The consecration of Saint Edmund's church at Dover

It was on the road to Dover, where he was to consecrate a new church dedicated to Saint Edmund — faithful, to the very end, to the memory of his master and friend — that Richard fell ill.^[46] Having reached Dover, he went nonetheless to the hospice called Maison-Dieu (Maison Dieu), performed the consecration ceremony there on 2 April 1253, and died the next morning.^[47]

The deathbed prayer

Tradition holds that, surrounded by the clergy of his diocese, Richard pronounced on his deathbed a prayer of thanksgiving, transcribed in Latin by his confessor, the Dominican Ralph Bocking, and preserved in the Acta Sanctorum.^[48] The original text begins thus:

"Gratias tibi ago, Domine Jesu Christe, de omnibus beneficiis quae mihi praestitisti ; pro poenis et opprobriis quae pro me pertulisti." "I give thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits thou hast bestowed upon me; for the pains and insults thou hast endured for me." — Saint Richard of Chichester, deathbed prayer, transcribed by Ralph Bocking^[49]

The miracles at the tomb

From his death, Richard's tomb, raised in Chichester Cathedral, became a centre of pilgrimage renowned for the healings multiplying there — enough to rival, in 13th-century England, the far more famous shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury.^[50]

Canonization by Urban IV (1262)

After inquiry into the miracles and the holy reputation of the deceased, Pope Urban IV solemnly canonized Richard, in the Franciscan church of Viterbo, in 1262 — barely nine years after his death, a remarkably short interval for the time.^[51]

The translation of the relics and the destruction of the shrine

In 1276, Archbishop Kilwardby performed the solemn translation of the saint's relics to a new shrine, in the presence of King Edward I himself.^[52] The shrine then knew several centuries of popular veneration, until the Henrician Reformation brutally put an end to it: in 1538, under Henry VIII, Thomas Cromwell's commissioners destroyed the shrine as part of the dissolution of the monasteries and the suppression of pilgrimages deemed superstitious.^[53] A modern shrine, to the saint's memory, would not be re-established in Chichester Cathedral until 1930, at the instigation of Dean Duncan Jones.^[54]

Liturgical feast and patronage

Saint Richard's feast is celebrated on 3 April, the anniversary of his death; since 2007, certain local commemorations also associate the date of 16 June, the day of the 1276 translation, with the civil celebration of Sussex Day.^[55] He is venerated as patron of the diocese of Chichester and of Sussex, and, by a later tradition, as patron of coachmen — and, by modern extension, of taxi drivers.^[56]

An authentic Latin text, transcribed by a witness

The Latin core of the prayer — the thanksgiving for benefits received and sufferings endured by Christ — is well attested: transcribed by the saint's confessor, Ralph Bocking, it appears in the Acta Sanctorum, the great Bollandist hagiographical collection.^[57] On this point, the historical provenance is solid: a direct witness, a Dominican, recorded the dying man's words.

The English triplet "Day by Day": a 20th-century paraphrase

The famous English triplet popularized under Saint Richard's name — "May I know Thee more clearly, love Thee more dearly, follow Thee more nearly, day by day" — does not belong to the original medieval text.^[58] A detailed analysis of the text's transmission shows that anonymous variants of this triplet were already circulating in English devotional literature as early as 1892, but that its first documented attribution to Saint Richard appears only in 1913, in G. R. Bullock-Webster's Churchman's Prayer Manual.^[59] In other words: Richard's authentic prayer does indeed exist, but the verse that made it world-famous is a late English composition, grafted onto his name nearly seven centuries after his death.

From Percy Dearmer to the musical Godspell

It is in this English triplet form that the prayer met, in the 20th century, an unexpected fortune: it was set to music in 1971 by the composer Stephen Schwartz for the musical Godspell, under the title Day by Day, which has since become a popular standard far beyond Catholic circles.^[60] Thus an austere 13th-century English bishop, dead while preaching evangelical poverty, finds himself, in spite of himself, the nominal author of a Broadway song — an involuntary wink of providence, which knows how to make popular the most discreet intentions of a saint.

The nobleman turned ploughman

The most constant trait of Richard's life is one same gesture, repeated three times in different forms: renouncing what was rightfully his for the good of others or for God. He refuses the inheritance that would have enriched him at his brother's expense; he lives in utter destitution at Oxford when nothing obliged him to; he governs his diocese for more than a year without drawing its revenues, rather than compromising with an unjust king. Richard's holiness lies wholly in this consistency of self-stripping, from the ploughed field of his youth to the episcopal see of Chichester.

The bishop who refused silence before injustice

Second trait: pastoral courage. Richard never confused Christian patience with cowardice before the abuse of power. He holds firm for a whole year against a king who deprives him of all material means, until Rome herself decides by threat of excommunication. Once in office, he applies to his own clergy the same exactingness he demanded for himself: no indulgence for usurers, corrupt priests or botched celebrations.

"Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well." — Jesus, according to Saint Matthew 6:33^[61]

Gratitude even into suffering

Third trait, revealed by his last prayer: a gratitude that does not stop at death's door. Richard asks nothing for himself in his final moments; he gives thanks — for benefits received, but also for the sufferings and insults which Christ himself endured. This final thanksgiving, authentically medieval before being dressed seven centuries later in an English and musical garb, sums up the whole man: a heart which, to its last breath, looks less at what it endures than at what it has received.

Saint Richard of Chichester speaks to an age that often confuses authority with privilege and success with accumulation. He recalls that a man born with legitimate rights — an inheritance, a brilliant university career, a duly consecrated episcopate — can choose, at every stage, to strip himself of them rather than abuse them. To Christians tempted to yield through weariness before injustice, he shows that one can hold firm for a whole year without yielding anything essential, in material poverty but never renouncing the Church's right. And through the strange destiny of his prayer, turned into a popular song without even his name always being recognized, he teaches, in his own way, that true holiness needs no understanding to bear fruit: it suffices that it be lived to the end, "day by day".

• Saint Thomas Becket — the martyr archbishop who, before Richard, defended the rights of the Church against the English crown at Pontigny itself.
• Saint Anselm of Canterbury — another English archbishop driven into exile for refusing to yield the Church's freedom to royal power.
• Saint William of Bourges — a contemporary of Richard, whose episcopal election was likewise contested by the civil power before he accepted it out of obedience.
• Saint Louis — the King of France whose Holy Land crusade was precisely the one Richard was preaching when he died at Dover in 1253.