Celebrating Sussex Day and St Richard

Observe it and you will be marking the feast day of St Richard of Wych, patron saint of the diocese of Chichester.

Alison McCann, assistant county archivist at West Sussex Record Office, has researched his life for an exhibition which opens in Chichester today.

What she has uncovered is a fascinating man of great humility, a man endowed with great practical prowess and also a man with one or two rather unlikely associations.

St Richard, it seems, is also the patron saint of Milanese coachmen.

"I haven't the faintest idea why", Alison admits. "It was the international church. He was a great saint. He was known as a very humble man. But quite why the Milanese coachmen should have taken him on, I don't know."

However, a famous picture shows St Richard up in the clouds looking down and bestowing his coachly blessing...

The exhibition is at West Sussex Record Office in Orchard Street, Chichester, from June 16 to 30 and will be open during normal Record Office opening hours.

St Richard was Bishop of Chichester from 1244 until his death in 1253.

He is known as one of the great pastoral bishops of the 13th century and was a committed reformer, concerned to improve the quality of the clergy and the service they gave. He also greatly increased the revenues of the diocese, and raised money for the repair and maintenance of the cathedral.

However, his early days in the diocese were decidedly controversial. Richard was appointed Bishop of Chichester by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry III had his own man in mind, and armed guards were posted at the gates of Chichester so that the bishop couldn't come in.

Richard stayed instead with a priest nearby in Tarring, a wise move. Tarring was a parish which belonged to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In the end, the King had to back down, particularly after Richard was consecrated by the Pope. It was a battle Henry was not going to win, and so Richard was able to settle down to his diocesan duties where he gained a reputation as a very effective administrator. He had earlier been Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and clearly he transferred his skills across.

He was also known as a humble man, and even in his lifetime he was noted for his sanctity. He was canonised in 1262. In 1270 a life of him was written by Ralph Bocking, a Dominican who had been his confessor.

His shrine in Chichester Cathedral was a focus of pilgrimage until it was destroyed, and Richard's bones thrown on the rubbish heap at the Reformation.

The exhibition uses extracts from the Life of St Richard, written by Ralph Bocking, together with prints from the Record Office's extensive collections, to highlight the saint's connections with different places in the county.