Chad (Ceadda) was a pupil of Saint Aidan at Lindisfarne and succeeded his brother Cedd at Lastingham in Yorkshire. He eventually became bishop of the Mercians, with his see at Lichfield, where the cathedral there is named after him. During his time, says Bede, 'he administered his diocese in great holiness of life, following the example of the ancient fathers.' He always travelled on foot until Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury insisted on his riding a horse.
Chad's brother Saint Cedd, founder of the monastery at Lastingham, was sent south from Lindisfarne in AD 654 to convert the heathen of Essex. Saint Augustine had landed in Kent in AD 597, but the northern monks were far more active in the work of conversion. Cedd's lonely church at Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex has its modern altar inlaid with stones from Iona, Lindisfarne and Lastingham. Cedd returned to the North for the Synod of Whitby in AD 664 and died of the plague some years later.