10 Bradford-upon-Avon. 
and the conflict at Bradford, in the year s.p. 652, was its result. 
' It terminated in a decisive victory gained by Cenwalch over the 
Britons. This conflict, and a subsequent one (a few years later) 
at Pen, in Somersetshire, attended with a similar result, seated him 
firmly upon his throne, and gave him opportunity to carry out his 
wishes with regard to inducing his subjects generally to follow his 
own example in abjuring heathenism. Of his own zeal he had al- 
ready given proof, by building a church and monastery at Win- 
chester, the size and magnificence of which astonished his country- 
men. The battle at Bradford, though but barely mentioned by the 
Chroniclers, becomes of much interest, especially to ourselves, if 
thus viewed as a subordinate link in that chain of providential 
circumstances by which the blessings of Christianity were conferred 
on the kingdom of Wessex. 
From a.p. 700—850. 
Within some fifty years of this time the fact that Christianity 
was the religion of Wessex was brought home palpably to the in- 
habitants of this spot. For Ina, who had succeeded to the throne, 
not only granted to Aldhelm (afterwards Bishop of Sherborne), 
permission to build a monastery at Bradford, but also bestowed 
some lands for its support. The gift, at least, seems to imply that 
the manor of Bradford, in early times, belonged, like those of Chip- 
penham, Corsham, Melksham, and others in our neighbourhood, to 
the kings of Wessex. Of Aldhelm, we are told that he was of 
illustrious Saxon descent. From his youth he was addicted to let- 
ters, and increased his store of knowledge by travels both in France 
and Italy. For some time he was under the direction of Maidulf, the 
Scotch Anchorite, who kept a kind of college at Maidulfes-Burg, 
afterwards softened down into Malmsbury.! He subsequently became 
a monk of the Benedictine order, built a monastery at Malmsbury, 
and was either first or second abbot. He was also abbot at Frome 
and at Bradford, and a letter is still extant, in which he mentions 
these dignities in such a way as would seem to imply that he was 
also the founder of them both. It is an epistle concerning the 
1 Wright's ‘ Biograph. Britan. Liter.’ i. 213. 
