A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



the Scottish church.^ The fourth bishop, consecrated in 662, was Jaruman, 

 likewise of Celtic consecration.^ 



Thus far the christianizing of Mercia, including what is now North- 

 amptonshire, had been accomplished solely from the old Celtic sources ; but 

 with the death of Jaruman in 667 came a change. The conference of 

 Whitby had been held, and the work, of the Scottish church in England was 

 finished. For two years there was no episcopal work in Wulfhere's kingdom, 

 save what Wilfrid, with his roving commission, could effect.' When 

 Theodore came in 669, Wulfhere, the successor of Peada, the first to recognize 

 Canterbury as the ecclesiastical centre of England, asked him for a bishop.* 

 Accordingly Theodore in that year appointed Chad,° who had held the see of 

 Northumbria. This bishop had been consecrated originally in the British 

 church,' and the archbishop ' consummated his ordination afresh on Catholic 

 principles.'' St. Chad definitely established the seat of the bishopric at Lich- 

 field, and died there in 672.' Theodore then ' ordained into his place ' 

 Winfrid, who had been a deacon under the late bishop.' Winfrid was present 

 at the council held by Archbishop Theodore in 673 at Hertford, when ten 

 important articles for the better government of the Church were discussed, in- 

 cluding a proposal to increase the episcopate.^" It was probably for resisting this 

 proposal that Winfrid was deposed by the archbishop in 675, when Saxulf, 

 first abbot of Medehamstede, was ' ordained to be bishop in his stead.'" Up 

 to 678 Saxulf remained bishop of the whole Mercian kingdom, including the 

 Middle Angles and Lindsey,^'' but now there were established separate dioceses 

 of Lindsey (678) ," Worcester (about 680)," Hereford (676-88),^° Leicester 

 and the Middle Angles (680),^* and possibly Dorchester-on-Thames (about the 

 same date.)" The last, if it really existed at this time," was probably soon 

 included in the diocese of Leicester." It is difficult to decide whether 

 the present Northamptonshire (the greater part of which seems to have 

 been then the county of the South Angles) was at this period in the 

 diocese of Leicester,^" or whether it remained under the parent see of Mercia or 

 Lichfield, ^^ which still retained the shires of Stafford, Derby, Chester, and part 

 of Shropshire.-^ At a rather later period Northamptonshire seems certainly 

 to have been in the diocese of Leicester," over which the short-lived arch- 

 bishopric of Lichfield (787-802) ^* exercised authority for a few years." About 

 869 or 888 the seat of the bishopric of Leicester was moved to Dorchester- 



' Bede, loc. cit. Stubbs, loc. cit. ' Bede, op. cit. lib. iii, cap. 24 ; Stubbs, loc. cit. 



' Will, of Malm. Gesta Pontif. (Rolls Ser.), 216 ; Stubbs, op. cit. 2-3. 



* Bede, op. cit. lib. iv, cap. 3. ' Ibid. * Ibid. lib. iii, cap. 28. 



' Ibid. lib. iv, cap. 2 : cf. Will, of Malm. loc. cit. ' per omnes iterum gradus elevatum.' For the question 

 involved see Hunt, op. cit. 133, and Browne, Conversion of the Heptarchy, 119-24. 



' Stubbs, op. cit. 3 ; Bede, op. cit. lib. iv, cap. 3. ' Ibid. '" Ibid. cap. 5. 



" Ibid. cap. 6 ; Stubbs, loc. cit. " Bede, op. cit. lib. iv, cap. I 2. " Ibid. 



" Ibid. 21 (23). '* Ibid. 12 ; Florence of Wore. (Engl. Hist. Soc), i, 36, 41. 



" Ibid. 239-40, 242. " Ibid. 240 ; Bede, op. cit. lib. iv, cap. 21 (23). 



'- Hill, Engl. Dioceses, 127-31. " Hunt, op. cit. 142. 



" From 691, this diocese was administered for a short time by St. Wilfrid. Stubbs, op. cit. 162. 



" Hill, op. cit. 135. 



" Ibid. 136. It may have been in the diocese of Dorchester, if there really was a Mercian see of that 

 name before 869, and if that see had not united with Leicester (Ibid, and J. R. Green, The Making of Engl. 

 343), or been created anew (Will, of Malm. Gesta Pontif. (Rolls Ser.), 307). 



" Hill, op. cit. 137. 



'* Ibid. 1 7 1-9 ; Hunt, op. cit. 240, 245 ; Will, of Malm. Gesta Reg. (Rolls Ser.), i, 85 ; 'John of 

 Peterborough,' p. 9 in J. Sparke, Hist. AngL Script, (but he gives a wrong date). 



" Hill, op. cit. 156 (map). 



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