ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



on-Thames, under the pressure of the Danes/ and probably nothing remained 

 under the bishop's control except Oxfordshire, the greater part of Bucking- 

 hamshire, and the southern extremity of Northamptonshire." The northern 

 part of the diocese, with the town of Leicester, was recognized as a Danish 

 possession by the treaty of Wedmore (879).* The original proportions of the 

 see must have been recovered, if only nominally, by the triumph of Edward 

 the Elder over the Danes in 921,* but for some time afterwards the position 

 of the bishop in this part of his diocese was perhaps not assured, for it was a 

 bishop of Winchester (Ethelwold) who, about 966, founded a monastery at 

 Peterborough, the abbey of Peada and Saxulf having been destroyed by the 

 Danes a century before/ 



About this time the diocese of Dorchester was united with that of 

 Lindsey, for Leofwin, bishop of Lindsey, moved southwards — doubtless 

 because the Danes made it impossible for a Christian bishop to remain in the 

 north — and became bishop of Dorchester/ The seat of the bishopric, which 

 now extended from the Thames to the Humber, seems to have remained at 

 Dorchester ^ till, in the latter half of the eleventh century, it was removed to 

 Lincoln.^ 



After thus giving, in briefest outline, some account of the episcopal con- 

 trol of Northamptonshire up to the Norman Conquest, it will be well to 

 return for a few moments to the story of the conversion of the inhabitants. 

 Peada, the first member of the royal house of Mercia to embrace Christianity, 

 is said to have been also the first to found a regular missionary settlement in 

 this region, namely at Medehamstede (Peterborough) in the midst of a 

 marshy tract at the extreme north-west of the county. This scheme is 

 represented as having been begun by him with the aid of Oswy of North- 

 umbria about 655, and subsequently enlarged by Peada's brothers, Wulfhere 

 and Ethelred, and by his sisters, Kyneburgh and Kyneswith,^ and a promi- 

 nent part in it is assigned to Saxulf, who was the first abbot,'" and who, 

 as is related, succeeded Winfrid in 675 as bishop of Lichfield. Founded in 

 some such manner as this, the great monastery of Peterborough began, even 

 before Saxulf's elevation to the episcopate, to send out missionaries and 

 religious colonies, of which one of the earliest was that established (a settle- 

 ment of some importance) at Brixworth." 



Guthlac, the hermit of the fens, settled at Crowland,'^ in Lincolnshire, 

 close to the border of Northamptonshire, about 699, and doubtless his in- 

 fluence in the northern part of the latter county was considerable. About 

 the same date St. Pega, his sister, established a Christian cell within the 

 county at the place that, soon after her death, obtained the name of Peakirk." 



' Stubbs, op. cit. II, 162 ; Jngl. Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 73 ; Hill, op. cit. 186-7, ^'O- 



'Ibid. 212. ' Ibid. 185. Mbid. 212. 



'Ibid. 213; Will, of Malm. Gesta Pontif. (Rolls Ser.), 317. Malmesbury here places Peterborough 

 in Huntingdonshire. 



° Ibid. 311-12 ; Stubbs, op. cit. 15. Stubbs, however, elsewhere places the union about 1003 (Cons/it. 

 Hist, of Engl, i, 2 74n.), and Hunt takes a similar view (op. cit. App. ii). 



' Hill, op. cit. 210-11 ; Will, of Malm. loc. cit. Angl. Sa.x. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 96, 104, n8, 

 129, 17'- * Hill, op. cit. 261 ; Stubbs, Rig. Stur. Angl. App. ii. 



' Angl. Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 25-9, 31-3. 



'° Ibid. ; Bede, op. cit. lib. iv, cap. 6. 



" ' Hugo Candidus,* 6, 9, in J. Sparke, Hist. Angl. Script. 



" Felix, Fita S. Guthlaci (Acta Sanct. 1 1 April). 



" It is mentioned as having been destroyed by the D.ines in Dugdale, Mon. ii, 95. 



