A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



give much advice and counsel to Winfrid of Crediton, who had been 

 educated in the Hampshire monastery of Nursling, and who afterwards 

 became so well known, under the name of Saint Boniface, as the great 

 Christian missionary to the heathen tribes of Germany. After ruling 

 his diocese for forty-two years, Daniel's health and eyesight failed ; he 

 resigned his see and spent the last months of his life in retirement at 

 the monastery of Malmesbury, of which house he had originally been a 

 monk. 



There is nothing noteworthy pertaining to the ecclesiastical history 

 of Hampshire or the bishops of Winchester during the last half of the 

 eighth century, but the cathedral city and hence the county rose to great 

 importance when Egbert came to the throne in 802. His reign is a 

 distinct epoch in English history, for it was then that the sceptre of 

 English rule departed from Northumbria and Mercia and settled for a 

 considerable period in Wessex. By 829 Egbert was practically king of 

 England, with his capital at Winchester: though other subject rulers 

 kept for a time their titles of kings they all accepted Egbert as their 

 over-lord. Egbert made numerous grants of land to the great minster 

 of St. Peter and St. Paul at Winchester, the chief Hampshire gifts being 

 at Droxford and Worthy, as well as at Calbourne in the Isle of Wight. 1 



In 835 the peace of his kingdom was disturbed by a great invasion 

 of Scandinavian pirates, who landed from thirty-five ships at Charmouth 

 in Dorset. Egbert gave them battle and there was a great slaughter. 

 The English chronicle states that the Danes held the field, and 'Herefrith 

 and Wigthun two bishops died.' It is supposed that both these eccle- 

 siastics were bishops of Wessex, and that one was the suffragan of the 

 other. 



In 838 Helmstan, a monk of Winchester and tutor of Egbert's 

 younger son Ethelwulf, was consecrated bishop. Another ecclesiastic, 

 Swithun, was associated with Helmstan in the tutelage of Ethelwulf. 

 His clerical tutors had such influence over the prince that he received 

 orders, but by the time he had advanced to the sub-deaconship his 

 elder brother and father both died. A papal dispensation was obtained, 

 and in 837 Ethelwulf was called to the throne. On the death of 

 Bishop Helmstan in 852 the king summoned his old tutor Swithun to 

 succeed him. The ten years of St. Swithun's episcopate were remark- 

 able for vigour of administration. William of Malmesbury delights to 

 do this prelate honour, and much of the glory of Alfred's subsequent 

 reign was attributed to the bishop's wise counsel. He is described as 

 a diligent builder of churches in the diocese and a repairer of those 

 that had been ruined, 1 and as so humble that he always went on foot in 

 his visitations, and preferred travelling by night so as to attract less 

 attention. The celebrated and oft disputed charter, popularly supposed 

 to be for the general establishment of tithes, attested by the king and 

 his two vassal kings of Mercia and the East Angles in 854 and placed 



1 Kemblc's CoJex Diplomatictu, v. 73-87. 



* About fifty old churches arc dedicated to St. Swithun, seven of which are in his old diocese. 



