ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS 



date of Surrey's conversion from heathenism is nowhere expressly re- 

 corded, the Chertsey Charter gives a date after which it is difficult 

 to believe that the inhabitants of western Surrey can have remained 

 long without baptism. The new faith would make itself felt in funeral 

 observances ; and even before the cemeteries were removed to the conse- 

 crated churchyard they would cease to be of service to archaeology. In 

 the chalk area and generally in the eastern half of the county the Gospel 

 had no doubt spread some years before, for being separated from Kent 

 by no natural obstacle the inhabitants would probably have welcomed 

 the priest even when they would have repelled the soldier. Indeed the 

 Surrey finds bear independent testimony to early ecclesiastical activity in 

 so far as the graves contained remarkably few ornaments ; and even the 

 greatest seem to have been laid to rest with little but the weapons which 

 they may have borne to defend the faith they died in. 



The presence among them of the great Mercian king, Wulfhere, 

 must have deeply affected the political and religious condition of the 

 inhabitants of Surrey. The grant of large estates to the Church would 

 set the seal on their conversion, and his temporal power must have been 

 evident to their eyes if the conqueror passed through their territory 

 to that of the South Saxons, whose king, Aethelwalch, had been under 

 his protection since 66 1. As Kent was ravaged by Aethelred in 676 l 

 and the Bishop of Rochester driven from his diocese, 2 it is likely that 

 the whole of Surrey had by that time passed under Mercian rule, so 

 that it is all the more remarkable that Theodore when reorganizing the 

 English Church should include Surrey in the West Saxon diocese of 

 Winchester. The relations of that prelate with Wulfhere make it 

 impossible to suppose that the over-lord disapproved of the arrangement, 

 and the obvious inference is that Wessex had a strong and early claim 

 on the Christian community of Surrey. As Mercian dominion south of 

 the Thames may be fairly said to date only from the middle of the 

 seventh century, the task for archaeology is to decide between the two 

 rival claimants to the over-lordship of Surrey between the close of the 

 Roman period and the reign of Wulfhere, an interval to which most of 

 the burials already described may be attributed. The question is one 

 that specially and almost exclusively concerns the antiquary, but exact 

 inquiry in this field is of comparatively recent growth, and material is 

 still wanted to provide a definite solution. At present a few indications 

 of contact with either power may be noticed here and there, but nothing 

 better than an open verdict can be returned. 



Of minor relics not connected with interments there are few to 

 record in Surrey. Two however are of rare occurrence, and apart from 

 their intrinsic value are of importance on different grounds. The first 

 is a gold ring, not necessarily for the finger, found at Witley some years 

 ago. It weighs 65 grains and belongs to a peculiar type, being of 

 unequal thickness with a spiral groove in which is inserted gold wire. 



1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under that year. 

 8 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. iv. chap. xii. 

 271 



