ECCLESIASTICAL 

 HISTORY 



THAT the district which subsequently formed the county of Sussex 

 was, in common with all other parts of the Roman Empire, brought 

 more or less under christianizing influence can hardly be doubted, 

 but such hold as Christianity may have obtained here was com- 

 pletely lost when Elle's Saxon hordes poured into the country and established 

 the South Saxon kingdom. Cut off by dense forest from the neighbouring 

 kingdoms, the South Saxons were long untouched by the religious revolution 

 proceeding all round them, and it was not till 68 I that their conversion was 

 begun. It is true that for some years previously their king, Ethelwold, had 

 been nominally a Christian, having been baptized by the persuasion of the 

 Mercian King Wulfhere 1 about 66 1 ; his wife Ebba, also, was a daughter of the 

 Christian king of the Hwiccas, Eanfrid. There was also a Scottish or Irish 

 monk of the name of Dicul seated at Bosham with five or six brethren, but 

 they seem to have been unenterprising, or at least unsuccessful, missionaries, 

 and had made but little impression upon the natives. 2 



At last, in 68 1, St. Wilfrid, bishop of Northumbria, exiled from his own 

 diocese, found his way into the land of the South Saxons. 3 It was the first 

 time he had set foot there, though some fifteen years earlier he had had an 

 unpleasant experience when his ship was stranded for a while on the shore 

 and defended with difficulty from the hostile attacks of the natives. His 

 reception was now far different, Ethelwold receiving him with all honour, 

 and encouraging him to preach to the people. His success was rapid and 

 complete, and seems to have been assisted by his ability to show the natives 

 improved methods of fishing, whereby he mitigated the severities of a famine 

 that was at this time driving the people to despair. The chief officers and 

 several of the priests of the country were baptized, and the king presented 

 Wilfrid with 87 hides of land in the neighbourhood of Selsey, on which were 

 250 slaves, all of whom were given their freedom by the bishop. 



While St. Wilfrid was in Sussex he received a visit from Cadwalla, then 

 exiled from Wessex and apparently wandering in the Forest of Andred, who 

 in 685 as king of Wessex conquered the still heathen Isle of Wight and 

 made over a quarter of the island to Wilfrid. Cadwalla also, during the short 

 time that he had power over the South Saxon kingdom, gave the bishop a 

 large estate at Pagham, which Wilfrid, on his reconciliation to Archbishop 

 Theodore in 686, presented to the see of Canterbury, of which it long formed 

 a peculiar. 



1 Hen. of Hunt. (Rolls Ser.), 61. ' Bede, Hist. Eccl. lib. iv, c. 13. 



1 See article on 'The Introduction of Christianity into Sussex' in Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxiii, 105-28. 



2 I I 



