ECCLESIASTICAL 
HISTORY 
HE name of Bedfordshire is not connected with any of the 
more striking memories of early English Church History ; 
nearly all that can be said of its religious institutions before the 
Conquest is by way of inference and conjecture rather than solid 
fact. Some of the reasons for this will be found in its political history, 
and in its position as a border territory up to the tenth century ; 
but perhaps the most important is one which belongs properly to the 
present subject—it did not produce at that time any great religious houses 
like those which made the neighbouring counties of Hertford, Hunting- 
don and Northampton famous at an early date, and consequently had no 
chronicler specially interested in the details of its local history. 
It is not surprising that there should be little or no evidence found 
of Roman Christianity, which has left so few traces of its presence and 
influence anywhere. But when we reach what is usually the surer 
ground of the second conversion in the sixth and seventh centuries, there 
is still great poverty of information, and an approximate date can only 
be provisionally fixed. It is possible that the conversion of Bedfordshire 
had a double origin. If the boundaries of Mercia and Wessex given by 
Florence of Worcester’ are correct, and the county was roughly divided 
between the two kingdoms by the River Ouse in the early part of the 
seventh century, it may have been partly evangelised by monks of the 
Roman school, coming from the West Saxon centre, and partly by the 
Scotic monks who were working for the conversion of Mercia. In any 
case its turn would probably come a little late, as it lay on the border of 
both kingdoms ; and its conversion is not likely to have been begun 
much before the reign of Wulfhere of Mercia (659-75). But as he 
extended his kingdom far beyond its previous southern limit, and ‘utterly 
destroyed the worship of demons, and made the name of Christ to be 
preached throughout his dominions,’* we may safely conclude that the 
conversion of Bedfordshire was well advanced before 675, and that it 
had already some established centres of the usual monastic type for 
teaching and administration of the sacraments. Where these may have 
been it is not possible to say with certainty. One might perhaps be 
connected with the town of Bedford, which was already a place of some 
importance in the days of Offa (757-96) ; and it is just within the bounds 
1 (Engl. Hist. Soc.) i. 279. 2 Ibid. i. 32. 
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