Bight Bev. the Lord Bishop of Bristol. 275 



There was clearly no ravaging of these Malmesbury parts, such as 

 marked the Saxon progress, for instance, at Grlastonbury. The 

 Irish teachers went steadily on, and the conquering king, he and 

 his all now Christian, sent his own relative, Aldhelm, to learn of 

 them. Aldhelm, as you know, succeeded Maildubh in unbroken 

 order. He greatly enlarged the school, and built, in addition to 

 the basilica, a great Church, so excellent that even the Norman 

 builders spared it after the Norman conquest, and it only gave way 

 to the present Church in the middle of the twelfth century. Of 

 how much importance Malmesbury was held to be in the later 

 Saxon times you may form some idea from another historical fact. 

 When Hermann, the Bishop of Sherborne and also of Ramsbury, 

 desired to unite the "Wilts and Dorset sees in one, he selected 

 Malmesbury as the site for the joint bishop-stool. Edward the 

 Confessor approved ; but Grodwine and his sons opposed the scheme, 

 and Hermann took Old Sarum as the second-best place. We are 

 rather proud of that in North Wilts. 



These considerations justify in my opinion the contention that 

 nowhere in England have we so unbroken a connection between 

 the British and the Saxon Church and life and teaching as here ; 

 while the presence and the influence of the Irish teacher, continuing 

 to hold his office under the new Saxon regime, adds an element of 

 exceeding interest, probably unique in Saxon history, though a 

 parallel may be found among the Angles. 



With all this in our memory, let us look at my second 

 problem. 



When Augustine, at Canterbury, turned his thoughts westward, 

 about the year 600, it was only some two or three and twenty years 

 after the battle of Deorham, and eight or nine after the battle of 

 Wanborough ; it was more than fifty years before the breaking up 

 of the Selwood Britons. He was in search of a place at which he 

 could meet a representative body of members of the British Church. 

 Where would his glance rest geographically ? Would he desire 

 to meet the most distant Britons, at the most distant spot in the 

 possession of the Saxons which the Britons could visit in safety ; 

 or would he look for the nearest Britons and the nearest place ? 



