116 The Early History of the Upper Wylye Valley. 



A new religion was not long in finding this people with their 

 capacity for colonising and citizenship. Their old Teutonic religion 

 had but a weak hold on them, and yielded easily to the Christian 

 missionaries. Berin, whose name has been latinised into Birinus, 

 the Apostle of the West Saxons, began his preaching in 634, about 

 the time at which the Abbey of Malmesbury was founded, while 

 Glastonbury was already a Christian foundation before the heathen 

 English came, and was " the one great Church of the Briton which 

 lived through the storm of English conquest, and passed unhurt 

 into the hands of the Englishmen," 1 to be revived. 



The first traces that we still have are those of Aldhelm. Educated 

 at Malmesbury, he held the see of Sherborne from 705 to 709. He 

 was a missionary bishop, and there is every reason to believe that 

 the name Bishopstrow refers to him. This name most probably 

 points to the fact that he preached standing under some well-known 

 tree, which afterwards became associated with him, just as Augustine 

 was said to have preached under a Gospel oak in Hempage Wood, 

 near Winchester (Kitchen's Winchester, p. 57). Such neigh- 

 bouring names as Wans-trow, Hallatrow, Waermunds-treow (Birch, 

 Chart. Saxon., 756) point to this simple derivation. 



But there is a typically mediaeval story told by William of 

 Malmesbury {Gest. Pont. 384). It is that Aldhelm happened to fix 

 his " ashen staff" in the ground as he began to preach, and that 

 during his discourse it put forth buds and leaves. He left it in the 

 place as an offering to God, and many ash-trees sprang from it and 

 hence the place was called " ad Episcopi arbores," " Bishop's-trees." 

 "This story," says the writer, " I do not maintain as absolutely 

 true." 2 These details of "ash-staff" and " ash-trees " are worth 

 noticing, because ash-trees are still to be found in the parish, and 



1 Freeman, English Totems and Districts; Glastonbury British and English. 



2 There is no likelihood in the suggestion of Mr. Hamilton, the editor of 

 this volume of the Rolls Series, that Stoke Orchard, near Bishop's Cleeve, 

 Gloucestershire, is meant. That part of the world is not associated with 

 Aldhelm ; he was connected with the diocese of Sherborne, "west of Selwood"; 

 but the see of the Hwiccas, who were settled in Gloucestershire, comprised 

 the counties of Worcester and Gloucester, as was arranged by Theodore before 

 Aldhelm's time. (Green's Making of England, 129.) 



