TriE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF OLD PLYMOUTH. 325 
a house to the glory of his Master ; but he provided not only for 
the present need ; he looked forward to the time when the faithful 
should increase, and he built for posterity as well as for his own 
generation. 
Before the commencement of the eighth century the whole 
southern part of England, from Kent to the furthest extremity of 
Cornwall, was under the rule of one bishop. Wessex formed 
one see under St. Birinus, by whom Christianity was introduced 
into that part of the country in 634.* In the year 703, on the 
death of St. Hedda the bishop, a great change was made, and 
Devonshire became part of the diocese of Shireburn (Sherborne). 
This arrangement continued until 910, when another alteration 
took place, and Devon was constituted a diocese of itself, the 
bishop's see being at Crediton. About 1032, the bishopric of Corn- 
wall was united to it at the request of Livingus, the then bishop 
of the Devonshire diocese ; and, in 1050, bishop Leofric, interesting 
the Pope and the King in this behalf, removed his episcopal re- 
sidence from Crediton to Exeter. The reason for the removal was 
that Exeter was a fortified town, while Crediton was defenceless 
and much exposed. 
In the diocese thus formed, the place we now call Plymouth, 
then Sutton or the South town (of what place it was south we 
are ignorant), soon became of importance. 
The earliest ecclesiastical records speak of it as already formed 
into a parish ; and the little village, the mean place, the habitation 
of fishers, however small, or mean, or poorly inhabited, we may be 
sure was provided with a suitable building for the celebration of 
the rites of the Christian religion, even long before the reign 
of Henry II., after which time Leland says, "It encreased by 
a litle and a litle." 
There is a church frequently referred to as the Church, and the 
Old Church; and I think that the Old Church then, and the Old 
Church now, occupy the same position. Although it may seem 
rather distant from what we must suppose to have been then the 
centre of the population, we shall not, I think, be wrong in coming 
to this conclusion. 
If there was a town or hamlet higher up than that of Sutton, 
as I firmly believe there was, the situation of the Old Church 
would be satisfactorily accounted for in connection with the Old 
* Oliver's "Lives of the Bishops of Exeter," p. 1. 
