Page:Fasti ecclesiae Anglicanae Vol.2 body of work part 1.djvu/7



district now included in the bishopric of Lincoln was a portion of the bishopric of Mercia, which was seated at Lichfield at the establishment of Christianity among the Saxons in Mercia. That extensive province, which then occupied nearly one half of England, being much too large for the jurisdiction of one bishop, it was determined at the synod holden at Hertford in the year 673, that additional bishops should be consecrated throughout England, and especially in Mercia. To this decision however Winfred, then bishop of Lichfield, objected, he being unwilling that his see should be mutilated; in consequence of his opposition to the decree of the synod, he was deposed by archbishop Theodore in 674, and his successor Saexwulf founded an episcopal see at Hereford in 676. Archbishop Theodore, considering that the bishop of the Mercians had still too extensive a jurisdiction for the governance of one man, summoned another synod to Haethfield on the subject, and it was there decreed that Mercia should be further divided, and accordingly in the year 680, Lichfield, Leicester. Lindisse, and Worcester, were named as episcopal sees, in addition to that of Hereford founded four years before. Seaxwulf held Lichfield, Cuthwine took Leicester, Ethelwine Lindisse, and Tetfrith Worcester.

The two sees of Leicester and Lindisse subsequently merged into one called Dorchester, and afterwards Lincoln.

Until 19th April 1837, the diocese of Lincoln contained all Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire, except the