Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/367

 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY THE 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 1 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,' 2 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 isjust within the bounds 1 (Engl. Hist. Soc.) i. 279. 3 Ibid. i. 32. 309