which the iron
took, and we miss this in the neat and mechanically-finished work of
the present time."

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORY OF THE DIOCESE.

Legend, which in every ancient city is raised to the dignity of an
article of faith, places the origin of Wells diocese in the remote
past; and the visitor is required to believe that Ina, King of Wessex,
the first great West Saxon lawgiver, the ruler who finally established
the English supremacy in the south-west, was also the founder of the
see of Wells. He is said to have planted a bishopric at Congresbury,
and in 721 to have removed the see to Wells with the help of Daniel,
the last British bishop. The story, however, rests upon no good
foundation.

Before the middle of the seventh century the heathen invaders were
converted by St Birinus, and by the time of Ina Wessex was divided
into the dioceses of Winchester and Sherborne, the latter including
Somerset, Dorset, and part of Wiltshire. This was all that Ina did
towards establishing the diocese of Wells; and it did not go very far,
for the special boast of the diocese is that it consists of one
county, Somerset, and of nothing else. And so it is that the honour of
possessing Ealdhelm, the first bishop of Sherborne, who tramped about,
an open-air preacher, in his diocese, belongs to Salisbury and not to
Wells; although Doulting, where Ealdhelm fell sick and died sitting in
the little wooden village church, is the very place whence afterwards
the stone was quarried for the building of Wells Cathedral.

It was under that great warrior, Edward the Elder, that the diocese of
Sherborne was divided, and the Sumorsaetas received a bishop of their
own, whose stool was placed in the church of St. Andrew at Wells.

It is quite probable that the above tradition grew around Ina's name
owing to his having really established a church with a body of priests
attached to it; since we find in a charter of Cynewulf, dated 766, a
mention of "the minister near the great spring at Wells for the better
service of God in the church of St. Andrew." This charter is probably
spurious, but it may for all that enshrine an historical fact,
especially as it does not pretend to the existence of a bishopric. If
this be the case, then Edward, who wanted a fairly central church for
a diocese which had no important town, must have found Wells very
convenient for his purpose. For while Glastonbury, besides being in
those days an island, had an ab