Churches in Worcester Before and After the Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons

Abstract

The Anglo-Saxon see of Worcester was probably not established until 679 or 680, over eighty years after the arrival of the Augustinian mission. It has usually been taken for granted that the Hwicce, for whom the new see was set up, had until then been subject to the see of the Mercians, but there is no evidence to show this. The latter see, moreover, had itself not been created untilc. 656. Are we, therefore, to assume that the Hwicce remained non-Christian until the later seventh century? If they did, we have signally failed in our efforts to find their burials; and our historical sources are strangely silent about the eventual conversion to Christianity of a people who held out against it for so long.