BUT
Wilfrid was expelled from his bishopric, and having
long travelled in many lands, went to Rome, and afterwards returned to
Britain. Though he could not, by reason the enmity of the aforesaid
king, be received into his own country or diocese, yet he could not be
restrained from the ministry of the Gospel; for, taking his way into the
province of the South
Saxons, which extends from Kent to the south and
west, as far as the West Saxons, containing land of 7,000 families, and
was at that time still in bondage to pagan rites, he administered to
them the Word of faith, and the Baptism of salvation. Ethelwalch, king
of that nation, had been, not long before, baptized in the province of
the Mercians, at the instance of King Wulf here, who was present, and
received him as his godson when he came forth from the font, and in
token of this adoption gave him two provinces, to wit, the Isle of
Wight, and the province of the Meanware, in the country of the West
Saxons. The bishop, therefore, with the king’s consent, or rather to his
great joy, cleansed in the sacred font the foremost ealdormen and thegns
of that country; and the priests, Eappa and Padda, and Burghelm, and
Oiddi, either then, or afterwards, baptized the rest of the people.
The Queen, whose name was Eabae, had been baptized in her own country,
the province of the Hwiccas. She was the daughter of Eanfrid, the
brother of Aenhere, who were both Christians, as were their people; but
all the province of the South Saxons was ignorant of the Name of
God and the faith. But there was among them a certain monk of the
Scottish nation, whose name was Dicul, who had a very small monastery,
at the place called Bosanhamm, (Bosham)
encompassed by woods and seas, and in it there were five or six
brothers, who served the Lord in humility and poverty; but none of
the natives cared either to follow their course of life, or hear their
preaching.
But Bishop
Wilfrid, while preaching the Gospel to the
people, not only delivered them from the misery of eternal damnation,
but also from a terrible calamity of temporal death. For no rain had
fallen in that district for three years before his arrival in the
province, whereupon a grievous famine fell upon the people and
pitilessly destroyed them; insomuch that it is said that often forty or
fifty men, wasted with hunger, would go together to some precipice, or
to the sea-shore, and there, hand in hand, in piteous wise cast them
themselves down either to perish by the fall, or be swallowed up by the
waves.
But on the very day on which the nation received the Baptism of the
faith, there fell a soft but plentiful rain; the earth revived, the
fields grew green again, and the season was pleasant and fruitful. Thus
the old superstition was cast away, and idolatry renounced, the heart
and flesh of all rejoiced in the living God, for they perceived that He
Who is the true God had enriched them by His heavenly grace with both
inward and outward blessings. For the bishop, when he came into the
province, and found so great misery from famine there, taught them to
get their food by fishing; for their sea and rivers abounded in fish,
but the people had no skill to take any of them, except eels alone.
The bishop’s men having gathered eel-nets everywhere, cast them into the
sea, and by the blessing of God took three hundred fishes of divers
sorts, which being divided into three parts, they gave a hundred to the
poor, a hundred to those of whom they had the nets, and kept a hundred
for their own use. By this benefit the bishop gained the affections of
them all, and they began more readily at his preaching to hope for
heavenly blessings, seeing that by his help they had received those
which are temporal.
Bosham Churches today
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