Something ought to be said concerning the introduction of the Christian religion into Belgium. The preaching of the gospel in Belgium goes back as far as the Roman occupation of the time of the Empire, but the religious organization of the church in the country dates from the middle of the fourth century. At that time we find in the city of Tongres the oldest historically known bishop of Belgium, St. Servatius. The historical origin of the bishoprics of Arras, Tournai, Boulogne, Cambrai--all of them at that time in Belgian territory--remains a matter of conjecture. The baptism of King Clodovech in 496 made the development of the Christian religion easier, although the conversion of the King to the Catholic faith did not at all mean the conversion of the whole people. Large parts of Belgium, especially the eastern part, remained heathen until the eighth century, and the introduction of the Christian religion in these sections of the country is mainly the work of missionaries. These missionaries worked on their own initiative, without any such prearranged plan as, for instance, existed for the introduction of Catholicism into England. It was mainly by Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries that the gospel was made known, and the most famous of those heralds of the Catholic religion was the Anglo-Saxon missionary Willibrord. The work of the missionaries was completed by the bishops, who visited large portions of their very extensive dioceses. Bishops Eligius, Amandus, Lambert, and Hubert are closely connected with the religious history of Belgium in the seventh and eighth centuries. The boundaries of the dioceses corresponded exactly with the limits of the old administrative circles of the Roman Empire, the provinces. In the eighth century, Belgium was divided into the dioceses of Noyon-Tournai, Térouanne (later Saint-Omer), Arras, Cambrai, Liège, and Utrecht. The dioceses of Utrecht and Liège were subject to the metropolitan church of Cologne, the others to the metropolitan church of Rheims. These dioceses had been established without taking into account the racial differences existing between the inhabitants of the ecclesiastical territory. Including in the same diocese Gallo-Romans and Franks, the church, unconsciously of course, prepared the inhabitants of Belgium for the task of being intermediaries between the Latin and the Teutonic civilization. The seats of the bishoprics being mostly located in the Romance section of the country, the inhabitants of the Teutonic section were obliged to meet the Walloons: they had the same religious center. As a result of this action of the church, the national or racial differences were diminished and the linguistic frontier no more operated as a barrier in any real sense between the people it separated.