Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal SeeFisher, A. Hugh (Alfred Hugh)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford: A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See
Fisher, A. Hugh (Alfred Hugh)
Hereford Cathedral
"The condition of the Church of Hereford (_circa_ 1290 A.D.) gave clear
testimony to the liberal piety of its founders by the extensiveness of its
lands. The diocese itself was richly endowed by nature, and enviably
situated. Those of St. Asaph, Lichfield, Worcester, Llandaff, and St.
David’s, were its neighbours. On the north it stretched from where the
Severn enters Shropshire to where that river is joined on the south by the
influx of the Wye. From the west to the east perhaps its greatest width
might have been found from a point where the latter river, near Hay,
leaves the counties of Radnor and Brecon, by a line drawn to the bridge at
Gloucester. It embraced portions of the counties of Radnor, Montgomery,
Salop, Worcester, and Gloucester, and touched upon that of Brecon. It
included the town of Monmouth, with four parishes, in its neighbourhood.
The Severn environed its upper part. Almost midway it was traversed by the
Teme, and the Wye pursued its endless windings through the lower
district,—a region altogether remarkable for its variety, fertility, and
beauty, abounding in woods and streams, rich pastures, extensive forests,
and noble mountains. In several of the finest parts of it Episcopal manors
had been allotted, furnishing abundant supplies to the occupiers of the
see."(8)
In the early history of British dioceses, territorial boundaries were so
vague as to be scarcely definable, but one of the earliest of the bishops
holding office prior to the landing of Augustine was one Dubric, son of
Brychan, who established a sort of college at Hentland, near Ross, and
later on removed to another spot on the Wye, near Madley, his birthplace,
being guided thither by the discovery of a white sow and litter of
piglings in a meadow; a sign similar to the one by which the site of Alba
Longa was pointed out to the pious son of Anchises.
Dubric probably became a bishop about 470, resigned his see in 512, and
died in Bardsey Island, A.D. 522.
It was this Dubric who is said to have crowned Arthur at Cirencester, A.D.
506. When he became bishop he moved to Caerleon, and was succeeded there
by Dewi, or David, who removed the see to Menevia (St. David’s).
The Saxons were driving the British inhabitants more and more to the west,
and before the close of the sixth century they had founded the Mercian
kingdom, reaching beyond the Severn, and in some places beyond the Wye.
The See of Hereford properly owes its origin to that of Lichfield, as
Sexwulf, Bishop of that diocese, placed at Hereford Putta, Bishop of
Rochester, when his cathedral was destroyed by the Mercian King Ethelred.
From Bede we learn that in 668 A.D. Putta died, and that one Tyrhtel
succeeded him, and was followed by Torhtere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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