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 abbot of its own, this little body of secular priests would be ready to receive the bishop as their chief, and to become his chapter. At all events, the year 909 saw Wells with a bishop of its own. [Illustration: Specimens Of Capitals.] AETHELHELM or ATHELM, _Bishop of Somerset, or Wells_ (909-914), a monk of Glastonbury according to tradition, was the first Somersetshire bishop; he is said to have been an uncle of St. Dunstan: he was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 914.