years Wilfrid had, as we have seen, regained possession of the monastery of Hexham, which he had founded and dedicated to St. Andrew; and now, according to the injunction of the archangel, as Eddi tells us, the church of St. Mary at Hexham had its beginning; and, as a thank-offering to St. Michael himself, another temple in the same place, or near it, was erected soon afterwards. [Sidenote: A.D. 709-731. Relics of St. Andrew brought to Hexham by Acca.] Wilfrid was succeeded, as Bede tells us, in the bishopric of the church of Hagustald by Acca his priest, who, ‘being himself a most active person and great in the sight of God and man, much adorned and added by his wonderful works to the structure of his church, which is dedicated to the blessed apostle Andrew. For he made it his business, and does so still (for Acca was still bishop of Hexham when Bede wrote), to procure relics of the blessed apostles and martyrs of Christ from all parts, to erect altars in honour of them, dividing the same by porches in the walls of the church. Besides which he very diligently gathered the histories of their sufferings together with other ecclesiastical writings, and erected there a most numerous and noble library.’ Bede adds that ‘Acca was bred up from his youth and instructed among the clergy of the most holy and beloved of God, Boza, bishop of York. Afterwards coming to Bishop Wilfrid in the hope of improving himself, he spent the rest of his life under him till that bishop’s death, and, going with him to Rome, learnt there many profitable things concerning the government of the holy church which he could not have learnt in his own country.’[423] Among the relics of the blessed apostles thus collected and brought to Hexham by Acca were most certainly the relics of St. Andrew,[424] and among the histories gathered together by him would no doubt be the legend of that apostle. When Bede finishes his history in the year 731, he tells us that at that time four bishops presided in the province of the Northumbrians. Wilfrid (second of the name) in the church of York, Ediluald in that of Lindisfarne, Acca in that of Hagustald, or Hexham, and Pecthelm in that which is called Candida Casa, or the White House, ‘which, from the increased number of believers, has lately become an additional see, and has him for its first prelate.’[425] [Sidenote: Monastery of Balthere at Tyninghame.]