As Kent was the first part of Teutonic Britain to accept Christianity, the metropolitan see of the south was fixed at _Canterbury_, the capital of that kingdom. It was thus fixed in a city which has at no time held that temporal preeminence which has in different ages belonged to York, Winchester, and London. ♦Rochester. | London.♦ After Canterbury the earliest formed sees were _Rochester_ for the West-Kentish kingdom, and _London_ for the East-Saxons. ♦Dorchester or Winchester. Sherborne, Wells, Ramsbury.♦ The conversion of the West-Saxons led to the foundation of the great diocese whose see was first at _Dorchester_ on the Thames and then at _Winchester_, and from which the sees of _Sherborne_, _Wells_, and _Ramsbury_ were gradually parted off. ♦Elmham. | Dorchester or Lincoln.♦ The East-Angles formed a diocese with its see at _Elmham_; the Middle-Angles settled down, after some shiftings, into the vast diocese stretching from the Thames to the Humber, whose see, first at _Dorchester_, was afterwards translated to _Lincoln_. ♦Worcester, Hereford, Lichfield.♦ The West-Mercian lands formed the dioceses of the Hwiccas at _Worcester_, of the Magesætas at _Hereford_, and the great diocese of _Lichfield_, stretching northward to the Ribble. The South-Saxons, whose see kept its tribal name down to the Norman Conquest, had their see first at _Selsey_, and then at _Chichester_. ♦Exeter.♦ Devonshire and Cornwall, after forming two dioceses, were, just before the Norman Conquest, united under the single see of _Exeter_. ♦The Welsh Sees.♦ The Conquest too brought about the more complete submission of the four Welsh sees, _Saint David’s_, _Llandaff_, _Bangor_, and _Saint Asaph_. ♦Salisbury, 1078. | Ely, 1109.♦ To the times just before and just after the Conquest belong the union of Sherborne and Ramsbury to form the diocese of _Salisbury_, and the dismemberment of the huge diocese of Lincoln by the foundation of an episcopal see at _Ely_. Thus the province of Canterbury with its suffragan sees was gradually organized in the form which it kept from the reign of Henry the First to that of Henry the Eighth.