Another supposition, that this dignity was in some way connected with the ecclesiastical establishment, the foundation of new bishoprics[14] or the presidency of the national synods, seems equally untenable; for in the first place there were Bretwaldas before the introduction of Christianity; and the intervention of particular princes in the foundation of sees, without the limits of their own dominions, may be explained without having recourse to any such hypothesis; again, the Church never agreed to any unity till the close of the seventh century under Theodore of Tarsus; and lastly the presidency of the synods, which were generally held in Mercia[15], was almost exclusively in the hands of the Mercian princes, till the Danes put an end to their kingdom, and yet those princes never bore the title at all. In point of fact, there was no such special title or special office, and the whole theory is constructed upon an insufficient and untenable basis. ----- Footnote 14: Lappenberg seems to connect these ideas together. Footnote 15: The synods were mostly held at Cealchýð or at Clofeshoas. The first of these places is doubtful: all that can be said with certainty, is, that it was not Challock in Kent, as Ingram supposes: the Saxon name of that place was Cealfloca. I entertain little doubt that Clofeshoas was in the county of Gloucester and hundred of Westminster. ----- It will be readily admitted that the fancies of the Norman chroniclers may at once be passed over unnoticed; they are worth no more than the still later doctrines of Rapin and others, and rest upon nothing but their explanation of passages which we are equally at liberty to examine and test for ourselves: I mean the passages already alluded to from Beda and the Saxon Chronicle. Let us see then what Beda says upon this subject. He speaks thus of Æðelberht[16]:—