[A.D. 680-961.] Worcester, (_Wigornaceaster_,) a “ceaster” or stronghold of the Hwiccas, who occupied Worcestershire and Gloucestershire, had possibly been a Roman station, (although this is uncertain,) and was at all events situated on the line of a Roman road--a matter of no small importance to the earlier Saxon bishops, who, like the Saxon kings, were perpetually moving from manor to manor throughout their diocese[97]. A priest named Tatfrid,--“vir strenuissimus et doctissimus, atque excellentis ingenii[98],”--belonging to the monastery founded by St. Hilda at Whitby (_Streaneshalch_), had been chosen by Archbishop Theodore to be the first Bishop of Worcester; but he died before his consecration; and BOSEL, of whose history nothing is known, was consecrated to the new see, A.D. 680. Before his death he became disabled by illness, (_corporis infirmitate depressus_,) and OFTFOR was consecrated as his coadjutor and successor by Wilfrid of York, who was at that time directing the ecclesiastical affairs of Sussex and of Kent[99]. Oftfor, like Tatfrid, had belonged to St. Hilda’s monastery, but had gone for the sake of study, first to Archbishop Theodore at Canterbury, and thence to Rome. On his return he “turned aside to the province of the Hwiccas, and remained there a long time, preaching the word of faith, and affording a pattern of life to all who saw and heard him[100].” He held the bishopric for one year only. In 693 he was succeeded by EGWIN, the founder of the monastery at Evesham. Egwin died in 717. Of his successors, WEREFRITH (873-915) was a man of considerable learning, a friend and assistant of King Alfred, by whose direction he translated into Saxon the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. St. DUNSTAN held the see of Worcester between the years 957 and 961.