[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.
[A.D. 961-992.] OSWALD, the successor of Dunstan, the founder of the monastery, and one of the patron saints of Worcester, is best known from his unceasing patronage of the monks, in opposition to the secular clergy. Oswald, the son of Danish parents of high rank, was the nephew of Odo, the predecessor of Dunstan in the see of Canterbury; and was appointed by King Edgar to the see of Worcester at the request of Dunstan himself, with whose zeal for the monastic cause Oswald (who had passed some of the earlier years of his life in the famous monastery of Fleury) more than sympathized. In 972 Oswald became Archbishop of York, which see he held, together with Worcester, until his death in 992--in the same manner as Dunstan had held the sees of London and Worcester together, before his elevation to the primacy. Little is recorded “of what he did at York, although he presided over that see for twenty years. There was no Northern writer to speak of what he effected in Northumbria[101].” The condition of the province, “seamed and scarred” by the struggles of the native princes, and by Danish incursions, may have prevented him from working there. But at Worcester, and throughout the south, Oswald was active as a great ecclesiastical reformer. He was powerful enough to remodel the monasteries of Ely and St. Albans. The Church of Worcester had hitherto been served by secular canons. These Oswald determined to replace by Benedictine monks; “and succeeded by the following artifice. Having erected in its vicinity a new church to the honour of the Virgin Mary, he intrusted it to the care of a community of monks, and frequented it himself for the solemn celebration of mass. The presence of the Bishop attracted that of the people; the ancient clergy saw their church gradually abandoned; and after some delay, Wensine, their dean, a man advanced in years and of unblemished character, took the monastic habit, and was advanced three years later to the office of prior. The influence of his example, and the honour of his promotion, held out a strong temptation to his brethren, till at last the number of canons was so diminished by repeated desertions, that the most wealthy of the churches of Mercia became without dispute or violence, by the very act of its old possessors, a monastery of Benedictine monks[102].” Oswald is said to have introduced monks in the room of secular clergy, in six other churches of his diocese; and charges of extreme tyranny and arrogance have been brought against him in consequence. But there is every reason to believe that a severe ecclesiastical reform was necessary; and there is proof that the eviction of the canons from Worcester was very gradual, and was not completed in Oswald’s lifetime. It is also certain that, although he held the archbishopric of York during twenty years, “we we do not read that he introduced a single colony of monks, or changed the constitution of a single clerical establishment, within that diocese[103].”