variety, fertility, and
beauty, abounding in woods and streams, rich pastures, extensive forests,
and noble mountains. In several of the finest parts of it Episcopal manors
had been allotted, furnishing abundant supplies to the occupiers of the
see."(8)

In the early history of British dioceses, territorial boundaries were so
vague as to be scarcely definable, but one of the earliest of the bishops
holding office prior to the landing of Augustine was one Dubric, son of
Brychan, who established a sort of college at Hentland, near Ross, and
later on removed to another spot on the Wye, near Madley, his birthplace,
being guided thither by the discovery of a white sow and litter of
piglings in a meadow; a sign similar to the one by which the site of Alba
Longa was pointed out to the pious son of Anchises.

Dubric probably became a bishop about 470, resigned his see in 512, and
died in Bardsey Island, A.D. 522.

It was this Dubric who is said to have crowned Arthur at Cirencester, A.D.
506. When he became bishop he moved to Caerleon, and was succeeded there
by Dewi, or David, who removed the see to Menevia (St. David's).

The Saxons were driving the British inhabitants more and more to the west,
and before the close of the sixth century they had founded the Mercian
kingdom, reaching beyond the Severn, and in some places beyond the Wye.

The See of Hereford properly owes its origin to that of Lichfield, as
Sexwulf, Bishop of that diocese, placed at Hereford Putta, Bishop of
Rochester, when his cathedral was destroyed by the Mercian King Ethelred.

From Bede we learn that in 668 A.D. Putta died, and that one Tyrhtel
succeeded him, and was followed by Torhtere.

Wahlstod, A.D. 731, the next Bishop, is referred to by both Florence of
Worcester and William of Malmsbury, as well as Bede. We also hear of him
in the writings of Cuthbert, who followed him in 736. Cuthbert relates in
some verses that Wahlstod began the building of a great and magnificent
cross, which he, Cuthbert, completed.

Cuthbert died, A.D. 758, and was followed by Podda, A.D. 746. The names of
these early Bishops cannot all be regarded as certain, and their dates
are, in many cases, only approximate. Some of them may have been merely
assistants or suffragans to other Bishops of Hereford.

The remaining Bishops of Hereford, prior to the Conquest, we give in the
same order as the Rev. H. W. Phillott in his valuable little _Diocesan
History_.

A.D. 758, H