The Saxon Bishops of Wells. By J. Armitage Robinson. (H.
Milford, for the British Academy. 55. net.)—This valuable though highly technical essay by the Dean of Wells deals with some of the difficult problems of English history in the tenth century. When Allred died there were only two Bishops in Wessex. Under his son, Edward the Elder, probably in 909 or 910, a Wiltshire diocese with its seat at Ramsbury was taken out of Winchester, and dioceses for Somerset and Devon, with their seats at Wells and Crediton, were taken out of Sherborne. Wells, as the Dean explains, was chosen because it was more central for the county than Bath, on the Mercian border, and because it was near to the Court at Cheddar and near also to Glastonbury. The first Bishop of Wells, Athelm, came from Glastonbury. When he was promoted to Canterbury, he sent for his nephew Dunstan and commended him to the young King Athelstan. Thus a Bishop of Wells played a decisive part in tenth-century politics.
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