One of Aelle’s followers, named Boso, or Bosa, settled at the head of a branch of Chichester harbour, and, as in the case of his superior, Cymen, the place was named after him, as Bosenham, or Bosham.  This was in the fifth century.  Augustine began his work in Kent late in the sixth century, and Birinus, who was sent independently direct from Rome, had undertaken the conversion of the West Saxons fifteen years before the middle of the succeeding century.  But neither by these missionaries nor their brethren was the territory of the South Saxons affected.

The West Saxons, by conquest, extended their rule westward and northward, and missionary enterprise followed the course of military success and subsequent civil protection.  The original British occupiers of the land withdrew to Wales, or else became subject to the conquerors.  Similar had been the course of events which followed the taking of Kent by the Jutes.  So when Augustine arrived he was welcomed by Aethelberht, whose wife Bertha, a Frankish princess, was already a Christian.

Augustine having founded the see of Canterbury, was soon enabled, by the help of political and social influence, to effect the establishment of other sees.  Rochester, London, and York were soon centres of activity; but these neighbour principalities had not, ecclesiastically, affected the territories that were close to their respective domains; for the kingdom of the South Saxons remained, nearly two centuries after Aelle’s conquest, in the same heathen condition as prevailed in his day.

Bede relates that at Bosham, Dicul had founded a monastery where, “surrounded by woods and water, lived five or six brethren, serving the Lord in humility and poverty.”  But “no one cared to emulate their life, or listen to their teaching.”  Dicul came from Ireland, and it is supposed that he had been educated in the monastic centre of missionary life which in the sixth century had been founded there.  It is not, however, known how these few men found their way to the South Saxon shores, and their presence there had no influence upon the minds of those invaders who had possessed themselves of the adjacent lands.  A quarrel in the Northumbrian kingdom was the cause which sent a missionary to Sussex in 680 A.D.

Ecgfrith and his witan had banished #Wilfrith#, Archbishop of York, from his see.  The unfortunate exile wandered some time in search of welcome.  Eventually he found his way to Sussex, where Aethelwealh and his Christian wife offered him a new field for his energies.  Twenty years earlier he had been in the same kingdom.  On that occasion, having been consecrated by the Bishop of Paris, he was returning from Gaul when the vessel in which he travelled was driven upon the coast and stranded.  While in this helpless condition they were discovered and attacked by the South Saxons, who were three times beaten off, but whilst they were continuing their preparations for another assault, the vessel rose with the tide